Suddenly a Daddy: The Billionaire's Unexpected Heir / The Baby Surprise

He knew even less about babies than he did about horses. But he and his twin brother, Luke, had raised their ten-year-old sister after their mother was killed in a car accident and remembered that when a child had an elevated temperature it was always better to err on the side of caution.

“Just to be on the safe side, I think I will take her to see Dr. Evans.”

“I’ll get the diaper bag,” Clara said, disappearing down the hall toward her apartment.

As she and Jake stood in uncomfortable silence while she waited for Clara to return, Heather felt as if her nerves had been stretched to the breaking point. Was Jake aware that he was standing barely four feet away from his own daughter? Had he noticed that Mandy had his blue eyes and dark hair?

Ever since she’d learned that he was taking over Hickory Hills, she’d wondered how she was going to break the news to him about the baby. But she hadn’t anticipated him meeting their daughter before she had a chance to tell him about her.

He hadn’t said anything. Maybe he hadn’t noticed how much Mandy looked like him. If that was the case, she’d be able to explain everything in a much less rushed fashion. She hoped.

“Needless to say, I won’t be giving you that tour of the farm this afternoon or holding the meeting you wanted with your employees,” she finally said as she cradled the baby close.

He nodded. “That’s understandable. We can reschedule for tomorrow morning or even the day after if she’s still not feeling well.”

When the housekeeper came back into the room, he reached out and took the diaper bag from her. “I’ll help Heather and the baby get to the car.”

“Call me when you get back to let me know what you find out from the doctor about our little angel,” Clara called after them as they left the house.

“Would you mind letting Tony know that he’s in charge until I get back?” Heather asked as they walked the short distance to the carriage house.

Jake shook his head as he watched her open the back door of the older-model sedan parked in front. “No problem. I’ll take care of it. Is there anything else?”

“Not that I can think of.”

When Heather turned to put the baby in the car seat, the little girl looked at him over her mother’s shoulder for the first time and he felt as if he’d been flattened by a steamroller. He couldn’t have gotten his vocal cords to work if his life depended on it and simply stood back as Heather got into the car and drove away.

As he watched the vehicle disappear around the corner of the mansion and head down the drive toward the main road, his heart pounded against his ribs and he found it extremely hard to draw air into his lungs. The baby had dark hair and big blue eyes. Eyes the color of cobalt. The same color of cobalt that met his gaze when he looked into the mirror each morning to shave.

Chapter 2

That evening, when Heather answered the insistent knocking on her cottage door, she wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Jake standing on the other side. In fact, she’d been expecting him. She’d known that once he saw Mandy it was just a matter of time before he put it all together.

“We need to talk.” Instead of waiting for her to invite him in, he took hold of her elbow and propelled her back into the living room, kicking the door shut behind him. “I want answers and I’m not leaving here until I get them, Heather.”

“It never crossed my mind that you would,” she said calmly. She wasn’t going to allow him to upset or stress her out in any way.

“That baby belongs to me, doesn’t she?” he demanded, cutting right to be heart of the matter.

“That baby has a name—Amanda Grace. I call her Mandy. She’s almost seven months old.” Heather walked across the room to pull the nursery door closed to keep their raised voices from disturbing her daughter. “And if by belong, you mean are you her biological father? The answer is yes.”

“What happened? I used protection.”

Was he actually questioning that he was the father of her child?

“I’m well aware of that. It obviously had a defect.” She raised an eyebrow. “Surely you’re aware that nothing is one hundred percent effective except abstention. And if we’d gone that route—”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he finished for her.

“Exactly.” She looked him directly in the eye. “But let me assure you, Mandy is your daughter.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t questioning that. She looks just like me.”

Heather watched a muscle work along his lean jaw as Jake stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. She could tell his anger was bordering on outrage, but that was just too bad. As far she was concerned, not knowing he’d fathered a child was his own fault and she wasn’t about to let him turn the blame back on her.

“Did you even think about getting in touch with me when you discovered you were pregnant?” he finally asked, his voice low and menacing.

Heather had told herself that she wasn’t going to let him get to her, but his accusatory tone angered her as little else could. “I really don’t think you want to go there, Jake. Believe me, you won’t like hearing what I have to say.”

“Go ahead. Try me.” He took a step toward her. “I told you I’m here to get answers.”

“Then I would suggest you drop the intimidation tactics as well as the idea of being the wounded party in all of this because you’re not.” When she turned to walk into the kitchen to put a little more distance between them and the nursery, she fully expected him to follow.

He didn’t disappoint her. “Did you or did you not consider letting me know that you were expecting my child?”

Turning on him, she took a deep breath in an effort to calm down. She had a lot to say and she was going to savor every second of it. She’d wanted this conversation for over a year, but never thought she’d have the chance to have her say. She wasn’t going to allow herself to lose momentum by becoming overly emotional. She refused to give Jake that kind of power over her.

“I not only considered letting you know, I spent my first trimester leaving messages that I needed to talk to you urgently.” She met his angry gaze head-on. “You never returned my calls, and I wasn’t comfortable leaving that kind of information with your secretary.”

“I—”

Holding up her hand to stop whatever lame excuse he came up with, she went on, “Then I spent the second trimester trying to convince myself that there had to be a reasonable explanation for you ignoring my requests to get back to me. It turns out I was wrong. There wasn’t a good reason, other than you really are an insensitive, self-absorbed jerk who uses women, then casts them aside.”

He opened his mouth to no doubt refute her assessment of his character, but she cut him off again.

“And somewhere during the course of my third trimester, I came to the conclusion that you really didn’t deserve to know about our daughter and that we were both going to be a lot better off without you in our lives.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Any more questions?”

Heather could tell by the stunned look replacing the angry expression on his handsome face that she’d gotten through to him.

Rubbing the back of his neck as if to relieve tension, he shook his head. “I have my secretary—”

“Screen your calls so that you don’t have to deal with uncomfortable situations with the women you’ve bedded,” she interrupted. When he remained silent, she knew that her comment had hit a little too close to home. “And you don’t have to worry, Jake. Mandy and I are just fine on our own.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to try to cut me out of her life?”

Heather shook her head. “That’s not what I said. I’m telling you that you’re off the hook. You’re free to go back to Los Angeles and resume your life as if nothing happened. I don’t want or need your help—financially or otherwise. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of and providing for my daughter. I just thought you had the right to know about her.”

“She’s mine, too.”

Having had her say, she suddenly felt drained of energy. “I’m relieving you of that responsibility, Jake.”

“I think we need to get this straight once and for all, Heather.”

He stepped forward to place his hands on her shoulders. The heat from his touch seeping through her T-shirt and the determination she detected in his deep baritone sent tingles zinging straight up her spine. But when he used his thumb and forefinger to lift her chin until their gazes locked, the sensation danced across every nerve in her body.

“I accept that it was my own damned fault I didn’t know about the pregnancy. But it doesn’t mean that now that I’m aware I have a child I don’t intend to be a big part of her life. And that will be much easier for me to do when I move you and Mandy into the mansion with me.”

“That’s not going to happen, Jake. We’re very happy right here in the carriage house.”