The Rags-To-Riches Wife - Metsy Hingle Mills & Boon Desire

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he explained.

      “I just came out to get some air,” Talbot told him.

      But given the look of annoyance on the other man’s face, Jack wondered if that was the truth. He sized Talbot up, estimating him to measure an inch or so below his own six feet two inches. The man had what his football coach in college would have called a wiry build, but there was no mistaking that he kept himself fit. There was nothing remarkable about the brown hair and eyes, but the man always seemed to be watching. Just as he was watching him now. “I spoke with Abby earlier, but I didn’t get to tell you how sorry I am about your mother-in-law.”

      “Thanks. It’s been pretty rough on Abby.”

      “That’s understandable, given the circumstances,” Jack offered.

      Talbot reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a cell phone which had obviously been placed on vibrate. He frowned as he looked at the number. “Excuse me, I need to take this call.”

      “No problem. I think I’ll make a run for it,” Jack told him and stepped off the veranda and into the rain to head to his car.

      And as the rain slapped him in the face, Jack thought once again to that night last December. She’d been gone when he’d awakened the next morning. Despite making several inquiries, no one seemed to know who his mystery woman was. Obviously, the woman had known Bunny Baldwin. He closed his fist around the note in his pocket. Using the remote, he unlocked the door to his car and slid behind the wheel. After starting the engine, he wiped his hand down his face in an attempt to dry it. Then he slicked back his wet hair and stared out at the rain. She’d made it clear that she’d wanted no relationship beyond that night, he reminded himself. It was the reason he hadn’t made a serious effort to find her.

      Until now.

      Sorry, Red. The rules of the game have just changed.

      Lily dug through the files in her desk drawer. Finally she located the one for which she’d been searching and snatched it from the pile. As she shoved it into her briefcase, she glanced up at the clock and groaned. Twenty minutes past five. The board meeting for Eastwick Cares started in ten minutes and she didn’t want to be anywhere near this office when it did. She should have been out of here long before now, she admitted. But when Kristen, one of the teens she’d been counseling, had shown up needing to talk, Lily hadn’t been able to refuse. As a result, she’d cut it too close this time. The board members would be arriving any second.

      Since seeing Jack Cartwright at Bunny’s funeral three days ago, she’d been edgy. He had recognized her. Of that much she was sure. As a result, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that the other shoe was about to fall. She locked the file drawer, then switched off her desk lamp. Grabbing her keys and purse with one hand and her briefcase with the other, Lily hurried toward the door. She had just pulled the door closed behind her when she heard the distinctive chime of the elevator. Six flights or not, the stairs would be safer, she reasoned and headed for the stairwell in the opposite direction.

      “Miss Miller! Miss Miller, wait!”

      Lily heard Kristen calling out to her, as well as the chatter of several people who had evidently exited the elevator with the girl. She wanted to ignore Kristen and leave. Otherwise, she’d run the risk of Jack seeing her. But how could she ignore a child who had come to her for help? She couldn’t, she admitted. Stopping, she turned around.

      “Geez, Miss Miller, didn’t you hear me?” Kristen asked.

      Lily walked back to the girl who had come halfway down the corridor to catch her. “I’m sorry. My mind was on something else. Did you need something?”

      “I think I forgot my book bag in your office.”

      “Well, let’s go see if we can find it,” she said and headed back to her office where she unlocked the door and turned on the light.

      “There it is,” Kristen claimed, indicating the couch where she had sat during their session. The lime-green pack rested on the floor on the opposite side of the sofa. Kristen retrieved the backpack and slung the strap over one shoulder, then turned back to face her. “I’ve got an exam tomorrow that I need to study for and all my notes are in here,” she said patting the bag. “I don’t know what I would have done if you’d already left.”

      “Then I’m glad you caught me in time,” Lily replied as she left the office with the teenager.

      The elevator dinged its arrival again. “There’s the elevator. You going down?”

      “Not yet,” Lily said, still hoping she could escape without seeing Jack.

      “See you next week then,” the petite brunette told her and rushed toward the elevator’s opening doors. The elevator began to empty and Kristen stepped inside. “Thanks,” she murmured to someone still inside the elevator, holding the door open for her. “Bye, Miss Miller. And thanks again.”

      “Good bye,” Lily called out, and when he exited the elevator she could have sworn she heard it—the other shoe dropping. Because, just as she had feared for months, the man standing outside the elevator staring at her was Jack Cartwright. Unable to move, she simply stood and watched the shock in his blue eyes turn to fury as they moved from her face to her belly and back again.

      He walked toward her. His voice was low and dangerous as he said, “Hello, Red.” He paused then glanced at the nameplate on her office door. “Or should I say, ‘Hello, Lily Miller’?”

      She nodded, not sure she could even speak when her heart felt as though it were in her throat.

      “When is the baby due?” he asked, his expression grim.

      “In four months. But—”

      “Which means that I’m the father,” he said. “And if you’re having any thoughts about saying the baby’s not mine, you can save yourself the trouble because I’ll demand a paternity test and we both know what the results will show.”

      “I wasn’t going to lie,” she told him and placed a protective hand on her stomach. “I just wanted you to know that getting pregnant…it…it wasn’t something I’d planned.”

      “Neither was the condom breaking,” he responded. “Why did you tell me you were on the pill?”

      “I didn’t. I told you that I was safe because I thought it was a safe time. You just assumed I meant I was on the pill,” she explained and felt the color rush to her cheeks. “It’s no one’s fault. It was an accident, Jack—”

      His head snapped up and he pinned her with his eyes. “So you do know who I am.”

      “Yes. But not at first. Not until later that night in the hotel room when you took off your mask,” she admitted.

      “You knew even then? And yet you didn’t want me to know who you were. Why is that, Lily? Why keep up the pretense? Was it all some kind of joke for you?”

      “No! No, it wasn’t a joke,” she told him, not wanting him to believe she had used him. “That night…that night I wasn’t myself. I didn’t want to be me. So when you asked me to dance and we decided to follow the rules of the masquerade ball and not reveal our identities, I didn’t have to be me. It seemed…it seemed so harmless,” she offered because she didn’t know how to tell him that she’d been lost and hurting that night and he had made her feel whole again. “Going to your room that night…it’s…it’s not something I would normally do.”

      “Asking a strange woman to my hotel room isn’t exactly the norm for me, either,” he told her, his voice sharp. “So why not be honest? Why not tell me who you were? Why keep pretending?”

      “Because I was afraid if I told you who I was, you would stop. And I didn’t want you to stop,” she told him honestly.

      Something flared in his eyes. But whatever he’d planned to say never made it past his lips because a door down the hall opened.

      “Cartwright,

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