“If it’s an Abbott, it’s mine.”

Cordie had a horrible feeling that she understood what Killian meant, but she had to be sure. “You said you didn’t want to reconcile.”

“That’s right,” he told her.

She folded her arms so he wouldn’t see her hands tremble. “You’ll keep me until the birth, then take the baby away from me?”

“We’ll work out a deal.”

Without thinking twice, she struck him hard on the shoulder. “You don’t deal over a baby.” To herself she added, This isn’t part of the plan. You’re supposed to invite me back into your life! “I’m not giving up my claim to the baby,” Killian said unequivocally.

“It’s mine!”

“It’s ours. And trying to pretend I don’t figure in his life isn’t going to work.”

She was suddenly aware that her plot had a serious pitfall. Killian was going to fight her for the baby. And he had an army of lawyers. “You’re hateful,” she said in a heartfelt whisper.

He gave her a brief nod, as though it was of no consequence. “I gathered you felt that way when you slept with Brian.”

Dear Reader,

The Hamptons on Long Island, New York, have always held a fascination for me. My only experience with the area is what I’ve seen at the movies or in decorating magazines. I love the notion of a sprawling, beachy house decorated in shabby chic and fronted by lawn and sea grass that meanders to the ocean. I can visualize Japanese lanterns, smell clam boils and barbecues, and hear music and laughter.

Of course, my writer’s mind has to populate this place. I decided upon three brothers who’ve inherited the family wealth and business, but still bear guilt over a little sister who went missing twenty-five years earlier.

In my imagination, this sunny upscale place became Losthampton, and I created Killian, Sawyer and Campbell Abbott to live there with various members of their household and staff. Over the course of this series they will attract three strong, wise women who help them heal, and make their lives more interesting—and surprising—along the way.

Thank you for wanting to know them.

Best wishes!

Muriel

P.O. Box 1168

Astoria, Oregon 97103

Books by Muriel Jensen

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

866—FATHER FOUND

882—DADDY TO BE DETERMINED

953—JACKPOT BABY *

965—THAT SUMMER IN MAINE

His Baby

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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THE ABBOTTS—A GENEALOGY

THOMAS and ABIGAIL ABBOTT (arrived on the Mayflower; raised sheep outside of Plymouth)

WILLIAM and DEBORAH ABBOTT (built a woolenmill in the early nineteenth century)

JACOB and BEATRICE ABBOTT (ran the mill and fell behind the competition when they failed to modernize)

JAMES and ELIZA ABBOTT (Jacob’s eldest son and grandfather of Killian, Sawyer and Campbell; married a cotton heiress from Virginia)

NATHAN and SUSANNAH STEWART ABBOTT (parents of Killian and Sawyer; Nathan diversified to boost the business and married Susannah, the daughter of a Texas oilman who owned Bluebonnet Knoll)

NATHAN ABBOTT and CHLOE MARCEAU (parents of Campbell and Abigail; renamed Bluebonnet Knoll and made it Shepherd’s Knoll)

KILLIAN ABBOTT is married to CORDELIA MAGNOLIA HYATT

His brothers are SAWYER and CAMPBELL

His sister, ABIGAIL, is still missing

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 Thirteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Killian Abbott strode to the small bar behind his desk while Jack Eagan went on with his report. Jack was new, but proving to be the most competent human resources director Abbott Mills, Inc., had ever employed, so Killian listened with only one ear while he poured coffee and wondered what to do about the small chain of Florida clothing stores—Florida Shops—his stepmother wanted him to buy.

The investment wasn’t a big one, just a couple of million dollars, but the acquisition would make Chloe happy because the owner was a friend of hers. Still, the purchase was a distraction he’d prefer not to deal with right now with a divorce in the works and the November Corporation always looking for a break in the wall to attempt a takeover of Abbott Mills.

“Productivity is up eleven percent in the mills, and sales are up more than twenty percent in the stores. We think the new gyms are responsible for some of that. Morale’s up, injuries and accidents are down, and—” Jack, who’d stood when Killian had, stopped talking as Killian handed him a mug of coffee. “Mr. Abbott,” he said with an air of distress. He was older and conscientious and had come to Abbott Mills with a long history of managing household staffs in England. “I wish you wouldn’t wait on me, sir. It makes me nervous.”

Killian pointed him back into his chair and sat on the edge of his desk with his own cup. “It makes me nervous when you stand every time I do. I’m not titled gentry, Jack, just your employer. And you don’t have to call me ‘sir.”’

“Yes, sir.” At Killian’s frown, Jack closed his eyes and groaned. “Even after two years at Southern Massachusetts University, studying business and psychology, I’m having trouble getting the drift of American ways.”

“Just relax.”

“Yes, sir.”

Letting that issue drop for now, Killian indicated the file from which Jack read. “Go on. Productivity and morale are up. Good.” Adding an exercise room to every Abbott Mills store and all other factories the corporation owned had been a good idea. “Injuries and absenteeism are down. I like that.”

Jack held his cup uncomfortably and searched for his place in his notes with his index finger. “Mrs. Hamilton reports that the new cleaning firm we hired for the Dartmouth store is working out very well, as is the new buyer for women’s wear, who came on board last month.”

