Saving Her: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Romance

by R. R. Banks

  “If I take my hand away, are you going to scream again?” he asked.

  I shook my head compliantly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, you motherfu-“

  The man pressed his hand against my mouth harder to force me silent.

  “That wasn’t very convincing, Eleanor. Now, I’m going to let you try that again. Are you going to scream if I take my hand away?”

  I shook my head and the man drew his hand slowly away from my mouth. When I didn’t make any noise, he slowly withdrew his arms from my body until I was free of his grip.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked, turning to look at him.

  As soon as I saw him, my stomach dropped a little further.

  Well, shit.

  “Hi, Eleanor,” Hunter said.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  I knew that my voice sounded a little icier than it probably should have, but I hadn’t been prepared to see the young, gorgeous man in front of me again, and the circumstances being what they were, I wasn’t feeling exactly friendly.

  “I’m assuming the same thing that you are,” he said, appropriately defensive in response to my bitchiness. “Noah and Snow sent me on this cruise as a thank-you celebration after their wedding. Though…” he hesitated, scrutinizing me, “I admit that I don’t really understand why they would send you. I was under the impression that it was just me, Snow’s friends Robin and Fawn, and a couple of Noah’s relatives. I didn’t realize that you and Noah were so close. I know that I’m certainly not that close with my third grade teacher.”

  I forced myself to withhold the grimace that tried to contort my face. That split-second lie had come right on back and bit me in the ass. Of course, that meant that I was going to have to come up with another one. That’s how lies work. They are like potato chips. There’s never just one. You always end up reaching into the bag and coming up with another. Sometimes you have to slather a little dip on it. Since I didn’t really know how to talk myself out of what I had already told him or how to explain in a few seconds what was actually happening, I went for the dip.

  “We spent a lot of time together when he was younger,” I said. “I was his teacher, but I was also his babysitter. And my husband was his Cub Scout leader.”

  Too far?

  Hunter narrowed his eyes at me from behind the glasses that I still hated. This man was in serious need of contacts. His eyes were a gorgeous crystalline green and framed by lashes so long and full they looked like they had come packaged and emblazoned with the name of some celebrity du jour. They didn’t belong behind glasses, particularly not the thick black-rimmed ones that he was wearing.

  “Interesting,” he finally said. “I don’t really see Noah as the Cub Scout type.”

  “Oh, he was,” I said, swept up in the lie now so that I couldn’t even stop myself even though I knew that I was rapidly falling down a very steep slope. “Making fires. Hiking the trails. Making s’mores. The whole thing.”

  “I thought that s’mores was a Girl Scout thing.”

  I fell silent. I didn’t know where to go from there. I had reached as far as that particular lie would take me.

  “S’mores,” I said, nodding.

  “Uh-huh,” Hunter said, nodding back at me.

  At that moment we both heard a stairwell door close and he leaned around the entrance to the alcove to look in the direction of the sound. He suddenly stepped back in, grabbed me by my waist again, and spun me around so that my back pressed to the wall and his mouth crushed down on mine. I was so shocked that I couldn’t even kiss him back. We had been in this position before and it hadn’t ended well for me. I was just getting to a point when I started accepting the kiss when he pulled back and stepped up to the entrance to the alcove again to look both directions. I could hear footsteps running in the opposite direction and I knew exactly what he had just done.

  “That actually works?” I asked, knowing that he had just utilized by planned technique of making out with a stranger to divert the attention of the men chasing me.

  Of course, Hunter wasn’t a complete stranger. Maybe it only worked when there was some history. Albeit brief, uncomfortable history, but history nonetheless.

  “Apparently,” Hunter said. “Now, do you want to explain to me why you are running from three men who look like they should be manning the back door of a skid row strip club?”

  I sighed, my shoulders falling slightly.

  Dammit. I’ve been caught.

  “I think that they were sent by my ex-husband to find me.”

