Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir

by Heidi Betts

  But while he was obviously taking their minor indiscretion in stride, he couldn’t disagree with her on the “bad idea” part. He wasn’t sorry, since making love with Vanessa wasn’t something he could ever regret or apologize for, but she was right that it hadn’t been the smartest decision of his life.

  He wasn’t even sure what had possessed him to kiss her in the first place.

  Maybe because he’d been thinking about it all night, his eyes straying over and over again to her mouth and the luscious cleavage visible above the bodice of her siren-red sex goddess dress.

  Maybe because he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since the moment he’d seen her again after such a long absence…and after pretty much determining that he would never see her again at all.

  Or maybe because she was simply irresistible. For him, she always had been.

  It almost didn’t surprise him that they’d made a child together at the very moment that their marriage had been falling apart around them. Despite their differences and the problems that had plagued them there at the end, physical compatibility had never even made it onto the list. No matter how bad a day either of them might be having, no matter how big a fight they might have had, it never seemed to take them long to come back together and set the sheets on fire.

  It was a relief to know that hadn’t changed. They were no longer married, she’d hidden his son from him and neither of them had a very clear vision of what the future held, but at least he knew the passion was still there. More than passion—lust and longing and desire thick enough to land a 747 on.

  His leg brushed against hers beneath the covers and a jolt of that passion times ten shot through him. She jerked away from him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that his current state of semi-arousal would definitely be going to waste.

  “You’re right,” he said, agreeing with her earlier statement. “Probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do. At least not under the current circumstances.”

  “There’s the understatement of the century,” she grumbled, rolling to the side of the bed and carefully sliding her bare legs out from under the top sheet.

  She sat there for a minute, not moving, and Marc took the opportunity to admire the short fall of her copper hair around her shoulders, the supple line of her spine, and the gentle curves of her torso from the back. She’d put on a bit of weight with the pregnancy, but it didn’t take away from her attractiveness one damn bit.

  If anything, it made her even more beautiful, filling her out with sensual, womanly curves in all the right places. He had certainly enjoyed exploring those curves with his hands and lips, feeling them so soft and gentle against his much harder naked length.

  One corner of his mouth lifted in amusement, not only from the delectable view, but from the snarky tone of her voice. She’d always had such a way with words, and a way of delivering them that often delighted him.

  It had annoyed the hell out of her when she’d been in a snit, telling him off, and would catch him grinning. Not because he wasn’t listening or taking her seriously, but because he’d always loved watching her and listening to her—even when she was chewing him out.

  The way she moved, pacing back and forth and waving her arms. The way her breasts rose and fell in agitation, following the cadence of her rant. What could he say…it turned him on. And nine times out of ten, their arguments had led to phenomenal make-up sex, so there was really no downside to riling her up a little more by letting her think he was laughing off her anger or upset.

  In hindsight, he could see how that might have led to some of the problems that had prompted them to split. He’d never meant to deride her feelings or opinions on anything, he’d simply believed their relationship was secure enough that any differences or misunderstandings they had would blow over just as they had in the past.

  How wrong he’d been. And he hadn’t seen it coming until it was too late. Too damn late.

  “It can’t happen again,” she said, still facing the other direction.

  For a moment, he remained trapped in his head and thought she was talking about their divorce. That definitely couldn’t happen again, and if he had it to do over, it might not have happened in the first place.

  Then he realized she meant the sex. Tonight’s unplanned, unexpected, but definitely not unsatisfying, indiscretion.

  “Marc,” she said when he didn’t respond. Twisting slightly, she tilted her head until she could see him from the corner of her eye, then repeated more firmly, “This can’t happen again.”

  Rolling to his side, he propped himself up on one elbow, letting silence fill the room while he studied her. After a minute or two, he murmured, “What do you want me to say, Vanessa? That I’m sorry we made love? That I don’t hope we get the chance to do it again…frequently and with great enthusiasm?” He shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t holding him up. “Sorry, but I’m not going to do that.”

  “What is wrong with you?” she charged, all but leaping from the bed, dragging the sheet along with her. It caught on the corners of the mattress, of course, but not before sliding from his hips and leaving him in the buff down to his ankles.

  She turned, yanking at the cheap, industrial grade white cotton until it came free, pointedly ignoring his total nudity. With a huff, she yanked the quilted coverlet from the foot of the bed and tossed it over him, head and all. He chuckled, lowering it just in time to watch her wrap the sheet like a toga around her own naked form.

  “We’re divorced, Marcus,” she pointed out, as though he weren’t painfully aware of their current marital status. Or lack thereof.

  She stormed around the room gathering her clothing, piece by discarded piece. “Divorced couples aren’t supposed to sleep together.”

  “Maybe not, but we both know it happens all the time.” He waved a hand to encompass the rumpled bed and their current states of postcoital undress.

  “Well, it shouldn’t,” she argued back, doing her best to hold up the sheet while she struggled into her underwear. “Besides, you hate me.”

  A beat passed while the air in the room sizzled with growing tension. “Says who?”

