From Seduction To Secrets
From Seduction To Secrets
Andrea Laurence
They put their rivalry to bed for just one night…with unexpected consequences! Kat McIntyre should have known that sleeping with her nemesis Sawyer Steele was a bad idea. Her unexpected pregnancy proves it. Not only that, Kat's discovered that the cagey billionaire isn't who she thought he is!
Temptation has a hidden price…
They put their rivalry to bed for just one night.
Now they’re in for a surprise.
Struggling artist Kat McIntyre should have known that sleeping with her nemesis Sawyer Steele was a bad idea. Her unexpected pregnancy proves it. Not only that, Kat’s discovered that the cagey billionaire isn’t who she thought he is. Can she trust Sawyer to do the right thing for her and the baby…without falling for him all over again?
ANDREA LAURENCE is an award-winning contemporary author who has been a lover of books and writing stories since she learned to read. A dedicated West Coast girl transplanted into the Deep South, she’s constantly trying to develop a taste for sweet tea and grits while caring for her boyfriend and an old bulldog. You can contact Andrea at her website: www.andrealaurence.com (http://www.andrealaurence.com)
Also by Andrea Laurence (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
Millionaires of Manhattan
What Lies Beneath
More Than He Expected
His Lover’s Little Secret
The CEO’s Unexpected Child
Little Secrets: Secretly Pregnant
Rags to Riches Baby
One Unforgettable Weekend
The Boyfriend Arrangement
Switched!
From Mistake to Millions
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
From Seduction to Secrets
Andrea Laurence
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-0-008-90409-8
FROM SEDUCTION TO SECRETS
© 2020 Andrea Laurence
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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Contents
Cover (#ubf60a554-7c57-547d-80f4-cb2f5e390e68)
Back Cover Text (#u7af7c2d1-9f46-5712-ab31-ae24edf19c42)
About the Author (#u268db646-61af-5dcf-b48a-79ade9159bda)
Booklist (#uec796dc6-8873-5615-8054-ab6ee32c889c)
Title Page (#u0ac0a16e-cda7-5152-a472-1e393ddefe93)
Copyright (#u814d3846-977a-57bc-ae6d-f52b18e94b07)
Note to Readers
One (#uf6bc40f5-5c0d-5928-b822-c66945bdc948)
Two (#u457f87bc-3a74-564e-9fb8-c8b24731a604)
Three (#u9f98c455-82c4-5823-b42f-f8f0dc48cd88)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
As weddings go, it was a nice enough one. Sawyer Steele hadn’t been to many, but knowing his parents, it was probably an extravagant and expensive affair. Perhaps the greatest wedding ever held in Charleston. He wouldn’t know the difference. It wasn’t exactly Sawyer’s thing. But his baby sister, Morgan, was celebrating her big day, so of course he was there to smile for pictures and eat cake. Not everyone could get shipped off to work a deal in China and miss it like Finn did.
It was probably strategy on Trevor Steele’s part to have his most troublesome son out of the country for the event. Sawyer’s twin was the one most likely to cause the bulk of their father’s headaches. He could count on Sawyer and Tom, the oldest son, to attend and behave. As such, Sawyer had had his tuxedo dry-cleaned, his dark blond curls cut short and found a suitable date to bring with him. That was all that was really required of him tonight. Behave. Don’t make a scene. Make sure Morgan is happy. Easy enough.
Now the event was starting to wind down. They’d eaten, said a million toasts, had all the requisite dances and cut into the towering ivory-and-gold confection his sister had chosen for her cake. A few more dances and they should be waving sparklers and seeing his sister and her new husband off to start their lives together. He was good with that. The bow tie he was wearing felt like it was getting tighter around his throat with each passing hour.
Glancing over, he noticed his date, Serena—a woman he’d met a few weeks earlier at a conference—eyeballing the people on the dance floor. He decided it was time to take her for a spin at last. Sawyer wasn’t a dancer by any stretch, but he could manage a simple waltz for formal occasions. All the Steele children had been forced through junior cotillion to pick up some basic skills like that. They lived in the South, after all, and etiquette was paramount in the social circles he was forced into as one of the Steeles.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked Serena. The buxom blonde had chosen a low-cut, pale blue sheath dress that gave off some Cinderella vibes with her golden hair pulled up into a bun. She looked very pretty. At the same time, he just couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for her. She didn’t have a very memorable personality. She actually reminded him of one of his mother’s beautiful, priceless antiques. Lovely to look at, but mostly decorative.
His brother Finn preferred a sports car type girlfriend. Sexy, high performance and exciting to drive, so to speak. Those women were as high maintenance as the cars and likely to get Finn in trouble before too long.
Sawyer’s ex, Mira, had been a Ferrari if ever he saw one. After that, he’d decided that maybe a roomy, luxury SUV was more his speed. Beautiful, adventurous, flexible, and if you took good care of it, it would reward your efforts for years to come.
But Serena looked so much like Mira that he instinctively wanted to call her by his ex’s name, and had to stop himself each time. They looked so similar that his feelings about how things had ended with Mira may have been souring how he felt about Serena. Or maybe Serena just wasn’t as much fun on the road as she appeared in the dealership.
“Sure, I’d love to dance,” she said with a smile.
Oh well. There was nothing he would or could do about it tonight. He took her hand and led her to the illuminated dance floor, where at least twenty other couples were gliding along to a romantic old Sinatra song. He wrapped his arm around her waist and they started to sway slowly to the music.
It was then, with her pressed close against him, that he realized taking a woman to a wedding on a third date was way too soon. He had to bring a plus one, but it made things feel more serious than they were. They’d had drinks and dinner so far, and if this wedding hadn’t come up, they might’ve gone to a movie. Maybe not even that, so he certainly didn’t need her getting overly romantic notions when he didn’t plan on a fourth date.
His gaze fell on a woman entering the ballroom. Even from this distance, she instantly captured his attention with fair skin that stood out against her black cocktail dress and bright auburn hair. She looked around the room, searching for someone. And then their eyes met. In an instant, it was like Sawyer had been hit directly in the gut. He’d never felt anything like that before. It was powerful. It made him forget all about the woman in his arms. At least for a moment.
Then he noticed the angry look on the newcomer’s face and wondered if it wasn’t attraction he was feeling so much as a woman’s fury.
She moved quickly through the crowd toward him. Sawyer was frozen in place on the dance floor—unable to pull away from the hold the redhead had on him even though his brain was telling him to escape.
Then, at last, she arrived. “You skeevy little prick!”
The angry shout cut through the sounds in the ballroom like a knife. The dancers paused, and even the orchestra was startled into an awkward silence. Everyone turned to see the stunning redhead standing at the edge of the dance floor. Now she was only a few feet away from Sawyer, with her eyes still focused directly on him.
He’d thought for a moment that maybe he was in someone else’s line of fire. He looked over his shoulder, but no one was there. Was she really talking to him? Shouting at him? That wasn’t possible.
“Who is that woman, Sawyer?” his date asked.
That was a really good question. He’d never seen her before in his life. He certainly would’ve remembered a woman with hair like waves of fire and skin as flawless and pale as a porcelain doll. Even as angry as she was, he wanted to know more about her. Sawyer shook his head. “I have no idea. Can I help you, miss?”
“Can you help me?” she repeated bitterly. “Yes. You can hold still.” The angry woman walked up to him and slapped him hard across the face.
He was too stunned to respond for a moment. He’d never been slapped before. Somehow, being hit by a stranger made it that much worse. She hadn’t hurt him, not really. It just stung, but he could feel the emotion behind the slap. She’d wanted to hurt him, and for good reason. He just didn’t know what that was.
There was a collective gasp as the whole ballroom seemed equally aghast, then a murmur as everyone started discussing what was going on. Out of the corner of his eye, Sawyer could see a couple brawny security guards his father had hired for the party making their way across the room to deal with the situation. Given that the last two events at the house had ended in a kidnapping and a bombing, respectively, it was a good move to have a little extra help in that regard.
“I’m going to have to ask you to come with us, ma’am,” one of the guards, wearing a black suit and an earpiece, said.
The redhead hesitated for only a moment before she spun on her heel and marched out of the ballroom with the two guards right behind her. She’d done what she’d come here to do, apparently.
Although he knew he shouldn’t abandon his date to chase down the stranger, he had to go after the woman and figure out what was going on. “I’ll be right back.”
Serena nodded, and he jogged out of the ballroom and into the entry hall to see if he could find where security had taken the woman. Sawyer glanced around, catching a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye as the men escorted the woman out the front door.
He chased her across the marble entry and pushed past the guards as they came back inside without her. At the top of the front stairs, he looked down and saw the woman waiting for a parking attendant to bring her car.
“I told you to keep it close!” she shouted at one of the men his parents had hired to manage all the cars at the wedding. “This wasn’t going to take long. Especially with those goons seeing me out after less than a minute.” She nervously glanced over her shoulder, and that was when she spied Sawyer standing at the top of the stairs.
“Do you normally wear black to weddings?” he asked. Asking why she’d slapped him seemed like jumping ahead in a conversation he wasn’t ready to wrap up so quickly. “Isn’t that against the rules or something?”
She sighed and crossed her hands over her chest. “It was the only nice dress I had that still fit. No offense to your sister. Anyway, don’t mind me,” she said. “Security has made it clear I’m not welcome, so I’m leaving. Go on back to your hot blonde. You’ve obviously moved on.”
Sawyer took a few steps down the stairs to get closer, but out of arm’s reach of the woman. He wasn’t getting hit twice in one night. “I’m sorry, there’s been some kind of mistake, I think. Do I know you?” The stinging welt on his cheek suggested that he did, but he was certain he’d never laid eyes on her before. She was stunning, even in the plain strapless black dress and simple makeup she was wearing. Her red hair shimmered in the moonlight, and fat curls cascaded over her bare shoulders.
No, he would remember meeting her.
“Are you serious?” She rolled her eyes, which were a dark shade of green like antique emeralds, and shook her head. “You ignored me for weeks after we got together, then when I finally track you down, you act like you have no idea what I’m even talking about. What? Are you going to tell me your evil doppelgänger slept with me, not you?”
Sawyer opened his mouth to argue, then stopped cold. Now it all started to make sense. Why hadn’t he realized this sooner? Women slapped his brother all the time. Or at least they should. It might help things. “I think you’re actually looking for my twin brother, not me.”
“That’s an even better excuse,” she said.
“It’s not an excuse. Ask anyone in the party and they’ll tell you I have an identical twin brother. Most people can’t tell us apart.”
She narrowed her gaze at him for a moment. “So you’re saying you’re not Sawyer Steele?”
Sawyer stopped as he opened his mouth to answer. It was one thing for her to confuse him with his brother, but this was different. “No, I am Sawyer Steele. But I think you’re looking for my twin, Finn Steele.”
The woman turned to him with her hands curled up in fists at her sides. “Are you implying that I’m some kind of slut?”
His eyes grew large with surprise. Sawyer was usually pretty good with people, very diplomatic at handling bad situations, but he couldn’t say the right thing to this woman for some reason. Her hair was as fiery as her temper, it seemed. “What? No, of course not.”
“You just told me I don’t know the name of a man I had sex with,” she said, pointing at him accusingly.
“That’s not what I meant.” He held out his hands in surrender and slowly came down the stairs to stand on the brick patio where she was waiting. He hoped that she would take a minute to breathe and calm down. “People get my brother and me mixed up all the time, is all. I’m telling you I’ve never seen you in my life, so that’s the only explanation that makes sense. What is your name?”
“Katherine McIntyre.” She said it with an insulted tone, as though he should know her name. “I go by Kat, if that helps jog your memory.”
Sawyer frowned. To be honest, the name did sound familiar, but he was certain he’d never seen her before, much less had sex with her. He glanced down over the tightly fitting black dress, which clung to her curves and stopped just above the knee to highlight her shapely legs. He was decidedly disappointed that she’d spent the night with his brother and not him. He wasn’t entirely sure that he had a type, but Kat set off all the right bells and whistles. She was a bright red Lamborghini if he’d ever seen one.
