His Temptation, Her Secret

by Barbara Dunlop

  “Better,” Sage said.

  It had been more than a week now since they’d moved him to Highside Hospital. Eli was getting stronger by the day.

  “He’s getting impatient,” she finished.

  “I don’t blame him,” Tasha said. “Does he have any interest in mechanics? Boats or cars?”

  “He’s into baseball,” TJ said. “He’s a catcher.”

  “He’s going to have to start slow,” Sage felt compelled to warn.

  The only person who seemed more impatient than Eli was TJ. The two had been bonding over sports. She knew it would be a surprise when they told Eli that TJ was his father. But she hoped it would be a happy one.

  She was feeling optimistic on that front, but she didn’t want to take anything for granted. They’d agreed to tell him as soon as he was released from the hospital.

  “For now,” Tasha said, “we’re going to celebrate. This is a happy occasion.” She gestured for Sage to leave the courtroom with her. “I’ll drive.”

  “Absolutely you will,” Matt said with a smile.

  “He made the mistake of marrying me,” Tasha called happily as they walked. “So now I own half his BMW.”

  “It’s not so bad when she drives the boats,” Matt grumbled from behind.

  Tasha chuckled. “Have you met Jules?” she asked Sage.

  “No. TJ’s talked about Caleb and Jules. I know they have twin girls.”

  “Coming up on five months. They’re adorable.” Her hand went to her own stomach, touching the denim blue summer dress, and her face lit up with joy. “I’m four months pregnant.”

  “Congratulations to you,” Sage said, happy for Tasha and Matt.

  They started down the courthouse steps into the summer sunshine.

  “Seeing Matt’s reaction to the baby, his excitement,” Tasha said, “well, I just want to say, I think you are—”

  “A terrible person?” Sage finished, her fragile emotions careening toward a cliff.

  She’d been bracing herself for the anger from TJ’s friends. She hadn’t expected it from Tasha just then. But she understood how they would feel.

  “What? No. No. That’s not what I meant at all.” Tasha’s hand touched Sage’s shoulder. “I think it’s great that you’re giving TJ and Eli a chance to be together.”

  Sage’s emotions settled partly. “I know it’s the best thing for Eli.”

  Tasha pointed to a gunmetal-gray car halfway down the block. “It is. But you count too. Come with me. Matt can ride with TJ.”

  Sage glanced back to the two men several feet behind them. They seemed engrossed in conversation. She expected TJ would want the support of his close friends through this.

  “I’m getting a lot out of this arrangement,” Sage said. She couldn’t help thinking about TJ’s offer to furnish the upstairs to her liking.

  “You mean the money?” Tasha asked. “Money doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters a lot when you don’t have it.”

  Tasha turned to call over her shoulder. “I’m taking Sage. We’ll meet you there.”

  Sage fought the temptation to look back and see TJ’s reaction. He wouldn’t care. Why would he care? It wasn’t like he was anxious to get some time alone with his new bride.

  She almost laughed at the thought.

  Tasha hit the fob to unlock the car doors, and they climbed in.

  Sage straightened her skirt over her bare legs. She hadn’t had a lot to choose from when it came to dresses, and it was hardly a formal wedding. TJ had tried to buy her one, but she’d refused.

  She’d picked up some of her clothes from home, and she’d gone with the short aqua cocktail dress bought on sale three years ago for the company Christmas party. It had a swath of flat lace across the neckline and the capped sleeves. The waist was fitted, but the skirt was full to midthigh. It was a little loose, but it still looked fine.

  “You need enough money for the basics,” Tasha said as she started the engine. “But you get to diminishing returns pretty quickly. Matt’s got plenty of money—most of it tied up in capital assets, of course—but he has to worry about it all the time. TJ has way too much money. He doesn’t seem to know how to spend it, but he doesn’t seem to know how to stop making it either.”

  “He’s not going to get my sympathy.”

  Tasha laughed. “I hear you.”

  Traffic was light on the coast highway, and the BMW hugged the road as they zipped along above the speed limit. Tasha seemed completely comfortable and in control around the curves.

  “TJ says you’re a genius,” Tasha said.

  Sage didn’t think getting straight As in high school qualified anyone for that title. “TJ doesn’t know me very well.”

  “He says you skipped college to take care of Eli.”

  “I did. And I’m glad. And I wouldn’t change it.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tasha’s voice went soft. “I didn’t mean that to sound like a criticism.”

  Sage regretted her outburst. “Touchy subject. TJ has a strong opinion on it.”

  “Have you thought about going back?”

  “Now I know you’ve been talking to TJ. Is this a setup?” Sage was only half joking.

  “It’s not a setup. I’m not the type to betray the sisterhood.”

  It was Sage’s turn to apologize. “I’m sorry.”

  Tasha gave a careless shrug. “No need. You don’t know me yet. But when you do get to know me, you’ll learn that I’m a huge proponent of women undertaking any career path they want.”

  Sage knew that Tasha had gone against her wealthy Bostonian parents’ wishes to become a marine mechanic.

