Revealed: His Secret Child (4 page)

He prided himself on his efficiency, on how much he managed to achieve in any given day. But finishing the day with a family, when he'd started it as a footloose, career-focused bachelor, was a major accomplishment even for him. And one he wouldn't have seen coming in a million years. He'd never intended to have a family of his own. He'd wanted to avoid the commitments and bonds that came with family. But just because it wasn't what he wanted for himself didn't mean he didn't absolutely believe in its importance.

And Ethan—his son—would have it.

He looked at the boy trotting at his side.

Without a long drawn-out battle, he'd secured a permanent and legal place in his son's life. And he'd served notice to Gillian that he wasn't going to let her shut him out.

A driver stood at the waiting vehicle and handed Gillian and a chattering Ethan into the back. Max followed. She eased herself over to the far side of the wide leather seat. The bulky car seat between them provided a physical barrier, Ethan's presence a barrier of another kind. It was probably for the best.

He was still in no mood to make nice to the woman who had deceived him, but he was getting there. There were moments, even aside from the kiss, when he forgot what lay between them and remembered the connection they'd shared, saw a glimmer of possibility for something new.

They were in this together now, and he was going to make it work.

On his terms.

She pulled a small box of raisins from her handbag and passed it to Ethan along with a slice of cheese. She looked up and caught him watching her. “You want some? I have more in my bag.” She almost smiled.

Worse, he almost smiled back.

They'd had good times once. “Do we need to stop somewhere for food, or can Ethan wait till we're on the jet? There's a fully stocked galley on board.”

“This will tide him over. And, Max.” The way she spoke his name brought back memories. “Thanks for asking.”

Max lifted a shoulder, feigning indifference. “I've only had close-up experience of one child's meltdown due to hunger and tiredness. But it was more than enough. Trust me, it's not something I'm in a hurry to repeat.” For the time being he would have to take her lead on all things relating to parenting.
He adapted quickly to most any situation, but this one was so far out of left field that it was going to take some time.

Max pulled his phone from his pocket. He'd taken the first step to ensure he'd be a part of their lives. And now he had to integrate them into his.

There was one call he had to make.

He pressed speed dial. “Hi, Mom. Are you home this evening?” She started to tell him about her day. But there'd be time enough for that tonight. “If you don't have plans I thought I'd stop by for dinner.” She always said he didn't come by enough, especially that he now lived back on the west coast after a stint in New York. They claimed they still barely saw him. An exaggeration. They also claimed that they didn't know what was going on in his life. Maybe not such an exaggeration.

He glanced at the seat beside him. “Oh, and I'll have a couple of people with me I want you to meet.” While his mother gushed at the prospect of him bringing guests and mused over possible menus, he watched the boy studiously picking raisins from the box and chewing them one at a time. Surely it would take hours to eat that way. His gaze found Gillian, watching him, her eyebrows raised. “Don't do anything too fancy, Mom. At least one of them likes his food fairly plain.” Gillian did smile then, albeit briefly. “Oh, yeah, and the other one's a woman. And yes we'll be staying the night.” He finished the call.

“Staying the night? With your parents? That's not a good idea, Max.” In fact, she looked like the prospect terrified her.

“We're going to be in L.A. anyway. May as well stop in and meet them. And let them meet their grandson. They're set up to have kids from all the times my sister brings her two over. And it saves Ethan an hour and a half more in the car today getting back to Vista del Mar.”

She opened her mouth then closed it again. Whatever she'd been about to say, whatever excuse she'd been about to come up with, she'd realized it wasn't going to cut it. That any grounds she thought she had for protest were shaky. Instead, a few seconds later she said, “You didn't warn her. Tell her who, or what…” she lifted a shoulder in a shrug “…you were bringing."

Ethan held a raisin, which looked suspiciously like it had already been chewed, toward Max. Possibly in child etiquette, if someone offered you some of their food the correct thing to do would be to accept it. Max wasn't going there. Instead he smiled at his son. “You have it. I'm not hungry.” At which, Ethan offered it to his mother and when she shook her head, popped the mangled raisin back into his mouth.

Max returned his attention to his wife. The one he was going to have to introduce to his family in almost no time at all. “It was enough that I said I was bringing a woman. She'll already be on the phone to my brothers, ordering their presence tonight. I thought the ‘wife' news might be best done in person. Besides, if I wait till tonight when Dad and my brothers are there, I'll only have to explain it once.”

