Keeping His Secret: A Secret Baby Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Keeping His Secret

  Copyright

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Exclusive Content!

  She's Mine

  One Hot Daddy

  Beauty and the Billionaire

  More by Kira Blakely

  Let's hang out

  About the Author

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  Copyright © 2018 by AG Media, LLC, a representative of Kira Blakely.

  All rights reserved.

  AG Media, LLC owns exclusive rights to all content herein. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from AG Media, LLC, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  I can’t love, but I can’t let her go.

  Especially now that I know her secret.

  I’ve built my fortune on being covert.

  Innocent lives depend on my silence.

  Living a double life leaves no time for love.

  But Lilly makes me want to leave it all behind.

  Show my true colors, and see hers too.

  Her eyes give new meaning to ‘top-secret’.

  Her innocence disarms me.

  We could build a life together, but my past gets in the way.

  They’ll take her from me if they get the chance.

  It’s too late for us now, she’s in too deep.

  I won’t let them touch her.

  Or the secret she carries.

  They’ll have to kill me first.

  Chapter 1

  Bolton

  Louisville, 2018

  I sipped my glass of wine idly as the sky darkened in the west. It was only March, but warm air from the south had pushed into the colder remnants of winter. Forecasters dusted off their monitors and issued severe thunderstorm warnings—apparently, I had a front-row seat. Wind smacked the budding leaves in the parking lot, but the trees were impervious and mocked the assault. I checked my phone for the time. My mother was late, at least by most of the world’s standards. Like those slender, unencumbered trees, she floated through most of her life on her own sense of time. She was famous for it, as much as she was for her beauty.

  We were to have lunch at The Bourbon Tea Room, named as a dual salute to the distilleries that lay an hour to the east and the sensibilities of women who sought an elegant place to sip and gossip—or better yet, flirt with a lover. It was one of those places with an exterior that discouraged the fast-food crowd, and if that didn’t work, their menu prices erased any doubt.

  The clouds could hold back no longer, and rain bounced in quarter-sized splats off the asphalt. I could smell her distinctive cologne even before I saw her, its scent heavy on the humid air.

  “Bolt!” She greeted people by name, followed by an audible exclamation mark, which she insisted made them feel special. It was my mother’s trademark—making people feel special.

  I stood to pull the chair out for her, feeling pride at the way men’s eyes followed her approach to our table. Even at fifty, she could put younger girls to shame. “Did you get wet, Mamounette?” I asked as I kissed her soft cheek.

  “No, no. It knows better than to test me so,” she sang in her melodic French accent.

  I signaled the waiter who, having witnessed my mother’s entrance, was waiting like a runner in his starting block. He and my mother were of a similar age, but the comparison stopped there. He stared and bent low to place a menu carefully into her hands while I had to grab mine as he tossed it in my direction. I was used to that sort of reaction to her. I’d inherited her dark, Gallic coloring and stormy charcoal eyes. On her, it promised a spirited temperament, mystery, and charm. On me, it was just brooding, or so I had been told. Luckily, the only thing I’d inherited from my father was his towering height. In my opinion, it was his only redeeming quality.

  My mother ordered her usual lettuce leaf with lemon, and I asked for a Reuben. “So, mon chéri,” she began when the waiter finally drifted away. “You look so sad today,” she empathized, taking my chin in the palm of her hand. “You have trouble with your work?”

  “No, Mamounette, nothing for you to worry about. Maybe it’s just the gloomy weather.”

  She shook her head, pulling the white linen napkin from around the silver and spreading it over her lap. “You work too hard. Life is made for romance!” Her voice gushed with enthusiasm. I never saw my mother sad. She could be angry—oh, god, she could get angry—but generally she brimmed with positive, loving thoughts and plans. There was no one like her in the world, in my opinion. She deserved so much better than my father.

  The waiter obviously had some pull in the kitchen, because our meals arrived in roughly two minutes. My mother had just picked up her fork when a delicate jingle from the direction of her bag interrupted us. She rolled her eyes. “Mon Dieu, that’s your father’s ring.” She quickly reached for the bag to pull out her phone.

  I put my hand over hers before she could tap to answer. “Let it be, just this once? I’ll be out of town on business again soon, and you’re so busy. I was looking forward to spending the afternoon with you—like we did when I was a kid and you took me everywhere in the world. I miss those times.” When I heard myself talking, I felt like that young boy again.

  She nodded. “I do, too, and we shall have them again. But, I must live with your father, and it will not make my life easier to ignore him now.” She tapped the answer icon, and I could hear him shouting from where I sat.

  “Where are you?” His voice even sounded like the mottled red I knew his face was displaying.

  I calmly took the phone from her grasp and said, “She’s having lunch with me. She’ll be home later this afternoon.”

