Carrying the Lost Heir's Child (2 page)

He wanted to give his child, and Lily, the absolute best of everything. Even though Lily wasn’t financially strained, Nash would be front and center in his child’s life in every single way. How the hell could he do that without her discovering his identity?

Damn it. He’d never, ever intended for her to be hurt, but he’d passed the point of no return and now the inevitable heartbreak lay in the very near future.

She was never supposed to know who he really was. She was supposed to be gone well before he revealed himself. But now she would be part of his life forever and there was no escaping that hard fact.

“I would never leave you alone in this, Lily.” He stepped forward, sliding his hands up over her smooth, bare shoulders. His thumbs caressed the edge of her jaw as an ache settled deep within him, knowing he would cause her even more pain. “How are you feeling? I assume the pregnancy is why you passed out?”

“I’m feeling okay. I’ve been very nauseous for several days, but this is the first time I’ve fainted.” Her eyes sought his as a smile tugged at her unpainted lips. “I’m glad you were there to catch me.”

“Me, too.”

He still craved her, ached for her, even with the stunning news. Nash slid his mouth across hers, needing the contact and comfort that only she could provide. When he’d go back to his small rental cottage at night, he’d long for her even though he’d just been intimate with her. Nash had never been swept into such a fast, intense affair before.

And his attraction had nothing to do with her celebrity or her status as one of Hollywood’s most beautiful leading ladies. Lily was genuine, not high maintenance or stuffy. Nash honestly admired her. The fact that she was sexy as hell and the best lover he’d ever had was just a bonus.

Her lips moved beneath his, her arms wrapped around his neck as her fingertips toyed with the ends of his hair. Even though they’d been secretly seeing each other for a couple of months, their passion had never once lessened. This woman was so responsive, so perfectly matched for him that he simply couldn’t get enough.

Right now they had more pressing issues to deal with...not to mention the ones he had to face on his own.

Damn it. He’d wanted to keep her out of his own sordid affairs and keep things strictly physical. But now Lily discovering the truth about him was unavoidable. There was no way he could avoid the crushing blow that would eventually come down. He could delay the bombshell, weigh his options, because he didn’t just have Lily and a baby to think about...he had another family to consider.

Stepping back, Nash studied her, processing just how vulnerable she was right at this moment and knew the end result of his lies would be the same. Once she figured out who he was, she would want nothing to do with him. There was no way in hell he’d be absent from his child’s life, though, which meant Lily couldn’t be rid of him no matter how much she would come to hate him.

“I’ll walk you to your trailer so you can pack your things.”

Lily jerked back. “Pack my things?”

“You’re coming to stay with me.”

Lily completely removed herself from his touch and crossed her arms over her chest. “Stay with you? Why on earth would I do that?”

“So I can take care of you.”

Laughing, Lily shook her head. “I’m not dying, Nash. I’m having a baby.”

“My baby,” he corrected. “I want you with me, Lily.”

“How am I going to explain why I’m living with you and not in my trailer? Nobody knows about our affair.”

Nash shrugged. “I don’t care what they think. I care about your health and our baby.”

“Well I care,” she all but shouted, throwing her hands to the side. “The media is just waiting to publish something juicy on me. Don’t you understand that I have a career, a life, and I can’t throw it away because you want to take charge? I’ve worked too hard to overcome the reputation Hollywood first gave me. I’m no longer the wild child of the industry. I’m respected and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Fine, so he was thinking selfishly, but still, he refused to let her go through this alone. Just the thought of his mother being in this position once upon a time had his stomach tightening. Besides, this was Lily. She was a drug in his system and having her close by at all times would only feed their sexual appetite even further.

Maybe he needed to rein in the testosterone. But only for now and only because he refused to back down. He would still find a way to keep her close whether she liked it or not. Yes, he wanted the sex, but now that there was a child involved...he wanted to be right there every step of the way for his son or daughter.

“Fine. I’ll come stay with you.”

Lily raised a brow and tilted her head. “Seriously, Nash. I’m fine. I’m not going to do anything but sleep and work.”

“That’s what concerns me,” he retorted. “You’re getting tired and you’re pushing yourself because the film is almost finished. You passed out, for crying out loud.”

“I can’t stop working.”

Moments ago he’d been ready to take her up to the loft. Now he was struggling with how many more lies he would have to tell before this was all over.

Horses shifted in their stalls behind him, the sunset cast a bright orange glow straight through the wide-open stable doors. The setting epitomized calm and serenity...too bad the storm inside him was anything but.

