The Rich Man's Baby. Leah Vale
Harrison fisted his hands at his sides as a cold, suffocating anger surged through him. “It doesn’t matter if she’s making a claim or not. That child is of me. And obligated or not, I plan to be a part of his life and to make his life better for it. End of discussion.”
He turned to leave, but his grandmother’s soft touch on his hand stopped him. She placed an emerald silk-clad elbow on the arm of the chair and leaned toward him, an intense expression in her mossy eyes. “Do you intend to make a claim on the child?”
Harrison raised his brows. “You mean sue for custody?”
Only one of her brows went up in response.
His father put his head in his hands and groaned, “Good God.”
Harrison shook his head. “No. That would be wrong.”
From behind his hands George said, “And you’re the expert on that, aren’t you? Getting a girl you don’t even know pregnant and all.”
Harrison gave his father a narrow-eyed look of his own. “At least I’m prepared to deal with it,” he shot back before he turned and left the room. Taking Nathan away from his mother would definitely be wrong. The notion hadn’t even occurred to him.
Then the image of the store came to mind. The place was falling apart. No one would blame him for wanting to take his baby out of those conditions. He stopped in the foyer and looked around. Nowhere could be more perfect for raising a child than the opulent but extremely livable Rivers estate. He had loved growing up here.
Knowing the importance of family, his grandfather had wanted his son and grandchildren close to him, so he’d had this huge house built, with separate wings providing each part of the family with their own space. And Harrison needed every inch of that space when his father was in one of the moods he had begun to suffer in the past two years. If not for his grandmother and his younger sister, Ashley, Harrison would have bought a condo in town close to work. Were he to ever move, though, he would miss the place, and Harrison knew Nathan would love living here.
But he refused to take a child away from his mother. He remembered the way Juliet hugged Nat’s little body close to hers, tucking his head beneath her chin. Clearly she loved his son. She didn’t deserve to lose Nathan simply because her family lived in near poverty. Besides, he could never willfully annihilate the rightness of their one time together by portraying her as unsuitable.
The answer sprang to mind and sent his pulse racing. No one said he had to take Nathan away from Juliet for him to be raised here. Whether she wanted anything from Harrison or not, he decided to convince Juliet that some very drastic changes needed to be made in her life.
Willing his pulse back to normal, Harrison strode toward the front door and left the house, feeling once more in control.
There might be a tiny pinch of Prince Charming lurking somewhere in his calculating corporate soul after all.
JULIET STUCK HER FINGERS in her ears, squeezed her eyes shut so tight she saw little white lights and hummed the National Anthem, but it didn’t work. It never did. No matter how hard she tried, her family wouldn’t go away. She should have learned by now that wishing them away didn’t work, but it never hurt to try. With a soul-weary sigh she dropped her hands into her lap and opened her eyes.
She looked from her mother, with a bad perm sticking out every which way from her head, to her brother, whose filthy red baseball hat was turned backward, as always.
As they sat around the kitchen table, Mom and Willie were talking over each other. They both had an opinion about what she should do now that the father of her child had suddenly reappeared. And neither one of them had asked her opinion.
Well, she had one.
“Will you please listen to me for a minute?” she pleaded, but failed to draw their attention. “Excuse me!” she said loud enough to cut through the noise about a father’s responsibilities and child-support settlements.
They looked at her for the first time since the discussion began. “Weren’t you listening when I told you this…” She had to take a deep, steadying breath before she could say the name of the man she had once foolishly thought to be her soul mate. “…Harrison Rivers is not Nathan’s father?”
“Oh, get off it, Julie,” Willie said. “Any idiot can see the kid’s his.”
Frustration getting the better of her, she retorted, “And that qualifies you, doesn’t it?”
“Stop it, you two,” her mother snapped.
“He knew about the bike, didn’t he?” Willie gave a curt nod of his head. “That’s proof enough for me.”
Her mom shifted toward her, the plastic seat cover beneath her squeaking. “Men don’t go around claiming to be babies’ fathers without cause, Julie.” She reached across the yellowed, gold-speckled Formica table and put a hand on Juliet’s forearm. “Why do you keep denying he’s the father? From what your brother says, he seems decent enough.”
“And stinkin’ rich,” Willie added. “He’s got serious bucks. I talked to that friend of mine, Dave, who used to work on the loading dock at Two Rivers Industries, which was the name of the company on the business card he left, and Dave said that if Julie’s guy is—”
“He’s not my guy,” Juliet grumbled. How could she lay claim to a man like that? And since no fairy godmother was going to bibbidi-bop into her life and change her into someone he would want, she had no choice but to deny he was the one. She couldn’t lose Nathan.
“He sure was your guy for…what, fifteen minutes?” Willie laughed then winked crudely at her.
She smacked him on the arm and made him squawk.
“Stop it, you two.”
“Anyway,” Willie continued, “if this guy is the same Harrison Rivers who’s taking over the company so his dad can retire, he’s worth millions.” Willie said it like he was imparting the secret of life, then got up and went to the fridge.
The implications of his words hit Juliet full on. Her stomach rolled, and she had to swallow fast to keep from being sick all over the kitchen table.
Then she started to shake. The tremors were small at first, deep in her chest. But as Willie’s words echoed in her head and both pairs of eyes in the cramped kitchen fastened on her, the reverberations spread throughout her like oil in a mud puddle.
Millions. Harrison Rivers had millions.
Her mother’s normally dour face lit up with excitement as a thought occurred to her. “Maybe you could pick up with him where you left off!”
Juliet could barely speak. “He’s already said he doesn’t want me.”
Tsking, her mother shook her head, then heaved a dramatic sigh. “You realize, don’t you, that takes this thing to a whole new level?”
“Oh, yeah,” Willie concurred as he brought a beer back to the table.
Of course it took things to a whole new level. The level with high-priced lawyers and bought-off caseworkers. The level where someone like her could never stand a chance against someone like him. The level where all her tears and pleas would carry about as much weight as a foam anchor.
Why couldn’t he have been some average guy who might have decided he wanted her for more than one afternoon of fun? A regular Joe-shmoe she could have had a future with.
Before the tremors building inside of her reached a crescendo and she shattered right there in front of them, Juliet shoved back her metal-legged chair, its legs screeching along the floor, and bolted to her feet. “It doesn’t take this thing anywhere,” she choked out. “Because there’s nothing there in the first place. Nat’s mine. Nobody else’s. Mine!” She slammed her open hand down on the tabletop and glowered at her mom and Willie, huddled around the table like a couple of witches around their pot.
“If