Claiming His Secret Heir

by Joanne Rock

  But the woman he’d given his heart to had to verify his story with the police. Was that normal for amnesia sufferers? He added it to the list of things to ask the specialist, who’d made time to see her today when he called in a favor from a friend.

  For now, he distracted himself by making a fresh pot of coffee for Caroline while she quizzed the cop on the other end of the phone.

  “Thank you so much,” she finally said, her brown eyes darting Damon’s way. “I appreciate knowing more about what my father said.” She seemed to hesitate as she listened to the officer. She shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “No,” she finally said. “Not yet. But I will contact you as soon as I’m ready to come in to give a statement.”

  Caroline thumbed the off button and tucked her phone in her bag. Was it his imagination or did she take her time? The suspense was killing him.

  “You need to give a statement?” he asked after a moment.

  She slid the purse strap off her shoulder and laid the bag on the gray granite counter of the island. Licking her lips, she eyed him warily, ignoring the coffee mug he’d set out for her.

  “I suffered amnesia, Damon.” Her chin was tilted, her posture defensive. “But I’ve recovered more memories than I led you to believe when I showed up here two days ago.”

  That...was not what he’d expected.

  Two days ago, he’d been sure she’d only come to see him to obtain a divorce. He braced himself for that news now, his whole body tensing.

  “Why would you do that? Mislead me into thinking you didn’t remember what happened between us?” He hated that he hadn’t been a better husband. That he’d allowed her father to come between them when he’d known from the start that Stephan Degraff only wanted to get his hands on Transparent.

  He couldn’t believe that Caroline had been a part of her father’s plan to usurp him all along. Refused to believe it.

  “I needed to know why you didn’t report me missing.” The hurt in her eyes seemed real enough. “It didn’t make any sense. Besides, my father told me—”

  “Your father?” His worse fears were confirmed. She’d been talking to that bastard all along.

  Cold filled the hollow pit in his gut.

  “He found me in Mexico. Helped me to locate a doctor to treat my amnesia—”

  “When?” Damon regretted the harshness of his tone, but it was as though his heart had been ripped right out of his chest. Forcing his voice lower, he took a steadying breath. “Exactly how long have you and your father been playing me, Caroline? For two days? Or from the very beginning?”

  Four

  Caroline closed her eyes for a moment, giving herself a chance to think about her child. If Damon had truly loved her at one time, she owed it to Lucas to find out. Those photos from the honeymoon had filled her dreams the night before, stirring the slimmest hope that she and Damon could find some kind of happiness again.

  Assuming the connection hadn’t been faked the first time.

  She ached for the deep love she’d seen in those photos. But as she opened her eyes to meet Damon’s frosty blue glare, she wondered if she could ever find it again. He rose from the dining table in the breakfast nook, leaving his phone and laptop abandoned on the sleek hardwood surface as he stalked toward her. He stood on the opposite end of the island from her, almost as if that was as close as he could bear to be.

  “My father doesn’t even know I’m here,” she told him when she felt steady enough to respond to his accusation. She was walking a thin line here, being truthful about her father, but being dishonest about her amnesia and not sharing about the baby. “I’ve been struggling to remember what happened this past year and I have reason to believe Dad was thwarting my efforts more than helping them.”

  Damon’s head tipped back, the subtlest evidence that her words hit him like a blow. “So you don’t deny it? You ran to your father when you left me?”

  “I was abducted from this house ten and a half months ago, Damon. I was upstairs in the spare bedroom I planned to make into my office when someone came in.” She hadn’t set foot in that room on this visit, afraid she would have a panic attack if she recalled what happened next. The day was blurry in her mind, but she recalled suffocating fear. “That’s why I need to make a statement to the police. I was kidnapped, and yet the police never believed I was in any danger.”

  He laid his broad palms on the island’s granite countertop. Once upon a time, he’d put his hands on her, as often as possible. Now, he’d rather keep them splayed on cold stone than touch her.

  One more hurt among so many others.

  “You just spoke to the police, so you know that’s not true. I called them the same day. I came home and when you weren’t here—” He stopped himself and shook his head. “It was your father who said you had been in contact with him. He convinced the cops you were fine.”

  “And that’s why I’m going to the police and making a formal statement.” She still held the notepaper in her hand with the dates, times and names of law enforcement officials Damon said he’d spoken to about her whereabouts. “Someone came into this house, put a hood over my head and drugged me. I ended up in Mexico and after being captive in various places, I was abandoned in a house on the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. By then, I’d been drugged multiple times, and I could no longer tell what month it was, let alone what day.”

  She had been so frightened. All the more so when she’d discovered she was pregnant, since her worries were twice as big for the baby she carried. She’d been terrified the drugs were hurting the precious life inside her. Even through the amnesia, fear for her child’s health was the one coherent thought she’d retained. She’d asked her father for multiple pediatricians to assess Lucas’s health and make sure he was okay.

