The Secret (Billionaire's Beach Book 6)

by Christie Ridgway

  “Don’t go,” he said, drinking her in.

  Over the last couple of days, she’d been mostly absent from the house when he was around, citing her Book Fair duties. Her hair was down, a shining, silken mass sliding over her bare shoulders. She wore a little pair of shorts that revealed miles of long, tanned legs.

  “Did you want something?” she enquired in butler tones.

  He almost laughed because she was pretending not to notice the humming sexual awareness that had started making itself known the instant their eyes met. This, at least, remained simple.

  But two could play the game she’d started.

  “I’m interested to know how the book fair is going. Will the Archer name be mud, or are the totals looking good?”

  He didn’t give one shit about Book Fair, and he’d write a check for any amount necessary at the end of its run to make sure her collection of funds exceeded the previous year’s.

  “We’ve been open for three days and have three days more next week, but I’m hopeful.” A little smile curled the corners of her mouth. “The principal stopped by and suggested I volunteer to chair the Parents’ Gala next year. It’s the second biggest job after the Halloween Carnival.”

  “You’re saving that for fourth grade?” he said, teasing, but not.

  She probably already had notebooks devoted to each event.

  “I’m trying not to get ahead of myself.”

  He could see inside her head—how she wondered if she’d be around next year. If they’d really commit to being a couple, a family.

  “I’m not changing my mind,” he assured her.

  She nodded without any true conviction. “I’ll just put these away,” she said, glancing down at the towels.

  He followed her in the direction of the bathroom. There, she stacked them in the linen cupboard and took another minute to tidy a stack of tumbled washcloths. He leaned a shoulder on the jamb and watched the graceful movements of her slender hands.

  “Are you going to invite your mother to our wedding?”

  She gave a little twitch, then shot him a quick glance. “No.”

  If there’s going to be a wedding, hovered in the air between them.

  “I’m not changing my mind,” he said again.

  “She was the one who insisted I give up my baby,” Charlie said, not looking at him. “She told me a child would only get in my way. But not her way, because if I decided to keep it, she wouldn’t support the child or me in any way—financially or emotionally.”

  “It doesn’t sound like she ever supported you emotionally anyway,” he muttered, trying to tamp down his spurt of anger on Charlie’s behalf.

  “You’re right.”

  He hesitated, feeling like he was making his way through broken glass. “I’m sorry if you felt…coerced into giving up your child. If it wasn’t your wish—”

  “No, no. Then and now, I believe it was the right thing to do. I’m just trying to explain why I don’t want her presence in our lives. In Wells’ life.”

  Ethan crossed to her now, turning her away from the towels and in to his body. “You deserved so much better.”

  She remained still in his loose embrace.

  “Can we make this truly work?” she asked, then looked up at him.

  Their eyes met, held. That hum of awareness became a cacophony of sexual urgency. Ethan felt himself go hard, and he knew it would be easy to let their bodies take over. To communicate through kisses and fucking, and forge something in that manner.

  But it wouldn’t repair what was essentially broken. He felt betrayed by…

  Shit. What?

  That she hadn’t trusted him with the truth…

  Sooner?

  From the beginning?

  But she’d had no way of knowing how he’d have handled the news. Hell, he himself didn’t know what he would have done if she’d told him at that interview—well, yeah he did.

  He’d have refused her the job then immediately contacted his lawyer.

  “Then we would have all missed out,” he murmured, and ignoring her puzzled expression, obeyed the call and bent his head to kiss her.

  Charlie, sweet Charlie, went stiff for a moment, then yielded her mouth to him, opening her lips so he could taste her deeply. She arched her back, and he slid one hand down her spine and into the back of those tiny shorts, under her panties.

  He gripped one firm cheek to hitch her closer, pressing his hard cock into her belly.

  She moaned, then sucked on his tongue. Heat shot through Ethan, mixing with testosterone and lust to create a cocktail that dizzied his head and hardened every muscle even more.

