She’s keeping this billionaire’s son a secret...

Down-on-her-luck heiress Piper Mills will do anything to help her baby—even strike a deal with the devil who impregnated her! Due to a car accident, Jaeger Ballantyne has no memory of the passionate night he and Piper shared...or that he’s Ty’s father. Purchasing Piper’s heirloom sapphires is the only thing on his agenda...until seducing the green-eyed temptress takes over.

Piper’s falling for the stubborn tycoon, even as she continues to guard her secret. Can a man with no memory of their past find a way to forgive her so they can create a future?

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Piper, or even date me,” Jaeger replied.

This wasn’t how the conversation normally went. He usually fielded the demands about when he’d be calling, when their next date would be. He didn’t particularly care that the shoe was very firmly, and uncomfortably, on the other foot. “I was just wondering if you’d like to—”

“Hook up again sometime?” Piper tipped her head and the corners of her mouth lifted. When she exposed her neck he wanted to nibble on her collarbone, kiss that spot under her jaw. “Thanks, but no. Hooking up is not something I make a habit of. This interlude will be a lovely memory, but re-creating this back home won’t work for me.”

Piper stood up and pulled the knot on her robe, allowing the sides to fall open. With a small shrug the robe slid down her arms and then to the floor and she stood in front of him, gloriously naked. She straddled his thighs and gently touched his mouth with hers. “If this is all the time we have, then we’re wasting it.”

She was the perfect one-night stand; she’d let him off the hook with no drama and little fanfare and he should feel grateful, he thought, lowering her to the bed.

So then, why didn’t he?

* * *

His Ex’s Well-Kept Secret is part of the Ballantyne Billionaires series— A family who has it all...except love!

His Ex’s Well-Kept Secret

Joss Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JOSS WOOD loves books and traveling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa. She has the domestic skills of a pot plant and drinks far too much coffee.

Joss has written for Mills & Boon Modern and, most recently, the Mills & Boon Desire line. After a career in business, she now writes full-time. Joss is a member of the Romance Writers of America and Romance Writers of South Africa.

MILLS & BOON

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Dedicated to Chris, taken too fast and too soon. Your family—and friends—lost an incredibly good man. You will be missed, bud.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

In the presidential suite of a boutique hotel on the Via Manzoni, the most luxurious hotel in Milan, Jaeger Ballantyne ran his hand down a slim female back, the bumps of her spine pearls under satin skin.

The fine cotton sheet covered Piper’s hips and draped her butt. Jaeger couldn’t stop touching her, loving the feel of her warm skin under his rough hand. He’d had women in his hotel room before, probably more than he should have, and while Piper was not the most beautiful female he’d ever had in his bed, she was certainly the most magnetic. Since the moment she’d stumbled into his life a day and a half ago, he’d thought of little else.

Exceptional gems—the cut and sparkle of diamonds, rubies, opals, emeralds and a dozen more—captured and held his attention. Women? Not so much. Like diamonds destined for the mass market, they were generally nicely cut and well polished but nothing exceptional. And when he did find one a cut above the rest, he enjoyed her and quickly moved on.

But for some reason, he kept thinking of Piper as a flawless, colorless diamond, the rarest type on the planet. Ridiculous, because he knew there was always another gem to discover, and he never lost his head over sparkly stones or the sweeter-smelling sex.

Piper Mills made him wonder if walking around headless was a risk he was prepared to take.

He should have been back in New York City already, Jaeger thought, irritated with his overthinking. He’d originally intended to be in Milan only for the previous evening. But when he’d seen Piper at the Milan branch of Ballantyne and Company, her long legs under a short skirt captured his attention. They’d been designed, he was convinced, to wrap around his hips.

The intelligence in her light green eyes intrigued him, and the splash of freckles across her nose charmed him.

Her body had him wanting to make her scream until the whole of Milan knew his name.

Piper had mentioned owning ten blue stones that family legend said were sapphires, but he was too fascinated by her face to pay much attention. Then she smiled and a tiny dimple in her right cheek flashed, and all thoughts of carats and color disappeared. His breath hitched, his vision swam and he knew he was not leaving the city until he’d taken her to dinner.

And to bed.

Fast-forward thirty-six hours and three dates—dinner, lunch and another dinner—and they’d shared some very hot, very fun sex. Jaeger’s thumb ran over her right buttock, flirted with the curve at the top of her thigh and back up again.

Best day and a half of his life, by far.

Jaeger bent down and placed a kiss on the ball of her shoulder, pulling a long curl the color of a newly minted penny off her face.

Piper rolled onto her side, and when Jaeger looked into her eyes, he felt like he was walking in a mysterious forest. Her gaze bounced away from his face, ricocheted off his body and focused on the watercolor painting on the far wall. So the very sexy Ms. Mills wasn’t very good with post-sex conversation. Why did that make him smile?

Piper sat up and pulled the sheet to her torso. “Um...this is awkward.”

“It really doesn’t have to be,” Jaeger assured her.

Piper tucked the sheet under her armpits, pushed a hand through her hair and adjusted the sheet again. “Can we have a quick chat about why I was in Ballantyne and Company?” Piper asked.

Jaeger could think of a better use of their time, but if talking about her stones made her feel at ease, then he was all for it.

“Okay, let’s talk sapphires.” Jaeger rolled off the bed, snagging his boxers from the floor. He pulled them on and walked over to the bathroom to pluck a blindingly white cotton robe off the hook behind the door. He opened the robe and Piper, self-conscious, left the bed and hastily slid her arms into the sleeves. Jaeger turned her around, covered her up and tied the belt across her narrow waist.

Resisting the urge to lower his mouth to hers, Jaeger took her hand, led her into the living room of the suite and dashed the remains of a vintage Cabernet into a wineglass for her. Piper took the glass and curled up into the corner of the couch, tucking her bare feet, tipped with red-hot toes, under her butt. Along with every other inch of her body, he’d tasted those toes. He’d kissed his way up her calves, tasted the sweetness of her inner thighs, the heat and spice of her core.

And he desperately wanted to do it all again.

He would; the night wasn’t over yet.

Deciding he needed a whiskey, he poured two fingers into a glass, sat down opposite her and mentally begged her to make it quick.

“As I said, I have some sapphires that have been passed down through my mother’s family.”