  Damon’s hands flexed against the granite. “I’ll take you to the police station myself. They said the ransom note was a hoax, but maybe now they’ll see things differently.”

  Could she trust him? She wanted to, which made her all the more cautious. “The guards told me you didn’t give them the money.” She’d been deflated that day. It had been a turning point in those lonely weeks of captivity. Because even though she knew to be skeptical of what they told her, she believed they would have released her if Damon had given them the exorbitant sum they’d requested.

  “They lied to you. I wired the full amount to an overseas account as requested.” He slid his hands off the counter and walked slowly toward her in his socks. He still wore the same clothes as the night before, a black tee and cargoes, tipping her off he’d never been to bed. “I would have paid it twice over to get you back, Caroline, but I didn’t trust the cops when they said it was a hoax since you had been in touch with your father and you were still paying your bills—the mortgage on your New York apartment, a car payment on the Mercedes, a few things you kept in your own name after the wedding.”

  “You paid the ransom?” She swallowed hard, her thoughts shifting again as she discovered yet another new piece to the puzzle that kept changing.

  Damon stopped a foot away from her, his strong shoulders too enticing in the morning light slanting into the kitchen. How easy it would be to lean on him. To share the burdens and the confusion. To let him sort out the mess that she couldn’t figure out no matter how hard she tried.

  “I have proof. I kept meticulous records. I hired private investigators to follow leads.” His blue eyes bored into hers, and she had the sense that he was seeking holes in her story. After all, he had just accused her of deceiving him with her father’s blessing. “The police can have everything my team discovered.”

  “I’m sure that would help.” Her mouth was dry. Had it been a mistake to reveal all of this to him and not to the police first? She’d been so romanced by those damned honeymoon photos that she’d hoped—maybe—she could have more trust in Damon than her father.

  �
�Someone laid a very deliberate false trail, Caroline.” He spoke slowly, articulating the idea simply and clearly, as if she was as addle-brained as she’d pretended to be when she showed up. “Do you understand what I’m suggesting? Someone spent a great deal of money making it look like you hadn’t been abducted.”

  She understood what he was saying—and whom he was accusing—but she couldn’t believe it. “My father would never knowingly subject me to harm, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “How can you be so sure? You must have your doubts if you left without telling him where you were going. You came here, to me, even knowing that he wouldn’t approve.” Damon inched closer, just enough to lay a hand on her shoulder. “So if you’re not still playing a game with me, you must distrust him.”

  She traced the pattern in the gray granite countertop, thinking. She needed to tell him about Lucas. The time had come. “After I was kidnapped and drugged, I truly suffered a bout of amnesia. I was ill. I didn’t know who to trust.”

  “You went to your father.”

  “At the time, I didn’t remember you.”

  Damon studied her, no doubt weighing her words.

  “What made you change your mind?” he asked, his hand falling away from her.

  She missed his touch, even when they were at odds. Even when she didn’t know if she could truly confide in him.

  “My father never mentioned you. He didn’t say one word about me being married, even though I was confused about—I couldn’t remember anything.” She had told her father about the pregnancy, but he claimed not to know anything about who she’d been dating before the kidnapping, suggesting the father of her child was a one-night stand. She had been devastated when she learned the truth. That she’d had a husband who would be hurt to have missed out on their child’s birth. “But then my sister came to see me. He couldn’t keep me isolated forever. She gave me the marriage certificate. I guess my father had a copy in his office.”

  It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder why. She’d had a lot of other worries in her head and in her heart at that time while she struggled to remember her past.

  “Victoria told you the truth.” Damon nodded, a satisfied gleam in his eyes. “I’ve never met her, since your dad forbade anyone in your family to attend our wedding.” His jaw flexed. “But of course, you remember that now, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Victoria’s revelation was a big help in recovering more of my memories.” Caroline paced around the kitchen island, not trusting herself around Damon when she felt this magnetic draw to him. “And the therapist who was helping me with the amnesia suggested I’d been a victim of gaslighting. She didn’t openly accuse my father. I think she believed that maybe my captors had been the ones to feed me lies and withhold information.” Caroline hadn’t wanted to believe she could be susceptible to suggestion and misinformation, but once Victoria revealed the truth, Caroline had to face the reality that her father no longer had her best interests at heart. “And by then, I knew that it was my father who didn’t want me to remember you.”

  “If any other man hurt you this way...” Damon didn’t finish the thought.

  He didn’t need to.

  “Damon.” A fresh dose of anxiety poured through her. “I came here because I had suspicions about my father, but I also didn’t trust my memories where you’re concerned. That’s why I pretended to have amnesia to a greater degree than I really do. To see what you’d say.”

  She tried to gauge his reaction, studying his expression. The kitchen was brightly lit now that the sun had risen well above the horizon. Birds chirped in a nest outside the window near the sink, providing an incongruously cheery soundtrack to the most difficult conversation of her life.