“All good news,” Killian observed with a smile. “There now, that wasn’t so bad.”

Jack smiled with relief. Killian liked reports given in person rather than dry written reports read at board meetings, and this was Jack’s first. Tall and thickly built, the man had the posture of a marine at fifty-six. When Killian had interviewed him, wanting the right man for the job, he’d asked him why he’d left England after almost a lifetime.

Jack had replied that he’d been widowed, and his only son had died in his teens in a riding accident. “I felt old and aimless,” he’d admitted candidly, “and thought I needed new surroundings.

“I’m here to stay,” he’d said. “You’ll notice on my references that I was with the duke of Burrage for twelve years, until he lost the house to taxes. Then I spent twenty-two years in the service of Lord Dunnsford. I like to put down roots.”

Killian had hired him. He, too, favored roots.

That had been almost three months ago, and he now considered it the smartest move he’d ever made as CEO of Abbott Mills.

Except for Jack’s tendency to treat him like royalty.

The coffee was good—a Zimbabwe blend his secretary, Barbara Garrett, had bought at a little coffee roaster’s on the ground floor of the Abbott Building. The personnel report was good—one more thing he wouldn’t have to worry about in the next few months. And the sun warming his back through his midtown Manhattan window was good, reminding him how nice getting home this weekend, maybe logging some time on the beach, would be.

Jack sighed, obviously pleased. “I’m glad that’s over, sir. Mr. Abbott.”

“But you have to stop thinking of coming to this office as an appearance before the throne. We’re a pretty democratic company.

“Here we all work together in the service of our customers, so to speak. You’ll relax after you’ve spent time with everyone at our annual meeting.”

Jack looked doubtful. “I was told it’s at your home on Long Island this year. Is that true?”

“Yes. We usually get together at a big hotel to meet new members of the staff, look over Abbott Mills’s new products and plan strategy for next year. Last year was great for Abbott Mills and I want everyone to know how much I appreciate the hard work. You’ll give your report to the corporate staff and I think you’ll have a good time.”

“I will?” Jack’s voice went up an octave.

“You will. You did this very well. You’ll be fine. Everyone will stay for the weekend, enjoy the grounds and the beach. It’s a painless way to get things done.”

“Yes. Mr. Abbott.”

Killian took the copy of Jack’s report and perused it. “Anything else I should know about?”

“I don’t think so, sir. The written report has a little more detail, but it all relates to the highlights I’ve already given you. The personnel picture is very good.”

Killian nodded, flipping through the pages. He stopped when he came to the profile of the new employee in women’s wear. She’d been a lucky find, so Jack had told him when he’d hired her as a buyer. She had an MBA and considerable experience in the fashion business. Jack had been enthusiastic about her people skills and her knowledge of—Oh, God!

Killian’s hands froze on the report when his eyes ran over her previous experience. Buyer for Bloomford’s department stores. Three years as marketing manager for Hyatt Furniture in Newport News, Virginia.

Hyatt Furniture!

Three years modeling for…André McGinty!

Dread rising in him, he reread the vital identifying information.

Name: Cordelia Hyatt.

Killian surged to his feet and said a few words Jack had probably not heard among the English gentry, judging by his sudden blanching. Killian slapped the report on his desk and turned to confront Jack, unable to believe the man had done this to him. He was not surprised to find that Jack, too, had gotten to his feet.

“What, sir?” Jack asked in a calm voice. “What is it? Whatever it is, I can fix it.”

“You damn well better, Jack,” Killian replied, temper barely held in check. “You just hired my wife!”

Jack stared at him for a confused moment. “You mean…the one you’re…divorcing?”

“Yes, the one I’m divorcing!” Killian shouted. Then, remembering that he never shouted, he drew a breath and counted ten beats of his heart. That didn’t take long; it was thumping. “How many wives do I have?” he asked reasonably. “Cordelia Hyatt is my wife.”

“Forgive me, sir, but I didn’t know that.” Jack spoke quietly, though he appeared distressed. “When I was first hired, I’d heard rumors of your divorce after only three months, but I didn’t know…I mean…I’d heard your wife was in Scotland. Brokenhearted, everyone said.”

Brokenhearted. Killian glared at him. She had not been brokenhearted. She was just used to having things her way and she’d wanted him very badly. Losing him had simply been a disappointment. One she should have anticipated when she slept with Brian Girard, marketing manager of the November Corporation and son of Corbin Girard, its CEO.

The Girards and the Abbotts had been in serious competition for the upscale ready-to-wear market for years, and Killian’s father and Corbin Girard had hated each other. Killian and Brian had always felt obliged to suspect each other because of that situation. That the press and society put them in opposite corners of the business ring contributed to their contentiousness.

The Girards had been threatening a takeover of Abbott Mills for several years now, and though Killian felt confident that the corporation was too secure for that to happen, the weight of responsibility for a business that had been in his family for over two hundred years made him worry anyway.

Jack squared his shoulders under Killian’s stare. “That’s what they said,” he insisted. “How was I to suspect she’d be back wanting employment? And you must admit that this trend among American women to retain their maiden name contributes to this kind of confusion.”