“How many stones are we talking about?” Jaeger asked, resting his forearms on his thighs.

“Ten. There were twelve, but my mom sold two, thirty years ago, to give my father the money to start his business.”

He realized he knew nothing about her or her family. You don’t need to; you’re not going to see her again.

“Most of the stones are around an inch, some bigger, some smaller,” Piper continued.

A sapphire longer than an inch? He didn’t think so. “Are they cut? Uncut?”

“The smaller stones are cut. There’s one that’s...spectacular.”

Jaeger knew people exaggerated, particularly when it came to gemstones. The stones were probably half that size. He looked at Piper and sighed when he saw the blissful look on her face. If she were anyone else, he would bluntly have told her the gems were probably fake. A cache of sapphires like she was describing would have been well-documented. Unless you enjoyed royal connections, exceptional and important gems were rarely passed down a family line.

Unaware of his skepticism, Piper held her wineglass to her chest, her eyes dreamy. “Oh, Jaeger, it’s beautiful. A deep, dark blue, sleepy and velvety and just, God, gorgeous. I just want to touch it, hold it, look at it.”

“It’s difficult to comment on stones I haven’t seen, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you,” he said, keeping his voice noncommittal.

“I have a photo of them. Could you look at it?” Piper asked.

Jaeger nodded and sighed when Piper bent over to pick up her bag. The cotton robe delineated her heart-shaped bottom, revealed the backs of her thighs. He felt his boxers tighten as his junk moved up to half-mast. The urge to sink into her heat was strong.

Relax. You’ll have her again. Once more, or twice, before they went back to real life.

Piper walked back to him and sat on the arm of his chair, her fingers dancing across the screen of her phone. She passed it to him, and Jaeger looked down at the burst of blue on black velvet.

His heart stopped momentarily and his hand shook as he placed his glass on the table in front of him.

Jaeger enlarged the screen and focused on the biggest of the cut stones. The quality of the photo wasn’t great, but the color was breathtakingly brilliant.

“Where did you say these came from?” he asked. Tell me again that you think they’re from Kashmir because, hell, you may be right.

“Through a great-great-uncle on my mother’s side. He was a soldier in the British army. Family legend says they come from Kashmir.”

Yes!

Be cool, Jaeger told himself. If it sounds too good to be true then it usually is. But the color and her family history suggested there was a possibility of these stones being real.

“What else do you know about the original owner?”

“Just what I told you,” Piper said. She tapped her screen with the tip of her finger. “Well, what do you think? Could they be real? I’ve taken them to other gem dealers who say they aren’t.”

Of course they would say that. She was young and pretty and an easy mark. They’d make her a token offer, resell the gems and make a freakin’ killing. “Stay away from dodgy dealers,” he muttered.

“But do you think they could be worth anything?”

Maybe she’d been in Ballantyne and Company because she was thinking of selling them. If they were genuine, he was definitely interested in buying. He slid his habitual I’m-not-impressed expression onto his face—his excitement tended to inflate prices—and handed Piper a casual smile. “I don’t know. It’s really difficult to tell from a photograph. Let me look at them when we’re back in the States. Can you send me the photo?”

“Sure.”

Jaeger rattled off his number, and within twenty seconds he heard the beep telling him the photo was on his phone.

“I really hope they aren’t real,” Piper stated, her expression glum.

Now there was a statement he’d never heard from a prospective seller before. “Why on earth would you not want to be the owner of a collection of stones worth, potentially, a lot of money?” Jaeger demanded.

“Because then I’d feel morally obligated to sell them to help my...to help someone out of a financial jam.”

“You have people in your life who owe millions?”

Piper wrinkled her nose. “They’re worth as much as that? No, tell me they aren’t!”

“They could be, possibly, if they are Kashmir sapphires. But don’t bank on it,” Jaeger warned

“Maybe I should’ve just taken the first offer I received. A grand a stone.” Piper muttered.

Ten thousand dollars? Jaeger felt sick. Although he was trying to remain calm, trying not to overreact, he knew, somewhere deep inside him, that he’d might’ve made the discovery of a lifetime. If they were real, then hers were special stones.

“Will you promise to bring them to me, in New York? No one else?” He couldn’t let the stones slip through his fingers.

Piper nodded. “Sure.”

“I’ll call you to set up a time.”

Piper swung her legs around and placed the balls of her feet on Jaeger’s bare thigh. Their eyes met and sparks flew.

Seeing desire flash and burn in her eyes, he slid his hand between her thighs, sighing at the smooth, warm flesh. He opened his mouth to ask whether he could see her again like this, not just at Ballantyne, when they both returned to New York. Then he frowned. Why her and why now?

For more than a decade, since his early twenties—after crawling out of the deep, dark mine shaft that grief and loss tossed him into—he’d seldom pursued a woman beyond three or four nights. He didn’t want to raise expectations, didn’t want any of his very temporary lovers to think there could be a chance of them becoming permanent fixtures in his life. He’d worn permanence once. He’d—briefly—been a father, and when his daughter Jess died, he’d lost his lover, too.

Permanence now felt like an itchy, scratchy, ill-fitting coat.

Why was he thinking about losing his baby girl and the woman he’d once loved while he was with this sexy stranger? He’d thoroughly enjoyed his easy conversation with Piper, loved her offbeat sense of humor and, hell, the sex was off-the-charts amazing. Three damn fine reasons he couldn’t see her again when they both returned to the city.

He liked her a bit too much...and that meant he had to move on.

“When are you going back to the city?” Jaeger asked.

“My flight leaves in the morning. You?”

He’d leave as soon as she did; she was the only reason he was still in Milan. “Tomorrow, as well.” Jaeger moved the pad of his thumb up her smooth calf.

“When we meet in the city,” she said, “let’s be all business.”

Whoa! What?

Piper’s toes dug into the bare skin of his thigh.

“Don’t look so shocked, Jaeger. If not for the sapphires, I’d never hear from you again,” Piper stated, her voice not accusing.

Jaeger dropped his hand from her thigh.

“It’s okay, Jaeger, I get it. It’s not what you do.” Piper continued. “The problem with being the biggest playboy on the East Coast, one of the famous Ballantyne siblings, is that the world knows how you operate. You date a girl for a couple of days, maybe for a couple of weeks if she’s really, really lucky, and then you move on.” Piper lifted her hand when he opened his mouth to respond. “Don’t look so worried. I knew the deal going in.”