“And how will you explain it?” She looked pale and tense. But he was not going to let himself care.

“Ethan's not going to need a whole lot of explaining. They'll know as soon as they see him that he's my son. There's a picture of me and my brother at about the same age hanging in the hallway. He's the spitting image. The hair, the eyes. Although I'm fairly sure I never offered people my half-eaten raisins. And as for you, I'll think of something.”

She twisted the gold band on her left hand. “I never met your family when we were dating. You scarcely even talked about them.”

“I know.” The omission had been deliberate. He liked to keep the different areas of his life separate. Introducing a
woman to his parents could lead to her getting the wrong impression. And vice versa. He'd never brought any of the women he'd dated home to meet his family.

His parents had a good marriage and were keen for their children, and particularly Max, to have that same emotional closeness with someone else. So keen that Max had learned at an early age not to even let on when he was dating someone. Particularly when he'd never had any intention of making it serious. Because as fervently as they wished he'd find that bond, he avoided it. They wouldn't like the fact that he'd just married a woman that not only had they never met, but who he didn't love. It would only upset them. “They're not to know why we've married.”

“You mean your ultimatum?”

“Or your willful deception.” That took the wind out of her sails. She looked out the window, seemingly intrigued by their approach to the Las Vegas airport. “I want them to think ours is a real marriage.” He watched the back of her head. He'd always liked her hair, liked running his fingers through it. “A marriage based on love.” Her spine stiffened.

She turned back to him. “And what you want, you get?”

She'd always challenged him. Apparently, unwillingly, he still admired that about her.

“Mommy?” Ethan's voice was plaintive.

“It's all right, honey.” She stroked their son's curls back from his forehead. “Don't worry, Max,” she said quietly. “You'll get no argument from me. At least not in public. But just so you know, I'll be doing it for Ethan's sake, not yours.”

“I expected nothing more. You've made it clear that my feelings aren't something you take into consideration.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “Max, I…”

He waited, curious to see whether she'd go on the offense or defense. He was ready for either.

She took the cheese wrapper Ethan held out for her, took her
time folding it up and tucking it into a small plastic bag from within her handbag. She looked back at him, her composure regained. “If your parents are going to think we're happily married then I need to know something about them. Like, for starters, their names.” She opened the shoulder bag that he was beginning to view as something akin to a magician's hat. “Because if our marriage is based on love then we'll have talked about our families.” As she rummaged in its depths, her hair swung forward, glossy and inviting, curtaining her face, hiding the lips he'd so recently kissed. He wanted to brush it back.

Ethan, his thoughts in sync with Max's, reached for her hair. Ethan's execution, though, was somewhat different to what Max had been thinking. His little fist closed around a handful of hair and he pulled as he giggled.

“Ethan, no.” Gillian tried to turn her head but Ethan held firm and giggled louder. “Ethan. Let go of my hair.” He giggled some more, his fingers now well and truly tangled.

Max reached over and held his laughing son's wrist steady while he unwound Gillian's hair from around his fingers.

“He's not usually a hair puller,” she said when she was able to straighten. “Thank you.”

“A pleasure.” And it had been, touching her hair again, every bit as soft and silky as he remembered. “Except for the raisiny bits.”

She smiled as she ran her fingers through the recently pulled hair, smoothing it back into place, and something tenuous and beguiling shimmered between them as she held his gaze. He remembered so much more about her than just her hair.

Returning her attention to her bag, she produced a small plastic car for Ethan and then a notebook and pen. She held her pen, poised above the paper. “Your parents' names?”

“Stephen and Laura. My sister's Kristan, and my brothers are Daniel, Jake and Carter.”

She looked up, her face paler than it had been seconds ago. “Are they all going to be there?”

Was that apprehension in those earnest green eyes? “Surely the formidable Gillian Mitchell isn't worried about meeting a few people?”

“Of course not.” She lifted her chin. “It was a simple question. Are they all going to be there? It impacts how much I need to know now.”

“All except Kristan and her family, and Daniel.”

“And your other brothers, are they all like you?”

“In what way?”

“Career-focused, forthright, suspicious, emotionally shut down?”

“You could be describing yourself.”

