The Billionaire's Bridal Bid (10 page)

She didn’t give him a chance to respond, but marched down the drive and climbed into her car, clenching the steering wheel for a second before shoving the key in the ignition and starting the car. All the while, painfully aware of Matt standing on her porch, hands propped on his hips, eyes narrowed against the bright afternoon sun as he watched her pull away from the curb.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she navigated the streets of Palo Verde, turning out onto the highway and heading toward the new neighborhood on the edge of town where Kyle and his parents lived in a sprawling McMansion.

They were almost there before Kyle spoke, his voice small, his shoulders hunched. “He didn’t know about me.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Why hadn’t she considered that possibility?

Why hadn’t she just come out and demanded to know why he hadn’t acknowledged Kyle? Then at least it would have been out in the open. It would have been a shock, but it wouldn’t have seemed like she’d knowingly deceived him.

“Do you think…” Kyle said in stuttering starts. “Now that he knows, he might…I don’t know…want to…” Kyle let the sentence drift off, his hopes too delicate to put into words.

“I don’t know, honey.”

Everyone in town knew who Kyle’s father was. It had been obvious from about the time Kyle turned one, maybe earlier. Even Kyle knew it. But the Ballards never acknowledged him in any way. She alone knew how hurt Kyle was by their treatment.

He didn’t dare mention to his parents that he longed for something from his father’s side of the family. She didn’t dare get Kyle’s hopes up now.

“Matt doesn’t have any kids in his life,” she explained. “He might not know what to do with a kid, even if he wanted…” The excuse sounded lame, even to her. And she couldn’t ignore her own part in this.

When she pulled up in front of Kyle’s house, she turned in the seat to face him. “Matt isn’t like the rest of the Ballards. He may want to have a relationship with you. But he might not. And even if he does, it might not be for a while. He just found out about you and he’s probably mad no one told him before now.”

Kyle stared straight ahead, his jaw set at a stubborn angle and his fingers clenching the legs of his jeans. “They should have told him.”

“Yeah, they should have. But I should have also. I should have made sure he knew.”

Kyle swiveled his head and looked at her, his gaze free of accusation. “Why didn’t you?”

But she couldn’t be so easy on herself. And
that
was the million-dollar question. How could she explain to an eleven-year-old what she barely understood herself?

For so long she’d resented Matt. She’d believed all the
things the media said about him. That he was a playboy. That he moved quickly from one relationship to the next. Maybe it had been easier that way. The man the media portrayed him as was easy to dismiss. It was all too easy to imagine
that
man not caring about a nephew he’d never met. It made it easier for her to pretend she hadn’t missed out.

“You have to understand something, Kyle. If he doesn’t want to see you, it may have more to do with how he feels about me and his family than how he feels about you.”

After a long moment Kyle nodded and climbed out of the car. Then, almost as an afterthought, he leaned back down and looked through the window. “Aunt Claire, I don’t want you to think that you’re not enough.”

Her throat closed off as she nodded. “I know, hon.”

He’d said the same thing to her about his adoptive parents when he first suspected that Vic Ballard was his father. He’d come to ask her about it, explaining that he couldn’t ask his parents, because he didn’t want them to think they weren’t enough.

She sat in her car, watching Kyle walk up the path and let himself into the house as long as she dared. Shelby’s Prius sat in the driveway so Claire knew he wasn’t going into an empty house. As much as he wished he was acknowledged by his father’s family, he had two parents who loved him. That was a lot more than some people had. He’d be just fine, with or without Matt Ballard in his life. She just wished she could say the same for herself.

Matt was still waiting on her porch when she drove up to her house. Which was exactly what she expected, after all. She certainly didn’t expect him to leave after
meeting the kid who was his nephew for the first time.

She let him in through her front door. As soon as the door closed behind Matt, he grabbed her roughly by the arms.

“Why didn't you tell me I had a son?”

“W
hat?” The word came out as a high-pitched squeal.

Matt had a son? What was he talking about?

“That boy is my son.”