“The deal?”

“This was fun, a moment in time, an unexpected encounter. So when we meet again, we’ll just chat about the stones and pretend we never saw each other naked.”

Jaeger didn’t know he was going to speak the words until they flew out of his mouth. “What if I wanted to? See you naked again, that is,” he clarified.

Surprise flashed across Piper’s face, but it was quickly followed by a healthy dose of doubt.

“I’d probably ask you not to.”

Okay. So not what he’d expected to hear.

Piper tipped her head to the side, her expression thoughtful. “Jaeger, I’m a normal woman who has her feet firmly on the ground. I enjoy my job as an art appraiser. I date. I have a full life. I don’t need you to sweep me away and into your world. I don’t like your world.”

“My world?”

“Big money, Manhattan, socialite city. It’s not me. It’ll never be me,” Piper said, her tone and expression earnest.

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Piper, or even date me,” Jaeger replied, feeling irritated. This wasn’t how the conversation normally went. Usually he fielded the demands about when he’d be calling, when their next date would be. He didn’t particularly like that the shoe was very firmly, and uncomfortably, on the other foot. “I was just wondering if you’d like to—”

“—hook up again sometime?” Piper cocked her head, the corners of her mouth lifting. When she exposed her neck, he wanted to nibble on her collar bone, kiss that spot under her jaw. “Thanks, but no. Hooking up is not something I make a habit of. This interlude will be a lovely memory, but recreating this back home won’t work for me.”

Piper tucked a long curl behind her ear. “There’s something about Italy that’s sexy and seductive. It’s a place that subliminally encourages you to seize the day and act out of character, and this—” Piper waved her hand at his bare chest “—is very out of character for me. In the real world, I sleep with guys only if I think we are going somewhere, if the man has the potential to become important to me. Thanks to the tabloids, we all know you don’t do commitment, so that rules you out.”

Okay, sure, that was true but... But? There was no but. She had him pegged!

Piper stood up and pulled the knot on her robe, allowing the sides to fall open. The fabric framed her pretty breasts, and the moisture in his mouth evaporated. With a small shrug the robe slid down her arms and then to the floor, and she stood in front of him gloriously naked. She straddled his thighs and gently touched his mouth with hers. “If this is all the time we have, then we’re wasting it, Ballantyne.”

Jaeger gripped her butt in his hands and stood up, holding her. Her legs locked around his waist as he carried her to the bedroom.

She was the perfect one-night stand; she’d let him off the hook with no drama and little fanfare, and he should feel grateful, he thought, lowering her to the bed.

So, then, why didn’t he?

One

Eighteen months later

Piper Mills pulled her reading glasses from her face and tossed them onto her desk. Rubbing the bridge of her nose, she pushed her chair back from her Georgian mahogany writing desk and scowled at her laptop screen, where the offer of an exciting consultation sat in her inbox, waiting for her response.

Of course she would like to appraise a recently discovered Daniel Glutz. She’d written her master’s thesis on the German painter. But it was impossible. The painting was in Berlin, and since Ty’s birth nine months ago, she was restricted to appraising art on the East Coast, to trips she could undertake in a day or less. Although she loved and trusted her nanny, Ceri, and Ceri’s twin brother, Rainn, who was also good with Ty, she still didn’t feel comfortable leaving her precious child for extended periods. She couldn’t leave Ty overnight. Not yet.

Maybe when he was in college.

Piper stood up and went to the curved bow window of her three-story redbrick Victorian. She folded her arms across her chest and looked down onto the street below. Fall was nearly over, winter was rushing in and the seasons seemed to be flying past. She’d conceived Ty in spring, lost Mick in late summer, given birth to Ty in midwinter. This summer, unlike the previous one, passed by uneventfully.

Mick’s death last year was a smack rather than a blow, but one she was still wrapping her head around. Even though she and her father rarely spoke, she liked knowing there was somebody she was connected to, some family she could call her own—even if it was only in the quiet depths of her soul, since Mick never publicly acknowledged her as his daughter.

Or acknowledged her at all.

Growing up, she’d never thought she’d be glad he publicly ignored her and her mother, his longtime mistress. But when the most flamboyant and driven personality on the New York social scene, one of the most respected stockbrokers and investment advisors in the world, was arrested for fraud, Piper was very glad not to be linked to him.

Over decades, Mick convinced thousands of people to invest in funds he recommended, promising solid returns. He then used money from new investors to pay off existing investors, all while living the high life. It was no surprise he’d demanded she hand over her sapphires in the months leading up to, and after, his arrest. He’d needed to raise some money to buy a shovel so he could dig himself out of a very big hole.

The press attention over his arrest was intense, and Mick’s ex-wife was constantly harassed by reporters. Mick’s child bride/trophy wife conveniently left the States for Colombia two days before his arrest, never to return, not even to attend Mick’s funeral.

Ah, such a demonstration of true love.

Since neither of Mick’s wives knew of Piper’s existence, she’d just stayed in Park Slope, Brooklyn, living in the house Mick bought for her mother, watching the Mick-induced craziness from a distance. She was grateful her mother never witnessed the man she loved fall from the very high and gilded pedestal she’d placed him on. His death, from a heart attack two-and-a-half months after first being arrested, would’ve killed her if cancer had not.

Piper heard a snuffle from the baby monitor on her desk and smiled. Her boy was awake and would be wanting some lunch. Piper walked out of her study and ran up the stairs to the third floor of her building, which served as the second floor of her home. The first floor was an apartment she rented to Ceri and Rainn. She padded into the smaller of two bedrooms and across to the wooden crib she’d slept in as a child. Ty turned to look at her, and love flooded her system.

He was all Jaeger, she thought, picking him up and cuddling him to her chest. He had Jaeger’s light blue eyes, his facial structure and his dark sable hair. Ty would also, she was sure, have Jaeger’s height and naturally muscular build.

Ty was a Ballantyne, she thought, in everything but name.

“There’s my big boy,” she crooned, rubbing her chin across the top of his head. Piper carried Ty to his changing mat and deftly undressed him, taking a moment, as she always did, to kiss his foot, to nibble his heel. The actions caused Ty to release a belly laugh which, in turn, made her laugh. God, she’d never thought she could love someone this much...