When his face didn’t light up with recognition, she continued speaking. “We met at the Charleston’s Best awards at the aquarium about three months ago. We had a lot of champagne, we talked, and when we got tired of looking at fish, we got a hotel room and got…better acquainted.” Kat looked at him with a pointed expression.
Sawyer didn’t remember going to an event at the aquarium. Actually, he was certain he hadn’t, although he remembered something was being held there a while back. That was it—he hadn’t been feeling great that day. He’d gotten a stomach bug, but he was supposed to attend as the Steele family representative to accept their award while his parents were wrapped up in finalizing wedding details. He hadn’t gone. In fact, he’d bribed his twin brother to go to the event in his place. Finn hadn’t wanted to attend, either. Sawyer had been forced to give him his new Jet Ski in exchange for going to the party.
Damn it to hell.
The realization of what really happened washed over him like a wave. Sawyer brought a hand to his face and rubbed furiously at it in frustration. It had been years since Finn had done something like this. Maybe even since college. Back then, he’d liked to meet girls at bars and give them Sawyer’s name instead of his own. He was never sure if his brother just did it for a laugh, or to keep the girls from tracking him down, but Sawyer had earned quite a reputation on campus without doing a single thing to get it. But now they were in their thirties. Thirty-three, to be exact. Way too old for this kind of childish bullshit.
“I think I know what the problem is.”
“The sex was so amazing you blocked it from your memory because you knew you’d never experience anything that good again?”
His jaw dropped open for a moment, then he shook his head. He’d never been so jealous of Finn in his whole life. “Uh, no. I was supposed to attend that event, but my brother went in my place. Apparently he didn’t bother to tell anyone he wasn’t me.”
“He was wearing a name tag that said Sawyer Steele,” she argued.
Sawyer wasn’t surprised. “Yeah. Knowing Finn, he just went with it and pretended to be me so our father wouldn’t know I bailed on the party.”
Kat stopped for a moment, her mind visibly racing to process what he was telling her. “And when he kissed me? When he got a hotel room? Wouldn’t that have been a good time to mention that he wasn’t really you?”
“A perfect time, and I have no idea why he didn’t. Listen, I’m really sorry about all this. My brother is…the trickster of the family. If he were here right now, I’d drag him outside and make him apologize for lying, but he’s actually in Beijing for business. He’ll be there a few weeks more, but I’ll be sure to pass along your message, slap included, when he gets back.”
The redhead’s bravado seemed to deflate as she listened to him talk. With her anger no longer aimed at Sawyer, she seemed smaller somehow. Almost petite compared to a moment ago. “So you’re saying that the man I met was actually Finn Steele? I can’t believe, after everything that happened, that he wouldn’t tell me his real name.”
Sawyer could believe it. Masquerading as his brother gave Finn free license to do what he wanted without consequence. “If you don’t mind me asking, was it just a one-night thing between the two of you?”
She looked at him with conflict in her eyes. “Yes. That was the plan, at least.”
That was his brother’s style. Love ’em and leave ’em, regardless of what name he used. “Then I doubt he would bother to correct you if you thought he was me. In the end, what would it matter? It’s just a one-night stand.”
Kat’s expression softened for a moment as she glanced down at the ground, her eyes hidden beneath her thick auburn lashes. “It does matter, Sawyer. That’s why I’ve crashed this party even though it’s obvious he doesn’t want to see me again. It matters because I’m pregnant with his child.”
Katherine McIntyre had never seen a man’s face blanch to a ghostly white so quickly. Even at night, with the patio light behind him, she could see the blood drain from his face and his attractive tan fade. If he hadn’t seemed so steady on his feet until now, she might worry that he was about to pass out.
She wasn’t sure why he was so upset about the news. He wasn’t the father. He wasn’t pregnant. He hadn’t just found out he’d slept with a lying cheat. She was the one having a terrible night. Sure, he’d been slapped by mistake and would have a lot of explaining to do when he saw his date again, but this was hardly his problem.
The valet brought her car around at last. “I’m sorry. It took a few times for it to turn over,” he said.
Kat glanced to where the valet was waiting and then back at the dumbstruck Steele heir. “I’d better go.”
He reached out to her, almost appearing to surprise himself as he did it. “Wait. Come back inside and we can talk some more.”
She was tempted to say yes. There was a kindness in his eyes that beckoned her to climb the steps and chat with him. It was different than what she’d seen in those familiar eyes before, so his story seemed to hold up. While identical in appearance, the Steele twins were very different men. But talking made no sense when Sawyer wasn’t the one she needed to talk to. At least about the baby.
A white Rolls Royce started up the driveway and the front doors of the house opened. People started pouring out onto the stairs. It must be time for the bride and groom to make their exit. Kat wasn’t going to stay around for that. Even if her old Jeep wasn’t in the way.
“I can’t,” she said. “But Saw—I mean Finn—should know how to reach me when he gets back to the States. Please have him call me.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a business card. She’d given Finn one before, but it had likely ended up in the trash the next morning.
Sawyer glanced over his shoulder at all the people coming toward them and his jaw flexed with what looked like irritation as he reached to take the card from her hand. He sighed and nodded as he glanced down at it. “I’ll make sure he calls you before he gets back. I’m actually going to phone and wake him up right now. He deserves it.”
Kat nodded and walked around her Jeep to get inside. She told herself not to look in the rearview mirror as she pulled away, but she did it anyway. She watched Sawyer Steele as his gaze followed her into the distance. He was still watching as she turned out of the driveway and the big house disappeared from sight.
With a groan, she wrapped her fingers tightly around the steering wheel and pressed down the gas pedal. This was not how she had envisioned this night playing out. She’d just wanted to pin Sawyer—Finn—down to talk, the same as that first night. Pregnancy was not what she had been going for back then. Far from it. But now that it was done, she wanted to do the right thing and tell the father. If he wasn’t going to return her calls, she had to find another way to reach him.
The idea was to locate him, pull him aside to talk, and take things from there. Slapping the father of her child hadn’t been a part of her plan, but when she saw him dancing with that beautiful blonde, she couldn’t help it. Between morning sickness and pure exhaustion, she’d been uncomfortable for the last few weeks. He could be uncomfortable for a moment or two himself.
Then she’d found out she’d hit the wrong guy and everything just unraveled. China. Her baby’s father was in China and that was the least of her troubles. Her baby’s father was also a “trickster” in his own brother’s words, one who had no problem seducing a woman using his brother’s name. That was not the kind of man she wanted in her child’s life, but it was too late now. It was done and she would have to find a way to deal with the aftermath.
Kat slowly pulled into her narrow driveway and turned off the Jeep’s engine. She looked over at the historic Charleston-style house she called home. Located in the heart of the Peninsula, it had always been enough for her. The twelve-hundred-square-foot structure was the perfect space for a free-spirited artist. It had plenty of light, the traditional piazza patio allowed her to work outside sometimes and, best of all…the place was paid for.
She climbed from her Jeep and went inside. Her little abode was no Steele mansion, but what was? To be honest, she really hadn’t understood what kind of family she’d gotten involved with until she pulled into that driveway and got her first view of the house. The Corinthian columns, the whitewashed stone, the lane of old live oak trees dripping Spanish moss on the long drive to the house…it was like something out of a Southern gothic novel. In this day and age it was the kind of place that was usually a museum, or rented out for weddings and events. But no, the Steeles actually lived there.
Kat wasn’t a stranger to money. Both her parents had been successful, her father a famous mystery writer and her mother a celebrated painter. They’d done well for themselves, and when they were both killed in a car accident, their estates and life insurance policies had supported Kat through art school and allowed her to be an artist herself without worrying about starving or working a day job. Yes, she needed a new car. And yes, the house probably needed a new coat of paint, but she didn’t want for much.
She tossed her purse onto the couch beside a box of woodworking tools and wood scraps. It would go with her Monday morning when she went down to the District to work. The old warehouse-turned-artist-community was where she spent most of her days. She rented a studio in the building even though she had room at the house to work. Woodworking was messy, but being there was more about community and exposure than anything else. If she wasn’t working there or selling pieces to folks strolling by, she was hanging out with the other artists, who had become her family since her parents died.
Honestly, losing that place would be like losing her parents all over again. And that was what she was facing. That was why she’d gotten all dressed up and gone downtown to that stupid awards ceremony the night she’d met Finn. Because she was going to lose it all to the wheels of progress and commerce.
Four months ago, the owner of the District passed away and his children sold the building to a developer. The place would be gutted and renovated. It would remain an artist community—at least that’s what the letters they all received said—but it would be more about selling than creating, by necessity. The rent would be tripling to cover the costs of the renovations and bring the place more in line with the new owner’s vision.
Kat had the money to pay the rent at the new building, but most artists weren’t so lucky. When the District reopened as a fancy, funky downtown venue for people to shop and be seen, most of the people she knew and loved would be long gone.
Walking up the stairs to her bedroom, she unzipped her dress and let it slip to the floor on the landing. Kat stepped out of it and turned sideways to admire her slightly rounding tummy in the hallway mirror. She’d just started to show in the last week or so. Her normally flat belly had begun to curve out, making her favorite jeans uncomfortably tight at the waistband. She’d told Sawyer the truth when she said this was the only dress she had that fit. Most formals weren’t made of particularly forgiving fabrics.
Life didn’t always turn out the way she expected it to. This baby was evidence enough of that. Kat had gone to that award ceremony to try and talk some sense into the District’s new owner, Sawyer Steele. Instead, she was having his brother’s baby.
Two (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“What?”
As always, Finn’s voice didn’t betray even the slightest bit of guilt for what he might have done. There was only an edge of sleepiness, which was to be expected given the hour in China. At least where Finn was concerned. The average Beijing citizen was likely preparing to eat lunch by now, but his brother had still been asleep after a late Saturday night of high jinks that probably involved beautiful Chinese women and too much baiju to drink.
“Sawyer, you know I’m half asleep and half hungover. Why don’t you just tell me what you think I’ve done wrong instead of making me guess. Then we can move straight on to you yelling, and I can take some ibuprofen and go back to sleep.”
“You’re not going back to sleep, Finn. And I don’t think I know what you did, I’m certain of it. And it’s a big one this time.”
“I doubt that. You’re prone to overreaction, like Father.”
Sawyer swallowed an insult. He wasn’t going to let his brother bait him. Finn knew how much he hated being compared to their father. Yes, they shared an affinity for keeping the peace and avoiding drama, but that was about it. “You know, when I gave you that Jet Ski for going in my place to the Charleston’s Best awards, it was because I wanted the night to go smoothly.”
“As I recall it did go smoothly,” Finn replied. “I picked up a nice plaque for the company awards case, Dad didn’t figure out you skipped, and I got a new Jet Ski. Win-win.”
“Yes, well, that was because everyone at the party thought you were me. I thought we were past the childish identical-twin games, Finn.”
There was a moment of silence on the line, but Sawyer knew it wasn’t out of guilt. Knowing Finn, he was trying to figure out how to weasel out of getting into trouble.
“Okay, who told on me? There’s no way you could know that I let everyone think I was you,” he said at last. “It’s been months since that party and there hasn’t been a peep about it since then.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true. Apparently the redhead you seduced that night while you were pretending to be me has been trying to get in touch with you. Me. Us.”
Finn groaned and audibly flopped back against the pillows. “The redhead. Yeah. That was a hell of a night, but I wasn’t really interested in seeing her again. She’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but she’s not my usual type. She’s too artsy and academic. She’s more your type, I think.”
That was true enough, but Sawyer wasn’t interested in walking into the hot mess his brother had left behind. “Well, to be honest, I don’t think she was wanting to see you again, either, but she doesn’t have a choice.”
Finn chuckled. “And why is that? She can’t get enough of me? She wouldn’t be the first.”
“No, because she’s having your baby, you thoughtless idiot. How could you not take precautions for a one-night stand? You know better than that.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Finn said, suddenly sounding very awake on the other end of the call. “My baby? The redhead is pregnant? Well, it can’t be mine.”