Killian had to grant him that. He went to the bar behind his desk, ignored the coffeepot and poured himself a shot of bourbon. “She did take my name,” he said, gulping it down. It burned a trail down to his stomach but failed to provide the warming comfort he waited for. He had to acknowledge that it probably wasn’t coming. And he had a meeting with his advertising rep in half an hour; he couldn’t have a second drink. “I’m sure she took advantage of the fact that you were new to the company and wouldn’t recognize her if she used her maiden name.”

Jack asked quietly, “What do you want me to do, sir?”

There was only one answer to that question. “I want you to terminate her.”

Jack stared at him a moment, then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Abbott, but you sounded a little like Tony Soprano there. Please define terminate.”

Killian looked into the man’s eyes, wondering if he really doubted what he meant or if he was trying to inject a little humor into a tense situation. “Don’t kill her, Jack,” he replied gravely. “Just fire her.”

“On what grounds, sir? I understand she’s already struck a rapport with her staff and everyone they work with. She’s booked at all the shows for the fall season. Trilby says there’s a renewed dedication among the—”

Killian stopped him with a shake of his head. Trilby Brown was Jack’s assistant and had been with Abbott Mills for seven of her twenty-seven years. She and Cordie had mutual friends and had known each other before Killian had met Cordie. “Trilby knows she was my wife,” he accused. “And she didn’t tell you?”

Jack shook his head and firmed his jaw. “She didn’t, sir. In her defense I can only guess she thought you knew and approved of the hire.”

Killian gave him a pitying look. “Tell me you don’t really believe that.”

Jack sighed. “I’m not sure, sir. There seems to be a cunning charm among American women that’s outside my sheltered experience.”

“Yeah.” Killian put an arm around Jack’s shoulders and led him toward the door. “Mine, too. On second thought, it isn’t fair to ask you to handle this. I’ll take care of it myself.”

“But, it’s my responsi—”

“No.” Killian cut him off firmly. “Cordie is my responsibility. I’ll handle her.”

Now Jack gave him a pitying look.

CORDELIA MAGNOLIA HYATT Abbott wielded the nozzle of a clothing steamer in the back room of the women’s wear department of the Abbott chain’s flagship store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, just a few blocks from the Abbott Building. She was surrounded by tops and pants in tangerine, limeade, sunshine and summer blue. The playful garments in cotton-candy colors had been shipped tightly packed and now required touching up before they could be put out on the sales floor.

This was her last chore in what had been a long day of unpacking and tagging new stock, and she couldn’t wait to get home to her apartment and put her feet up. She should stop by the gym first and fit in a workout, but she wasn’t up to it today. A wedge of sausage lasagna, raw veggies and dip from Rocco’s Deli were much more appealing. Fattening, but appealing.

Perspiring from the steamer, she reached into the pocket of her protective smock for a tissue, then dabbed at her forehead and around her half glasses. With the one hand, she finished work on the last blue shirt.

Then she heard sounds of arrival beyond the curtain that separated the stockroom from the sales floor.

“Hi, Mr. Abbott!” That voice belonged to twenty-year-old Candy in the junior department, who thought their boss was a “major babe.”

“Mr. Abbott! Hello!” Eleanor, in formal wear and now an assistant manager. She’d been with the company since Killian’s father, Nathan Abbott, had run it, and she considered Killian “a dear.”

“Hey, Mr. Abbott. How’s it going?” Hunter, who’d been union shop steward at her previous job, had admitted to Cordie that she’d been disappointed to learn that Abbott Mills didn’t have a union. Until she’d been around long enough to realize the company didn’t need one. But she felt the need to watch out for any infractions of a labor-management nature. She thought Killian was “a model of modern administration.”

To Cordie, he was all those things, as well as the beat of her heart, the breath in her lungs and the absolute love of her life. Unfortunately, he had issues that also made him a complete doofus where she was concerned. She’d let him drive her away three months ago, but she’d had time to rethink her reaction and plan strategy in the seven weeks she’d spent in her father’s hunting lodge in Scotland.

So when Killian swept the curtain aside and invaded the stockroom, she faced him with a new resolve, born of her realization that even though he was completely wrong about her in every way possible, she loved him utterly and she was not going to let him ruin their lives as he was determined to do.

Actually, she was convinced it was his own life he was bent on destroying, but since hers was so woven into his, it would be ruined, too.

“Killy.” She glanced at him with a friendly smile as she went on with her steaming. Secretly, she wished she weren’t perspiring and wearing a messy smock. She’d wanted to be wearing a ball gown at a party when he saw her again, and looking gorgeous. But that had been a silly, self-indulgent thought. “What a nice surprise. What brings you to Abbott’s West?”

She had to keep steaming, keep pretending that her heartbeat wasn’t choking her and her hands weren’t shaking. This plot to get him back had to work.

She’d hoped to find that the time spent without her had changed him. She was sad and a little hurt to see that it hadn’t. He didn’t appear tired or depressed, and there was no evidence of regret in the Paul Newman–blue of his eyes. Annoyance was clearly visible there, not regret.

His wavy light brown hair was brushed away from a high forehead in the same old way, strands of blond springing up despite the designer gel she’d bought him to try to keep his hair in order.

