The sight of Harrison left her breathless

He completely filled the room with his broad shoulders and tall frame. And he practically pulsated with an animal magnetism that made her break out in a very feminine sweat.

His white designer shirt and olive-colored pants looked out of place next to the kitchen’s dingy linoleum and gold-speckled Formica. Only the strained look on his handsome face and finger-mussed, dark gold hair kept him from looking like he’d just stepped out of his country club.

Then he turned toward her and caught her gaze. As terrified as she was by what he might say or do, she couldn’t tear her gaze from his. Why did she feel so connected to him? So in tune that she swore she could feel his heartbeat throbbing through her from three feet away? Didn’t her body know how dangerous he was to her? With a snap of his fingers he could take away her reason for living—her baby boy.

Not to mention what he could do to her heart…

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Mills & Boon American Romance, where our goal is to give you hours of unbeatable reading pleasure.

Kick starting the month is another enthralling installment of THE CARRADIGNES: AMERICAN ROYALTY continuity series. In Michele Dunaway’s The Simply Scandalous Princess, rumors of a tryst between Princess Lucia Carradigne and a sexy older man leads to the king issuing a royal marriage decree! Follow the series next month in Mills & Boon Intrigue.

Another terrific romance from Pamela Browning is in store for you with Rancher’s Double Dilemma. When single dad Garth Colquitt took one look at his new nanny’s adorable baby girl, he knew there had to be some kind of crazy mixup, because his daughter and her daughter were twins! Was a marriage of convenience the solution? Next, don’t miss Help Wanted: Husband? by Darlene Scarlera. When a single mother-to-be hires a handsome ranch hand, she only has business on her mind. Yet, before long, she wonders if he was just the man she needed—to heal her heart. And rounding out the month is Leah Vale’s irresistible debut novel The Rich Man’s Baby, in which a dashing tycoon discovers he has a son, but the proud mother of his child refuses to let him claim them for his own…unless love enters the equation.

This month, and every month, come home to Mills & Boon American Romance—and enjoy!

Best,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Mills & Boon American Romance

The Rich Man’s Baby

Leah Vale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Ross, Jake and Luke, for giving me the wings to fly.

For Maureen Child, Amy Fetzer and Tina Bilton-Smith, for shoving me from the nest.

And for Terri Reed, Melissa Manley, Delilah Ahrent and Kim Nadelson, for making sure I didn’t splat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Having never met an unhappy ending she couldn’t mentally “fix,” LEAH VALE believes writing romance novels is the perfect job for her. A Pacific Northwest native with a B.A. in communications from the University of Washington, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her wonderful husband, two adorable sons and a golden retriever puppy. She is an avid skier, scuba diver and “do-over” golfer. While having the chance to share her “happy endings from scratch” with the world is a dream come true, dinner generally has to come premade from the store. Leah would love to hear from her readers and can be reached at P.O. Box 91337, Portland, OR 97291, or at http://www.leahvale.com.

Books by Leah Vale

MILLS & BOON AMERICAN ROMANCE

924—THE RICH MAN’S BABY

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Juliet Jones pulled in a soothing breath of warm, early-June air and leaned back in the lone wooden chair on the balcony above her family’s store. After another long, boring day spent waiting behind the cash register for the rare customer to wander in, she ached clear to her bones. With a weary sigh, she slipped off her worn Keds and propped her bare feet on the peeling white railing.

She settled the cold beer bottle on the front of her frayed jeans shorts, closed her eyes and wished for the millionth time she hadn’t promised Grandpa before he died that she would keep his store going. But she’d promised, so here she was watching her life slip away like the waters of Oregon’s McKenzie River running steady and silent on the other side of the two-lane highway their little store hugged.

She was just twenty-one, but she felt as old as dirt.

If only Richard Gere would drive up in his Lamborghini looking just for her.

The deep growl of a motorcycle shifting down interrupted her snort at the ridiculous thought, and the sound of gravel crunching under wheels brought her eyes open. One look at the man leaning low over the green racing motorcycle as he pulled up to the store’s rusting gas pump and she was a goner.

He could have a face like a butt under that black helmet and she wouldn’t have cared. He looked like some mysterious warrior to her starved imagination—his black leather bomber jacket, faded blue Levi’s, and trashed black cowboy boots his armor.

Juliet couldn’t tell if he was looking up at her or not, so she kept staring when she would have normally looked away. She watched him settle both feet flat on the ground, turn the engine off, then reach up and flip his tinted visor up. She nearly jumped out of her skin. He was looking straight at her with beautiful, soulful eyes beneath full, dark-blond brows.

His gaze was as powerful as one of Shakespeare’s love sonnets to her lonely heart.

He pulled the helmet from his head.

Juliet gaped and yanked her feet from the rail, starting a paint-chip blizzard. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. A dream come true, in fact. His straight nose and square jaw, roughened by dark-blond whiskers, held such masculine beauty she was too stunned-stupid to quit staring at him. What was a man like him doing in her world?

His gaze still on her, he hung his helmet on one of the handlebars and ran a hand through his thick, wavy, golden hair that brushed the top of his collar in the back. “Does this pump work?” he called up in a deep voice that hit her like gravel wrapped in velvet and turned her bones to liquid.

With a weak shake of her head, she croaked, “No.” Clearing her throat, she needlessly added, “Though there’s probably enough gas still down there to one day blow us all to kingdom come.”

His smile was lopsided and unmercifully sexy. “Then you better hop on and let me take you far away from here,” he offered, patting the back of his bike.

She laughed in an idiotic, high-pitched way. Man, she’d never made that noise before. Her face heated, and she wished she could disappear. So much for this fantasy coming true. The Adonis on the bike sure as heck wouldn’t want to mess with a bubblehead on a balcony.

But instead of slapping on his helmet and roaring away, he lowered the kickstand with the heel of his boot and swung a long, thickly muscled leg over the bike and got off. “Well, if I can’t top off my tank and you won’t let me whisk you to safety, can I buy myself a beer inside and join you up there? I’m sure the view is something I wouldn’t want to miss.”

The suggestiveness of his tone and his masculine magnetic pull flustered her so much she started to ramble. “We haven’t been allowed to sell beer since that incident with those darn thirteen-year-olds a couple years back. And as far as the view goes, the blackberry bushes and ash trees on the other side of the road have grown so much you can hardly see the river anymore.”

He grinned up at her, and she actually felt the earth moving. But instead of making her feel wild and out of control, her heart rate slowed and everything became crystal clear. For once she knew exactly what she wanted. For once she was willing to take a risk.

She leaned forward in the chair and rested her elbows on her bare knees, with the neck of the full beer bottle caught between her fingers. Looking at him through the crooked railing, she said, “I can’t sell you a beer, but you’re welcome to share mine.”

An intense, almost desperate look replaced his grin. “How do I get up there?”

She shook her head, sending her long, sun-streaked brown hair slipping off her shoulders. The peace of certainty made her feel powerful. “I’ll come down.”

“Good. Because in case you haven’t noticed, that balcony has a definite lean to it. I’m not sure it’s any safer than the gas pump.”

This time she laughed for real. “I know. But it’s my balcony.” Thinking of her older brother’s homemade racing motorcycle, she grinned and added, “Hey, if you like bikes, there’s something you’ve got to see out back in the shed.” As she rose from the chair, Juliet fought to control the surge of excitement pumping through her veins.

For the first time in her life she might actually get what she wanted.

Chapter One

Over Two Years Later…

It was her.

Surprise brought Harrison Rivers to a halt in the little store’s doorway so fast the rickety screen hit his backside.

Before he could stop himself, he blurted, “You’re here.”

He hadn’t really expected her to still be here. Especially when he’d failed to see the soles of two sexy bare feet propped on the balcony’s sorry railing when he’d arrived.

Her beautiful, brown-and-gold eyes wide, she opened and closed her mouth twice before breathily answering, “I’m always here.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

If anyone had asked him why he was there on this sunny, September afternoon he would have claimed to have stopped for gum, but he had really made the thirty minute drive up to the little, nameless store on a backwoods Oregon highway for the first time in two years, two months, and 28 days to banish her from his thoughts. He’d hoped to find closure, even in her absence, before returning to his family estate in the nearest town of Plainview.

She ran a hand up and down her jeans-clad hip, drawing his gaze to her sexy, lean curves. “Why did you think that?”

Since he’d come back to forget her, getting turned on by her was the last thing he wanted. He forced his gaze to her face, though on his way up he couldn’t keep from noticing that her breasts under her plain white T-shirt looked fuller than he remembered.

He cleared his throat. “I just assumed you’d headed off for Eugene and college. Maybe even got married.” A treasure like her didn’t stay buried long.

