His Son, Her Secret

by Sarah M. Anderson

  “Are you mad?” May sniffed.

  “You have no idea. I’m going to hang up now and talk with Byron. I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk to you.”

  “But—”

  Leona ended the call and stood there. “I have the pregnancy test in my room. I took it three days ago. I didn’t tell you immediately because I knew you’d tell me I had to marry you and I wanted to figure out how to have that discussion. I tried last night but we both know how that went.”

  Byron was staring at her, openmouthed.

  “So this is the deal. I’m pregnant. We already have a child together. But I won’t marry you just to have you accuse me of lying to you every day. And I won’t marry you and live with the fear that, as soon as you don’t want me anymore, I’ll be put out on the streets without a home, an income or my children. After you left and I got away from my family, I found out I could survive—even more than that, I could thrive. And I’m not going to give up that independence to exist at your whim or my father’s.”

  He still hadn’t come up with a response, so she went on. For once, no one was interrupting her. “I should have told you who I really was. I should have told you I was pregnant with Percy. I am sorry I didn’t, but I didn’t want my father to matter. I wanted to matter and for a long time, you made me feel like I did.”

  “You were the only thing in the world that mattered to me,” he said in a quiet voice.

  A thrill of something she only vaguely recognized as hope shot through her. She ignored it. This was not the time for hope. This was the time for the truth. “But you act as if I kept Percy a secret from you when that’s not what happened. I had taken a pregnancy test that afternoon and gone to the restaurant. I was going to tell you that night, Byron, right after we got off work. And instead my father showed up—a maid had found the test and given it to my mom, who told my father. And then you were gone. I didn’t hide Percy from you, Byron, I just never got the chance to tell you. So I’ll say it again. I’m pregnant. You’re the father. Now what?”

  Byron looked down at the notebook he was still holding. “Is there anything else I need to know? Because if we are going to find a way to make this work, I need complete honesty from you.”

  She gave him a long look—so long that he lifted his gaze back to her. “I will not marry you for the children.”

  He nodded slowly. “And?”

  Suddenly her heart was pounding faster. “And I love you. I’ve always loved you. I just didn’t allow myself to love you when you were gone because what good would it have done me? And then you came back and I was afraid you’d become the Beaumont my father always warned me about, when all I wanted was Byron. But I will not allow you to use my feelings against me.”

  He took a step toward her. The air between them seemed to sharpen. “Is that why you’ve been fighting my apologies this week?”

  “Yes. I know we can’t go back to where we were before. But I just... I want something better for our family.” Her eyes began to water but she blinked the tears away. “For us.”

  He took another step toward her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body. “Tell me what you want.”

  “You. I want you. I want to spend the rest of my days loving you and I want to know that you will always love me, too. I don’t want to live under a cloud of suspicion or worry. And if you can’t give me that, then it’s better to know now. I’d rather be on my own again than live like my parents or yours.”

  “Is that the truth?”

  “Yes, damn it.” Her voice caught, but she ignored it.

  Then he lifted his hand and cupped her cheek. “You want me to take it on faith that you’ll be honest with me from here on out? I want the same thing from you. I will not abandon you, no matter what. I love you, too—I always have. Buying you this house—asking you to marry me—I’m just trying to show you that I won’t leave you. God knows I tried and see where it got me? The moment I set foot back in Denver, I looked you up and hired you.”

  Her throat started to close up. “Can we do this? Can we actually make this work?”

  He pulled her into him. “I won’t give up on you, Leona. That was the mistake I made last time. I gave up on you—on us. I didn’t fight for you. I was stupid and a coward, and I believed that rat of a man when he told me that I could never have you and I will forever regret that.”

  “Oh, Byron—” she started to say, but he shook his head.

  “I should have waited for you. To hell with that—I should have come after you.” He dropped his face and leaned his forehead against her hands. “I should have come for you because that’s what a Beaumont does—we fight for what we want, to hell with what anyone else thinks. And I didn’t. I hope... I hope you can forgive me for failing you.”

  The strain of the afternoon was too much for her. She couldn’t stand in judgment of him—she wasn’t doing all that great of a job at standing, period. Tears started to trickle down her face as her legs shook.

  Byron sat on one of the island stools and pulled her onto his lap. He stroked her back.

  “I didn’t tell you I thought I was pregnant,” she said, her voice trembling as the tears started to spill down her cheeks. “I was afraid—afraid that you’d find out who my father was and we’d lose everything we had. I should have called you the moment I found out—I should have told you the moment I suspected. But I was scared, too. And when he showed up—he made it seem like everything I’d ever been taught about the Beaumonts had come true.”

