The Rich Man's Baby

No, Grandpa wouldn’t want his granddaughter sitting on the floor crying because she didn’t have enough money to run away. He’d want her to fight.

Since her grandpa was the only person Juliet had ever wanted to make proud, besides Nathan, of course, she shoved the round tin back beneath the bed and got to her feet. She would march herself downstairs and tell her no-good family again that she was the only one who had the right to decide anything about Nathan.

But after she eased closed the bedroom door behind her, a male voice reverberating up from the kitchen stopped her at the top of the stairs. Her hand turned to stone on the knob. She knew that voice in her heart as well as her head.

Harrison Rivers was downstairs, in her kitchen, talking to her greedy family.

The tremors that had seized her earlier in that very kitchen started once again, and she felt the blood leave her head. She couldn’t face Harrison like this, with her eyes red and nose running. She didn’t want him to think that she was weak and vulnerable. Not when he was the poster child for the confidence and self-assurance she had always wished she possessed.

But she had to know what he was saying to her family and, more important, what they were saying to him. So she started down the stairs.

Harrison’s deep voice increased her shaking. “It wasn’t my intention to upset Juliet.”

“Don’t you worry about that girl. She always did tend toward the emotional side,” her mom said in a girlish, high-pitched voice reserved for men who caught her interest.

As if things weren’t bad enough.

“Really.” Harrison didn’t sound particularly happy to hear the news.

Juliet scoffed. Wait until he tried to take Nat from her. Then he’d really see her emotional side.

“It’s not like she’s unstable or anything,” she heard Willie offer.

Juliet moaned inwardly. Leave it to Willie to make things worse. She sank down on a stair, her knees too unsteady to support her.

Great. Just great. Plant words like emotional and unstable in Harrison’s brain. Then he’d be chomping at the bit to rip Nathan from her arms at any cost.

She fisted her hands and forced herself back to her feet. She’d be damned if she’d cower in a dark stairway and let her family work up to portraying her as an unfit mother. That was one thing she was not. With renewed determination she descended the remaining stairs and turned the corner into the brightly lit kitchen.

At the sight of Harrison, she pulled up short not two steps into the room. While she had stopped a good yard from him, the breath left her as if she’d slammed into him at a dead run. She had never thought of their kitchen as big, but it had become absolutely tiny with him crowding the area. He completely filled the space between the table and the back door with his broad shoulders and tall frame. And he practically pulsated with an animal magnetism that made her break out in a very feminine sweat.

She hadn’t noticed down by the river, but he still wore the clothes he had on earlier that day, and his white designer shirt and olive-colored pants looked as out of place next to the dingy linoleum and gold-speckled Formica as they had in the store. Only the strained look on his handsome face and finger-mussed, dark-gold hair kept him from looking like he’d just stepped out of his country club.

When he turned toward her and caught her gaze with his, Juliet couldn’t regain the breath she’d lost. The look he gave her was far more wary than before, though just as intense. His wariness scared her, more than what her family had said. But as terrified as she was by what he might say or do, she couldn’t tear her gaze from his, and the blood that had pooled in her feet at the first sound of his voice came surging back up through her body like a tempest.

Why did she feel so connected to him? So in tune that she swore she could feel his heartbeat throbbing through her from three feet away? Didn’t her body know how dangerous he was to her? With a snap of his fingers he could take away her reason for living—Nathan. Not to mention what he could do to her heart. She forced herself to look away from his probing gaze.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Willie piped up when he, too, caught sight of her from where he stood leaning against the fridge. “Sheesh, Julie, you look like you just ran one of those stupid marathons.”

Juliet covered her flushed cheeks with her hands. It took a physical effort to cease gasping for air. She had to get ahold of herself or Harrison would easily believe what her family spouted about her mental health.

“Glad you decided to show, missy,” her mom said from her permanent spot at the head of the small table. “Mr. Rivers, here, came to see his son.”

She frowned at her mom. “My son is asleep.”

Harrison held up a hand and shook his head. “I don’t expect you to wake him.” He stepped around the table toward her, making a squishy sound with his shoe.

Juliet looked down and blinked when she saw his right leg was soaked from the ankle down. The cuff of his olive slacks and brown leather loafer were darkened with river water. She couldn’t help but feel a small surge of empathy. There probably weren’t any stagnant, ankle-deep puddles in front of his country club. He looked as uncomfortable and out of place in her world as she would in his.

He shifted again. She quickly looked up from his feet to his eyes when he continued, “I also wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Juliet continued to helplessly return his stare. While concern showed plainly on his face, his initial wariness gave way to some other intense emotion swimming in the depths of his dark-green eyes. She was at a loss to name what she saw there. He looked different from when he’d been telling her about his mother’s death. There’d been no mistaking the agony he felt then. Her own heart had answered in kind.

Whether he wanted to be or not, this was a man capable of deep feelings. And a true knight to his mother on her deathbed. But whatever motivation he had now, she wouldn’t let him or her family sway her way of thinking.

Nathan was hers.

Even if her stupid body wanted to belong to Nathan’s daddy.

Chapter Four

Harrison held his breath as he watched Juliet’s lush brown eyes study him as if he was a Picasso. She looked horrified and intrigued all at once. She also looked like she’d been crying again.

Harrison silently swore to himself. Her pain touched him, affected him, the same way her pleasure had. Never in his life had a woman’s passion so heightened his own. It was like she had somehow slipped under his skin with the first touch. He needed to either protect her in order to protect himself or learn to shut her out.

Unfortunately, neither would be easy.

“Are you all right?” he asked, repeating his question.

She let out an exasperated breath. “What do you think?”

“I think we need to talk,” he stated firmly.

“Talk,” her mom butted in. “Yes, that’s what we need to do. We all need to sit down here and talk till we come up with an agreement that will resolve this little situation.”

Juliet ground out, “Nathan is not a situation, Mom.”

“He most certainly is, missy,” her mother hissed. “And if you’re not in the mood to cooperate, you can march yourself back up those stairs where you came from.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to start parenting me?”

Harrison interrupted before things got completely out of control. “I need to talk to Juliet. Alone.” He reached a staying hand toward Juliet. She sidestepped away as though he’d offered her a snake. “I really drove up here tonight to see my…to see Nathan and to talk to Juliet. Just Juliet.”

He pulled back his hand and took a step toward her. She swayed away but held her ground, her expression guarded. Again he marveled at her strength of will. And liked it a lot. Few people were willing to stand against him. It was a wonder her family hadn’t broken her. The inane thought struck him that she was like a beautiful rosebud in a bouquet of milk-weeds.

Patting down her extremely curly, dark-brown hair and practically batting her equally dark eyes at him, Juliet’s mother said, “Well, as her mother, I feel it’s only right that I do the negotiating—”

Harrison clenched his jaw to keep from gaping. Before he could restate his intentions, Juliet cut her mother off first.

“Negotiating?” she cried. “There isn’t going to be any negotiating! Nathan isn’t some used car you’re trying to unload, he’s my son. Mine! Not this…this guy’s. He isn’t Nat’s father!”

Everyone spoke at once.

“Aw, get off it! What do you think we are? Retards?”

“Now, you look here, missy!”

“Juliet.” Only Harrison’s voice seemed to register with her, so he continued, “It’s clear to me now that no one is going to decide anything at this moment. The situation is too overwhelming—for both of us—to try to change anything right off.”