“Her name is Kat,” Sawyer corrected with an irritated tone. For some reason it grated on him that Finn was starting a family with a woman whose name he couldn’t remember. “And she says it’s yours. Actually, she thought it was mine until I figured out what you did and got her straightened out.”
“No, it’s not my baby,” Finn insisted. “Listen, you may think I’m stupid, but that is one area where I don’t take chances. In all these years, I’ve never even had a scare. Nothing was different about my night with her. She’s mistaken. It’s someone else’s baby.”
Sawyer would’ve liked to believe that his brother took anything seriously, especially something like this. But he’d seen the pained look in those big green eyes. She believed her story, and he wanted to believe her. But belief and trust were two different things. “Are you sure? There were no rips, no slipups?”
“No, I’m telling you, I know how to use one properly.”
“Fine.” There had to be another explanation for why it failed. “Did you bring the condoms or did she?”
There was a pause as Finn lay in bed, likely sorting through his romantic memory bank. “Usually I do, but I remember I didn’t have any on me that night. It was supposed to be a boring party, which is why I pretended to be you, to spice things up. She had the condoms.”
That made Sawyer’s stomach ache with worry. If Finn wasn’t in control of them at all times, anything could happen. “That means she could’ve sabotaged them if she wanted to. Maybe poked holes in one.”
“You think she got pregnant on purpose?”
Sawyer sighed and sat back in the leather wingback chair of the family library. He didn’t know. Their father had raised them to be suspicious of women’s motives. Getting pregnant was an easy way to weasel into the family, and more importantly, into their fortune. “I don’t know. You know her better than I do.”
“Hardly,” Finn scoffed. “We flirted and looked at fish in the aquarium. I don’t really know anything about…”
“Kat,” Sawyer repeated. “Please remember the name of the woman who’s carrying your child.”
“Might be carrying my child,” Finn corrected. “I’m not as convinced as you are.”
“Yeah, well, until we know otherwise, you need to handle this situation as though it were true.”
“Handle it how, Sawyer? I’m in Beijing. I couldn’t even come back for Morgan’s wedding. I can’t just fly home in the middle of constructing the new manufacturing plant and deal with… Kat. Dad placed a lot of trust in me when he gave me this project. I can’t screw it up or I won’t get a second chance.”
“And if Dad finds out that you’ve knocked up some stranger and walked away from the situation, it will be even worse.”
Finn groaned aloud. “Please don’t tell him until I have some time to think on this.”
“You’d better think fast. He’ll find out soon. She made quite a scene at the wedding tonight. Everyone will want to know what it was about.”
“A scene?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer’s cheek still stung from the slap Kat had given him. “When you get back to Charleston, I’ll pass her message along.” He intended to hit his brother harder than Kat ever could.
“Does anyone else know?” Finn asked.
“No. I thought I’d tell you first, since she’s been unsuccessful in telling you personally.”
“Okay, good. Can we keep it that way for a while until I can figure out what I’m going to do?”
“I’ll hold out as long as I can, but I’m not going to lie for you, Finn.”
“That’s fair enough. I’ll give my attorney a call and see what he recommends, then take it from there. Knowing him, he’ll tell me to make a big opening offer, something she can’t refuse, then she’ll be happy and hopefully things won’t escalate. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Fine. But one last thing before you go, Finn.”
“What’s that?”
Sawyer considered his words before he said them, speaking with slow, deliberate intention. “If you ever, ever pretend to be me again, I’m going to mess up your face so badly no one will be able to confuse us. Am I clear?”
There was a long silence before Finn answered. “Crystal.”
The line disconnected and Sawyer slipped his phone into his coat pocket. By the time he stepped out of the library and into the grand foyer, he was surprised to find that the wedding appeared to be over. Once the happy couple left, things must have wrapped up. The guests were gone, the orchestra was breaking down and the caterers were bussing the tables. He glanced around for a blonde in a pale blue gown, but Serena was nowhere to be found.
Looking at his watch, he winced when he realized how late it was. So much for telling Serena he’d be right back. She’d probably given up on him long ago. And for good. For all she knew, he’d abandoned her on the dance floor and run off with some redhead. Serena deserved someone who couldn’t get thoughts of her out of his mind.
Kind of like the feisty and mysterious Kat was on Sawyer’s mind right now.
He strolled into the abandoned ballroom, heading toward the wedding cake, or what was left of it. A few pieces were still sitting on china plates, waiting to be eaten, even as the caterers worked to disassemble and pack up the remaining tiers. He picked up a slice and carried it with him into the kitchen. After brewing a cup of coffee and slowly savoring his prize, he remembered the business card he’d thoughtlessly tucked into his breast coat pocket.
When he fished it out and looked down at it at last, a piece of the fluffy white cake caught in his throat. Sawyer coughed for a moment, fighting to breathe again. Then he picked up the card and reread the words that had surprised him so much the first time.
Katherine McIntyre, Artist.
The District, Floor 2, Studio 210
Suddenly he remembered why her name had sounded familiar. He hadn’t lied when he said they hadn’t met. He’d never laid eyes on her before. But she had emailed him, written him and called his office so many times in the last four months that his assistant had asked for a raise.
Kat was the voice of the District’s resistance group. They were not happy about his plans for the building he’d purchased, and no amount of talking was budging either side of the argument. So far.
It was then that Sawyer was absolutely certain Kat’s appearance at that party three months ago, and possibly in his brother’s bed, was no coincidence.
Kat frowned at the misshaped hunk of wood in front of her. This was not her best work. Far from it. Honestly, it was crap. All she’d managed to produce was crap since the day she’d taken that pregnancy test and got a positive result. The creative zone had eluded her ever since then. She understood now why her parents had each been so protective of their work time and space. It was a fragile ecosystem, susceptible to imbalance when a sticky-fingered child was introduced to the situation.
That didn’t bode well for her future work, but she refused to worry about it now. She would figure it out. And not the way her parents had. Locked office doors and nannies were effective, but not particularly warm and loving for a child who wanted nothing more than her family’s love.
“So…” A familiar voice sounded from the entryway of her studio. “How’d last night go?”
Setting down her chisel, Kat turned to find one of her fellow artists and friends standing there in old overalls, fireproof gloves and a welding helmet. Hilda Levy rented the studio across from Kat, and despite the constant sounds of metal banging and sparks flying, she couldn’t ask for a better friend to work nearby. That said, she also kept a fire extinguisher on hand in case her wood shavings and Hilda’s blazing hot sparks collided.
“It went terribly,” Kat confessed.
Hilda pushed her helmet up, exposing the laugh lines and quirky black cat-eye glasses she was known for. “Well, shit. What happened?”
Kat plopped down onto an old futon she kept in the corner of her studio, and Hilda followed suit. “Well, for one thing, I had the wrong guy.”
Few things seemed to faze Hilda, but this caused her brow to knit in confusion. “What’s that, now?”
“I didn’t have sex with Sawyer Steele.”
The older woman looked over the top of her glasses at Kat. “Then who the hell was it?”
“His twin brother, Finn. He just let me think he was Sawyer, for kicks or something.”
“The plot thickens,” Hilda said, as she leaned in with interest. “So did you talk to Finn?”
“Uh, no. After crashing the wedding and slapping Sawyer, I hightailed it out of there, after I found out the truth. I was so embarrassed by the whole thing, I wouldn’t stay a moment longer. But I did find out that Finn is half a world away at the moment. So that complicates matters.”
“Does it? I know I’m old, but I have heard tell of this fancy internet thing that lets people communicate around the world.”
Kat rolled her eyes at her friend’s deadpan commentary. “You’re not old. And I’ll talk to him. Eventually. Right now I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. I mean, I slept with the wrong guy. The whole reason I went to that stupid award ceremony was to talk to Sawyer. To try and convince him that his plans for the District would be detrimental to the whole art community.”
“Not sleep with him,” Hilda added.
“No, not sleep with him,” Kat agreed. “That was…accidental. I went down in person to put him on the spot, because he wasn’t returning any of my calls and I couldn’t get past his stupid secretary. And it got us nowhere in the end, because not only did we never discuss his plans for the District that night, the man I met wasn’t even the one who bought it.”
“You didn’t bring it up that night?”
Kat thought back to the dark aquarium, the blue tank lights and the dimpled smile that had lulled her into doing something stupid. “I tried. But whenever I did, he’d change the subject. Probably so I wouldn’t figure out he wasn’t Sawyer and had no idea what I was talking about.” She groaned and dropped her face into her hand. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. You were swept away by a charming billionaire after drinking too much champagne. That’s no crime. Personally, I’d love to make a mistake like that. It’s been a long time.”
Kat couldn’t help smiling at her friend. Hilda always had an outlook on life that could pull her out of the dumps when she was wallowing there. She honestly wasn’t sure how she would’ve gotten on after her parents died without Hilda. Without everyone here at the District, actually. Hilda was like her surrogate mother now. Except she gave advice like a girlfriend, not a mom. Since Hilda had never married or had kids of her own, maternal advice wasn’t her strong suit. Or so she said.
“We need to get you some,” Kat said. She was a little relieved to shift the topic off herself, even for a short time.
“Oh, Lordy,” Hilda exclaimed. “That shop has been closed down for so long it would take more than a good dusting to get it up and operational again.”
“I’m pretty sure it all still works. There’s someone out there for you. And when you meet him, you won’t be able to dust off that equipment fast enough.”
“I’m not so sure,” Hilda replied. This time when she spoke the smile in her eyes dimmed slightly. She was lonely. Kat knew it. Her smile and attitude tried to hide the fact, but Kat knew better.
“I’ve seen Zeke watching you work with more than a little appreciation in his gaze.”
Hilda rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Zeke? You’ve got to be kidding me. He just likes my work.”
“Are you sure?” Kat wagged her eyebrows suggestively. The older man was a sculptor with a studio on the other side of their floor. With Kat and Hilda at the back of the building, opposite the stairs and the restrooms, there was no reason for Zeke to be over on their side. But for some reason, he always seemed to be hanging around Hilda’s studio. It couldn’t be just because of her metalwork.
“No,” she argued. “But even if there was more to it, I’m not interested.”
“Why?” Kat challenged. Hilda had spent more than a few working hours over by Zeke’s studio herself.
“Because he’s a widower. His wife has been gone for a year now. Men his age don’t date for love. They date because they can’t function without a woman to cook and clean for them. I’ve avoided being someone’s maid for fifty-eight years and I have no interest in starting now.”
“You don’t know what he wants until you ask.”
Hilda sputtered for a moment before turning to Kat with a disgruntled expression on her face. “Why are we talking about my love life? You’re the one in the midst of a crisis.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Kat pushed herself up from the couch and walked over to the table, where she’d left a bottle of water earlier. She took a sip and shook her head. “His brother said he’d get in touch with Finn, and hopefully, I’ll hear something soon.”
“And when you do hear from him, what exactly are you going to say? Have you decided what you want to do about the whole situation yet?”
Kat frowned. “Yes and no. My baby is my baby, end of story there. But as far as Finn and his role in our lives… I don’t know. I just… My whole life I’ve had this vision of my future and my family. It includes marriage. It always has.”
“From what you’ve said so far, this Finn guy doesn’t really sound like marriage material.”
“He’s not. Absolutely not. But the more I think about it, the more I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t change how I want things to be. I refuse to have my child born a bastard like I was. Regardless of the circumstances.”
“Your parents were together for twenty-five years,” Hilda argued.
“And never married,” Kat added. For whatever reason, they’d never felt it was important to do so. She got the feeling they’d actually avoided it deliberately because of the stickiness of comingling their artistic property and intellectual rights. It was such a silly reason in her eyes.
“So what? It’s not the 1950s anymore. Most of those Karwashians aren’t married and they’re having kids left and right.”
“It’s Kardashian,” Kat corrected, wishing she didn’t know enough about them to notice Hilda mangling their name. “And some of them are married. But it’s not the point.”
“Then tell me what is the point, honey.”
“I want my child to have a family.”
“You hardly know this guy.”
