This morning he was home because I had an appointment with the doctor in about an hour.

  When the call I’d been waiting for came through, I fumbled nervously with the phone to accept the video chat.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Bails.”

  Turner’s easygoing smile filled the screen. My heart squeezed for a quick second for all that the girl in me had lost.

  “You look good,” I said.

  “You too.”

  I felt no regret, but that didn’t make it easier to say what I had to say.

  “How is everything?” I asked.

  “Great. Actually really, really great. It’s amazing to see the happiness people have when we come to help. It’s just indescribable how a bottle of water can bring such joy. You’d love it.”

  “I’m sure. But they have you.” That part of me that had loved the boy gave him a watery smile. “I’m so happy for you.”

  He nodded. “But you didn’t send me a letter asking me to call you for that.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  His expression grew cautious. “What is it?”

  There was no other way to do it except say it, so I did. “I’m pregnant.”

  It wasn’t the grin he’d given me earlier, but he maintained a positive expression.

  “I’m not surprised. How does Kalen feel?”

  “He’s asked me to marry him.”

  “I suppose you told him yes.”

  “I did after a bit of a fight.”

  He laughed. “That’s my girl. Don’t make it easy for him.”

  “Turner—”

  He waved me off. “It’s okay. I couldn’t have lost to a better man. Don’t tell him I said that.”

  “He heard.”

  I glanced up and saw Kalen. I waved him over.

  “Congrats, man,” Turner said.

  “Thanks.”

  A woman came into view, sliding a hand around Turner’s neck. “Hey,” she said into the screen, obviously not shy at all.

  “Hi,” I said back.

  “You are?”

  “Bailey.”

  “Oh,” she said like she’d heard my name before. “This is the Bailey.”

  She glanced at Turner who only grinned back.

  “And you, handsome. Who are you?” she asked the man next to me.

  “Her husband-to-be,” Kalen answered.

  “Ah, the rival,” she said.

  “The winner,” Kalen cheekily responded.

  She laughed. “I’ll leave you to it. But Turner, we are packing up and leaving in five.”

  He nodded as she walked off. I watched him watching her and found some peace. He deserved nothing short of the best.

  “Looks like I have to go. When is the wedding?”

  “Soon,” Kalen answered.

  “I guess I won’t make it. But you take care of my girl.”

  They traded glances I didn’t understand.

  “Be safe,” I said.

  “Always.” He gave me a wide smile.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you too, Bails. Be happy.”

  Then the call ended.

  “Are you okay?” Kalen asked as he wiped an errant tear from my face.

  “Yeah. You know my love for him is different than yours.”

  “I do, otherwise this would be a different conversation.”

  “He’ll always be my best friend.”

  “Lizzy?” he asked.

  “She’s my best girl friend.”

  He smirked. “I like the sound of that.”

  I punched his arm. “Never going to happen. Your dick belongs to me and me alone.”

  He rubbed at his arm, not losing his wicked expression. “My dick belongs to my wife,” he teased and moved out of my reach. “I came up here to tell you the doctor is waiting.”

  “She’s early.”

  “She is. But I think we’ve left her waiting long enough. She is doing us a favor.”

  It wasn’t exactly the norm to have a doctor make house calls. But Kalen wasn’t taking any chances with our child’s well-being and had persuaded the doctor to come to us.

  “Yeah, fine. I’m ready.”

  He brought the doctor back up. After a restless two weeks, I had serious cabin fever and wanted out of the bed. I held my breath as she performed an external and internal exam and we listened to the baby’s heartbeat.

  “Everything sounds good,” she said.

  “I’m free.”

  She laughed. “Yes. But take it easy. No heavy lifting.”

  I nodded. “Sex?”

  Her smile didn’t abate. “Though I’d recommended to Mr. King to hold off on sexual intercourse, you are fine to resume sexual activities.”

  I glared at him. Had this been his real reason for denying me?

  “I’ll leave you two to work that out,” she said, picking up on my annoyance. “I know the way.”

  After she left, I said, “You lied.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You never told me the doctor recommended us not to.”

  “Why,” he said, lifting his shoulders and letting them fall casually like this wasn’t a big deal. “I already told you I wouldn’t fuck you until you were my wife. This changes nothing.”

  “Fine,” I lied. “Go conquer the world or whatever it is you do.”

  “Lass,” he said. “You’re angry.”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  His eyes narrowed. “Ainsley and Gabe are going to see my father. Will you be fine alone?”

  “I’m a big girl. There are lots of things I can do by myself,” I said, pointedly sliding a hand from my chest to my thigh.

  “Not fair, lass. I can’t stay home with you today.”

  “Life isn’t fair. And while you’re working, I’ll be taking care of my needs. Who needs a man anyway?”

  “Miss Glicks.”

  Damn him for calling me that. I almost broke and begged him to fuck me. Damn pregnancy hormones.

  I managed to shoo him out when he tried to speak.

