Secret Baby: Billionaire Stepbrother (3 page)

She’d said the last of it loud enough for the whole bar to hear, and there were some heads turning toward us, as my chest got tight.

Beck’s lips got hard and his eyes started blazing. “Not fucking going to even respond to that shit, but you can bring us two long necks, like a good waitress.”

Beck’s angry eyes turned to me, shutting Roxanne out, as he tightly said, “Fucking place has turned into a dive, and I’m not sure Bart should be in here.”

Roxanne gasped with an offended sound, and then she swished away. I couldn’t help the giggle that spurted past my lips. I grabbed Beck’s hand on the table across from me.

I half-whispered and half-exclaimed, “I’ve wanted to get her for so long. That
was
epic.”

The anger in Beck’s eyes cooled and his firm lips quirked upward. “Did feel kind of good, boo. I feel like I should apologize for ever dating her, but I was a teenager and the offer to see boobs was just too much to overcome.”

I bit my lip to keep from outright laughing, while a warm shock spread through me, and I saw Beck’s eyes widened when he realized what he had just called me. It was his main pet name for me. I jerked my hand away from his as if he’d burn me, then I tried to ignore that he’d called me by that intimate name.

Instead, I turned to Bart and started fussing over him. Then mom and dad came by long enough to dump some cheap champagne on us for a toast to Beck. They remembered to add a toast to my new baby, then they were dragged off by local friends. Beck and I had been through this growing up, because our parents were kind of neighborhood barflies, and it seemed time hadn’t changed that.

I finally figured out mom hadn’t been coming to the bar since her and dad split, and apparently dad hadn’t come at all, so it looked like they were making up for lost time. They were both laughing too loud and acting too much like they were newly in love.

Beck threw some money on the table, and then he looked me directly in the eye. “Let’s get the fuc—” He stopped and started again. “Let’s damn well get the hell out of here, boo.”

This time he’d said my pet name deliberately, no mistakes, and it made places soften inside me that I shouldn’t allow getting soft towards him. But with him trying not to cuss in front of Bart, it just made it worse.

God, I wish I could tell him.

“Okay, handsome.”

I couldn’t believe I had used one of my pet names for him, and it made me gulp, but Beck was already reaching to get Bart. A smoldering slide glance of his eyes told me that he’d heard the slip. I knew I should not leave with him. Not alone. I should stay and brave the bar, but I’d never had a lot of willpower where Beck was concerned.

But right before we made it out of the bar’s front door, a hammer came crashing down, when Roxanne got her final dig in, which she tossed at us before we were through the doorway.

“Well, that baby looks
just
like Beck, anyone can see that.”

I nearly screamed and grabbed Bart from Beck so I could run. My entire body jumped to do it. It was so hard to look up at Beck to judge his reaction once we were outside on the sidewalk. I never should have looked, and I
never
ever should have come back home.

Chapter Three

Beck was quiet the entire time he drove Millie and Bart back to their parent’s house, while his mind turned in hard circles. Once he got them back inside the house, he sat back and watched Millie taking care of Bart, which he hadn’t had a chance to do yet. Her old bedroom was too small to take care of a baby in so she did half of it in the den. Changing Bart’s diaper, putting him in a onesie, and then came the bottle.

The more Beck looked Bart over, the more suspicious he became. And the more he watched them, the more nervous Millie was. Suddenly, Beck stood and he prowled over to Millie.

“Let me give him his bottle,” he said, looking down into her bottomless black eyes, and the fear he’d seen on occasion from her was making more and more sense. “Get to know my nephew,” he said, with an edge in his deep voice.

Millie looked as if she was going to clutch Bart and run. That nearly made Beck positive, and his anger started to boil, but he held it in check and reached down for the baby that could possibly be his damn son.

He’d babysat when he was a kid—always looking to make money and build something was in his blood. So he knew how to give baby bottles. The look Millie gave him showed her fear and uncertainty as he held Bart in the crook of his arm. Bart was sleepy and willing to lay back.

The minute the boy got the nipple his eyelids drew half-mast, and Beck felt it hard in his chest. He half stumbled to sit down, before he fell. Then he didn’t look at Millie again, afraid she’d read his face.

He wondered how he didn’t see it right away. He wasn’t a damn idiot, how come he hadn’t noticed? It had taken a vindictive woman, which he’d barely dated, to make him see ... and he was disgusted by that. A man should just know his own son deep down. Maybe it was because it was so unbelievable; a brother and sister having a baby.

No,
he snapped silently in his mind:
a stepbrother and stepsister
. If everybody in the whole world besides him and her would remember that.

Bart’s little fingers curled around his hand holding the bottle up for him, and Bart languidly explored his hand. Beck looked at his son’s amazing face and felt his little body warm against his chest. He was awed. Bart cooed and nudged his head closer to his chest with a heavy sigh.

Damn, Beck had never thought about having a family. Not since he and Millie had exploded apart. He was too stupid back then to think about it, but if they hadn’t busted up, he was sure he would have soon.

He’d certainly thought about getting her soft belly round with child, but that had been in a I-want-to-fill-you-with-my-come way. He’d never gotten to the family part, because their relationship was already so forbidden.

Bart sucked the bottle dry with his eyes closed, and Beck lifted it from his mouth. He was content only to sit there and hold him. He’d always been a deep thinker and he needed to work through his anger ... something he wasn’t sure he could do.

“I’ll put him to bed.” Millie’s soft voice filled with uncertainty floated above him.

Immediately, Beck felt like not letting go. He resented her trying to take the boy away from him. It was on the tip of his tongue to waylay her, but then his anger decided he wanted to see if he could get her to admit it.

