Billionaire's Baby Promise (Mills & Boon Desire) (Billionaires and Babies, Book 79)

by Sarah M. Anderson

  So he kept Porter Cole on the case and he kept his sister-in-law Natalie busy manipulating web rankings. He crafted several statements that he could put out on Christine’s behalf. And he monitored the media requests. Occasionally, he had to contact a customer over a legitimate banking request who’d looked up Christine’s number online, but that was an inconvenience he was willing to bear.

  If Christine knew Daniel had hacked into her bank’s website and changed two numbers on the direct line listed for her, she would kill him. At the very least, she might have him arrested. But given that he had racked up an impressive four hundred and thirty seven messages in a week, he was willing to risk that. Besides, her bosses would fail to appreciate it if their employee’s phone rang so much that she couldn’t do her job.

  Maybe he was working overtime to justify his intrusion into her life. But every time he felt bad about that, he’d remember the way Marie had waved goodbye to him and then another news article with a click-bait headline would pop up and Daniel would renew his resolve.

  But most of all, he stayed alert. The campaign hadn’t even really begun yet. These first few articles had merely been warning shots across the bow. The next attack would be coming soon and he needed to be ready.

  “Daniel?”

  Daniel started, then realized his brother Zeb stood in the doorway looking concerned. “Yes?”

  “I said, is everything all right?”

  Daniel let that question hang in the air for a moment. He and Zeb had been working together for almost a year, first to get control of the brewery and then to actually run it. But as for having a close brotherly relationship, that was still a work in progress. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

  He could tell Zeb was trying not to laugh. “Oh, no reason. I’ve only been standing here for three minutes, trying to get your attention. Casey wants to get your opinion on the new pale ale brews. Do you have time?”

  Zeb had married the brewmaster of the Beaumont Brewery. Together, she and Zeb had remade the Beaumont Brewery into a family business all over again. Daniel would like to take credit for that, but he wouldn’t. He never did.

  “Of course.” He had been—well, not exactly neglecting his duties as the executive vice-president of the Beaumont Brewery—but he had certainly been distracted recently. If Zeb was noticing, it had become a problem.

  Daniel stood, putting on his suit jacket. But before he could get the button buttoned, an alert chimed on his computer. “One second.”

  “She Tricked Me.” The Father Of Clarence Murray’s Granddaughter Speaks Out.

  A sharp stabbing pain began to beat behind his eyeballs. Wasn’t it a little early for this? It’d been less than two weeks since Murray had announced his candidacy.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Daniel looked up at his brother. “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?” Zeb leaned forward. “Because you look like someone just killed your dog and if it’s something that affects you, it’s something that affects me.”

  It was a noble sentiment. In fact, Daniel was pretty sure he had said something along those lines to Zeb when they had first joined forces to get control of the brewery. He had positioned himself as the all-knowing, all-seeing Beaumont bastard. He couldn’t be surprised and he always had a plan.

  He needed a better plan because no amount of misdirected phone numbers or web ranking manipulations were going to bury this particular lede.

  “It’s nothing,” he repeated. He wasn’t surprised that someone had gone after Marie’s father—but he was disappointed that he hadn’t gotten to the man first. “It’s something going back to my previous career. It doesn’t affect you or the brewery at all.”

  Zeb looked like he was debating whether or not to accept that statement at face value. “You’d tell me if you’re in trouble?”

  “I’m not.” Zeb gave him a long look and, against his better judgment, Daniel buckled. “I’m just helping a friend.” Although Christine would probably string him up by his toenails if she heard him describe her as a friend. The alerts chimed again—damn it. This was about to snowball. “Look, I need to deal with this. My apologies to Casey about the beer.”

  He grabbed his coat and started texting before he even got to the door. Bradley needed to bring the car around now.

  As he brushed past Zeb, the man put a hand on Daniel’s arm and stopped him. “She must mean a great deal to you, this friend.”

  That was a fishing expedition if Daniel had ever heard one. Zeb was a brilliant businessman, but he didn’t seriously think that a leading question like that would get him anywhere, did he? “I’ll keep you apprised of my whereabouts.”

  Zeb’s eyebrows jumped. “Are you going to be gone for a while?”

  “I don’t know.” Daniel thought he’d had a little more time than this. But watching and waiting was over. He needed to secure Christine and Marie. He didn’t want to leave it to Porter or his associates.

  He and Christine might not be friends, but he was beginning to think she might mean something to him, anyway.

  * * *

  Christine had thrown herself into work for the last week. She had loan applications to process, credit checks to run, a teething toddler who drooled more than the Mississippi River—more than enough to keep her busy. There was no time in her life to think about Daniel Lee, much less her father’s political campaign. She didn’t even go on the internet on her work computer unless she was specifically looking for something online. Ignorance was bliss and she simply did not want to know what her father or anyone connected with Missouri politics was doing at any given moment. To heck with whatever they said about her. She wouldn’t give them any power over her and that was final.

  It was a nice idea.

