The Secret Baby Scandal

When he finally pulled away, his voice was low and rough as he spoke words of love like a prayer.

She looked up at him, blinking through the tears of joy that filled her eyes. “I knew it.”

“You knew?”

“I—hoped.”

Passionately, Théo kissed her again, and it took several minutes and a baby’s protest about being squashed before they remembered to come up for air.

He leaned his forehead against hers, holding the baby tenderly between them. “Thank you,” he said in a low voice. “Thank you for believing in me.” He looked back at the sky. The plane was long gone—nothing more than a black speck in the sky. “But who is on my plane?”

She shook her head with a laugh as tears streamed unchecked down her face. “Lilley. She’s quit her job, by the way, and gone to see her boyfriend in San Francisco.”

“She has a boyfriend?”

Carrie struggled to remember what Lilley had said. “A sort-of one, I think.”

“He can’t possibly deserve her.” Théo looked at her with an intake of breath. “Just as I don’t deserve you. But I’m asking for you to give me one more chance.” His dark eyes searched hers. “Let me try to be the man of your dreams. I swear to you I will love and cherish and protect you for the rest of your life—”

She pressed a finger to his lips, stopping him. For an instant his handsome, hard-edged face fell into an expression of despair.

“You already are the man of my dreams. I’ve always known that.” She looked up at him. “Even when I hated you I dreamed of you.”

He cupped her cheek. His face shone with adoration.

“You don’t just see the best in people, Carrie,” he said quietly, looking deeply into her eyes. “You see the truth of what they most wish they could be.”

Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed her with intensity and fire, causing her to utterly melt against him. It was, she thought afterward, dazed, the best kiss of her whole life.

Or so she thought until two days later, when he kissed her at their wedding in a beachside park in West Seattle. Her friends and family applauded wildly after the simple outdoor ceremony, with the backdrop of Seattle’s skyscrapers across the bay. A moment before it had been merely misty, but the second they spoke their vows the lowering clouds broke at last, pouring showers of rain.

As Carrie looked at her new husband, both of them utterly soaked, she helplessly tried to use

her small bouquet of sunflowers as an umbrella over their heads. They both laughed.

Smiling, Théo lowered his head to kiss her, whispering, “Je t’adore, Madame la Comtesse.”

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with all her heart. And then they gathered their baby son—in his little suit, with his ring-bearer’s pillow—in their arms, to kiss his chubby cheeks and protect him from the rain.

As she watched her new husband shake the hands of her soaked, smiling family and friends, Carrie had never been so happy.

Life was full of color, she realized. Even on the grayest day, love was all around her—like rainbows in a storm. And now she was Théo’s wife, Carrie knew her life would always be full of vibrant reds and yellows and violets and bright blue skies. No matter what rains might come.

THE SANDOVAL BABY

Kate Hewitt

CHAPTER ONE

RAFE SANDOVAL pulled his car to the kerb and stared at the seemingly innocuous terraced house he’d parked in front of. It was a bit shabby, on an ordinary little street, in a bland, faceless suburb of London. And his son—his son—was inside.

Rafe’s fingers curled around the steering wheel until his bones ached. He felt a tidal rush of emotions pour through him before he pushed it all down, forced himself to maintain an icy calm. He needed it now, when he was so close. Close to his son.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then turned off the ignition and slid from the car. The slam of the door echoed in the street and he surveyed the little house with its blank windows and unkempt garden. A single geranium in a cracked pot stood on the step, looking woefully bedraggled. A blue rubber ball had been left in the garden, lost in the weeds. Rafe curled his lip at the pathetic sight, yet he could not quite keep some small part of him from being touched by these signs of life. The life his son had lived for three years without any knowledge or awareness of his father.

Or Rafe’s awareness of his son.

He reached for the tarnished brass knocker and let it fall sharply three times. Then he waited, the tension coiling inside him, demanding release. After years of longing for a child, years of being lied to, he was finally so close. Only one woman stood in his way.