Expecting the Billionaire's Baby

by Andrea Laurence

  Her parents didn’t want her to tell Chip the truth, but that might be her only option if Maverick didn’t back down. Chip’s family was not only wealthy, but they had connections. If she confided her secret in him perhaps he could help to protect her. The Ashfords could crush Maverick like a bug...if they wanted to. She hoped they would, because she didn’t know who else to turn to. She would have to tell him tonight at dinner before things got worse.

  She was counting on him to be her savior.

  * * *

  Cecelia was a ball of nerves as she pulled her BMW into the parking lot of the Texas Cattleman’s Club.

  The club wasn’t where she would’ve chosen to have this important discussion with Chip, but he had made the arrangements without asking her. Inside, she found Chip seated in the far corner booth of the dining room. She let the host escort her back to the table. Chip got up as she approached and gave her a short embrace and a chaste kiss on the cheek. “There you are, kitten. You’re late. I was starting to worry.”

  Cecelia looked at her watch as she sat down and it was exactly five thirty. She wasn’t about to argue with him, though. To Chip, if you didn’t arrive five minutes early, you were late. “I’m sorry. I got hung up with Simone. She wanted to talk to me before she left for California with Naomi.”

  Chip settled into the booth across from her and smiled. “And what did the lovely Simone have to tell you today?”

  Cecelia considered her words. “Well, I wanted to wait to talk to you about this until after we ordered.”

  “I already ordered for us both,” Chip interjected. “I got you the grilled mahimahi since you’re watching your weight for the wedding.”

  Cecelia tried to swallow her irritation. She hated when Chip made decisions for her. Especially when those decisions were based on imaginary weight she had no intention of losing, thankyouverymuch. It was a portent of her future with him that she tried hard to ignore. She feared she would be going from spending all her time trying to please her parents, to trying to please her husband.

  “Then I suppose I don’t have to wait,” she said, ignoring his comments. “Simone told me that Maverick is blackmailing somebody new.”

  Chip nodded thoughtfully and accepted the gin and tonic the waiter brought him before placing a glass of white wine in front of Cecelia. “I saw something come up this afternoon, but I was too busy to pay much attention to it. What does that have to do with Simone? Is she his latest victim? I wouldn’t be surprised if she got into some trouble.”

  Cecelia steeled her nerves, thankful for the glass of wine even though she would’ve preferred a red. She took a healthy sip before she started the discussion. “No, he’s actually blackmailing me.”

  “What?” Chip shushed her, leaning into her across the table. “Not so loud, people will hear you.” He scanned the dining area for anyone who might hear. Fortunately, it was still early for the dinner crowd at the club. The closest table was involved in a lively discussion about steer and not paying any attention to them. “What is going on?” he asked when he seemed certain it was safe to continue their discussion.

  Cecelia followed suit, leaning in and speaking in low, hushed tones. “I got a message from him. It seems he found something out about me from a long time ago, and he’s trying to blackmail me with it. Well, I supposed he’s been successful since I’ve already made one payment to him, but it doesn’t seem like it was enough, given the post this afternoon.”

  Chip’s expression was stiff and stoic, without any of the sympathy or concern for her that she was hoping for. “What is he blackmailing you about? You told me you had a squeaky-clean past. It’s absolutely critical, if you’re going to be the wife of a senator, that you don’t have anything in your life that can be detrimental to my career.”

  Cecelia sighed. How did this become about him and his career? “I know. It’s not really something I think about very often. It was completely out of my control. My parents chose to keep it secret to protect me, but in the end, I don’t think it’s that bad. It’s hardly a skeleton in my closet, Chip.”

  Chip eyed her expectantly, but she hesitated. She hadn’t said the words out loud in thirteen years. Only ever said them once, the night she confided in Deacon. Somehow she wasn’t sure this would go as well. “I’m adopted,” she whispered.

  Chip flinched as though she had slapped him across the face. “Adopted? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Cecelia gritted her teeth at his reaction. She could already tell this was a mistake. “No one was ever to find out. I was adopted by the Morgans when I was only a few weeks old. They decided to raise me as their own child and have never told anybody about my history...because of who my mother was.”

  “What’s wrong with your mother?”

  “She had a drug problem. I was taken away from her when I was only two weeks old. My parents told me that she was so distraught, she overdosed not long after that.”

  A furious expression came over Chip’s face. “Are you telling me that your mother was a junkie?”

  There was no way to make that part go down easier. “I guess so. She was never a part of my life, but yes, my mother had a serious and deadly drug problem.”

  Chip didn’t appear to even hear her words. “I cannot believe you would lie to me about something like this.” He flushed an ugly red with anger. She’d never seen her polished and professional fiancé like this. “I thought you were like me. I thought you were from a good family and would make a perfect wife. But you’re nothing but an impostor playing a role. How could you agree to marry me when you were keeping something like that a secret?”