His features were also the same: a slash of eyebrows darker than his hair over those dramatic eyes; a strong, straight nose; square teeth in a mouth that at the moment was thin-lipped and tight, but that she knew could be warm and clever; a nicely shaped chin in a square jaw that matched the line of his broad, square shoulders.

He was very tall and very fit, and if she stepped up to him her cheek would rest against his chin.

But he’d hate that right now, and she’d had all the rejection she could stand for a while. That she’d applied for and charmed her way into this job meant she was willing to open herself up to rejection again—but not this minute.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Killian demanded as he took several steps into the room. He wore one of the dozen Armani suits that filled his wardrobe, this one gray and quietly elegant.

She pretended surprise at the question and held up the steamer nozzle. “Working,” she replied. “You require that of employees, as I recall.”

He yanked the nozzle out of her hand and leaned down to turn off the machine before draping the hose over it. When he straightened, the last puff of steam lingered between them like mist in the last scene of a love story. But she guessed their story wasn’t going to have a happy ending. At least not yet.

“I don’t want you working for me,” he said, folding his arms as he frowned down at her. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to do this.”

She, too, folded her arms, and regarded him with the same disdain he focused on her. “Well, you should have thought of that before you hired me.”

“I didn’t! A new employee who didn’t know we’d been involved hired you.”

She arched an eyebrow, proud of her cool demeanor. “Involved? We were married, Killian. That goes a step further than involvement.”

He leaned his weight on one hip and mimicked her raised eyebrow. “Really. But not far enough to prevent you from sleeping with another man while you were supposed to be on a business trip. And not just any man, but a lifelong business rival.”

She struggled for an even tone. This was the point where she could lose it. “I didn’t sleep with him.”

“You were in bed and he was leaning over you. You have a history.”

“I told you…”

“That he’d let himself in. I remember. But you were in his room.”

“I explained that, as well.”

“Yes. Your room didn’t lock and his did. You’d returned from a late dinner with others who’d come to Paris for the show, and you couldn’t make the desk clerk understand the problem. So Brian switched rooms with you. That’s lame enough to sound like damning evidence to me.”

She drew a breath, prepared to advance the plan to save her marriage. Getting down and dirty. “That’s because you want to believe the worst of me,” she said, inclining her upper body toward his to make her point. “You were happy with me, Killian, and on some level I don’t understand and you probably don’t, either, happy doesn’t work for you. You’ve chosen against it. You work night and day and offer up on the altar of your sister’s disappearance whatever part of you might once have been fun.”

He took a step toward her, his eyes darkening. “Don’t speculate on what you don’t understand,” he threatened.

“Then tell me about it so I do understand!” she pleaded. “Explain to me what the kidnap of little Abigail did to you. Let me close enough to help you!”

“I don’t need you to do that,” he said with alarming sincerity. “You’re always trying to root around inside me and clean things up with your terminal good cheer. Well, you were like a…an aberration for me! I’m attracted to serious, stable women, not impulsive ingenues who laugh and party all the time as though life were just one big high.”

Hearing herself described as an aberration hurt, but she stood her ground and swallowed the pain. “You fell in love with me,” she said unequivocally.

He denied that with a shake of his head. “At a difficult period in my life, I fell in love with the idea of escaping through you.”

She scoffed at that notion inelegantly by blowing air between her lips. “Escaping it, my aunt Fanny! You thrive on the crunch, Abbott! You love facing down the enemy and making him flinch. The November Corporation is never going to launch a successful takeover and you know it. Abbott Mills is too strong. Brian probably set up that whole hotel-room scenario to rattle you, and you fell for it because you wanted a reason to send me away. I was helping you forget business once in a while and that terrified you because it meant you had to be a real human being instead of a hard drive, a digital modem and a collection of sophisticated circuitry.”

Apparently unimpressed with her assessment of his personal makeup, he put a hand to his chest and asked calmly, “Well, if you’re so offended by this machine, why did you apply for and accept a job here?”

“Because while I am offended by what you’ve turned yourself into,” she replied candidly, “I know the man you really are inside. And I want that man back.”

He stared at her for a moment in silent disbelief. Then his gaze hardened. “I’m divorcing you,” he said finally.

“I have to sign the papers,” she reminded him.

He accepted that with a nod. “If you refuse, that won’t hold it up forever. Eventually, the divorce will be allowed, and that’ll be that.”

“Yes,” she admitted. “But until that happens, I can live in hope that you’ll wake up one morning and remember what life was like when you let yourself be happy. What it was like when we were together.”

Clearly surprised and angered by her stand, he opened his mouth to offer an argument, then seemed to change his mind. He turned and stalked away.

KILLIAN HEARD Cordie following him as he headed for the elevators. She ran around in front of him and walked backward as he kept going.

“Am I fired?” she asked. “You didn’t say. Because I have scores of appointments with suppliers over the next few weeks and several critical shows scheduled for—”

Yes! he wanted to shout as she went on. But that little union troublemaker, Hunter, was pretending to sort through a rack of shorts while clearly tipping an ear in their direction. He didn’t need November to hear rumblings among the employees of an unfair firing.

Jack’s Soprano interpretation of termination would have been simpler than this, he acknowledged to himself grimly.

