The Beaumont Children. Sarah M. Anderson

you’re not going to marry me only to dump me and take my son.”

      “You need me,” he said in a quiet voice.

      Percy let out a wail of impatience. Leona heard a spoon clatter to the ground.

      “I need child support,” she corrected him. “I need a job. You have yet to prove to me that I need you.”

      And with that, she turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Nine

      It was hard to focus on bathing Percy with Leona’s words ringing in Byron’s ears. Wasn’t offering to marry her enough reassurance that he wasn’t going to disappear and take the baby? Marriage was... Okay, maybe it wasn’t a permanent legal bond, but it was not something to be taken lightly. Once they were legally wed, it wasn’t as though he could just walk off with the boy. Didn’t she see that?

      Besides, where were the reassurances he needed? The promises that she wouldn’t lie to him again? Or that she wouldn’t sic her father and his horde of lawyers upon Byron and his family? The reassurance that she wasn’t just waiting until he let his guard down all the way to hit him where it would hurt the most—Percy? She’d already lied to him twice. Even if that had been a series of massive misunderstandings, it didn’t change the fact that she had lied to him for months and months. How could he trust her, really?

      Of course, he didn’t get far in these thoughts because Percy slapped at his bathwater, splashing it into Byron’s face. The baby made a trilling noise as a toy boat floated past him. There was more splashing. Byron’s shirt was getting soaked and Percy was not getting any cleaner.

      Just then, Percy twisted to reach the boat and Byron lost his grip. “Whoa!” he cried as Percy’s head dunked under the water.

      Immediately, Leona was next to him, pulling Percy upright. “I’ll hold him,” she said and amazingly, she didn’t sound panicked. “You wash.”

      “I’m sorry,” Byron said as Percy sputtered and coughed. He let out a disgruntled cry but stopped when Leona nudged the boat back in front of him.

      “It’s okay,” she said softly and Byron was surprised to see she was smiling. “It’ll get easier.”

      “If you say so,” he said, scrubbing Percy’s legs as fast as he could.

      The argument—well, it wasn’t quite an argument, but it’d certainly been more than a discussion—hung in the air between them. As they finished Percy’s bath and got him ready for bed, Byron thought about what Leona had said. That she hadn’t told him who her family was because she didn’t want to be a Harper.

      Did he believe her?

      For the past year, he’d been operating under the assumption that she’d misled him on purpose, that she’d intentionally withheld the information so she could use her family name against him at the right time. And hadn’t the right time been that awful night?

      But maybe...maybe that’s not what had happened.

      He ran through his memories again—of Rory calling him out and, when Byron mouthed off, firing him. Of taking a swing at Rory because, damn it, he’d put up with enough of that man’s crap over the year and a half he’d worked there and that was not how it was supposed to end.

      And then Bruce—the pastry chef Byron had counted as a friend—had grabbed him from behind and physically hauled him out of the restaurant and thrown him down on the sidewalk, just in time to see Leona getting into Leon Harper’s chauffeured vehicle.

      Except...had she? Or had Leon shoved his daughter into the car? It’d been dark and rainy and Byron had thought...

      Had it been part of the lie? Or was she now telling the truth? Was she being truthful about the lies she’d already told? Was that even a thing?

      This was what she did to him. She spun his head around and around until he didn’t know which way was up anymore.

      While Leona nursed Percy, Byron furiously washed and dried the dishes, trying to remember exactly what Leon Harper had done in the minute before he’d gotten up into Byron’s stunned face and taunted him.

      That’s when Leona came back into the kitchen.

      “He go down okay?” Byron asked, because it seemed like the thing a parent would ask about.

      “I gave him something for his ears. Hopefully he’ll sleep for at least a couple of hours.”

      “Hopefully?” A couple of hours did not seem like enough.

      Leona gave him a tired smile. “That’s why we were looking at tubes.”

      “Yeah, I guess.” He dried another dish. “How many ear infections has he had?”

      “I’ve lost count. May gets up with him sometimes, but he usually just wants to nurse.”

      Byron’s gaze dropped to her chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra and he could see the outline of her nipples poking through the thin fabric of her shirt. Lust hit him hard and low as his mind chose exactly that moment to remember the kiss from earlier this evening and the one from last night.

      “A-hem,” she said, crossing her arms.

      “Sorry,” he replied, focusing all his attention back on the pots and pans.

      Leona sighed. “Are you sure we should live together?”

      He tensed. Damn it, this was going from bad to worse. “As opposed to what?”

      “As opposed to a regular custody agreement where we each have Percy for a week or two and then trade, with child support and the like.” She paused. “It might be better that way.”

      “Better for who? Not better for Percy—not when your father can take him. No way.”

      She grabbed a towel and one of the few remaining pots. “Byron, I don’t want this to be hard.”

      “Hard?” He snorted. “I hate to burst your bubble, but nothing about this is easy.”

      “Fine,” she snapped. “All I’m saying is that you’re obviously still mad at me and I don’t want Percy to grow up in a household where his parents are constantly sniping at each other. That doesn’t make me the bad guy here.”

      “I didn’t say you were the bad guy. And I’m not mad at you.” He was, however, getting pretty pissed at himself. He couldn’t be doing a worse job fighting for what he wanted if he tried. His father was probably rolling over in his grave.

      If Hardwick Beaumont were still here, he’d slap Byron on the shoulder and say, “Stop screwing around. She’s just a woman, for God’s sake. You’re a Beaumont. Act like one.”

      Except Byron didn’t want to be a Beaumont if it meant bending Leona and Percy to his will just because he could. He didn’t want to rule by force and fear.

      She glared at him. “No, but you don’t have to say the words, Byron. Your actions speak quite loudly.”

      “Oh, yeah? Then what does this say?” He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to him. The kiss was not sweet or gentle—it was hard and unbending. He might not be able to get her to say yes to his proposal, but he was damned sure she wasn’t going to say no.

      After a moment, she bent. Her head slanted sideways and she opened her mouth for him with a sigh. He deepened the kiss. Could he kiss her like this without getting lost in the soft sweetness of her body?

      Because that’s what she was now, all soft and warm in his arms. His pulse beat out a faster rhythm. When she broke the kiss, he let her. “What are we going to do, Byron?”

      “We’ll do a trial run. I’ll get us a place and you and Percy can come stay for a little while—say a week or two. You won’t have to pack up all your