Billionaire Boss's Secret Love Child: A Second Chance Romance

by Sophia Lynn

  To her surprise, Travis flinched back from that, something he never would have done when they were both in their early twenties.

  “You remember that,” he said dully, and she smiled mirthlessly.

  “Hard not to. You and Sheridan didn't talk for a while over that.”

  “We made up eventually,” he said as if it meant something. “He said he wouldn't have done that if you hadn't said that he should.”

  “What's between you and me has nothing to do with what's between you and Sheridan,” Eddy said with a shrug. “You were always a good friend to him.”

  Unspoken was what a rotten almost-boyfriend he had been to her, and they both inspected it for a moment before moving on.

  “I wish Sheridan were here,” Travis said unexpectedly, shaking his head, and Eddy's laugh was surprised.

  “I say that all the time. Sofia misses her Uncle Sherry.”

  Travis looked startled and then delighted.

  “That's what she calls him? Oh my God, he hated being called Sherry.”

  “Well, some things are a little easier to hear from the lips of an adorable lisping niece, I suppose. And it's not like he has to hear it a lot. He's been in the Galapagos since February.”

  “Right. All those turtles aren't going to tag themselves.”

  “So he tells me.”

  They lapsed into silence, and Eddy wryly thought that Travis was right. They were easier with each other around Sheridan, if only because they could always pick on Sheridan together. Now her older brother was on the other side of the world and she had to deal with this all on her own.

  “Were you all right?”

  Eddy blinked.

  “When... Sheridan left? Of course I was. We haven't lived together since we were kids, and—”

  “No. I mean. With Sofia. When Sofia was born.”

  It was the first time he had said Sofia's name, and there was something so undeniably tender about it that it made Eddy’s heart ache.

  “I was fine,” she said quietly. “I didn't find out about it until you had moved to Chicago entirely, and by then you were a hard man to find.”

  “I was working eighty hours a week and sleeping in the office space I had rented,” Travis said with a wince. “You must have thought I was a loser.”

  Eddy stared at him, and before she could stop herself, she seized his large hand. It was warm in hers, and when she realized what she had done, she let it drop again.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, never. I always knew that... well. I always knew that you would succeed. I just also knew what you might be willing to sacrifice for it.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” asked Travis, sounding genuinely baffled, and she could have slapped him.

  “You would sacrifice everything in this town, your whole life, to go to where you were meant to be. You left us all behind.”

  There was something trembling in that last sentence that she did not want to investigate too closely, but she lifted her chin under his startled gaze.

  “You left, I realized I was pregnant, and when I couldn't find you, I thought, well. Perhaps you didn't want to be found. The life you were building for yourself was very different from the one I wanted for myself and for Sofia, even if I didn't know her at the time.”

  “Didn't know her?” asked Travis, puzzled, and Eddy colored a little.

  “That's how I thought of it. When she was born, they put her in my arms and I fell in love. Instantly. I was one of those awful women, you know, who thinks that her baby is the most clever, the most brave. And I loved her so much, but it occurred to me that I did not know her, not yet. She was just this brilliant little stranger that had landed in my arms, and it was my job to care for and to help her.”

  “And you know her now?”

  “A little better every day,” Eddy said proudly, and then she switched the smile off, because she still didn't know what Travis's intent was.

  “You're not going to take her from me,” she said, and he frowned at her.

  “What kind of monster do you think I am?” he asked, and then he winced. “On second thought, don't answer that. Instead, let's start over. I don't want to take her from you, but I'm also not going to lie and say that I don't want to get to know her and to get to know you again.”

  “Why?” she blurted out, and all those nights of imagining Travis with the models and actresses in Chicago came whirling back to her. Then that was completely wrenched away by the hot look he gave her, something dark in his gorgeous eyes.

  “You kissed me like you did back at the office, and you're asking me that now?” he asked lightly, and she knew deep down that he was very right. While she was still figuring out what to say, he continued.

  “Show me your portfolio,” he said, and without thinking, she pulled her tablet out of her bag, but hesitated before giving it to him.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to see what you can do. Because you walked into my office for a reason, right? Before you knew it was my office?”

  Eddy hesitated for a moment, and because something about being with Travis always felt like giving in to a mysterious kind of gravity, she cued her tablet up to her portfolio and handed it to him.

  She watched Sofia as Travis swiped through the pictures she had prepared. Her little girl, the light of her life. The playground was on the empty side at the moment, not many people apt to bring out their kids this close to suppertime on a weekday. Sofia stood up on the highest platform she could reach, looking out solemnly over the world below, her small face serious.

  She's never cared all that much about having many playmates, Eddy reflected. As long as she had me and Uncle Sheridan, she was all right.

  More than once, Eddy had wondered if it was too little family for a growing girl. She had wondered, late at night when Sofia was fast asleep, what it might be like for both of them to have more family, and now she glanced at Travis.

  “This is good,” Travis said at last. “I'm interested in the part where you furnish the place locally. Does your family still own the Recollection?”