“No,” he replied, pushing the Down button. “But I’ll be going over your performance with a microscope. And I’ll take advantage of the first excuse I can find to fire you.” The elevator bell dinged and the doors parted. He stepped onto the car and turned to her with an air of dismissal. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going down.”

She looked into his eyes with a gleam in hers as the doors began to close. “Yes,” she said. “You are.”

Chapter Two

In the back seat of a Lincoln limousine, Killian took one last look at Abbott’s market quotes, checked the status of his personal portfolio as well as Chloe’s investments, then closed his laptop and put it aside with disciplined determination. He had to clear his mind this weekend. He could usually work sixteen-hour days for months at a time, but he hadn’t taken a full weekend off since before the Cordie-Brian debacle and he was due.

He could forget about business for forty-eight hours. Chloe was spending the weekend in the city, his brother Sawyer had left yesterday for New Hampshire on a chore for the Abbott Mills Foundation and Campbell had left a message saying he was going to Florida to check out a position at Flamingo Gables, the summer home of the Elliott Prathers.

Great. He really didn’t need his estate manager to quit at this point in time, but he knew his younger brother had issues with Shepherd’s Knoll and no amount of reasoning with Campbell seemed to change his mind. Even Chloe’s pleadings had been to no avail. So all Killian could do was let him go and hope that distance made Campbell’s heart grow fonder of his half brothers and the headache that was Shepherd’s Knoll, their family home.

“Finished for the day, Mr. Abbott?” Daniel Chambers asked from the front seat. He was African American, in his early sixties and wearing a dark business suit. Killian’s father had hired him decades ago.

Initially, Nathan Abbott had refused to hire him because he’d refused to wear a uniform. Nathan had driven himself to town the morning after the interview and had an accident on the Long Island Expressway while trying to talk to his secretary on the car phone. He’d hired Daniel that afternoon.

“Yes,” Killian replied, stretching out his legs. “You’re not going to ask for investment advice again, are you?”

Daniel laughed. “Linus Larrabee gave Fairchild advice in Sabrina and the chauffeur had millions by the end of the movie.”

“True. But it was the senior Mr. Larrabee who gave him advice, and Fairchild had a beautiful daughter for Linus to fall in love with.”

“You’re a married man!”

“Not anymore.”

“Come on, Mr. Abbott. You’re going to love Miss Cordie till the day you die. Only trouble is, you don’t know how to live with her.”

“God wouldn’t know how to live with her. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

Daniel didn’t reply. That meant he disagreed. Killian felt alarmed at how little stock the family and staff put in Cordie’s adultery. “You’re supposed to humor me, Daniel,” Killian teased. “Tell me I’m right, that women are generally no damn good—except for your Kezia, of course—and that nobody needs the kind of trouble they bring.”

“Man’s character is honed by trouble, Mr. Abbott,” Daniel philosophized with a bright smile in the rearview mirror. “Your mother running off made a hardworking man out of your father. Otherwise, the way he was goin’, he’d have gambled away your inheritance.”

“But she proved the women-are-no-damn-good theory.”

“Yep. Every once in a while there’s one. Still, she’s responsible for you and Mr. Sawyer bein’ here, and that’s no small thing. You make money like nobody’s ever seen and Mr. Sawyer makes sure all the extra gets spread around, doing good work.”

That might have been an oversimplification of the situation, but Killian liked the sound of it.

“Thank you, Daniel. By the way, you can have the weekend off. I’m not going back to town until Monday morning.” Daniel lived with Kezia in what had once been the guest house.

“You sure about that, Mr. Abbott?”

“I’m sure.”

Killian loved Shepherd’s Knoll. He didn’t spend nearly enough time here now that Abbott Mills had holdings overseas, but he got the same feeling of security and history he used to get as a child when his father turned onto the long, poplar-lined driveway that led to the house.

On Sunday-afternoon drives around Long Island, Nathan Abbott used to tell Killian and Sawyer about Thomas and Abigail Abbott, who’d come over on the Mayflower and raised sheep outside of Plymouth. Over the generations, the frugal, clever Abbotts had prospered, and William Abbott had started a woolenmill early in the nineteenth century.

Jacob Abbott, Killian and Sawyer’s great-grandfather, had continued to run the mill, but he’d fallen behind the competition when he’d failed to install new and more sophisticated machinery, considering it frivolous. His losses were considerable by the time he’d realized the error of his ways, but by then he didn’t have the capital to purchase new equipment.

So James Abbott, Jacob’s eldest son, had been encouraged to marry a cotton heiress from Virginia. New equipment and the new bride’s knowledge of business had improved the Abbott fortunes considerably.

With the advent of synthetics in the middle of the twentieth century, Nathan, now in control of the company, had diversified. He’d married Susannah Stewart, the daughter of a Texas oil baron, and they’d moved to her family’s summer home in Losthampton, New York, situated in the small cleft of an inlet on the south coast of Long Island between East Hampton and Southhampton.

When Nathan and Susannah Abbott had moved into her family’s palatial home, it had been known as Bluebonnet Knoll because of the Stewarts’ Texas connection. But when Susannah had run off with the chauffeur, giving Nathan the house to assuage her guilt over leaving her children, Nathan had changed the name, wanting it to reflect his family’s business rather than hers.