  I had a plan.

  “Lizzy,” I said into the phone once I heard him leave the penthouse.

  “Yeah, babe. What do you need?”

  And I told her exactly what I needed her to do.

  Forty-One

  A mental image of Bailey momentarily blurred the words I’d been reading. Even after so much time, I’d been struck every day by her beauty in a way no other woman had before her.

  She had starred in many of a daydream of late and my resolve was growing weak against my need to have her. In fact, as that memory faded, a fantasy of her on my desk with her head thrown back as I pumped into her took its place.

  My desk phone buzzed, dissolving that vision with an alert that my assistant was about to speak.

  “Mr. King.” I could almost see my most valuable employee with her jaw clenched as she’d said my name in a clipped tone. What’d pissed her off? I’d almost asked. She was normally unflappable. “That woman is here to see you.”

  The only woman my normally stoic assistant referred to with a snarl was Kinsey St. Claire.

  “Send her in.”

  My shield went up as I converted my face to a bored expression after depressing the intercom button. Kinsey was a stunning woman and knew it. She was also forward, a bit brash, and incredibly annoying when she wanted to be.

  “Don’t forget you have an appointment in ten minutes.” I was certain that was a subtle way my assistant let Kinsey know she didn’t have an appointment. I chuckled to myself, keeping my head down, and tried to finish reading the article I’d begun.

  The door opened and closed. When I didn’t hear the click click of heels against the hardwood floor, I lowered the paper. The crinkling effect shattered the silence of the room.

  Before me had to be an apparition. It felt more like a dream than reality. Still, my mask of indifference was the armor I needed.

  She stalked toward me with her hair fanned over her shoulders against the neutral tan trench coat she wore.

  Back to its normal color like woven threads of fire, it framed her lovely face. The vision had made me momentarily tongue-tied.

  Only she looked like she wanted to cut my balls off, which was probably why my assistant sounded ticked. No doubt she’d informed Bailey that she couldn’t see me without an appointment.

  My dick would have hardened at the idea of Bailey’s determination to get to me, if it wasn’t already like granite at the mere sight of her.

  “You should be home resting,” I said, grateful my voice didn’t betray my need for her.

  In fact, her steps stuttered and halted for a second at my apathy before she continued her pursuit.

  “I’m tired of the cage.” She tried to sound mad, but it came off kind of cute. “Aren’t you happy to see me?” she asked, toying with the belt on her coat.

  “Did you expect I’d change my mind?” I laughed like that was ludicrous and it was. I watched her face fall.

  For all her bravado, Bailey didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

  “You should go back home.” I watched as she processed that information.

  I waited for her resolute mask to completely shatter. I waited in vain. Bailey had a trump card even I couldn’t have expected.

  “I call bullshit,” she stated. A finger slid from her neck all the way to the belt of her coat. She undid it with the quickness of a professional. When the fabric parted, the fact she only wore a lacy bra and panties made it hard to swallow.

  “Lass,” I said in a strangled voice. I followed the line of uncovered skin from the base of her neck to the curve of her breasts with unrevealed nipples. Even though I couldn’t see the rosy buds, I had enough pictures in my head to imagine them hard and begging for my mouth.

  “You want me like I want you.” She sounded smug.

  There were many things I could have said with my cock straining in the confines of my pants. There were truths I could impart as an honest man. But a vision of Bailey in my office practically naked left me without words.

  She strolled forward, hips swaying as my dick tried to punch a hole through the fabric to get to her.

  I let her roll my chair back as she stood before me. Instantly, I thought of my fantasy moments before her arrival which had me fucking her on my desk.

  Curse words left my tongue, whatever language came to mind as she got to her knees.

  “Fuck, lass.”

  Every man had a breaking point and this was mine.

  “Mr. Lancaster is here,” my assistant announced, breaking through the haze I’d found myself in.

  Bailey’s hand was pulling on my zipper as I heard my assistant say, “You just can’t go in.”

  There was no time for Bailey to stand and close her coat as the door to my office opened.

  Her wide eyes said she understood the position we were in and started to back up under my desk. I rolled forward as a shield, lest the asshole come to the side of my desk.

  “Charles,” I said.

  “Jeremy.” He didn’t sound pleased to be here, not that I blamed him. “You’ve summoned me.”

  “Arrgh,” I began and ended on a cough as Bailey had pulled my cock free and had her warm mouth covering the head.

  “Are you okay?” Charles asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  I reached for Bailey, but she moved. I had to lean one arm on the desk so I wouldn’t look crazy as I moved in more to reach the minx.

  “If we could get on with it, I have a meeting.”

  The lass swallowed my cock and it took everything in me not to curse. But I caught her, stilling her movement as what I needed to say I couldn’t with her talented tongue swirling the underside of my dick. I tugged on her hair to get her to stop.

  “The thing is—” I managed to say. “You made a mistake.”

  Charles narrowed his eyes on me.

