by Dani Wade
“You know what?” he asked.
“What?”
He rested his cheek against her hair. A gesture that made her heart ache. “We made a baby together,” he said softly, his reverent tone surprising her. “How awesome is that?”
“I’ve been so focused on keeping food down and not being terrified that I forget sometimes,” she said in a hushed voice that matched his. “Is that terrible?”
“No, it’s coping the best you can. That’s all any of us can do, Ivy,” he reassured her. “Trust me—if you didn’t care enough about the baby, you wouldn’t question whether you’d be a good mother or not.”
“I don’t want to screw this up. For the baby, for me...for you.”
“You won’t. Besides, I’ll be there to help.”
“So this baby can love you more, too?” Ivy realized she was only half joking. Paxton had lived up to his words, playing hands-on daddy all night to a kid who had loved, loved, loved it.
Could she really live up to someone like that?
“Oh, I doubt my child will find me as much of a novelty.”
The only reason she could think of for that was if he was rarely there. How hard would it be to watch Paxton only visit on the weekends? Would his commitment to his child wain? Would he get tired of trying to share and decide to go for full custody?
“I hope not,” she murmured.
Ten
“Hey, Willow. How’s life on the island?”
Ivy fiddled with the cord of the phone on her desk as she answered the call from her sister.
Willow had moved to one of the outer islands off Savannah’s coast to be with her significant other. Tate had been one of the biggest secrets in Savannah, and still lived the life of a semi-reclusive author. But being involved with one of the Harden sisters had given him a much-needed social life. He was a man who had interesting ties to their family history—just as they had ties to his future. Willow was currently pregnant with his twins.
“I’ve got a surprise,” Willow said.
By her excited tone, it must be a really good surprise. Of course Ivy had always known bookworm Willow to get excited about the strangest things. “Well, spit it out!”
Willow chuckled before launching into her subject. “So, the ledger we found in Sabatini House’s attic, the one from Tate’s ancestors that had the contracts in it for all of his illicit business, well...” She paused for dramatic effect, a tactic Ivy was more than familiar with Willow using. “Tate found the man’s family. The one who was contracted for the night the McLemores’ ship went down.”
One of Willow’s deciding factors in going to Sabatini House to work for Tate as a housekeeper had been to find evidence that their family was not responsible for sinking the McLemores’ ship. She had found a ledger in a dusty room on the abandoned third floor with contracts between Tate’s great-grandfather and various disreputable men in Savannah. There was a contract for the night in question, with not nearly enough details. What they really needed to know now was what it meant.
Could they use it to create reasonable doubt of their family’s involvement? Or even to prove their innocence?
“Really? Is it a family that still lives around here?”
“Only a couple of hours away. We’re going up there on Thursday, just to see what they can tell us.”
Ivy wasn’t so sure about this plan. “Do you think they’ll actually appreciate you accusing their ancestor of sinking a ship? Murdering people?”
“Don’t you know this is the South? We don’t hide our crazy people in the attic. We bring them right out onto the front porch.”
Having heard the expression before, Ivy smiled. It faded fast as she realized once more where she was...and what they were discussing.
“But the man was a murderer,” Ivy reminded her, lowering her voice as she glanced toward Paxton’s office.
“Some families enjoy talking about their notorious relatives,” Willow reminded her, not concerned in the least. “We will see when we get there... For someone who has avoided people so much, Tate has done a lot of interviews for his books. He says it will be fine. Trust him.”
“I’m trying,” Ivy said, squeezing her eyes shut. While she wanted to trust that the future was going to work itself out, she was having more than a little trouble with her faith at the moment.
“This could be the evidence we need to prove Tate’s family hired the person who sank that ship. How do you think Paxton would feel if we could prove our family was actually innocent?”
Ivy shook her head. “I honestly don’t know.” She’d never considered the fact that her family was thought to have damaged his when contemplating her feelings for him. Mostly because she’d never thought those feelings would be returned. On the night they’d been together, her family history had been the last thing on her mind.
Would he embrace her if she confessed, with the evidence that it wasn’t really an issue? Or would there be other things that stood in the way? Who was she kidding? Of course there were other issues, some she could only guess at, since Paxton had retreated from her way before he knew the truth of who she was. She had no idea how he would feel when he found out how notorious her family really was.
Ivy murmured, “I don’t know.”
But she desperately needed this back-up plan, because the truth would come out eventually, and she needed to mitigate the damage as much as possible. Parenting would be awkward enough without his relatives shunning her child over something her family had not been involved in.
“How exciting will it be to know what really happened?” Willow enthused, her love of history and family fusing into one explosive firework over this subject. “I can’t wait!”
Ivy chuckled. “You’re such a nerd.”
“You know it.”
“Thank you, Willow. And thank Tate for me, too. I don’t know what I’d do without all of your help.”