“What about after you’re done filming? What will we do about the baby?”

And there it was. The ultimate question that wedged heavily between them, but he had to throw it out there. He had to know what her plans were. He wasn’t ready for a family by any means, but considering he and Lily lived on opposite sides of the country, they needed to figure out how they could both be in this child’s life.

Lily smoothed her hair away from her face, turned away from him and sighed. “I don’t know, Nash. I truly don’t know.”

They had time to consider how to deal with the baby. For now, Nash needed to stick with his original agenda and nothing could get in his way. He’d done enough spying, enough eavesdropping to calculate his next move.

He’d had many reasons—professional and personal—for taking on a new identity. But the main reason was the horses he needed from Damon. Those horses were the final pieces in the stable he’d spent years creating. He would move heaven and earth to get them.

As he watched Lily, her worried expression, her still-flat belly, Nash came to the realization that the truth he’d come here to disclose had nothing to do with Lily. Yet, because of a decades-old secret, Lily and his baby might pay the price.

All he had to do was figure out a way to get Damon to sell him the horses, go back to his own estate and keep his child in his life.

One monumental obstacle at a time.

Two

W
ell, she’d lost only part of the battle. She wasn’t going back to Nash’s place, but he was escorting her to her trailer. And she was almost positive he intended to spend the night.

A thrill shot through her, but would their cover be blown? He’d promised to be up and in the stables working before sunrise so he shouldn’t be spotted. She didn’t want him to think she was ashamed, far from it. Unfortunately, her reputation was always at stake and after the scandal from years ago, the press would love to see her “backslide” into bad girl mode. She refused to give them any fodder.

Nash knew of the sex video that had been leaked and he knew how sensitive she was about her privacy. Being a very private, secretive person himself only made their hidden affair the perfect setup. They’d been able to sneak around on the private grounds for months now.

Thankfully, the press wasn’t on-site because of the security who kept them outside the gates. Still, she worried. What if a member of the crew spotted them together? What if they leaked a story? She couldn’t endure another scandal, she just didn’t have the energy to fight it, and she wouldn’t put her mother through that again.

“Relax.” Nash squeezed her hand. “Nobody can see us. It’s dark.”

He was right. Nobody was around, but she was used to being in the loft of the stables where she was sure no one would see or hear them. Right now, walking across the Barringtons’ vast estate to head toward her on-site trailer, Lily just felt so exposed. Their footsteps were light and all was quiet except for an occasional frog croaking, a few crickets chirping and a horse neighing every now and then. They were utterly alone.

Before discovering the baby, Lily had wanted to talk to Nash about her feelings...feelings that had grown deeper than she’d expected. They’d both agreed that everything they shared was temporary and physical, but somewhere along the way her heart had gotten involved. She didn’t want to open up now or he’d probably think she was just trying to get a husband to go along with the baby to keep the gossip at bay.

With Nash’s rough fingers laced through hers, Lily had to admit she loved the Neanderthal routine when he’d gone all super protective of her. She’d known from the moment she met Nash that he was a man of power, of authority.

Her stepfather had been a man of power, too, waving his money around to get what he wanted. Nash was different, though. He was type A, without all the material possessions. He appealed to her on so many levels; she just wished they weren’t facing this life-altering commitment together when they barely knew each other.

Yes, they were compatible in bed—rather, in haylofts—but that didn’t mean in her realistic, chaotic world they would mesh well. Added to that, she didn’t know if
she
could handle having her passionate nature back in the public eye. Any serious relationship she took out in the open was subject to being exploited.

When they stepped into her trailer, Nash locked the door behind him. The cool air-conditioning greeted them. A small light from the tiny kitchenette had been left on, sending a soft glow throughout the narrow space.

Nash’s heavy-lidded eyes met hers. She knew that look, had seen it nearly every night in person, then again in her dreams later. He could make a woman forget all about reality, all about responsibility.

This was the first time he’d been in her trailer and she realized just how broad and dominating his presence truly was. A shiver of arousal slid through her.

“We really should talk about this,” she started, knowing she had lost control of this situation the moment she’d agreed to let him come back to her trailer. “I want you to know I didn’t trap you.”

“I know.” He closed the gap between them, barely brushing his chest against hers. “I also know that I want you. I wanted you before you broke the news and I still do. A baby doesn’t change the desire I have for you, Lily.”