“Kyle?” she asked, trying to squirm out of Matt’s grasp.
His
son?

“Don’t lie to me,” Matt ordered, giving her a shake. His eyes blazed with anger.

“I’m not. Kyle isn’t yours!” she protested.

For a second Matt’s hands tightened on her arms, then abruptly he released her, pushing her away from him. He turned away from her to scrub a hand over his close-cropped hair. When he spoke his voice was a low growl. “He has the Ballard eyes. And
your
chin.
Your
mouth.”

Suddenly, Matt’s meaning became clear.

“You think
I’m
Kyle’s mother?”

“There’s no point in denying it. The boy told me himself he’s adopted.”

“Kyle is adopted, but he isn’t mine,” she insisted. But before she could get any more of an explanation out, Matt whirled back around.

“He’s obviously your son. Our son.” He took a step toward her and then seemed to catch himself. He stopped in his tracks and shoved his hands deep in his pockets as if he were afraid to let himself touch her. “If you discovered you were pregnant after you left me, then you damn well should have told me before putting him up for adoption.”

A bubble of panic rose in her throat. “
That’s
what you’ve been imagining happened?”

“Do you deny it?”

“Yes, I do! Jeez.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. “I can’t believe
that’s
the conclusion you came to. You meet Kyle, realize he happens to look a little bit like you. And then in the fifteen minutes it took me to drive Kyle to his house, you get ‘Claire had a kid and put him up for adoption without telling me.’”

“It wasn’t that big a leap. Obviously, you’ve forgotten how smart I am.”

Completely flummoxed, she sputtered in indignation, unable to voice a denial vehement enough to convey her shock.

He must have taken her silence as assent, because he continued, his tone becoming more and more sharp. “Boy, that first morning when you said we weren’t ready for the big talk yet, you weren’t kidding, were you?”

“I certainly didn’t mean this. That’s for sure!” Anger propelled her to her feet.

“Are you saying you were never going to tell about Kyle?”

“What is it you want me say, Matt?”

“I want you to admit that Kyle is my son.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I admit no such thing.” She sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm her rattled nerves so she could think clearly.

But how could he think she’d done that?

“It didn’t happen that way,” she tried to explain.

“You must have known before you even left me that you were pregnant. You panicked. You knew then you didn’t really love me, so you did what you always do. You ran.”

Shocked recoiled through her. “Jesus, Matt. What kind of person do you think I am?”

He turned away as if unable to stand the sight of her. He stalked to the window and stood there, forearm braced against the window frame and stared out into the street. He didn’t answer her question, but bit out each word of his response. “Just admit the truth.”

Suddenly, her own anger boiled up past her shock and disbelief. Past her panic and confusion. She followed him to the window, stood beside him. She wanted to pound on his shoulder. Make him turn back to face her. Demand that he hear her out. “How could you think, even for a
minute,
that I’m capable of what you’re describing?”

He didn’t move except to turn his head to meet her gaze. His eyes were cold and distant. In his mind, he’d already convicted her. And that was what really pissed her off. He was so eager to believe badly of her. She had left him in college to save his future. She’d sacrificed herself for him. But instead of understanding any of that, instead of even giving her a chance to explain, he’d judged and convicted her on such cloudy evidence.

It was inconceivable to her that he thought she was
capable of such lies and deception. The idea that she might have put their child up for adoption was offensive.

It was a misunderstanding she could clear up with a few simple words, if he’d only let her get them out. But there was no way she was going to grovel and justify herself to him now.

“I’ve seen the kid, Claire. He’s the perfect blend of you and me.”

“And that’s enough for you?” she asked with a sneer. “You’ve seen the proof with your own eyes and judged me guilty?”

“How could you think you could get away with this lie? Do you really think your protestations of innocence are going to sway me?” He turned to her again, taking her chin into his hand as if to prevent her from looking away. She didn’t even flinch. “You think just because I was stupid enough to fall in love with you once that I’d fall for your lies again? Or maybe you thought just because we slept together I’d fallen in love with you already.” He let go abruptly. “Well, guess what honey, I’ll never be that stupid again.”