Killian remembered his mother. Instead of warm, fuzzy recollections of a loving woman, he had strong, clear memories of a light-haired goddess always in gowns and sparkling jewelry, waving to him from across the room. She’d seldom come into the nursery, simply blown kisses from the doorway.

He’d harbored the hope that someday when he was big enough and smart enough, she’d come and talk to him, possibly even hold him. But that had never happened.

One day his father had called Sawyer and him into his study and told them their mother was gone and a new woman was coming into their lives. She was French, he’d said, and a designer for one of the clothing companies Abbott’s owned.

Killian remembered clearly the shock and distress he’d felt at having to accept that the goddess would never get to know him, never hold him, that she was lost to him forever. He’d been five.

Someone had to pay, so he’d made the new woman, named Chloe, the culprit. He’d told her straight off that he didn’t want anything to do with her, didn’t want her in his house and didn’t want her touching his brother.

Sawyer, though, even at three a man with a mind of his own, adored her instantly. Killian had resisted heroically, but had finally lost the battle to hate her when she’d walked into the nursery with his father about a week after her arrival and asked, “Is there a reason the children must be confined to this floor while we are home?”

His father had thought a moment. “Susannah liked it this way. She said it kept them out of her hair when her friends came around.”

Chloe had shrugged. “Well, as I have no friends yet and…” She’d patted a very short haircut. “As I have no hair for them to get into, I don’t see why they can’t have the run of the house. Except for your office, of course, when you are working at home. The staff tell me they are very good children and usually behave themselves well.” She’d put a hand to Killian’s face and one to Sawyer’s. It had been warm and smooth and had smelled of lilacs. “And you will continue to behave for me, n’est-ce pas?”

A whole new world had opened up. Although Susannah had never come back and Killian, ever her champion, had sat by his window every night before going to bed and watched for her, during the day he’d loved being with Chloe as much as Sawyer had. She took them everywhere—shopping, to church, to visit the friends she eventually made, to the beach. He’d maintained a locked-up corner of his heart for Susannah, but he’d let Chloe in and allowed himself be happy again.

Campbell was born the following year and Abby, almost four years after that.

Killian smiled at memories of his big-eyed, plump-cheeked baby sister, then straightened in his seat and put all thoughts of her out of his mind. He wanted to relax this weekend, to refill the well of his usually nimble mind and steady focus.

Thoughts of Abby, and, of course, her disappearance, wouldn’t allow that.

Daniel pulled around to the front of the house. Its cozy grandeur was somehow welcoming. To this day, Killian wasn’t sure what to call the architectural style. His father had referred to it as Seaside Victorian. Unlike the many slope-roofed and angular federal-style homes in the region, this one had large, long windows all around, a tower on one side and a circular porch on the bottom of the tower, one on the second level where the tower connected to the main part of the house, and on the back of the top floor with its view of the ocean. The frame exterior was painted a cheerful butter yellow.

Winfield opened the front door before Killian could open it himself. Campbell had hired the former boxer a year ago as a sort of butler-bouncer. Campbell resented Killian’s use of that term, insisting that Killian never took his vulnerability to theft or kidnap seriously.

Actually, Killian did. He’d thought about it every night since Abby had been taken almost twenty-seven years ago. But he didn’t want someone around to remind him that that kind of thing could happen. And he was a much less likely target than a fourteen-month-old child.

“What about Mom?” Campbell had asked when Killian had denied he himself could be a target. “Sure, you’re six foot three and trained in self-defense, but she isn’t. And you’re gone so much of the time.”

Killian had conceded. For their stepmother to have protection in the guise of a butler was a good idea, and he knew Campbell remembered Abby’s kidnapping, though he’d only been five and a half at the time. He was working out his own demons brought to life by the event.

So Killian cooperatively handed Winfield his briefcase and let him take his jacket.

“How are you, Mr. Abbott?” Winfield asked in a voice more suited to a boxing ring than a stately home. Though he was two inches shorter than Killian, he was probably twice as broad and all of it muscle. He had thin blond hair, pale blue eyes and a boxer’s nose.

He’d caused a few second looks when he’d first opened the door to guests a year ago, but his courtesy and kindness had since won everyone over.

“I’m good,” Killian replied. “How are you, Winfield?”

“Fine, sir. Though I’m worried about your mother.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s going to Paris, Mr. Abbott.”

Killian, in the act of looking through the mail on the hall table, blinked at him. “Paris? I thought she was going to the city for the weekend.”

“I was, I was!” High heels clicked down the marble floor as Chloe hurried toward them at a run slowed down by the beginnings of arthritis and her Prada shoes. She was small and graying, with a face filled with warmth. In a silk suit, with a hand-painted scarf trailing behind her, she was the picture of a society matron. “To stay with the Mitchells in their city condo and go to the theater. But their daughter’s with the Ballet de Paris, and she sent them tickets for her début—” she gave the word its French pronunciation “—next week and they’ve invited me along. You know how I love the ballet. And I can visit Tante Bijou while I’m there!”