  “Why exactly would your husband want to send people like that after you when you are on a cruise after a wedding?” Hunter asked.

  “Ex-husband,” I said. “Ex,” I emphasized again. “Like majorly big-old ex.”

  “He was your husband just a minute ago when you were talking about the Cub Scouts.”

  I glared at him.

  “Ex,” I said again.

  “Ex-husband,” Hunter relented. “That makes it a little bit clearer why he would be sending someone after you.”

  I glared at him through narrowed eyes.

  “Thank you so much for that vote of confidence.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I have some information on him that he is pretty adamant about ensuring stays with me rather than finding its way into the wrong hands.”

  “Whose hands would those be?”

  “FBI. CIA. NSA. The whole alphabet soup would be interested, probably.”

  “Government agencies aside, it seems that he is determined to get his hands on you again, and the men he hired to make sure that he does look like they take their jobs very seriously. We need to get you safe. Once we reach the next port, you are getting off this ship.”

  I wanted to protest. Being told what to do was something that I had been more than happy to leave behind when I finally got up the nerve to leave Virgil, and I wasn’t about to let a younger man I barely even knew step into the role of doing it again. Even if that younger man was beyond gorgeous and had a restrained nerdiness about him that I wanted to peel away piece by piece. At the same time, however, I knew that he was right. As much as I had been looking forward to this cruise, if Virgil knew that I was on it and was determined that this was going to be the time when he got me under his control again, I needed to get off of the ship.

  Hunter leaned forward to look both ways down the hallway again and then stepped out of the alcove. He started down the hallway, but I hesitated. My shoes were still lying in the middle of the carpet where I had dropped them when he grabbed me, all plans of using them as a weapon gone in the moment of terror. I stared at them, questioning my next move. Those stilettos had been a shopping coup for me. The limited-edition pair were impractical for virtually everything and several degrees less than comfortable, but they had been the envy of all of the other trophy wives during the days when that was my station in life. They were absolutely nothing like the plain, read: boring, pumps that Virgil had always insisted I wear, especially around others, which was one of the primary reasons that I had chosen them. He had been furious, but even after I had endured his wrath because of them, they still made me happy when I looked at them. They represented me, and I wasn’t going to lose myself again.

  I dipped down and scooped my shoes up before following Hunter down the hallway. We moved at a good clip and I stayed as close as I could without actually pressing against him. Whatever had brought him down into that hallway to find me, his presence made me feel safer, and even though I didn’t know what he could possibly do to help me, especially considering I was still reaching into the chip bag and not telling him the complete truth about who I was or really why my ex-husband wanted to find me, I was resigned to the fact that he may be my last hope of getting away. If I had known that this was going to be the way that this would all play out, maybe I would have done things differently. Maybe I wouldn’t have approached him across the dancefloor. Maybe
I wouldn’t have even gone to the wedding at all. I could have dressed up in my purple satin dress and perched on my davenport to watch a live stream. That way I still would have been able to show Noah that I love him and was thinking about him, but wouldn’t have put myself, or now Hunter, in this type of danger.

  Chapter Two

  Eleanor

  The weekend before….

  “I still don’t think that I feel comfortable with this, Auntie,” Noah said.

  I straightened the purple satin shawl that I wore over my shoulders and glanced out of the corner of my eye at the huge gilded mirror hanging on the wall. I cringed slightly at my reflection. The salesperson at the formalwear shop had assured me that this dress was nothing short of elegance in purple satin, but somehow the effect was almost painfully nuptial. I had been going for sophisticated, and dare I say, sexy, aunt-of-the-groom and had somehow ended up looking completely mother-of-the-bride. Considering there was no actual MOB in attendance at the wedding, I had spent the entire ceremony feeling as though the people behind me were trying to figure out why I was on the wrong side of the ceremony. When I had first arrived at the ceremony I was pleased to see that Noah and his new bride hadn’t gone for the tacky “Pick a Seat, Not a Side” signs that had become so popular at weddings and that be-tuxedoed ushers were escorting guests down the aisle to ensure that they were sitting in appropriate places. The moment that the young man whose name I couldn’t recall but who looked at me as though we had some long, deep connection, took my arm and started steering me toward Noah’s side of the ceremony, however, was the moment that I decided that getting mixed up in the guests might not be such a bad thing.