Oh, mercy. When he said things like that, when he looked at her like that...how could a girl think straight? Just one look from beneath those heavy lids framed by dark lashes had her body reacting before he could even touch her. This was why they had to sneak around. No way could she be in public with this man when he looked at her like he was ready to eat her up, and she knew she had that same passionate gaze when she looked at him.

He smelled all masculine and rugged, and pure hardworking man. A man who was gentle with animals and demanding as a lover was pretty much her greatest fantasy come to life. A fantasy she hadn’t even known lived within her until she’d met Nash.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” she stated as his fingertips slid up over her chest and started peeling away the elastic top of her dress. “I mean, we have a lot to talk about, right?”

Nash nodded, keeping his focus on his task. “We do, but right now you’re responding to my touch. I can’t ignore that. Can you?”

His gaze met and trapped hers. “Unless you’re ashamed to have the groom in your trailer.”

Lily reached up, squeezing both of his hands. “I’ve never, ever hinted that I’m ashamed of you, Nash. I’m just not normally a fling girl and whatever we have going on is nobody else’s business. That’s all. I’m not hiding anything else.”

A brief shadow crossed over his face and Lily wondered if she’d imagined it for a moment because just as fast as it came, it was gone.

“I can’t deny you,” she whispered. “How can this pull still be so strong?”

Nash dipped down, gliding his mouth over the curve of her neck, causing her head to fall back. The rasp of his beard against her bare skin always had tingles shooting all over her body. On occasion he’d trimmed his beard back, but thankfully he’d never fully shaved, because Lily figured she was ruined for smooth faces forever after being with Nash.

“Because passion is such a strong emotion,” he murmured as his lips trailed up her neck. “And what we have is too fierce to sum up in one word.”

In no time he’d yanked her dress down to pool at her feet. Lily kicked it aside as he quickly worked her free of her strapless bra and panties.

He reached behind his back and jerked his T-shirt up and over his head, tossing it to the side. Those chiseled muscles beneath a sprinkling of dark hair on his chest didn’t come from working out in some air-conditioned gym. Nash’s taut ripples came the old-fashioned way: from hours of manual labor.

“I love how you look at me,” he muttered as he lifted her from the waist and crossed to the end of the trailer with the bed.

He lay her down and stood over her, whipping his belt through the loops of his jeans. Lily didn’t know what on earth they were doing. Okay, she knew what they were doing, but wasn’t this a mistake? Shouldn’t they be discussing the baby? What their plans were for the future?

But when his weight settled over her, pushing her deeper into the thick comforter, Lily relished in the feel of his hard body molding perfectly with hers. Right here, this was the feeling she’d come to crave—the heaviness of him pressing into her in a protective, all-consuming manner.

Nash was right.
Passion
was such a simple word for the intensity of what they shared. But what label did it have? The impulse with which they’d jumped into an affair had overwhelmed them both. They’d never given anything beyond sex another thought.

The truth was, she had feelings for Nash, feelings she didn’t think she’d have again for another man. Could she trust her feelings to stand up to public scrutiny? Could she rely on anything she felt that stemmed from a hidden affair?

Giving up her mental volley of trying to have this all make sense, Lily raked her fingers up his back and over his shoulders as he settled between her thighs. Nash had a way to make her forget everything around her, make her want to lock away the moments in time she shared with him. As he entered her, his mouth claimed hers and Lily had no choice but to surrender. Why did every moment with this man make her feel things she’d never felt before?

Nash’s hands slid up her sides and over her breasts as her body arched into his. In no time her core responded, tightening as Nash continued to move with her.

After he followed her lead and their bodies stopped trembling, he lifted her in his arms, tucked her beneath the covers and climbed in beside her.

“Rest, Lily.” He reached over and shut off the light. “Tomorrow we’ll work this out.”

Did he mean he’d still try to get her to move into his house? Although his dominance was a turn-on, she wouldn’t let him just start taking charge simply because of the baby. She was still in charge of her own life. Besides, being intimate with a man and living with him were two very different things.

As much as Nash was coming to mean to her, she still had to face reality. She was going to be done filming in about a week and she had a life in LA to get back to.

So where did that leave them?

* * *

Well, what a surprise. They’d ended up with their clothes off again and nothing was discussed or planned.

On the upside, she wasn’t nauseous this morning...yet.

As she headed toward the makeup trailer, her new agent Ian Schaffer stepped out of one of the cottages on the Barrington estate. Ian had initially come out to the movie set in hopes of getting Lily to sign with his agency, and she did, but then he had gone and fallen in love with one of the beautiful Barrington sisters.