Tante Bijou was legendary in their lives. Chloe’s mother’s sister had been in the Resistance during World War II, had written a much-acclaimed book about her experiences and had married five or six times—even Chloe had lost count. She was Chloe’s only living relative in France, and Chloe leaped at every opportunity to visit her.

“I was hired to protect you, Mrs. Abbott,” Winfield said politely. “How can I do that when you’re there and I’m here?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. They’d apparently been having this argument for some time. “I won’t have you coming with me and leaving the boys here defenseless.” Even she had difficulty keeping a straight face when she said that. Killian had boxed in college, Sawyer was a third-degree black belt and Campbell had a chip on his shoulder the size of Alaska and everyone seemed to know better than to mess with him.

Winfield faced her resolutely. “Mr. Campbell would insist…”

Killian patted Winfield’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Steve Mitchell was a marine,” he said.

“Sir, he’s in his sixties!”

Chloe slugged his arm. “So am I! And I’m hardly at death’s door.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I’ve golfed with him,” Killian said. “He has quite a swing and considerable endurance. He’ll take care of the ladies.”

“I’ll be fine,” Chloe insisted.

Winfield opened his mouth to protest further, but Killian silenced him with an unobtrusive shake of the head.

Winfield appeared puzzled, but closed his mouth.

The doorbell rang and Winfield opened it to Steve Mitchell, who greeted Killian, then took Chloe’s bag. She followed him out to a shiny black Cadillac, chattering incessantly.

“The minute they’re out of sight,” Killian whispered to Winfield, “we’ll call your company and get someone to trail her and the Mitchells while they’re in Paris.” To his mother, he asked, “Where you staying, Mom?”

“At the Hôtel Clarion St-James et Albany. The duke of Noailles once entertained Marie Antoinette there, you know.”

He raised an eyebrow at Winfield, who nodded, the data obviously stored in his memory.

“Good strategy, Mr. Abbott,” Winfield praised under his breath.

“Never fight a battle you can’t win,” Killian replied, even as he blew Chloe a kiss.

That was good advice to apply to Cordie, he suddenly realized. But there was no such thing as a nonconfrontational way of dealing with her. She was a forthright, in-your-face kind of woman. Even Sun Tzu, the brilliant strategist, would have had difficulty dealing with her.

CORDIE FINALLY PUT her feet up at about eight o’clock. She sat on the sofa in her elegant, quiet-as-a-tomb apartment, alone except for her cat, and tried hard to be interested in the steaming square of lasagna on the tray in her lap. She’d anticipated it all afternoon, but now that she had the food, it made her stomach churn.

She put the tray aside and leaned her head back against the ticking-striped sofa cushion and wondered grimly if this was what had happened between her and Killian: that he’d found her less than interesting once he had her, and put her aside.

She hoped simple ego wasn’t at work, but she couldn’t believe he’d just lost interest in her. The kind of earnest determination with which he’d pursued her couldn’t simply evaporate. The fervent passion with which he’d made love to her couldn’t just cease to be.

A waning of interest had happened even before the Brian thing had given him an excuse to talk divorce. She’d caught glimpses of regret in his eyes, felt it in his touch when he pulled her to him on impulse and wrapped his arms around her, only to change his mind and push her away.

What had happened?

She’d racked her brain over the question all the time she’d spent in Scotland, but she hadn’t come up with an answer. And the problem couldn’t be solved without one. It would take time spent with him. Either the attraction that had drawn them together so explosively the first time would take hold again and last, or he’d react as he had the first time they’d met. In that case, she’d be on guard and able either to ward off his displeasure or figure out what brought it on and do something about it. Or not. But at least she’d understand.

Loving a man who didn’t want anything to do with her was tough. Before she’d met Killian at his stepmother’s fashion show for charity, she’d have considered herself the last woman on the planet who’d pursue a man who didn’t want her. But gut instinct told her that he did still love her and that his sudden withdrawal from her was a self-inflicted punishment for some imagined guilt over Abigail’s disappearance.

Kezia had told her the story shortly after Cordie and Killian’s Thanksgiving wedding. Kezia and Daniel had been working for the Abbotts less than a year one late December night when they were planning for a New Year’s Eve celebration in two days’ time. Killian, eleven years old, had been at a sleepover at a friend’s house, and Sawyer, nine, Campbell, five, and fourteen-month-old Abby were asleep in their beds. Kezia had been up late baking pies when she heard the screams.

She and Daniel had run upstairs to find Kate Bellows, the nanny, pacing the second-floor hallway, screaming. She wore a billowing silk robe, her gray hair hanging in one long braid. “‘She’s gone!’ she kept saying over and over. ‘She’s gone! I got up to go to the bathroom and checked the children like I always do—and she’s gone!’ For a minute, I didn’t know who she was talking about, until Mr. Abbott came out of Abby’s room and I saw the empty crib.

“Mr. and Mrs. Abbott searched the house like mad people,” Kezia had said, her eyes sad and focused on the memory. “Mrs. Abbott kept screaming Abigail’s name while Sawyer ran up and down the stairs looking for her, and Daniel and Mr. Abbott searched the grounds. Campbell and I cried.