“Maybe it’s better I don’t. Maybe we should just jump in with both feet and see what happens. It’s possible we only stay married a year. Or we barely make it past the baby’s birthday before we call it quits. I can’t tell you how it will end up. But I can’t help but think it’s the right thing to do for my baby.”
“I’m not sure the Steele family is going to be as receptive as you’re wanting them to be. They have more money than the state of South Carolina. Even if Finn agrees to marry you, there’s going to be lawyers involved at every step. Prenuptial agreements. Custody arrangements. It’s not going to be the least bit romantic.”
“I don’t care about romance and I don’t care about the money. I have enough of that. I only want my baby to have what’s his or hers. I don’t need anything other than a father for my child. I want better for my baby than I had.”
“Okay.” Hilda gave a heavy sigh. “If you’re determined, then I wish you the best of luck marrying into that family. As for me,” she said, pushing up from the low futon with a groan, “I’ve got to get some work done. The clock is ticking on our time here and it’s going to be a nightmare hauling all my scrap metal away.”
Kat looked around her own studio, feeling guilty that she could afford to stay when others couldn’t. She’d still have to pack up and move out for a few months while they renovated, but she could come back. “You’re not moving out for good, Hilda. I promise. No matter what happened between Finn and myself, I still intend to pin down that jerk Sawyer Steele, and get him to change his mind about the District. Of course, now he probably thinks I’m just some gold-digging slut and won’t take me seriously.”
Hilda’s gaze shifted over Kat’s shoulder as her eyes widened behind her thick black glasses. She bit at her lip and gently shook her head.
Kat realized she was standing with her back to the entrance of her studio. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
Hilda nodded and Kat groaned aloud.
“I might be a jerk, but if it’s any consolation,” a man’s voice said from over her shoulder, “I don’t think you’re just a gold-digging slut.”
Three (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
Kat turned slowly to look at him and he couldn’t wipe the smug grin from his face. Sawyer’s timing couldn’t have been better if he’d tried. He’d caught her in the middle of a tirade about him, and that was fine, because he had a few choice words for her, too.
Most of those words dissipated from his mind when she was facing him. He thought she had looked beautiful at the wedding, but it didn’t hold a candle to how she looked today. Her copper hair was twisted into a messy bun, with two pencils holding it in place and sawdust, like glitter, sprinkled over the top. Her face was devoid of makeup, unless you could count the smear of white paint on her cheek and a splatter of yellow paint dots across her forehead. She was wearing a tank top and a pair of denim cutoff shorts that fell at the perfect length to highlight her firm, smooth thighs.
He expected her to say something, but she stood motionless, obviously in shock at his timely appearance. Before he could say anything else, the older woman standing nearby opted to excuse herself.
“I’ll let you two talk. I’ve got a piece to finish and five years of crap to pack up.” She looked pointedly at Sawyer as she went by.
He was used to that by now. He was the big, bad real estate developer out to destroy all they held dear. At least, that was what most of the voice mail and phone messages seemed to say. Sawyer wished he could convince them that he was trying to help, but they would never see it from his point of view. They either didn’t know or didn’t care that the building was crumbling around them. The electrical was old and not up to code. The plumbing was putting out rust-colored water and the pressure was almost useless. The freight elevator barely passed inspection. Before long, the District was going to be condemned and they would all lose their precious studio community.
Sawyer intended to fix things. Making those fixes required a few big concessions on the tenants’ parts: one, that they move out temporarily for the work to be done, and two, that their rent increase to cover the costs. When it was all said and done, he wasn’t renovating this place out of the goodness of his heart. He was a businessman. He saw the potential of the District. With some improvements, it could be not only a studio community, but a place where people wanted to come. Customers. Those people would spend money.
It was a win-win in his eyes. He wished he wasn’t the only one who saw that his plan was necessary to save the institution as a whole. Yes, some people might not be able to afford the rent at the new location, even with increased sales. But he’d learned a long time ago that he couldn’t make everyone happy, so he’d stopped trying.
He watched the older woman leave, then turned back to where Kat was standing, red-faced, in front of him. “You know, when we first met, your name sounded familiar, but I didn’t connect the dots. It wasn’t until I looked at your business card.” He fished it from his pocket and held it up. “Then all the pieces came together.”
“What are you doing here, Sawyer?” She wiped self-consciously at her face, but the paint stayed stubbornly in place. “Have your lawyers put together some payoff package to make me go away?”
Sawyer smiled and turned toward the collection of works in progress she had scattered around her studio space. “I’m not sure what the lawyers have in mind. Or if anyone has told them yet. I told Finn he had to deal with all that.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and strolled over to admire an intricate carving of an owl on a nearby table. It was the size of a large watermelon, with big, lifelike eyes and feathers etched so delicately it seemed he could reach out and they would feel real. She was a very talented artist.
“So you’ve told Finn?”
He pulled away from the owl and turned to see Kat biting anxiously at her lower lip. He wanted to run his thumb across that same lip to protect it from her abuses. Instead, he kept his hands deep in his trouser pockets where they belonged. “The minute you left. I couldn’t wake him up fast enough with the good news.”
“He hasn’t reached out to me.”
Sawyer wasn’t surprised. “I wouldn’t let that worry you. I’m sure he wants to get his ducks in a row before he calls. And he has very unruly ducks. They’re basically squirrels on a sugar high. It may take some time.”
“I’m kinda on a set time line here,” Kat said, with one hand protectively covering the slight curve of her belly. “I hope he doesn’t take too long, because like it or not, his baby is going to be here come winter.”
“I’m sure he’ll be in touch. Once the shock wears off. He really wasn’t expecting to hear from you again.”
“Well, considering he didn’t give me the right name, I’m not surprised.”
“Yes. I think that’s the last time he’ll play that game, though. He’s far too fond of his good looks to risk them by pretending to be me again. I do have to wonder, though.”
“Wonder what?”
Sawyer turned and looked at Kat, who was standing a few feet away. He could easily imagine her in some slinky dress, all dolled up to go to the party and hunt down Sawyer Steele. She intended to get her way, no matter what it took. “It made me wonder how the night would’ve ended if it had been me there and not Finn.”
To be honest, the thought had haunted him the last few days. She had come to the party to see him. To talk to him. Perhaps to seduce him. And somehow the spoils went to Finn instead. Just like usual.
“I’m sure it would’ve ended very differently,” Kat said.
“Would it?” he asked with an arched eyebrow.
“I think so. For one thing, you probably wouldn’t have dodged my questions about the District and we could’ve had a real dialogue about it. And for another, you don’t have Finn’s…charisma.”
“Is that what you call it?” Sawyer chuckled. “I typically describe that skill set a little differently. I’m sure that played right into your hands, though.”
Kat narrowed her gaze at him, her nose wrinkling in thought and a line creasing between her auburn eyebrows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, if you went to that party with the intention of doing whatever it took to get your way… Finn made it easier. I would’ve been a more difficult mark.”
“Wait a minute,” Kat said, her hands held out defensively. “Are you suggesting that I deliberately went to the party to seduce you? As though I could be so good in bed that you would just change your mind about the District renovations and do whatever I asked?”
Sawyer shrugged. “I don’t know what you were thinking. It does seem pretty convenient, though, the more I think about it. Nothing you were doing was yielding any results. If angry calls and letters didn’t work, sympathetic news articles didn’t work, protests didn’t work…why not try a little honey instead of vinegar?”
“I did not go to that party with the intention of giving you any…honey! I went to that event to talk to you, because you wouldn’t return any of my calls. It was the only way I could think of to pin you on the spot and make you listen to my side of the situation.”
“And yet somehow you ended up sleeping with the man who claimed to be me. Sounds like you’re quite the overachiever.”
The steam was practically coming out of Kat’s ears, and he found he quite liked her when she was angry. The flushed cheeks, the bright eyes, pursed lips…he imagined it wouldn’t be much different from how she’d look in the throes of passion. He could just envision her auburn hair across the pillowcase, her sharp nails digging into the flesh of his back…
“Of all the arrogant, insulting things you could say!” Kat sputtered for a moment, at a loss for words before she shook her head. “I was a damned fool to go down there that night. A fool to think that you could be reasoned with. All you rich people care about is your bottom line. The people here are just walking, talking rent payments to you. You don’t give a damn about what this place means to the tenants here. You don’t care about the community that’s grown here over the years, or how you’re going to destroy it to make a buck!”
Her anger suddenly wasn’t so attractive anymore and she was starting to rub Sawyer the wrong way. She wanted to know why he was doing what he was doing? Well, he was going to tell her. He closed the gap between them and spoke with cold, quiet anger, mere inches from her face. “And you don’t seem to care that the rent I’m currently collecting barely covers the utilities for this place. There certainly isn’t enough left over to do any repairs and it’s falling down around you.”
Sawyer pointed to the peeling plaster overhead. “That’s going to come crashing down on you sooner or later. The sewer lines are going to fail and flood the ground floor. That wood lathe of yours could overtax the electrical circuits at any moment and set the building on fire. Who is going to fix that? Who is going to pay for all that? The previous owner just ignored the place and cashed the checks. Sure, rent was cheap, but there’s a cost, and the building has paid the price for all of you. It’s your turn to pay up, and no amount of sweet-talking or seduction is going to change that.”
Kat was at a loss for words. It didn’t happen very often, but Sawyer seemed to be able to render her mute. Especially when he stood this close to her. Yes, his words were icy cold with restrained anger and frustration, but she could feel the heat radiating off his body. His words were just static noise in the background, with her pounding heart drowning out everything but its sensual rhythm. She knew she should take a step back, reclaim her personal space and counter his argument with more pointed words, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Her body wanted to move nearer and close the gap between them.
It was ridiculous. Foolish. But she couldn’t help but be confused whenever she was around Sawyer. She was haunted by memories of a night in a downtown hotel room…memories of a man who looked like Sawyer. A man she’d thought was Sawyer. Somehow it felt like the most natural thing in the world to reach out and touch him like she had before. Her libido couldn’t tell the difference between the two identical men.
But her brain knew. And it knew that was all a lie. Those memories, that man… It wasn’t Sawyer she remembered. And no matter how familiar those dark eyes or that dimpled smile, it wasn’t the same person. This man was a stranger. A stranger who intended to take away everything she held dear to make a buck. Sure, he wanted to make necessary improvements, but the fancy, downtown art scene he had in mind was a far cry from what the tenants truly needed. The necessary repairs weren’t the changes driving the rent out of the realm of possibility for most of the artists. It was the coffee shop, the concert venue, the paved parking lot and the high-end landscaping with dancing fountains.
It was a great response, exactly what she wanted to say, but the argument eluded her when Sawyer gazed at her this way. It wasn’t how Finn had looked at her. And yet it was the way she’d always wanted a man to look at her. Like he wanted to consume her, body and soul.
Even in his anger, Sawyer seemed almost as though he was on the verge of kissing her. A part of her wished he would, even if just to end this fight.
Okay, not just to end the fight.
Kat’s gaze met Sawyer’s. In the quiet stillness between them, they seemed to be even closer now. She could feel his breath softly brushing over her skin. Something had changed in the silence and it seemed that he noticed it, as well. It was almost an electricity.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked.
“What do you want me to—”
That’s when his lips pressed into hers and a warm tingle shot down her spine. His heat spread quickly through her veins, making her aware of every feverish beat of her heart. Kat didn’t pull away from Sawyer. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. Her body leaned into him instead, craving more even though it was the last thing she needed right now.
His arms slipped around her waist and pulled her tight against the hard wall of his body. It was then, with every inch of her curves molded against his hard angles, that Kat knew for certain appearances were deceiving. For one thing, Sawyer might look like Finn, but he certainly didn’t kiss like him. His twin might have the reputation of being a playboy, but Sawyer had obviously gone for quality over quantity where women were concerned. As he deepened the kiss, his tongue slid leisurely along her bottom lip as though he had all the time in the world to study every inch of her. It elicited a groan of pleasure deep in Kat’s throat—a sound she didn’t even know she could make until that moment.
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Andrea Laurence
They put their rivalry to bed for just one night…with unexpected consequences! Kat McIntyre should have known that sleeping with her nemesis Sawyer Steele was a bad idea. Her unexpected pregnancy proves it. Not only that, Kat's discovered that the cagey billionaire isn't who she thought he is!