Yet here he was, staring into the same beautiful brown-and-gold eyes. They still reminded him of sunflowers lying on rich, moist earth. And he remembered too well how he’d thought at the time: Now, maybe that’s all I really want out of life—a beautiful, barefoot girl in cutoff jeans, the summer sun glinting off her honey-brown hair as she sips a beer and meditates life, the river her mantra.

That day when she’d invited him to share her drink and her peace, he’d found himself taking more. God, how he’d needed the comfort she’d unwittingly given him. That had been so unlike him, so irresponsible, yet so right.

The wildness that had made him sample her full, luscious lips more than two years ago erupted within him like a long-dormant volcano. She was still as desirable. More so, with time adding fullness to her figure and maturity to her finely shaped face. And she was still barefoot.

Her earthy sensuality ratcheted his temperature up a few degrees.

She stepped toward him. “I didn’t do any of those things. I’ve been here—” She stopped herself, but the word waiting hung between them.

Harrison met her hopeful gaze.

Damn it. He was no Prince Charming come to rescue the beautiful girl from the cinders or the glass coffin or whatever. Far from it. There was no place in his life for fairy tales.

He lowered his chin and willed her with his gaze to understand that he was doing the best thing for both of them. “I’d really hoped you had gone off to college or gotten married.”

The glow in her eyes faded and the small smile curving her full lips fell. He’d made his point.

He suddenly became very aware of his Italian loafers. The reminder of how different his existence was from her barefooted freedom hit him like a bucket of ice. Before he’d said goodbye to her over two years ago, the realities of his world had forced him to acknowledge that their day together could be no more than his favorite memory.

He’d told himself it was because they were too different, having come from very opposite worlds. And he’d since vowed to never care about someone so much he lost control of his emotions.

This trip up here had been to remind him of that so he could stop thinking about her. He was determined to focus entirely on the multimillion-dollar corporation he was about to take over from his father. The company Harrison’s grandfather had started and bequeathed to him as his legacy. The legacy Harrison had worked so hard to earn.

Enough eyebrows were raising on the company’s board of directors as it was. His father’s decision to make Harrison CEO at the ripe age of thirty-two hadn’t gone over well. Even if he could control his emotions around her, Harrison wouldn’t allow his judgment to be questioned by becoming involved with a woman from such a different background as his. As it was, pulling teeth was easier than getting the board to see reason and agree to his plan to purchase, shut down, then overhaul the Dover Creek Mill.

Harrison had no choice but to snuff out the shining hope in her expression.

Sometimes he really hated reality.

But he had to face the truth. With his father’s retirement less than a month away, Two Rivers Industries required Harrison’s undivided attention. He needed to be in total control of himself to have total control of the company. And he wasn’t in control, with memories of that one time with this woman plaguing him, distracting him from what he’d been born to do—run Two Rivers Industries.

It had been a mistake to come back. The way she still pulled at him confirmed it wasn’t just their differences that should have kept him away. He should leave. Nothing, after all, had changed. As he pushed open the screen door, strange regret flooded him and he hesitated. How did one say goodbye to a memory?

Before he could decide, he caught the flash of something coming at him from the side the second before it hit him in the knees. “Whoa.” He looked down and saw an overalls-clad, towheaded toddler wedged between his legs. He smiled and put his big hand lightly on the little head, flattening down the riot of crazy baby hair. “Well, hello, there.”

The face that tilted to look at him made his breath stick in his throat. The dark-green eyes warily regarding him made his heart skip a beat. The child’s face seemed vaguely familiar.

The little boy stepped back, intent on making a break for the still-open door, but the sight of his red licorice rope firmly stuck to the knee of Harrison’s olive-colored slacks stopped him cold and made Harrison laugh out loud.

The sound brought those solemn green eyes back up to his, and he was treated to the most cherubic smile he’d ever seen. He bent and removed the sticky candy from his pant leg, then crouched down and offered the rope to the equally sticky baby.

The little fellow snatched his candy and ran for the safety of the legs belonging to the woman Harrison had been haunted by since he’d found that moment of peace in her arms.

His heart slammed to a stop and his gaze met and held hers as she hoisted the little boy onto her hip. She hugged the child to her like a mother.

Harrison pulled in a sharp breath when he realized where he’d seen that baby’s face before. Every morning he walked by a framed photo of a shockingly similar face that sat on top of his grandmother’s piano.

The picture of himself as a baby.

NOT A BIT OF AIR remained in Juliet’s lungs. Now she knew how a trout felt in the bottom of a boat. All that was missing was her flopping around, and if he kept staring at her like he was, that’s just what she’d do.

It was him.

And here she’d thought enough time had passed that she wouldn’t know him in a crowd. But the second he had walked in, she’d realized she had stored away the memory of every line on his heart-stopping, handsome face down to the tiny scar beneath his chin, every gesture he had made, and every way he had touched her.

It all came rushing back along with buckets of air. Her body clenched, then throbbed with remembered desire, and her vision swam. She squeezed Nat tight against her until he squawked and squirmed to get down.

Not wanting to let him go, but having no choice since she was about to drop him, she let the baby slide down her leg to the floor and he was off and running. Straight back to his father.

The man who had just made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

Oh, sweet Lord.

He squatted down again to get nose to nose with Nat and then they both looked toward her with the same eyes—the color of the river at its deepest—the same gently flared nose, the same cleft chin, the same everything. Juliet felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

The look he gave her now nearly sent her down for the count.

He knew.

Heat rushed to her face and she could no longer meet his gaze. She glanced to the windows, looking for his motorcycle, but all she could see through the filmy glass was a sleek, black Porsche.

Her gaze flew back to his clothes. The fabric and style of his slacks and white dress shirt reeked of designer wear the way a trash bin reeked of garbage. His classy clothes perfectly set off his golden tan—the sort a guy would get out on a golf course, not digging ditches. His thick, blond hair was shorter and had been styled into submission by stylists who obviously knew what they were doing. And the gold-and-silver watch on his wrist looked exactly like the kind they gave away as a grand prize on game shows. In other words, he looked like money.

That early summer day, more than two years ago, he’d only looked like a dream on a bike.

Juliet clamped her back teeth together and straightened to her full height. He hadn’t come back for her like she’d fantasized. He’d flat out said he’d wished she’d gotten married and left town. But she hadn’t because of her promise to her grandfather to tend the store and because she’d never been able to forget the father of her child.

She met his gaze again, and the message she sent him said, He’s not yours.

He glanced at Nathan, who was busily inspecting his father’s legs for any other sign of licorice, then slowly looked back at her. His message read, Like hell.

Her heart raced and she couldn’t breathe again. “Nathan, come here to Mama.”

Not used to such a tone, her baby simply stared at her. They both stared at her.

She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. What was she getting so worked up for? This man wasn’t going to give a darn about her baby. Actually, she was surprised the door wasn’t hitting his butt as he hauled it out of there. But in reality, he didn’t look like he wanted to leave at all, now that he’d seen Nathan.

He returned his attention to Nathan with deliberate casualness and started a game of “got your nose” with him, and her heart pounded harder. What if he took a liking to her angel? He was rich, she was poor. She didn’t have to be Einstein to realize how things would go if he decided he wanted her baby.

Dear Lord. Nathan was all she had.

“Hey, Natter, Big Bird’s on!” her brother hollered from in the house. “Nat!” Willie continued as he came through the door that had once led to a storeroom, but was now her family’s living room, or more accurately, TV room. “Where are you, ya li’l booger?”

Juliet turned her back on the man she had dreamed of being with again and growled at her brother, “You were supposed to be watching him, William.”

Her use of his proper name stopped him as if she’d yanked his chain, and his hazel gaze jumped to her. As usual, her big, lazy, older brother’s short brown hair stuck flat to his head on one side and stood straight up on the other, and he had his red-and-black flannel shirt misbuttoned.

“What’d he do?” Willie quickly scanned the store till he spotted the toddler. “You botherin’ the customers again, booger?”

“Don’t call him that,” she ground out. “I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Nat’s father said, “He’s not bothering anyone.” He rumpled Nat’s too-long hair.

Ohh, how she remembered his deep, rumbly voice that had turned her to mush in a heartbeat. And the sweet words of flattery and destiny he’d whispered in her ear. And how she had allowed herself, just that once, to believe. To believe in knights in shining armor and princesses who lived happily ever after.

“But I bet you like to bother ants, don’tcha?” he asked her baby and stood. “Just like your daddy.”

“Who knows?” Willie said as he went toward them. “Natter’s daddy was just some guy on a sweet bike who stopped only long enough to disappear in the back shed with my little sister.”

“William!”

“It’s not like it’s any big secret.” Willie scooped up his nephew and tossed the little boy on his broad shoulder. She thought Nat’s daddy was about to protest until he appeared to realize that the squeals the child made were ones of pleasure.

“So you thought that bike was sweet, eh?” he asked Willie.