“Mr. Abbott called the police, but they found no evidence of a break-in. They thought either the laundry chute or the dumbwaiter might have been entry points if someone had gotten into the basement. But the door was still locked from the inside, and none of the windows was broken. They interviewed the staff, thinking, I guess, that one of us might have kidnapped her, but that was preposterous. We all loved the children like our own.” Kezia paused and sighed heavily, spreading her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They even sent the police to get Killian at five-thirty in the morning to see if he remembered seeing anyone around the place, or if any of the many tradesmen who’d worked on a plumbing and carpentry repair problem several weeks earlier had shown a particular interest in Abby. Killian was a sharp little boy and never missed anything. He didn’t remember anyone with an interest in his little sister, but he did recall the name of everyone who’d been in the house. Then…” Kezia drew a ragged breath. “I remember him turning to his father and telling him he was sorry he hadn’t been home. That if he had been, the kidnapping might not have happened. His father told him not to think that, that he’d been home and he hadn’t been able to stop it. But Killian was a dedicated big brother, and I think he carries guilt to this day.” Kezia swiped a hand across her eyes and went on.

“Then it was as though life in this house just stopped. There were no clues, nothing at all to go on, and the Abbotts just waited and prayed. At that point, they’d have been happy to get a call for ransom, to know that Abigail was alive and could be paid for and brought home again.

“They went on television and begged for her return. They spoke to any reporter who’d listen. And we all waited. No conversation in the house, no laughter and eventually no hope.”

“How horrible,” Cordie whispered.

Kezia nodded. “Then one day Mrs. Abbott got up, called us all together—husband, kids, staff—and said we weren’t going to live this way any longer, that there were three other children to think about and everyone’s lives had to move on. We would hold Abigail in our hearts and keep praying, but we were to start living again.” Kezia’s lips trembled. “I thought it was very brave of her.”

“Yes.” Cordie wrapped her arms around herself and tried to imagine how she would feel if a child was stolen from her with no evidence of what had happened and no knowledge whether he or she was dead or alive.

“But Kate was devastated, felt responsible and finally quit the following year to go live with her sister in Los Angeles.”

“How awful for everyone.”

“Yes, it was. Everyone was affected. I think all the boys carry scars from the ordeal. Chloe dedicated herself to her remaining children, but sometimes I see a terrible sadness in her eyes. And Mr. Nathan put on a good front, but Abby was his little girl and he never got over losing her. He died with her name on his lips.”

Cordie groaned and put a hand over her eyes as tears welled. What an old and deeply rooted pain for Killian—for all the family. Killian, though, was her primary concern, and wanting to remove his guilt so she could put her love there, instead, would be no easy task.

She wondered now if her initial approach had been wrong. He was so serious-minded, such a workaholic, that when she’d married him, she’d tried to joke him out of his grave nature, lure him away from work once in a while in the hope that his having a personal life would help him loosen up, open up. But in the end he’d resented her for it.

This time, she had to find another way. Take things more seriously, so that he didn’t mistake her for a lightweight. Work as much as he did so that he’d know she wanted success for Abbott Mills as much as he did.

She groaned again and laid a forearm across her eyes, propping her feet on the coffee table. That would be a big job. She generally found life amusing, so she was always joking, pulling pranks. She liked sound and color and gravitated toward those things. That was why she loved fashion and concerts and parties.

Of course, all she had to do was reconsider the status of her relationship with Killian—that put a genuine pall over everything. Working a lot would give her less time to think.

She carried her untouched tray into the kitchen, covered the lasagna with plastic wrap, put it in the refrigerator and left the salad out to pick at.

She should call her parents and let them know how she was. They’d been worried about her when she’d gone to Scotland, and finally flown out from Texas to check on her. They’d been horrified to find her pale and thin and holed up in the lodge like a recluse.

“He isn’t worth it,” her mother had said firmly. Judith and Gregory Hyatt had loved Killian, though they’d known him only briefly. But Judith had always been her only child’s staunchest support system, and though Cordie had been caught in another man’s bed, Judith was sure the problem couldn’t be with Cordie and therefore Killian had to have misunderstood.

When Cordie had told her parents she was going back to New York to apply for the position of buyer that had miraculously opened up at Abbott Mills, her father had thought her crazy. “Cord, he’s furious with you. He’s divorcing you. Why give him the chance to deny your application or use it as an excuse to dump all over you again?”

Cordie had shaken her head. “He won’t even know about the job until it’s time for the quarterly personnel report. The hope is that I’ll be so entrenched by the time he notices I’m on board that my immediate superiors will support me.”

“She loves him, darling,” her mother had tried to explain to her father.

He didn’t get it. “You said this divorce was all his fault.”

“It is.”

“Then why does she love him?”

“Because…the separation is his fault, but the problems he has that are making him do it aren’t.”

Her father, the CEO of one of the country’s finest furniture makers and a millionaire in his own right, though not in the Abbott class, stared dumbly at his wife.

Her mother patted his chest. “It’s love, dear. You just don’t understand those things. Trust Cordie. She’s always known what she’s doing.”

While she appreciated her mother’s confidence in her, she now hoped it wasn’t misplaced.

Suddenly, taking a shower and going to bed had it all over eating and spending an evening watching television.

Loving Killian Abbott was exhausting.

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