The Illegitimate Billionaire (Whiskey Bay Brides Book 4; Billionaire & Babies)

by Barbara Dunlop

  She refused to listen. “There’s no thing. There is nothing.”

  “I kept trying to stay logical, to stay detached.”

  “Bully for you.” She hadn’t had the opportunity to stay logical and detached, because she’d been conned from minute one.

  “But I couldn’t.”

  “Stop talking.”

  “It took me way too long to recognize it, but I fell in love with you.”

  What was left of her heart shattered into pieces.

  “You can’t do that,” she cried. “You can’t say that. You can’t wait until after everything else has failed and then throw that out on the table.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can’t. And I won’t. Callie, I’m so sorry I let you down.”

  * * *

  If the banging on the front door hadn’t been so insistent, Deacon wouldn’t have bothered answering. The house was eerily quiet with Callie and the boys gone. It had been less than twenty-four hours, and Deacon hadn’t yet decided how to move forward.

  This morning, he’d found one of Ethan’s socks under a sofa cushion. He’d stared at it for a long time, trying to decide whether to wash it and mail it to Charleston or toss it out. Right now, it was sitting on a table in the family room, while he made up his mind.

  Through the prismed window of his front door, he recognized Aaron. Deacon didn’t particularly want to talk to him, but he didn’t care enough to make an issue of it either. He’d rather face Aaron now and send him away than risk him coming back later and disturbing Deacon all over again.

  Deacon opened the door.

  He was shocked to see Beau standing next to his brother.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked them bluntly.

  “We want to talk,” Aaron said.

  Deacon coughed out a laugh of disbelief. “We’ve got nothing to talk about.”

  “I think we do,” Beau said.

  Deacon took in their determined stares. He didn’t care enough to fight this either. He stepped back. “Come on in.”

  They glanced at each other, then stepped into the foyer.

  The library was closest, but it was a small room, too intimate for Deacon’s liking. He led them back to the living room, with its generous size, cavernous ceilings and huge bank of windows. Whatever they had to say could get lost in the space.

  He gestured to a burgundy leather sofa and took the armchair across from it, putting a wide glass-topped table between them.

  “We brought you something,” Aaron said, placing a document on the table.

  “You don’t expect me to sign off on converting the shares.” Deacon couldn’t believe they had the nerve to show up and ask that. He was beginning to work up the energy to fight.

  “It’s not the shares,” Aaron said. “After the last time you and I discussed vertical integration, I did some research.”

  “Why are you telling me this? I’m out. You both know I’m out.”

  “Will you listen?” Beau barked.

  “Shut up,” Aaron told his brother.

  “He makes everything difficult,” Beau said.

  “You can leave anytime,” Deacon told Beau.

  “I remembered something Frederick worked on six years ago.” Aaron pointed to the document. “It’s dated, but it has a lot of the same ideas you had. It even mentions Mobi Transportation. Back then, Frederick suggested bringing you into the family fold.”

  Deacon tried to make sense of that statement.

  “Now he’s listening,” Beau said.

  “Frederick didn’t even know me,” Deacon said.

  “He knew of you. He went off to college and came back with a sense of social justice and some big ideas for the port. He shared them with Father, who crushed him like a bug. Father called Frederick pathetic.”

  Beau sat forward. “But Frederick stood up to him. He said we had to modernize, and he said it was the family’s responsibility to include you, because you were Father’s son. Father went ballistic.”

  Deacon was speechless.

  “I should have stood up for him back then,” Aaron said.

  “We should have stood up for him back then,” Beau said.

  “He was right about modernizing,” Aaron said. “And he was right about you.”

  “That’s why he walked out?” Deacon asked, trying to wrap his mind around it.

  “He had more guts than either of us,” Beau said.

  “We didn’t stand up for Frederick,” Aaron said. “We’re not going to make the same mistake again. Not with our long-lost brother.”

  Deacon couldn’t believe he’d heard right.

  But Beau came to his feet and stuck his hand out to shake. “We’re with you in this, brother. We want to stand together.”

  Deacon rose, and so did Aaron.

  “I’m out,” Deacon said. “Didn’t Tyrell tell you? I won’t move to the castle, so he’s converting my shares.”

  “Callie can’t move to the castle,” Aaron said.

  “No kidding,” Deacon said.

  “Miranda’s wanted to leave for a while now,” Aaron said. “She’s tired of dealing with Mother and Father all the time. I didn’t have it in me before, but I do now. We’re moving out.”

  “Well, I’m not staying there by myself,” Beau said.

  “What will the old man do?” Deacon asked Aaron.

  “He can’t do anything if we stick together.”

  “Are we going to shake on this?” Beau asked, sticking his hand out more firmly.

  Deacon shook. “I’m flattered. I’m really overwhelmed.” His emotions couldn’t seem to sort themselves out. “But, like I said, it’s too late.”

  Aaron smiled. He shook Deacon’s hand then added his other hand overtop. “You haven’t been paying attention.” Aaron paused for what looked like effect. “Tyrell needs a two-thirds majority to convert your shares. We won’t give it to him.”

