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“And I suppose you think that’s you?”

Bella was stunned by Victoria’s vehemence. How was it possible that such a beautiful, successful woman could be intimidated by her? “I have no interest in marrying Blake.”

“Why not? It would set you up for life. All your family’s financial problems would be a thing of the past.”

The slap of Victoria’s words loosened Bella’s tongue. “Like you, I don’t want to be a mother.”

“Yet here you are playing one to Drew.”

“I’m his nanny,” Bella repeated, enunciating each word so her message was clear. “Blake needed someone to fill in for a couple months. I needed money for my sister. It’s nothing more than that.”

“Then make sure it stays that way, because if anything you do keeps me from getting him back, I’ll make sure he knows the truth about Drew.”

Instinctively Bella clutched Drew tighter. Her heart jerked in alarm. “That will only hurt your relationship with Blake.”

“Remember the mother who abandoned him? If he finds out you’ve done the same thing to your son, he will hate you forever.”

Bella flinched away from the malice in Victoria’s eyes. “My relationship with Blake is strictly professional. I’m his son’s nanny,” she reiterated. “If he doesn’t want to reunite with you, it will not be because of anything I’ve said or done.” Shaken by her encounter with Victoria, Bella headed for the stairs. “If you’re looking for Blake, try the beach.”

Without another word Victoria marched off, leaving Bella to ascend the stairs on shaky legs. Thanks to their little chat, Bella was no longer certain a summer fling with Blake was a good idea. As tempting as it was to spend the next couple of months getting him out her system, as Deidre had termed it, with Victoria back in the picture and angling for a reunion, Bella was better off returning her relationship with Blake to a professional footing.

While she ran Drew’s bathwater, Bella stripped him out of his sandy attire. Either he was still energized by his time on the beach or Victoria’s hostility had riled him up; whichever was the case, Bella had a heck of a time keeping the sand from scattering all over the bathroom. Once he was seated in the water, splashing happily, she sat down against the wall and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, following Drew’s antics with only half her attention.

It was peaceful sitting here. How many times had she watched her brothers or sisters in the tub? Too many to count.

Bella plucked Drew from the water and wrapped him in a thick towel. Cuddling him against her, she turned toward the door and spied Blake. How long had he been standing there? He’d showered but hadn’t taken time to dry his hair. It had a tendency to curl when it was wet. The sight struck her as adorable, a ridiculous term to use for someone as vigorous and masculine as Blake.

“I’m sorry Drew’s bath took so long.” She stumbled over her apology, thrown off balance by his clean scent and penetrating regard. “Give me a second to get him dressed for your lunch with Victoria. Is she still here or are you picking her up?”

“Neither.”

He continued to loom in the doorway, barring her way. Butterflies swirled in her midsection at the way he overpowered the generous space with his strong personality and commanding form.

“But I thought...?”

Blake hooked his free hand around her neck and drew her close. Bella was too startled to avoid the lips that came down to claim hers. Hard and demanding, the kiss stole her breath. She had no choice but to yield to the hunger that surged through her. He devoured her in slow, deliberate strokes of his tongue and lips.

She murmured in protest as he eased back, but the sound of Drew’s babbling reached through the fog of passion that held her enthralled. She twisted away from his kiss.

“Blake.” Her fingers clutched Drew’s towel. “You have to stop doing that.”

“I like doing that.” His voice was flat and emotionless. “I think you do, too.”

She refused to respond to the challenge in his eyes. “We can’t.” She took a hurried step back when she realized her close proximity might be misconstrued as further invitation.

“You were singing a different tune half an hour ago.” He kept his hands to himself, but his hot gaze was just as devastating to her willpower.

“I haven’t been thinking straight for the past twenty-four hours.” Seeing that he wasn’t buying her explanation, Bella hurried on. “You have no idea how charming you can be.”

“I know exactly how charming I can be, but you can’t seriously expect me to believe that’s why you slept with me.”

“I’m attracted to you.” Bella gave him a one-shoulder shrug, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I won’t deny I wanted you. But after some more soul-searching, I realized the two of us engaging in a casual romp is just ridiculous.”