Sweet Cassie, the gentle trainer, and her precious girl, Emily, were both part of Ian’s life now and family had never looked so adorable. Ian caught her eye and waved as he headed her way. At some point she’d have to discuss her own family situation with Ian and what this meant for upcoming films...especially since he was already getting several scripts for her to look over.

Too bad none of those movies called for a pukey pregnant heroine. She’d so nail that audition with her pasty complexion and random bouts of profuse sweating.

“You have a second?” he asked.

“Sure.” Lily shifted so Ian’s height blocked the morning sun. “We’re heading into town today to shoot a scene near the flower shop, but I’m not due in wardrobe for a few more minutes. What’s up?”

“I have a really good script that came through yesterday I’d like you to look at it.” Ian rested his hands on his hips and smiled. “I know we’ve only worked together for a few weeks, but you had indicated that you’d like to try something different, maybe break away from the softer, family-style roles and into something more edgy. Are you still up for that?”

Lily tilted her head and shrugged. “Depends on the role and the producer. What do you have for me?”

“How would you feel about playing a showgirl who is a struggling single mother?”

Lily froze. “Um...yeah, that’s quite the opposite of anything I’ve done before.”

Oh the irony. Showgirl? By the time the movie started filming Lily figured her waistline would be nonexistent. As far as the single mom aspect? She honestly had no clue. Nash claimed he wouldn’t leave her, but he’d only been aware of the baby for less than twenty-four hours. Once reality set in would he still feel the same?

“Lily?” Ian eased his head down until his gaze caught hers. “You all right? You don’t have to look at the script if that’s too far outside your comfort level, but I will say the producers are amazing and the script is actually very well plotted. Aiden O’Neil was just cast as the opposite lead.”

Aiden was a great guy, an awesome actor and would be a joy to work with again. But how could she accept this role knowing she couldn’t commit to the grueling hours of exercise and perfecting her body that, no doubt, Hollywood would require in order to portray a showgirl?

Lily’s eyes drifted over Ian’s shoulder and landed on Nash. Now that was a leading man...and he’d sneaked out of her trailer without her noticing. He’d promised to be gone by morning, and he was, but still she’d been a little disappointed not to be able to wake up next to him. Yes, she was quickly losing control over her feelings for Nash and she feared she’d have a hard time keeping them tucked against her heart.

Ian swiveled, glanced across the estate and turned back to Lily. “I’m not sure why you keep hiding what you two have going on.”

Lily jerked her attention back to Ian. “Excuse me?”

Shrugging, Ian smiled. “I won’t say anything, and honestly I doubt anyone else has picked up on the vibes you two are sending out.”

Lily wasn’t sure if she was relieved or afraid that someone else knew about her and Nash. Old images of a video she’d thought private played through her mind. That was another time, another man. Nash was trustworthy...wasn’t he?

“What is it you think you know?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I caught you two in a rather...comfortable embrace about a month ago. I was looking for Cassie and you and Nash were in the stables. I didn’t say anything because I know you value your privacy and it was nobody’s business what you two do in your downtime.”

Lily had thought for sure no one would’ve spotted them at night and after hours. Thankfully it was only Ian who most definitely had her best interest at heart. As her agent, he didn’t want any bad press surrounding her, either. The limelight would stay directed elsewhere, for now.

Blowing out a sigh, Lily nodded. “I don’t know what is going on between Nash and me, to be honest. But just keep this between us, okay?”

Ian smiled. “You’re my client, and I’d like to think, friend. We all have secrets, Lily. I won’t say a word.”

Speaking of secrets, she had a doozy. But for now, she would keep the pregnancy to herself. This was definitely something she and Nash needed to work through before sharing the announcement with any outsiders. They were still riding the sexual high, the excitement of being so physically attracted to each other, she had no clue how to discuss something so permanent with him. They were facing a relationship she didn’t think either of them was ready for.

“You sure you’re okay?” Ian asked.

Pulling out her most convincing smile, Lily nodded and turned to head toward the wardrobe trailer. “Fine. Just ready to relax after this shoot is over.”

“Well, when you get a chance, come find me. I’ll let you look over those scripts.” He fell into step with her. “I believe the single mom part would be perfect for you, but that’s going to depend on how comfortable you are with playing a showgirl. I also have a part that is set in a mythical world, and that also involves bearing a great deal of skin because from what I can see, the women all wear bikini tops and short skirts.”