Piper whipped a disposable diaper from the box on the chest of drawers and slid it under Ty’s clean bottom. Under the pile of diapers was the black velvet roll of fabric, and inside the roll were the ten sapphires she’d discussed with Jaeger.

In Milan, he’d promised he’d call her so he could examine the sapphires, but he never did. When six weeks passed without hearing from him, and she’d realized condoms weren’t a hundred percent foolproof, she’d tried to contact him. Every call she made to his cell phone went directly to voice mail.

He couldn’t be hard to reach, she’d thought, so she’d tried to contact him through Ballantyne and Company. Ha! That was like trying to speak directly with one of the Windsor boys. She’d left countless messages, sent a dozen emails to the group secretary, but nothing. When she’d visited the flagship store, asking to see Jaeger, her requests to speak to someone higher up the food chain were dismissed. When she refused to leave until either Jaeger or one of his three siblings spoke with her, security escorted her off the premises.

She’d been on the internet a few days later and found an in-depth article on him in which he was quoted saying that he had no intention of ever marrying, that he did not want children. The world needed innovators and adventurers and discoverers, not more mouths to feed.

Besides, kids would seriously cramp his style...

By midnight of that awful day, she’d finally received the message that Jaeger wasn’t interested in her or her sapphires or hearing she was pregnant.

Ty, she decided, was hers; she wasn’t obliged to share his existence with a man who would not be excited or interested in her child. Mick had ignored her, and she’d always wondered why he didn’t love her. There was no way she would burden her son with an uninterested, unenthusiastic father.

Piper desperately wished she could forget about Jaeger, but that was impossible when she lived with a miniature version of the man. In Ty she saw Jaeger’s gorgeous, fallen-angel face—light eyes a perfect foil for his olive skin and dark, wavy hair—and then she remembered the scrape of his two-day-old beard against her skin, the breadth of his shoulders, the ridges of his corrugated stomach, the peace she felt in his clever assured touch.

Some nights she woke up from a deep sleep, her heart pounding, an orgasm hovering, her thoughts full of him. On occasion she rolled over looking for him, wanting him to take her to that place where only he could—a dizzying, sparkling place where time stood still and magic lived. When reality crashed down—she was a single mother and he wasn’t interested in her or her son—the following hours were dark and dismal, long on tears and short on sleep.

Ty gurgled and Piper dropped her head to nuzzle his tummy, feeling his tiny hands in her curls. When she’d first found out she was pregnant with Manhattan’s Main Man’s baby, she’d cursed God and Fate and wept and wailed. Now she couldn’t imagine her life without her little man; he was the beginning and the end of her universe.

“What about some lunch and then a walk in the park? It’s cold but sunny.” Piper put Ty on her hip and walked downstairs, ignoring her study to head for the kitchen. “You up for that, Ty?”

Ty shoved his fist in his mouth, and Piper took that to be a yes. Handing Ty a sippy cup filled with water, she pulled out a jar of organic baby food and heard her doorbell buzz. Frowning, she looked at the small screen in her kitchen and saw a man in a suit standing by the front door to her building. He looked very...lawyerly, Piper decided.

Piper lifted the receiver to her intercom, and when she heard he represented the law firm in charge of administering her father’s estate, she buzzed her visitor into the building.

Five minutes later, Mr. Simms sat at her kitchen table as she fed Ty his lunch.

“I understand that you’re a fine arts appraiser, you work from home and you have a steady clientele of both art gallery owners and private collectors.”

Accurate enough. Piper nodded as she spooned sweet potato and carrots into Ty’s welcoming mouth. Wanting to get outside and into the fresh air, she lifted her eyebrows. “All true. But I doubt you came here to talk about my business, so what can I do for you?”

“I also understand you are Michael Shuttle’s daughter?”

There was no point denying it. “I am. My mother and Mick were together for over thirty years. My relationship to Mick is not public knowledge, and I’d prefer it stayed private.”

Piper wiped Ty’s face and hands and handed him oversize plastic house keys to play with. They immediately went to his mouth. “Why are you here?”

Simms nodded. “Unlike his business, your father’s personal assets were very well-documented. On his list were numerous pieces of furniture, with annotations that they are in this house. There is a Georgian desk, a painting by Zabinski, a sculpture by Barry Jackson. A Frida Kahlo painting.”

“He gave those to my mother. They were gifts.”

“The spreadsheet states the items were on loan to Gail Mills.” Mr. Simms looked sympathetic.

From the kitchen she could see into the living room, where the bronze sculpture of a ballet dancer sat on the credenza. “Are you telling me they have to be sold?”

Simms nodded. “Yes. They are part of his estate.”

Piper bit her bottom lip to keep her curses from escaping. “On loan, my ass! They were gifts. I was there when he gave them to her.” Feeling sad and a little sick, Piper stood up to release Ty from his high chair.

Simms made a note in a small black notepad and looked at her as she swayed side to side, Ty on her hip. “I’ll send a crew to collect the table, the art and the bronze. They’ll go up for auction and you can buy them back.”

Yeah, right, that wasn’t going to happen. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.” Piper looked at the door, hinting that she’d like him gone.

“There’s just one more thing, Miss Mills.”

Oh, God, judging by his serious face, whatever he was about to say would be a kick to the gut. She tightened her grip on Ty and waited for the hammer to fall.

“This property is owned by one of your father’s companies and will definitely have to be sold to repay some of his creditors.”

Piper felt her knees buckle, and she dropped to a chair, Ty landing on her lap. “What? But he left this house to my mom, who left it to me. I’ve requested a copy of the deed but I’ve received nothing.”

“That’s because he left the right for your mom to live in it. He didn’t leave the asset. It’s definitely not yours to live in. It will be sold. That is indisputable.”

Indisputable? That sounded pretty damn final. Piper pushed past the panic and forced herself to think. “Would I be able to buy it?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“Do you have around three million dollars?” Simms asked. “Or a way to raise three million dollars?”

No, but she had some stones that might be worth that much, if they were real. This was her home, Ty’s home! She’d lost her mother; she couldn’t lose her house, too. If she could raise money from the sapphires, she might be able to get a mortgage for the rest...

“I can try to find the money. How much time do I have?”

