Billionaire's Baby Promise

Daniel had steadfastly refused to marry anyone, much less father any children. And he had refused to move to South Korea permanently and live under his grandfather’s thumb. It had driven the old man insane that his only heir had rejected the family business, Lee Enterprises.

Daniel liked to think that, at least as a political consultant, he had made the old man proud. Lee Dae-Won hadn’t become one of the richest men in South Korea by investing wisely in real estate and electronic manufacturing. Daniel’s grandfather had gained power through manipulation, lies and outright bribery. He had trafficked in secrets and that, more than family honor or loyalty, was what Daniel had learned at his knee during summer vacations spent at the family compound in Seoul.

He who controlled the information controlled the world.

Daniel hated not being in control.

He shouldn’t care about what happened to Christine or her daughter. At the very least, the basic security measures he was enacting on her behalf should relieve him of his guilt.

It didn’t.

Because he had to admit that he did care. He’d catch himself staring at her photo again. And that? That had nothing to do with guilt.

He hoped she’d call him. That was all he could do. The next contact had to be hers.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything else he could be doing right now, though. He scrolled through his contacts list until he found the number he was looking for.

“Hello, Daniel,” Natalie Wesley said, answering on the second ring. “Is this a business call or not?”

“What’s to say it’s not both?” he asked, trying to sound like he was teasing her and knowing he was failing miserably. “How are you and CJ?”

CJ Wesley was another one of Daniel’s half brothers—another one of Hardwick Beaumont’s bastards. CJ was the one who hadn’t wanted anything to do with the Beaumont Brewery. He was a rancher up on the northeast side of Denver and he preferred his privacy. Which made it all the funnier that he had married the former television personality Natalie Baker—the same woman who had tried to expose his parentage to the world.

Natalie was one of the very few people who had been able to locate CJ and ascertain his identity. Plus, she’d had her own morning news show, A Good Morning With Natalie Baker, for almost a decade. She was an investigative journalist who knew how to talk to the cameras. “We’re fine. You should come up and see us. CJ is determined to get you on a horse, you know.”

“I’ll do that sometime,” Daniel said. While of course he cared for CJ—he was fond of nearly all of his half siblings—CJ was the hardest to be around. His mother had married a good man and he’d had a good life. CJ was at ease with himself in a way that Daniel could never pull off. “I have a situation that I’m going to need your help with.”

Natalie sighed. “The offer stands, Daniel. But what is it?”

“What do you know about Christine Murray?”

“Who?”

So, over the next twenty minutes, Daniel filled her in. “Thus far, she hasn’t accepted my help. But when she does, we’ll need to do damage control.”

“Manipulate the search rankings, plant positive news articles, maybe an interview?”

“Yes.”

“Got it.” There was a pause and Daniel braced for the sisterly concern. “We worry about you, you know.”

“Why?” His health was great. He was helping to run the third-largest brewery in America and he owned a substantial share of Lee Enterprises. He owned homes in Seoul, Denver and Chicago. What was there to worry about?

Okay, so he was a little troubled about Christine Murray and her daughter. But that wasn’t cause for alarm.

“Daniel...” Her voice trailed off. “Never mind. I’ll look into this and get back to you if I find out anything.”

It was strange that he felt disappointed she hadn’t said something else. Even though he had no idea what he wanted her to say. “Thanks.” He ended the call and refreshed the tab he kept open with his searches on Christine Murray. There was nothing new. Not yet, anyway.

But there would be. Soon.

Three (#ub25c68ad-0ef7-5b4b-bc0c-b002dc4257be)

Everything, it seemed, happened at once. One moment, Christine was just doing her job at the bank and trying not to think about the worst-case scenarios or Daniel Lee and his seemingly sincere offer of help. Or the way he filled out a suit.

Suddenly, the alerts she had set up on web searches started piling up in her inbox. Clarence Murray had declared his candidacy for the open US Senate seat. Her phone started to ring, as if people had just been waiting for the official announcement. She was trying to read the article about her father and trying to answer the phone in her business-professional voice and saying no comment over and over again when it happened.

Will Murray’s Granddaughter Cost Him This Election, Too?

And there it was—the photo of her with Marie on her hip, alongside her Honda Civic. It wasn’t a good photo—clearly, it had been taken from some distance. The image was so grainy it could have been almost anyone.

But it was her daughter. They knew where she was and they knew how to take pictures of her daughter and suddenly, Christine couldn’t bear it.

With hands shaking, she pulled the nondescript business card out from underneath her office phone. She had wanted to throw Daniel Lee’s card away—but she’d been unable to do it. Because what he’d said had felt true, somehow.

Would he actually help her? Or was he working an angle that she hadn’t found yet?

Her phone rang again and this time, she recognized the voice on the other end. Brian White—the devil she didn’t want to know. “Ms. Murray,” he said, as if they were the oldest of friends. “I’m checking back in with you. As you may have heard, your father has officially declared his candidacy and I—”

She hung up the phone. She didn’t want to hear his fake offers of help and she especially did not want to hear his thinly veiled threats.

She did the only thing she could—she grabbed her cell phone and hurried to the ladies’ room. Daniel Lee’s card was a plain white rectangle of paper with two lines of text set directly in the middle—his name and a telephone number. She was shaking so violently that she misdialed the number twice before she finally got it right and even then, she sat for a moment on the stool in the farthest stall and wondered if she wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

But then she thought about the headline, the one implying that a fourteen-month-old baby had the power to decide elections. The photos would only get better and the headlines would only get worse.

She hit the button and held the phone to her ear. “This is Daniel.”

“Um, hello. You gave me your card—”

“Christine? Are you all right?”

She forced herself to take a deep breath and tried to swallow around the lump in her throat. No, she was not all right. Not even close. “Hi. Um, I need to know if what you said when you talked to me last week still applies. The offer about, um, helping me and my daughter?”

“You saw the articles?”

Her vision began to swim and she couldn’t tell if she was about to pass out or if she was just crying again. “There’s more than one?”

There was a long pause. “That’s not important right now. What is important is that you make sure you and your daughter are safe and that we can get together and formulate a plan.”

It sounded good. Someone was concerned with their safety. Someone had a plan and the means of enacting it. If life were perfect, this would be the answer to her prayers.

Life had never been perfect. “How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you didn’t write those articles or take those pictures? How do I know you’re not setting me up?”

“You don’t.”

Well, if that didn’t just beat all. She let out a frustrated laugh. “You’re not inspiring confidence right now.”

“I’m being honest. You and I both know that if I told you I had nothing to do with those articles and promised you that you could trust me, it would only make you doubt me even more.”