  Beau pointed around the circle at the three of them. “And between us, we’ve got more than two-thirds.”

  Deacon could not believe what he was hearing.

  “We’re in favor of vertical integration,” Aaron said. “Want to come with us and tell Dad?”

  “We?” Deacon started speaking slowly. “The three of us? We’re going up against Tyrell?”

  “He’s traveling, but will be back in two days,” Aaron said. “I think we should do this in person. You in?”

  “He’s going to flip.” Beau grinned as he said it.

  “Where’s Callie?” Aaron asked, glancing around.

  “She moved back to Charleston.”

  Beau frowned. “Why?”

  “She left.” Deacon saw no point in hiding the truth. “She didn’t like being used as a pawn. She particularly didn’t like me exploiting her children for personal gain.”

  Aaron looked confused. “But I thought the two of you were...”

  “Not so much,” Deacon said, fighting to hide his despair.

  “Man, I’m going to miss those little guys,” Beau said.

  Deacon missed them so much, he could barely breathe.

  And Callie, Callie...

  He might have his birthright and two new brothers, and he was grateful for both of those things. But none of it made up for losing Callie.

  He’d made mistake after mistake. He’d hurt her badly, and he deserved his misery.

  * * *

  Being back at the bakery was surreal for Callie. In some ways, the past two months seemed like a dream—a breathtaking, bewildering, heartbreaking dream.

  Her chest was hollow where her heart used to be, but everything else was normal. She looked the same. She talked the same. She acted the same. And the world around her hadn’t changed at all.

  Hannah nudg
ed her elbow, and Callie realized she was standing at the counter, staring off into space, while a customer waited for service.

  “Nancy?” Hannah prompted, gesturing to the customer.

  Nancy stepped up to help.

  In the meantime, Hannah reached into the display case and extracted two oversize vanilla cupcakes with mountains of buttercream and caramel sprinkles.

  “We need to talk,” she said to Callie.

  “About what?” Callie asked.

  “This way.” Cupcakes on plates, Hannah headed around the end of the counter, into the dining area.

  When Callie joined her at a corner table, Hannah handed her a fork and pushed one of the cupcakes in front of her.

  “If ever there was a woman in need of buttercream...” Hannah said.

  Callie had to admit, the cupcake looked unusually appealing. “I haven’t had one of these in a very long time.” She took a forkful of the rich, fluffy frosting and lifted it to her mouth.

  “You haven’t been this despondent in a very long time,” Hannah said, digging into her own cupcake.

  “I’m not despondent.” Callie thought she was putting on a very brave front, especially considering how she felt inside.

  Deacon was out of her life. It had only been three days, but it felt like a year. She’d lost count of the times James and Ethan had asked about Deacon.

  Hannah’s expression was full of sympathy. “What really happened?”

  “It didn’t work out.” Callie had decided to keep her explanation simple.

  “You were head over heels for that guy.”

  Callie felt her eyes mist up, and she covered her emotions with a bite of cupcake.

  Hannah waited.

  “It was a mistake,” Callie said.

  “It’s never a mistake to fall in love.”

  “It is with the wrong guy.”

  Hannah tilted her head, her puzzlement clear. “Deacon was the right guy. He wasn’t Hank, he wasn’t—”

  “He was worse than Hank.” The words were out before Callie could think better of them.

  “You’re going to have to explain that.” Hannah’s tone was gentle but implacable.

  Callie stopped eating. Her stomach couldn’t take it.

  “It was a con, Hannah. It was all a ruse.” Once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Deacon’s biological father, the rich and infamous Tyrell Clarkson—Frederick’s father, too, by the way.”

  Hannah slowly set down her fork.

  “Frederick was legitimate, but Deacon wasn’t. Frederick hated his father, so he never told me anything about his family. I’m glad he didn’t. It was the right decision to keep us apart. It would have been better if I’d never met any of them. But then Tyrell promised Deacon a share of the family fortune if he brought me back to Hale Harbor.”

  “How big of a share?”

  “That’s your question?”

  Hannah gave a shrug. “Don’t you wonder how much it took?”

  “It was a lot.”

  “Millions?”

  “Hundreds of millions.”

  Hannah’s brow shot up.

  “I suppose it’s good to know I’m worth that much.” Callie gave a slightly hysterical laugh, quickly covering her mouth. “It wasn’t so much me. It was the boys. Tyrell’s grandsons. His only grandchildren.”

  Hannah’s palm went to her chest. “Oh, Callie. Deacon only pretended to love you?”

  Callie gave a miserable nod.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “He told me he didn’t love me.”

  “That’s brutal.”

  “It was...” Callie’s brain flashed a kaleidoscope of Deacon. “And then...in the end...when it was all falling apart, he even used that as a tactic.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Callie felt her misery turn to bitterness. “When Deacon couldn’t deliver, when he couldn’t get me to move the boys to the castle, Tyrell pulled out the rug. He took back Deacon’s share of the company. And at that point, Deacon said he loved me.” She snapped her fingers in the air. “Suddenly, he’d fallen in love with me.”

