The Secret Baby Bond

The sheer ecru silk of her gown twisted around her hips; a delicate sheen of perspiration misted her throat and her brow. The slender fingers of her right hand clutched a cool spindle of the brass headboard as she moaned in frustration, ached for release.

Her left hand lingered at her breast in an unconscious caress. She dreamed of her lover’s mouth there, suckling, adoring. She dreamed of Michael, his gray eyes smoky with desire, his broad shoulders blocking the moonlight, his strong arms caging her in as he braced himself above her.

She sighed his name, arched her back and rode with the wild and stunning pleasure that he gave and took and demanded. His lean hips pumped into hers, his body filled hers as he enticed her to go with him to that place where sensation ruled and passion promised to make her whole again, make her real again, as she hadn’t been real since he’d left her.

“Michael,” she whimpered and, in her sleep, ran her hand over her ribs, across her abdomen, down to the place that ached for him, throbbed for him. “Michael…”

She sat up straight in bed, wrenched out of sleep by her own cries. Her breath slogged out in serrated gasps. She looked wildly around the room.

It was not the apartment she had shared with Michael.

It was her room in Lake Shore Manor.

Where she’d slept. Alone. For two long years.

A dream.

It had only been a dream.

She collapsed to her back on the bed, threw an arm over her forehead and willed her heart to settle, her breath to steady. And then she lay there in the dark of night, in a silence disrupted only by her ragged breaths. Aching for him. Burning for him.

Michael wasn’t a dream. He was alive. She’d seen him tonight, talked to him, touched him. And right now she wanted him so badly she hurt.

She missed lying with him in his bed. Missed the length of him, the strength of him, the heat of his mouth, the stroke of his hands.

She didn’t have to miss him anymore.

Staring hopelessly at the ceiling, she trembled with the need to call him, to ask him to come to her. To make love to her.

The ache intensified to pain.

It would be so easy.

And so wrong.

The tears came then. Tears of relief that he lived. Tears of grief that she hadn’t let herself shed since the day, two years ago, when the news had arrived with its ghastly presumption of death. Tears for all they’d had, for all they’d lost.

Michael was alive and she was so glad. And yet the one thing he wanted couldn’t happen.

He’d made it clear. He was determined to pick up where they’d left off. She dragged her hands through her hair, drawing on her resolve. That couldn’t happen. She could not resume her life with him. She couldn’t go through the pain of loving him again. Loving Michael hurt too much. Loving Michael had always hurt too much.

She closed her eyes, rolled to her side and hugged her arms to her breasts. And then she hid in the night and clung to the one absolute that overshadowed his miraculous reappearance.

On this point she could not waiver. For reasons that only she could understand, she was going through with the divorce. She had to. She had to because she knew what no one else did: She was a fake. A fraud.

The image the media and even her family held of Tara Connelly as a headstrong, independent, gutsy and self-assured woman was a lie. A complete sham.

The real Tara Connelly was a wimp. She wasn’t strong enough to do much more than drift through life with her emotions tightly under wraps. She wasn’t equipped to do much more than heed her survival instincts that warned her to stay under the radar, to exist with as little involvement as possible. Which meant she wasn’t capable of surviving another attempt at loving Michael Paige.

And as she lay in the dark, fighting the want, denying the need, she was ashamed of the knowledge that the real Tara Connelly was too afraid to even try.

Three

The next morning Michael started his day waiting for Tara’s brother Brett at an affluent Lake Shore Drive condominium complex. He stood in the visitor’s parking lot at the address Brett had given him, leaning against the fender of a rented BMW.

Belmont Harbor spread out before him like a water-color of sun, surf and sails. Pricey pleasure crafts rocked in their moorings; silver-white sails dotted the relatively calm waters of the bay. He felt a million miles away from the lush jungles of Ecuador, even farther from the projects in the rough part of the city where he’d grown up, although the distance in miles was under ten.

“And how many miles do you have to go to get your wife back?” he asked under his breath and thought about everything that had happened last night.

Tara had changed. He didn’t think he was wrong about that. Seeing him out of the blue when he was supposed to be dead had been a hell of a shock for her. But there was something…something else that he’d sensed. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. But he would. He knew Tara. Knew her better than anyone, including John Parker, could ever know her.

A car door slammed behind him. He turned to see Brett Connelly walking toward him, a smile of disbelief and welcome spreading across his face. Michael grasped the hand Brett extended then felt himself pulled into a back-pounding embrace.

“I’ll be damned.” Brett stood back, gave Michael an assessing once-over with smiling blue eyes. “It really is you. Son of a gun, I thought I’d seen the last of your ugly face. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I was wrong.”

Michael had always liked the Connellys’ youngest son. Both Brett and his twin brother, Drew, were outgoing and friendly. Brett had also had enough of the rebel in him to appreciate Michael’s wild streak.

“Well, just goes to show,” Michael said, grinning, “nothing’s ever over till it’s over.”

As he’d been leaving the Connellys’ last night, Emma had asked him where he was staying. He’d sensed that she’d been on the verge of inviting him to move out of his hotel and into Lake Shore Manor when Grant had thrown her a murderous glare.

“Call Brett in the morning,” Emma had said instead, deferring to her husband’s unspoken command. Then she’d written Brett’s phone number on a slip of paper and pressed it into his hand with an affectionate squeeze.

“Brett’s a married man now,” she’d said, beaming brightly. “And a new daddy. He and his wife, Elena, just moved into their new house. The last I knew they hadn’t yet sold or sublet their condo. It should accommodate you nicely until you’re more settled.”

Speaking of settled, it looked like life had done well by Brett. He looked good, really good, as he grinned at Michael part in disbelief, part in pleasure.

“If Mom hadn’t filled me in with a 6:00 a.m. phone call, I’d have flat-out keeled over when you called.”

“It’s a shock, I know.”

“The best kind. Come on.” With a hand on his shoulder, Brett steered Michael toward the front entrance of the building. “Let me show you the condo. If you like it, it’s yours.”

“I appreciate this, Brett.”

“That’s what family’s for—and you’ve always been family, even though it may not have seemed that way at times.”

Inexplicably touched by Brett’s warmth, Michael acknowledged his overture with a grin. “Okay, brother, fill me in on this new family of yours.”

Brett did, with a huge smile and a beaming pride that told Michael how happy he was.

“Now fill me in on John Parker,” Michael said after congratulating Brett on his good fortune. He knew nothing about Parker but what he’d read in the tabloids that had linked him to Tara. Sensationalized news stories were no substitute for Brett’s take on the situation.

“What am I up against here?” Michael asked.

“That’s one thing I always admired about you, Paige.” Brett sobered as he punched in a security code to access the elevator. “You cut right to the chase. Good to see some things never change.

“Parker’s a nice enough guy,” Brett continued after a thoughtful pause. The elevator doors slid open.