  “You should have gone straight to the police.” His jaw was set, his shoulders tense. “Do you have any reason to believe those kidnappers won’t come after you again? My God, Caroline. You took an incredible risk if you believed me capable of such a thing.” He speared a hand through his dark hair, ruffling the long layers shaggy for want of a cut. “Sure, now you know it wasn’t me. But you could still be in danger from whoever took you.”

  “I wanted to see you face-to-face, for myself. To come to this house and see how it felt. What else I might remember.” She closed the space between them, leaning against the kitchen island where he still stood. “Maybe that was reckless of me. I’m doing the best I can with the unimaginable things that have happened to me. Who could possibly prepare for what I’ve been through?”

  “We need to talk to the cops. Now.” He charged toward the door leading to the three-bay garage.

  “Damon, wait.” She needed to tell him about Lucas before things went any further and they got law enforcement involved. “There’s something else you need to know first.”

  He stopped. Turned. “Whatever it is, the police will surely want to hear it.” He picked up his set of keys from a rack of hooks near the door. “I think you’ll be telling the whole story a few times today. The trail for those bastards who took you has long gone cold, but the sooner we can get law enforcement after them—”

  “Damon.” She followed him, pausing just inches from him. “Please. This is important.” She took the keys from his hand. Set them on the bare desktop of a built-in workstation near a wall of cookbooks. “There’s another reason it took me so long to get back to you.”

  “And we can sort through all of it after you give your statement to the police.”

  There was no way to put this but to simply say it. So she did.

  “I was pregnant when they kidnapped me.” She had wondered more than once what his reaction would have been like if she’d gotten to tell him the news months ago.

  For a moment, he was utterly expressionless. “Pregnant?”

  “Yes. I—”

  “But you said you were drugged. Didn’t those bastards know you were pregnant?” A dangerous light entered his eyes. His nostrils flared.

  “I didn’t even know at first.” She blinked fast. Took a deep breath. “But he’s fine, Damon. I had our son—a perfectly healthy baby boy—six weeks ago.”

  Five

  The news staggered him.

  Damon stared at Caroline, uncomprehending. They had a son. And she’d been lying to him on every level imaginable. The sting of betrayal tainted what should have been the happiest news of his life.

  He had a son. But the woman he’d loved hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him. She’d gone to her lying, conniving father rather than turning to her husband.

  “Damon?” Caroline’s voice was tentative.

  He realized he’d backed up a step. That he’d somehow dropped onto one of the leather bar stools at the kitchen island while the baby bombshell tore away any hope he’d had that he could salvage the love he’d once had for his wife.

  “Where is he now? Our son?” The word tripped awkwardly off his tongue.

  “Safe. Victoria helped me and Lucas leave my father’s house.” She blinked rapidly, no doubt hearing the edge in his voice. “I rented them a small house nearby. I made sure it had a security system. We paid cash and she has the doors locked in case my father tries to have us followed.”

  Damon felt his fury rising. He would decimate Stephan Degraff’s business interests. Ruin him financially. And that was just for starters. He would follow Gabe’s advice and make peace with the rest of the McNeills—his grandfather and half brothers—to leverage their business influence if that’s what it took to bankrupt Caroline’s father.

  But first, he needed to prevent himself from falling down the emotional rabbit hole after this latest betrayal from his wife. He had a son to think about.

  “We must have conceived during the honeymoon. I didn’t know I was pregnant for the first two weeks that I was a captive.” She licked her lips, speaking quickly as she straightened a white cup hanging from one of the wooden hooks over the cof
fee bar. “I didn’t have a pregnancy test to confirm it, so it was only a guess for a few weeks, but once I started having morning sickness, I knew for sure.”

  His brain reminded him he had a role to play here. He was a father now. Protector to a vulnerable child and a wife who could still be the target of a kidnapper who hadn’t been caught. He would be a better father than his own worthless DNA contributor had been, so when push came to shove, he would do right by his child and Caroline, too. But it was damned hard to know the right words to say when he didn’t trust the mother of his baby.

  “We’ll talk on the way to the police station.” He picked up the Land Rover keys again, determined to get a statement on file so the police could launch the investigation that should have started months ago. “We need to get the ball rolling to find the person responsible for your disappearance. Then, I want to meet my son, hire a security team, and ensure you are both protected 24/7.”

  Shoving to his feet, he went to the door to the garage and held it open for Caroline. She hurried to follow him, hugging her sweater around her while he helped her into the vehicle. She kept up a steady stream of words as they drove to the Los Altos Hills police station, telling him about the house her father had taken her to in Vancouver for the last five months, and the doctor she’d worked with for her amnesia.

  But it was a one-sided conversation. Damon listened with half an ear, still not sure if he could trust what she was telling him, all the while wondering if he should assemble a private team of mercenaries to hunt down whoever had taken her and his unborn child.

  For now, he settled for escorting her into the local police station so she could give her statement formally and they could begin legally searching for whoever had abducted her.