The Rich Man's Baby

The sight of Harrison left her breathless

He completely filled the room 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.

His white designer shirt and olive-colored pants looked out of place next to the kitchen’s dingy linoleum and gold-speckled Formica. 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.

Then he turned toward her and caught her gaze. As terrified as she was by what he might say or do, she couldn’t tear her gaze from his. 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—her baby boy.

Not to mention what he could do to her heart…

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Mills & Boon American Romance, where our goal is to give you hours of unbeatable reading pleasure.

Kick starting the month is another enthralling installment of THE CARRADIGNES: AMERICAN ROYALTY continuity series. In Michele Dunaway’s The Simply Scandalous Princess, rumors of a tryst between Princess Lucia Carradigne and a sexy older man leads to the king issuing a royal marriage decree! Follow the series next month in Mills & Boon Intrigue.

Another terrific romance from Pamela Browning is in store for you with Rancher’s Double Dilemma. When single dad Garth Colquitt took one look at his new nanny’s adorable baby girl, he knew there had to be some kind of crazy mixup, because his daughter and her daughter were twins! Was a marriage of convenience the solution? Next, don’t miss Help Wanted: Husband? by Darlene Scarlera. When a single mother-to-be hires a handsome ranch hand, she only has business on her mind. Yet, before long, she wonders if he was just the man she needed—to heal her heart. And rounding out the month is Leah Vale’s irresistible debut novel The Rich Man’s Baby, in which a dashing tycoon discovers he has a son, but the proud mother of his child refuses to let him claim them for his own…unless love enters the equation.

This month, and every month, come home to Mills & Boon American Romance—and enjoy!

Best,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Mills & Boon American Romance

The Rich Man’s Baby

Leah Vale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Ross, Jake and Luke, for giving me the wings to fly.

For Maureen Child, Amy Fetzer and Tina Bilton-Smith, for shoving me from the nest.

And for Terri Reed, Melissa Manley, Delilah Ahrent and Kim Nadelson, for making sure I didn’t splat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Having never met an unhappy ending she couldn’t mentally “fix,” LEAH VALE believes writing romance novels is the perfect job for her. A Pacific Northwest native with a B.A. in communications from the University of Washington, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her wonderful husband, two adorable sons and a golden retriever puppy. She is an avid skier, scuba diver and “do-over” golfer. While having the chance to share her “happy endings from scratch” with the world is a dream come true, dinner generally has to come premade from the store. Leah would love to hear from her readers and can be reached at P.O. Box 91337, Portland, OR 97291, or at http://www.leahvale.com.

Books by Leah Vale

MILLS & BOON AMERICAN ROMANCE

924—THE RICH MAN’S BABY

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Juliet Jones pulled in a soothing breath of warm, early-June air and leaned back in the lone wooden chair on the balcony above her family’s store. After another long, boring day spent waiting behind the cash register for the rare customer to wander in, she ached clear to her bones. With a weary sigh, she slipped off her worn Keds and propped her bare feet on the peeling white railing.

She settled the cold beer bottle on the front of her frayed jeans shorts, closed her eyes and wished for the millionth time she hadn’t promised Grandpa before he died that she would keep his store going. But she’d promised, so here she was watching her life slip away like the waters of Oregon’s McKenzie River running steady and silent on the other side of the two-lane highway their little store hugged.

She was just twenty-one, but she felt as old as dirt.

If only Richard Gere would drive up in his Lamborghini looking just for her.

The deep growl of a motorcycle shifting down interrupted her snort at the ridiculous thought, and the sound of gravel crunching under wheels brought her eyes open. One look at the man leaning low over the green racing motorcycle as he pulled up to the store’s rusting gas pump and she was a goner.

He could have a face like a butt under that black helmet and she wouldn’t have cared. He looked like some mysterious warrior to her starved imagination—his black leather bomber jacket, faded blue Levi’s, and trashed black cowboy boots his armor.

Juliet couldn’t tell if he was looking up at her or not, so she kept staring when she would have normally looked away. She watched him settle both feet flat on the ground, turn the engine off, then reach up and flip his tinted visor up. She nearly jumped out of her skin. He was looking straight at her with beautiful, soulful eyes beneath full, dark-blond brows.

His gaze was as powerful as one of Shakespeare’s love sonnets to her lonely heart.

He pulled the helmet from his head.

Juliet gaped and yanked her feet from the rail, starting a paint-chip blizzard. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. A dream come true, in fact. His straight nose and square jaw, roughened by dark-blond whiskers, held such masculine beauty she was too stunned-stupid to quit staring at him. What was a man like him doing in her world?