“Yeah, I did.”

“So did I,” he said with a wistful smile that sent a jolt of longing through Juliet.

She closed her eyes and fisted her hands at her sides. Maybe if she concentrated real hard this would all go away.

Willie was halfway to the back of the store before what the guy had said registered. “Say what?”

Nat’s father let out a soft breath. “Boy, that thing could move. But what do you expect from a Beemer? I could have done without the fluorescent green, though.” He said it all so offhandedly, like her brother already knew that he was the guy on the bike.

Juliet’s eyes snapped open. Clearly he wanted him to know. No, no, no. He’d already made his feelings toward her clear. He would only want Nathan.

“You knew that bike?” Willie asked as he started back toward the handsome man by the door.

“Of course.” With his hands buried casually in his pockets, he looked for all the world as if they were chatting about the weather.

Her brother frowned fiercely. “How?”

Willie was so dumb. He had been the only other person around that day, though he had been too interested in the green-and-white BMW racing motorcycle to notice his little sister falling head-over-heels for the guy who had climbed off the thing. But she’d just turned twenty-one at the time, so she doubted his notice would have mattered much anyhow.

Her one and only mistake’s expression grew serious. “Because it was mine.”

“What?” Willie exclaimed.

Extending a hand toward her brother, he said, “The name’s Harrison Rivers.”

Harrison. His name was Harrison Rivers, of all things. She would have remembered a name like that. So he really hadn’t told her. Her fantasies were unraveling more and more by the second.

His gaze locked on hers as he said to her brother, “I was the guy in the back shed with your sister.”

“NO!” Harrison’s brown-eyed girl practically shouted the denial. She swiftly moved forward and reached for his child.

My God. He had a child. His chest felt ready to explode with emotions he couldn’t name or begin to control.

He watched her perch the baby on her slim hip and tuck his little head under her chin. “This isn’t the guy.” She stared him in the eye, daring him to argue.

“Are you sure?” her brother asked, eyeing Harrison from head to foot.

“Of course I’m sure. Don’t you think I’d know?” she said sharply.

“You heard what I said.” Harrison stated quietly what his heart wanted to shout, “That baby is mine.” Then his throat closed up. They’d made a baby that day. All this time he’d thought they’d only made a little magic, a little bit of heaven that wasn’t meant to last.

His baby’s mother gulped like she was swallowing something distasteful. “No. No he is not,” she clearly lied, her face growing paler by the second.

Harrison captured her gaze again. Why was she denying this? He would have thought a woman in her circumstances would be pointing a finger at him and screeching, This is the guy who knocked me up!

“Then how did he know about the bike?” her brother asked, still unconvinced.

Her breath started coming so hard Harrison could hear it from where he stood. “Ah, lucky guess?” she fumbled, refusing to meet his eyes.

Harrison’s heart went out to her for what she must have gone through, pregnant and alone, but he wasn’t going to let her deny him. That child was part of him.

“Why would he be claiming to be the guy if he’s not the guy?” her brother argued. Maybe he wasn’t as mentally challenged as he looked.

“Why?” she parroted. She started shifting her weight from one bare foot to the other.

Man, she still had sexy feet. His body responded instantly with all sorts of throbbing and hardening. Just as it had over two years ago. Only, now he couldn’t blame his reaction to her on his grief and the way it had made him so out of control. So why did she still push all his hot buttons just standing there with bare feet?

He gave himself a shake and promised not to find out. He had never reacted to any woman the way he did to her, and instant fatherhood was complication enough.

“Why?” she repeated. “How the heck should I know? Maybe he’s some kind of pervert who wants to get his hands on Nat.” Her desperation became glaringly obvious in the way she struggled for an argument.

Again he found himself wondering why she wanted to negate his responsibility. Could she be so selfless as to want to spare him? But why would she think he wanted to be spared?

He asserted, “I am not a pervert. I’m a man who takes responsibility for his mistakes.”

Her eyes flared, and he instantly regretted his choice of words.

“My child is not a mistake,” she hissed.

He raised his hands in supplication. “I’m sorry. You know what I meant.”

“You’re right, I do. Just like I know what you meant when you said earlier that you’d hoped I’d gotten married and left town. So why don’t you head on back down the highway like you’d planned.”

“I can’t. Not now.”

“Wow.” Her brother laughed in disbelief.

“No, no, no,” she whispered, and slowly backed away.

Harrison pointed at the child. “Just look at him. He looks exactly like me. There are pictures of me as a baby on my grandmother’s piano. That’s what I looked like at…what? About eighteen months?” he asked the brother and received a nod in answer. “He looks just like me because I’m his father. I came through here the beginning of June over two years ago and saw the most beaut—I saw you, sitting up on that balcony, and, well, I lost my head.”

“And got something else,” her brother mumbled crudely.

Harrison glared into William’s hazel eyes, nowhere near the deep color of his sister’s, and thought if he had been her brother, he would have flattened the man who’d left his sister pregnant by now. But this idiot looked downright amused.

She didn’t. She looked…scared? What did she have to be afraid of? The only thing he was sure of at that moment was that he intended to accept his responsibilities, as he’d been raised to do, for this child. His child.

Holy smoke.

The spark back in her mesmerizing brown-and-gold eyes, she said challengingly, “What makes you think you weren’t just one of a ton of guys who’ve…who’ve ridden through here?”

“Nobody’s gonna buy that, Julie,” her brother said, butting in. He turned to Harrison. “She’s not like that. As far as anyone knows that’s the only time she’s even let a guy get close,” he said, defending her with an odd sort of pride.

Harrison blanched, vividly remembering his shock when he’d discovered she had been a virgin—after she no longer was one. She had been adamant that it had been her choice, that she had wanted him to be the one. A distinction that even now stirred something vaguely possessive within him. He’d never felt possessive about any woman before, which was why he’d known even then that he shouldn’t see her again. But now things were different. He had a son.

William gave his sister a fond look. “Fellas ‘round here don’t call Julie the ice princess for nothing.”

She gave him a virulent glare in return and growled, “You are such dead meat, Willie. I already said, He’s not the guy.”

Harrison willed her to look at him again, but she buried her face in the sleepy toddler’s soft hair. “Your name’s not Julie,” he half whispered, racking his brain for the name that floated just beyond his reach. It was more lyrical than Julie.

His inability to remember her name bothered him. But names hadn’t been important then. They had stepped to a different plane where such things didn’t matter. The only thing that had mattered was the connection he had felt to her the second their gazes had met. The connection that tugged at him still.

Finally she looked up into his eyes, and it hit him. “Juliet. Your name is Juliet.”

Her eyes welled and a single tear spilled down her cheek. His throat closed up again. She turned and ran with the child through the door to the back. Apparently, for her the connection had broken. For some inexplicable reason his pride felt pricked.

“That’s right,” her brother exclaimed. As he turned to follow his sister he added, “But everyone around here calls her Julie.”

Harrison shook his head. He would never call her that. Despite the fact there could never be anything other than parenthood between them again.

Chapter Two

“You what?” Harrison’s father, George Rivers, roared and jumped to his feet, nearly toppling his chair.

Harrison raised his eyes to the study’s high, coffered ceiling and willed himself to stay calm. “I said, I just discovered I’m the father of an adorable, eighteen-month-old boy,” he repeated, annoyed by the slight tremor of emotion in his voice. He would have to get a handle on that and soon. He had to keep his perspective to make rational decisions.

Unfortunately, he suspected that little boy had already undermined his determination to keep his emotions under control. Nathan was one more person Harrison had to fear losing—one more person with the power to change him like his father had been changed.

His father put his fists on the desk and leaned forward. “The hell you say. Who is she? You haven’t taken the time to see anyone from around here. Is she one of your classmates from Harvard?”

“Her name is Juliet Jones. And no, she didn’t attend Harvard.”

“Juliet? I don’t remember meeting any Juliet.” His father straightened and ran a weary hand over his balding head, massaging it as he went. “I don’t recall hearing you so much as mention a Juliet.”

“That’s because you didn’t meet her and I am certain I never mentioned her.” Harrison walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows lining one wall of the study.

He braced his hands against the frame and gazed out at the expanse of freshly cut lawn and a wall of manicured shrubs. That time with Juliet had been his most private—not to mention distracting—memory. Having to make it known rankled, but he would do what was right.

“How long were you involved with this girl?”

Harrison’s jaw tightened as he faced his father. “One day.” One incredible, fateful day.

His father’s brows rose to where his hair had once been and he flushed vividly. “Are you saying this was a one-night stand? My God, Harrison. You’ve always pushed the envelope, but you’ve never done anything stupid before.”

“George, stop badgering the boy and let him tell us about the baby,” Harrison’s paternal grandmother finally spoke up from her chair in front of the fire-place.

