LITMIR.BIZ

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and he loomed over her, a wild intensity in his every feature. “So Kent didn’t pay you?”

      Money? She felt sick. How could he have believed she’d been for sale? Though how could he not, given how she’d left.

      “No,” she whispered. “All the money in the world …” Her voice trailed off as she felt the shame that he thought so little of her, when she still loved him.

      Nico scrubbed both hands through his hair and dropped into the other armchair. “He told me that he bought you.” But it was no longer an accusation; instead he seemed to be analyzing the information.

      “I’d never be with a man like Kent if I had a choice. And … and I didn’t know I was pregnant then.”

      “Would it have changed your mind?” His eyes zeroed in, trapping her with his demand.

      Would it? She pressed her fingertips to her temples. Pregnancy or no, Nico and his father would still have been in as much danger from Kent’s information. And yet family meant so much to him.…”I honestly don’t know. Once Kent found out I was pregnant, he added that as another condition to the blackmail. If I told you about our son, or if I had any contact with you, or if I told you what he blackmailed me with, then …”

      Her voice trailed off, but Nico supplied the ending. “Then he’d make public whatever it was he was holding over your head.”

      “Yes,” she whispered. And no matter how bitter and cold Nico had become, she couldn’t be responsible for robbing him of all he held dear. Or robbing his father of peace in his last days.

      He leaned forward, forearms on his knees, eyes hard and suspicious, obviously still unwilling to believe her completely. “Tell me what he had on you.”

      She’d known the question was coming, but still it sent a shiver down her spine. It would be so easy to tell him here and now, such a relief to share the burden she’d carried alone for five years. She licked dry lips, tempted almost beyond endurance.

      But telling Nico he was illegitimate would be the ultimate act of selfishness. Robbing him of his family, heritage, career, everything, just so she could feel better? That would make her no better than Kent—not caring how actions impacted others. If she told him before Tim passed away, Nico would feel compelled to tell his father the truth, to allow his father to change his will—and stress could shorten Tim Jordan’s life, according to the doctors. If Nico couldn’t bring himself to stress his father, then their last days would be tainted by secrets not shared. How could she do that to either of them? At least if she held the secret for now, Nico and Tim’s goodbyes would be untainted and full only of the love they shared. It was what they deserved, and she wouldn’t let Kent’s manipulations ruin that.

      “Beth, tell me what he had on you,” Nico repeated.

      A hand crept up to circle her throat and she thought of the letters, still hidden somewhere. After Kent’s passing, she’d turned his bedroom upside down looking for them, before checking his office at work when she’d gone in to clear his personal items. The letters had been nowhere to be found, but she hadn’t given up yet. She couldn’t let them be found by someone else, just as she couldn’t let Nico know their contents.

      “I can’t,” she said, trying to hide the anguish it caused to deny him. “Please don’t ask me that.”

      Nico flung exasperated hands in the air. “But he’s dead! Anything you had to fear from him has expired.”

      She shook her head in jerky movements. She understood his frustration at the situation—she’d lived with it day and night for so long she barely remembered how it felt to be free.

      She exhaled and met his gaze. “I can’t.”

      “Why not?” The set of his shoulders, the way his eyes bored into hers, the twist of his mouth all proclaimed his distrust of her words, and she had no weapons to challenge it.

      She closed her eyes for several seconds, searching for composure in the face of his onslaught. How to make him understand? To let her tell him only once it was safe? “Not yet. One day …”

      “That’s absurd.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Kent is dead.”

      “I know … but—” She swallowed hard. “Nico, it’s so much more complicated than it seems.”

      His jaw clenched and released before he spoke, as if gathering himself. “I won’t stay away from Mark. He’s mine. I wasn’t giving up when I thought he was my nephew—now I know he’s my own son, nothing could make me walk away.”

      Her heart glowed with pleasure that Marco’s true father would fight for him even as it wept for the irrevocable damage in the relationship between his two parents.

      Nico paced across the room and stood in front of the fireplace, which housed only ashes. The central heating had taken the edge off the air, but the fireplaces were what gave the house the perfect warmth and a sense of home. She hadn’t been here overnight to stoke them. That it was now full of cold cinders seemed appropriate.

      Nico leaned an arm on the wall above the brick hearth, his back to her as he spoke in a rough voice. “I’ve already missed his first steps, his first smile—I can never recapture that. Betrayal has cost me seeing my son learn to walk and run.” He turned to face her again, eyes blazing. “And I’ve lost forever the chance to be the one to teach him to throw a ball. I won’t pass up any other firsts.”

      His strong sense of family would never let him do anything else. Before this insanity had begun she’d dreamed of having children with Nico, and even then she’d known his commitment to those of his blood would be absolute. At the time she’d been thrilled by the thought. Now it was no less honorable, but the intensity of his devotion to family was bound to complicate everything dreadfully.

      However, Marco would get to know his father, Nico would spend time with his son. It was the right thing to do, the best for both child and father. “I won’t ask you to leave him behind.”

      But how would she survive being that close? Loving Nico and not having him. Wanting him and keeping a secret from him. It would be the worst kind of torture.

      Her heart skipped a beat. “Nico, promise me you’ll leave things between us alone. You’ll have access to Mark, but you won’t push me on details from the past.”

      His eyes widened as if she’d asked for the most ridiculous thing in the world. “I’ll promise no such thing.”

      Oh, God. Rising panic squeezed her lungs. He had no idea how hot the fire he played with really blazed; she needed to make him see without giving away the secret that would destroy him. She had only one bargaining chip left. “Nico, please. Do it for Marco.”

      He paused, eyes scanning hers. “Marco? I thought his name was Mark.”

      Beth dragged in a shuddering breath and nodded. She owed Nico this information. “It is, officially.”

      She walked to a carved wooden chest and opened the latch, revealing the collection of photos that were usually displayed around the room. The ones she’d rushed to take down yesterday after visiting Nico’s hotel. Part of her futile attempt to hide Marco’s paternity a little longer.

      With tenderness, she picked up a framed print of Marco running in the park with her parents’ Dalmatian. It had always been one of her favorites, for the unbridled joy on her son’s face, and for the way he resembled his true father in it.

      She walked to Nico and handed it to him, a peace offering. “In my heart, and when he and I are alone, I’ve always called him Marco. He thinks it’s my pet name for him. It was as close as I could come to naming him after you.”

      As Nico raised the photo, his throat worked up and down.

      Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back—this was Nico’s moment. “It was all of his father I could give him.”

      He dragged in a breath, then another

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