Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(49)

“You’re fired,” he told the young man in a brook-no-arguments tone. “Return to the office, clear out your desk and leave. You’re welcome to work for my mother, if she’ll have you, since the two of you certainly deserve each other, but I don’t want to see you anywhere near Keller Corp ever again. Is that understood?”

Vanessa could have sworn she saw tears fill Trevor’s eyes just before he ducked his head to stare at the tops of his shoes. “Yes, sir,” he said in a watery voice.

“And you,” Marc continued, turning this time to glare at his mother. “I always thought Vanessa was exaggerating when she told me how badly you were behaving toward her behind my back, because I didn’t want to believe my own mother would treat the woman I loved as anything other than a true member of this family. But she was right all along, wasn’t she?”

Marc paused for a moment, but Vanessa didn’t think it was to allow Eleanor to respond. “You won’t see us again. Not here. I’ll send for my belongings and anything Vanessa might have left behind. But the company is mine. Mine and Adam’s. You’re off the Board of Directors as of now and your name will be removed from anything related to the corporation.”

Eleanor’s nostrils flared as she sucked in a breath, and Vanessa saw the first shadow of fear cross her severe features.

“You can’t do that,” she rasped.

Marc’s gaze narrowed, his expression every bit as unyielding as his mother’s at that moment. “Watch me.”

With that, he yanked open the front door and stalked through, tugging Vanessa along behind him. The two servants who had been helping her carry her things to the waiting taxi were standing beside the bright yellow car, doing their best to remain inconspicuous and out of what she was sure they assumed would be the line of fire.

“Put all of Vanessa’s things in my car,” he told them, transferring Danny back to her. The poor baby was probably beginning to feel like a racquetball, though from his happy gurgles, he seemed to think being passed from one parent to the other and back again was some sort of game.

Then Marc crossed to the cab and leaned in the open window to speak in low tones to the man behind the wheel. After Marc slipped him a few folded-up bills, the driver nodded, and Marc returned to her side.

“What are we doing?” she asked, still unable to believe all that had just happened.

Lifting a hand to cup her face, he said, “We’re leaving. We’ll stay at a hotel until I can get things straightened out at the office, then we’ll head back to Summerville.”

“But…”

“No buts.” He shook his head, his gaze immediately softening to a lovely emerald green. “I’m so sorry, Vanessa. I didn’t see it. I didn’t believe you because I didn’t want to admit my family was anything but perfect, that one of them would treat my wife with anything but love and respect.”

His thumb rubbed slowly back and forth across her cheek, and she felt herself melting.

“If I had known, if I had truly understood what you were going through, I would have stopped it. I never would have let things between us turn out the way they did.”

Her throat was so tight, she couldn’t speak, but she believed him. After what he’d just done, how he’d stood up to his mother and walked away from his family home for her, how could she not?

“I love you, Vanessa. I’ve always loved you and I’m so sorry for all the time I’ve wasted being a blind, stupid fool.”

She sniffed as happy tears filled her eyes and balanced precariously on the tips of her lashes.

He leaned in, pressing his brow to hers, and said barely above a whisper, “If I could go back and do things differently, I would never let you go.”

A near-sob rolled up from her chest, causing those tears to spill over and roll down her cheeks.

“I love you, too,” she told him. “And I never wanted to leave, I just couldn’t live that way anymore.”

“I know that,” he said with more understanding than she’d heard from him in longer than she could remember.

“And I didn’t plan to keep Danny a secret from you. I really did try to tell you, but after Trevor refused to let me speak to you, I was so angry and hurt, thinking the directive came from you…” She trailed off, barely certain anymore of how she’d felt or what had led her to make the decisions she had.

“I know,” Marc murmured, one corner of his mouth lifting in a kind, loving half smile. He looked at their son with a father’s love and pride burning in his eyes before brushing a hand over the baby’s downy-soft head.

“We both made mistakes and let small issues become big ones. But we won’t let that happen again, will we?”

She shook her head, doing her best to blink back fresh tears.

Framing her face with his big, strong hands, he brushed his lips lightly across hers. “I really do love you, Nessa. Forever.”

“I love you, too,” she tried to say, but his mouth was already covering hers, kissing her deeply, with all the passion that had bloomed between them since the first moment they’d met.





Epilogue




Two years later…

Marc strolled down the sidewalk of Summerville’s Main Street, nodding and waving a greeting to friends as he passed. And he was whistling, for heaven’s sake. He never used to whistle, but lately, he’d caught himself doing it more and more often.