  “If I had asked you, a year ago...” He shifted, pulling his key ring out of his pocket. “If I had asked you to marry me before it all went to hell, would you have said yes? You never answered that question the other night.”

  She curled up into him, feeling warm and safe. “I would have. I would have said yes.”

  Byron hugged her fiercely. “I need you. I’ve always needed you. I thought— I was afraid you didn’t need me.”

  She looked up at him, unable to stop the tears. “I need you, too. I want this to work so badly, Byron.”

  “I’m here for you now and I will always be here for you and Percy. No more running, no more hiding. Just you and me and our family.” He unhooked the engagement ring from the key chain and held it up. “Leona, I have a very important question for you.”

  She grinned. “Not an order this time?”

  “No. No more orders. Will you marry me? Not for Percy, not for the baby but because I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life by your side. Because it was always meant to be this way—you and me, together.”

  “Yes, Byron. Yes.” Leona couldn’t fight the tears—happy tears—as he slid the ring onto her finger.

  “Oh, babe,” he whispered against the spot right below her ear. “It’s going to be different this time. I want to go to all your appointments and hear the heartbeat and everything. You and me, babe. You and me and our family.”

  And then Leona was laughing and crying all at the same time and Byron was kissing her and she was taking the ring from him and putting it on her finger.

  “Marry me,” Byron said, wiping away her happy tears with his thumb. “Not because you have to and not because it’s the best way to protect Percy—marry me because you want to and I want you to.”

  “Oh, Byron,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck and holding him tight. Finally, finally things were going how she’d always dreamed they would. She’d told her father off and defended herself and Byron was here and she’d forgiven him and he’d forgiven her and they were together. They’d always be together.

  “Tell me what you want,” he whispered against the sensitive skin of her neck. His voice had dropped an octave and he pressed her against his body—all of it. “Tell me you want me.”

  “You,” she whispered back. “All I want is you.”

  �
�Then I’m yours. Forever yours.”

  And that was a promise she knew he’d keep.

  * * * * *

  If you loved Byron’s story, pick up the first three books in THE BEAUMONT HEIRS series:

  NOT THE BOSS’S BABY

  TEMPTED BY A COWBOY

  A BEAUMONT CHRISTMAS WEDDING

  Available now from Harlequin Desire!

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from PURSUED by Tracy Wolff.

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  SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM

  When the tycoon discovers that his enemy is pregnant with his child, nothing will stop him from pursuing his heir...and the woman he risks losing his heart to...

  Read on for a sneak peek at

  PURSUED

  the second story in New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff’s The Diamond Tycoons duet.

  He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

  Desi Maddox knew that sounded excessive, melodramatic even, but the longer she stood there staring at him, the more convinced she became.

  His emerald gaze met hers over the sea of people stretching between them and her knees trembled. Her heart raced and her palms grew damp with the force of her reaction to a man she’d never seen before and more than likely would never see again.

  It was a deflating thought, and exactly what she needed to remind herself of what she was doing here among the best and brightest of San Diego’s high society. Scoping out hot men was definitely not what her boss was paying her for. Unfortunately.

  Wanting to free up her hands, she turned to place her glass on the empty tray of yet another passing waiter. As she turned back, though, her eyes once again met dark green ones. And, this time, the man they belonged to was only a couple of feet away.

  She didn’t know whether to run or rejoice.

  In the end, she just stared—stupefied—up into his too-gorgeous face and tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t make her sound like a total moron. Her usually quick mind was a blank, filled with nothing but images of high cheekbones. Shaggy black hair that fell over his forehead. Wickedly gleaming eyes. The sensuous mouth turned up in a wide, charming smile. Broad shoulders. And height. He was so tall she was forced to look up, despite the fact that she stood close to six feet in her four-inch heels.

  “You look thirsty,” he said, and—of course—his voice matched the rest of him. All deep and dark and husky and wickedly amused. “I’m Nic, by the way.”

  “I’m Desi.” She held out her hand. He took it, but instead of shaking it as she’d expected, he held it as he gently stroked his thumb across the back.

  It was so soft, so intimate, so not what she’d been expecting, that for long seconds she didn’t know what to do. A tiny voice inside her was whispering for her to escape from the attraction holding them in thrall. But it was drowned out by the heat, the sizzle, that arced between them like lightning.

  “Would you like to dance, Desi?” he asked.

  She should say no. But even as the thought occurred to her, even knowing that she might very well get burned before the night was over, she nodded.

  Don’t miss PURSUED by New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff, available October 2015 wherever Harlequin® Desire books and ebooks are sold.

  www.Harlequin.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Tracy L. Deebs-Elkenaney

  ISBN-13: 9781460386743

  His Son, Her Secret

  Copyright © 2015 by Sarah M. Anderson

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