His gaze still on her, he hung his helmet on one of the handlebars and ran a hand through his thick, wavy, golden hair that brushed the top of his collar in the back. “Does this pump work?” he called up in a deep voice that hit her like gravel wrapped in velvet and turned her bones to liquid.

With a weak shake of her head, she croaked, “No.” Clearing her throat, she needlessly added, “Though there’s probably enough gas still down there to one day blow us all to kingdom come.”

His smile was lopsided and unmercifully sexy. “Then you better hop on and let me take you far away from here,” he offered, patting the back of his bike.

She laughed in an idiotic, high-pitched way. Man, she’d never made that noise before. Her face heated, and she wished she could disappear. So much for this fantasy coming true. The Adonis on the bike sure as heck wouldn’t want to mess with a bubblehead on a balcony.

But instead of slapping on his helmet and roaring away, he lowered the kickstand with the heel of his boot and swung a long, thickly muscled leg over the bike and got off. “Well, if I can’t top off my tank and you won’t let me whisk you to safety, can I buy myself a beer inside and join you up there? I’m sure the view is something I wouldn’t want to miss.”

The suggestiveness of his tone and his masculine magnetic pull flustered her so much she started to ramble. “We haven’t been allowed to sell beer since that incident with those darn thirteen-year-olds a couple years back. And as far as the view goes, the blackberry bushes and ash trees on the other side of the road have grown so much you can hardly see the river anymore.”

He grinned up at her, and she actually felt the earth moving. But instead of making her feel wild and out of control, her heart rate slowed and everything became crystal clear. For once she knew exactly what she wanted. For once she was willing to take a risk.

She leaned forward in the chair and rested her elbows on her bare knees, with the neck of the full beer bottle caught between her fingers. Looking at him through the crooked railing, she said, “I can’t sell you a beer, but you’re welcome to share mine.”

An intense, almost desperate look replaced his grin. “How do I get up there?”

She shook her head, sending her long, sun-streaked brown hair slipping off her shoulders. The peace of certainty made her feel powerful. “I’ll come down.”

“Good. Because in case you haven’t noticed, that balcony has a definite lean to it. I’m not sure it’s any safer than the gas pump.”

This time she laughed for real. “I know. But it’s my balcony.” Thinking of her older brother’s homemade racing motorcycle, she grinned and added, “Hey, if you like bikes, there’s something you’ve got to see out back in the shed.” As she rose from the chair, Juliet fought to control the surge of excitement pumping through her veins.

For the first time in her life she might actually get what she wanted.

Chapter One

Over Two Years Later…

It was her.

Surprise brought Harrison Rivers to a halt in the little store’s doorway so fast the rickety screen hit his backside.

Before he could stop himself, he blurted, “You’re here.”

He hadn’t really expected her to still be here. Especially when he’d failed to see the soles of two sexy bare feet propped on the balcony’s sorry railing when he’d arrived.

Her beautiful, brown-and-gold eyes wide, she opened and closed her mouth twice before breathily answering, “I’m always here.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

If anyone had asked him why he was there on this sunny, September afternoon he would have claimed to have stopped for gum, but he had really made the thirty minute drive up to the little, nameless store on a backwoods Oregon highway for the first time in two years, two months, and 28 days to banish her from his thoughts. He’d hoped to find closure, even in her absence, before returning to his family estate in the nearest town of Plainview.

She ran a hand up and down her jeans-clad hip, drawing his gaze to her sexy, lean curves. “Why did you think that?”

Since he’d come back to forget her, getting turned on by her was the last thing he wanted. He forced his gaze to her face, though on his way up he couldn’t keep from noticing that her breasts under her plain white T-shirt looked fuller than he remembered.

He cleared his throat. “I just assumed you’d headed off for Eugene and college. Maybe even got married.” A treasure like her didn’t stay buried long.

Yet here he was, staring into the same beautiful brown-and-gold eyes. They still reminded him of sunflowers lying on rich, moist earth. And he remembered too well how he’d thought at the time: Now, maybe that’s all I really want out of life—a beautiful, barefoot girl in cutoff jeans, the summer sun glinting off her honey-brown hair as she sips a beer and meditates life, the river her mantra.

That day when she’d invited him to share her drink and her peace, he’d found himself taking more. God, how he’d needed the comfort she’d unwittingly given him. That had been so unlike him, so irresponsible, yet so right.

The wildness that had made him sample her full, luscious lips more than two years ago erupted within him like a long-dormant volcano. She was still as desirable. More so, with time adding fullness to her figure and maturity to her finely shaped face. And she was still barefoot.

Her earthy sensuality ratcheted his temperature up a few degrees.

She stepped toward him. “I didn’t do any of those things. I’ve been here—” She stopped herself, but the word waiting hung between them.