George raised his hands in submission and sat back down behind his desk. “All right, all right.” Gesturing to Harrison, he said with a sarcastic note, “Please. Continue. I’m dying to hear about any and all of your illegitimate offspring.”

“Damn it, Dad—”

“Gentlemen, please.” Dorothy Rivers rose and came toward them. Elegantly diminutive, she looked up at Harrison with warm green eyes. “Darling, do get back to telling us about the baby and this Juliet.”

Harrison blew out a breath. “Yes, of course, Grandmother.” He took her small hand in his and used the excuse of leading her to one of the chairs in front of the great mahogany desk to reclaim his temper.

His father made a rude noise. “Exactly how much do you know about this woman?”

Harrison helped his grandmother get seated then faced his father. “Not much. Her family lives above and in the rooms behind a store they operate up on the McKenzie River.”

His father crimsoned. “Are you telling us you knocked up a storekeeper’s daughter?”

“George, don’t be crude.”

Harrison frowned. “As far as I could tell today, she’s the one who does the keeping.” He wished he had found out more, but Juliet had refused to speak further with him. Her brother, suddenly acquiring a proper brotherly attitude, would only answer the most basic questions about his sister and nephew.

“So why did she wait so long to contact you?” his father asked. “You did say the child was eighteen months old, didn’t you?”

“Yes, he is. And she didn’t contact me. I found out about him when I went back to the store—”

His father sat forward. “You went back? Why? You said it was a one-night stand.”

“Yes, I went back, and why is none of your business. If I hadn’t I never would have known about Nathan.”

His grandmother sat forward, too. “His name is Nathan?”

Harrison smiled into her eyes, only slightly faded by age, and nodded. “Nathan Maxwell Jones. Apparently, she named him after her grandfather.”

“Just like you were. Is he a towhead like you were, too?” Her eyes positively sparkled now.

Harrison’s smile widened. “As blond as can be.” He felt an intense warmth he wasn’t inclined to squelch spread through his chest when he pictured the little boy. His little boy.

George gave him that narrow-eyed look he’d been using at the office. “Is this Juliet aware of how much you’re worth?”

Harrison glared right back. “Seeing as I left my business card with her brother, I don’t think it’d be too hard to figure out.”

His father tented his fingers in front of him, his high forehead creased in displeasure.

Harrison raised his hands in exasperation. “What difference does it make? I’m going to do the right thing in regards to my child.”

His father slowly rose to his feet. “And just what do you consider ‘the right thing’ to be?”

Harrison shrugged at the obviousness of the answer. “To provide for my son and become a part of his life, as any father should.”

His grandmother’s eyes went wide. “You mean through marriage?”

Harrison pulled back his chin, not having thought of his involvement in those terms at all. To say Juliet wasn’t exactly corporate wife material would be putting it mildly. Their differences were too great for that sort of relationship. Besides, he didn’t want any kind of relationship. No matter how much he was attracted to her, he could never let himself have her again.

His father scoffed. “Of course he doesn’t mean through marriage.” He waved the idea off then fixed Harrison with a hard look. “What kind of proof did she give that you are indeed the father? No way will I acknowledge some random child as a member of the Rivers family without proof.”

Not about to give his father ammunition by telling him about Juliet’s claim that someone else fathered Nathan, he said, “She doesn’t need any proof. All you have to do is look at Nat to know he’s mine. I know he’s mine.” That baby was tangible proof of the intangible connection he’d felt with Juliet. A connection the likes of which he had never felt before or since.

“And all she has to do is look at you to know she’s hit the jackpot.”

“Juliet thinks no such thing. She made it quite clear she doesn’t want anything from me.” Just as he’d made it clear he wanted nothing more from her before he’d met Nathan. An image of her in her snug T-shirt, jeans and bare feet came to mind, and his body instantly responded. Too bad it was a lie. Good thing lust could be ignored.

“Well, if she’s not making any claim, you certainly aren’t obligated—”

Harrison fisted his hands at his sides as a cold, suffocating anger surged through him. “It doesn’t matter if she’s making a claim or not. That child is of me. And obligated or not, I plan to be a part of his life and to make his life better for it. End of discussion.”

He turned to leave, but his grandmother’s soft touch on his hand stopped him. She placed an emerald silk-clad elbow on the arm of the chair and leaned toward him, an intense expression in her mossy eyes. “Do you intend to make a claim on the child?”

Harrison raised his brows. “You mean sue for custody?”

Only one of her brows went up in response.

His father put his head in his hands and groaned, “Good God.”

Harrison shook his head. “No. That would be wrong.”

From behind his hands George said, “And you’re the expert on that, aren’t you? Getting a girl you don’t even know pregnant and all.”

Harrison gave his father a narrow-eyed look of his own. “At least I’m prepared to deal with it,” he shot back before he turned and left the room. Taking Nathan away from his mother would definitely be wrong. The notion hadn’t even occurred to him.

Then the image of the store came to mind. The place was falling apart. No one would blame him for wanting to take his baby out of those conditions. He stopped in the foyer and looked around. Nowhere could be more perfect for raising a child than the opulent but extremely livable Rivers estate. He had loved growing up here.

Knowing the importance of family, his grandfather had wanted his son and grandchildren close to him, so he’d had this huge house built, with separate wings providing each part of the family with their own space. And Harrison needed every inch of that space when his father was in one of the moods he had begun to suffer in the past two years. If not for his grandmother and his younger sister, Ashley, Harrison would have bought a condo in town close to work. Were he to ever move, though, he would miss the place, and Harrison knew Nathan would love living here.

But he refused to take a child away from his mother. He remembered the way Juliet hugged Nat’s little body close to hers, tucking his head beneath her chin. Clearly she loved his son. She didn’t deserve to lose Nathan simply because her family lived in near poverty. Besides, he could never willfully annihilate the rightness of their one time together by portraying her as unsuitable.

The answer sprang to mind and sent his pulse racing. No one said he had to take Nathan away from Juliet for him to be raised here. Whether she wanted anything from Harrison or not, he decided to convince Juliet that some very drastic changes needed to be made in her life.

Willing his pulse back to normal, Harrison strode toward the front door and left the house, feeling once more in control.

There might be a tiny pinch of Prince Charming lurking somewhere in his calculating corporate soul after all.

JULIET STUCK HER FINGERS in her ears, squeezed her eyes shut so tight she saw little white lights and hummed the National Anthem, but it didn’t work. It never did. No matter how hard she tried, her family wouldn’t go away. She should have learned by now that wishing them away didn’t work, but it never hurt to try. With a soul-weary sigh she dropped her hands into her lap and opened her eyes.

She looked from her mother, with a bad perm sticking out every which way from her head, to her brother, whose filthy red baseball hat was turned backward, as always.

As they sat around the kitchen table, Mom and Willie were talking over each other. They both had an opinion about what she should do now that the father of her child had suddenly reappeared. And neither one of them had asked her opinion.

Well, she had one.

“Will you please listen to me for a minute?” she pleaded, but failed to draw their attention. “Excuse me!” she said loud enough to cut through the noise about a father’s responsibilities and child-support settlements.

They looked at her for the first time since the discussion began. “Weren’t you listening when I told you this…” She had to take a deep, steadying breath before she could say the name of the man she had once foolishly thought to be her soul mate. “…Harrison Rivers is not Nathan’s father?”

“Oh, get off it, Julie,” Willie said. “Any idiot can see the kid’s his.”

Frustration getting the better of her, she retorted, “And that qualifies you, doesn’t it?”

“Stop it, you two,” her mother snapped.

“He knew about the bike, didn’t he?” Willie gave a curt nod of his head. “That’s proof enough for me.”

Her mom shifted toward her, the plastic seat cover beneath her squeaking. “Men don’t go around claiming to be babies’ fathers without cause, Julie.” She reached across the yellowed, gold-speckled Formica table and put a hand on Juliet’s forearm. “Why do you keep denying he’s the father? From what your brother says, he seems decent enough.”

“And stinkin’ rich,” Willie added. “He’s got serious bucks. I talked to that friend of mine, Dave, who used to work on the loading dock at Two Rivers Industries, which was the name of the company on the business card he left, and Dave said that if Julie’s guy is—”

“He’s not my guy,” Juliet grumbled. How could she lay claim to a man like that? And since no fairy godmother was going to bibbidi-bop into her life and change her into someone he would want, she had no choice but to deny he was the one. She couldn’t lose Nathan.

“He sure was your guy for…what, fifteen minutes?” Willie laughed then winked crudely at her.

She smacked him on the arm and made him squawk.

“Stop it, you two.”

“Anyway,” Willie continued, “if this guy is the same Harrison Rivers who’s taking over the company so his dad can retire, he’s worth millions.” Willie said it like he was imparting the secret of life, then got up and went to the fridge.