  Eddy blinked at the fact that Travis remembered the name of her family's antique shop. It had been her parents' pride and joy for a long time, before they passed, her mother when she was a teen, and her father only a few years ago.

  “Well, Sheridan and I own it now,” she said. “I'm the one that runs it. And I promise you, I wouldn't pull from the Recollection exclusively. I have a very good track record of finding the piece that best fits a space, no matter where I have to go to get it.”

  “But all local?”

  “Yes, that's the thrust of my interior design business.”

  “Good. That's exactly what I'm looking for. You saw something of what you're working with today, but I expect you are going to want to come and really dig in—”

  “Wait. Wait. You can't just hire me to do this job, not after what we both learned—”

  “I think I can,” Travis said easily. “Half your fee up front if you agree to this, and then as long as you give it a good faith effort for the first month or so, you can walk with that, no strings. If you genuinely can't stand me, you'll find out in a week or so if you can't do the job without killing me, right?”

  I'm not worried about killing you, Eddy thought desperately. Not after what we did as soon as we laid eyes on each other.

  “Why?” she asked, and he took her hand. His touch, somehow despite six years apart, was exactly what she remembered: warm and strong, capable of pulling her into things she had never imagined before.

  “A lot of reasons,” Travis said. “First, because I'm not joking when I say that your ideas for the space are more or less what I've been hoping for. I'm tired of glass and chrome and spaces that seem cold even during the summer. I look at your designs and I see something like... Well. I see something warm.”

  “Yes,” Eddy said. “That's how I like to work. Always warm. Always with comfort in mind.”

  “Yeah, that's.
.. that's what I want.”

  Travis cleared his throat.

  “Also because of what happened when you walked in and what I found out. Look. I'm not an idiot. I know that you made the call you did for reasons, and just because I would have wanted you to make a different call doesn't change the past. Hell, I don't know what it means for us now. But Eddy, I wanted to find out. I want to get to know Sofia. I will let you control how that goes because, fuck, I don't know anything about kids. All I know is that I've been thinking about them more—”

  “Sofia is not some kind of practice child,” Eddy began furiously, and Travis held up his hand.

  “I would never. But she is someone that I didn't know existed just a few hours ago, and I want to get this right. I need to get this right, and I want the chance to do so.”

  Eddy thought for a few minutes.

  “You could do this without the other,” she said. “You don't have to hire me on as a designer for us to start exploring the idea of your relationship with Sofia.”

  “Well, I'm efficient,” Travis said with a shrug. “I still need my office done up. Two birds, one stone, right?”

  Eddy laughed then, because that was about perfectly Travis. Of course he would want to get his way in all respects. Still there was something in his eyes that made her wonder if he was telling her the whole truth.

  She pushed it away. The fees for Travis's office would see the Recollection in the black through the slow season, and, well. He was half of Sofia's DNA, her father. Perhaps it was time for them to sit with that for a while.

  “All right,” she said. “All right.”

  Across the playground, she could see Sofia in profile, her face pressed into the wind and her dark brown hair streaming behind her. It revealed features that had always reminded her a little of Travis's, and she wondered what was going to happen next for both of them.

  Chapter Three

  Eddy

  Six Years Ago

  The autumn light filtered through the leaves, dappling the forest floor in gold. Under Eddy's boots, the fall leaves gave up a satisfying crunch with every step, and she kicked her way through them cheerfully as Travis grumbled behind her.

  “What's the matter, can't keep up with a girl?” she asked sweetly, looking over her shoulder.

  Behind her, Travis swore, following her and, if she were honest, keeping up with her pretty well for all of his muttered complaints.

  “Did I say anything about you being a girl during any of this?” Travis asked, aggrieved. “I seem to remember saying more about the fact that you're some kind of little forest goblin, and that I didn't want to come hiking with you because you would lead me out into the woods to die.”

  “And yet, here you are anyway,” she said, continuing her way up the trail.

  “Well, Sheridan invited me, and since he's not here, I'm going to ask you straight out. Is your brother doing all right?”

  Eddy turned to look at Travis quizzically.

  “What makes you think he's not?”

  Travis looked grateful for the break, and he leaned down, hands on his knees, to catch his breath before he spoke.

  “He's been AWOL a lot these past few months, hasn't he? I mean, he's the one who planned this hike, and then he had to work, and the last time he said to meet him at the Steak Shack, he called at the last minute to say he couldn't make it.”

  “Those were good fries at the Steak Shack though,” Eddy offered, and Travis nodded, straightening.

  “Yeah, they were, but still. What's going on with your brother?”

  “Knowing Sheridan? Fish, turtles, and the environment.”

  “You're probably right,” said Travis, and Eddy grinned.

  “We can go back down now, if you want,” she said. “You've put in a good faith effort, and just because Sheridan and I like hiking doesn't mean you have to.”

  She tried not to think about how attractive Travis looked when he got that stubborn look on his face. She'd known him since he became Sheridan's best friend in high school, and she knew that that look was a regular feature, and frankly, Travis, already pretty good-looking, didn't need the help.