Temptation has a hidden price…
They put their rivalry to bed for just one night.
Now they’re in for a surprise.
Struggling artist Kat McIntyre should have known that sleeping with her nemesis Sawyer Steele was a bad idea. Her unexpected pregnancy proves it. Not only that, Kat’s discovered that the cagey billionaire isn’t who she thought he is. Can she trust Sawyer to do the right thing for her and the baby…without falling for him all over again?
ANDREA LAURENCE is an award-winning contemporary author who has been a lover of books and writing stories since she learned to read. A dedicated West Coast girl transplanted into the Deep South, she’s constantly trying to develop a taste for sweet tea and grits while caring for her boyfriend and an old bulldog. You can contact Andrea at her website: www.andrealaurence.com (http://www.andrealaurence.com)
Also by Andrea Laurence (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
Millionaires of Manhattan
What Lies Beneath
More Than He Expected
His Lover’s Little Secret
The CEO’s Unexpected Child
Little Secrets: Secretly Pregnant
Rags to Riches Baby
One Unforgettable Weekend
The Boyfriend Arrangement
Switched!
From Mistake to Millions
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
From Seduction to Secrets
Andrea Laurence
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-0-008-90409-8
FROM SEDUCTION TO SECRETS
© 2020 Andrea Laurence
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover (#ubf60a554-7c57-547d-80f4-cb2f5e390e68)
Back Cover Text (#u7af7c2d1-9f46-5712-ab31-ae24edf19c42)
About the Author (#u268db646-61af-5dcf-b48a-79ade9159bda)
Booklist (#uec796dc6-8873-5615-8054-ab6ee32c889c)
Title Page (#u0ac0a16e-cda7-5152-a472-1e393ddefe93)
Copyright (#u814d3846-977a-57bc-ae6d-f52b18e94b07)
Note to Readers
One (#uf6bc40f5-5c0d-5928-b822-c66945bdc948)
Two (#u457f87bc-3a74-564e-9fb8-c8b24731a604)
Three (#u9f98c455-82c4-5823-b42f-f8f0dc48cd88)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
As weddings go, it was a nice enough one. Sawyer Steele hadn’t been to many, but knowing his parents, it was probably an extravagant and expensive affair. Perhaps the greatest wedding ever held in Charleston. He wouldn’t know the difference. It wasn’t exactly Sawyer’s thing. But his baby sister, Morgan, was celebrating her big day, so of course he was there to smile for pictures and eat cake. Not everyone could get shipped off to work a deal in China and miss it like Finn did.
It was probably strategy on Trevor Steele’s part to have his most troublesome son out of the country for the event. Sawyer’s twin was the one most likely to cause the bulk of their father’s headaches. He could count on Sawyer and Tom, the oldest son, to attend and behave. As such, Sawyer had had his tuxedo dry-cleaned, his dark blond curls cut short and found a suitable date to bring with him. That was all that was really required of him tonight. Behave. Don’t make a scene. Make sure Morgan is happy. Easy enough.
Now the event was starting to wind down. They’d eaten, said a million toasts, had all the requisite dances and cut into the towering ivory-and-gold confection his sister had chosen for her cake. A few more dances and they should be waving sparklers and seeing his sister and her new husband off to start their lives together. He was good with that. The bow tie he was wearing felt like it was getting tighter around his throat with each passing hour.
Glancing over, he noticed his date, Serena—a woman he’d met a few weeks earlier at a conference—eyeballing the people on the dance floor. He decided it was time to take her for a spin at last. Sawyer wasn’t a dancer by any stretch, but he could manage a simple waltz for formal occasions. All the Steele children had been forced through junior cotillion to pick up some basic skills like that. They lived in the South, after all, and etiquette was paramount in the social circles he was forced into as one of the Steeles.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked Serena. The buxom blonde had chosen a low-cut, pale blue sheath dress that gave off some Cinderella vibes with her golden hair pulled up into a bun. She looked very pretty. At the same time, he just couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for her. She didn’t have a very memorable personality. She actually reminded him of one of his mother’s beautiful, priceless antiques. Lovely to look at, but mostly decorative.
His brother Finn preferred a sports car type girlfriend. Sexy, high performance and exciting to drive, so to speak. Those women were as high maintenance as the cars and likely to get Finn in trouble before too long.
Sawyer’s ex, Mira, had been a Ferrari if ever he saw one. After that, he’d decided that maybe a roomy, luxury SUV was more his speed. Beautiful, adventurous, flexible, and if you took good care of it, it would reward your efforts for years to come.
But Serena looked so much like Mira that he instinctively wanted to call her by his ex’s name, and had to stop himself each time. They looked so similar that his feelings about how things had ended with Mira may have been souring how he felt about Serena. Or maybe Serena just wasn’t as much fun on the road as she appeared in the dealership.
“Sure, I’d love to dance,” she said with a smile.
Oh well. There was nothing he would or could do about it tonight. He took her hand and led her to the illuminated dance floor, where at least twenty other couples were gliding along to a romantic old Sinatra song. He wrapped his arm around her waist and they started to sway slowly to the music.
It was then, with her pressed close against him, that he realized taking a woman to a wedding on a third date was way too soon. He had to bring a plus one, but it made things feel more serious than they were. They’d had drinks and dinner so far, and if this wedding hadn’t come up, they might’ve gone to a movie. Maybe not even that, so he certainly didn’t need her getting overly romantic notions when he didn’t plan on a fourth date.
His gaze fell on a woman entering the ballroom. Even from this distance, she instantly captured his attention with fair skin that stood out against her black cocktail dress and bright auburn hair. She looked around the room, searching for someone. And then their eyes met. In an instant, it was like Sawyer had been hit directly in the gut. He’d never felt anything like that before. It was powerful. It made him forget all about the woman in his arms. At least for a moment.
Then he noticed the angry look on the newcomer’s face and wondered if it wasn’t attraction he was feeling so much as a woman’s fury.
She moved quickly through the crowd toward him. Sawyer was frozen in place on the dance floor—unable to pull away from the hold the redhead had on him even though his brain was telling him to escape.
Then, at last, she arrived. “You skeevy little prick!”
The angry shout cut through the sounds in the ballroom like a knife. The dancers paused, and even the orchestra was startled into an awkward silence. Everyone turned to see the stunning redhead standing at the edge of the dance floor. Now she was only a few feet away from Sawyer, with her eyes still focused directly on him.
He’d thought for a moment that maybe he was in someone else’s line of fire. He looked over his shoulder, but no one was there. Was she really talking to him? Shouting at him? That wasn’t possible.
“Who is that woman, Sawyer?” his date asked.
That was a really good question. He’d never seen her before in his life. He certainly would’ve remembered a woman with hair like waves of fire and skin as flawless and pale as a porcelain doll. Even as angry as she was, he wanted to know more about her. Sawyer shook his head. “I have no idea. Can I help you, miss?”
“Can you help me?” she repeated bitterly. “Yes. You can hold still.” The angry woman walked up to him and slapped him hard across the face.
He was too stunned to respond for a moment. He’d never been slapped before. Somehow, being hit by a stranger made it that much worse. She hadn’t hurt him, not really. It just stung, but he could feel the emotion behind the slap. She’d wanted to hurt him, and for good reason. He just didn’t know what that was.
There was a collective gasp as the whole ballroom seemed equally aghast, then a murmur as everyone started discussing what was going on. Out of the corner of his eye, Sawyer could see a couple brawny security guards his father had hired for the party making their way across the room to deal with the situation. Given that the last two events at the house had ended in a kidnapping and a bombing, respectively, it was a good move to have a little extra help in that regard.
“I’m going to have to ask you to come with us, ma’am,” one of the guards, wearing a black suit and an earpiece, said.
The redhead hesitated for only a moment before she spun on her heel and marched out of the ballroom with the two guards right behind her. She’d done what she’d come here to do, apparently.
Although he knew he shouldn’t abandon his date to chase down the stranger, he had to go after the woman and figure out what was going on. “I’ll be right back.”
Serena nodded, and he jogged out of the ballroom and into the entry hall to see if he could find where security had taken the woman. Sawyer glanced around, catching a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye as the men escorted the woman out the front door.
He chased her across the marble entry and pushed past the guards as they came back inside without her. At the top of the front stairs, he looked down and saw the woman waiting for a parking attendant to bring her car.
“I told you to keep it close!” she shouted at one of the men his parents had hired to manage all the cars at the wedding. “This wasn’t going to take long. Especially with those goons seeing me out after less than a minute.” She nervously glanced over her shoulder, and that was when she spied Sawyer standing at the top of the stairs.
“Do you normally wear black to weddings?” he asked. Asking why she’d slapped him seemed like jumping ahead in a conversation he wasn’t ready to wrap up so quickly. “Isn’t that against the rules or something?”
She sighed and crossed her hands over her chest. “It was the only nice dress I had that still fit. No offense to your sister. Anyway, don’t mind me,” she said. “Security has made it clear I’m not welcome, so I’m leaving. Go on back to your hot blonde. You’ve obviously moved on.”
Sawyer took a few steps down the stairs to get closer, but out of arm’s reach of the woman. He wasn’t getting hit twice in one night. “I’m sorry, there’s been some kind of mistake, I think. Do I know you?” The stinging welt on his cheek suggested that he did, but he was certain he’d never laid eyes on her before. She was stunning, even in the plain strapless black dress and simple makeup she was wearing. Her red hair shimmered in the moonlight, and fat curls cascaded over her bare shoulders.
No, he would remember meeting her.
“Are you serious?” She rolled her eyes, which were a dark shade of green like antique emeralds, and shook her head. “You ignored me for weeks after we got together, then when I finally track you down, you act like you have no idea what I’m even talking about. What? Are you going to tell me your evil doppelgänger slept with me, not you?”
Sawyer opened his mouth to argue, then stopped cold. Now it all started to make sense. Why hadn’t he realized this sooner? Women slapped his brother all the time. Or at least they should. It might help things. “I think you’re actually looking for my twin brother, not me.”
“That’s an even better excuse,” she said.
“It’s not an excuse. Ask anyone in the party and they’ll tell you I have an identical twin brother. Most people can’t tell us apart.”
She narrowed her gaze at him for a moment. “So you’re saying you’re not Sawyer Steele?”
Sawyer stopped as he opened his mouth to answer. It was one thing for her to confuse him with his brother, but this was different. “No, I am Sawyer Steele. But I think you’re looking for my twin, Finn Steele.”
The woman turned to him with her hands curled up in fists at her sides. “Are you implying that I’m some kind of slut?”
His eyes grew large with surprise. Sawyer was usually pretty good with people, very diplomatic at handling bad situations, but he couldn’t say the right thing to this woman for some reason. Her hair was as fiery as her temper, it seemed. “What? No, of course not.”
“You just told me I don’t know the name of a man I had sex with,” she said, pointing at him accusingly.
“That’s not what I meant.” He held out his hands in surrender and slowly came down the stairs to stand on the brick patio where she was waiting. He hoped that she would take a minute to breathe and calm down. “People get my brother and me mixed up all the time, is all. I’m telling you I’ve never seen you in my life, so that’s the only explanation that makes sense. What is your name?”
“Katherine McIntyre.” She said it with an insulted tone, as though he should know her name. “I go by Kat, if that helps jog your memory.”
Sawyer frowned. To be honest, the name did sound familiar, but he was certain he’d never seen her before, much less had sex with her. He glanced down over the tightly fitting black dress, which clung to her curves and stopped just above the knee to highlight her shapely legs. He was decidedly disappointed that she’d spent the night with his brother and not him. He wasn’t entirely sure that he had a type, but Kat set off all the right bells and whistles. She was a bright red Lamborghini if he’d ever seen one.
When his face didn’t light up with recognition, she continued speaking. “We met at the Charleston’s Best awards at the aquarium about three months ago. We had a lot of champagne, we talked, and when we got tired of looking at fish, we got a hotel room and got…better acquainted.” Kat looked at him with a pointed expression.