The implications of his words hit Juliet full on. Her stomach rolled, and she had to swallow fast to keep from being sick all over the kitchen table.

Then she started to shake. The tremors were small at first, deep in her chest. But as Willie’s words echoed in her head and both pairs of eyes in the cramped kitchen fastened on her, the reverberations spread throughout her like oil in a mud puddle.

Millions. Harrison Rivers had millions.

Her mother’s normally dour face lit up with excitement as a thought occurred to her. “Maybe you could pick up with him where you left off!”

Juliet could barely speak. “He’s already said he doesn’t want me.”

Tsking, her mother shook her head, then heaved a dramatic sigh. “You realize, don’t you, that takes this thing to a whole new level?”

“Oh, yeah,” Willie concurred as he brought a beer back to the table.

Of course it took things to a whole new level. The level with high-priced lawyers and bought-off caseworkers. The level where someone like her could never stand a chance against someone like him. The level where all her tears and pleas would carry about as much weight as a foam anchor.

Why couldn’t he have been some average guy who might have decided he wanted her for more than one afternoon of fun? A regular Joe-shmoe she could have had a future with.

Before the tremors building inside of her reached a crescendo and she shattered right there in front of them, Juliet shoved back her metal-legged chair, its legs screeching along the floor, and bolted to her feet. “It doesn’t take this thing anywhere,” she choked out. “Because there’s nothing there in the first place. Nat’s mine. Nobody else’s. Mine!” She slammed her open hand down on the tabletop and glowered at her mom and Willie, huddled around the table like a couple of witches around their pot.

“If you’re going to act like that you surely won’t have a say in what we decide to do,” her mother reprimanded.

Willie offered, “I think we should be talking maternity suit.”

Juliet ground her teeth. “That’s what you wear when you’re pregnant and have to go to work.”

He nodded. “Right, right. What we should be discussing here is a maternity settlement.”

Juliet threw her hands in the air. “Paternity. Paternity settlement. Don’t be such an idiot.”

“You’re the idiot,” he jeered.

“Stop it, you two.”

Willie grumbled, “At least you were smart enough to get knocked up by a millionaire.”

Juliet went to the sink and leaned her weight on her hands on the rim. The distorted view of the sunset silhouetting the back shed out the small, cracked window above the sink began to swim as tears filled her eyes once again. She hadn’t been smart at all, letting herself believe in a dream on a bike.

“I’m not sure a paternity settlement is the way to go, Julie,” her mom answered as if Juliet had thrown those words out as an option she would consider. “I think, personally, that child support payments are—”

“No, no,” Willie interrupted. “I think the guy should hand over a huge chunk of change up front now, while he’s still all doe-eyed over finding his kid.”

The image of Harrison crouched before her son with a sticky length of red licorice in his hand and an enraptured smile on his handsome face made Juliet groan softly. Then that image shifted and became Harrison hovering above her, his river-green eyes murky with passion.

She remembered how she’d buried her hands in his lush, golden hair and pulled him down for a kiss. He’d kissed her soft and slow, like he’d known kissing wasn’t something she’d done a lot of, like he’d been coaxing a smoldering ember to flame. And, oh, how she’d flamed.

His mouth had felt like chocolate just starting to melt. His hard, flat stomach had been so hot upon hers she’d thought he’d cook her to the marrow. They had been so good together, so right. Like they would never part.

But they had, and now that she knew who and what he really was, they were so, so far apart. There was no way they would ever be together again like she’d dreamed. He was rich. And he’d already made it plain he didn’t want her. Juliet squeezed her eyes shut and forced the memories away before turning to face her family.

Her mom shook her head, making her fuzzy curls quiver. “No, I think monthly child support payments would be the most profitable—”

The tension that had brought Juliet’s shoulders up around her ears snapped her like a dried birch twig.

“Profitable!” She stared slack-jawed at her family. “I can’t believe you actually said it! Is that all Nat is to you now? Something you can make an easy buck off? Can’t you see that Harrison isn’t going to hand you a wad of money and let me keep Nathan?”

She pointed a trembling finger at her brother. “Willie, you saw how he looked at Nat. He’s going to want him.” Her lip trembling uncontrollably, she looked between the two of them. “Don’t you care that he’s my baby? My world? Don’t you care about either one of us?”

“Mom cares enough to give you a roof over your heads and food in your bellies so you don’t have to go to work or school or anything,” Willie shot back.

“So I don’t have to work? Who do you think tends that store out there? When was the last time you stood behind the counter?”

“Hey, I’m scheduled to start on the green chain at Dover Creek,” Willie protested.

Juliet ignored him. “And as far as going to school, you know I can’t afford to go anywhere yet.”

“How do you know, when you’ve never even applied to any schools or tried to get financial aid?” He found an old wound of hers and poked it.

Juliet clamped her teeth together and fought the tears blinding her and the raging swell of helplessness that threatened to strangle her.

“You don’t know a thing about me,” she choked out, then left the kitchen.

The frustration exploded within her, and she started running—through the living room, through the empty store, and out into the dusk-shadowed gravel parking lot. She mentally winced when the busted screen door hit the wall after she blasted through the door. She prayed the bang didn’t wake her baby. But she didn’t stop running. She knew if Nat cried out her mother or Willie would go to him. At least she could count on them for that.

With barely a glance in either direction at the lights of oncoming traffic, Juliet darted across the two-lane highway and plunged down the embankment. She followed the well-worn trail until it ended at the stone-strewn edge of the McKenzie River.

Taking her usual seat on a smooth boulder, she tried to focus on the dark water slipping by, to let the steadiness of the river seep into her soul and smooth the rough edges of her pain like it had smoothed the rocks around her, but her tears made it impossible. Juliet buried her face in her hands and let loose the body-racking sobs she’d been doing such a lousy job of containing.

She was being pitiful and feeling sorry for herself, but she didn’t care. At this precise moment she didn’t have the strength to care. She’d think of a way to keep her baby out of everyone’s clutches later. Right now she just wanted to cry and curse the day she’d fallen for Harrison Rivers and taken the one and only chance of her miserable life.

Chapter Three

A blur of sun-blond hair and bare limbs dashed through Harrison’s headlights. He shoved his foot down hard on the brake pedal and swore.

Thank heavens he’d already been slowing to turn off into the gravel parking lot of the little store. If he’d been going full speed, he wasn’t sure he could have stopped in time. Twilight was a dangerous time to drive as it was, without crazed females bolting out in front of him.

He didn’t have to look twice to know the woman who’d nearly become his hood ornament had been Juliet, but he did look to see where she entered the underbrush and disappeared over the edge of the road.

Finishing his turn into the parking lot, Harrison brought his Porsche to a stop alongside the rusted gas pump. After leaving his father and grandmother at home, he had jumped in his car and headed back up the river. He’d told himself he was coming to see his child, his boy—but after seeing Juliet blaze across the street without so much as a look-see, he acknowledged he’d come to see her. He needed to make sure she didn’t hold some power over him beyond the comfort she’d unwittingly given him during his time of grief two years ago.

Getting out of his car, Harrison spared a glance at the storefront. While the white-and-red plastic sign read Open, the interior of the building stood dark except for a glow coming from the rear. Somebody better be in there, because his little boy certainly hadn’t been in his momma’s arms when she’d darted in front of Harrison’s car.

But as he started across the parking lot toward the road, the image of Juliet tucking their baby’s head under her chin flitted through his mind again. Somehow he doubted she’d leave Nathan unattended. Obviously she loved the child.

His child.

The knot that had formed in his stomach earlier today tightened. He hoped talking to Juliet about what had happened would loosen it a bit. Though her reaction to his declaration of paternity made him certain this talk wouldn’t be congenial, he had to make her see he wouldn’t settle for less than what was best for their son. And he firmly believed disappearing back down the highway for good wasn’t in Nathan’s best interest.

Taking considerably more care crossing the two-lane highway than Juliet had, Harrison jogged across the street, then started down what seemed to be a trail through the blackberry bushes and other underbrush growing on the embankment. His leather-soled loafers proved slick on the gravel-strewn dirt path, and the waning light made it difficult to pick his way down the trail, so he was forced to catch himself with his hand several times to keep from sliding down the incline on his rear.

The soft murmur of the river confirmed his suspicion of the trail’s destination, right before he emerged from the bank’s growth onto the rocks at the river’s edge. The paleness of the stones reflected what light still hovered in the air, so Harrison had no trouble spotting Juliet. Her slender back to him, she sat huddled atop a thigh-high boulder, her arms folded on her drawn-up knees and her head resting on her forearms.

What he had initially thought was another sound of the river turned out to be Juliet crying. Her soft, soul-wrenching sobs touched him so deeply he clenched his jaw against the sensation. She was crying because of him. He knew it.