  At the softly spoken question, Vanessa jerked to a halt and lifted her head to meet his gaze. The lower half of the sheet, which had been hiked up around her thighs while she fought with her panties, fell to the ground.

  “Don’t you?” she asked just as softly. “I mean, you do. I know you do. Or at least, you should. I didn’t tell you I was pregnant. I didn’t tell you about Danny.”

  His brows crossed and his mouth dipped down in a scowl at the reminder. He’d been working hard to forget that part of his reason for being in town. Or more to the point, had been willing to suspend his anger and feelings of betrayal long enough to partake of Vanessa’s lovely body and enjoy the tactile sensations of having her in his arms and bed again after so long.

  He took in her still half-naked form, wrapped like a Greek goddess in pristine white cotton. Sure, all of the reasons he should hate her were still there. And no doubt they had many issues to work out. But for some reason, at that moment, he just couldn’t get his temper to flare.

  “Here’s a bit of advice,” he told her, cocking a brow and trying not to let his frown slip up into a grin. “When someone has temporarily forgotten that they have a reason to be mad at you, it’s probably better not to remind them.”

  “But you should be mad at me,” she said quietly, holding his gaze for a long, drawn out second before turning her back to him and continuing to dress.

  Marc watched as she struggled with her bra, then let the sheet fall as she hooked the bit of lingerie behind her back. He watched the light play on the pale canvas of her skin and the smooth lines of her body as she moved.

  Interesting, he thought, fighting the urge to drag her back to bed. She seemed to want him to be angry with her.

  On the one hand, at least he knew she hadn’t slept with him in an effort to cloud his mind and seduce him into forgetting that she
tried to keep his son from him. On the other, she’d have been wise to do almost anything to stay on his good side at this point. To avoid acrimony, a possible custody battle or to keep him from simply picking up and taking Danny home with him, leaving her few options to get him back.

  Granted, before today, he hadn’t spoken with Vanessa in over a year, and the fact that she’d left him meant he probably hadn’t understood her all that well to begin with. But the only explanation he could think of for why she’d remind him of what stood between them was that she needed something between them. A wall. A barrier.

  If he hated her, he might not want to be with her again. If he hated her, he might get fed up and storm home to Pittsburgh—preferably without Danny.

  Oh, they’d work out some sort of custody agreement. On that, he would insist. And he was sure Vanessa wouldn’t argue too strongly against it, not now. Agreeing to let him see Danny on a regular basis or even let him take their son back to Pittsburgh for the occasional extended visit would be the lesser of two evils for her now.

  But he’d been in big business long enough to know that when someone gave up something too easily, it was usually because they were trying to get or retain something even more important to them. His best guess was that Vanessa was trying to retain distance.

  She’d wasted no time moving to Summerville the minute their divorce was final, and as far as he could tell, she’d been perfectly happy settling in with her aunt and making her mark on the small town through The Sugar Shack.

  If Fate hadn’t somehow intervened to bring him here himself, he never would have known where she’d relocated to or that she had a child. His child.

  Oh, yes, she’d wanted distance then, and she wanted it now. And if she pissed him off—or kept him pissed off—then he’d be less likely to stick around for any length of time, wouldn’t he?

  Which only made him want to stick around more. He was contrary like that sometimes, a fact Vanessa was well aware of. She should have known that if he caught on to her little plan, he’d make a point of doing pretty much the exact opposite of what she wanted, just to vex her.

  Of course, there was a good chance she didn’t even realize she had a little plan. That she was running heavily on instinct, her current thoughts and actions more subconscious than anything else.

  But it still intrigued him, and if he hadn’t wanted to stick around before just to be close to the child he hadn’t known existed, he certainly did now. He was even looking forward to it, considering the entertaining side benefits he’d recently discovered could be added to his stay.

  Tossing back the covers, he moved to the edge of the bed and sat up. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t hate you.”

  He pushed to his feet and walked toward her stark naked. Where she’d fought so hard to protect her modesty and stay covered, he didn’t bother and wasn’t the least bit self-conscious about his nudity.

  When she saw him coming, she took a jerky step back, away from him, but he wasn’t really after her. Bending at the waist, he scooped up the tangled ball of his pants and underwear.

  “I’m not happy about what you did,” he clarified, climbing into his clothes with slow, deliberate movements, “and I can’t say that I don’t harbor a bit of anger and resentment over it. Or that there won’t be moments when that anger and resentment flare hotter than anything else.”

  He leaned down for his wrinkled shirt and shrugged it on, but didn’t bother buttoning it, leaving his chest bare down the middle. “But we’ve covered that ground already. Keeping Danny from me—or the pregnancy to begin with—was wrong. That’s time and an experience I can’t get back. Now that I know I have a son, however, things are going to change. I am going to be involved in his life—and therefore in yours.”

  She was standing only about three feet from him, clutching that red dress to her breasts to cover as much of her front as she could. It was silly and useless, a bit like locking the barn door after the bull had already escaped, but Marc found her false sense of modesty oddly endearing.