“And naturally this has nothing to do with Victoria showing up here today? What did she say to you?”

“She wants you back.” The breath Bella gathered was less steady than she would have wanted. “You, her and Drew are a family. I think you owe it to yourself to give it another try with her.”

“The three of us are not a family. She left us.” The way his own mother had left him.

Bella winced. Convincing Blake he was better off with his ex-wife wasn’t going to be easy. “And she regrets that.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“Yes.”

“What else did she say?”

Here’s where she had not wanted to go. “I told Victoria—and I’m going to tell you—I don’t want to be involved in whatever’s going on between you two.”

“There’s nothing going on.”

“I don’t think your ex-wife sees it that way.”

“I don’t care which way she sees it. The reality is she’s not willing to give up her career to be a mother to Drew.”

“Does she have to? Can’t she do both?”

Victoria had been right about Blake’s expectations. He wanted his wife to surrender everything she was in order to be Drew’s mother. It was one thing if a woman wanted to put her family first, the way that Bella’s mother had. It was something else for a man to insist that she do it.

“Her career isn’t something that Vicky can do halfway. With her last play, I was lucky if she was home before ten at night. And that was before the play opened. She spent at most an hour or two with Drew a week.”

“I would have made a rotten marriage counselor,” Bella grumbled, beginning to see Blake’s point. Both he and Victoria had valid issues. Irreconcilable differences had caused their marriage to end. “Maybe you two can find a way to compromise. Figure out some middle ground.”

“She came by today to tell me she has an audition for a television series in Los Angeles. How are we supposed to be a family if we’re on two different coasts?”

“She invited you to lunch. Why not go and hear her out?”

“Because I already have a date with you.”

At the word date a sensation lanced along Bella’s nerve endings. Excitement? Anxiety? Her emotions were too scrambled for her to distinguish one from the other. The last thing she needed right now was to be seen in public lunching with Blake. How was she supposed to keep Victoria from getting the wrong idea once the gossip began to spread?

“I know I agreed earlier to have lunch with you and Drew, but maybe it’s not such a good idea for us to be seen together like that? People might get the wrong impression.”

“People in general?” he echoed. “Or someone in particular?”

She had no intention of answering him. “Won’t it look odd for you to be seen lunching with the help?”

His mouth twisted with displeasure. “Is it really my reputation you’re worried about, or is it yours?”

“Mine.” The instant the admission left her lips, she wished it back. “You probably think it’s dumb that I value my privacy, but after growing up in a small town where everyone knew your business and having to share a house with seven nosy siblings, I’ve discovered that being anonymous is one of my favorite things about living in New York City.”

Blake regarded her for a long, silent moment before nodding. “Fine. We’ll drive up the coast to a little out-of-the-way place I know. The food is terrific and you won’t have to worry about anyone spotting you with me. Happy?” He sounded anything but.

“Delirious.” She gave the word the same sarcastic spin he’d used, but her insides were dancing with joy. “Give me ten minutes to shower and get dressed.”

“Take twenty. I’ll dress Drew and meet you downstairs.”

* * *

The second half of June vanished before Blake could tear himself away from East Hampton and return to New York City. He, Drew and Bella had settled into a nice routine.

They ran five miles before breakfast, ate eggs or pancakes, then Bella and Drew went to the beach while Blake worked in his office. They reconnected for lunch and while Drew napped, Blake discovered all sorts of new and interesting ways to make Bella moan. She had a delightful range of impassioned sounds and he was happy cataloging each one.

Once Drew woke, he and Bella would go for a swim and then play until dinner while Blake made calls to New York. They almost never went out. The beach house had become a cozy world for just the three of them. Leaving it would mean confronting reality. And Blake was certain neither he nor Bella wanted to do that.

He suspected his friends were wondering if he’d ever stop turning down invitations. He had little trouble imagining the gossip being exchanged over drinks at the club or shopping in town. His divorce from Vicky had been fast and quiet. He’d kept the reasons for it private, but something as juicy as Victoria Ford having an affair with Gregory Marshall wasn’t something that could remain undiscovered.