She frowned and then the creases vanished. “Maybe that's how I used to be. But I've changed, Max. I had to.”

He wasn't going to ask if the intervening years had been hard for her. Not when she'd denied him the opportunity of helping, of even being there. But he'd noticed some of the changes in her. There was a softer edge to her, a nurturing side he'd been unaware of. Even physically she looked softer, curvier. And he would not think about exploring those changes. Just this morning he'd told her she'd killed any attraction he could have ever felt for her. And he needed that to be true.

He'd married her because he was determined to be a part of his son's life and that his son would grow up with a father who was married to his mother. And despite his threat to win custody of Ethan, he wouldn't have been able to do that to the boy. Or even to Gillian.

She shifted in her seat, crossed one leg over the other then tugged the silver skirt of her dress down from where it had ridden up her thighs.

But it was turning out that the attraction he'd once felt was far from dead. Contrary to his efforts and intentions, a heartbeat, faint but steady and insistent, was registering.

B
ack in L.A. after the flight, Max negotiated the imposing, palm-lined Beverly Hills streets, and Gillian scanned her notes, doing her best to tune out her awareness of Max's proximity.

All the while also trying to tune out the memory of the touch of his lips to hers. A touch that had brought back a flood of sensual recollections, a touch that had tapped into some kind of primal programming to this man and what her body knew of him. She reread her notes. There would be time to analyze that ill-advised kiss later, to try to somehow reprogram her responses.

Confident that she'd learned the details, she flipped her notebook closed and put her memory to the test. She held up her thumb. “Carter's the oldest. Serious, shorter than you but same color hair and eyes, runs a software company, recently separated from his fiancée. Like most of your family, supports
the Dodgers.” She looked to Max for confirmation—avoiding his lips. He nodded for her to continue.

She tore her gaze from his face and held up her first finger. She had forgotten the sheer magnetism of him. “Daniel's next but won't be here. Neither will Kristan.” Thankfully. She figured there would be enough of his siblings to cope with as it was.

She lifted her second finger. “Jake, younger than you, same height, green eyes, rebel of the family, tried modeling and then acting, successful at both and has since surprised everyone by swapping sides of the camera to become even more successful as a film director. Supports the Angels, leading to much good-natured, though I'm guessing heated, rivalry and dinner table discussions.”

“You always were good with details.”

“Thank you.” Although she didn't think he'd meant it as a compliment, more a statement of fact. And she so wasn't looking forward to fronting up to two more versions of Max.

“Mom and Dad?”

“Laura loves gardening and her charity work. She's cultured and reserved and can come across as a little aloof, but there's a chance she'll warm to me. And Stephen made his money in property development, plays golf and enjoys single-malt whiskey and, surprise, surprise, watching baseball.”

“You'll pass.” Max turned into the drive, pressed a code into a keypad and as the gates swung slowly open, eased through them.

They swept past stately oaks to a wide circular driveway and stopped in front of an imposing two-story home. Gillian clasped her hands together and took a deep breath. “It's easy enough to do sitting here in the car, but—”

“You'll be fine.”

He could have dismissed or ignored her concern but there
was reassurance in his tone, and in his brief glance. They got out of the car and flicked their seat backs forward for access to the rear. Gillian looked from the previously pristine backseat of Max's Maserati to his face. In the space of the thirty-minute drive from the airport Ethan had managed to strew quite some mess. “I did suggest my car,” she said. “Just imagine what he can do on a long trip.”

“I dread to think.”

By the time she straightened with Ethan in her arms, the front door of the house had opened to reveal a slim woman, wearing tailored pants and a lilac cardigan—Gillian guessed cashmere. Her silver-blond hair curved precisely below her chin. Max came round to Gillian's side. “Your mother?” she asked.

“Yes. Let me take your bag. I'm starting to realize it must weigh a ton.”

She dropped her shoulder to let him ease it from her. He tested its weight experimentally, then, holding it in one hand, put his free arm about her shoulders, his warmth surrounding and supporting. “Let's do this.” For the first time it felt not as though she was alone against Max but as though he was on her side and they were facing something together.

They walked toward the front door. His mother's gaze was firmly fixed on Gillian and Ethan. She was smiling, but the effect was diminished by a puzzled frown pleating her brow. By the time they stood under the portico, Laura had given up any pretense of smiling and was staring openly at Ethan.