Mr. Simms’s face softened. “Your father left a hell of a mess, and you’re being punished for it. That’s not right. I’ll push the sale of the property down my list of priorities and hope like hell I don’t get caught. What about three months?”

Piper nodded, tears in her eyes. “Three months to raise three million. Holy crack-a-doodle.”

Simms cocked his head at her. “If anyone can do it, Michael Shuttle’s daughter can.”

Piper didn’t bother explaining that, while she carried Mick’s DNA, she’d been anything but his daughter.

But she was Gail’s daughter and Ty’s mom, and she had a life she loved, a life now under threat. Piper looked around her colorful, cozy home, and her stomach twisted into a sailor’s knot. This was her nest, the center of her life. It was her refuge, her cave, her son’s playpen. It was where she felt safe.

Leaving her house and her life wasn’t an option, so she had to fight for it, and that meant... God. Piper pushed her hand against her flat stomach, ordering her lungs to work.

Fighting for her life and her home meant selling her stones. And selling her stones meant going back to see Jaeger, the only man who’d ever tempted her to walk on the wild side. It didn’t matter that she was still furious that he’d refused to see her, still hurt that she was so easily forgotten. She needed him.

Dammit. She needed Jaeger.

Only, she quickly qualified, to buy her sapphires so she could save her and Ty’s home. She didn’t need Jaeger to be her lover or Ty’s dad or even to rehash the past and explain his actions.

It was a simple transaction: she’d give him ten sapphires and he’d give her a considerable amount of money.

It would be swift and simple.

With her rising stress levels, she didn’t think she could cope with anything but swift and simple.

* * *

Sitting in the reception area, three floors up from the magnificent flagship jewelry store on Fifth Avenue, Piper took in the details of the Ballantyne and Company headquarters.

Unlike the restrained elegance of the jewelry store below, where the furnishings were top quality but designed to play second fiddle to the magnificent jewels, the corporate offices were modern, light and airy. Orange backless couches sat on polished cement floors, and wide windows allowed visitors to watch the Manhattan traffic below. Modern artwork—Piper instantly recognized the massive monochromatic Pinz—dominated the wall above a light wood credenza holding a coffee machine.

The knowledge that she was in danger of losing her house had galvanized her, and she’d swung into action. She had no choice; she had to establish whether the stones were valuable or not.

Piper hadn’t wasted her energy trying to get an appointment with Jaeger directly, choosing instead to use her contacts in the art world. Art collectors had deep pockets, and many of them, including her old client Mr. Hendricks, purchased jewelry as well. She’d once saved him from purchasing a fraudulent Dali, and he’d quickly agreed to facilitate a meeting between her and Jaeger.

She would’ve saved herself a lot of heartache if she’d had this brainwave last year. Baby brain, she decided. Those pregnancy hormones had a lot to answer for!

Despite Jaeger acting like a toad after Milan, she trusted him professionally to tell her the truth about the stones. His reputation as an honest dealer was vitally important to him. Ballantyne and Company was also reputed to pay the highest prices for quality gems. Three very good, very business-y reasons for her to be here. Piper felt a drop of perspiration run down her spine. Her heart was bouncing off her rib cage and the air seemed thin.

She had to calm down.

She was going to see Jaeger again. Her one-time lover, the father of her child, the man she’d spent the past eighteen months fantasizing about. In Milan she hadn’t been able to look at him without wanting to kiss him deeply, madly, without wanting to get naked with him as soon as humanly possible.

Jaeger, the same man who’d blocked her from his life.

Piper sucked in as much air as she could. She had to pull herself together! She was a few months shy of thirty, a mother. She was not a gauche girl about to meet her first crush. She had sapphires to sell, her house to save, a child to raise. She was being utterly ridiculous! This meeting had nothing to do with Ty or Milan. This meeting was about her gems and her need to raise the cash to keep her home. Ty’s home.

Unable to sit still, Piper walked down the hall to examine another painting, this one by Crouch. Not his best work, she decided. Piper turned when male voices drifted toward her, and she immediately recognized Jaeger’s deep timbre. Her skin prickled and burned and her heart flew out of her chest.

“Miss Mills?”

Piper hauled in a deep breath and looked at Jaeger. His hair was slightly shorter, she noticed, his stubble a little heavier. His eyes were still the same arresting blue, but his shoulders seemed broader, his arms under the sleeves of the black oxford shirt more defined. A soft leather belt was threaded through the loops of black chinos.

The corner of his mouth tipped up, the same way it had the first time they’d met, and like before, the butterflies in her stomach took flight and crashed into one another. Heat ran up her neck and into her cheeks and she bit her bottom lip, frantically telling herself she couldn’t, wouldn’t, throw herself into his arms and tell him that her mouth had missed his, that her body still craved his.

He held out his hand. “I’m Jaeger Ballantyne.”

Yes, I know. We did several things to each other that, when I remember Milan, still make me blush.

What had she said in Italy? “When we meet again, we’ll pretend we never saw each other naked.”

Oh, God! Was he really going to take her statement literally?

Jaeger shoved his hand into the pocket of his pants and rocked on his heels, his expression wary. “Okay, skipping the pleasantries. I understand you have some sapphires you’d like me to see?”

His words instantly reminded her of her mission. It shouldn’t—it didn’t!—matter that he was being a hemorrhoid. She’d spent one night with the Playboy of Park Avenue and he’d unknowingly given her the best gift of her life, but that wasn’t why she was here. She needed him to look at her stones and, ideally, confirm they were valuable. She needed him to buy the gems so she could keep her house.

Piper nodded. “Right. Yes, I have sapphires.”

“I only deal in exceptional stones, Ms. Mills.” Jaeger told her, his expression guarded.

Tired of wasting time, and feeling like an idiot, Piper reached into the side pocket of her tote bag and hauled out a knuckle-size cut sapphire.

“This exceptional enough for you, Ballantyne?”

Two

Jaeger lowered his loupe and looked at the sapphire he held between his thumb and index finger. It was a small stone, barely four carats, but its color and quality, like those of the rest of the ten stones, were off the charts.

Like the woman who owned them.

Jaeger turned his head to the right and looked toward the window where she stood, watching the traffic on the famous street below. Like the stones, something in her called to him. She wasn’t beautiful, precisely, but she was...dazzling. With her naturally curly hair and cat-like green eyes, her stubborn chin and long, lean swimmer’s body, she was exotic, interesting. Utterly feminine...

