Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(39)

Eleanor’s pinched mouth twisted into what Vanessa suspected was meant to be a smile. “Lovely,” she intoned, not even bothering to reach out and touch the baby. She simply perused him from head to toe.

Vanessa stiffened, offended on her child’s behalf. But then Eleanor’s attention shifted to her and she knew she would soon be offended on her very own behalf.

“I don’t know what you were thinking,” Marc’s mother chastised, “keeping my son’s child from him all this time. You should have said something the moment you discovered you were pregnant. You had no right to keep a Keller heir to yourself.”

And it begins, Vanessa thought, with no sense of surprise whatsoever. She also wasn’t offended, though she knew she had every right. Probably because Eleanor’s reaction to her reappearance was exactly what she’d expected.

“Mother,” Marc snapped in a tone Vanessa had rarely, if ever, heard from him.

Vanessa turned her head to study him, stunned by the look of anger on his face.

“We discussed this when I called,” he continued. “The circumstances surrounding Danny’s birth are between Vanessa and myself. I won’t have you insulting her while we’re here. Is that understood?”

Vanessa watched with wide eyes while Eleanor’s lips flattened into a thin, unhappy line.

“Very well,” she replied. “Dinner will be served at six o’clock. I’ll leave you both to get settled. And please remember that we dress for meals in this house.”

After flicking a disdainful glance over Vanessa’s modest outfit of magenta slacks and sleeveless polka-dot blouse, Marc’s mother turned on her heel and clicked her way back across the parquet floor.

Releasing a pent-up breath, Vanessa muttered, “That went well.”

She meant it to be sarcastic, but Marc simply smiled.

“I told you so.” Hiking a drowsy Danny higher on his shoulder, he said, “Let’s go upstairs and unpack. I think Danny could use a bit of a nap, too.”

Reaching out, she brushed a hand over her son’s brown, baby-soft hair. “He shouldn’t be tired, he slept in the car.”

Marc flashed her a grin. “It didn’t take.”

She chuckled, because she couldn’t seem to help herself. This was the Marc she remembered from when they’d first started dating, first been married. Funny, kind, thoughtful…and so handsome, he took her breath away.

Warmth suffused her as he took her hand and started toward the wide stairwell. It spread from her fingertips to every other part of her body, making her tingle, and bringing up all sorts of wonderful memories.

How could being this close to Marc again feel so good, so right, when being in this house again felt so very wrong?



Marc watched Vanessa move around his suite, getting ready for dinner. Danny was sleeping in the sitting room, in a crib that had been set up at his request before their arrival.

But it was his ex-wife’s presence that had his gut clenching and his mind spinning. She looked right here. It felt right to have her here again.

He wasn’t sure he meant here as in his family’s home, though. It wasn’t about having her back at the Keller Manor, or even in his private suite under his family’s roof.

It was about having her with him, in his bedroom, no matter where that room happened to be located.

He’d missed that. Missed seeing her things spread out on top of the bureau and cluttering the bathroom vanity. Having her clothes hanging with his in the closet, the scent of her perfume lightly permeating his work shirts and the sheets on the bed.

He’d missed simply watching her, like this, as she moved around the room getting dressed, fixing her hair, doing her makeup or choosing which pieces of jewelry to wear.

Granted, she didn’t have as many of those things with her this time as she had when they’d been man and wife, but that didn’t keep her from falling into the same old habits or her movements from being achingly familiar. She was even wearing her favorite perfume—probably because she’d left a bottle on the dresser when she’d moved out and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to get rid of it.

Now, he was glad. He’d given it to her for their anniversary, after all. So very long ago, it seemed. But the fact that she was wearing it again, that she was here with him, and apparently still trusted him… It made him wonder if maybe they could work out their differences and give each other another chance.

“How do I look?” she asked suddenly, breaking into his thoughts.

“Beautiful,” he replied, without having to think about it, without even having to look. Though he did—long and hard. Looking at her was always a pleasure.

She was wearing a simple yellow sundress and sandals, with her hair pulled back above her ears so that her natural copper curls were even more prominent. His blood stirred in his veins, arousal pouring through him, and he licked his lips, wishing he could lick her—like a sweet, lemon-flavored popsicle.

Her eyes turned smoky and she offered him a small, sultry smile before brushing her hands down the sides of her skirt.

“Are you sure? You know what your mother is like and I didn’t really pack anything dressy. I should have remembered her rule about formal dinners.”

She paused to take a breath, then blew it out and wiped her hands on her skirt again in that same nervous gesture. “Of course, I don’t have very many formal clothes anymore, so I couldn’t have packed them even if I’d wanted to. I thought maybe some of my old clothes would still be here, but…”