  As I looked around the ceremony in the brief moments before the traditional music silenced everyone in attendance like the most skilled elementary school teacher in existence, I realized that I recognized approximately three people, two of whom were Noah and his father, my brother. He had asked me to sit in the front row of the chairs with him, but I had respectfully refused. I loved Noah and had spent more years of his life with him than his mother had, but the reality was I was not his mother. I didn’t want to pretend to be, even if it was only the seat that was chosen for me that made it look as though I was trying to take on that role. No, if there was anything that my privileged upbringing had given me, beyond the memory of my own wedding that was attended primarily by people I didn’t know, it was a sense of propriety and etiquette. I might have spent my childhood barefoot eating hotdogs I roasted myself on sticks that I had plucked right off the ground, but that didn’t change that I knew exactly what material and color my shoes should be for any given outfit and occasion, and which fork I should use no matter what obscure course I was eating.

  It was that etiquette that ensured I never flaunted my wealth except for my clothing and the occasional piece of jewelry I wore if I was feeling particularly fancy, and that kept me sitting in the third row at the wedding, wanting to be close enough to the ceremony that I could see every tear and hear every word, but not wanting to take a position that I didn’t belong in.

  Sitting in that third row meant that I was intermingling with the non-family guests, and that, for the first time in my life, gave me anonymity. I looked around me and realized that no one seemed to know who I was. They didn’t recognize me. Not as Noah’s aunt. Not as my father’s daughter. Not as my brother’s sister. Not as Virgil’s ex-wife, and that was the big one. It was something that I never really had the opportunity to experience. I was accustomed to being one of those women who acquires a different middle name depending on the circumstances. I might have been born Eleanor Elizabeth, but I became Eleanor Oh-You’re-Josiah’s-Sister, or Eleanor This-Is-Stefan’s-Youngest-Daughter, as if I wasn’t the only one, or Eleanor Our-Gracious-Hostess, or the occasional, painful Eleanor Benjamin’s-Sister-I’m-So-Sorry. Or the one that I dreaded the most: Eleanor Virgil’s-Wife-You-Know-Yeah-That-Virgil.

  That all fell away as I sat there amongst the pastel-and-jewel-toned revelers. Suddenly I was just another of them, another person come to wish the couple good luck and congratulate them on taking the ultimate of terrifying, yet potentially exquisite, adventures of their lives together. That’s when I knew that I didn’t want it any other way. I didn’t want anyone there to know who I was. Not Auntie. Not wealthy. Not anything. Just Eleanor. For once, I was going to experience what it was like to not have expectations hanging over me, or to see that look in the eyes of a person who I was meeting. That look that said their perception of me changed completely the instant that they knew about my family’s money. There were a few different variations of that look. They could either look at me with the disgust that seemed inbred in people, making them automatically assume that I was arrogant, entitled, out of touch, or any other of an assortment of less than flattering adjectives that meant I was somehow less of a human being than they were because I was born into a wealthy family. Or they might get a little glint in their eye that told me that they were no longer seeing my face, but one of those giant money symbols that popped up in Scrooge McDuck’s eyes when he looked at his vault.

  When I looked back on it, that was the look that I saw in Virgil’s eyes when we first met. In my youthful starry-eyed stupidity I thought that I was seeing love at first sight. Instead, what I was really experiencing was greed at first what-did-you-say-your-name-was-again. Not that Virgil was completely destitute. If he was, we wouldn’t have met at the oppressively boring party held by a particularly vacuous daughter of one of my father’s clients. I later found out that he wasn’t there as an invited guest, but by that time, I was already in too deep.