Seized with the urge to comfort her, just as he had been compelled to be a part of her two years ago so she could comfort him, Harrison made his way toward her. One of his loafers slipped off a poorly chosen rock and his foot plunged into a small, stagnant pool of orphaned river. The splash sounded like a shotgun blast.

Juliet’s head jerked up and she swiveled on the rock toward him. She stared at him, her posture like a mouse caught in a hawk’s sights. A full minute passed, and he was about to identify himself when she finally spoke.

“You.” That one word held a wealth of recrimination and mistrust. “What do you want?”

Feeling like an invader of sanctuary, Harrison raised a hand, palm up, toward her. “We need to talk.”

With stiff, jerky movements, she turned to face the river again and pulled her knees up tighter to her chest. “We have absolutely nothing to talk about.”

Harrison drew in a fortifying breath of river-moistened air and started toward her once again, only to realize he still had one foot ankle-deep in water. Releasing the breath with a sigh, he extracted his sodden foot from the puddle and gave it a shake. Nothing about this was going to be easy. Absolutely nothing. But he had to make her listen. Not only for Nathan’s sake, but for their sake, too. They had to put to rest what had happened between them so they could move forward as rational adults.

Not caring anymore where he stepped, Harrison moved to her side. This close, he could easily make out the features of her profile. As before, he was struck by her loveliness. Little wonder he’d never completely forgotten her. Seeing her, free from the earlier distractions, Harrison confirmed again that he’d had very good reasons for never contacting her. She was more than a threat to his vow to never care about a woman enough that he lost control of his emotions; she was an all-out assault.

Not even the hardness of her expression diminished her effect on him. Once again he found himself wanting to get lost in her, to forget about the burdens he carried, the frustrations he bore. He wanted to meld with her and not have to manage or dictate or supervise, but just be.

Damn it.

Thank God he wasn’t the same irresponsible man he’d been over two years ago. He couldn’t allow himself to give in to the out-of-control desire he apparently still harbored. He was stronger now. He could risk having her in his life. As the mother of his child. Nothing more.

“Juliet,” he whispered. Her knees dropped away from her chest an inch or two, as if the sound of her name on his lips weakened her defenses. “Juliet, please. It’s just you and me here. You don’t have to pretend. We need to talk about our son.”

She finally looked at him, but in the failing light he couldn’t identify the emotion in her tear-swollen eyes. “He’s my son. Not ours. Not anybody’s but mine.”

He heard what he hadn’t been able to see. The tortured strain of her voice told him what she was feeling, why she’d been crying. He wasn’t surprised when she pulled her knees up tight against her again. She was feeling besieged.

“Look, Juliet, I know how you feel. I know you’re afraid. Of what, I’m not exactly sure, but—”

“Oh, so you know how I feel? How is that? Considering you don’t even know me.”

His empathy beginning to give way to frustration, he leaned in close. “You and I both know how well I know you.”

She jerked away from him like she’d been slapped. Harrison pulled back and let out a noisy breath. He was doing this all wrong. She would never let him help her if she stayed mad at him. He needed to make up for the damage he’d done before he found out about Nathan.

“I’m sorry, Juliet. Today has been a little trying for me, too. It’s not every day a man walks into a store to buy gum and walks out a father. So forgive me if I’m not as patient or as understanding as I should be.”

She turned to look at him again. “Is that the only reason you stopped? For gum?”

Harrison squinted hard at her, trying to cut through the gloom to see what emotion swam in her dark eyes. He wanted to be sure that he had been right earlier, that she had been waiting for him to come back for her. The possibility revived the wildness he’d felt then. He did his damnedest to clamp a lid on it.

Planting his hands on his hips, he shifted his weight to his squishy, wet shoe. “Well, since I’m trying to get you to be honest, I suppose I have to tell you the truth, too.” He shifted his weight back and softened the truth considerably. “No. I didn’t stop to get gum. I came up here because a stupid, silly part of me was hoping to see again the beautiful, barefoot woman I’d never been able to forget.”

He could just make out the narrowing of her eyes. “A stupid, silly part of you?”

So she suffered from a touch of vanity. Good. He was powerless against her stubbornness and strength of will, but vanity he could work with. Despite the fact he would be testing his control to the max, he’d have her agreeing to let him be a part of Nathan’s life yet.

He leaned toward her, ignoring how her fresh, clean smell filled his head and opened the door to all sorts of physical needs. “The stupid, silly part of me who still scans the sky for eight tiny reindeer on Christmas Eve and makes a wish when I blow out my birthday candles.”

Her lips parted slightly, then she tightened them and frowned. “But what about when you said you wished I had left for college and gotten married?”

“I panicked,” he lied. He couldn’t very well tell her he’d meant to squash the hope shining in her eyes. “You were so beautiful standing there, more beautiful than I’d remembered, and I felt like a bastard for not coming back.”

Her hold on her legs went slack and her knees dropped away from her chest again. This time nearly a foot.

He let the silence build for a while before he broke it. “Why didn’t you let me know I’d made you pregnant, Juliet? Why didn’t you tell me I had a child?”

“How could I? I didn’t know who you were,” she whispered, then pulled her knees back up.

Rife with regret, he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” He had to make her understand that he hadn’t used her, that what had happened between them hadn’t been about sex. It had been about trying to focus on life instead of death, about being free of the sorrows and pressures of his existence for a moment or two.

He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, the material of her white T-shirt doing a poor job of keeping at bay the memory of the texture of her skin. “I’ve thought about you, and our time together, a lot. It’s not that I didn’t want to come back…but…” He fumbled for an explanation that wasn’t as insulting as the bald truth. “But my responsibilities made it impossible for me to come see you again.”

“Because I’m from—” she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers “—the wrong side of the tracks.” Her words virtually dripped with disgust. “I’m sort of curious. Why did you come anywhere near me in the first place?”

“It mostly had to do with my mother.” He surprised himself with his truthful answer. He’d never talked about how his mother’s death had affected him with anyone. His family knew, but they never spoke of that time. There was something about Juliet that made him step beyond the boundaries he set for himself. Something he’d avoid if he were smart.

She gave him a sarcastically doleful look. “Your mother.”

Compelled to defend himself after making such a ridiculous-sounding statement, he explained, “About the time I returned home from school to start at Two Rivers, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had the most radical surgery available and came through the chemo okay, so we figured she’d be fine.”

He ran a hand over his eyes and fought to push down the swell of pain. The pain was precisely why he never spoke of those terrible days. “After a couple of years, the cancer came back, though, and it spread everywhere…”

An image came to mind of his mom, pale and shaking with pain. “She used to refuse the morphine so she would be lucid enough to talk to me about how work was going when I returned home in the evening. I did my damnedest to always have good news for her.

“She was so angry with me when I refused to go to the office near the end. She wanted me to be an even bigger success running the family business than my father, but there was no way I wasn’t going to be with her, to help her fight for her life.”

He shook his head sadly at his inability to help her. The cancer proved stronger than his bright, vibrant mother, and she’d slipped away. “Everyone except my dad was there with her when she died. He couldn’t handle seeing it happen. I couldn’t handle it afterward, so I took off on my motorcycle for a week and ended up here.”

He paused, struggling to put the pain back in the dark pit where it belonged. “It’s never good to love someone so much that you lose control like that.”

He felt the warmth of her fingers, then her palm as she slipped her hand over his forearm, her touch more comforting than anything he’d ever felt. He slowly swayed toward her, wanting to wrap himself around her and absorb her like a balm for his hurt. But she broke the contact and forced him back to the difficult reality of the situation.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. “The reason I didn’t come back was that I had to devote all my time and energy to running my family’s paper producing company. Now that I know about Nathan, I promise, from here on out I’ll do whatever I can to make everything right. I intend to be a father to Nathan. I will live up to my responsibilities and provide for him in every way. I—”

“Whoa, whoa. Hold on.” She slid her feet off the boulder and stood. “What do you mean, be a father to Nat? Live up to your responsibilities? Provide for him?” Her voice gained in volume. “If you think you can just show up here with your sad stories,” her voice cracked, but she continued, “after deciding my baby looks like you, and take him away, you’ve got another thing com—”

“Now you whoa. I never said anything about taking Nathan away from you.”

“Maybe not now, but later…”

“No.” He said the words with the echo of this afternoon’s conversation with his father and grandmother still in his head.

“That’s right. Because you’re not Nathan’s father!” she shouted and turned toward the trail.

He caught hold of her arm, instinctively pulling her tight against him. He couldn’t seem to touch her without wanting to touch all of her. She trembled against him, and he instantly lightened his grip to a caress. “Please, not that again. Can’t you—”

“Nat and I were doing fine until you showed up.” She stepped away and yanked her arm from his hand. “We don’t need a thing from you.”

“He needs a father.”

“Well, you’re not him,” she stated, and headed for the path to the road.

