I smiled back. But it sounded so odd to hear her say "my" brother. She had a brother. And I didn't. I felt that pang of jealousy again.
"Nice to meet you, Will." My voice was still scratchy and soft with emotion.
He hung back slightly.
"Will, meet my sister Haley, the Duchess of Witham." Sid laughed and pulled him forward. "Don't let her title scare you off. She doesn't bite. She's really just a regular person and the best big sister in the world. She only married and became duchess to save me." She winked at me again and laughed. "Isn't this fun? Savior, meet cure!" She bumped Will playfully.
My gaze bounced between them. They looked almost less alike than Sid and I did. At least Sid and I had the same accent and mannerisms. I took pleasure in that.
"Cure?" I said. "Are you sure?"
Sid nodded. "We're being tested to be double sure. But yes, we're pretty confident. And so are our doctors."
The whole story tumbled out, with Sid, and Will, who was amazingly smart and funny like Sid, fighting to tell me all the details.
The night at the Ghost Tower, more than one ghost came to life. Sid came running from the castle at the same time as Bird and Will came from the cottage. When they met in the driveway, Bird took one look at Sid and thought he'd seen the ghost of his half-Chinese, half-white mistress. Until he put two and two together and realized he was really looking into the eyes of his twin daughter.
Thorne had been right about what he'd overheard—Sid did have a twin! I was so relieved I could have collapsed. Luckily, I was already in bed.
Bird had hugged Sid, accepted her immediately, and broken down in tears to think of all he'd missed with her and how happy he was to have a daughter. When Thorne realized they'd met and pieced together their relationship, he'd released the "cure" from the Dead Duke—the DNA results and details of their births and adoptions that proved they were full brother and sister.
"You're willing to donate your marrow to save Sid?" I asked Will directly, not caring if I put him on the spot. I meant to. He'd better be willing.
He grinned at her affectionately. "Absolutely. Look at her! I have a beautiful American sister," he said in his gorgeous British accent.
He put his hand to his mouth in an aside to me. "She has to have hot friends she can introduce me to, right?" He gave me two thumbs up and winked. He was completely adorable. "Besides, how many times does a bloke get a chance to save a life? That's something, really something. I'm gobsmacked I get to do it."
Chapter 14
Haley
As I got ready for my gender-reveal party a few weeks later, I realized that I did believe in fairytales. I really did. After all, I was living one, a beautiful one with a happy ending. In as much as real life has happy endings, anyway.
While I recovered, Sid, Will, and I became close. I called Will my adopted little brother. He called me Duchess Big Sis.
Bird told Sid that her mother was the only woman he'd ever truly loved. And related the whole grand story of his love affair in China. Sid told me he seemed relieved and happy to finally share it with someone and get the truth out.
Riggins and I had originally privately worried about how, once the novelty wore off, Will would adapt to finding out that Bird's late wife wasn't his mother. That he was a quarter Chinese. That he had a sister. Who was beautiful and sweet and looked exotically like the Chinese/white mix she was. But Will rolled with it, seemingly delighted and amused by all of it.
He claimed he'd always felt like a part of him was missing, and now that he'd found his twin he was whole. Bird said that when Will was little, he'd had an imaginary friend. A girl with dark hair who Will had claimed was also his twin. Bird had dismissed it as pure fancy then. It broke his heart to think he hadn't paid more attention.
Because of the rarity of a set of twins who looked like two different races, and Rose proclaiming it to the world, and playing up her close connection to them (she was such a media whore), Will and Sid were an immediate sensation.
The very best part was that Will was, indeed, a perfect bone marrow match to Sid. The surgery was already scheduled. Everything I'd done for Sid was now completely worth it.
The whole story of why Sid's mother had left her at an orphanage and how the Dead Duke had found her and arranged for her to be adopted by us was still a bit of a mystery. Since Bird had never known Sid existed, we might never know all of the story.
Only the Dead Duke had known the particulars. I'd been unable to find any records he'd left behind. He was such a methodical, organized, specifically intentioned man that if he hadn't left something behind for me, either he hadn't wanted me to know or felt the details were unimportant.
I privately suspected that the late Mrs. Bird had known something and had refused to accept a Chinese-looking daughter. She wouldn't have been able to pass Sid off as her biological child so she didn't want her. And Sid's mother probably had few choices but to abandon her.
My great-grandfather had, in reality, been a kind man to take care of Bird's child and place her in our loving home. Whether he'd intended to use her as a pawn later, I could only speculate. As I'd thought before, there was no way of knowing she'd develop the anemia in her teens. Without that crucial illness, he would have had no control over me.
As it was, with Sid's cure in hand, my great-grandfather, the Dead Duke, had nothing to hold over me any more. I could walk away from my crazy marriage now. But I wouldn't. Of course I wouldn't. I was madly in love with my duke and his castle. It was even better now that the castle was as much part of Sid's heritage as it was mine.