  I didn’t want to make that mistake again. I didn’t want to see either one of those looks. I had sunk away into normalcy when I was at the ceremony, and I wanted to keep that rolling. I tried to adjust the shawl again so that I looked a touch less matronly, but gave up when I saw the stream of guests starting around the corner.

  “Why?” I asked, turning toward Noah.

  “Because you’re my Auntie and I wanted to introduce you to everyone.”

  He had the same slightly pouty look that he always got when he was a little boy and I had to withhold a laugh. He was a grown man on his wedding day and I had to remember that. Fishing a butterscotch out of my pocket and hiding in his fort with him until he was over whatever was bothering him wasn’t going to work this time.

  “You can still introduce me to whoever you want to, Honey. You just don’t have to tell them who I am.”

  “But…”

  “You better hurry if you are going to get those pictures before your big introduction,” I said, cutting off his next statement. “I’m going to head on in and browse around a little. Something smells delicious in there and I want to get my hands on it before the other guests.”

  I gave him a wink and shuffled off toward the entrance to the reception. A warm, sugary smell was wafting through the air toward me, making my stomach rumble. I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, determined that I was going to fit into the sheath, but the combination of control top pantyhose and sitting through the ceremony had created enough wiggle room in the dress that I knew I was going to be able to sneak in a few of the treats that Noah had told me he created for the wedding as a surprise for his beloved bride. I was one of the few people who knew of his passion for baking and had supported him in it since he was young. In fact, I was proud to say that I had taught him the hummingbird cake recipe that had become his Thanksgiving tradition. My brother wasn’t as thrilled about his only son’s ambitions and had always hoped that he would just put it behind him and go into one of the several industries through which our family had built its wealth and power. Noah had done both, letting his father funnel him into the Royal and Company Advertising Agency while still fostering his love of baking on the side. It was that love that had brought him to Snow, though the agency would have as well.

  I sighed as I stepped into the beautifully decorated reception and looked around for a mome
nt. I wished that I had even a hint of what the two of them felt that day. Even in the days when I was swept away by Virgil, the days when I really thought that we were in love and that we were going to have a wonderful life ahead of us, we never looked at each other the way that Snow and Hunter did. There was something there, something so powerful and pure it went beyond anything that I had ever experienced. It was easy to feel as though you were in love with a person when you only ever knew their surface or when the love that you gave the was only a show for others who might be looking in. The way that they looked at each other was different. It was as though they were looking into each other, not past the faults and issues that they knew were there, but at them. They stared right into the darkest parts of each other, pulled close to the mistakes and problems of each other’s pasts, and told those parts, without hesitation, without fear, “I love you”.

  I continued to pity myself and lament the years that I had spent with Virgil as I made my way around the room, eating whatever I could get my fingers on, as Snow and Noah made their grand entrance and he swept her onto the dancefloor, and even as we dispersed to our tables to sip coffee and wine and eat even more desserts. I had avoided sitting down since my seat was at Noah’s family table and was hovering close enough to the bar that I could confidently say that my decorum and etiquette were at serious risk, when thoughts of fairy tale romance left, quickly to be replaced by something much more fiery – and much more fun to contemplate.

  Across the nearly-empty dancefloor I saw a man standing by one of the dessert tables, one hand grasping a drink and the other holding a pick carefully between his fingers, staring at the empty end of it and then the piece of chocolate-dipped fruit on the floor. He looked back and forth between them again as if he was trying to understand what happened and why the fruit would have betrayed him in such a way. There was an awkwardness about him, that sense that he wasn’t fully comfortable in his own skin and wasn’t sure how to properly take up space in the world. But even from the distance and through the glasses that were sliding somewhat precariously down his nose, I could see that this man was gorgeous. Young and gorgeous, and I immediately had the feeling that that was exactly what I needed.