Kian (Undercover Billionaire, #1)(27)

Shaking his head, Kian pushed that sort of thinking out of his brain. He couldn’t think about her in terms like that anymore. He was now a father, and he’d better behave like one. With a new resolve firmly in place, he let Roxie go and followed her inside the lawyer’s simple office. She wasn’t his friend or lover anymore. She was now the one trying to keep his daughter from him.

Sadly for Roxie, even though the battle might just be beginning, the reality was that Kian Forbes always came out the victor—no matter whom he was up against.





Chapter Eleven

Roxie was now very much aware of how someone escaping death must feel. Her heart was racing, her palms sweating, and her entire body shaking. She felt as if she’d just run twenty miles through a desert without water.

She should have known better than to think she could avoid Kian forever. But being in this attorney’s office with him at her side was making the situation so much more real. He was Lily’s biological father—at least that’s what Pamela had told him in the hospital, and the fact that Sal said Kian was in her sister’s will pretty much confirmed that fact.

Roxie didn’t have a chance at all in a battle with Kian. He had money, prestige, and was a doctor in demand. He was a Forbes, dammit, and that meant something not only in this small town, but all over the United States. Hell, probably all over the world. She wouldn’t be surprised if he went golfing on a regular basis with whatever judge was assigned to their case when he took her to court.

Now, not only did she have to deal with her unresolved feelings for Kian, which she had hoped would become more subdued through the years, but she also had to face the fact that her one true love had enjoyed a one-night stand with her sister, and a child she very much loved was the result of what she could only see as the ultimate betrayal.

He would take Lily away from her. He had the legal right to raise her, and he certainly had the money to beat her in court. So, though she might feel as if she’d just escaped death, the worst was yet to come. She had no doubt about it. What was she going to do? She could go on the run, but she had no money and no way to sustain a life of running. Besides that, she didn’t think there was a place far enough for her to get away that she could hide from Kian. If he wanted to find his daughter, he was damn well going to.

She wasn’t that person anyway, she reminded herself. She couldn’t do that to him or Lily, now that she knew the truth. But she didn’t want to give up her niece. She might not think she was the best possible care provider for her delicate Lily, but she knew no other woman would love her as much as she did.

That thought only led her into thinking about Kian finding a woman to be Lily’s mom. He’d want to do everything he could for his daughter, including giving her a normal two-parent household. Tears stung her eyes to even begin to form that picture in her mind. She couldn’t go there or she knew for sure she would fall to pieces. And this absolutely wasn’t the time to do that.

Roxie felt as if she was completely out of options. She couldn’t fight Kian. She didn’t have the will for it, even if she had the money. He was too powerful in his own right, but to top that off, he had the Forbes name, and all the power associated with it. His family were basically celebrities in this community.

She wished they were monsters so she could hate them and justify running, but they weren’t. They were truly good people with hearts bigger than the average family. They were tight-knit and incredibly intimidating, and there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for the ones they loved.

All of that led her right back to the place of not having a clue about what she was going to do. And while Kian had a huge network of people, she had not a single one. When she’d moved from Edmonds, she’d purposely burned every bridge leading away so she wouldn’t turn around and run back with her tail tucked between her legs.

That might not have been her smartest choice ever, but she’d been thinking with emotion instead of her very smart brain. She had good insight when she chose to use it the way she was supposed to.

Growing up with an alcoholic father had been hell, and when her sister had begun following that same path, Roxie had pulled away from them. They wouldn’t even have the house if it weren’t for their grandparents being smart enough to leave it to them. It was their way of saying they were sorry for having such a horrible son.

Roxie’s mother had left when Roxie was still a baby. Why she hadn’t taken her girls with her, Roxie would never know. Her father had refused to talk about her, and their family had moved to Edmonds after her mother was gone, so no one knew who she was. Her bitter father hadn’t so much as kept a picture.

By the time Roxie was old enough to try to find leads that might lead to who her mother was, she’d hated the woman. Any person who could leave her children with a man like her dad wasn’t someone Roxie wanted to know.

So, the bottom line was that she had no one to turn to and nowhere to go. She wished she’d given her sister more of a chance and that she’d communicated with her. But it was so much easier to give up on her. Now, she wouldn’t give up on her niece. Lily was all she had left.

It sent a pang through her heart knowing that her niece would be better off with Kian, though, with his loving family. Was she truly so selfish she would keep her niece from having that privileged life? She shook her head, pushing those thoughts away. Roxie also deserved happiness and love. Just because she didn’t have money and power didn’t make her less than Kian or his family. But in the end, if it was best for Lily to grow up without Roxie, then she would make that sacrifice. Though it would be tougher for her to give her niece a great life, she believed she could give her so much that money couldn’t buy—loyalty, love, and affection—and she would always keep Pamela alive in Lily’s heart by looking through picture albums and telling stories about her. And Roxie was her blood. That mattered just as much as it did that Kian was Lily’s blood, too. Besides, Roxie was a nurse and would get back on her feet, and maybe she’d even marry someday—marry an ordinary man who would love Lily as his own.