His relationship with Bella was too new, too tenuous to survive the curiosity of his social circle. Nor was he ready to share her with anyone. He was enjoying having her to himself far too much.

After a long day at the office, he was glad to head home. The penthouse was a hollow shell without Drew, and he realized how easy it had been to forget his ordinary life in Manhattan and live a fantasy in East Hampton with his son and a woman who was a nurturing caretaker and an outstanding mistress.

Blake stood in the living room, a scotch in his hand, and contemplated Central Park. In another year Drew would be running over the grass with Blake in hot pursuit. He could almost hear his son’s joyful giggles. And the woman who stood by and watched? Bella.

His breath caught. She’d been appearing more and more in his thoughts about the future. He’d pictured quiet dinners with her in the penthouse. Them pushing a stroller around the zoo. Attending Drew’s soccer matches together. It was a very different life than he’d had with Vicky.

“Mr. Ford.” Blake’s housekeeper stood in the arch between the living room and front hallway.

He glanced at his watch. “Is it time for dinner already?”

“No.” She advanced. “I was cleaning out the closet in the third bedroom. Mrs. Ford came by earlier this week and wanted to pick up some things she’d left behind.” Mrs. Gordon paused and looked uncomfortable. “I told her I couldn’t let her in without your say-so, but that I would pack everything up and get it delivered to her.”

“That’s fine.” Blake was about to turn back to contemplating the view when he noticed an envelope in Mrs. Gordon’s hand. “Is there something else?”

“This.” She advanced toward him. “It fell out of a box filled with her old tax records.”

Vicky had always handled her own money. Early in her career, a friend of hers had lost everything when her business manager embezzled from her. Blake had always enjoyed watching his wife sit at her desk and work her financial data. As frustrated as he often became with her frivolous nature, this was one aspect of her personality that he wholeheartedly appreciated.

“What is it?” Blake quizzed, taking the envelope from his housekeeper. It had already been slit open, allowing him to remove the contents.

“It’s a bill from the fertility clinic.” Mrs. Marshall sounded worried.

Blake scanned the statement. It was indeed a bill. One that had only his wife’s name on it. The bottom line was a great deal less than what they’d been told to expect for in vitro fertilization.

Probably because the services rendered had been for artificial insemination instead.

As the import of what he was reading sunk in, Blake felt his stomach drop. Thoughts spinning, he double-checked. Yes, Bella was listed as the patient. But she hadn’t been implanted with fertilized eggs. She’d been impregnated with his sperm.

Drew wasn’t Vicky’s son.

He was Bella’s.

* * *

With Blake in the city for a few days, Bella decided to take Drew on a tour of some local museums. East Hampton had a rich history that fascinated her. Established in 1648, it was one of America’s earliest settlements. Fishing and farming was the way most made their living until the early part of the twentieth century, when the town began attracting the wealthy as well as artists and writers.

She started at Mulford Farm. Built around 1680, the house was remarkable in that it remained unchanged since 1750. In addition to being architecturally interesting, the fact that the Mulford family had owned the house for most of its existence offered insight into how they used the land and the buildings.

While Bella explored the rooms furnished with period pieces, Drew fell asleep in his stroller. He was exhausted after a difficult night of teething. Bella sympathized. She too was worn out, but her scholarly interest was stimulated by the house and the barn. She took a lot of pictures, knowing her father would find the layout of the barn intriguing.

Her phone rang as she was buckling Drew into his car seat. Thinking it was Blake, she answered.

“Hiya, sis.” It was her sister Laney. At thirteen, she was the most social of all Bella’s siblings.

Laney had two close friends who lived in town and when the three girls weren’t together, they were texting or chatting through social media. To save her parents the cost of an additional line, Bella had put Laney on her cell plan. Plus, it offered her an opportunity to see how much time her sister spent “connecting.”

“What’s up?”

“I don’t know if I told you that our choir got invited to Chicago to perform in August.”

“That’s fantastic.”

