Heir to Scandal

Rose turned and looked him straight in the eye. “I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Xander had a hard time processing what she was saying. “You didn’t want to marry me?”

“Of course I wanted to marry you. I wanted to go to D.C. with you, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I didn’t want you to marry me just because of the baby. That wasn’t the path you were on, Xander. Look at all you’ve done in the last eleven years! All that you’ve accomplished... None of that would’ve happened if you had come home and married me.”

Xander opened his mouth to argue with her, but he was struck with the truth of her words. She was right. Even if she had moved to D.C. with him and they’d gotten an apartment in family housing, finishing school would’ve been challenging. He’d had a full-ride scholarship with books, room and board, but it wouldn’t have covered baby food and clothes and diapers. He would’ve had to work. It was hard enough to finish school without the distraction of a young family at home.

“It wasn’t your decision to make,” he said instead.

“I couldn’t let you give up everything you worked so hard for because we made one little mistake.”

“Little? He’s ten years old.”

“I know that I should’ve told you later, maybe, when he was older and you’d finished school. But the longer you keep a secret, the harder it is to tell. I didn’t even know where to start.”

“So you just waited until you had no choice? No wonder you didn’t want to go to dinner and didn’t mention your son all night. Even when you had the chance, you didn’t want to tell me. You’ve had all these years to do it, but no, you wait for the worst possible time. I’m about to start my reelection campaign. My book comes out in two days. I don’t need any scandals right now.”

He watched Rose’s expression crumble into tears and his chest ached for her, even though he didn’t want it to. She had lied to him. Hidden his child from him. And yet she had done it for him. She’d sacrificed her own dreams, her own life, to raise Joey on her own and allow him to live his dream.

He wanted to be angry with her. To shake her and let out some of his pent-up aggression, but he just couldn’t do it. Instead he sank down onto the foot of the bed. “Please stop crying,” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Everything I’ve done was to protect your dream. It never occurred to me that Joey and I would still be a liability to your success this far down the road.”

“Well, we’re lucky, I think. The reporters got bored with me very early on and spend most their time digging up other people’s scandals. But the spotlights will be on me during the book tour and the reelection.”

“Can we keep it a secret for a while? No one else needs to know yet, right?”

“Perhaps. If we can keep this quiet for a little while, I might be able to defuse the damage. Compared to the things my colleagues have gotten into, this is hardly headline news.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice quiet.

“Who knows that I’m his father?” Hopefully, the information hadn’t spread too far. The fewer people who knew, the easier it would be to contain it. Given that Molly didn’t know, it had to be pretty hush-hush.

“For certain? Just the two of us, since Mom passed a few weeks after he was born. My brother knows, but I’ve never told him directly. He’s just pieced it all together over the years.”

“How did you explain it to everyone else?”

“I went away to college. I came back a couple years later with a little boy. When people asked, I told them a story about an ill-fated fling at school with a jerk that didn’t love me. Everyone seemed to take it at face value. At the time, there were bigger stories than the father of my child.”

Xander frowned. What did she mean by that? “Bigger stories about you?”

“Not directly. It was several years ago and not important.”

Xander doubted that, but it seemed he could only pull one secret from her at a time. “I’m surprised no one ever asked if he was mine.”

“People around here don’t see Joey very much. He goes to school in Torrington and I only bring him into Cornwall when I don’t have anyone to watch him and I have to work. If people suspect, they’ve been polite enough to keep it to themselves for the most part. A notable exception was Christie Clark, that catty girl from school. She went to Western Connecticut State, too, and saw me pregnant in the grocery store one day. She asked if you were the father and when I told her no, she told me I was a fool for letting the wrong guy knock me up. I wanted to punch her in the face and I was hormonal enough to almost do it.”

Xander felt awful. He knew Rose didn’t have it easy in this town as it was. Her family had never had much money and she’d never fit in the popular set. This probably made it that much harder for her.

“I’m sorry you felt like you had to go through all of this alone.”

Rose smiled and waved her hand dismissively. “I wouldn’t trade Joey for the whole world. Things may not have always been easy, but if I went back in time, I’d make the same decisions. Well, except maybe I would’ve punched Christie Clark.”

At that, Xander had to chuckle. Christie had been a real bitch in school. She thought she was better than everyone else and would always complain loudly that she never understood why Xander had chosen Rose when he could’ve had her instead. He would’ve sooner stuck his penis in a box fan.

“So now what?”

Xander looked up at her. She was right. Joey would be back in a few minutes and they had a lot to work out. They could rehash the past and the hows and the whys for hours, but they needed a plan going forward. “I think you’re right. I say we agree to keep this quiet for the time being. Especially where Joey is concerned. He’s got enough to deal with right now without all that piled on top.”

“Agreed,” she said, looking a touch relieved. She didn’t look as if she were ready to deal with the fallout of her secret, either. “We won’t tell anyone until we determine the timing is right for us both.”

“I want to acknowledge Joey as my son, and I will, but don’t think I can go forward with any legal claims right away. The minute I file the paperwork, some nosy reporter will jump on it, especially if my face is all over the news doing interviews and talking about my charity. But I don’t want you to think that means I’m going to shirk off my responsibilities. I do want to help.”

“Help?”

“Yes, help. It will be hard with me out of state, but I can send money, at least. I’m sure you could use the extra money for things like school expenses or summer camp. Emergency-room co-pays, perhaps?”

Rose clenched a tight fist of sheets. She was a proud woman, and he appreciated that about her. He could tell how hard this was for her to accept, but she wasn’t a fool. They both knew she could use the help. “I thought public servants weren’t paid that well.”

“I’m comfortable. The advance of my book was very nice and I made some good money investing. I can absolutely help.”

Xander had invested what little money he had in the start-up of Brody’s software company. That alone had him sitting pretty, financially. If and when Brody’s company went public, the stock would skyrocket. He couldn’t tell Rose that detail, however, because people still hadn’t connected his brother Brody Butler to mysterious software tycoon Brody Eden.

She nodded at last, giving in. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure where I was going to come up with the money for this.”

“What about living expenses? You said you had a place pretty far out of town. That has to cost you a lot in gas.”

Rose frowned at him. “There’s no apartment complexes around here. The closest thing I could get was a two-bedroom apartment over near Torrington.”

Torrington was about fifteen miles away. It wasn’t a terrible drive, just a straight shot down Highway Four, but it wasn’t close, either. In bad weather it could be a nightmare to drive back and forth. “Maybe we can get you a house someplace closer to town.”

“A house?” Rose chuckled. “Have you seen the home prices around here?”

“I said I wanted to help, Rose.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to become a major drain on your finances. Help is help. What you’re suggesting is more than that.”

“What? More like child support? That’s the point. You’ve done this on your own for ten years. I have a lot to make up for.”

Rose sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “I just don’t want to be—”

“We’re ba-ack!” the nurse announced, rolling Joey back to his bed.

They both leaped up and hovered anxiously as the nurse helped Joey back onto the hospital bed. “How did everything go?” Xander asked.

“Fine. The doctor should be in to talk to you guys in just a minute. Then, after that, I’m pretty sure the casting crew will be here.” The nurse turned to Joey. “Start thinking about what color wrap you want. We have bright blue, neon green, red, hot pink—” she wrinkled her nose and shook her head “—and construction-cone-orange.”

“So it’s broken?” Rose asked.