  Cecelia’s jaw dropped open in shock. She thought he might be surprised by the news, maybe even concerned about the potential backlash, but she certainly didn’t think that he would accuse her of deceiving him. “I am not an impostor, Chip Ashford. You have known me my whole life. I was raised by the Morgans in the same Houston suburb you were. I went to all the best schools like you did. I am nothing like my birth mother, and I never will be. I couldn’t control who my mother was any more than you could.”

  Chip just shook his head. “You can dress it up, but a liar is always a liar.”

  Cecelia’s blood ran cold in her veins. “Chip, please, don’t be like this. I didn’t intentionally deceive you. My parents just thought it was best that no one know.”

  “Thank goodness for Maverick,” Chip said. “Without him I never would’ve found out the truth about you. You and your parents would’ve let me marry you knowing that everything I believed about you was a lie.”

  Her eyes welled up with tears she couldn’t fight. Was Chip about to break up with her over this? She couldn’t believe it, but that’s what it sounded like. “Chip...”

  “Don’t,” he snapped. “Don’t look at me like that with tears in your eyes and try to convince me that you are a victim in this. I’m sorry, Cecelia, but the engagement is off. I can’t marry somebody I can’t trust. You’re a liability to every future campaign I run, and I’m not about to destroy my career for a woman who is living a lie.”

  Cecelia looked down at the gigantic diamond-and-platinum ring that she’d worn for the past six months of their engagement. She hadn’t particularly liked the ring, but she couldn’t say so. It was gaudy, but it was as expected for someone of his station. She didn’t want to keep it, not when his words were like a knife to the heart. She grasped it between her fingers and tugged it off her hand, handing it across the table.

  Chip took it and stuffed it into his pocket. “Thank you for being reasonable about that.”

  At least one of them could be reasonable, she thought as the pain of his rejection slowly morphed into anger. She never would’ve confided in Chip if she’d known he would react like this. Now, all she could hope for was damage control. “I hope that I can still count on you to keep this secret,” Cecelia said. “Odds
are it will get out eventually, but I would prefer it to be on my terms if you don’t mind. For my parents’ sake.”

  Chip got up from the table and shrugged it off. “What good would it do me to tell anybody? I’ve wasted enough time here. Have the waiter put dinner on my tab.” He turned on his heel and marched out of the restaurant, leaving Cecelia to sit alone with their cocktails, a basket of bread sticks and an order for food they wouldn’t even eat.

  A hollow feeling echoed through her as she looked at his empty seat. Cecelia thought she would be more upset about her broken engagement, but she was just numb. The truth was that she didn’t love Chip. Their relationship was more about strategic family connections than romance, but it still smarted to have him dump her like this when she was at her lowest point. They had planned a future together. They discussed how after The Bellamy deal they were going to sit down and make some solid wedding plans. Instead of finally getting one step closer to the family that she longed for, she was starting over.

  Even if Chip kept his word and didn’t spread her secret all over town, it would be embarrassing enough for everyone to find out about her broken engagement. Everyone would speculate about why they broke up if neither of them was talking. She wondered what Chip would tell them.

  In the end, she was certain that her secret would come out anyway. One way or another everyone was going to find out that Cecelia was the adopted daughter of a junkie. Royal was a place where everybody was always in everyone else’s business. They had all the drama and glamour that the Houston society provided, with all of the small-town nosiness that Cecelia could do without.

  When the truth came to light, she wondered who would still be standing beside her. The members of the Texas Cattleman’s Club were supposed to be like a family, but they were a fickle one.

  Then there was the matter of her real family. How would her parents ever recover from the fallout? They’d built their lives on maintaining a perfect facade. Would their family, circle of friends and business contacts ever forgive the decades-long deception?

  Reeling from the events of the evening, Cecelia picked up her purse and got up from the table, leaving a stack of bills to cover the tab. She could’ve let Chip pay for it all, but she didn’t want to face the waiter and explain why she was suddenly alone with a tableful of food coming out of the kitchen.

  As she got into her car, she leaned back against the soft leather seat and took a deep breath. At this moment, she needed her friends more than ever. But as Simone had said earlier, she and Naomi were already on a plane to California. They wouldn’t be back for several days.

  She couldn’t talk to her parents about this. They would be more distraught about her breakup with Chip than how painful this was for her. She loved her parents, but they were far more concerned with appearances than anything else. She was certain that when word of her broken engagement got around to them, she would get an earful. She could just imagine her mother scrambling to get back in the Ashfords’ good graces.

  At the moment, Cecelia didn’t really give a damn about the Ashfords. If they couldn’t accept her the way she was, she didn’t want to marry into their family anyway. So what if she wasn’t of the good breeding that Chip thought she was? She was still the same person he had always known. The woman he had proposed to.

  As she pulled her car out of the parking lot of the club, she found herself turning left instead of right toward the Pine Valley subdivision where she lived in a French château-inspired home. There wasn’t much to the left, but Cecelia was in desperate need of a stretch of road to drive and clear her mind.

  After a few miles, she realized that maybe all this was for the best. Perhaps Maverick was doing her a favor in the end. It was better that she and Chip break up now, while they were still engaged, than to have a messy divorce on her hands. And God forbid they’d started a family. Would Chip reject his own children if he found out that they were tainted by their mother’s inferior bloodline?