  “I don’t know what your passion is, Sage. Maybe you don’t know what it is either. But you should find it. Whatever it is, you should go after it. And don’t let TJ or anyone else try to tell you what it is.”

  Sage was liking Tasha. And the woman had inspired her to start thinking.

  Once they’d told Eli about TJ. Once she and her son were settled in Whiskey Bay. Once they got into some kind of a routine as a household. What would she do then?

  * * *

  “She seems pretty great,” Caleb said to TJ.

  They sat at one end of the rectangular table in the Neo seafood restaurant’s private dining room. It was Caleb’s seventeenth Neo location nationwide, and it had just opened two weeks ago.

  TJ’s gaze went to Sage, where Tasha was trying to tempt her with something from the dessert cart.

  He’d kissed her.

  He’d known he was going to kiss her. It was what a guy did at the end of a wedding ceremony. What he hadn’t known was that he was going to kiss her—full-on, body-wide, every-emotion-and-hormone-engaged kiss her. His vision tunneled to her lips, and desire dug deep inside him.

  He blinked himself back to reality. “She is great. I never said she wasn’t great.”

  “But she’s not Lauren.”

  “She’s never going to be Lauren.” As he said the words, TJ was overcome with guilt.

  It felt like he’d betrayed Lauren by kissing Sage. Yet he’d somehow betrayed Sage by comparing her to Lauren.

  He wasn’t going to compare the two women. The situations were completely different.

  “I’m still not sure you’ve thought this through,” Caleb said.

  “I’ve thought it completely through.” Plus, it was done. TJ wished Caleb could be as supportive as Matt.

  “Marriage is big. Marriage is huge.”

  TJ found his gaze drawn to Sage. He felt the rush of desire again, and he knew he had to find a way to shut it down. “It’s not that kind of a marriage.”

  “There are no kinds.”

  “There are thousands of kinds. Some people marry for love. Some for money. And some for the sake of the kids.”

  �
�Usually that’s when someone is pregnant, and—”

  “Better late than never,” TJ said. To distract himself, he picked up a clean butter knife and spun it in a circle on the white tablecloth. “I thought through the other options. I considered them all. But I want to be fair to Sage. She deserves security. Can you imagine living in someone else’s house, at their whim, dependent on their good graces?”

  “Are you saying you might kick her out? I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “I’m saying she would have no way of knowing how I’d treat her. This way, the house is half hers. I couldn’t kick her out if I wanted to.” He kept his gaze firmly on the table. He wasn’t going to look at her again and risk that emotional rabbit hole. “And I don’t want to. And I never would. But now she’ll never have to wonder.”

  “The house is one thing,” Caleb said. “But the prenup better be ironclad beyond that.”

  TJ didn’t answer. He spun the knife again.

  Caleb levered forward in his chair. “You did not leave her a loophole.”

  “I thought you said she seemed great.”

  “Her seeming great and you being stupid are two totally different things.”

  “There’s no loophole.”

  Caleb seemed mollified.

  But TJ wasn’t going to leave the misunderstanding just sitting out there on the table. “There’s no prenup.”

  Caleb blinked. Then he blinked again.

  TJ found the stare more unnerving than if Caleb had shouted.

  Matt chose the moment to sit down with them. “What’s going on?”

  He looked from Caleb to TJ and back again, his eyes widening at their expressions.

  “What?” he repeated.

  Caleb spoke. “Someone drilled a hole in TJ’s skull and extracted half of his brain.”

  “That was colorful,” Matt said.

  “She’s the mother of my child,” TJ said to Caleb.

  “Who you hadn’t seen for nine years. You don’t know anything about her. This could be... This could be... It could be anything.”

  “You think it’s a setup? You think making me a bone marrow donor could be part of some complex Machiavellian plot to steal my money?”

  “Ahh,” Matt said. “The prenup. I told you he’d react like this.”

  “It’s not up to him to react like anything,” TJ told Matt.

  Caleb’s voice rose. “How could you be so boneheadedly cavalier? Did you learn nothing from Matt’s divorce?”

  “How did I get thrown in the middle of this?” Matt asked.

  “You’re a cautionary tale,” Caleb said flatly.

  “Sage is not Diana,” TJ said. Sage was absolutely nothing like Matt’s materialistic ex-wife.

  “How do you know that? You barely know her. A prenup is the absolute baseline—”

  “Hey!” Jules shouted above them.

  TJ suddenly realized how loud their voices had become. He looked up to see Sage and everyone else staring at them. She was holding an untouched slice of cheesecake on a small china plate, and she looked mortified.

  TJ came to his feet.

  “Sage...” Caleb began, regret ringing in his tone.

  “I’m...” She quickly set the cheesecake down on the table. “Thank you all so much. It’s been a big day. And I’m tired.” She whisked her small purse from where she’d hung it on the back of a chair. “I’ll say good-night.”

  She started for the door, and TJ went after her.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Caleb get up as well. Then he saw Jules stop him.

  TJ didn’t call out Sage’s name as she made her way through the public restaurant. He kept a distance between them as she went down the curved stairs. He waited until she had gone out through the double doors before stepping up to her side.

