Married Right Away

Savannah faced him, her fingers immediately going to the top button of her blouse.

Ethan almost ran to stop her. “No,” he said, clasping her fingers to remove them from the button.

“No?” she asked, wide-eyed, frightened and so incredibly beautiful in her innocence that he almost shook with gratitude.

“If we’re going to do this we’re going to do this right,” he said.

Then he bent his head and kissed her….

Dear Reader,

Calling all royal watchers! This month, Silhouette Romance’s Carolyn Zane kicks off our exciting new series, ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR, with the gem Of Royal Blood. Fans of last year’s ROYALLY WED series will love this thrilling four-book adventure, filled with twists and turns—and of course, plenty of love and romance. Blue bloods and commoners alike will also enjoy Laurey Bright’s newest addition to her VIRGIN BRIDES thematic series, The Heiress Bride, about a woman who agrees to marry to protect the empire that is rightfully hers.

This month is also filled with earth-shattering secrets! First, award-winning author Sharon De Vita serves up a whopper in her latest SADDLE FALLS title, Anything for Her Family. Natalie McMahon is much more than the twin boys’ nanny—she’s their mother! And in Karen Rose Smith’s A Husband in Her Eyes, the heroine has her eyesight restored, only to have haunting visions of a man and child. Can she bring love and happiness back into their lives?

Everyone likes surprises, right? Well, in Susan Meier’s Married Right Away, the heroine certainly gives her boss the shock of his life—she’s having his baby! And Love Inspired author Cynthia Rutledge makes her Silhouette Romance debut with her modern-day Cinderella story, Trish’s Not-So-Little Secret, about “Fatty Patty” who comes back to her hometown a beautiful swan—and a single mom with a jaw-dropping secret!

We hope this month that you feel like a princess and enjoy the royal treats we have for you from Silhouette Romance.

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Married Right Away

Susan Meier

Books by Susan Meier

Silhouette Romance

Stand-in Mom #1022

Temporarily Hers #1109

Wife in Training #1184

Merry Christmas, Daddy #1192

*In Care of the Sheriff #1283

*Guess What? We’re Married! #1338

Husband from 9 to 5 #1354

*The Rancher and the Heiress #1374

†The Baby Bequest #1420

†Bringing up Babies #1427

†Oh, Babies! #1433

His Expectant Neighbor #1468

Hunter’s Vow #1487

Cinderella and the CEO #1498

Marrying Money #1519

The Boss’s Urgent Proposal #1566

Married Right Away #1579

Silhouette Desire

Take the Risk #567

SUSAN MEIER

is one of eleven children, and though she has yet to write a book about a big family, many of her books explore the dynamics of “unusual” family situations like large work “families,” bosses who behave like overprotective fathers, or “sister” bonds created between friends. Because she has more than twenty nieces and nephews, children are also always popping up in her stories. Many of the funny scenes in her books are based upon experiences raising her own children or interacting with her nieces and nephews.

She was born and raised in western Pennsylvania and continues to live in Pennsylvania.

Contents

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 One

When Savannah Groggin opened the door of her Thurmont, Maryland, bed-and-breakfast to Ethan McKenzie, she wasn’t surprised to see her former boss, the in-house counsel for an Atlanta-based company where she had worked as a paralegal.

“Savannah, I’m so sorry,” Ethan said, as he entered her foyer. His short black hair was combed in the usual neat style she remembered from two years before. His brown eyes were serious, concerned. But wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt and not dressed in a suit, he looked much younger than she remembered. Also, the casual clothes made him seem more approachable than he had been when she worked for him, which was the first and only good thing she had noticed all day.

“You’re sorry?” Savannah said, looking at the floor because she couldn’t meet his eyes. In just twelve short hours, all the joy her pregnancy had brought her had been lost. Not only had she learned from the Georgia State Police that the sperm donation used to create the baby she carried belonged to her ex-boss, but also that her brother was a fugitive from justice. She bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling, then said, “My brother and I are the ones who should be sorry.”

“I know you didn’t have anything to do with this,” he said urgently. “From the way this thing was set up, the police deduced you’re innocent. But even if they hadn’t told me you weren’t an accomplice, I worked with you long enough to realize, well, that you hadn’t known—”

“That my brother falsified records at the clinic where he worked and stole your sperm?”

Ethan grimaced at her frankness, then nodded. “Yes.”

Confused and tired from a long, difficult day, Savannah rubbed her hands along the small of her back. “Since we have a lot to talk about, could we sit in the living room?”

Ethan’s expression became distressed and his gaze fell to her stomach, which wasn’t yet huge with child, but was obviously swollen.

Suddenly, it hit her full force.