Sawyer didn’t remember going to an event at the aquarium. Actually, he was certain he hadn’t, although he remembered something was being held there a while back. That was it—he hadn’t been feeling great that day. He’d gotten a stomach bug, but he was supposed to attend as the Steele family representative to accept their award while his parents were wrapped up in finalizing wedding details. He hadn’t gone. In fact, he’d bribed his twin brother to go to the event in his place. Finn hadn’t wanted to attend, either. Sawyer had been forced to give him his new Jet Ski in exchange for going to the party.
Damn it to hell.
The realization of what really happened washed over him like a wave. Sawyer brought a hand to his face and rubbed furiously at it in frustration. It had been years since Finn had done something like this. Maybe even since college. Back then, he’d liked to meet girls at bars and give them Sawyer’s name instead of his own. He was never sure if his brother just did it for a laugh, or to keep the girls from tracking him down, but Sawyer had earned quite a reputation on campus without doing a single thing to get it. But now they were in their thirties. Thirty-three, to be exact. Way too old for this kind of childish bullshit.
“I think I know what the problem is.”
“The sex was so amazing you blocked it from your memory because you knew you’d never experience anything that good again?”
His jaw dropped open for a moment, then he shook his head. He’d never been so jealous of Finn in his whole life. “Uh, no. I was supposed to attend that event, but my brother went in my place. Apparently he didn’t bother to tell anyone he wasn’t me.”
“He was wearing a name tag that said Sawyer Steele,” she argued.
Sawyer wasn’t surprised. “Yeah. Knowing Finn, he just went with it and pretended to be me so our father wouldn’t know I bailed on the party.”
Kat stopped for a moment, her mind visibly racing to process what he was telling her. “And when he kissed me? When he got a hotel room? Wouldn’t that have been a good time to mention that he wasn’t really you?”
“A perfect time, and I have no idea why he didn’t. Listen, I’m really sorry about all this. My brother is…the trickster of the family. If he were here right now, I’d drag him outside and make him apologize for lying, but he’s actually in Beijing for business. He’ll be there a few weeks more, but I’ll be sure to pass along your message, slap included, when he gets back.”
The redhead’s bravado seemed to deflate as she listened to him talk. With her anger no longer aimed at Sawyer, she seemed smaller somehow. Almost petite compared to a moment ago. “So you’re saying that the man I met was actually Finn Steele? I can’t believe, after everything that happened, that he wouldn’t tell me his real name.”
Sawyer could believe it. Masquerading as his brother gave Finn free license to do what he wanted without consequence. “If you don’t mind me asking, was it just a one-night thing between the two of you?”
She looked at him with conflict in her eyes. “Yes. That was the plan, at least.”
That was his brother’s style. Love ’em and leave ’em, regardless of what name he used. “Then I doubt he would bother to correct you if you thought he was me. In the end, what would it matter? It’s just a one-night stand.”
Kat’s expression softened for a moment as she glanced down at the ground, her eyes hidden beneath her thick auburn lashes. “It does matter, Sawyer. That’s why I’ve crashed this party even though it’s obvious he doesn’t want to see me again. It matters because I’m pregnant with his child.”
Katherine McIntyre had never seen a man’s face blanch to a ghostly white so quickly. Even at night, with the patio light behind him, she could see the blood drain from his face and his attractive tan fade. If he hadn’t seemed so steady on his feet until now, she might worry that he was about to pass out.
She wasn’t sure why he was so upset about the news. He wasn’t the father. He wasn’t pregnant. He hadn’t just found out he’d slept with a lying cheat. She was the one having a terrible night. Sure, he’d been slapped by mistake and would have a lot of explaining to do when he saw his date again, but this was hardly his problem.
The valet brought her car around at last. “I’m sorry. It took a few times for it to turn over,” he said.
Kat glanced to where the valet was waiting and then back at the dumbstruck Steele heir. “I’d better go.”
He reached out to her, almost appearing to surprise himself as he did it. “Wait. Come back inside and we can talk some more.”
She was tempted to say yes. There was a kindness in his eyes that beckoned her to climb the steps and chat with him. It was different than what she’d seen in those familiar eyes before, so his story seemed to hold up. While identical in appearance, the Steele twins were very different men. But talking made no sense when Sawyer wasn’t the one she needed to talk to. At least about the baby.
A white Rolls Royce started up the driveway and the front doors of the house opened. People started pouring out onto the stairs. It must be time for the bride and groom to make their exit. Kat wasn’t going to stay around for that. Even if her old Jeep wasn’t in the way.
“I can’t,” she said. “But Saw—I mean Finn—should know how to reach me when he gets back to the States. Please have him call me.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a business card. She’d given Finn one before, but it had likely ended up in the trash the next morning.
Sawyer glanced over his shoulder at all the people coming toward them and his jaw flexed with what looked like irritation as he reached to take the card from her hand. He sighed and nodded as he glanced down at it. “I’ll make sure he calls you before he gets back. I’m actually going to phone and wake him up right now. He deserves it.”
Kat nodded and walked around her Jeep to get inside. She told herself not to look in the rearview mirror as she pulled away, but she did it anyway. She watched Sawyer Steele as his gaze followed her into the distance. He was still watching as she turned out of the driveway and the big house disappeared from sight.
With a groan, she wrapped her fingers tightly around the steering wheel and pressed down the gas pedal. This was not how she had envisioned this night playing out. She’d just wanted to pin Sawyer—Finn—down to talk, the same as that first night. Pregnancy was not what she had been going for back then. Far from it. But now that it was done, she wanted to do the right thing and tell the father. If he wasn’t going to return her calls, she had to find another way to reach him.
The idea was to locate him, pull him aside to talk, and take things from there. Slapping the father of her child hadn’t been a part of her plan, but when she saw him dancing with that beautiful blonde, she couldn’t help it. Between morning sickness and pure exhaustion, she’d been uncomfortable for the last few weeks. He could be uncomfortable for a moment or two himself.
Then she’d found out she’d hit the wrong guy and everything just unraveled. China. Her baby’s father was in China and that was the least of her troubles. Her baby’s father was also a “trickster” in his own brother’s words, one who had no problem seducing a woman using his brother’s name. That was not the kind of man she wanted in her child’s life, but it was too late now. It was done and she would have to find a way to deal with the aftermath.
Kat slowly pulled into her narrow driveway and turned off the Jeep’s engine. She looked over at the historic Charleston-style house she called home. Located in the heart of the Peninsula, it had always been enough for her. The twelve-hundred-square-foot structure was the perfect space for a free-spirited artist. It had plenty of light, the traditional piazza patio allowed her to work outside sometimes and, best of all…the place was paid for.
She climbed from her Jeep and went inside. Her little abode was no Steele mansion, but what was? To be honest, she really hadn’t understood what kind of family she’d gotten involved with until she pulled into that driveway and got her first view of the house. The Corinthian columns, the whitewashed stone, the lane of old live oak trees dripping Spanish moss on the long drive to the house…it was like something out of a Southern gothic novel. In this day and age it was the kind of place that was usually a museum, or rented out for weddings and events. But no, the Steeles actually lived there.
Kat wasn’t a stranger to money. Both her parents had been successful, her father a famous mystery writer and her mother a celebrated painter. They’d done well for themselves, and when they were both killed in a car accident, their estates and life insurance policies had supported Kat through art school and allowed her to be an artist herself without worrying about starving or working a day job. Yes, she needed a new car. And yes, the house probably needed a new coat of paint, but she didn’t want for much.
She tossed her purse onto the couch beside a box of woodworking tools and wood scraps. It would go with her Monday morning when she went down to the District to work. The old warehouse-turned-artist-community was where she spent most of her days. She rented a studio in the building even though she had room at the house to work. Woodworking was messy, but being there was more about community and exposure than anything else. If she wasn’t working there or selling pieces to folks strolling by, she was hanging out with the other artists, who had become her family since her parents died.
Honestly, losing that place would be like losing her parents all over again. And that was what she was facing. That was why she’d gotten all dressed up and gone downtown to that stupid awards ceremony the night she’d met Finn. Because she was going to lose it all to the wheels of progress and commerce.
Four months ago, the owner of the District passed away and his children sold the building to a developer. The place would be gutted and renovated. It would remain an artist community—at least that’s what the letters they all received said—but it would be more about selling than creating, by necessity. The rent would be tripling to cover the costs of the renovations and bring the place more in line with the new owner’s vision.
Kat had the money to pay the rent at the new building, but most artists weren’t so lucky. When the District reopened as a fancy, funky downtown venue for people to shop and be seen, most of the people she knew and loved would be long gone.
Walking up the stairs to her bedroom, she unzipped her dress and let it slip to the floor on the landing. Kat stepped out of it and turned sideways to admire her slightly rounding tummy in the hallway mirror. She’d just started to show in the last week or so. Her normally flat belly had begun to curve out, making her favorite jeans uncomfortably tight at the waistband. She’d told Sawyer the truth when she said this was the only dress she had that fit. Most formals weren’t made of particularly forgiving fabrics.
Life didn’t always turn out the way she expected it to. This baby was evidence enough of that. Kat had gone to that award ceremony to try and talk some sense into the District’s new owner, Sawyer Steele. Instead, she was having his brother’s baby.
Two (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“What?”
As always, Finn’s voice didn’t betray even the slightest bit of guilt for what he might have done. There was only an edge of sleepiness, which was to be expected given the hour in China. At least where Finn was concerned. The average Beijing citizen was likely preparing to eat lunch by now, but his brother had still been asleep after a late Saturday night of high jinks that probably involved beautiful Chinese women and too much baiju to drink.
“Sawyer, you know I’m half asleep and half hungover. Why don’t you just tell me what you think I’ve done wrong instead of making me guess. Then we can move straight on to you yelling, and I can take some ibuprofen and go back to sleep.”
“You’re not going back to sleep, Finn. And I don’t think I know what you did, I’m certain of it. And it’s a big one this time.”
“I doubt that. You’re prone to overreaction, like Father.”
Sawyer swallowed an insult. He wasn’t going to let his brother bait him. Finn knew how much he hated being compared to their father. Yes, they shared an affinity for keeping the peace and avoiding drama, but that was about it. “You know, when I gave you that Jet Ski for going in my place to the Charleston’s Best awards, it was because I wanted the night to go smoothly.”
“As I recall it did go smoothly,” Finn replied. “I picked up a nice plaque for the company awards case, Dad didn’t figure out you skipped, and I got a new Jet Ski. Win-win.”
“Yes, well, that was because everyone at the party thought you were me. I thought we were past the childish identical-twin games, Finn.”
There was a moment of silence on the line, but Sawyer knew it wasn’t out of guilt. Knowing Finn, he was trying to figure out how to weasel out of getting into trouble.
“Okay, who told on me? There’s no way you could know that I let everyone think I was you,” he said at last. “It’s been months since that party and there hasn’t been a peep about it since then.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true. Apparently the redhead you seduced that night while you were pretending to be me has been trying to get in touch with you. Me. Us.”
Finn groaned and audibly flopped back against the pillows. “The redhead. Yeah. That was a hell of a night, but I wasn’t really interested in seeing her again. She’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but she’s not my usual type. She’s too artsy and academic. She’s more your type, I think.”
That was true enough, but Sawyer wasn’t interested in walking into the hot mess his brother had left behind. “Well, to be honest, I don’t think she was wanting to see you again, either, but she doesn’t have a choice.”
Finn chuckled. “And why is that? She can’t get enough of me? She wouldn’t be the first.”
“No, because she’s having your baby, you thoughtless idiot. How could you not take precautions for a one-night stand? You know better than that.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Finn said, suddenly sounding very awake on the other end of the call. “My baby? The redhead is pregnant? Well, it can’t be mine.”
“Her name is Kat,” Sawyer corrected with an irritated tone. For some reason it grated on him that Finn was starting a family with a woman whose name he couldn’t remember. “And she says it’s yours. Actually, she thought it was mine until I figured out what you did and got her straightened out.”
