The Paternity Pact (Texas Cattleman's Club: Rags to Riches 3)

Harley slipped from beneath his touch and let the dress fall to her feet. Clad only in a lacy pink bra and matching panties, she stepped out of the dress before scooping it off the floor.

“It’s just my mother being my mother. She’s always on a mission to tear me down. Nothing I do is ever right.” Harley crushed the garment in her hands. “I wish I’d never come back here.”

Although he recognized that Harley was more upset over her encounter with her mother than Grant had ever seen her, he recoiled as her words lanced through him. Anxiety spiked. Despite how well they’d been getting along these last couple of weeks, in the back of his mind lurked the certainty that Harley intended to take Daniel back to Thailand. He hated the thought that arguing with her mother might cause Harley to leave sooner than planned.

“I swear nothing I do is ever good enough for her.” Harley continued to rant as she marched into his closet to hang up the dress. “She’s never once given me any credit for the job I’m doing raising Daniel by myself, or acknowledged the number of people I’ve helped through Zest.”

Reemerging from the closet, she stormed across the room to the dresser where she placed her jewelry, opened the drawer and pulled out a nightgown. After turning to face him and without a hint of invitation in her eyes, she stripped off her bra and underwear, bestowing on him a provocative glimpse of her glorious, naked body, before sliding the silky cobalt blue gown over her head.

“I’ll bet if I won the Nobel peace prize, instead of congratulating me, she’d point out every single thing my siblings have accomplished since kindergarten.”

With her delicates gripped in her hand, she headed back to the closet where the hamper awaited their dirty clothes. When she reappeared once more, she was twisting her hair into a loose messy bun on top of her head. She secured it with a clip and sighed.

“I know I’m not alone in how I feel,” she began, her voice heavy with compassion.

The weekend that they spent together, she’d asked him why he was single. He’d explained how isolated he felt growing up because his interests diverged from what his parents wanted for him and that they’d struggled to understand him. His family was dedicated to their charitable foundation work and maintained an active social life. While Rose had taken after their parents, Grant had been more interested in intellectual pursuits, and they struggled to relate to their introverted, bookish family member. When it became obvious that he intended to have a career in medicine rather than join the company business, his parents gave up on him. He was the oddity in the family. The one who’d disappointed his parents by going into “service.”

Although he’d relayed this narrative without any emotional display, the way Harley had acknowledged how much this must have bothered him, he’d been overwhelmed with relief. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized the depth of the grief he’d bottled up, or the damage he’d done to his psyche by closing himself off to further hurt.

Looking back now, he realized he’d come to trust her in those unguarded moments. She’d been right when she’d said that something had sparked between them that weekend. So much so that the powerful connection had disturbed him. He’d shied away from the attachment, rejected its importance. Thoroughly rattled by the burst of unruly sentimentality, when he’d discovered that she’d deceived him, he’d grabbed at this excuse and slammed the door shut on his emotions, setting a bar in place to keep them permanently locked away.

Harley came to stand before him, her fingers going to work on the buttons of his shirt. She tugged the hem free of his pants and finished unfastening the front. In the middle of stroking it off his shoulders, she paused and gazed up at him.

“Why are some parents driven to find fault with everything their children do? It’s as if...”

She trailed off, swallowing bitter words. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Grant stripped off his shirt and cast it aside. Wrapping one arm around Harley’s waist, he drew her into a comforting embrace. She leaned into him, setting her cheek against his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his neck. Although her mood was somber, just holding her in his arms stirred his blood. Yet, despite that, he was happy to offer her sympathy if that’s what she needed right now.

“The sooner I get back to Thailand the better,” Harley continued in dark tones, unable to stop fuming over her encounter with her mother.

Grant’s heart twisted at the thought of losing his son. “When you say sooner...?”

“I thought after being gone for five years that I could come back and things with my family would be better. But they treat me like I’m a child. Nobody gives me any credit. I started an amazing nonprofit that helps women, but all they see is their baby sister who made the mistake of getting pregnant when she was eighteen.”

“Daniel and I have barely had the chance to get to know each other,” Grant said, realizing she wasn’t paying attention to him. “I need more time with my son.”

“I’m sorry for dumping all this on you.” Her arms encircled his waist as all the fight drained out of her. “It’s just that my mother drives me crazy. She couldn’t be bothered to arrive in time for dinner and only showed up to warn me not to drag the Wingate name through the mud.”

“How did she think you’d do that?”

“She has this idea in her head that you and I are going to go to battle over Daniel. As if we would.”

Grant opened his mouth to voice the concerns that had been growing each time she mentioned taking Daniel back to Thailand before thinking better of it. Harley’s mother had hurt her so, of course, her reaction would be to want to put as much distance between them as possible. That she wasn’t thinking about him or her son at the moment was obvious. And with her in this mood, Grant understood that the last thing he should do was alienate Harley. She’d already demonstrated her eagerness to get back to her regular life. Once she cooled down, he hoped she’d become more reasonable.

But even if she didn’t hop on a plane in the near future, her outburst had solidified one critical factor. At the moment, he had no legal right to Daniel. If she so desired, she could prevent him from spending any time with his son and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. At least until he resolved his paternity claim.

“What am I doing?” she moaned. “Why do I let her get to me?” Harley rolled her head and gazed up at him. Her eyes softened as she asked, “How was your night?”

“Great. Daniel and I went to dinner at the Royal Diner.”

She lifted her hand and rested it on his bare chest above his heart. As if she noticed the sudden uptick in speed, she grinned. “You don’t say. Let me guess what you had. Hamburgers and milkshakes?”

“You know us well.”

He dipped his head and grazed her lips with his, determined to push their earlier conversation aside so he could concentrate on the here and now. A lusty groan poured from her lips as he cupped her breast and flicked his thumb over her tight nipple.

“Take me to bed, you handsome hunk,” she purred, sliding her hand up his thigh and brushing her fingertips over the growing bulge behind his zipper. “I wanna get naked with you.”