  His yanked his hand free of her shorts to tug at the hem of her shirt, yanking it over her head. She slid her hands under his T-shirt to explore his chest, so he removed it himself, grunting as she toyed with his hard nipples.

  She licked one, then used her tongue to trace a wet line to the other. Ethan gritted his teeth, his hands shaking as he unfastened her bra and flung it to the ground too.

  “Wells is asleep?” she asked, kissing her way down toward his waistband.

  Shit. The door. And to prove he was a father to his marrow, he wasn’t going to forget to lock it again.

  “Just a second, sweetheart.”

  He made for it, eating up the floor, to take care of business. Then he turned, jolting so that his shoulder blades hit the wood. Charlie had been right on his heels.

  Now completely naked.

  His balls went so tight they ached, and he could feel his cock pulsing, its length uncomfortable against the fly of his jeans. His hand moved to adjust it, but she got there first.

  “Let me do that for you,” she said, then sank to her knees.

  Oh, hell. His head fell back at the sound of his zipper being drawn down, then he quickly righted it again, not wanting to miss a single second of her pleasuring him like this.

  And it was pleasure, a deep stab of the sweet stuff as she pulled his dick free from his boxers. The air felt cool against his heated skin, but then she licked him, a wet line from root to tip, and it was as if he was on fire, his flesh, his blood, his bones.

  She used her tongue like an instrument of delicate torture, drawing lacey patterns over his shaft. Her gaze came up to his as she took the ruddy head into her mouth, letting it sit on her tongue like a piece of fruit. Her hand jacked the shaft with tantalizingly gentle strokes, and he groaned, clenching his fists to keep himself from moving.

  Gaze still on him, she began to suck again, just the head, with a soft suction that would drive him mad. His fingers flexed, curled, flexed, and a sheen of sweat coated his skin. He couldn’t come with this tender level of play, it only made him more desperate for harder, rougher, tighter.

  “Charlotte,” he groaned.

  His hand found its way to the back of her head, and even cursing himself for it, it didn’t stop him from putting a little pressure there, urging her to take more of him.

  She instantly obeyed, and he tangled his fingers in the strands of her hair, so he wouldn’t direct again. But then she reached up and put her hand over his, as if asking for his guidance. Her blue eyes implored him, and what man could resist a naked female, on her knees, her gaze lifted to him? Gritting his teeth, he exerted pressure again, encouraging her. The hand around his cock retreated to curl around the root, and then she was taking him in, going with the rhythm he commanded.

  “Suck harder,” he said, his voice gruff, and she did that too, a flush spreading between her lovely breasts and her nipples hard little berries that he couldn’t wait to taste. Bite.

  And still her gaze was on him, the trust in her blue eyes blowing his mind as surely as her mouth was blowing his cock.

  Trust. The word penetrated through the haze of lust swirling in his head. Now he finally knew how to go forward with Charlie. What to do to make this relationship work beyond the kitchen and the bedroom.

  He tugged on the hair tangled in his fingers, pulling her off his shaft. He e
merged from between her lips with a pop, his shaft coated in wetness. His balls shifted at the sight, drawing closer to his body, and they ached, swollen with arousal.

  She made a little noise of displeasure, which he kissed off her lips as he drew her to her feet, then stepped out of his clothes. They were still kissing as he moved her to the bed, at the last second giving her a little push so she fell onto her back. He came down upon her immediately, taking his weight on his elbows and framing her face with his hands.

  “Beautiful Charlotte,” he said. “My Charlotte.”

  “Ethan…”

  “Shh,” he said. “Open your thighs, baby. Let me in.”

  His tip brushed her clit, slid down to find her tender entrance. Her eyes closed as he began to press in.

  “Charlotte,” he whispered. As he gave her his body, he gave her his truth. His heart.

  The way forward was to give her exactly what he wanted from her.

  “Charlotte Emerson, I love you.”