“Well, you’re acting pretty stupid, so maybe now’s not the time to brag about your intelligence.”

He ignored her retort. “Here’s what I don’t get. Why are you still arguing with me about this? You have to know that in this day and age I can have a judge subpoena a DNA sample from Kyle. I’ll have proof by the end of the week that he’s my son.”

“And what exactly are you going to do with this ‘proof’?” She made air quotes around the word
proof.
“Are you going to take Kyle away from the only family he’s ever known?” Surprise flickered across his face. Obviously, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. “You don’t
want a kid. Even if a court would—” She didn’t finish the sentence. There was no point. It would never come to that. Because if Matt did do a DNA test, he’d learn he wasn’t the father. “What good could possibly come of this?”

“I just want to hear you admit the truth.”

“Well, then, we’re at an impasse. What you really want is to hear me groveling and I refuse to do that. You get your subpoena and your DNA test and then we’ll talk. Or better yet, you walk out of here and calm down. Sit down and do a little math, genius. Come back when you’re ready to talk. Until then, get out of my house.”

“Why are you back already? After yesterday, I thought you were determined to see every property in the county,” Jonathon asked, looking up from his laptop as soon as Matt walked into the office.

Matt dropped his own computer bag on the table that served as his desk, suppressing a complaint. He wished he could avoid this conversation. He didn’t want to talk about what had happened in Palo Verde. He didn’t want to talk about Claire. What he wanted was to get back to work, where things made sense and problems were solvable.

Instead of answering Jonathon’s question, he asked one of his own. “Wendy didn’t talk to you?”

He’d called her from the car on the way home last night. Which was his other reason for coming in this morning. FMJ had resources that he alone did not. By himself, he wouldn’t have the first idea of how to go about finding out if Kyle was his kid. However, Wendy could ferret out military secrets if she put her mind to it. He’d told her last night to find out everything there
was to know about Kyle Walstead. And, to find Matt the name of the best family law lawyer in the state.

In answer to Matt’s question, Jonathon closed his laptop and rose from his seat to pour himself a cup of coffee. “She had her nose buried in work when I got in at six. She said something about you needing a lawyer. What exactly did you do in Palo Verde that you need a lawyer now? You didn’t finally kill your brother, did you?”

“Very funny,” Matt grumbled, only because he knew Jonathon was trying to rib an answer out of him. He didn’t want Jonathon to know just exactly how unfunny this situation was. Instead of giving Jonathon more details, he concentrated on unpacking his computer bag, pulling out the pair of laptops he usually traveled with and hooking them up to the twenty-four-inch monitors he kept on his desk.

He clearly didn’t do a decent job of hiding his emotions, because as Jonathon sat back down, he asked, “So how did it go in—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then you didn’t find any properties that looked—”

“No. I didn’t. And unless you and Ford want to buy out my share of FMJ, I suggest you never again talk about opening a branch there.”

Jonathon pause, the mug halfway to his mouth. “Oookay.”

Matt sank to his desk chair. Great. That was just super smooth. Jonathon would never guess something was wrong now. Matt knew he should probably apologize. But instead, he popped open his laptop and downloaded the mail that had come in overnight, including the revised manufacturing specs on the new wind turbines.
Which only made him think of Claire and the way she’d straddled him in that limo. Dammit.

He closed the specs, wishing he could do something that gave him more physical satisfaction than clicking a mouse. After a few minutes, he heard Jonathon open his own laptop and get back to work. Unfortunately, Matt’s concentration was shot and he didn’t make much progress. Finally, he stood, thinking maybe he’d be better off just walking over to the other building and seeing the thing in person. After all, he couldn’t avoid the lab forever. Just because it was now drenched with memories of Claire, that didn’t mean he couldn’t face it. He now had plenty of memories of her at his house, too, and it wasn’t like he was going to sell the place. No one had to know he couldn’t sleep there anymore.

