Baby for the Billionaire(102)

“I love you, Annalise,” he murmured against the top of her head. “And I’m more sorry than I can ever express.”

She lifted a glowing face to his. “Sorry you love me?” she teased.

A rusty laugh escaped. “I’m sorry I believed the worst.”

“I should have told you about my relationship to Isabella. I was going to.” She made a gesture that emphasized her bone-deep weariness. “But I should have done it before we married.”

“Tell me now, Annalise. I gather Isabella was the result of that night you lost your virginity?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “You have no idea how terrified I was when I realized I was pregnant.”

“What about the boy?”

“He and his family had moved away by then. Dad contacted them, of course. But they wanted nothing to do with me or the baby and were only too happy to sign the adoption papers.” She shrugged. “It was just as well. Tommy was no more in a position to raise a baby than I was.”

“I remember Joanne saying it was a private adoption, arranged through their lawyer.”

Annalise nodded. “Dad met with Joanne and Paul and had them carefully checked out.”

He eyed her curiously. “You never considered keeping Isabella?”

It was the wrong question to ask. Her chin wobbled for an instant before she firmed it. “I wanted to keep her with all my heart. I dreamed about it every night. But I was sixteen when I got pregnant. I’d just turned seventeen when I had her.” The confession was so soft he barely caught it. “I also know it was the most difficult decision Dad ever made. He’d been a teenage father himself, and he felt he’d done such a poor job of it, that it wouldn’t be fair to repeat the cycle for another generation. He was right. I couldn’t be selfish.” Tears overflowed. “I … I had to do what was best for Isabella, not what was best for me. So I hid my pregnancy until the school year ended and went to stay with my aunt until after Isabella was born. Every summer after that I’d go and stay with her … and remember. Celebrate … and mourn.”

He tightened his hold on her, her words tearing him apart. “I’m so sorry.”

“I never knew who adopted her, but Dad kept track and would reassure me that she was safe and doing well.”

Understanding dawned. “Until the plane crash.”

“Yes. It was all over the news. At first, the media reported that everyone onboard perished. I walked in while Dad was listening to the announcement. He was crying. He tried to keep it from me, but it wasn’t hard to figure out why he was so upset.”

“I gather you read that I’d taken custody of your daughter.”

She nodded against his chest. “And that you were having a hard time keeping a nanny. It seemed the perfect opportunity. I’d apply and see if there was anything I could do to help with the transition. I planned to stay just a short time. Neither of you were supposed to discover the truth. I didn’t even intend to tell my father I’d taken the job. But then …”

“Then?”

Her sigh rippled through her and into him. “I took one look at her and fell head over heels. I would have stuck to my original plan if it weren’t for one other problem.”

He stiffened. “What problem?” he managed to ask.

She lifted her head and looked at him, her heart in her eyes. “I fell in love with you. One minute I was trying to build a world for you and Isabella, and the next you became my world.”

The inner coldness cracked, splitting apart like chunks of icebergs beneath a spring thaw. He didn’t resist any longer. He lowered his head and kissed her. The kiss shouldn’t have been any different from all the other ones they’d shared. But it was. He didn’t know if it was the absence of secrets or the fact that they’d both allowed the last bastions of their defenses to fall. Maybe the fact that they’d confessed their love altered the elemental nature of the embrace. Whatever the cause, he knew he’d remember this moment for the rest of his life. Remember the heat and the generosity, the certainty and the passion. Most of all, it was the awareness that he’d finally come home. That he’d found what he’d spent most his life searching for—and he held her safely in his arms.

“Come home now,” he urged. “We’re lost without you.”

“I thought I was the one who was lost.”

He forked his hands deep into her hair, allowing the curls to bind them together. “The three of us ultimately found each other. That’s all that matters now.”