Harrison met her hopeful gaze.

Damn it. He was no Prince Charming come to rescue the beautiful girl from the cinders or the glass coffin or whatever. Far from it. There was no place in his life for fairy tales.

He lowered his chin and willed her with his gaze to understand that he was doing the best thing for both of them. “I’d really hoped you had gone off to college or gotten married.”

The glow in her eyes faded and the small smile curving her full lips fell. He’d made his point.

He suddenly became very aware of his Italian loafers. The reminder of how different his existence was from her barefooted freedom hit him like a bucket of ice. Before he’d said goodbye to her over two years ago, the realities of his world had forced him to acknowledge that their day together could be no more than his favorite memory.

He’d told himself it was because they were too different, having come from very opposite worlds. And he’d since vowed to never care about someone so much he lost control of his emotions.

This trip up here had been to remind him of that so he could stop thinking about her. He was determined to focus entirely on the multimillion-dollar corporation he was about to take over from his father. The company Harrison’s grandfather had started and bequeathed to him as his legacy. The legacy Harrison had worked so hard to earn.

Enough eyebrows were raising on the company’s board of directors as it was. His father’s decision to make Harrison CEO at the ripe age of thirty-two hadn’t gone over well. Even if he could control his emotions around her, Harrison wouldn’t allow his judgment to be questioned by becoming involved with a woman from such a different background as his. As it was, pulling teeth was easier than getting the board to see reason and agree to his plan to purchase, shut down, then overhaul the Dover Creek Mill.

Harrison had no choice but to snuff out the shining hope in her expression.

Sometimes he really hated reality.

But he had to face the truth. With his father’s retirement less than a month away, Two Rivers Industries required Harrison’s undivided attention. He needed to be in total control of himself to have total control of the company. And he wasn’t in control, with memories of that one time with this woman plaguing him, distracting him from what he’d been born to do—run Two Rivers Industries.

It had been a mistake to come back. The way she still pulled at him confirmed it wasn’t just their differences that should have kept him away. He should leave. Nothing, after all, had changed. As he pushed open the screen door, strange regret flooded him and he hesitated. How did one say goodbye to a memory?

Before he could decide, he caught the flash of something coming at him from the side the second before it hit him in the knees. “Whoa.” He looked down and saw an overalls-clad, towheaded toddler wedged between his legs. He smiled and put his big hand lightly on the little head, flattening down the riot of crazy baby hair. “Well, hello, there.”

The face that tilted to look at him made his breath stick in his throat. The dark-green eyes warily regarding him made his heart skip a beat. The child’s face seemed vaguely familiar.

The little boy stepped back, intent on making a break for the still-open door, but the sight of his red licorice rope firmly stuck to the knee of Harrison’s olive-colored slacks stopped him cold and made Harrison laugh out loud.

The sound brought those solemn green eyes back up to his, and he was treated to the most cherubic smile he’d ever seen. He bent and removed the sticky candy from his pant leg, then crouched down and offered the rope to the equally sticky baby.

The little fellow snatched his candy and ran for the safety of the legs belonging to the woman Harrison had been haunted by since he’d found that moment of peace in her arms.

His heart slammed to a stop and his gaze met and held hers as she hoisted the little boy onto her hip. She hugged the child to her like a mother.

Harrison pulled in a sharp breath when he realized where he’d seen that baby’s face before. Every morning he walked by a framed photo of a shockingly similar face that sat on top of his grandmother’s piano.

The picture of himself as a baby.

NOT A BIT OF AIR remained in Juliet’s lungs. Now she knew how a trout felt in the bottom of a boat. All that was missing was her flopping around, and if he kept staring at her like he was, that’s just what she’d do.

It was him.

And here she’d thought enough time had passed that she wouldn’t know him in a crowd. But the second he had walked in, she’d realized she had stored away the memory of every line on his heart-stopping, handsome face down to the tiny scar beneath his chin, every gesture he had made, and every way he had touched her.

It all came rushing back along with buckets of air. Her body clenched, then throbbed with remembered desire, and her vision swam. She squeezed Nat tight against her until he squawked and squirmed to get down.

Not wanting to let him go, but having no choice since she was about to drop him, she let the baby slide down her leg to the floor and he was off and running. Straight back to his father.

The man who had just made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

Oh, sweet Lord.

He squatted down again to get nose to nose with Nat and then they both looked toward her with the same eyes—the color of the river at its deepest—the same gently flared nose, the same cleft chin, the same everything. Juliet felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

The look he gave her now nearly sent her down for the count.

He knew.

Heat rushed to her face and she could no longer meet his gaze. She glanced to the windows, looking for his motorcycle, but all she could see through the filmy glass was a sleek, black Porsche.

