Tempted by the Wrong Twin (Texas Cattleman's Club: Blackmail 8)

That was the image she’d tried to project. More than that, it was the person she’d worked hard to become. But life was always more complicated than that.

She shrugged one shoulder. “Appearances can be deceiving. The tough persona is an invisible armor I developed against being abandoned and rejected.” She hesitated, unsure how far to expose herself. But it was fair that he knew, that he understood. Despite her

body wanting to fold itself up into a ball, she straightened her spine and went on. “It started back when my father left. The night he went, he was angry, maybe it was defensive, I don’t know, but he took it out on me as well as my mother. My last memories of him are him yelling at me in our living room then walking out the door.”

And despite the yelling, she’d followed him and thrown herself on the lawn outside, sobbing as his car drove away. She closed her eyes for long moments, trying to contain the emotions the memory always stirred up. The only sound was the clink of dishes from other tables and a low hum of distant conversation. She was almost scared to open her eyes in case she’d said too much. Given too much information too soon.

But she did open them and found Nick’s understanding gaze resting on her.

He drew in a deep breath. “God, Harper.”

She shook her head. “Believe me, I’m not telling you this for sympathy. In fact I haven’t told a soul that story before.”

“Then why are you telling me?” he asked.

“The thing is, that night triggered something for me. I don’t handle abandonment well, and I’ve never been able to move past it.” In fact, she’d been repeating the pattern through poor choices in men, dating guys who turned out to be commitment-shy to say the least. And so the cycle had continued. Being aware of what she was doing hadn’t helped her stop it. “Knowing how debilitating fears like that can be and how instability when you’re young can have lifelong effects, I’ve always wanted my children to only know the love and security of an intact family unit. That’s not an option now, but I still need to do the best I can to make the household they grow up in secure.”

“You don’t have to leave to get that. We can do that right here.”

“I’ll never keep them from you, Nick. I know how tough it can be to be separated from family members. But these babies are going to need a stable unit around them. You and I can try to work something out, but let’s be realistic. We’ve just met.”

“Sure, we just met,” he said, gaze not faltering. “But we’re not your garden variety of strangers. We’re expecting babies together, Harper. Unusual circumstances call for unusual measures.”

His reasoning was compelling, but still...

She lifted the spoon in her place setting and turned it in her fingers as she composed her thoughts, then lined it up neatly with the other cutlery again. “I wasn’t ready for one baby, let alone two, and I know I’ll have trouble coping with two babies with absolutely no experience. My mother will be there for us. Full-time. I’m really sorry, but the right thing for these babies is for me to move back to Connecticut.”

The waiter came by and, after telling them the specials, took their order. Once he left, Nick picked up the conversational thread again.

“I appreciate you telling me that. It couldn’t have been easy.” He squared his shoulders. “And I’ll be as honest with you in return. You need to know that I have post-traumatic stress disorder from my time in the Middle East, and I’ve pretty much been living as a hermit since I got back. But I’m changing things.” Frown lines appeared across his forehead. “I need to change things. My ex-wife is getting remarried, and she wants me to sign over my parental rights to our three-year-old daughter.”

“That’s crazy,” Harper said, her lawyer’s sense of justice kicking in. “Why would she want to keep a father and child from seeing each other?”

He speared his fingers through his hair. “She’s claiming my PTSD is making me an unfit father.”

“Is it?” she asked and tried not to hold her breath as she waited for the answer.

“No.” His voice was clear and sure. “I might be screwing up a heap of things in my life, but Ellie isn’t one of them. I’d do anything for her. Plus, she needs her father. She needs me. But—” he winced “—having two babies on the way with someone I’m not in a relationship with will probably damage my case.”

“Oh, Nick.” She hadn’t thought the situation could be any more complex. She’d been wrong.

“There’s something else we need to consider. With Maverick active and causing people real grief, this is a secret that may be released at an inopportune time.”

Maverick. She hadn’t even considered herself a possible target before—there had been nothing juicy enough in her life to interest him—but now she was just the sort of target he seemed to like. “If he announces that I’m pregnant by the boss, it would reflect badly on Tate Armor. It has the whiff of a workplace tinged by sexual harassment.”

“Worse than that. The breach of privacy itself would make the company look like we don’t know what we’re doing in the security field.”

“Of course,” she said, running through the ramifications. “So we need to tell people ourselves soon so we’re controlling the information.”

“Ideally, yes. And if we ensure that everything looks unquestionably aboveboard, all the better.”

“How can we do that?”

“The way I see it, we have a few problems that have arisen from this pregnancy. You’re feeling overwhelmed and in need of backup. You also want an intact family unit for the babies. And I have to consider that I’ll look irresponsible when my custody case is heard. And finally, Tate Armor’s reputation is at risk.”

She winced. “That does sound like a lot when you list everything out.”

“I’ve thought about this, and I see one solution that addresses all of these problems.”