  “Bolton, is that you? Put Leila back on the line. I come home early, and she’s gallivanting around, spending my money like it grows in the field.” His voice was furious.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking, Father, it does grow in the field. They call it horseshit.”

  My mother’s eyes rolled, and she grabbed the phone back from me, mouthing merci as she put it to her lips. “I will be home very soon, Dallas,” she said, attempting to placate him. My mother always emphasizes the second syllable of his name, and it occurred to me just then that it may not have been an innocent mispronunciation. “No, nowhere else. They have just brought my salad, and when I am finished, I will come,” she added. He must have hung up on her at that point, because she shrugged and slid the
phone back into her bag.

  “Why have you stayed with him all these years?” I finally felt old and trusted enough to ask what had bothered me throughout childhood. There were few sons who wished their parents would divorce, but I was the exception. My mother always loved travel, and while my father stayed busy with whatever excess or perversion he enjoyed, she took me with her. We traveled five continents, renting houses and eating the local cuisine. My mother said it was important to absorb the culture, and you couldn’t do that as a tourist. I was young and eager to learn. It wasn’t until my mother heard me speak Castilian Spanish like a native that she pointed out my uncanny ability to absorb languages, mimicking accents perfectly. They had come to me easily, as simply as remembering the canals of Venice or the ice cream spires of Moscow.

  “It is what one does,” she shrugged and said, poking at her lettuce. She didn’t continue, and I understood that the subject was closed.

  I didn’t agree. No two people should stay together in misery. It was that difference in our outlooks that kept her married to him and would keep me from marrying anyone, ever.

  “Please, don’t let him get to you. You know how he can be. Just stay, and enjoy our time together,” I encouraged her.

  Finally, she accomplished a ladylike version of slamming her fork onto her plate and dabbed daintily at her lipstick-accented mouth with the napkin before laying it over the lettuce leaf. She rose to her feet. “I cannot eat. I cannot even think. I must go home now. We will do this again soon, I promise you,” she leaned forward and kissed the top of my head.

  I pushed back my chair and stood, looking down at her. So small and delicate. I hated my father for the hundredth time at that moment, that any one person could be so arrogant as to take over the life of another and keep them utterly miserable. She didn’t deserve that. For that matter, no one did. “I understand, Mamounette. You know, of course, there is always a special place for you in my home.” At the panicked look in her eyes, I added, “We don’t need to talk about it now. Just know that it’s there. You still have your key?”

  She nodded briefly, pretending to ignore me as she pulled her compact from her bag and quickly powdered the humidity shine from the tip of her dainty nose.

  “Oui,” was all she said as she gave me a quick hug, then turned with the grace of a queen and swept out of the restaurant.

  I sat back down but pushed my lunch away, no longer hungry. I signaled the waiter who seemed to understand and came with the bill. I tipped him heavily for his kind attention, threw my napkin onto the table, and left.

  The rain felt good on my flushed skin. What an appropriate background for what had just taken place in the restaurant. I sighed and climbed behind the wheel of the Mercedes. My mother was a strong woman and knew what she was doing. I had to remind myself of that. If the day ever came that she would leave him, I would carry her bags personally. I wished once again that I could take her with me to Lisbon. I would leave her on the beach, lounging comfortably in a recliner as a waiter hovered nearby. She needed some pampering. I knew I couldn’t take her—I couldn’t take anyone. No one could even know I was there. That’s how it worked. I knew what I signed up for.

  I took the on-ramp and brazenly hung in the left lane until I reached my exit. While the storm had been early in the season, it seemed to breathe life into the budding trees. Just within the previous hour, they had begun to open, and patches of lime green dotted the woods like freckles on a child’s face. Springtime was my favorite. Mamounette would only travel to spring-season locations. Everywhere we went, I soaked up the culture and how people lived and interacted—just like those budding leaves around me.

  I got home and let myself in. Mrs. Polk, my housekeeper, waved from the kitchen as I bounded up the staircase to my room. I shut the door a little too hard, and Mrs. Polk understood I wanted to be left alone. Stripping off my humidity-damp clothes, I stood before the mirror as the shower heated. I saw a tall man, a tan complexion, and an intense, unhappy look in his eyes. That was normal for me. I walked into the shower and shampooed my hair, letting the steamy, hot water wash away my heartache at the unpleasantness of my mother’s life. I had to focus. My life depended on it. As usual, Mrs. Polk had stocked my glass shelves with immaculate white cotton towels. I wrapped one around myself and collapsed on the bed, grabbing my phone to monitor emails before I began packing.

  There was a text from my father. “Emergency. Call me.”