The baby in her belly belonged to both of them.

He cleared his throat. “Savannah, I’m sorry. I should have thought of that,” he said as he took her hand and led her into her quiet living room. Furnished with aging blue French provincial furniture trimmed in walnut, with thick navy velour drapes in front of white lace sheers, the room was dark and quiet.

Savannah turned on a lamp, shedding some much-needed light into the room, and sat on the sofa.

Ethan sat beside her and took her hand again. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No. I’m fine.” Part of her almost wished he wouldn’t be so nice because it made her feel incredibly guilty. The other part was glad he was handling this better than she was. It was hard enough to come to terms with the fact that her brother had forged someone’s name, falsified records and stolen property all because she was concerned about getting a good father for the in vitro fertilization. It was almost too much to bear that Barry felt the only way he could fulfill his promise to her was to cheat a man she knew and respected.

Tightening his hold on her hand, Ethan said, “Savannah, though your brother had no right to do what he did, I also have to take some responsibility. I should have destroyed that sample two years ago when my wife and I divorced.”

“It’s very nice of you to say that,” Savannah said. “But you entrusted your property to a reputable clinic. You shouldn’t have had to worry that someone would steal it.”

“True. But I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, so I’m accountable, too,” Ethan said, sounding logical yet kind.

Immediately Savannah’s instincts went on red alert. She remembered that as an attorney this man was sharp and intelligent. There was only one reason he would take responsibility. He wanted it. And if he wanted responsibility that meant he wanted the baby.

In all the confusion about her brother, her fear of being thought of as an accomplice and her hours of being questioned by the police, Savannah hadn’t forgotten the real issue wasn’t the crime, but the baby. A man didn’t cryogenically preserve his sperm unless he wanted to assure he had a child someday. Though she probably wasn’t the mother he would have chosen, and this might not be the time he would have preferred, the deed was done. He had his child on the way. And he would get it.

Ethan might genuinely believe Savannah hadn’t been in on the scheme, but her brother’s misdeeds would cast a shadow of doubt on her credibility in court. Plus, Ethan was a wealthy man from a prominent, well-respected family. His father had been a senator forever. His mother had served on a president’s cabinet. Her baby, the baby she had been carrying for five months, the child she wanted more than her next breath of air, was as good as lost to her.

Desperately trying not to cry, she nervously fingered the long strawberry blond curls that fell across her shoulders to her bosom. “You want custody of the baby, don’t you?”

“Custody is one of the things we need to talk about.”

“Okay,” Savannah said, nearly paralyzed with fear. Tears threatened beneath her eyelids. She had gone through the tests, the processes, the first five months of pregnancy filled with so much joy that she could barely contain it. She wasn’t ready to let her unborn baby slip through her fingers. Not yet. “What are the other things you want to talk about?”

For several seconds, Ethan said nothing, then finally, quietly, he said, “I’ve been told my father’s friend, Sam Ringer, has decided to run for president of the United States and my father is his vice presidential choice. But Sam isn’t waiting around for his party’s convention to announce it. He’s announcing it in the fall so he can use my father’s pull to help him win the primaries and assure he gets the nomination.”

“Oh, my God,” Savannah said, feeling all the blood drain from her face, as the situation continued to worsen. Her baby had been created without permission. Her brother was a fugitive. The McKenzies were rich and powerful and would probably take her to court to get this child. And her custody battle with the son of a vice presidential candidate would probably start around the same time as the first primary, so every unhappy fact of her life would be fodder for the national news.

The picture of it flashed in her mind. She could see microphones and cameras shoved in her face, and vans with satellite dishes parked in her yard.

She shook her head in dismay. “This is going to be a circus.”

Ethan shifted on his seat. “Not really. I mean, it doesn’t have to be,” he said softly. Still holding her hand, he lightly tugged on her fingers and forced her to look at him. “Savannah, the only thing that makes this news is that your brother falsified records and you were impregnated without my knowledge. But if everybody thought you were pregnant because we were lovers, it wouldn’t be a big deal.”

Remembering again how cunning this man could be, a chill snaked through her. “So you want me to pretend we’ve been dating?”

He shook his head and said, “No, I want you to marry me.”

Savannah’s heart felt like it stopped beating. She laid her free hand on her chest. “Marry you?” she whispered.

“If you don’t marry me, and this story leaks to the press as it is, your brother will be the most popular, most sought-after fugitive in the world if only by the tabloids, and my father will be answering more questions about this baby than about real campaign issues. This story could overshadow every point he and Senator Ringer try to make and render their campaign irrelevant.

“But if you marry me,” Ethan continued, “I won’t press charges against your brother. He won’t be a wanted man anymore and our pregnancy and wedding will be a blip in the human interest pages of a few newspapers. Nothing more.”