“Hi, Mom.” Max released Gillian's shoulder long enough to kiss his mother's cheek. “You're looking terrific.”

“Max?” The word sounded strangled and Gillian felt for the other woman.

Max stood back beside Gillian and slid his arm around her waist and she was grateful for that show of support, not only because she desperately needed the assurance it offered,
but because he could have made this difficult for her. More difficult, she mentally corrected. There was no way this was going to be easy. “I want you to meet Gillian and Ethan. Gillian, this is my mother, Laura.”

Laura dragged her gaze from Ethan to smile at Gillian, but the smile faltered and she looked back at Ethan. “Max?”

“I've got some news for you, Mom. Let's go inside.”

Laura recalled herself and stepped back. “Of course, come in. You've just driven up from Vista del Mar?”

“Actually, no. We've just flown in from Las Vegas.”

Laura's eyes widened and her gaze darted to Gillian's left hand where it was tucked around Ethan, supporting his weight, and then to Max's hand. His wedding ring glinted. “Stephen,” she called, a faint plea for help registering in the word. Though she'd spoken so quietly that Stephen, wherever he was, couldn't possibly have heard.

“Why don't we go sit down,” Max prompted gently. With a glance back at Gillian and Ethan, Laura led the way through the house to a spacious, high-ceilinged living room.

Three men, all of them big, were sprawled on low, wheat-colored couches, their attention riveted on an enormous flat-screen television. It was easy enough to pick out Stephen, their father, and Max had given her good enough descriptions that Gillian was fairly certain she knew which brother was which.

Laura cleared her throat. “Max and his…friends are here.”

Only one of the men, Jake, Gillian guessed, glanced their way before the play was up. His observant gaze lit on Gillian and Ethan and froze there.

“Stephen. Turn the TV off.” Laura instructed quietly.

“This better be good, Max,” the man next to Stephen—had to be Carter, Gillian figured—muttered as their father pressed mute on a remote.

“It's good all right,” Jake said, a broad smile spreading across his face as he levered himself off the couch. “Real good.”

The two others stood and all three men crossed toward Gillian and Max, like an approaching forest of oaks.

“Dad, guys,” Max said as his father got to them first, “this is Gillian and Ethan.” Gillian readjusted Ethan on her hip and reached to shake the hand Stephen held out to her. “Do you want me to take Ethan?” Max asked her quietly.

Ethan heard the offer, smiled and reached for Max. “Daddy.” The word rang clear and loud in the quiet living room. The silence stretched till it was broken by Jake's roar of laughter. Ethan, still leaning toward Max and delighted to have caused such merriment, repeated his trick. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Soon the boom of the two brothers' laughter filled the room. Their parents didn't share their amusement.

Gillian met Max's gaze over Ethan's head. A trace of wry amusement sparkled in his blue eyes. “I guess that's one explanation taken off my hands,” he said. He reached for Ethan but the noise had gotten to her son, who changed his mind and clung like a limpet to Gillian instead, burying his face in her shoulder.

“And before Ethan beats me to my second announcement, you ought to know that Gillian is your sister-in-law, and daughter-in-law,” he added with a nod in his parents' direction.

Did that mean he didn't want to call her his wife? She didn't blame him.

“You always were the secretive one. How long have you been married?” Jake asked, having gotten his amusement under control.

Max glanced at his watch. “In minutes as well as hours?”

Jake filled the silence that yawned after that pronouncement. “We didn't get an invite?”

“It wasn't that sort of wedding.”

That simple statement quelled any lingering amusement. Laura stepped into the breach. “Welcome to the family, Gillian.” She kissed Gillian's cheek. “And welcome to you, too, Ethan.” She planted a quick kiss on Ethan's curls. “Why don't we all sit down and get to know one another. We have half an hour before dinner's ready.”

Half an hour of interrogation, Gillian suspected from the questioning looks on everyone's faces. Oh, goody. The only saving grace was that many of the questions would undoubtedly be directed at Max. And the fact that Ethan was here would surely be a kind of buffer and icebreaker as well.

“Hey, buddy,” Jake said to Ethan. “Want to come with your uncle Jake to choose a toy to play with? My nieces have a whole room full of them here.”

“I don't think so,” Gillian said. “He's quite shy around strangers.”