Ivy ran off before she could get too emotional. She took a deep breath, trying to regain her equilibrium. “Everything will be okay,” she murmured under her breath, then got out of her chair. Only to find Paxton watching her from his doorway.
She shot a panicked glance at the phone. How much had he heard?
“Everything all right?” he asked.
She pasted on a bright, forced smile. “Isn’t that my line?”
His shrewd gaze narrowed; he wasn’t buying the brush-off as quickly as she’d have liked.
“Is something wrong?” He glanced down at the hand she’d unknowingly rested on her still-flat tummy. “Everything okay with the baby?”
The genuine concern in his amber eyes was almost more than Ivy could handle. She raised a hand as if swearing on a Bible. Though it was a good thing she wasn’t. All the secrets she was keeping would surely send her to hell in a handbasket.
“Absolutely nothing. I was just talking to Willow about a new plot of Tate’s. You know, supersecret author stuff.”
The look in Paxton’s eyes slowly morphed from concerned to questioning. I’m not very good at secrets. He advanced on her carefully, step-by-step from across the room. Each move made her heart pound.
How could a simple walk be sexy enough for her body to react?
“Are you lying?” he asked, drawing out each word.
Nerves caused her throat to close up, refusing to let out the words. She shook her head. She couldn’t let Paxton find out about her family. Not yet. The fallout wasn’t something she was ready to face.
“I think you are.” His voice deepened, taking on a sexy, teasing tone that she’d thought she’d never hear again. “What do I need to do to get to the truth?”
He couldn’t ever know the truth. Then again, if he kept walking like that, she might break her resolve in a heartbeat.
Paxton’s eyes widened as he reached the halfway point, awareness suddenly flaring in his
eyes. Awareness of the game he was playing. Danger seemed to shimmer between them. Ivy knew she shouldn’t mess with the undercurrents she felt, but this game wasn’t in her hands anymore.
Paxton kept moving forward, holding her gaze, until he came close enough to bury his hands in her hair.
His husky voice sent shivers over her body as he asked, “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
* * *
“What’s going on in here?”
For a moment Paxton thought he’d only imagined his sister’s voice—a figment of his guilty imagination. But no. One glance to the side showed Alicia staring wide-eyed at him from just inside the door to his office suite.
Caught with his hands in the cookie jar...
Sierra would have been far preferable, as she was the more forgiving, tactful sibling. He jerked back, only to have Ivy cry out and press a palm to her scalp.
“I’m sorry, Ivy,” he murmured, but there was no time to lose in diverting Alicia’s attention. He turned fully toward his sister in order to block her view of Ivy.
“Alicia, what brings you here?” he asked, forcing himself to appear calm and collected, when inside his body was instantly primed and ready for a fight.
Actually, he realized it was primed and ready to protect Ivy. Which was not how he would have imagined this same scenario six months ago. Then everything would have truly been calm and collected. Actually, this entire scenario would never have happened.
His sister raised her blond brow, a typical expression of hers that matched her slightly acerbic personality. “Apparently I’m not coming in often enough,” she said.
In an attempt to derail her from having this conversation in front of Ivy, Paxton crossed to his sister and marched her to his inner office with a hand on her arm.
“What I do in my office isn’t any of your business,” he stated under his breath, hoping to spare Ivy any embarrassment.
His sister didn’t share his qualms. She used what his mother would have called her “outside voice” to say, “Since Grandmother still controls the board of this company, I think she’d be very interested in what happens in this office.”
Paxton shuffled her inside the inner sanctum and closed the door with a little more force than necessary. Alicia had always been the more difficult sibling. They had butted heads many times over the years, though he would say that overall their relationship was a good one.
“Don’t start with me,” he warned.
She adopted a who me? expression. “I’m just trying to figure out if this is the ‘work’ that’s been keeping you so occupied.”
“Let it go,” he growled.
Alicia wandered around the room, trailing her fingers over his bookshelf. “Why?” She tossed him a mischievous glance over her shoulder. The kind that had always spelled trouble for him when they were teenagers. “Torturing you is so much fun.”
“This isn’t a game, Alicia.”
Certainly not one he wanted to play. If his grandmother got wind of any involvement with his assistant, it would go very badly for Ivy. Not that Paxton couldn’t protect her, but his grandmother would make her life miserable in the meantime.
“I think it might be, especially since Mother is trying to set you up with that Baxter chick.”
How did that get around? Paxton settled into his chair with a creak of leather and a sigh. “Nice to know my, um, professional life is so interesting to everyone.”
“Your recent absence—and how unusual that is—has made you a very common topic...just among family, though.”
That’s reassuring. Paxton leaned back to stare at the ceiling. “Ah, the joys of a close-knit family.”
His sister crossed over to rest her hip against his desk. “Any information you’d like to grant me permission to share would definitely up my credibility with the old lady.”
“Well, this—” he waved his hand toward the window, where they could see Ivy working at her desk “—is not something anyone needs to worry about. A complete nonissue. Now—” he gave her a stern look “—what did you come by for?”