“I see,” Savannah said, though she could hardly believe what she was hearing. Yesterday she was the simple, humble owner of a bed-and-breakfast that she had inherited when her parents were killed. Today she was receiving a proposal of marriage from a man considered one of the most eligible bachelors in the nation—because she was pregnant with his child and that child had been created in an unorthodox way, a way that involved forgery and theft.

“Before you agree,” Ethan said, again catching her gaze. “I have to tell you that if this is going to work we’ll also have to make everyone believe we’re a love match. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to fawn all over you, or that I’ll expect you to be my wife for real and forever. But it does mean that we’ll have to pretend to be in love for the general public, including my parents, and that you’ll need to move to Atlanta with me until after the baby is born. We’ll wait a month or two after that to make everything seem legitimate then we’ll quietly divorce.”

Savannah swallowed hard. “I need to move to Atlanta?”

“Yes. It’s where I live. It’s where you lived until two years ago. We worked together. It won’t be a stretch for people to believe we had a relationship.”

Overwhelmed with facts and possibilities, most of them bad, Savannah drew a long breath. “If I marry you, does this mean you won’t fight me for custody?”

“If you marry me I won’t fight you for custody, but visitation is an entirely different thing. I don’t want to be a weekend dad. I will be a big part of this child’s life.”

Well, the cards were on the table, Savannah thought, not entirely pleased, but at least relieved that Ethan wouldn’t take away her basic right as a mother. She knew she could probably use the marriage as further leverage to push him into some kind of visitation agreement right now, but she also recognized that she had more immediate concerns.

She couldn’t handle a cub reporter on a good day. Even though leaving her bed-and-breakfast posed an enormous problem for her, if only because she had bookings, getting her friends to take over for a few months was easier than defending her brother, herself and her baby in the court of public opinion.

She also had to take a share of the responsibility for Barry’s forgery and theft because she had made him promise she would get a good father for her baby. She had to take some responsibility for that, too.

Ethan again squeezed her fingers gently. “Savannah, I didn’t expect you to answer today. But I will need an answer first thing tomorrow.”

Glad to have a reprieve to think this through, Savannah tried to smile, but failed miserably. “Okay.”

“Just remember that the longer you take to decide the less possible this scheme becomes,” he said quietly. He studied her, then rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “Today, the clinic and a handful of police know. By tomorrow night, you can add a hundred people to that list. This time next week, you can add millions. But with the right word from me, I can have that police report filed away or destroyed as if it never existed.”

“What about the people at the sperm bank?”

Ethan smiled. “Since I could sue the clinic into bankruptcy for this, once I tell the owner I’m not pressing charges, a smart man would shove the paperwork so far back in the corner of his filing cabinet that it would never again see the light of day. Even if one of the employees sold the story to a tabloid, with that paperwork ‘lost’ there would be nothing to back it up and we could easily deny it.

“But if we let another twenty-four hours go by,” Ethan continued, “then this window of opportunity is gone because too many people will know the truth. You need to agree before seven tomorrow morning or all bets are off.”

Savannah nodded.

“Okay. I’m going to let you alone now to think about this because I can tell by looking at you that you’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

His voice softened marginally and Savannah recognized that though he was pushing her into making a huge decision, he was doing it gently, like a man taking care of her. Only then did it fully register that he was still sitting beside her, holding her hand. And only then did the knowledge that she was pregnant with his child completely sink in. Her body flushed as the heat of embarrassment spiraled through her. Though they hadn’t been physically “intimate” with each other, they were none the less sharing the most intimate experience any two people could share. Together they had created a child, a child who was growing inside her.

Savannah felt strange and awkward and suddenly faint.

Grateful that he was leaving, she cautiously slid her hand from his and took a slow breath before she said, “You’re right. I’ve had so much news in the past twelve hours that I need time to digest at least some of it before I can make this decision.”

“You rest then,” he said, rising. “And I’ll be back early tomorrow morning.”

Savannah nodded and rose from the sofa, too. As she did she noticed the way the lamplight glistened off Ethan’s shiny black hair. Though she didn’t want to be making these kinds of observations, she realized that her child could look exactly like him. He or she might have Ethan’s eyes and Ethan’s hair. Their baby could have his brains and his talent, or, better yet, their baby could really be somebody important like Ethan’s father….

Reminded of the prominence of Ethan’s family, the queasy feeling in her stomach turned into full-fledged nausea. She had just been asked to marry the son of a man who might become the next vice president of the United States. Worse, he was one of the most eligible bachelors in the world because he wasn’t merely rich, he was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. She’d noticed before, of course. She would have been blind not to, but working with him and being married to him were two different things.