And majorly pissed off with him.

Jaeger knew women. He should—he’d had enough experience dealing with them. He knew when they were moody or sad. He could recognize manipulation and desperation from a mile away, could see calculation and greed with one glance. He could read body language like other people read text, and Piper Mills was five feet seven inches of pure pissiness.

Directed at him.

He wanted to ask if they’d met before, but he knew that couldn’t be possible. Apart from those two months last year, his memory was impeccable, and he knew they’d never crossed paths before that. The probability of them meeting during his lost months was slim indeed. Credit cards, air tickets and a private investigator had filled in the blanks for the majority of the time he’d lost.

He’d spent July in Burma and Thailand, on the trail of a fantastic ruby he’d subsequently lost in an auction held in the back rooms of Bangkok. From Bangkok, he’d flown to Milan, where he visited Ballantyne and Company and examined and purchased some inexpensive art deco jewelry. He’d spent some extra time in Milan, not unusual since it was his favorite city, but the visit had ended badly. On his way to the airport, the taxi he’d traveled in was T-boned by a delivery truck, and he’d become the human filling in a vehicular sandwich. He’d sustained a broken clavicle and bleeding on the brain.

They’d stabilized him in Milan. Then Linc sent their private plane and a team of doctors to Italy, and Jaeger was transferred back to New York. After operating to stem the bleeding on his brain, they’d kept him in an induced coma until the swelling in his brain subsided. He woke up to the news he’d lost ten weeks of his life, and his beloved uncle, the man who’d raised the Ballantyne siblings, was dead.

Jaeger pulled his eyes from the long-legged beauty at the window and turned back to the stones. Kashmir Blues...why did that phrase keep jumping into his brain? Jaeger picked up his desk phone and punched in a number, impatient for Beckett to answer. His brother had a computer-like brain and remembered most of their uncle’s many stories. From the age of ten, he, Beckett and Sage, along with the housekeeper’s son, Linc—who Connor adopted along with the rest of them—listened to Connor’s gemstone-related tales. Beckett always remembered the finer details.

“You’re calling because you can’t handle the hot chick and you need my help?”

Jaeger scowled at his brother’s greeting. “Yeah, that’s why I’m calling,” he sarcastically replied.

“Thought so. Hang on, sweetheart. I’ll be right there to rescue you.”

If he’d been alone, he would have told his cocky younger brother exactly what he thought of his comment. Because he wasn’t, Jaeger just asked him what jumped into his head when he heard the phrase Kashmir Blues.

It took Beckett less than ten seconds to respond. “Great-Grandfather Mac called a cache of sapphires he saw in the London store the Kashmir Blues. Fifteen brilliant stones. Because other gem dealers, like Jim Moreau, also saw them, we know they definitely existed and weren’t just a figment of Mac’s whiskey-soaked imagination. Strangely, they’ve never, as far as I know, turned up again.”

Until, maybe, today. Could these ten stones be part of the original fifteen? If they were, Jaeger was staring at a hell of a find. He placed the handset back into its cradle. Good God. Could he really be looking at the biggest gem discovery of the last fifty years?

“Well, are they worth anything?” Piper demanded, her hands on her slim hips. Jaeger couldn’t help noticing the sun shone through her thin silk blouse. He could see the curve of her breast, the lace of her bra. He wanted her stones but, by God, he also wanted her with a ferocity that roared and clawed.

Pull yourself together, Ballantyne. This is not the time to think about sex.

“Yeah, they are worth something,” Jaeger slowly replied. “But how much, right now, I’m not sure. I need to do some tests. I’d like other experts to look at them.”

“I thought you were an expert.”

“I am. But with stones like these—” magnificent, important, breathtaking, expensive stones “—I like to make doubly sure.”

“I’d prefer to keep this between us,” Piper said, lifting a stubborn, sexy chin.

“My other experts are my two brothers, Linc and Beckett, and my sister, Sage. They are all Ballantyne directors, and we don’t discuss our clients with anyone else.”

Piper folded her arms across her chest and stared down at the floor, lifting one hand to hold her riotous hair back from her face. When she looked up at him, her expression was fierce. “No games, no lies...if I wanted to sell them right now, what would you offer me?”

“Do you need the money?” She didn’t look like she did. Her clothes were fashionable, her shoes new.

Piper dropped her hand and sent him a hard stare. “I know you might not realize this, but some people do.”

Jaeger held her hot eyes, not bothering to tell her he’d seen more poverty on one trip to Southeast Asia than she could ever comprehend. He knew what people would do for money; he’d witnessed what people would do for money.

He couldn’t help that he was the heir to a dynasty, that he was wealthy beyond belief, but he worked damn hard every day of his life. He didn’t lie or cheat people out of their stones. He paid good prices for good gems. He didn’t deal in blood diamonds, and he boycotted mines and miners using child labor. Like his parents, like Connor, he operated ethically, dammit!

Annoyingly, the urge to explain was strong.

What was it about this woman? And why did he care what she thought about him?

“Give me a number,” Piper demanded, but he heard the fear in her voice, and her hope that the gems would solve a very big problem.

“I’d give you a million,” Jaeger said, just to test her. Actually, he’d consider paying her double, but he wanted to see what her reaction would be.

Her shoulders slumped and she bit the inside of her lip. So a million was short of what she needed.

“Three?” Piper asked.

So three was what she needed. For what?

“Maybe two,” Jaeger said, pretending to think about her offer.

Again, there was a flash of disappointment in her green eyes. God, such beautiful eyes. Eyes that tempted him to cut her a check for the full three mil and then kiss her senseless before ripping off her clothes.

“Can I think about that?” Piper asked, placing her thumbnail between her teeth.

Jaeger slowly rolled up the velvet, capturing the gems inside. “Sure, but I’m not making the offer today, Ms. Mills. Or tomorrow.”

Because, despite the party in his pants, he wasn’t a novice dealer who could be swayed by a pretty face, a rocking body and sad, possibly desperate, eyes.

Piper’s luscious mouth fell open, and he wondered what she tasted like, whether her lips were as soft and plump, as sweet, as they looked. He knew her smile would be dynamite. He wanted to see it, feel it on his skin. God, Ballantyne, get a frickin’ grip.