He watched until she disappeared in the underbrush and then he buried both hands in his hair. That hadn’t gone the way it should have. Not one damn bit.

He should have focused more on what he could do for Nathan, on how easily he could improve their child’s life by moving them to the estate. Surely she’d want what was best for Nathan. He knew he sure as hell did, and he’d only had Nathan in his life for a day.

Unfortunately, after having Juliet back in his life for a day, he feared what was best for Nathan would not be best for Nathan’s parents.

“WE GOTTA LEAVE. We gotta leave,” Juliet chanted to herself in a panting whisper as she mounted the stairs to her room. Her heart slammed around in her chest, and her breath did a rotten job clearing her throat.

Forcing her mind to concentrate on what she needed to do wasn’t easy with Harrison’s words reverberating in her ears. He needs a father, he’d said. A father who didn’t want the mother. He would decide she wasn’t good enough, then take her baby away.

She wouldn’t let him. She would pack their things, bundle Nat up in his quilt, and go. Problem solved, she thought as she quietly opened the door and slipped into the room crowded by Nathan’s crib, her narrow bed and a single dresser.

But he only said he’d wished you’d left and gone to college because he felt bad about not coming back. You might still have a chance with him.

She shook her head at such nonsense and forced the tiny voice that had kept her hopes alive back into the bruised corner of her heart where it belonged.

Quietly moving to the crib, she checked on Nat. Seeing her baby—curled in a little ball around the quilt she’d made for him, his breath coming in tiny, even huffs—eased the tightness in her throat and allowed her to breathe again. But while the tightness eased at the sight of Nat’s sweet back, in its place was something as debilitating—the pain of a mother’s love. She loved her child with an intensity that invaded every pore and threatened to twist her guts till they were of no use to her anymore. She couldn’t lose him.

Keeping an eye on her sleeping toddler, Juliet tiptoed to the side of her bed and got down on her hands and knees. After groping about beneath the old bed, she retrieved her lone duffel bag and put it on top of her faded yellow comforter. The duffel wasn’t very big, but she and Nathan didn’t have much. They had each other, and that was enough.

She yanked open the top drawer of the dresser. Scooping up an armful of Nathan’s little undershirts, footed pajamas and socks, Juliet shoved the clothes unceremoniously into the duffel.

Harrison Rivers couldn’t waltz in and lay claim to her child. Especially not for whatever price her own family naively decided on. Nor did he have any right to come back into her life and make her want things she now knew she could never have with him. He was worth millions, and she was worth, well, at the moment, not much.

Whatever had led him to deal with his grief by slipping his hand into hers that early summer day more than two years ago had apparently faded or he got over it or he came to his senses, or something.

The nasty little voice that camped out in her brain whispered, The only thing that made him touch you back then was your willing smile.

She stubbornly shook her head again as she packed the duffel. It hadn’t been like that. They’d talked; they’d connected in a very profound way. They just hadn’t talked much about things like names or jobs or inheritances.

Or futures.

She had foolishly allowed herself to live in the moment, to take a chance. To dream.

Now that dream of one day being with him again was being taken away from her by the realities of their lives. She didn’t belong in his world, but she didn’t belong in hers, either. She’d never had the guts to face that fact before. She’d never had the guts to face a lot of things.

Struggling to ward off a fresh torrent of tears, Juliet went back to the dresser. She and Nathan didn’t need to stay here in her world. Not when her family couldn’t see past their greed. With a hip to the bottom edge of the drawer to keep the broken front from falling to the floor, she pulled the second drawer open and emptied it of Nathan’s overalls and sweats. She used the same hip to push the drawer closed.

Her reflection in the mirror above the dresser caught her attention. Nathan’s bunny lamp gave off enough light that she could see a dirty handprint on her shoulder. Harrison was still leaving his mark on her.

She didn’t want a man who popped into her life and made her believe in things that didn’t exist. Like soul mates and knights in shining armor. She curled her lip at the thought. The guy just said he never wanted to love someone so much it cost him his control.

She and Nat would simply leave. She stuffed her armload into the bag. The two of them would go so far away no one would ever find them, no matter how rich he might be.

The thought of riches made Juliet pause before going back to the dresser to collect her few belongings. Instead, she knelt and pulled a large, dented, Dutch shortbread cookie tin from beneath the bed. Popping the lid open, she released a quiet sob and sat on her heels to stare at the white envelope resting on top of a battered, leather-bound volume of Shakespeare’s works.

A faded Polaroid of her and her grandpa marked the page he’d been reading to her right before he died. Her grief hadn’t allowed her to open the book since. Missing a loved one was probably the only thing besides Nathan she and Harrison had in common.

Looking at the envelope, she didn’t need to pick it up and count how much money was inside. She knew exactly how much it held, exactly how much she’d managed to squirrel away since she’d convinced her mom to pay her minimum wage out of any profits the store made. Unfortunately, lately there rarely were any.

At one point she’d had close to five thousand dollars saved in that envelope. Five thousand dollars saved for college, for the school she’d been trying to screw up the courage to apply to.

Then she’d had Nat and had started dipping into the envelope to pay for things. Important things like the hospital, trips to the doctor, his crib and car seat. And that cute, fuzzy, blue snowsuit with bear ears that she’d bought when it had been so cold last winter. Juliet’s gaze rose to the open duffel. And those overalls embroidered all over with little trains he loved so much. Important things like that.

Now her envelope contained exactly $249. They wouldn’t get far on so little. Not far at all. Nat might even end up in danger. She’d rather die.

She slid her hand beneath the envelope to satisfy her ritual of tracing the tired lines of her grandfather’s face peeking out above the book. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. Quietly she replaced the lid of the old cookie tin with a hollow snap.

Grandpa would have told her to fight for what was hers. He wouldn’t have stood for this running-away nonsense, either. Grandpa would have gone toe-to-toe with anyone who’d tried to mess with his family. Shoot, he’d done as much when the state had made noises about taking her away from her own mother back when Mom couldn’t declare which of her boyfriends had fathered Juliet. At least that’s how he’d told the story.

No, Grandpa wouldn’t want his granddaughter sitting on the floor crying because she didn’t have enough money to run away. He’d want her to fight.

Since her grandpa was the only person Juliet had ever wanted to make proud, besides Nathan, of course, she shoved the round tin back beneath the bed and got to her feet. She would march herself downstairs and tell her no-good family again that she was the only one who had the right to decide anything about Nathan.

But after she eased closed the bedroom door behind her, a male voice reverberating up from the kitchen stopped her at the top of the stairs. Her hand turned to stone on the knob. She knew that voice in her heart as well as her head.

Harrison Rivers was downstairs, in her kitchen, talking to her greedy family.

The tremors that had seized her earlier in that very kitchen started once again, and she felt the blood leave her head. She couldn’t face Harrison like this, with her eyes red and nose running. She didn’t want him to think that she was weak and vulnerable. Not when he was the poster child for the confidence and self-assurance she had always wished she possessed.

But she had to know what he was saying to her family and, more important, what they were saying to him. So she started down the stairs.

Harrison’s deep voice increased her shaking. “It wasn’t my intention to upset Juliet.”

“Don’t you worry about that girl. She always did tend toward the emotional side,” her mom said in a girlish, high-pitched voice reserved for men who caught her interest.

As if things weren’t bad enough.

“Really.” Harrison didn’t sound particularly happy to hear the news.

Juliet scoffed. Wait until he tried to take Nat from her. Then he’d really see her emotional side.

“It’s not like she’s unstable or anything,” she heard Willie offer.

Juliet moaned inwardly. Leave it to Willie to make things worse. She sank down on a stair, her knees too unsteady to support her.

Great. Just great. Plant words like emotional and unstable in Harrison’s brain. Then he’d be chomping at the bit to rip Nathan from her arms at any cost.

She fisted her hands and forced herself back to her feet. She’d be damned if she’d cower in a dark stairway and let her family work up to portraying her as an unfit mother. That was one thing she was not. With renewed determination she descended the remaining stairs and turned the corner into the brightly lit kitchen.

At the sight of Harrison, she pulled up short not two steps into the room. While she had stopped a good yard from him, the breath left her as if she’d slammed into him at a dead run. She had never thought of their kitchen as big, but it had become absolutely tiny with him crowding the area. He completely filled the space between the table and the back door with his broad shoulders and tall frame. And he practically pulsated with an animal magnetism that made her break out in a very feminine sweat.

She hadn’t noticed down by the river, but he still wore the clothes he had on earlier that day, and his white designer shirt and olive-colored pants looked as out of place next to the dingy linoleum and gold-speckled Formica as they had in the store. Only the strained look on his handsome face and finger-mussed, dark-gold hair kept him from looking like he’d just stepped out of his country club.