“No, it’s not my baby,” Finn insisted. “Listen, you may think I’m stupid, but that is one area where I don’t take chances. In all these years, I’ve never even had a scare. Nothing was different about my night with her. She’s mistaken. It’s someone else’s baby.”
Sawyer would’ve liked to believe that his brother took anything seriously, especially something like this. But he’d seen the pained look in those big green eyes. She believed her story, and he wanted to believe her. But belief and trust were two different things. “Are you sure? There were no rips, no slipups?”
“No, I’m telling you, I know how to use one properly.”
“Fine.” There had to be another explanation for why it failed. “Did you bring the condoms or did she?”
There was a pause as Finn lay in bed, likely sorting through his romantic memory bank. “Usually I do, but I remember I didn’t have any on me that night. It was supposed to be a boring party, which is why I pretended to be you, to spice things up. She had the condoms.”
That made Sawyer’s stomach ache with worry. If Finn wasn’t in control of them at all times, anything could happen. “That means she could’ve sabotaged them if she wanted to. Maybe poked holes in one.”
“You think she got pregnant on purpose?”
Sawyer sighed and sat back in the leather wingback chair of the family library. He didn’t know. Their father had raised them to be suspicious of women’s motives. Getting pregnant was an easy way to weasel into the family, and more importantly, into their fortune. “I don’t know. You know her better than I do.”
“Hardly,” Finn scoffed. “We flirted and looked at fish in the aquarium. I don’t really know anything about…”
“Kat,” Sawyer repeated. “Please remember the name of the woman who’s carrying your child.”
“Might be carrying my child,” Finn corrected. “I’m not as convinced as you are.”
“Yeah, well, until we know otherwise, you need to handle this situation as though it were true.”
“Handle it how, Sawyer? I’m in Beijing. I couldn’t even come back for Morgan’s wedding. I can’t just fly home in the middle of constructing the new manufacturing plant and deal with… Kat. Dad placed a lot of trust in me when he gave me this project. I can’t screw it up or I won’t get a second chance.”
“And if Dad finds out that you’ve knocked up some stranger and walked away from the situation, it will be even worse.”
Finn groaned aloud. “Please don’t tell him until I have some time to think on this.”
“You’d better think fast. He’ll find out soon. She made quite a scene at the wedding tonight. Everyone will want to know what it was about.”
“A scene?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer’s cheek still stung from the slap Kat had given him. “When you get back to Charleston, I’ll pass her message along.” He intended to hit his brother harder than Kat ever could.
“Does anyone else know?” Finn asked.
“No. I thought I’d tell you first, since she’s been unsuccessful in telling you personally.”
“Okay, good. Can we keep it that way for a while until I can figure out what I’m going to do?”
“I’ll hold out as long as I can, but I’m not going to lie for you, Finn.”
“That’s fair enough. I’ll give my attorney a call and see what he recommends, then take it from there. Knowing him, he’ll tell me to make a big opening offer, something she can’t refuse, then she’ll be happy and hopefully things won’t escalate. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Fine. But one last thing before you go, Finn.”
“What’s that?”
Sawyer considered his words before he said them, speaking with slow, deliberate intention. “If you ever, ever pretend to be me again, I’m going to mess up your face so badly no one will be able to confuse us. Am I clear?”
There was a long silence before Finn answered. “Crystal.”
The line disconnected and Sawyer slipped his phone into his coat pocket. By the time he stepped out of the library and into the grand foyer, he was surprised to find that the wedding appeared to be over. Once the happy couple left, things must have wrapped up. The guests were gone, the orchestra was breaking down and the caterers were bussing the tables. He glanced around for a blonde in a pale blue gown, but Serena was nowhere to be found.
Looking at his watch, he winced when he realized how late it was. So much for telling Serena he’d be right back. She’d probably given up on him long ago. And for good. For all she knew, he’d abandoned her on the dance floor and run off with some redhead. Serena deserved someone who couldn’t get thoughts of her out of his mind.
Kind of like the feisty and mysterious Kat was on Sawyer’s mind right now.
He strolled into the abandoned ballroom, heading toward the wedding cake, or what was left of it. A few pieces were still sitting on china plates, waiting to be eaten, even as the caterers worked to disassemble and pack up the remaining tiers. He picked up a slice and carried it with him into the kitchen. After brewing a cup of coffee and slowly savoring his prize, he remembered the business card he’d thoughtlessly tucked into his breast coat pocket.
When he fished it out and looked down at it at last, a piece of the fluffy white cake caught in his throat. Sawyer coughed for a moment, fighting to breathe again. Then he picked up the card and reread the words that had surprised him so much the first time.
Katherine McIntyre, Artist.
The District, Floor 2, Studio 210
Suddenly he remembered why her name had sounded familiar. He hadn’t lied when he said they hadn’t met. He’d never laid eyes on her before. But she had emailed him, written him and called his office so many times in the last four months that his assistant had asked for a raise.
Kat was the voice of the District’s resistance group. They were not happy about his plans for the building he’d purchased, and no amount of talking was budging either side of the argument. So far.
It was then that Sawyer was absolutely certain Kat’s appearance at that party three months ago, and possibly in his brother’s bed, was no coincidence.
Kat frowned at the misshaped hunk of wood in front of her. This was not her best work. Far from it. Honestly, it was crap. All she’d managed to produce was crap since the day she’d taken that pregnancy test and got a positive result. The creative zone had eluded her ever since then. She understood now why her parents had each been so protective of their work time and space. It was a fragile ecosystem, susceptible to imbalance when a sticky-fingered child was introduced to the situation.
That didn’t bode well for her future work, but she refused to worry about it now. She would figure it out. And not the way her parents had. Locked office doors and nannies were effective, but not particularly warm and loving for a child who wanted nothing more than her family’s love.
“So…” A familiar voice sounded from the entryway of her studio. “How’d last night go?”
Setting down her chisel, Kat turned to find one of her fellow artists and friends standing there in old overalls, fireproof gloves and a welding helmet. Hilda Levy rented the studio across from Kat, and despite the constant sounds of metal banging and sparks flying, she couldn’t ask for a better friend to work nearby. That said, she also kept a fire extinguisher on hand in case her wood shavings and Hilda’s blazing hot sparks collided.
“It went terribly,” Kat confessed.
Hilda pushed her helmet up, exposing the laugh lines and quirky black cat-eye glasses she was known for. “Well, shit. What happened?”
Kat plopped down onto an old futon she kept in the corner of her studio, and Hilda followed suit. “Well, for one thing, I had the wrong guy.”
Few things seemed to faze Hilda, but this caused her brow to knit in confusion. “What’s that, now?”
“I didn’t have sex with Sawyer Steele.”
The older woman looked over the top of her glasses at Kat. “Then who the hell was it?”
“His twin brother, Finn. He just let me think he was Sawyer, for kicks or something.”
“The plot thickens,” Hilda said, as she leaned in with interest. “So did you talk to Finn?”
“Uh, no. After crashing the wedding and slapping Sawyer, I hightailed it out of there, after I found out the truth. I was so embarrassed by the whole thing, I wouldn’t stay a moment longer. But I did find out that Finn is half a world away at the moment. So that complicates matters.”
“Does it? I know I’m old, but I have heard tell of this fancy internet thing that lets people communicate around the world.”
Kat rolled her eyes at her friend’s deadpan commentary. “You’re not old. And I’ll talk to him. Eventually. Right now I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. I mean, I slept with the wrong guy. The whole reason I went to that stupid award ceremony was to talk to Sawyer. To try and convince him that his plans for the District would be detrimental to the whole art community.”
“Not sleep with him,” Hilda added.
“No, not sleep with him,” Kat agreed. “That was…accidental. I went down in person to put him on the spot, because he wasn’t returning any of my calls and I couldn’t get past his stupid secretary. And it got us nowhere in the end, because not only did we never discuss his plans for the District that night, the man I met wasn’t even the one who bought it.”
“You didn’t bring it up that night?”
Kat thought back to the dark aquarium, the blue tank lights and the dimpled smile that had lulled her into doing something stupid. “I tried. But whenever I did, he’d change the subject. Probably so I wouldn’t figure out he wasn’t Sawyer and had no idea what I was talking about.” She groaned and dropped her face into her hand. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. You were swept away by a charming billionaire after drinking too much champagne. That’s no crime. Personally, I’d love to make a mistake like that. It’s been a long time.”
Kat couldn’t help smiling at her friend. Hilda always had an outlook on life that could pull her out of the dumps when she was wallowing there. She honestly wasn’t sure how she would’ve gotten on after her parents died without Hilda. Without everyone here at the District, actually. Hilda was like her surrogate mother now. Except she gave advice like a girlfriend, not a mom. Since Hilda had never married or had kids of her own, maternal advice wasn’t her strong suit. Or so she said.
“We need to get you some,” Kat said. She was a little relieved to shift the topic off herself, even for a short time.
“Oh, Lordy,” Hilda exclaimed. “That shop has been closed down for so long it would take more than a good dusting to get it up and operational again.”
“I’m pretty sure it all still works. There’s someone out there for you. And when you meet him, you won’t be able to dust off that equipment fast enough.”
“I’m not so sure,” Hilda replied. This time when she spoke the smile in her eyes dimmed slightly. She was lonely. Kat knew it. Her smile and attitude tried to hide the fact, but Kat knew better.
“I’ve seen Zeke watching you work with more than a little appreciation in his gaze.”
Hilda rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Zeke? You’ve got to be kidding me. He just likes my work.”
“Are you sure?” Kat wagged her eyebrows suggestively. The older man was a sculptor with a studio on the other side of their floor. With Kat and Hilda at the back of the building, opposite the stairs and the restrooms, there was no reason for Zeke to be over on their side. But for some reason, he always seemed to be hanging around Hilda’s studio. It couldn’t be just because of her metalwork.
“No,” she argued. “But even if there was more to it, I’m not interested.”
“Why?” Kat challenged. Hilda had spent more than a few working hours over by Zeke’s studio herself.
“Because he’s a widower. His wife has been gone for a year now. Men his age don’t date for love. They date because they can’t function without a woman to cook and clean for them. I’ve avoided being someone’s maid for fifty-eight years and I have no interest in starting now.”
“You don’t know what he wants until you ask.”
Hilda sputtered for a moment before turning to Kat with a disgruntled expression on her face. “Why are we talking about my love life? You’re the one in the midst of a crisis.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Kat pushed herself up from the couch and walked over to the table, where she’d left a bottle of water earlier. She took a sip and shook her head. “His brother said he’d get in touch with Finn, and hopefully, I’ll hear something soon.”
“And when you do hear from him, what exactly are you going to say? Have you decided what you want to do about the whole situation yet?”
Kat frowned. “Yes and no. My baby is my baby, end of story there. But as far as Finn and his role in our lives… I don’t know. I just… My whole life I’ve had this vision of my future and my family. It includes marriage. It always has.”
“From what you’ve said so far, this Finn guy doesn’t really sound like marriage material.”
“He’s not. Absolutely not. But the more I think about it, the more I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t change how I want things to be. I refuse to have my child born a bastard like I was. Regardless of the circumstances.”
“Your parents were together for twenty-five years,” Hilda argued.
“And never married,” Kat added. For whatever reason, they’d never felt it was important to do so. She got the feeling they’d actually avoided it deliberately because of the stickiness of comingling their artistic property and intellectual rights. It was such a silly reason in her eyes.
“So what? It’s not the 1950s anymore. Most of those Karwashians aren’t married and they’re having kids left and right.”
“It’s Kardashian,” Kat corrected, wishing she didn’t know enough about them to notice Hilda mangling their name. “And some of them are married. But it’s not the point.”
“Then tell me what is the point, honey.”
“I want my child to have a family.”
“You hardly know this guy.”
“Maybe it’s better I don’t. Maybe we should just jump in with both feet and see what happens. It’s possible we only stay married a year. Or we barely make it past the baby’s birthday before we call it quits. I can’t tell you how it will end up. But I can’t help but think it’s the right thing to do for my baby.”