“Mom and Dad aren’t going to be able to chaperone and I was wondering if you could.”

Bella sighed at her sister’s request. It was something she’d done in the past. Laney had been in the choir since she turned nine. They’d often traveled to sing, but never to a city as big or as far away as Chicago.

“When is it?”

“August first through the sixth. We’ve raised almost all the money we need, but we’re short two chaperones.”

The timing of the trip wasn’t great. Bella didn’t know when Talia would be back and she didn’t want to leave Blake in the lurch for that long. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do that.”

“Come on, Bella, you’ve done it for me before.” Which was why Laney expected her sister to drop everything and do it again. “We might not be able to go if we don’t have enough chaperones.”

The despair in Laney’s voice was real and Bella winced. She hated disappointing her sister, but she had an obligation to Blake, as well.

“I’m not saying no because I don’t want to,” she explained, ignoring the way Laney’s request had caused a dip in her mood. “It’s just that I have a job this summer and I’m not sure I can get away.”

“Can’t you ask them? Tell them how important it is. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“This is important, too.” Bella cursed her rising temper.

She didn’t want to be cross with her sister. Laney was thirteen and excited about going to Chicago. Bella didn’t blame her. If she’d had an opportunity to spend a few days there when she was her sister’s age, she would have been over the moon.

“Please. Please. Please.”

With each pleading syllable, Bella felt herself weakening. “I’ll have to check and see if I can have the time off. I’ll let you know later in the week.”

“I need to know tomorrow. That’s when they’re deciding if they need to cancel the trip or not.”

Behind Laney, Bella heard her mother’s voice. A second later, Laney was replaced by her mother.

“Bella, we have everything in hand here. You don’t need to ask your boss for time off.”

As much as it would relieve Bella to believe that, she’d grown up hearing her mother utter the exact same phrase when things weren’t the slightest bit under control.

“That’s not the way it sounded.”

“Your sister cannot expect you to fly to home so you can chaperone.”

The weariness beneath her mother’s exasperation tugged at Bella. She should be home helping out instead of living the good life in New York. It had been selfish of her to move so far away.

“I’m sure it will be okay with Blake,” she assured her mother.

“Blake Ford? That nice man who called us a few weeks ago?”

Bella rolled her eyes at her mother’s description of Blake. Many words could be used to describe the attractive CEO. Nice was probably not top on the list. Forceful. Determined. Persuasive. Sexy as hell. Nice was too tame.

“I’m working as his son’s nanny for a couple months while his regular nanny recovers from a broken leg.”

“It’s wonderful that you can help him out. Don’t you worry about Laney. Someone will step forward and be their chaperone.”

Even though Bella had been relieved of responsibility, her sense of obligation lingered. “If no one does, give me a call back. I’m sure I can figure something out.”

“Of course.”

But Bella knew her mother wouldn’t call. She never asked for help. She just tried to get it all done on her own. Only she never did. There was always something left undone. Pieces to be picked up by Bella. And now her other siblings. But were they helping out?

“How are things going there, Mom?”

“Terrific.”

Bella wasn’t sure why she asked. Her mother never showed any signs of stress. But it was always there, just below the unruffled surface. When Bella had lived on the farm, it had been easy to pitch in. These days, Bella worried all the time about what was going on, but she was too far away to help.

Except with money.

It was how she assuaged her guilt over living so far away. Sending money let her feel as if she was still able to make things easier on her parents.

“I’m glad to hear things are good.”

“Oh dear, Laney has another call coming in. We’ll talk soon. Elephant shoes.”

And as Bella was echoing her mother’s I love you, the phone went dead.

She slid behind the wheel, her enthusiasm for the outing fading fast. The familiar burden of responsibility had descended on her shoulders. Her mind told her to shake it off, but a lifetime of habit kept the weight right where it was.

Nine

The empty stretch of road before them taxed Blake’s driving skills very little and gave him lots of time to brood. Beside him, Bella watched the landscape race past, as lost in her thoughts as he was. The only sound in the car was the musical toy attached to Drew’s car seat. The tinny nursery rhymes kept the atmosphere from becoming completely awkward.