Sid and Riggins had carried on, planning the gender-reveal party while I recovered. Which was how I found myself standing beneath a beautiful white marquee with a cake cutter in my hand. Before me was the most elaborate ten-tiered cake I had ever seen. It was covered in handcrafted gum paste flowers in blue, pink, and white. Flowers in varieties that we grew on the estate. And the ducal crest tied with blue and pink ribbons.
Riggins stood next to me.
"Judging from the crowd, it looks like the entire village, and half of London, turned out." I took a deep breath.
He nodded and whispered in my ear, "It's a big deal to them. Rose and your PR team did a great job of getting the media to turn out."
"I'm so nervous, I'm shaking." I smiled at him. "In any case, no matter the outcome, it is a good human interest story. I must be the only expectant mom in history who doesn't know the sex of her baby before anyone else and has to find out at her own gender-reveal party." I bumped him with my shoulder. "I can't believe you've known since the accident and wouldn't tell me."
"It's more fun this way." His eyes twinkled.
"You would say that."
"I love you," he whispered. "You promised me, boy or girl, we stay together."
"Absolutely. There's no way I'm reneging." I kissed him lightly. "Do you think I'd give up my dukedom?"
He laughed.
"Stop snogging and cut the cake!" someone yelled.
"You heard your people." Riggins covered my good hand with his warm, steady one. "All right. All right! Here we go!"
A dozen or more cameramen gathered in front of us, poised to snap a picture of us cutting the cake. If the color of the cake was pink, we were having a girl. Blue, a boy.
"Ready?" Riggins whispered to me.
I nodded.
"On the count of three!" he yelled.
The crowd began counting. "One. Two. Three!"
We slid the cake cutter into the cake, cut a thick slice, pulled it out, and flipped it onto a plate for everyone to see as cameras flashed around us.
"Blue!" Riggins held the slice out to the crowd. "We're having a boy! We have an heir!"
The crowd erupted in applause. I felt like my knees might buckle.
Riggins took my good arm to steady me. The other one was still in a cast. Tears filled my eyes.
"Surprised?" he asked.
"The blue crumbs gave it away as we cut in."
&n
bsp; He pulled me into his arms and kissed me as a shower of blue balloons and confetti rained down around us. Servers took over cutting the cake. A group of young people began passing out blue flowers to all the women in attendance. A band began playing.
TV monitors had been strategically placed around the tent. They now showed the ultrasound of our baby with his boy bits highlighted and circled.
"He's going to hate you for that when he's grown," I said to Riggins.
He shrugged. "He'll probably hate me for a lot of things. That's part of being father and son."
Which I hoped meant he'd forgiven his father, at least a little. Riggins had said that his father had gone back to South America, where he spent most of his time when he wasn't haunting our tower. But there was a part of me that wondered if he was really still lurking around the grounds, watching the festivities and smiling over having a grandson.
Riggins pulled me into his arms and kissed me thoroughly as I rested my hand over our baby.
* * *
Thank You!
Thanks for reading The American Heir. I hope you enjoyed it!
Now that you’ve finished The Billionaire Duke Series, if you haven’t read The Switched at Marriage Series, which is also set in the Jet City Billionaire world, you’ll want to you can grab the first episode completely FREE here, A Wedding to Remember.
Look for Lazer’s story coming in late August 2016.
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Also by Gina Robinson
The Billionaire Duke Series
Part 1—The Billionaire Duke
Part 2—The Duchess Contest
Part 3—The Temporary Duchess
Part 4—The American Heir
The Switched at Marriage Series
Part 1—A Wedding to Remember
Part 2—The Virgin Billionaire
Part 3—To Have and To Hold
Part 4—From This Day Forward
Part 5—For Richer, For Richest
Part 6—In Sickness and In Wealth
Part 7—To Love and To Cherish
The Billionaire’s Christmas Vows
Gina Robinson’s Contemporary New Adult Romance Series
The Rushed Series
Book 1—Rushed, Zach and Alexis’ story
Book 2—Crushed, Dakota and Morgan’s story
Book 3—Hushed, Seth and Maddie’s story
The Reckless Series
Book 1—Reckless Longing
Book 2—Reckless Secrets
Book 3—Reckless Together
About the Author
Gina Robinson's books have delighted readers and received positive reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Romantic Times Book Reviews.
A voracious reader and fan of all types of romantic stories, she writes romance and women's fiction across a wide variety of subgenres—romantic comedy, new adult, contemporary, historical, and romantic suspense. Her love stories are infused with a happy blend of romance, adventure, a bit of mystery, and humor. Readers are drawn to the light touch she gives even serious topics and the fast, fun, easy-to-read pace of her books. From college campuses to Seattle to Las Vegas to England, her settings become almost characters of their own, driving the story.
She believes in the power of true love and passion, and that every great romance should have a happily-ever-after. To get an email when Gina releases a new book, sign up to join her VIP list by visiting her website at www.ginarobinson.com
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The American Heir: A Jet City Billionaire Romance (The Billionaire Duke Series Book 4) Page 15