When he turned toward her and caught her gaze with his, Juliet couldn’t regain the breath she’d lost. The look he gave her was far more wary than before, though just as intense. His wariness scared her, more than what her family had said. But as terrified as she was by what he might say or do, she couldn’t tear her gaze from his, and the blood that had pooled in her feet at the first sound of his voice came surging back up through her body like a tempest.

Why did she feel so connected to him? So in tune that she swore she could feel his heartbeat throbbing through her from three feet away? Didn’t her body know how dangerous he was to her? With a snap of his fingers he could take away her reason for living—Nathan. Not to mention what he could do to her heart. She forced herself to look away from his probing gaze.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Willie piped up when he, too, caught sight of her from where he stood leaning against the fridge. “Sheesh, Julie, you look like you just ran one of those stupid marathons.”

Juliet covered her flushed cheeks with her hands. It took a physical effort to cease gasping for air. She had to get ahold of herself or Harrison would easily believe what her family spouted about her mental health.

“Glad you decided to show, missy,” her mom said from her permanent spot at the head of the small table. “Mr. Rivers, here, came to see his son.”

She frowned at her mom. “My son is asleep.”

Harrison held up a hand and shook his head. “I don’t expect you to wake him.” He stepped around the table toward her, making a squishy sound with his shoe.

Juliet looked down and blinked when she saw his right leg was soaked from the ankle down. The cuff of his olive slacks and brown leather loafer were darkened with river water. She couldn’t help but feel a small surge of empathy. There probably weren’t any stagnant, ankle-deep puddles in front of his country club. He looked as uncomfortable and out of place in her world as she would in his.

He shifted again. She quickly looked up from his feet to his eyes when he continued, “I also wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Juliet continued to helplessly return his stare. While concern showed plainly on his face, his initial wariness gave way to some other intense emotion swimming in the depths of his dark-green eyes. She was at a loss to name what she saw there. He looked different from when he’d been telling her about his mother’s death. There’d been no mistaking the agony he felt then. Her own heart had answered in kind.

Whether he wanted to be or not, this was a man capable of deep feelings. And a true knight to his mother on her deathbed. But whatever motivation he had now, she wouldn’t let him or her family sway her way of thinking.

Nathan was hers.

Even if her stupid body wanted to belong to Nathan’s daddy.

Chapter Four

Harrison held his breath as he watched Juliet’s lush brown eyes study him as if he was a Picasso. She looked horrified and intrigued all at once. She also looked like she’d been crying again.

Harrison silently swore to himself. Her pain touched him, affected him, the same way her pleasure had. Never in his life had a woman’s passion so heightened his own. It was like she had somehow slipped under his skin with the first touch. He needed to either protect her in order to protect himself or learn to shut her out.

Unfortunately, neither would be easy.

“Are you all right?” he asked, repeating his question.

She let out an exasperated breath. “What do you think?”

“I think we need to talk,” he stated firmly.

“Talk,” her mom butted in. “Yes, that’s what we need to do. We all need to sit down here and talk till we come up with an agreement that will resolve this little situation.”

Juliet ground out, “Nathan is not a situation, Mom.”

“He most certainly is, missy,” her mother hissed. “And if you’re not in the mood to cooperate, you can march yourself back up those stairs where you came from.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to start parenting me?”

Harrison interrupted before things got completely out of control. “I need to talk to Juliet. Alone.” He reached a staying hand toward Juliet. She sidestepped away as though he’d offered her a snake. “I really drove up here tonight to see my…to see Nathan and to talk to Juliet. Just Juliet.”

He pulled back his hand and took a step toward her. She swayed away but held her ground, her expression guarded. Again he marveled at her strength of will. And liked it a lot. Few people were willing to stand against him. It was a wonder her family hadn’t broken her. The inane thought struck him that she was like a beautiful rosebud in a bouquet of milk-weeds.

Patting down her extremely curly, dark-brown hair and practically batting her equally dark eyes at him, Juliet’s mother said, “Well, as her mother, I feel it’s only right that I do the negotiating—”

Harrison clenched his jaw to keep from gaping. Before he could restate his intentions, Juliet cut her mother off first.

“Negotiating?” she cried. “There isn’t going to be any negotiating! Nathan isn’t some used car you’re trying to unload, he’s my son. Mine! Not this…this guy’s. He isn’t Nat’s father!”

Everyone spoke at once.

“Aw, get off it! What do you think we are? Retards?”

“Now, you look here, missy!”

“Juliet.” Only Harrison’s voice seemed to register with her, so he continued, “It’s clear to me now that no one is going to decide anything at this moment. The situation is too overwhelming—for both of us—to try to change anything right off.”

She looked away and crossed her arms in front of her full breasts, drawing his gaze despite his intentions. One more part of her he hadn’t quite been able to forget. She had fit so perfectly in his hands his palms started to itch for want of the contact again.

“There’s nothing to change. He isn’t yours,” she grumbled belligerently, drawing his attention from where it shouldn’t be.

“Jeez, Jules,” Willie groaned, and slapped a hand over his grubby, backward baseball hat. “What’s with you? I can’t believe you’re going to let Natter miss out on havin’ a guy like him for a dad.”

Harrison narrowed his eyes on Willie. “What do you mean, ‘a guy like me’?”

“Hell, just the fact you’re standin’ here screams decent guy. Most fellas would have turned tail and run the second they were given an out.”

Harrison folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t agree. I think most men want to be a part of their children’s lives.” Not to mention Juliet’s. He nearly groaned. No. He didn’t want to be a part of any woman’s life right now, he reminded himself for the millionth time. He wanted to run his company and be a father to his son. End of story.

Willie laughed and shook his head. “Man, do you live in a soap opera, or what?”

Harrison turned the question on Willie. “Would you walk away from a child of your own?”

He didn’t even take the time to think about his answer. “Like spit on ice.”

It was Harrison’s turn to shake his head. Not taking responsibility wasn’t an option. “That shows how different we are.”

Readjusting his shoulder against the refrigerator, Willie looked Harrison over from head to foot then started to chuckle. “You have no idea.”

Remembering he was talking to the wrong person, Harrison turned back to the only one who mattered and uncrossed his arms. “Juliet, please. I told you before, I have every intention of being an integral part of Nathan’s upbringing. I refuse to walk away from him.”

Willie straightened up from the fridge. “Hey, a DNA test would prove you’re the dad.”

With a perplexed look her mother asked, “A what?”

Instantly recoiling from the thought of running blood tests on his baby, Harrison shook his head. “I don’t think there’s any need for clinically establishing paternity.”

Willie made a noise and scratched his head through his baseball hat. To his mother he explained, “It’s a test that would show Nat’s his. You know, like those spit tests they use on AMW.”

Harrison frowned. “AMW?”

Willie gave him appalled look. “America’s Most Wanted. Man, you really are out there.”

Visibly paled, Juliet insisted, “I won’t agree to it.”

“You might not have a choice, Jules.”

Tired of the interference, Harrison sent her brother a look that made him hunker down into the nearest chair.

In a much less harsh tone her mother said, “Stop fighting it, Julie. If you think for a second, you’ll know this is for the best.”

Maybe the woman did care a little for Juliet’s feelings.

Juliet sniffed and threw out a hip. “You didn’t stop fighting when you were in my shoes.”

“That was your grandpa’s doing. I would have gladly let the state take you. I had my hands full already with your brother, here.”

Harrison sucked in a breath at the older woman’s cruel words. So much for caring for Juliet’s feelings.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m more like Grandpa than you, now, isn’t it?” Juliet said, her pain so clear on her face he wanted to gather her in his arms and make everything better.

She glanced at him, and he willed her to understand that he wasn’t the enemy. It didn’t work. She raised her chin in defiance. While he admired her tenacity, her refusal to cooperate was wearing thin.

“Don’t you worry none about her,” Willie offered. “If we need proof Natter’s yours, I’ll make sure you get it.”

“Willie!” Juliet gave her brother a horrified look.

“If anyone can do it, Willie can,” Juliet’s mother said with a permed nod, not even batting an eye at betraying her daughter. “They’re real close.”

Harrison could barely suppress a snort. He doubted either of them knew a thing about Juliet. And if he wanted to convince her to move to his estate, he knew he’d have to find a way to get close to her, himself. Looking at her mother and brother, he said, “I think this is something that Juliet and I should work through together. Alone.”

Without giving her time to protest, Harrison took Juliet’s hand and pulled her into the dim store.

The way her hand fit so perfectly within his registered in his brain and the need to gather her in his arms nearly overwhelmed him. But he hardened his heart with determination. They would end this nonsense and they would end it now.

He rounded on her. “You realize, don’t you, that I can find a way to prove Nathan is mine? Your family is more than willing to offer him up to me.”

“He isn’t theirs to—”

“And you won’t admit he’s mine, either. That leaves me with only one choice. Do you really want to put Nathan through a paternity test?”

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