“Yes, please.” Ethan immediately made a liar of her and wriggled out of her hold and down her body. “Have they got a twain?”

He trotted off with Jake, who tossed a wink back over his shoulder at her. “We'll be back in a minute.”

Laura watched them go. “How old is he?”

“Nearly three,” Gillian said.

“His birthday's the same as mine,” Max said quietly.

Laura swung sharply back to look at Max, an expression on her face Gillian couldn't interpret. Shock? Pain? It was so quickly replaced by neutrality that Gillian almost thought she'd imagined it. Laura gestured to the closest couch. “Sit down. Tell us a little about yourself.”

“Mom.” Max's voice held a note of warning.

“I just want to talk to my new daughter-in-law,” Laura said innocently. “Stephen, I think you should turn that off.”

Stephen's glance had strayed to the muted TV. “I was just thinking the same thing myself.” With a last lingering glance at the screen he pressed a button on the remote and the screen went blank.

Gillian lowered herself to the couch, grateful when Max sat next to her, and even more grateful when he took her hand in his. She tightened her grip around his.

“What is it you do, Gillian?” She knew there were plenty more questions that Laura would undoubtedly want answers to, like why was she only now meeting her almost three-yearold grandson, so Gillian was thankful for the casually polite question.

“I'm a journalist with a paper in Vista del Mar.”

“The
Seaside Gazette,
” Max added.

“Isn't that the paper that's been—” Carter cut himself short.

“The paper that's been the thorn in my side?” Max asked. “Yes.”

Gillian could just imagine how Max might have complained about the
Gazette
to his family.

“But Gillian and I have always kept our personal and professional relationships separate.”

Just like in L.A. Though they'd met because of the intersections between their careers, they'd strenuously kept their work out of their relationship. In fact, they'd kept almost everything out of their relationship except the physical passion that had flamed between them. She'd been new to L.A. at the time and had thought she had to be sophisticated and unemotional. She'd thought she could play it that way. So they'd had good times, but neither of them had made an effort to truly know the other. They thought they'd had the relationship the way they wanted it, the way it ought to be. Superficial and fun. When Gillian made the shocking discovery that she was pregnant and realized she wanted
more and hinted as much to Max, he'd ended it. She couldn't blame him.

“But I have the highest respect for her integrity, even if I occasionally think it's misguided.”

Gillian hadn't expected the compliment, but she knew that at least at one time it had been true. Before they'd ended up on opposite sides of the fence regarding Cameron Enterprises' takeover of Worth Industries.

“And what is it your folks do?”

“My mom owns a store up near Fort Bragg, and I never really knew my father. I have no idea what he does.”

Laura opened her mouth but it was a second or two before any words came out. “What sort of store?”

“A kind of art gallery.”

Laura brightened. “Perhaps we know it.”

Gillian looked at the sculptures and oil paintings in the living room and tried to imagine some of the things her mother sold—paintings of other dimensions, of spirit guides and angels hanging here. “Probably not,” she said. “It's a small shop, very new age.”

“Oh.”

Gillian racked her brain for something else to say. Usually she could talk easily to anyone. But there were too many conversational minefields here for her to know which direction to go in. Fortunately, at that moment Ethan came trotting back, clutching a small stack of books, Jake following. “No
twain,
” Jake said. “Only dolls and books. Books won. But I've promised him a train before his next visit.”

“Uncle Jake's never forgiven Mom for passing his train set on to the neighbor's kid,” Carter said. “When he was twenty. He's been looking for an excuse to get another one ever since.” The brothers laughed, the sound warm and inclusive.

Ethan had grown up without extended family. Now he had a father, grandparents, an aunt and a swag of uncles and cousins.
Gillian was torn between guilt that she'd denied her son this and terror that he'd grow to like it only to have it taken away when Max realized that he'd been right when he'd insisted that marriage and children weren't things he wanted or needed.

Jake resumed his seat on the couch. Ethan climbed up beside him and passed him a book about a little yellow digger.

All Gillian had ever wanted was to do the very best she could for her son.

And she still didn't know what that was.

She looked at Max. In a room practically brimming with charismatic men, Max was still the one who riveted her attention, who made her pulse pick up. It was his eyes that caught and held her gaze, the hint of pain walled off, the unfathomable depths in them, the intelligence and decency they hinted at.