  “You should probably come to terms with that,” he told her matter-of-factly. “The sooner, the better.”

  She simply stood there, staring at him. Her eyes sparkled like polished sapphires, but whether with fear or rage or mere confusion, he couldn’t quite tell.

  While he had her off balance—which was a nice switch, frankly, since she’d pretty much had him off balance from the moment he’d driven into town—he tossed another can of gasoline on the bonfire that just seemed to continue blazing between them.

  “Here’s something else you should probably take into consideration,” he said quietly, widening his stance and crossing his arms determinedly in front of him.

  Vanessa didn’t reply. Instead, she cocked her head, the tendons at the sides of her throat convulsing as she swallowed, waiting nervously for him to elaborate.

  “We didn’t use a condom, which means that you may even now get pregnant with our second child.”

  Nine

  Oh, God.

  Marc’s words slammed into Vanessa’s chest like a bullet, knocking the air from her lungs and making her literally stagger on her feet.

  What had she been thinking? Bad enough she’d fallen into bed with her ex-husband faster than a star falls from the sky, but she’d completely forgotten about protection of any kind. It had never occurred to her to insist he use a condom, and since she was a new mother, still breast-feeding and with absolutely zero romantic prospects on the horizon, it hadn’t been necessary for her to be on birth control.

  She tried to do the math in her head, to figure out when her last period had been and when she was due again, but panic kept her thoughts in a tailspin.

  And what about the breast-feeding? Wasn’t it supposed to be harder to get pregnant while still nursing?

  Dear God, please let that be true, because she couldn’t even fathom the idea that she might actually be pregnant again, unexpectedly, unplanned and by her former husband. It was almost too horrifying to contemplate.

  “I’m not,” she said, as though saying it firmly and decisively enough would make it true.

  Marc raised a dark, sardonic brow. “How can you be so sure.”

  “I’m just not,” she insisted, tearing frantically at her dress until she got her feet inside and could yank it up. Never mind that it was open all the way to her bottom in the back because she couldn’t raise the zipper without help. She would walk home with it hanging loose, if she had to, rather than ask him for one iota of assistance.

  “And what were you thinking?” she charged, stamping a foot as she slipped it into a strappy red heel. “How could you do that—let me do that—without taking precautions?” She cast him an angry, accusatory glare. “I’ve never known you to be so irresponsible.”

  He shrugged, looking exponentially more casual and unconcerned than she was feeling at that particular moment. “What can I say? I was swept away by your beauty and passion, and the exhilaration of being with you again after such a long absence.”

  Pausing in the act of shoving on her other shoe, she tilted her head in his direction and gave a loud, unladylike snort. “Please,” she scoffed.

  “Is that so hard to believe?” he asked, still wearing the blank mask that gave her no clue of his true emotions.

  Was he upset that they’d forgotten to use protection? Happy? Angry? Excited? Confused? Nauseous?

  Because she was nauseous. And upset and angry and confused. There was no happiness or excitement anywhere on her radar.

  If it turned out she really was pregnant…oh, God, please don’t let her be pregnant again—not by Marc, and not so soon after Danny’s birth…she would of course love the baby. Unconditionally and without question. But the difference between loving an existing child and loving the notion of carrying an as-yet imaginary one—especially under these circumstances—was like the difference between black and white, hot and cold, thirsty and drowning.

  She loved Danny with all
her heart and soul. She wouldn’t trade him for anything, or even go back and undo the events that had led to his birth.

  But she sure as hell wouldn’t choose to be pregnant again. Not so soon after having one child, not without benefit of marriage, and not with a man she’d so recently divorced.

  She was already linked too closely to Marc, thanks to his discovery of Danny’s existence. But the thought of being even more closely connected to him through a second child would be a nightmare come to life.

  He was almost foaming-at-the-mouth rabid about staying close to her now that he knew about Danny. Having him know from the very beginning that he was going to be a father a second time would turn him into near-stalker material. She would never get rid of him, not even for short amounts of time while he commuted back and forth between Pittsburgh and Summerville.

  Oh, no, knowing Marc, he would do something ridiculous like move to Summerville himself, or insist they get remarried and then drag her back to the city where she would be trapped and miserable all over again.

  No, no, no, no, no. Vanessa’s head was shaking like a tambourine as she ran her gaze around the room, looking for anything she might have forgotten. Her purse, her watch, an earring…

  “I think you underestimate your appeal,” Marc remarked, apparently missing the nuclear meltdown taking place inside her.

  Small red clutch in hand, she shot him another withering glare before spinning on her heel and marching toward the hotel room door.

  “Vanessa.”

  Her free hand was out, reaching for the knob, but his sharp voice stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t turn to look at him, but remained still, waiting for him to continue.

  “I’ll see you at the bakery first thing tomorrow, eight o’clock sharp. Be sure Danny is with you.”

  A shudder rolled through her, and she wasn’t sure if it was aversion to having to deal with him again in the morning or relief that that was his only parting remark.

  With a jerky nod, she pulled the door open and started to step into the hall.