  “You let your emotions get the best of you.”

  I had to stop as Bailey bobbed her head enough to distract my train of thought.

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” he said.

  “You will.” I tugged her head back, not wanting to hurt her, but sending a message. This was important. I would bend her over my desk and fuck her hard when I was done with this meeting.

  “The thing is, I didn’t get why Dad shut you out of that meeting.” I paused as he still looked confused. “We were negotiating with a new client and he told you not to come. And you were pissed. At me, I suppose. You sent that email to wire money while I was in that meeting.”

  I caught it when clarity hit him.

  “It might have worked as I was in the office. The email was sent from there, but there’s one problem. At the time of your email, I was giving a presentation that was recorded and timestamped. There was no way I could have sent that email.”

  He shrugged. “Your assistant could have.”

  “True. She could have. But she’d gone home hours before. Why would I tell her to send an email after hours? She will testify that I never requested such a thing and haven’t in the past.”

  He paused, taking that in, and as a good lawyer he said nothing more to incriminate himself.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you’re fired.”

  “You can’t,” he said, amused.

  “I can and I did.”

  “You’re not CEO.”

  “Father put me in charge and my new in-house counsel has advised this is a definite breach of your employment contract.”

  “You have no proof,” he spluttered.

  “But, in fact, I do. As we speak, there are FBI officials on site conducting a search and seizure of your office.”

  “They can’t do that,” he said, looking ready to storm from my office. “I haven’t been notified.”

  “Actually, they can since you don’t own the office, computer, or files. Anything personal of yours that is taken will be logged and turned in back to you after the investigation. But you should know that.”

  He lunged toward my desk. “You little shit. I should have let them arrest you months ago.”

  “Let them.” I laughed. “Why don’t we be honest with each other? My father didn’t want me arrested and you’d do anything for him.”

  My words hung in the air as he absorbed them. This was the point I would have gotten to my feet and not allowed him to loom over my desk. But Bailey was there, my dick still in her hot hands. Though she’d stopped toying with me.

  “We built this firm together.”

  He wasn’t talking about me, but my father.

  “And that’s the rub, isn’t?” I said. “You gave up having your own firm or becoming a partner in one of the big ones to follow my father.”

  “He needed me,” Charles said, turning red in the face.

  “No. You needed him. Tell me, does he know?”

  Charles moved from leaning across my desk as if he was scolding a small child.

  “What do you think you know?” he asked, reining his fury back.

  I held up a finger. “That you advised my father not to chase after my mother or me.” I lifted another. “That you’re fucking his wife, which doesn’t make sense considering—” I raised another finger. “You’re in love with him.”

  He ignored my last comment.

  “She’s just another gold digging whore.”

  “True, but you’ve been fucking her since the beginning. In fact, since Dad had a vasectomy after Mum left, he couldn’t be Connor’s father.”

  Charles, dumbstruck for words, was confirmation of what I’d speculated. What he didn’t know was I’d told a very big lie. One that I’d hoped he’d pass on to Connor’s mother.

  Together, they’d come up with a scheme to get rid of me and I’d trumped their move with one of my own. I’d need to speak to my brother. He could be a casualty in this war. But I’d been right about him. He had nothing to do with any of it.

  I couldn’t be sure if Dad was his father or not, but it would get ugly if my message was passed on as I hoped.

  “He won’t believe you,” Charles finally said.

  He being my father, not Connor.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  What he didn’t know was that Father already suspected. He probably had since the moment he asked me to come work for him over two years ago.

  “This isn’t over,” Charles said, waggling his index finger at me.

  “I doubt it, considering the FBI is waiting to talk to you.”

  “Does that little auditor of yours know you need to marry and have a kid to inherit?”

  I hadn’t expect Bailey to be here for this conversation. When her hand loosened from my cock, I caught it before she could completely pull away.

  My next words were for both of them.

  “If I marry her, it’s not for my father’s money. She’s worth more than that.”

  His laugh sounded bitter. “That’s what your father said when he married your mom against his family’s wishes. Look how that turned out.”

  It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I said nothing as the guy left.

  But Bailey, on the other hand, had lots to say.

  Forty-Two

  “When were you going to tell me?” I asked, after I’d tucked his cock away and gotten to my feet.

  “Never,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked, upset that he’d kept this from me.

  “It’s like I said. It was never about the money.”

  “But you were going to marry me for Gabe,” I tossed back at him.

  “You can understand now what lengths you’d go through for your child. But besides that, I was still in love with you when I asked.”

  “It’s just…”

  I leaned back on his desk and his eyes followed as a crestfallen expression filled his face.

  “Don’t marry me.”

  My mouth hung open as I hadn’t expected our conversation to take that turn.

  “You don’t want—”

  “I do, but not if you think that’s what I want. Live with me. Start a family with me. I don’t need the piece of paper if you have any doubts about us.”

  I swallowed. “You’d do that. Lose the money.”