LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MARIE FERRARELLA

      This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^® Award-winning author has written more than 150 novels for Silhouette Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her Web site at www.marieferrarella.com.

      To Adrienne Macintosh and

       brand-new relationships.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter One

      He had no idea how to be a father. The very thought brought a nervous ripple to his digestive tract, though his smile remained fixed for Mickey’s benefit.

      He knew all about being a friend. Over the years, he had pretty well perfected the part and derived a great deal of pleasure from it. As had Mickey. Mickey was all that mattered. He always had been.

      But he hadn’t a clue how to be a father. Though his son was now ten years old, until this week Blaine O’Connor had never had to don the sober, heavy robes of fatherhood.

      They were thrust on him without ceremony, without a whisper of a warning. They were pushed upon him as suddenly as they had been pulled out of his hands eleven years ago.

      Then he hadn’t even been able to try them on for size. He’d found out sheerly by accident after the divorce papers had been filed that Diane was pregnant. Once he knew, Blaine had wanted to give the floundering marriage another try for the sake of the unborn child they had created. But Diane had refused to listen.

      It gave her, he thought, a special sense of satisfaction to deny him that reconciliation. Almost as much satisfaction as when she refused to let him be present at his son’s birth. He’d been robbed of the joy of seeing his only child come into the world.

      All because Diane had had no idea what the word trust meant.

      Angry, hurt, Diane had attempted to completely force him out of Mickey’s world. Blaine hadn’t been allowed to make any decisions affecting the boy. And so, he’d had no training as a father, not even a dress rehearsal.

      Blaine stepped out of a moving man’s way. The small-built, deceptively strong man lifted his end of the bed frame with its heavy oak headboard and carried it into the house with his partner. The house, with furniture coming and going, looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane.

      Just like his life, Blaine thought.

      It could have been a great deal worse. He looked toward his son sitting at the kitchen table. There couldn’t have been a more sweet-tempered boy on the face of God’s earth, Blaine thought. Mickey was methodically working his way around the peanut butter-and-jam sandwich his grandfather Jack—Blaine’s father-in-law—had made for him. He was biting off the crust before getting down to the heart of it.

      Blaine crossed his arms before his chest as he watched Mickey. He could feel his heart swelling. His son. His. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

      Not that he had ever entertained negative thoughts about fatherhood. Just insecure ones. But Mickey was a good kid.

      How hard could it be? he mused. After all, he’d been a boy himself once.

      Blaine’s mouth curved. According to his mother, sister and any neighbor within a five-mile radius of his old home, he’d been a hellion for the first fourteen years of his life. Even later, as he matured, he’d gotten away with a great deal because of his looks.

      Not that he had been bad, either, Blaine thought, just…lively.

      Blaine grinned to himself.

      The bottom line was that he had been nothing at all like Mickey.

      Who was he kidding? Blaine thought as he crossed to the counter and poured a cup of coffee. Smiling at Mickey, he seated himself at the table opposite his son. He didn’t know the first thing about being a father. He didn’t understand Mickey’s needs or anything that was required in raising a sensitive little boy.

      Those issues had been left in Diane’s hands. By Diane’s mandate. He’d bristled at the idea to begin with, but later he’d been relieved. The idea of disciplining, of ever having to say no to Mickey, made Blaine think of being the heavy. He was much better suited to the role of being the friend.

      Diane had inadvertently done them a disservice, both him and Mickey. By taking complete control, she had left Blaine woefully unprepared for this unexpected turn of events.

      She’d shut him out, Blaine knew, to get even with him. To pay him back for imagined wrongs that she was constantly conjuring up in a mind consumed with jealousy. Like the frightened child who saw ghosts in every darkened corner of her room, Diane saw indiscretions everywhere. She was positive of their existence, convicting Blaine because of his looks and his profession.

      Diane had been pretty, like a wildflower growing in the meadow. But she had felt outclassed by the women who populated Blaine’s world. As a magazine photographer, Blaine had immortalized some of the world’s most beautiful women on the covers of popular magazines.

      When they had first met, Diane had thought that his career was exciting, romantic and wondrously glamorous, even though he was only an apprentice at the time. By the time they divorced, she had considered it a sinful way of life that surrounded Blaine with temptation he was too weak to resist. She’d resented his work the way women resented their husband’s mistresses.

      He had tried to reassure her every time a bout of insecurity seized her. But her tantrums had only grown worse and worse and the air would grow thick with the accusations of infidelity she would hurl at him.

      And then the ultimatum had come. He could either have her, or his career. He couldn’t have both.

      Blaine had never been one to be backed into a corner. Angry at

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