In an unusual move, Alicia turned her attention down to her impeccable manicure. ”I just wondered if you had noticed anything off with Sierra?”
Paxton thought back over the cryptic words Sierra had spoken to him at the doctor’s office and how often her husband had been absent lately. Paxton may not have been very involved with family matters since returning from his trip, but that was one thing he’d kept on the edge of his awareness.
“Not really,” he hedged, not wanting to give a hint of what he suspected in case it caused problems for Sierra. “Why?”
“She’s just been pretty emotional lately.”
“She is pregnant,” he reminded her. Alicia should know all about those strange pregnancy mood swings after two children of her own.
“Even so... I’d hate for her to do anything rash based solely on pregnancy hormones.”
Paxton leaned forward, training his gaze on his sister and her unusually meandering conversation. Normally she was much more direct than this. “Because you think she might...”
Finally Alicia met his gaze. “She’s made quite a few remarks about her husband being absent. How he lost interest in them once he knew this baby was also a girl. How when he is home, he’s always locked up in his study. That kind of thing.”
Now, that was news to Paxton. But then he thought back to what she’d said that day at the hospital. Just because the whole business-before-pleasure thing worked for our parents and grandparents doesn’t mean it’s the wonderful life they told us it would be. Marrying for money is just as complicated as marrying for love.
“If that’s true, it sounds like she’s got good reason to be unhappy,” he mused, upset he was just now paying true attention to the signs.
“Feelings should not be a reason to make major changes,” Alicia insisted. “Especially with her husband this close to sitting on the board.” She held her fingers up an inch apart.
Better now than later. Though he didn’t say it, Paxton had the uncomfortable urge to defend his sister’s right to make decisions based on how she felt. He settled for saying, “No matter how logical it seems for the business—and Jason has done a great job in his position—that doesn’t mean she has to be miserable for the rest of her life.” He stood up, feeling the need to brace himself. “That’s what the prenup is for.”
“You’re not helping, Paxton.” Obviously that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
But he couldn’t stop the thoughts from crowding in—thoughts contrary to everything he’d been taught his whole life. “Maybe it’s time we started worrying about our sister more than we do the bottom line.”
He stomped out his agitation as he walked to the door. He was more than ready for this conversation to be over. Luckily his sister went with him. He wasn’t prepared for her to go back to the earlier subject, though.
“Is ignoring the bottom line going to protect you with the hired help?” she asked, nodding her head toward Ivy. “You know, when she gets herself pregnant and all.”
Alicia probably thought she was being funny, but Paxton felt a flare of anger that loosened his tongue, just as it had when they were teens.
“I won’t need a prenup,” he said, frustration over his current situation and how his family would view it prodding him hard. “I’m smart enough to know my assistant isn’t marriage material.”
Only when he caught Alicia’s smirk did he realize she had opened the office door before he spoke those infamous last words.
Eleven
Ivy could tell from Paxton’s body language that he was upset and quickly putting up his emotional guard. Only, she couldn’t tell if it was to continue the confrontation with his sister, or because he’d been caught red-handed by Ivy. Of course, he could probably read the same emotions in her body, too
...if he was paying any attention at all.
His sister left without a word. That was Alicia’s usual exit when Paxton wasn’t around, but it was even more pointed today, given what had transpired. He didn’t watch her go. Instead he stood right outside the door to his office, those watchful eyes cataloging Ivy’s every move.
She knew exactly what emotions she was telegraphing. Big. Time. Anger. Not marriage material.
Humiliation burned like lava slowly spreading over her nerves. To have Paxton talk about her that way with his sister dug deep into Ivy’s insecurities. Having him reduce her to her job, her station in life, left her ready to explode, but she deliberately locked those emotions down tightly.
She’d suspected that his family viewed her as less than from the first, but not Paxton. Never Paxton.
Silence settled after the door closed behind Alicia. Ivy didn’t rush to fill it. She wanted to choose her words carefully, but the emotions churning inside of her muddled the connection between her brain and her mouth.
Finally she just opened her lips and let loose. “So, I’m good enough to knock up, but not good enough to marry?”
She hated the way her voice shook, but this was a conversation she wasn’t walking away from. Not if they were to have any future relationship at all, even just one that consisted of co-parenting.
In contrast, his voice was even as he said, “I would never describe you like that.”
“Why not?” She paused to swallow hard, desperately trying to keep her voice a few steps down from a yell. “Even if Alicia doesn’t know the whole story, we both know it’s what you meant. Assistants are not marriageable material, right? I should have known that’s what the disappearing act was about...”
Paxton gave a single sharp shake of his head. “No, Ivy.” As if he couldn’t resist, he braced his body in his typical boardroom stance—legs locked, arms crossed over his chest. “Look, I’m sorry. I was trying to extricate myself from an uncomfortable conversation by saying what my sister would expect to hear.”