“But...but...you said—”

Jaeger stood up and placed his hands on his desk, leaning down so their eyes were level. “I’m not making a million-plus offer on gems I know next to nothing about. I do that in the field when I have nothing to rely on but my gut. But I’m not prepared to do that now when I don’t need to take the risk.” Jaeger stood up and pushed his hand through his hair. “I’ll make you a solid offer after I’ve done some research—”

“What type of research?” Piper asked, obviously frustrated.

“We use various databases, including those set up by Interpol and the FBI, to check whether any similar gems are reported stolen. I want my siblings to look at the stones.”

“How long will it take?”

Jaeger shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

“I can always take them to Moreau’s.”

Ballantyne and Company’s biggest competition.

“That’s your prerogative, but you won’t,” Jaeger said, watching her eyes, watching frustration chase fear through all the green. “You won’t because you want me to buy these stones. For some reason you want me to have them. Why?”

Piper tried to dismiss his statement, but he saw the flash of agreement in her eyes. Why did he think there was so much more happening here than her wanting to sell the stones? He felt like she had a story and he was part of it.

“You have two weeks to make me a solid offer,” Piper told him, picking up her bag and pulling it over her shoulder. “After that, I start shopping around.”

Jaeger nodded. “I need your contact information. If you’ll give me a little time, I’ll enter the details of the stones into our database and print you a receipt, stating that they are in our custody.”

“I’ll give you my card. Just send the receipt. I know you won’t steal them or swap them.”

Her instinctive trust in him made him feel warm.

“All I need is for you to keep my name, and the fact that I have these jewels, confidential. Can you do that?”

Why was she so concerned about privacy and confidentiality? Could these sapphires be stolen? God, he hoped not. If they were, he’d have to report her, and he did not want to see Piper arrested and jailed for handling stolen property.

The only thing she should handle was him.

Jaeger gave himself a mental punch to the head. It was time to act like an adult, a partner in Ballantyne and Company, like the hard-ass gem hunter he was reputed to be.

“You did hear me say I’ll be running these stones through the Interpol and FBI databases, didn’t you?”

Piper’s only response was a searing look. Shaking her head, she pulled a business card out of her bag and handed it over.

Jaeger looked down at the card and flicked the edge with his finger. “You’re an art appraiser?”

Piper shook her head. “You really did take my words to heart, didn’t you?”

Jaeger frowned. What did that odd comment mean? From the moment she’d walked into his office, he’d seen half-formed statements on her lips, in her eyes. She’d start to speak, but then she’d bite the words back, acting as if there was something she needed to say but wouldn’t. What was going on behind those pretty eyes?

Mind your own business, Ballantyne. She’s a client, nothing more.

But there was definitely something odd about the very gorgeous Ms. Mills, Jaeger decided as he watched her walk across his office and yank open the door. She turned back to look at him and lifted her index finger to point at him. “I’m trusting you to look after my stones. Trusting you, after everything that’s happened, is a very big deal for me, Ballantyne.”

Before he could reply, she walked out of his office. Jaeger stared at his half-open door, feeling like she was leaving him with just a few pieces of a puzzle.

He’d find the missing pieces, he thought, sitting back down behind his desk. He’d start by running her name through as many databases as he had access to and see what popped up.

Because, he was damn sure, something would.

* * *

Why hadn’t she called Jaeger on his BS?

The question played on repeat in her head, like nails on a chalkboard, since she’d hurried out of Jaeger’s office eight hours before. Why hadn’t she mentioned their past to get it out in the open? Why did she go along with his I’ve-never-met-you-before attitude?

Piper turned the corner onto her street, her tote over one shoulder and her arms around two brown sacks of baby food and diapers. And chocolate... After a day like today, she needed chocolate. Baby food, diapers and chocolate... God, her life was so exciting.

Not.

Well, it had been! Back when she was with that six-foot-something slab of sexiness... No, that wasn’t what she meant to think! Dammit! So why didn’t you say anything about the time you spent together in Milan, Mills? What was with that nonsense?

Piper shifted her sacks and tried to blow a curl out of her eye. Pride...pride was a factor. She’d wanted him to mention Milan, to be the one to go there, to say how nice it was to see her again. She’d wanted him to ask if he could take her to dinner...to bed. She’d never thought, not once, not even after he’d shut her out completely, that she’d be so utterly forgettable.

And, man, it killed her—in a dagger-to-the-heart way—that he didn’t remember her. Spending the night with him was a highlight of her life. Conversely, she was, for him, a forgettable experience in what was obviously a long line of sexual encounters.

And Jaeger forgetting her, forgetting about Milan, made all her feelings around her father and his neglect bubble to the surface. She was an adult, and she should have been over feeling hurt by Mick’s actions, but she couldn’t help remembering the times she’d opened the door to him and watched him struggle to remember her name. Her mother and whatever she gave Mick were important to him, not Piper. When her mom died, her father stopped visiting the house in Brooklyn altogether, and the only time he’d spoken to Piper after the funeral was to demand she give him the sapphires.

She’d lived with rejection all her life. Jaeger not remembering her was just another version of the same thing.

That being said, Jaeger’s actions still didn’t make sense. Why the pretense? They’d agreed to keep it businesslike when they met again, so why not take her calls right after Milan? Why did he go to such lengths to ignore her and then pretend not to remember her?

What game was he playing?

Maybe she should’ve avoided Jaeger altogether and gone directly to Moreau’s. Why hadn’t she?

Jaeger paid better, according to Mr. Hendricks, than all the other gem dealers. She’d also, in Milan, promised Jaeger she’d bring the stones to him. Thanks to her father being a thief, it was important that she kept her promises. Piper strongly believed in keeping her word, in doing the right thing.

So, was not telling Jaeger about Ty the right thing to do?

The thought slammed into her, holding all the power of a rogue wave. Of course it was. Meeting Jaeger again changed nothing! She knew, everyone knew, that Jaeger wasn’t daddy material. He’d openly admitted a wife and kids weren’t part of his plans.

There was nothing worse than knowing who your parent was and knowing he didn’t care enough to be a part of your life. Piper wouldn’t put her son in the same position she’d been in.