Her gaze flew back to his clothes. The fabric and style of his slacks and white dress shirt reeked of designer wear the way a trash bin reeked of garbage. His classy clothes perfectly set off his golden tan—the sort a guy would get out on a golf course, not digging ditches. His thick, blond hair was shorter and had been styled into submission by stylists who obviously knew what they were doing. And the gold-and-silver watch on his wrist looked exactly like the kind they gave away as a grand prize on game shows. In other words, he looked like money.

That early summer day, more than two years ago, he’d only looked like a dream on a bike.

Juliet clamped her back teeth together and straightened to her full height. He hadn’t come back for her like she’d fantasized. He’d flat out said he’d wished she’d gotten married and left town. But she hadn’t because of her promise to her grandfather to tend the store and because she’d never been able to forget the father of her child.

She met his gaze again, and the message she sent him said, He’s not yours.

He glanced at Nathan, who was busily inspecting his father’s legs for any other sign of licorice, then slowly looked back at her. His message read, Like hell.

Her heart raced and she couldn’t breathe again. “Nathan, come here to Mama.”

Not used to such a tone, her baby simply stared at her. They both stared at her.

She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. What was she getting so worked up for? This man wasn’t going to give a darn about her baby. Actually, she was surprised the door wasn’t hitting his butt as he hauled it out of there. But in reality, he didn’t look like he wanted to leave at all, now that he’d seen Nathan.

He returned his attention to Nathan with deliberate casualness and started a game of “got your nose” with him, and her heart pounded harder. What if he took a liking to her angel? He was rich, she was poor. She didn’t have to be Einstein to realize how things would go if he decided he wanted her baby.

Dear Lord. Nathan was all she had.

“Hey, Natter, Big Bird’s on!” her brother hollered from in the house. “Nat!” Willie continued as he came through the door that had once led to a storeroom, but was now her family’s living room, or more accurately, TV room. “Where are you, ya li’l booger?”

Juliet turned her back on the man she had dreamed of being with again and growled at her brother, “You were supposed to be watching him, William.”

Her use of his proper name stopped him as if she’d yanked his chain, and his hazel gaze jumped to her. As usual, her big, lazy, older brother’s short brown hair stuck flat to his head on one side and stood straight up on the other, and he had his red-and-black flannel shirt misbuttoned.

“What’d he do?” Willie quickly scanned the store till he spotted the toddler. “You botherin’ the customers again, booger?”

“Don’t call him that,” she ground out. “I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Nat’s father said, “He’s not bothering anyone.” He rumpled Nat’s too-long hair.

Ohh, how she remembered his deep, rumbly voice that had turned her to mush in a heartbeat. And the sweet words of flattery and destiny he’d whispered in her ear. And how she had allowed herself, just that once, to believe. To believe in knights in shining armor and princesses who lived happily ever after.

“But I bet you like to bother ants, don’tcha?” he asked her baby and stood. “Just like your daddy.”

“Who knows?” Willie said as he went toward them. “Natter’s daddy was just some guy on a sweet bike who stopped only long enough to disappear in the back shed with my little sister.”

“William!”

“It’s not like it’s any big secret.” Willie scooped up his nephew and tossed the little boy on his broad shoulder. She thought Nat’s daddy was about to protest until he appeared to realize that the squeals the child made were ones of pleasure.

“So you thought that bike was sweet, eh?” he asked Willie.

“Yeah, I did.”

“So did I,” he said with a wistful smile that sent a jolt of longing through Juliet.

She closed her eyes and fisted her hands at her sides. Maybe if she concentrated real hard this would all go away.

Willie was halfway to the back of the store before what the guy had said registered. “Say what?”

Nat’s father let out a soft breath. “Boy, that thing could move. But what do you expect from a Beemer? I could have done without the fluorescent green, though.” He said it all so offhandedly, like her brother already knew that he was the guy on the bike.

Juliet’s eyes snapped open. Clearly he wanted him to know. No, no, no. He’d already made his feelings toward her clear. He would only want Nathan.

“You knew that bike?” Willie asked as he started back toward the handsome man by the door.

“Of course.” With his hands buried casually in his pockets, he looked for all the world as if they were chatting about the weather.

Her brother frowned fiercely. “How?”

Willie was so dumb. He had been the only other person around that day, though he had been too interested in the green-and-white BMW racing motorcycle to notice his little sister falling head-over-heels for the guy who had climbed off the thing. But she’d just turned twenty-one at the time, so she doubted his notice would have mattered much anyhow.

Her one and only mistake’s expression grew serious. “Because it was mine.”

“What?” Willie exclaimed.

Extending a hand toward her brother, he said, “The name’s Harrison Rivers.”