  Chapter 13

  Charlie had no words. Standing on Emmaline and Lucas’s doorstep, she hesitated to ring the doorbell. Then someone would arrive, and she’d have to open her mouth and say something meaningful. It had been her own damn idea to approach Emmaline, but now she couldn’t seem to go through with it.

  The other butler was the natural choice in a situation like this. She’d give good advice, and the right kind of advice, because she didn’t possess Sara’s British reserve or Charlie’s own practical bent.

  Unlike Charlie too, Emmaline was free with her emotions and her affections. She didn’t have such a need for control.

  Which last night Charlie had ceded to Ethan, without a qualm. Even now she could feel his hand on her head as he filled her mouth, and her scalp tingled thinking of the way he’d used it and her hair to steer her movements. To take him deep, deeper.

  “What are you doing out here looking all flushed and dreamy?”

  She blinked, coming out of her trance to realize Emmaline had opened the door.

  “Did I press the bell?” she asked her friend.

  “Lucas saw you from an upper window.” Grasping her hand, she pulled Charlie over the threshold.

  “Ouch,” Charlie said, slipping free to rub the pink fingerprints in her skin. “What’s with you?”

  “I’m impatient.” Emmaline made a wild gesture with both arms. “You dropped the mama bombshell nearly a week ago, and then basically cut off all communication.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Lucas insisted I wait for you to get in touch.” She lifted her face to glare in the direction of the second story. “Big meanie.”

  “I hope he found some way to entertain you since the sad story of my life had to wait.”

  In a lightning change of mood, Emmaline grinned. “Oh, he did. And I’m getting him back by buying oodles of bridal magazines and talking incessantly about cathedral-length veils and a guest list creeping into the thousands.”

  Grabbing Charlie’s hand again, this time with a lighter touch, she drew her into the kitchen. There, she served her a cup of coffee and placed cookies on a plate that she then nudged her way. “Give me the details.”

  It wasn’t why she’d come, but she told her friend the circumstances of Wells’ birth and then what happened after she’d told the same to Ethan, making a silent promise to give Sara the information at the first opportunity.

  “So he still wants to get married,” Emmaline said, pulling a tissue from the pocket of the apron she wore. She dabbed at her eyes. “I think this is so romantic.”

  Exactly why Charlie had come to her friend. “Last night…last night he told me he loves me.”

  But she’d clammed up in response, unable to even say “thank you” though it might in part be due to the breathless orgasms he’d delivered next. After, while he lay dozing, she’d snuck back to her bungalow, hiding there until it was time to drop off Wells at a birthday party.

  Ethan had been warm and polite when they’d crossed paths as she’d collected the wrapped gift from the butler’s pantry. But she’d avoided his gaze and gone tongue-tied, her face a red-hot mess.

  Emmaline was blotting more tears. “I’m so, so happy for you. You thought you didn’t want love—”

  “I didn’t say it back,” Charlie blurted out. “I couldn’t.”

  “You think you don’t love him?” Emmaline stared. “Everybody’s sure you love Ethan.”

  Charlie frowned. “Wait. What? Everyone—”

  “Never mind about that.” Her butler friend dusted the air. “Do you love him?”

  Miserable, Charlie nodded. But she’d been locking down on that emotion for years, afraid that losing her heart would mean just…losing…that she couldn’t seem to express what was inside her now. “I just don’t know how to say it.”

  “You’re looking for the right words.”

  She nodded again. Last night, she’d even hit the internet thinking there might be a foreign one that would encapsulate everything she felt. She’d found kummerspeck, which might come in handy if she couldn’t find her way around this problem, since it referred to emotional overeating—literal meaning, “grief bacon”—and she hoped cavoli riscaldati, or “reheated cabbage,” wouldn’t need to enter her vocabulary, as it meant trying to resuscitate a relationship gone bad. “Will you help me, Emmaline?”

  Her friend considered, her head tilted, her lips pursed. Finally, she spoke. “I don’t think so, Charlie.”

  “You don’t think so? What? Why not?”

  Her friend was shaking her head.