Before he reached the office door, Wendy knocked and opened it just wide enough to stick her head in. Acting unusually timid, she extended a manila folder. She looked at Jonathon, then ducked her head to whisper. “Here’s that information you asked for. It’s everything I could find quickly. If you need more, there’s a guy in my building who’s—” she sent a furtive look in Jonathon’s direction “—a P.I. He specializes in this sort of thing. I can give him a call.”

Obviously, she was trying to be discreet. Which he appreciated, but it still made him feel like a jerk. Ford and Jonathon had known everything about him since he was twelve. And it wasn’t like he was going to keep this from them forever.

So as soon as Wendy had shut the door behind her, Matt crossed to stand a few feet from Jonathon’s desk. He flipped open the folder and stared at the first page.

A copy of Kyle Walstead’s birth certificate. Matt gave it only the briefest glance. In the spot where a father’s
name should have been listed, a single word was typed:
unknown.

Matt flipped the page over before giving in to the urge to crumple it. The next several pages were obviously from the weekly paper in Palo Verde. There were several pictures of Kyle, one a close-up of his face accompanying an article about the battery-recycling program his Boy Scout troop had started. A couple of others were group shots with articles about his soccer team.

Matt felt a pang of regret so deep in his chest for a second he wondered if he was having a heart attack. Boy Scouts and soccer. Christ. Did it get any more all-American than that?

Matt looked at the pictures again. In the picture about the recycling program, Kyle looked much as he had the other day when Matt had met him on the porch: serious and thoughtful. Older than his eleven years. In the soccer picture, he was smiling, his arm around the shoulder of another kid, the group of boys holding a trophy between them.

That was the photo that gave Matt pause. What was he really doing here? Why even bother with the family lawyer? Was he really going to take the Walsteads to court? Or even Claire for that matter? Was he going to rip this kid’s family apart all so he could have some sort of clumsy justice?

He was angry, yeah, but he couldn’t imagine doing that.

Disgusted with the situation and with himself, he tossed the open file down on Jonathon’s desk. “This is why I left Palo Verde early.” He tapped his finger on the close-up picture of Kyle. “This is why I don’t ever want to go back there again.”

Jonathon slowly turned the folder around and stared at the picture. “Jesus, he looks just like you.”

Matt scrubbed a hand over his hair and then met Jonathon’s gaze. “Not just like me. He has Claire’s chin.”

Jonathon’s gaze darted back to the photo. He let out a low whistle of disbelief. “She has a son she never told you about? Your son?”

“She put him up for adoption. So technically, Steven and Shelby Walstead have my son.”

“Holy—” Jonathon cut off the expletive before it left his mouth. He shook his head. “I would not have pegged her for the type to do something like that.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

Unable to bear the glimmer of pity he saw on Jonathon’s face, he turned away and walked over to the bank of windows along the wall. He propped his forearms against the glass and stared out sightlessly at the view of Palo Alto. The sprawl of office buildings that slowly bled into residential neighborhoods. The familiar red tile roofs of Stanford in the distance.

Normally, he loved this view. It made him feel like a god. How many men had accomplished all he had? How many men had made this much money by the age of thirty-three? Okay, yeah, so Ford and Jonathon both had. But they’d done it together. How many other men could say that?

His father, who had lorded over him his entire life, hadn’t. And his brother certainly hadn’t, either. Throughout his childhood, they’d treated him like a second-class citizen. His father had berated him. His brother had teased him. He’d been the scrawny geek. The object of ridicule.

Now that he owned one third of a billion-dollar company, no one made fun of him.

He didn’t think about his relationship with his family very often. He wasn’t prone to bouts of maudlin self-indulgence. But today, he couldn’t help thinking how his relationship with his father had affected his relationship with Claire. When she’d left him, he’d stupidly—or perhaps pathetically—assumed it was his defect rather than hers. It had been all too believable to him that she didn’t find him exciting enough. That he was too dull for her tastes. Why wouldn’t she find him boring when his whole family did?