  She still couldn’t believe Daniel Lee was having her watched. Or that he was manipulating the internet, somehow. But she was forced to admit that, whatever he was doing, it appeared to be working. She hadn’t seen anyone unusual loitering around her apartment or the day care. Her work phone had stopped ringing off the hook. In fact, she had gotten almost no phone calls for the last week, which was odd. Not that she was complaining. In fact, she was kind of relieved.

  Maybe she wouldn’t hate him. She found herself going over the way he’d let Marie read him a story, the way he’d laughed at her mispronunciations.

  The way the heat of his hand had warmed Christine through her clothes and the way his eyes had watched her.

  The way he’d looked at her like she mattered.

  He was so far out of her league—that much was obvious. And lusting after the man—no matter how deeply she buried that lust—would only complicate every single problem in her life.

  Besides, she didn’t trust him. Or like him. Only a fool would crush on the man.

  “Christine?”

  Shaking herself out of her reverie, she looked up to see Sue standing before her, looking seriously worried. At the exact same moment, she realized that there was a dull roar coming from downstairs. “What’s wrong?”

  “There are reporters in the lobby,” Sue said in confusion. “They’re demanding to see you?”

  “What?”

  Just then, her phone buzzed. She looked at it in confusion. Where are you? It was from Daniel.

  That realization, coupled with the fact that there were reporters in the building, made the bottom of her stomach fall out. “What’s happening?” she asked Sue in a shaky whisper.

  “I don’t know,” Sue replied, twisting her fingers together. “Mr. Whalen is trying to get them out of the building. But there’s a lot of them. Some of them have really big cameras. Are you going to talk to them?”

  Christine knew how this worked because this was what had happened last time. She’d been trying to come to grips with Doyle’s sudden reluctance to set a date for their wedding even though she was four months pregnant when she had left work to find a reporter lying in wait for her, shouting rude questions about her pregnancy and her father’s campaign. She hadn�
�t known then that she had just become a centerpiece of the opponent’s campaign. All she had known was that it felt like she was being attacked—because she was. By Daniel Lee.

  This was no different. Those people expected her to come down there and maybe offer some weak statement of innocence or something. And then they would descend upon her like a pack of dogs and she was nothing but fresh meat for the next round of web hits.

  “Absolutely not.” She wished she had told Sue or even her bosses that this was a possibility. But denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt.

  Her phone buzzed again. Christine. Please let me help you.

  She wanted to hate Daniel so much right now. But she needed help more. There are reporters downstairs. I don’t want to talk to them.

  “What are you going to do?” Sue asked, staring nervously over her shoulder as the volume downstairs increased.

  Is there another way out of the building?

  Yes. There was a staff exit by the drive-up windows.

  A picture popped up in the text window of a gruff-looking man with a flattop and square jaw. It was followed by the text, This is Porter. He’s a private investigator who works for me. Do you feel comfortable getting into a car with him?

  The ludicrousness of the situation began to catch up with her. Maybe she should just go back and hide in the ladies’ room. It didn’t make any less sense than getting into a strange car with a strange investigator who was being paid by a strange man to protect her from her father’s insanity.

  Maybe this was how Alice felt when she sat down for tea with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Because Christine felt like there should be rules, a code of conduct for governing behavior—and nobody but her was trying to make those rules apply.

  No, she texted back.

  I’m fifteen minutes away. Will you feel safe getting into a car with me?

  He was already on his way? He was coming here—for her? Where are we going if I get into a car with you? She was being snippy, but she couldn’t help it. Once again, control over her life had been ripped away from her and this time she wasn’t even sure why.

  Well, to heck with that. She opened a web browser and searched. Immediately, she saw what the problem was.

  “She Tricked Me.” The Father of Clarence Murray’s Granddaughter Speaks Out.

  Dear God, Doyle had talked. Worse, she scrolled through the article and saw that he had included one of the pictures Christine had sent him from Marie’s first birthday party. The very same picture that sat on her desk, crisp and clear for all the world to see.

  White-hot rage blurred out everything but Marie’s happy little face. She was going to kill Doyle. That was all there was to it. The man did not deserve to live after throwing his own daughter to the wolves.

  Waves of fury and fear crashed into each other inside of her head, leaving her with a dull roaring in her ears. That also could be the reporters clamoring downstairs.

  “Christine? Sue asked, looking like she was on the verge of crying.

  “I’m going to leave,” she told her best friend. “A friend of mine is going to pick me up and we’re going to go. Somewhere.” She didn’t know where but, given the racket coming from downstairs, she almost didn’t care.

  Christine? Daniel texted her.

  I’m not sure safe is the right word, but I can’t stay here and face these reporters.

  Thirteen minutes away. I’ll have Porter create a disturbance.

  Thirteen minutes. She could make it thirteen minutes, right? Come to the drive-up window.

  Then she looked up at Sue. Sue, who was only a few inches taller than Christine and heavyset. Sue, who had overhighlighted her hair, making it blondish. Sure, Sue had a square jaw and brown eyes and freckles and was bottom-heavy instead of top-heavy like Christine was. The women didn’t really look that much alike. But to someone who didn’t know either of them...

  Sue was close enough.

  “Christine?”