  “No, you kept going on about getting to the top and having sandwiches up there. If I'm going to be tramping around in the woods, I might as well get a sandwich out of it.”

  “Who says I'm going to share with you?” Eddy teased, but she continued up the trail.

  She reflected that it was actually nicer than she had thought it would be; spending time with Travis. He was good-looking, of course, but more than that, he was fun. He wasn't afraid to stand up to her, and he wasn't macho enough to think that men always had to be right. If he wasn't planning a move to Chicago in the next six months, she'd honestly be tempted to pick up the hints that Sheridan had been laying down, about how Travis might be a good guy to date or at least to step out with.

  However, Travis had his eyes set on Chicago, and Eddy had no interest in the big city in the least. Coffee shops, museums, concerts – they were great, but she didn't mind visiting rather than having them at her fingertips.

  She hopped up on top of a log that had fallen down over the trail, and Travis tilted his head to one side.

  “Why do you always do that?” he asked. “Jump up on the log like some kind of weird prairie dog, I mean.”

  “Come here, actually, and I'll show you.”

  He stepped up on the log by her side. It was a thick old dead fall, plenty strong enough to support them both. His hand brushed against hers when he stood up next to her, and it sent a strange and oddly delicious shiver down her spine. She wondered briefly if he felt it too, given the way he glanced at her, his lips moving slightly, but then she put the thought out of her head.

  “Just look down.”

  Travis looked where she directed him to, and his eyes widened.

  “Fuck, is that—”

  The snake that stretched in the shadow of the fallen log was a dull gray with a thick body and a slightly flattened head. It blended in well with the shadows and the leaves, easy to miss if you didn't know it was there, and Eddy knew that if it opened its mouth in a yawn or in preparation to strike, the mouth would be a distinctive pinkish white. She nodded.

  “It's a cottonmouth,” she said. “Don't really want to step on one. They're not endangered, but they're really good for the land.”

  “You know, I wasn't worried about how endangered they were.”

  “You should be. We're in its home, you know.”

  She stamped on the log, making Travis jump a little, but the sound and the vibrations got the fat snake moving, slithering into the underbrush in the snake equivalent of a huff. Eddy stepped off the log to continue on her way, and after a moment, Travis followed her.

  “What are you supposed to do with those when you find them?” he asked.

  “Leave them alone?”

  “But if you can't.”

  “You should always be able to leave it alone,” she said a little sternly, and then she relented. “The minute you see it, give it as much space as you can. Snakes don't want to bite us any more than we want to be bitten, so back way, way off and do it slowly. Don't try to catch it or to kill it, definitely don't throw anything at it. Just let it go its way, and more than likely, it'll let you go yours.”

  “That sounds pretty smart,” Travis admitted. “Any other good tips for the woods, O Wise One?”

  “Yeah, take your turn and carry the lunch,” she retorted, handing him the bag.

  If Eddy was being fair, she knew that the hike that she was taking Travis on was a long one, especially for someone who wasn't used to the hills. On the other hand, he was coping pretty well, and as they made their way up the hill, she got to look at him out of the corner of her eye, and. Well.

  Sometimes, when he was being a jerk or when he and Sheridan used to get too loud when they hung out during high school, she really hated to admit that Travis was as attractive as he was.

  He was taller than Sheridan, who wasn't s
hort, and he was strong, lean but with enough muscle to make just about any straight girl swoon. Pair that with strong features and a smile that was known to have admirers all over the county, and you definitely had some eye candy on your hands.

  It's not just that, though, Eddy thought.

  For all that Travis could drive her up the wall sometimes, he was a good person. He'd always had Sheridan's back as they went through high school and the local community college together, and if she was being perfectly honest, despite all the teasing and all the pranks, he'd always had her back as well – and from time to time, her loud, too-smart mouth had absolutely needed it.

  Still, I don't have a problem with him struggling along just a little bit, she thought with a smirk.

  “Come on,” Eddy called over her shoulder, powering her way up the last section of trail. “We're almost there, don't give up now!”

  She beat Travis up the rise by a few moments, and as she looked out over the forested valley that lay beneath them, she found herself strangely very aware of Travis behind her, his breath, his shadow, the sheer maleness of his presence. For some reason, she kept looking out over the valley rather than turning back to him. She could feel his eyes on her back, and suddenly for some reason, it felt like her tank top and shorts were less than nothing.

  “It's beautiful up here,” she said, her voice softer than she intended, and he laughed, putting some distance between them.

  “Sure is,” he said, and Eddy told herself that there was nothing suggestive or enticing about his voice. It was just Travis. So many of the things he said sounded like flirting, but of course they weren't.

  She shook her head at her own silliness, and went to help him spread the blanket out on the soft grassy ground under a tall and spreading tree. Travis reached for the pack of food, but she stopped him.

  “You shouldn't stuff your face right after you've hiked as far as we have. Time to rest for a little while, and then some water, and then some food.”

  Instead of being irritated, he stretched out on his back on the blanket, giving her a lazy, appraising look.