Three days had passed since he’d learned that Drew was Bella’s biological child. Three days for him to run a gamut of emotions from shock to anger to deep sadness. When he’d thought she was only Drew’s surrogate, he’d been dismayed that she’d decided that she didn’t want any contact after Drew was born. The realization that she’d given up her own flesh and blood troubled him to the point where he had difficulty speaking to her.

How could Bella give up her child?

The question pounded him over and over.

So why hadn’t he asked her?

Because he was afraid her explanation would answer an even older question. How could Blake’s mother have abandoned him? Deep down he’d never truly accepted that his mother was too miserable with his father to stay married to him. If she had to move back to France, couldn’t Blake have spent some time with her? Summers? Holidays?

As a child it had been too painful to accept that she’d never really loved him. He’d made excuses that continued to be plausible today. His father was a controlling bastard who’d probably paid her well to disappear out of his son’s life. But could a woman who loved her child be bought off?

Blake’s grip tightened on the steering wheel as he thought about the thirty thousand dollars he’d paid Bella to be Drew’s surrogate. She’d had no problems taking the money in exchange for her son.

“Tell me more about the vineyard we’re going to,” Bella prompted, breaking the heavy silence. Blake had arrived back at the beach house just that morning and announced they would be visiting some friends. “How do you know the owner?”

“He and I went to college together. We were both business majors, but even back then he had a passion for wine. His father expected him to take over the family business. They haven’t spoken in five years.”

“Because he bought the winery?” Bella shook her head in dismay. “What sort of parent cuts ties with their child because they don’t do exactly what the parent expects?”

Incredulous, Blake glanced her way. “There are all kinds of reasons why parents turn their backs on their children.” He hadn’t meant to start this particular conversation with Bella when they were on their way to visit his friends, but he couldn’t let the topic go without commenting.

“Is that a shot at Victoria or at me?”

Thanks to this week’s revelations, Blake now understood that Vicky didn’t care if she was in Drew’s life. He was far more interested in why Bella had turned her back on him.

“Why did you walk away last fall?”

“Because he didn’t need me. He had you and Victoria.”

Her practical answer didn’t make him feel any better. “And now that Victoria and I are divorced?” Blake knew it was too early to push his agenda, but he was too irritated to be patient. “Have you changed your mind about being a part of his life?”

“Don’t you think that will confuse him when he’s old enough to understand how he was conceived?”

More excuses. Blake unclenched his teeth and relaxed his jaw. “I think he’ll be more confused when he finds out there’s a woman who carried him for nine months who isn’t in his life.”

“And what happens when you remarry?” Her tone took on an aggressive note. “Do you really think your new wife will appreciate me hanging around when she’s trying to develop a relationship with him?”

“That’s a poor excuse.”

“It’s not. It’s what happened.” Bella must have heard the slip because she rushed on. “What will happen. If it was me, I wouldn’t want another woman hanging around. Interfering.”

The explanation Bella gave didn’t sound like her rationale.

“Vicky asked you to stay away.” Suddenly it all made sense. “That’s why you took yourself out of the picture after Drew was born.”

“She was terribly insecure about becoming a mother. If she’d been able to carry Drew, she wouldn’t have felt so disengaged from the process.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Vicky that would keep her from getting pregnant,” Blake said, curious how much his ex-wife had told Bella. “She was afraid of the damage a pregnancy would do to her body.”

“But—” Bella sputtered to a stop. When Blake looked over, she was staring at him in horror. “How do you know that?”

“A year ago, I found out she lied to me about her infertility.”

Blake remembered finding his wife’s birth control pills. He’d been too focused on starting a family to see that his wife wasn’t ready—wasn’t interested—in having children. And instead of being honest with him, she’d lied and gone along with his desire for a family. In the end, she’d chosen her career over him.

But now that she’d discovered that becoming an actress was tougher than she’d thought, she wanted him back. Did she really think him such a fool? Nothing about her had changed. When the next opportunity presented itself, she would leave them once more.