  “Sue, I need a favor,” she said, digging out her sunglasses and handing over her knit cap. “I need your winter coat and you’re going to take mine.”

  “What? Why?”

  I have a distraction, she texted to Daniel. Then, to Sue, she added, “You’re going to pretend to be me.”

  Six

  Daniel wasn’t sure if Christine’s bait and switch was going to work. She claimed her coworker bore a passing resemblance to her. In a flurry of texts, Daniel had arranged for Porter to muscle his way into the bank, escort the other woman to his car, and drive off. After five or ten minutes, Porter would switch vehicles, come back to the drive-through, and hopefully, the coworker would slip back into the building with no one else the wiser.

  But then what? For the first time in a very long time, Daniel didn’t have a plan A, plan B or even a plan C.

  He was getting soft. That was the only possible explanation for why he hadn’t planned for this contingency.

  There were two different ways to get to the drive-through—the parking lot and the alley. As Bradley swung around to the second entrance, Daniel could see the crowd churning in the parking lot, like sharks at a feeding frenzy. He just caught a glimpse of Porter muscling people aside, a smallish woman tucked under his arm, when the car turned into the alley, bringing it to the drive-through. He rolled down his window as the teller behind the glass said, “May I help you?”

  “I’m picking up a delivery.” As the words crackled across the microphone, he saw Christine peek around the corner, an unfamiliar hat scrunched low over her head.

  The teller shut off the microphone and turned. She and Christine said a few words, then Christine pulled the hat down even lower, completely obscuring her blond hair.

  A minute later, a small side door opened and she slipped out. Daniel did a quick look around, but he didn’t see any reporters lying in wait. Christine came around the side of the vehicle, opened the door and climbed in. The moment she shut the door behind her, Bradley began to drive.

  “Are you all right?” Daniel asked after a moment of silence.

  “Oh, sure. It’s just the end of the world. I’ll be fine.” Christine said the whole thing in a monotone voice.

  Was she quoting song lyrics? “You’re in shock.”

  That caught her attention. She rolled her head to look at him and then kept right on rolling her eyes. “Do you think? I’m at least glad to see you’re not texting and driving.” She looked around at the car. “I was sort of expecting you to be in a little sports car.”

  For some reason, this response made him grin. She hadn’t given up. She still had a lot of fight in her and, oddly, he was glad to see her. “We could change, if you’d like. Would you rather avoid the press in a Corvette or a Maserati?”

  “I was joking.”

  Daniel felt his grin grow. “I wasn’t. But to do that, we would have to go back to my place and I’m not sure you’d be comfortable doing that.” Oddly, though, he wanted her to be comfortable with it. If he had her back at his condo, there would be additional levels of security between her and the rest of the world.

  “I’m not comfortable doing any of this. But I can’t just sit there and wait for them to find me again.”

  “I agree.”

  She exhaled heavily, staring out the window. “I suppose this is the moment you tell me that it’s not safe for me to go home?”

  Guilt hit him again, a feeling he didn’t want and didn’t have time to deal with. “If you’d really like to go home, I am more than happy to take you there. However, I don’t feel that’s the safest option for you.”

  “Because they already know where I live?”

  She was not going to like this. Daniel braced for the worst. “Because someone has already tried to break into your place.”

  She jolted as if he had jabbed her with a pin. “What? When?”

  “Before we met at the church. My associate scared the guy off. They did not gain access to your apartment or your personal things, but I realize that must be little comfor
t to you now.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut tight as the blood drained from her face and Daniel wished he could stop being the bearer of bad news. He wished he had never heard the name Christine Murray. Or Clarence Murray, for that matter.

  In that moment, he wished, for the first time in a very long time, that he had been someone else. Someone better. Someone who could have done and said the right things at the right time.

  He wished that he were the kind of person who would’ve protected someone like Christine the first time, instead of using her.

  Sadly, he had very little idea of what a man like that would look like.

  “Is this the part where I get to run away and hide?” she asked in a shaky voice. To his horror, a tear escaped her closed eyes and trickled down her cheek.

  It hit him harder than any name she could’ve called him, any insult she could’ve shouted. And he would give anything to make it better.

  He reached over and cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing that tear away. “Is that what you want?”

  When she opened her eyes, the world stopped spinning. She looked at him with such longing and hopelessness all mixed together and he knew he needed to drop his hand away. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave her alone. “You know that you’re the only man who asks me that? But I don’t know what the point of answering it is. Because I still don’t know if you listen to me and I still don’t know why I should trust you.”

  “I want to make this better for you,” he told her honestly, his thumb still moving over her cheek. It felt so unusual to be honest.

  “Just because you feel guilty about what you did to me?”

  Somehow, he was getting closer to her and he desperately wanted to believe she was getting closer to him, too. “No.”

  That’s where it started—but that wasn’t the position from which he was operating now.

  “I want the world to go back to normal. I want to raise my daughter in peace and quiet. I want to do my job without fear that the next time the phone rings, it’ll start all over again. That’s what I want.”

  “It will,” he promised her. “It just won’t happen today. Or tomorrow.”