  Charlie beat down the panic. “Em, if you don’t tell me what to say, what will I do?”

  “I’m not going to be your Cyrano, silly friend.”

  “If you won’t help me, then it’s not going to happen.” Charlie was beginning to feel a little dramatic herself. She even waved her arms around, Italian Emmaline-style. “Ethan will marry me anyway, and it will be the worst marriage ever because I can’t manage to say three simple words or even a reasonable facsimile thereof.”

  “I’m also not your obstacle.” Then Emmaline, getting all handsy again, pulled Charlie off her seat and towed her to the door. “Girl, go out there and find the way to unlock your heart.”

  “Emmaline—”

  “Then show your man what’s inside it.”

  Stymied, Charlie drove up and down the Pacific Coast Highway until it was time to retrieve Wells from the birthday party. Back at the house with the boy by her side, she agreed to go down to the beach with the bucket of sand toys. Maybe a wave would wash in a bottle with the right love words inside.

  She sat next to Wells on the beach, the sun like a warm bath of honey. The sound of the ocean soothed her, as did watching the boy dig and rake the golden sand. The moment seemed to stretch both forward and backward, and it was as if she’d never missed a second of this child’s life. She felt one with Michelle, his other mother, the two of them a single maternal guard and guide for this precious boy.

  Something inside her loosened, and then a bubble expanded and burst in her chest, releasing a giddy feeling she recognized as pure happiness.

  Grinning, she picked up one of the toys, yellow plastic shaped like a chubby screwdriver, and stepped to the flat, damp sand revealed by the outgoing tide. There, she wrote the words she’d never dared to say.

  BBITG: I LOVE YOU!

  She felt her son’s presence as she put the dot on the exclamation point. Breathless, she sent him a wary glance.

  “Cool,” he said, then grabbed her hand. “I need help with my castle.”

  It was as if her big statement was nothing new to him. She laughed to herself as she followed him to his sand palace-in-progress. Some things were hard without two hands, so they worked together to straighten the tower and dig a moat. When Charlie brought back a bucket of sea water to fill it, Wells cleared his throat.

  “At the birthday party, Serafina followed me into Jenny’s playhouse in the back yard.”

  �
��Oh?” Charlie braced for what came next. That little girl had a mean mouth on her.

  “Then when nobody was looking, she kissed me.”

  Oh. “On the cheek?”

  Wells placed a finger on his forehead. “Right there. Yuk. Why would she do that?”

  She could understand the boy’s confusion. Serafina had been less than warm to Wells from the get-go. “I think some people find it easier to show how they feel than say it.”

  “No.” Wells stared at her for a long minute. “Do you think she likes me?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Odds are.”

  “I’ll never understand girls,” he said, clearly disgusted.

  Later, as they gathered up the toys before returning to the house, she glanced at the words she’d written in the sand. The tide had reversed direction and the waves were washing higher on the shore. Soon her sentiment would be swept away.

  Wells looked over his shoulder too, and it wasn’t clear if he was taking in the words she’d written or the castle that would be wiped out before long as well. “We can always do it again tomorrow.”

  Meaning no opportunity was lost forever.

  Though she’d missed her chance for an “I love you, too” the night before, she had another chance to tell Ethan what was in her heart…if only she could find the right way and the right words.

  Restless, she took another drive when Ethan and Wells went out for a late afternoon pizza. She found herself at the elementary school, and when she discovered the gates open, she made her way to the auditorium. Its doors were propped open too, and she peeked in to see the choir club practicing on stage. The director, a parent that she recognized, waved at Charlie, and she ventured inside to check on the book fair.

  All appeared undisturbed. The previous night, she’d pulled the shelves together, huddling them like a wagon train, and then lightly strung caution tape around the grouping.

  Relief trickled through her. It was absurd, she recognized that, how much importance she’d assigned to the event. But it had come to represent a symbol of her potential success as a surrogate parent.

  And now as a potential member of the Archer family.