  * * *

  I stood behind the seated mourners, off to one side so no one would be tempted to talk to me. All I could see was a rose-gold casket posed on some ridiculous grass carpeting over the red clay hole where she would sleep from then on. I think if anyone had spoken to me, I might’ve slugged him in the face. I was angry, goddamned angry. It was his fault, as usual. I knew what happened even though she wasn’t there to tell me. She was upset and hurrying home to appease him again—that wicked son of a bitch, selfish with every breath. Shelbyville Road was heavily traveled, and the brief rain had not been enough to wash it clean of layers of oil and rubber. That made it slick, and I knew she was preoccupied with how she was going to defend herself again. They said a car pulled out in front of her, and she swerved to keep from hitting it. That was so like her. She always thought of the other person. Her car flipped at least six times, the witnesses said. That meant she was going at a pretty good clip, and I wanted to puke when I remembered how he had harped on that fact, as though she was therefore entitled to die. When it was over, so was her life. They called the bastard first, and in his normal condescending way, he couldn’t call me and ask me to come, cushioning the blow. No, he just texted me. If there was any reason to do what I did, it was because I tempted death. Until then, I’d been careful, knowing it would’ve left her alone, unprotected.

  She was beyond his reach now. So was I. When I saw him stand up, the red rose in his hand to lay on her coffin, I thought I would be sick. I turned around and headed for my car, spun out when I hit the road surface, and drove straight to the airport. I didn’t care anymore. And that made me dangerous.

  Chapter 2

  Lilly

  “Lilly, I need some money.”

  “What for?”

  Natalie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Can you just give me the money already?”

  I paused filling in a bat’s wing on my client’s arm and looked over my shoulder. “Natalie, why don’t you wait in my office? I’ll be done here with Butch in a few minutes, and then we can talk about it.”

  Natalie kicked back her sneaker-clad foot, leaving a light gray mark on the lime green paint I’d just applied two weeks earlier. “No! I shouldn’t have to explain everything I do.”

  I turned back to Butch who gave me a look that said hold your ground. He knew about Natalie. Most people did. He decided to speak up. “Hey, Natalie, I know where there’s a party tonight.”

  “Oh, Butch, could you just not tell her that, please?” I whined “It’s hard enough keeping her out of trouble as it is.”

  Butch opened his mouth and lifted his other hand toward me, indicating I’d misunderstood his intent. “No, Lilly, really. This is a straight party. Some guy got a gig displaying his paintings down at the gallery on Fifth Street. He’s like, super happy, and then is having one of those fancy wine and cheese things at his apartment afterward.”

  “Wine? Really, Butch?” I asked him, incredulous.

  “OK, so maybe it’s not absolutely innocent, but I’ll be with her. I’ll keep an eye on her, I promise.”

  “Yeah? And what happens when you have too much wine? Who’s going to look out for you?”

  Butch, as burly as he was, feigned hurt. “Are you saying she can out-drink me?”

  I sighed and shook my head. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. “No, what I’m saying is that Natalie needs to stay away from booze and find a job. And I don’t mean here,” I added, giving her another look.

  Butch’s voice turned soft. “You know, Lilly, I’d much rather
take you to the party.”

  “You trying to flatter me into giving you a discount, big guy?” I teased him. I was personally responsible for almost every tattoo on his body, and he had a lot of them.

  “I’ve never made a secret how I feel about you, and damn! I’m running out of blank skin!” His voice had a teasing tone, but his eyes told me otherwise.

  “Butch, when I’m ready to find myself a great big hunk of a guy, I’ll be knocking at your door,” I told him, patting him on the arm. “Now get ready, ‘cause this next part is going to hurt.”

  Fear leaped into his eyes, and I had to stifle a chuckle. I finished him up, and as he was leaving, I pointed to my office door, and Natalie tossed her head like a ten-year-old but went in.

  I closed the door behind us and sat down on the chair next to her. “Nat, we’ve got to talk about this.”

  “Don’t want no lectures.” Her hair looked horrible—greasy clumps where the blonde should have been.

  “And I’m not giving any. I’m just trying to tell you that you have to step up and carry your share. Between college loans and the overhead on this salon, I’m tapped out. We might have to move into the back room and give up the apartment.”

  “Yeah, right,” she responded in a tone that said I’ve heard all this before.

  “Hey, I’m serious. The utilities are behind a month, and there’s a jar of peanut butter and a half loaf of bread I bought two weeks ago in the cupboard. I don’t know about you, but that’s not going to cut it.”

  She sat there, staring at me, unresponsive with glassy eyes.

  “Look,” I went on, and my stomach clenched at what I was about to say. “I know you’ve been getting into my purse and the till here at the salon. We can’t afford your habit, Natalie. There’s just not enough to go around.” I hated this conversation.

  “Who the hell is going to hire me?” she argued. “I can’t hold down a job, you know that.”

  I tried to make my voice gentle, but I was seething inside. “You could if you wanted to. No one wants to work, Nat, but since Mom and Dad died, it’s all been on me. I don’t mind working, but I can’t keep all this going when there’s a hole in the bottom of the bag, you know? I don’t want to hide money from you, but you’re putting me in that position.”