“When is his birthday?” Beck asked.

Millie nearly stumbled, while holding the baby, and he had to grasp her from behind to steady her as he followed her into her old bedroom. It pissed him off that he appreciated her lush figure more now that she’d grown out of her youthful slenderness. Back then her hot little body was tight, but he’d been immature, because curves were what a man wanted.

He didn’t want to want her—she’d taken something so important out of his life, it was cruel.

“A-ah,” she stuttered. “It’s in April.”

Beck took his hands away from her, and he tightly accused, “You don’t know the date of your baby’s birth?”

Beck could see her back stiffen, right before she bent to lay Bart in the playpen amongst some covers she’d spread out there earlier.

“He’s really tired. We need to be quiet. We are both beat,” she said stiffly.

She didn’t rise up from fussing with Bart, and it was obviously her way of brushing him off.

Beck nearly started something, demanding to know the truth. But he hadn’t become a fucking billionaire for no reason. He always plotted his moves and he never went with superficial feelings. No, he had to think this through; it was too massive to just jump into.

He didn’t want Millie to know he knew, in case he decided to do something about it that she would not agree with like demanding time with his son, joint custody, or even full custody. It would be better if he kept his damn mouth shut, and thought things through first.

“Yeah, okay,” he muttered, and he turned and left the room.

Once he was in his room, he laid back on his bed with his legs crossed, trying to come to terms with this thing that had gut-punched him. He’d never thought it could be possible to be so mad at Millie, because he loved her, damn it. Even when they’d broken apart because they couldn’t believe what they’d done together, and they couldn’t come to terms with how they could put their life into it ... he still hadn’t hated her.

She’d been more about appearances and crap. It was a small town and people would vilify them, he knew that. But what he hadn’t been able to get across to her was they hadn’t had to stay there. In fact, neither of them had.

After they had broken apart and his heart had been sore for so long, he’d thought about it, and he decided he had just been working so much he’d never given their situation enough of his time. If he had only been present more of the time, instead of running off to work, he might have convinced her and they might have worked it out.

Now he had so much fucking money, he could buy her agreement. His eyes narrowed. Yes, he was that ruthless, if he wanted something. And now that he was ninety-nine percent sure Bart was his, he was not giving Bart up. He just wasn’t sure if he could get past his anger at Millie keeping something this important away from him—for taking all the decisions away from him. That hadn’t been her right.

Chapter Four

I knew my stepbrother well enough to know something massively dark was working on him. I was terrified it had something to do with that comment Roxanne had made. I kept going back and forth; one minute thinking he knew, and the next minute convincing myself he couldn’t know. I was driving myself so crazy, I cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, I lay in bed a long time before Bart woke up just listening to his soft breathing, while thinking about all that Beck had missed in Bart’s young life. Beck was a workaholic, but I’d seen him around kids before and he really liked kids. You don’t grow up with the guy half your life and not know him pretty well, so I knew Beck would make a good dad. A really good dad.

But I’d had these thoughts a thousand times before, and they always circled into the impossible. We were stepbrother and stepsister, and nothing could change that. And that fact could ruin Bart’s life, if I ever let the truth out. And I knew once the truth was out, it could never be taken back.

Maybe Beck thought he knew, but he couldn’t really know, unless I told him. So no matter how much I wanted us to be a normal guy and gal in love, and having a baby ... I just couldn’t.

I wiped at my tears, staring at the ceiling in my old bedroom. I had been in this position a lot in my life; all those teenage years fighting my attraction for Beck. I had done it at times with my heart hurting so much, when he’d take another girl out to date. I never wanted to live through that angst again.

“I need to get out of here, fast,” I muttered. I’d managed to make myself bigger than the attraction I felt for Beck once in my life, and now I needed to do that again. Even though it would be so hard to leave him one more time. “Maybe I can do it before he gets up.”

I pushed myself off the bed with determination and I decided it was going to be easier this time to leave Beck, because I was doing it for Bart. I just needed a really good and quick excuse to get out of there.

Only once I got to the playpen to pick up Bart, who was still sleeping, I found out why my normally early rising son was not awake yet. It was because he had a fever. The plans I had fled my mind, as I picked Bartie up, turned him in my arms and felt his forehead. I tried not to panic, but I went directly for the source of support that had always sustained me.

“Beck!” I yelled, and then I took Bart towards Beck’s room.

Beck opened his door wearing only tight black boxers, and I couldn’t even get excited over how hot his body looked, because I was so upset.

“Feel his forehead. How hot does that feel to you? Damn it, I forgot to bring a thermometer or anything!” I exclaimed at Beck. Beck’s sleepy gray eyes turned sharp immediately and he lifted his big hand to Bart’s forehead. While I continued ranting, “I shouldn’t have brought him on that long car drive and then took him out last night!”

Beck’s big hand grasped my shoulder and squeezed, “Calm down, your son needs you levelheaded,” he ordered.

I knew my gaze was pleading with him to tell me that everything was going to be all right as I fought to calm myself. “I’ve never felt it so hot,” I whispered, with obvious fear.

“Boo sweetheart, I agree. Now we just need to decide what we’re going to do. Doctor here, the emergency room, or—”

Before Beck could finish, I exclaimed, “His doctor and all his records are back home!”

Then Beck blew my mind by interrupting and saying with a growled voice, “I can have you fucking home in an hour, maybe an hour and a half, if we waste time gathering your shit.”

That’s when I found out over the next couple hours that Beck was filthy rich now, so rich he had a jet, and it was even parked in our small town waiting for him to leave. I couldn’t even comprehend something like that, but I was so worried about Bart it simply passed me by.