  “Sage, I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head as she walked, chin held high. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “I know it was Caleb. But that was absolutely the wrong place for me to argue with him there, like that, at our wedding.”

  “I didn’t expect drama,” she said.

  “Neither did I.” TJ didn’t know what he’d expected. He sure hadn’t expected their kiss. “I’m parked under the light.” He pointed to his car.

  She stopped. There was a note of surprise in her voice. “I guess I’m going home with you.”

  “That was the plan.”

  “This seemed a lot easier in theory.”

  He didn’t know how to respond. Did she regret marrying him? He couldn’t help but wonder how she’d felt about their kiss. Did she remember their last kiss? Had she been reminded, like him, of why Eli had come into being?

  She walked to his car.

  They both climbed in and buckled up.

  “He’s not wrong, you know,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Caleb. It hadn’t occurred to me. But you have all this money. You do need a prenup.”

  He looked sideways at her. Was that where her head was going? They’d kissed hard enough to rock the world, and she was focused on the prenup?

  He jammed into first gear. “You think I want to protect myself against you?”

  Abruptly releasing the clutch, he pulled out of the parking lot, heading for the short, steep road that led to his house on the cliffside above. He never imagined himself having this argument.

  “It’s only logical, TJ. We don’t know where this is going, what might happen.”

  She was right about that. But he was crystal clear on the prenup.

  “Eli’s my son, Sage. You’re his mother, and now you’re my wife. You two are my family.”

  “Only in the most tangential way.”

  “No. In the most fundamental way possible. Whatever happens, whatever the future brings, whatever money I make or don’t make, I do it on behalf of all of us. That’s what it means.” He pointed back and forth between them. “That’s what this means. When I said we were in this together, that’s exactly what I meant.”

  She’d turned sideways in her seat, and now she was gazing at him in silence.

  He turned into the driveway and cut the engine before facing her, bracing himself for whatever she threw out on the table.

  “I don’t understand you,” she said, surprising him with her mild tone. “I could take you for, what, half a gazillion dollars?”

  “A gazillion’s not a real number.”

  “And you’re sitting there making jokes.”

  “Are you going to take me for half a gazillion dollars?” he asked, knowing the answer.

  “I’d never do that.”

  “I know.”

  She shook her head, and she gave a crooked smile. She was so beautiful in the moonlight. From a purely objective point of view, she was one of the most uniquely beautiful women in the world. Her green eyes twinkled when she was happy. Her auburn hair shone in any kind of light. And the hint of freckles made what would have been a too classically beautiful face more relatable.

  “You don’t know,” she said. She looked through the windshield at the house in front of them. “Neither of us knows what’s going to happen next.”

  She was right about that.

  She reached for the door handle. “This is going to be weird.”

  Weird was one way to put it. He caught the flash of her wedding band as she moved and felt an unexpected jolt of loyalty and dedication. Weird or not, he now had a family. And he had a new purpose.

  * * *

  Sage felt like a guest in TJ’s house. No, more than that, she felt like she was living in the show home in a glossy magazine.

  A housekeeper, Verena Hofstead, arrived every morning. She was perfectly friendly and perfectly professional. She dusted surfaces that had no dust and vacuumed carpets that nobody had walked o
n.

  TJ had told Sage there was a cook available whenever they needed one. He ate out a lot and didn’t usually make himself complex meals, so he didn’t use the cook often. But he’d left the number for Sage just in case.

  Sage couldn’t imagine calling up a cook to toast her a bagel in the morning or bake her some chicken for dinner. It all seemed surreal.

  TJ had given her the keys to the SUV and told her to go into Olympia and buy herself a car. He’d also told her to pick out furniture for the upstairs, suggesting she might want to turn one of the bedrooms into a sitting room. She was trying, but she couldn’t wrap her head around so much high-priced shopping.

  For now, she was wandering through the enormous kitchen, opening cupboards, trying to familiarize herself with where everything was kept. Verena was down the hall in a main-floor laundry. Sage tried to forget that someone else was washing her underwear.

  There was a knock on the front door.

  “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.

  Sage closed a top cupboard containing rows of glasses.

  “Hello?” she called back, cutting through the living room to the front foyer.

  TJ left his doors unlocked during the day, and his neighbors seemed to have a habit of dropping by and walking in. It was a strange thing to get used to.

  “It’s Melissa.”

  “Oh, hi.” Sage had met Jules’s sister Melissa three days ago at the Neo dinner.

  “Is this a bad time?” Melissa asked.

  “It’s fine.”

  Sage had visited Eli this morning, and she’d go back later in the day when TJ got home. For now, she was simply hanging around, trying to find a way to fit into her new life. The only alternative was shopping for the empty upstairs. And she couldn’t bring herself to break the ice on that.

  Melissa gazed around the high-ceilinged, brightly lit living room. “I love this place.”

  Sunshine streamed in from the wall of glass that opened onto the deck and overlooked the ocean. Thanks to Verena, the cherrywood furniture gleamed. The leather sofas and armchairs were comfortable and strategically placed.

  There was a grouping near the glass wall, another clustered around the fireplace and an intimate setting of two recliners in an alcove.