“I’m not sure the Steele family is going to be as receptive as you’re wanting them to be. They have more money than the state of South Carolina. Even if Finn agrees to marry you, there’s going to be lawyers involved at every step. Prenuptial agreements. Custody arrangements. It’s not going to be the least bit romantic.”
“I don’t care about romance and I don’t care about the money. I have enough of that. I only want my baby to have what’s his or hers. I don’t need anything other than a father for my child. I want better for my baby than I had.”
“Okay.” Hilda gave a heavy sigh. “If you’re determined, then I wish you the best of luck marrying into that family. As for me,” she said, pushing up from the low futon with a groan, “I’ve got to get some work done. The clock is ticking on our time here and it’s going to be a nightmare hauling all my scrap metal away.”
Kat looked around her own studio, feeling guilty that she could afford to stay when others couldn’t. She’d still have to pack up and move out for a few months while they renovated, but she could come back. “You’re not moving out for good, Hilda. I promise. No matter what happened between Finn and myself, I still intend to pin down that jerk Sawyer Steele, and get him to change his mind about the District. Of course, now he probably thinks I’m just some gold-digging slut and won’t take me seriously.”
Hilda’s gaze shifted over Kat’s shoulder as her eyes widened behind her thick black glasses. She bit at her lip and gently shook her head.
Kat realized she was standing with her back to the entrance of her studio. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
Hilda nodded and Kat groaned aloud.
“I might be a jerk, but if it’s any consolation,” a man’s voice said from over her shoulder, “I don’t think you’re just a gold-digging slut.”
Three (#u0751974e-7ad6-5f69-b7fa-2145ffebc595)
Kat turned slowly to look at him and he couldn’t wipe the smug grin from his face. Sawyer’s timing couldn’t have been better if he’d tried. He’d caught her in the middle of a tirade about him, and that was fine, because he had a few choice words for her, too.
Most of those words dissipated from his mind when she was facing him. He thought she had looked beautiful at the wedding, but it didn’t hold a candle to how she looked today. Her copper hair was twisted into a messy bun, with two pencils holding it in place and sawdust, like glitter, sprinkled over the top. Her face was devoid of makeup, unless you could count the smear of white paint on her cheek and a splatter of yellow paint dots across her forehead. She was wearing a tank top and a pair of denim cutoff shorts that fell at the perfect length to highlight her firm, smooth thighs.
He expected her to say something, but she stood motionless, obviously in shock at his timely appearance. Before he could say anything else, the older woman standing nearby opted to excuse herself.
“I’ll let you two talk. I’ve got a piece to finish and five years of crap to pack up.” She looked pointedly at Sawyer as she went by.
He was used to that by now. He was the big, bad real estate developer out to destroy all they held dear. At least, that was what most of the voice mail and phone messages seemed to say. Sawyer wished he could convince them that he was trying to help, but they would never see it from his point of view. They either didn’t know or didn’t care that the building was crumbling around them. The electrical was old and not up to code. The plumbing was putting out rust-colored water and the pressure was almost useless. The freight elevator barely passed inspection. Before long, the District was going to be condemned and they would all lose their precious studio community.
Sawyer intended to fix things. Making those fixes required a few big concessions on the tenants’ parts: one, that they move out temporarily for the work to be done, and two, that their rent increase to cover the costs. When it was all said and done, he wasn’t renovating this place out of the goodness of his heart. He was a businessman. He saw the potential of the District. With some improvements, it could be not only a studio community, but a place where people wanted to come. Customers. Those people would spend money.
It was a win-win in his eyes. He wished he wasn’t the only one who saw that his plan was necessary to save the institution as a whole. Yes, some people might not be able to afford the rent at the new location, even with increased sales. But he’d learned a long time ago that he couldn’t make everyone happy, so he’d stopped trying.
He watched the older woman leave, then turned back to where Kat was standing, red-faced, in front of him. “You know, when we first met, your name sounded familiar, but I didn’t connect the dots. It wasn’t until I looked at your business card.” He fished it from his pocket and held it up. “Then all the pieces came together.”
“What are you doing here, Sawyer?” She wiped self-consciously at her face, but the paint stayed stubbornly in place. “Have your lawyers put together some payoff package to make me go away?”
Sawyer smiled and turned toward the collection of works in progress she had scattered around her studio space. “I’m not sure what the lawyers have in mind. Or if anyone has told them yet. I told Finn he had to deal with all that.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and strolled over to admire an intricate carving of an owl on a nearby table. It was the size of a large watermelon, with big, lifelike eyes and feathers etched so delicately it seemed he could reach out and they would feel real. She was a very talented artist.
“So you’ve told Finn?”
He pulled away from the owl and turned to see Kat biting anxiously at her lower lip. He wanted to run his thumb across that same lip to protect it from her abuses. Instead, he kept his hands deep in his trouser pockets where they belonged. “The minute you left. I couldn’t wake him up fast enough with the good news.”
“He hasn’t reached out to me.”
Sawyer wasn’t surprised. “I wouldn’t let that worry you. I’m sure he wants to get his ducks in a row before he calls. And he has very unruly ducks. They’re basically squirrels on a sugar high. It may take some time.”
“I’m kinda on a set time line here,” Kat said, with one hand protectively covering the slight curve of her belly. “I hope he doesn’t take too long, because like it or not, his baby is going to be here come winter.”
“I’m sure he’ll be in touch. Once the shock wears off. He really wasn’t expecting to hear from you again.”
“Well, considering he didn’t give me the right name, I’m not surprised.”
“Yes. I think that’s the last time he’ll play that game, though. He’s far too fond of his good looks to risk them by pretending to be me again. I do have to wonder, though.”
“Wonder what?”
Sawyer turned and looked at Kat, who was standing a few feet away. He could easily imagine her in some slinky dress, all dolled up to go to the party and hunt down Sawyer Steele. She intended to get her way, no matter what it took. “It made me wonder how the night would’ve ended if it had been me there and not Finn.”
To be honest, the thought had haunted him the last few days. She had come to the party to see him. To talk to him. Perhaps to seduce him. And somehow the spoils went to Finn instead. Just like usual.
“I’m sure it would’ve ended very differently,” Kat said.
“Would it?” he asked with an arched eyebrow.
“I think so. For one thing, you probably wouldn’t have dodged my questions about the District and we could’ve had a real dialogue about it. And for another, you don’t have Finn’s…charisma.”
“Is that what you call it?” Sawyer chuckled. “I typically describe that skill set a little differently. I’m sure that played right into your hands, though.”
Kat narrowed her gaze at him, her nose wrinkling in thought and a line creasing between her auburn eyebrows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, if you went to that party with the intention of doing whatever it took to get your way… Finn made it easier. I would’ve been a more difficult mark.”
“Wait a minute,” Kat said, her hands held out defensively. “Are you suggesting that I deliberately went to the party to seduce you? As though I could be so good in bed that you would just change your mind about the District renovations and do whatever I asked?”
Sawyer shrugged. “I don’t know what you were thinking. It does seem pretty convenient, though, the more I think about it. Nothing you were doing was yielding any results. If angry calls and letters didn’t work, sympathetic news articles didn’t work, protests didn’t work…why not try a little honey instead of vinegar?”
“I did not go to that party with the intention of giving you any…honey! I went to that event to talk to you, because you wouldn’t return any of my calls. It was the only way I could think of to pin you on the spot and make you listen to my side of the situation.”
“And yet somehow you ended up sleeping with the man who claimed to be me. Sounds like you’re quite the overachiever.”
The steam was practically coming out of Kat’s ears, and he found he quite liked her when she was angry. The flushed cheeks, the bright eyes, pursed lips…he imagined it wouldn’t be much different from how she’d look in the throes of passion. He could just envision her auburn hair across the pillowcase, her sharp nails digging into the flesh of his back…
“Of all the arrogant, insulting things you could say!” Kat sputtered for a moment, at a loss for words before she shook her head. “I was a damned fool to go down there that night. A fool to think that you could be reasoned with. All you rich people care about is your bottom line. The people here are just walking, talking rent payments to you. You don’t give a damn about what this place means to the tenants here. You don’t care about the community that’s grown here over the years, or how you’re going to destroy it to make a buck!”
Her anger suddenly wasn’t so attractive anymore and she was starting to rub Sawyer the wrong way. She wanted to know why he was doing what he was doing? Well, he was going to tell her. He closed the gap between them and spoke with cold, quiet anger, mere inches from her face. “And you don’t seem to care that the rent I’m currently collecting barely covers the utilities for this place. There certainly isn’t enough left over to do any repairs and it’s falling down around you.”
Sawyer pointed to the peeling plaster overhead. “That’s going to come crashing down on you sooner or later. The sewer lines are going to fail and flood the ground floor. That wood lathe of yours could overtax the electrical circuits at any moment and set the building on fire. Who is going to fix that? Who is going to pay for all that? The previous owner just ignored the place and cashed the checks. Sure, rent was cheap, but there’s a cost, and the building has paid the price for all of you. It’s your turn to pay up, and no amount of sweet-talking or seduction is going to change that.”
Kat was at a loss for words. It didn’t happen very often, but Sawyer seemed to be able to render her mute. Especially when he stood this close to her. Yes, his words were icy cold with restrained anger and frustration, but she could feel the heat radiating off his body. His words were just static noise in the background, with her pounding heart drowning out everything but its sensual rhythm. She knew she should take a step back, reclaim her personal space and counter his argument with more pointed words, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Her body wanted to move nearer and close the gap between them.
It was ridiculous. Foolish. But she couldn’t help but be confused whenever she was around Sawyer. She was haunted by memories of a night in a downtown hotel room…memories of a man who looked like Sawyer. A man she’d thought was Sawyer. Somehow it felt like the most natural thing in the world to reach out and touch him like she had before. Her libido couldn’t tell the difference between the two identical men.
But her brain knew. And it knew that was all a lie. Those memories, that man… It wasn’t Sawyer she remembered. And no matter how familiar those dark eyes or that dimpled smile, it wasn’t the same person. This man was a stranger. A stranger who intended to take away everything she held dear to make a buck. Sure, he wanted to make necessary improvements, but the fancy, downtown art scene he had in mind was a far cry from what the tenants truly needed. The necessary repairs weren’t the changes driving the rent out of the realm of possibility for most of the artists. It was the coffee shop, the concert venue, the paved parking lot and the high-end landscaping with dancing fountains.
It was a great response, exactly what she wanted to say, but the argument eluded her when Sawyer gazed at her this way. It wasn’t how Finn had looked at her. And yet it was the way she’d always wanted a man to look at her. Like he wanted to consume her, body and soul.
Even in his anger, Sawyer seemed almost as though he was on the verge of kissing her. A part of her wished he would, even if just to end this fight.
Okay, not just to end the fight.
Kat’s gaze met Sawyer’s. In the quiet stillness between them, they seemed to be even closer now. She could feel his breath softly brushing over her skin. Something had changed in the silence and it seemed that he noticed it, as well. It was almost an electricity.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked.
“What do you want me to—”
That’s when his lips pressed into hers and a warm tingle shot down her spine. His heat spread quickly through her veins, making her aware of every feverish beat of her heart. Kat didn’t pull away from Sawyer. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. Her body leaned into him instead, craving more even though it was the last thing she needed right now.
His arms slipped around her waist and pulled her tight against the hard wall of his body. It was then, with every inch of her curves molded against his hard angles, that Kat knew for certain appearances were deceiving. For one thing, Sawyer might look like Finn, but he certainly didn’t kiss like him. His twin might have the reputation of being a playboy, but Sawyer had obviously gone for quality over quantity where women were concerned. As he deepened the kiss, his tongue slid leisurely along her bottom lip as though he had all the time in the world to study every inch of her. It elicited a groan of pleasure deep in Kat’s throat—a sound she didn’t even know she could make until that moment.
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Andrea Laurence
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 23.04.2024
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О книге: They put their rivalry to bed for just one night…with unexpected consequences! Kat McIntyre should have known that sleeping with her nemesis Sawyer Steele was a bad idea. Her unexpected pregnancy proves it. Not only that, Kat′s discovered that the cagey billionaire isn′t who she thought he is!