“We will be getting divorced, right?”

“As soon as reasonably possible after the baby’s born,” Ethan agreed, walking to the door. “But that gives us time to talk about visitation.”

Ethan smiled at her and Savannah returned his smile, but Ethan didn’t for one second believe she was okay with all this. Which suited him just fine because he wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was okay with it, either. In fact, having her wary rather than excited at the prospect of becoming his wife was actually a point in her favor. He meant it when he said he didn’t think she had any knowledge of this scheme to use his sperm, but now that the baby had been created, he had to take steps to ensure she didn’t get any crazy ideas. Like blackmail. The shy, sweet paralegal he worked with two years ago would never think to use his child as a ploy to get money but he wasn’t so sure about the new Savannah he had found here this evening.

She didn’t even look like the woman he remembered. Instead of having short unruly red hair, she now had long tresses that cascaded all around her so that the riot of curls was flattering, not disheveled. Though her pregnancy concealed it, she must have lost some weight because her face was thinner…prettier. She wasn’t wearing an ounce of makeup, yet she looked beautiful in a way she never had when she worked at Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods. The past two years had matured her into an absolutely stunning woman.

A stunning woman swollen with his child, Ethan thought, then swallowed hard. She wasn’t merely a beautiful woman to whom he would be attracted if circumstances were different, she was somebody he had worked with, a wonderfully innocent woman he had liked and respected, and the baby she carried was his. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to forget that this situation had repercussions and allow himself to tumble headfirst into the magic of becoming a parent. He wanted to bask in the knowledge that finally—after thirty-five years—he was about to become a father!

But he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t entirely sure how this situation was going to play out. So he had to be ready for whenever Savannah decided to make her move….

Still he allowed himself one tiny father-to-be indulgence and asked, “Are you okay to be alone tonight?”

“I’m fine,” Savannah said. “I just need to get accustomed to all this.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Ethan agreed, because he was sure that once his own astonishment and excitement abated, he wouldn’t have to worry about being attracted to her or overwhelmed with the joy of becoming a father. His common sense and logic would return and he would be just fine.

But when he again caught her gaze, he saw sadness in her eyes and suddenly recognized that while he was fighting the desire to rejoice over getting a child she was being forced to adjust to having to share her child. From the pain in her eyes it was a devastating blow.

Again he remembered her as she was when she worked with him. Shy. Sweet. Vulnerable. Guilt tightened his chest and made him draw a deep breath.

“I know this has been an awful day for you. I don’t feel right leaving you by yourself.”

“I’m not going to be by myself. I have friends coming over in a few minutes,” she said, backing away from him. “Since I got pregnant, we’ve made Friday night our poker night.”

“Poker?”

The question in his voice must have amused her, because she smiled. “What? You think women don’t like to gamble a little or get together for a weekly gossip session?”

He wished she hadn’t told him she liked to gamble, but in some ways he was glad she had because it brought him back to earth with a hard thump. He didn’t know how much she had changed in the past two years. She might not have had any part in stealing his property, but now that she knew he was the father of her baby it wasn’t a stretch to realize she would soon see she could make this work in her favor.

Before Ethan had a chance to say anything, there was a quick knock at the door. Her guests didn’t wait for an invitation to enter, and Ethan had to jump out of the way as the women he assumed were her poker pals entered around him. Redheaded twins, a blonde and a brunette made up the quartet. Each of the women was in her early twenties. All wore simple jeans and colorful T-shirts.

“Hi, Savannah!”

“Hi.” She paused, glanced at Ethan and drew a quick breath. “This is Ethan McKenzie. Ethan, these are my friends, Andi, Mandi, Becki and Lindsay.”

Ethan said, “How do you do?”

“How do you do…?”

Four pair of eyes eagerly assessing him might have cowed another man, but Ethan held their gazes steadily, making his own quick assessment of things. Just from the cornered expression on the face of the brunette, Ethan knew her poker buddies weren’t simply here for a night of playing cards. He would bet his last dime they came here every Friday night more to check up on Savannah than to gamble and they would take care of her. The smartest thing for him to do would be to get the hell out of here and regroup before he said or did something that he regretted, if only out of compassion for the woman carrying his child.

His child.

He almost couldn’t believe he was about to have a baby. The knowledge overwhelmed him. Took his breath. Which was exactly why he had to be careful. The last time he let an emotion control him, it cost him much more than he could afford to risk.

He looked at Savannah and forced himself to see her objectively, honestly and through the filter of unhappy possibilities. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

The second he was out the door, Savannah turned to her four friends. Protectively placing her palm on her stomach, she said, “I’m in big trouble.”