  “The castle?”

  Callie gave a small shudder at the memory. “The Clarksons have an actual castle. You should have seen it. It’s positively medieval. I could never in a thousand years live there.”

  As she spoke, her mind was drawn back to the night she’d spent in Deacon’s arms, making such sweet sexy love with him in that castle. Their whispered conversations, the laughter, his warmth, his scent, his taste—for those few short hours, she thought it was going to work out. She thought they could make a life together.

  “Callie?” Hannah interrupted Callie’s memories. “You zoned out on me there.”

  Callie dragged herself back to reality. “It was nothing but a ruse.”

  “He admitted he didn’t love you.”

  “Yes.” Callie picked up her fork and determinedly dug into the cupcake again. She wasn’t going to let Deacon, or anyone else, ruin buttercream.

  “But then he said he did,” Hannah confirmed.

  “Only to get me to the castle.”

  “Walk me through it.”

  “What do you mean?” Callie asked.

  “I’m trying to figure out why he’d change his story.”

  “It’s simple. When Tyrell said ‘move her to the castle or lose all the money,’ Deacon suddenly decided he’d loved me all along.”

  “So he tried to convince you to move to the castle?”

  “No.” Callie cast her mind back to the conversation. “He told me to take the boys to Charleston and never come back.”

  She went over it a second time in case her memory was flawed. But that was how it had happened.

  “Before or after he told you he loved you?” Hannah asked.

  “Before. It was before.”

  “So, he’d already given up the money.” Sounding like she’d made an important point, Hannah scooped a bite of her cupcake.

  “No. He still had the option of getting me to change my mind.”

  “Which he didn’t do. You said he didn’t even try.”

  In the strictest sense, Callie knew that was true. But it was more complicated than that. “He didn’t bother, because he knew it was hopeless.”

  “That’s not what I’m hearing.”

  “What are you hearing?”

  “I’m hearing he gave up hundreds of millions. He told you to go back to Charleston. Then he told you he loved you.”

  “Which, believe me, if I’d let it, would have led to a pitch to move me to the castle.”

  “Maybe,” Hannah said, sounding unconvinced.

  “I was there.”

  “You were upset.”

  That was true enough. Callie didn’t think she’d ever felt more upset in her life. Trevor’s revelation had rocked her to her core. She hadn’t told Hannah about Trevor. She tried to calculate how that would change the situation.

  “You don’t know what might have happened,” Hannah said, polishing off her cupcake. “Eat.”

  “I know what did happen.”

  “Eat,” Hannah said.

  Callie took a bite.

  “When you finish that cupcake,” Hannah said. “I want you to consider that a man who gives up hundreds of millions of dollars for your well-being, then tells you he loves you, might...in fact...”

  Callie couldn’t let her mind go there. She couldn’t survive another fantasy, another disappointment, another heartbreak.

  “Love you,” Hannah finished.

  Callie took another bite of the cupcake, and another, and another, until it was gone.

  “Well?” Hannah said.

  “I can’t go back. I can’t let myself hope...” Callie wanted so desperately to hope, bu
t she knew the stakes were far too high. She’d never survive another heartbreak.

  “Then don’t go back,” Hannah said.

  Callie was surprised. She was also a little disappointed. She realized she wanted Hannah to talk her into going to Deacon. That was beyond frightening.

  “Call him. Text him.”

  “And say what?” It was the most preposterous idea Callie had ever heard.

  “Anything. Text: What’s up? Where are you? What are you doing? All you need is an icebreaker.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “Then text: Can we talk? If I’m right, he’ll be on the next plane. If I’m wrong, he’ll send some lame brush off answer, and you’ll know for sure.”

  “He wouldn’t have to wait for the next plane.” Callie couldn’t believe she was considering it. “He’d charter his own.”

  * * *

  Tyrell swaggered into the boardroom, his expression dark. “What’s this?” he demanded of Deacon, Aaron and Beau.

  Deacon’s phone pinged.

  “We have some information to share with you,” Aaron said.

  Deacon watched Tyrell’s suspicions rise. Deacon didn’t feel the slightest sense of satisfaction or vindication. But he did feel a sense of justice.

  His phone pinged again, and he glanced down.

  His heart stopped when he saw Callie’s name. Everything in the room disappeared.

  He focused on her message.

  Can we talk? her text said.

  Yes, they could talk. Of course they could talk. They absolutely could talk. He came to his feet, pushing the chair out behind him.

  “Deacon?” Aaron’s voice penetrated.

  Deacon looked up to three expressions of astonishment.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “What?” Beau demanded.

  “I’m...” Deacon started for the door. “I’ll...talk later. I have to go.”

  He all but sprinted down the hall. He didn’t know what would happen in the boardroom behind him, but he didn’t particularly care.

  He texted while he walked: I’m on my way. Where are you?

  He hopped into his car, tossing his phone on the passenger seat, watching it to see her answer. It was taking too long. It was taking way too long for her to respond.

  He stopped at a light and picked up the phone, thinking something had gone wrong. He’d have to resend.