Approaching her house, she pushed the wrought iron gate open with her hip and noticed her lemon verbena and geraniums needed water and the pots needed repainting. Yeah, that probably wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.

“Piper!”

Standing on the top step, Piper whirled around quickly. She wobbled, her bags tipped and she struggled to find her balance.

“Dammit, Ballantyne!”

Jaeger walked up to her, his hands in the air. “Why so jumpy? I just called your name.”

He didn’t need to know she’d been thinking about him and felt like she’d conjured him out of thin air. “It’s been a long day. Why are you here?”

Her skin prickled as Jaeger slowly approached her, his long legs eating up the space between them. As he came closer, she caught a hint of masculine cologne, warm skin. God, she remembered the smell and texture and taste of him—spicy, warm...

He interrupted that train of thought by taking her groceries from her and looking into the bags. “Wine, baby food, diapers, a popular men’s magazine, tampons, chocolate and hummus. That’s quite a mixed bag.”

Piper blushed, then frowned. “Stop examining my shopping. It’s rude.”

“Are you going to invite me inside?” Jaeger demanded, and Piper knew it wasn’t a suggestion but an order.

Piper shifted from foot to foot as she thought about what to say. Ceri, her nanny and good friend, was upstairs with Ty, and Piper really, really didn’t want Jaeger and Ty meeting. She didn’t know what game Jaeger was playing by pretending not to remember her, but until she’d figured out the rules, she wasn’t going to introduce a new player into the arena. Especially when that new player was her innocent son.

The decision was taken from her when the front door opened behind them and Piper turned to see Ceri and Rainn standing there, each with a hand on Ty’s stroller. Piper immediately dropped to her haunches and kissed her son’s cheek. “Hey, there’s my favorite guy.”

Ty wasn’t as excited to see her as usual, but he did pat her face before pushing her away so he could look around to see who was out and about.

Piper stood up, glanced at Jaeger and saw nothing but mild interest on his face when he looked at Ty. Her heart slowed down when she realized he didn’t see what she did; he didn’t see anything of himself in Ty. Thank you, God.

“We all needed some air, so we’re going to take a walk,” Ceri said, worried. Her eyes bounced off Piper’s face, onto Jaeger’s and her mouth fell open. “Wow, you’re—”

“Jaeger Ballantyne.” Jaeger smiled at Ceri, his eyes crinkled and Piper’s stomach flipped over once, twice. She’d forgotten how sexy his smile was, how it transformed his face from hard-ass to gorgeous. Jaeger shook hands with Rainn after the twins carried Ty’s stroller down the steps.

“I’m Ceri Brown, and that’s Rainn. And the cutie is Ty.”

Piper started to explain that Ceri was her nanny, that Rainn was her twin and that they lived in the apartment below hers, but she stopped. She didn’t owe him explanations of any kind!

Ceri managed to pull her admiring gaze off Jaeger to look at Piper. “Do you want to join us? We’ll be back in about a half hour.”

Piper bit her lip and shook her head. “I think I’ll skip. Jaeger needs to have a word.”

Ceri tipped her head to the side, curious. “How do you two know each other?”

“That’s a long and complicated story,” Piper replied. So long and so complicated. “I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

Piper and Jaeger stood on the top step and watched Rainn tip the stroller back on two wheels. Ty’s belly laugh drifted over to her; it was another of his favorite games. There went her heart, she thought. Her kid and the two people as close to her as siblings.

“Cute family,” Jaeger said. “They are young to have a kid.”

Piper started to tell him Ty was hers, not theirs, but she just managed to catch the words. She darted a look at him, her interest caught by the emotion in his eyes. Longing, sadness, pain? Why would Jaeger Ballantyne—who’d routinely told the world he would follow in his uncle Connor’s footsteps and remain resolutely single—look envious of what he erroneously assumed was a young family on their way to a park? She had to be misinterpreting his look and his emotions, Piper decided. This was Jaeger Ballantyne, after all, who thought the world was overpopulated.

Who’d refused her calls and pretended not to know who she was.

He didn’t deserve her explanations.

At the corner, Ceri waved at them, and Piper rolled her shoulders.

“Are you here to make an offer for my stones?” Piper asked, wincing at the eagerness in her voice. Maybe this ordeal would be done sooner than she’d expected.

“I’m no closer to offering you a deal than I was earlier,” Jaeger replied.

Damn.

“Invite me in, Piper.” Jaeger reached past her to push open her front door. “We both know that we have a lot more than sapphires to talk about.”

Now he wanted to talk about what happened in Milan? And really, after all her unanswered phone calls, what was there to discuss? Apparently everything they’d needed to say had been captured in the last kiss they’d shared outside the hotel entrance. It had been tender and sweet, regretful and poignant but very, very final.

Thank you and goodbye, think of me occasionally, remember this time we spent together with a smile. Have a wonderful life.

A silent but powerful acknowledgment that when they met again, they would not pick up where they left off...

They hadn’t agreed to treat each other like strangers...but maybe it was better if they did. Jaeger still had the ability to keep her off balance.

“You’re giving me the silent treatment again. I can’t decide if it’s because your mind is revving or because you are being stubborn.” Jaeger bent his knees so their eyes were level. “Either way, we are doing this. We can talk either here or over a cup of coffee or, if the gods are smiling on me, a glass of whiskey. But we are going to have a conversation, Ms. Mills.”

Yeah, they were. Piper saw the determination in his eyes, saw the hard-ass negotiator who bought and sold valuable gemstones on six continents. Jaeger wasn’t going anywhere until he’d said whatever was on his mind. She had to be very careful to keep control of this conversation; they had to stay on topic. She wanted to know why he’d blocked her from contacting him after Milan, but Ty was firmly off-limits. As was the fact that she wanted him naked and panting.

Why did she keep thinking that?

She felt like she was standing in a field planted with land mines and she needed to carefully pick a path to safety.

“I would give a rare red diamond to know what you are thinking,” Jaeger said, breaking into her thoughts.

Piper blinked and refocused. She pushed her hair back and briefly closed her eyes.

“I’ll make us coffee,” Piper capitulated, resigned.

Jaeger put a hand on her lower back and pushed her toward the stairs leading up to her living quarters. “Sounds good. It would sound better if you offered a shot of whiskey with it. I’ve had a rough day, too.”

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