  Cecelia shuddered at the thought. The one thing she wanted, the one thing she’d always wanted, was a family of her own. She longed for blood relatives whom she was bound to by more than just a slip of paper. People who would love her without stipulations and requirements. Her parents did love her, of that she had no doubt. But the Morgans’ high standards were hard to live up to. She had always strived to meet them, but lately she wondered how they would feel about her if she fell short. Would they still love and protect their perfect Cecelia if she wasn’t so perfect?

  As she made her way to the edge of town, she noticed lights on in the distance at the old Wilson House and slowed her car to investigate. She didn’t realize anybody had bought that property. No one had lived in the large, luxurious cabin for several years, but someone was definitely there now.

  She wasn’t sure why she did it, but she turned her car down the winding gravel road that led to the old house. Maybe it was Maverick’s secret hideout. There, out front, she spied a fully restored 1965 Corvette Stingray convertible roadster. She knew nothing of cars, but she remembered a poster of one almost exactly like this on Deacon’s bedroom wall in high school. That one had been cherry red—his dream car.

  This one was a dark burgundy, but she knew the moment she saw it that the car belonged to Deacon. Instantly, she realized there was no place else she wanted to be in the whole world.

  Deacon had known the truth about her. Years ago when they were in high school and completely infatuated with one another, they had confessed all their secrets. Cecelia had told him about her adoption and about her mother. She had even shown him the only picture she had of her mother. The old, worn photograph, given to her by her parents on her thirteenth birthday, had been found in her mother’s hand when she died. It was a picture of her holding her brand-new baby girl, just a week before she was taken away.

  Cecelia had spent a lot of time staring at that photo, looking for the similarities between her and her mother. Looking for the differences that made her better. She’d always been mystified by her mother’s happy smile as she held her baby. How could she throw that all away? Every now and then she pulled the photo out to look at it when she was alone. Deacon hadn’t judged her. Deacon had accepted her for who she was—the rich, spoiled daughter of the Morgan family and the poor, adopted daughter taken away from her drug-addled mother. Deacon had loved her just the same.

  In this moment, she wanted nothing more than to feel that acceptance again. Without thinking, she drove up to the front of the house and got out of her car. She flew up the steps and knocked on the front door, not knowing what his reaction would be when he saw her. Judging by their interaction earlier that day, she didn’t expect a warm welcome.

  But she didn’t care.

  A moment later, the large door opened wide, revealing Deacon standing there in nothing but a pair of worn blue jeans. She had admired his new build during her briefing that day, but she could only guess what he was hiding beneath his designer suit. Now his hard, chiseled physique was on display, from his firm pecs to his defined six-pack. His chest and stomach were sprinkled with golden-brown chest hair she didn’t remember from their times together in the past. Her palms itched to run her hands across him and see how different he felt.

  Then her eyes met his, and the light of attraction and appreciation flickered there. Cecelia felt a surge of desire and bravery run through her, urging her on, so she didn’t hesitate.

  Before Deacon could even say hello, Cecelia launched herself into his arms.

  Four

  The last thing Deacon expected when he opened his front door was to find Cecelia standing there. If he had suspected that, perhaps he would’ve put a shirt on. Or perhaps not.

  Instead, he’d been standing there half-naked when he opened the door and looked into the seductive gray eyes of his past. She’d seemed broken somehow, not as confident as she’d been during her earlier presentation. She’d
appeared to almost tremble as her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Before he could ask what was wrong, or why she was here, she’d launched herself at him, and was kissing him.

  At that point all Deacon could do was react. And in that moment, with the woman he had once loved in his arms again after all this time, he couldn’t push her away. Their encounter that afternoon had only lit the fires of his need for her once again. The years of anger and resentment took a back seat to desire, at least for the moment. He had no idea what had brought her to his doorstep tonight, but he was thankful for it.

  Now her mouth was hot and demanding as she continued to kiss him. These were nothing like the sweet, hesitant kisses of their teenage years. Cecelia was a grown woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it. And from the looks of it, she wanted Deacon.

  She buried her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer as she pressed her body against his bare chest. He could feel the globes of her full breasts molding against the hard wall of his chest through the thin silk of the blouse he had admired earlier that day. As her tongue slipped into his mouth, he felt a growl form in the back of his throat. She certainly knew how to coax the beast out of him. He tried not to think about how Chip Ashford could’ve been the one to teach her these new tricks.

  That was the thought that yanked Deacon away from Cecelia’s kiss. He took a step back, bracing her shoulders and holding her away from him. “What are you doing here, Cecelia?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be making out with your rich fiancé right now, instead of me?”

  Cecelia silently held up her hand, wiggling the bare finger that had previously held the gigantic diamond he’d noticed that afternoon at the presentation. So, that meant the engagement was off, and just since he’d seen her last. That was an interesting development, although one he was certain had little to do with his arrival in town. Only in his fantasies would Cecelia cast aside Chip for him.