Pregnant By The Ceo. Kate Carlisle

Louisa had caused him to unknowingly abandon his son.

      His hands tightened as he stared at her across the warmth of the bakery. A large group of tourists entered the shop behind him with a happy chime of the bell.

      With a snarl, Rafael opened his mouth to speak, to accuse. Grabbing his arm, still holding her baby against her hip, Louisa pulled Rafael up the flight of stairs behind the counter.

      At the top of the stairs, he looked grimly at the second-floor apartment around him. It was a small, pretty, feminine home. Anxiously tugging on his arm, Louisa pulled him into a bedroom and closed the door behind him.

      “Please understand,” she said desperately, turning to face him. “You left me no choice!”

      He stared around the small room. It contained a single bed, a crib and a changing table. The bed was covered by a handmade quilt. On the wall over the crib, soft fabric letters spelled out N-O-A-H beside a framed picture of a giraffe that looked like it was from an old children’s book.

      There was no lavish luxury here. This apartment wasn’t a palace, but it was homey and cozy. It was bright and warm. The bedroom was decorated with warmth and simplicity—and kept absolutely clean.

      Warmth. Love. Care. Everything Louisa had denied Rafael for the last year and a half. Along with the truth. Along with his child.

      The rage of betrayal ripped through him.

      “Rafael, please. Won’t you talk to me?”

      Slowly he turned back to stare at her. He’d thought Louisa Grey was different from any woman he’d known. He’d thought her an intelligent woman with a bright mind and a rare sense of dignity—of loyalty. In the years she’d worked for him, he’d looked forward to seeing her every night after he returned from a date. He’d become accustomed to seeing dark eyes gleam through her glasses as she made him a late-night turkey-and-baguette and listened with some amusement to his latest dating woes, which always involved some woman going to pieces after he dumped her.

      “It’s your own fault, you know,” she’d chided him gently. “You treat them badly.”

      “I make them no promises,” he’d protested. “I tell them our affair cannot last. I am not a man made for marriage.”

      “You might tell them that, but your eyes say something else,” she’d said quietly. “I’ve seen you. You look at every woman as if she, and only she, might be the one to make you faithful.”

      Rafael exhaled. She’d been right, of course. Louisa saw through all of his lies—even the ones he hadn’t realized he was telling. She’d made herself indispensable in his life. Unique.

      And now this. Her vengeful cruelty took his breath away.

      Had Louisa Grey always been a liar? Or had Rafael turned her into a liar—when he’d slept with her?

      No! He wasn’t going to think that way—wasn’t going to give her any excuse to say he was the one at fault for her crime. He wasn’t the one who’d done this! All these months, he’d felt so guilty, thinking he’d treated her badly. And all along, she was the one who’d lied to him. She’d stolen his child.

      If not for the anonymous letter, he might never have come here. His baby might always have grown up believing Rafael had abandoned him.

      His hands clenched into fists. He’d once thought Louisa a gold digger. Now he wished she were. A gold digger would have at least contacted him for a payout. This was far worse. Louisa Grey was a vindictive, cold, ruthless woman.

      Rafael looked at the child in her arms. What kind of woman could keep a baby a secret from his own father?

      “What is his name?” he said harshly.

      She looked at him with pleading eyes. “You told me you never wanted a child, Rafael. You said—”

      “That’s your excuse?” he bit out furiously. “You use my own words against me? I also told you that if you were pregnant, I would marry you.”

      “But I didn’t want to marry you!”

      He stared at her, then shook his head in fury. “No, you didn’t, did you?” he said. “You wanted revenge for the way I treated you. And you knew this would hurt me as nothing else ever could.”

      “That’s not true!” she gasped. “You made it clear you never wanted a wife or child! Do you think I would share my precious baby with a man who didn’t even want him?”

      He narrowed his eyes. “It wasn’t your decision to make.”

      She took a deep breath, shifting position from her left leg to the right as the baby squirmed in her arms.

      Without warning, Rafael took the baby away from her. He saw Louisa choke back a protest, saw her clench her hands at her sides, as if fighting her initial instinctive reaction to snatch the baby back into her own arms.

      He looked down at the baby. “My son,” he whispered. “You are my son.”

      “His name is Noah, after my father,” she said unwillingly behind him. “Noah Grey.”

      Holding the baby tenderly, he whirled to face her in a swift and decisive motion. “Noah Grey? You did not even give him my name?”

      She shook her head stubbornly.

      “You lied to me, Louisa,” he said softly. He looked from his precious young son to the lying woman who had given birth to him. He saw her tremble, but kept himself from touching her—from raging at her, from shaking her—by an act of fierce will. “You are a far greater liar than I ever imagined.” He gave a low, harsh laugh. “And to think you said you loved me,” he sneered. “That’s what your love was worth!”

      Her cheeks went hot. “I did love you,” she said quietly. “It nearly killed me.”

      He narrowed his eyes at her. “So that is why you lied to me about being on birth control? Because you thought you were in love with me?”

      “I didn’t lie!”

      “Then how did you get pregnant?”

      “I was on the Pill in Paris, like I told you,” she whispered, then shook her head. “The whole staff ate some bad fish from the market. I threw up for days. I never thought that it might make the Pill useless, but then,” her cheeks colored, “I never paid much attention to the birth control aspects of the medication. I never expected you to seduce me!”

      Silence fell. Through the sheer curtains at the large sash window, with its brightly painted open shutters, he could see clouds trailing across the blue sky, above the distant turquoise sea. He took a deep breath.

      “Perhaps you’re not lying,” he said quietly. “For if you were truly a gold digger, you would have jumped at the chance to marry me. The pregnancy must have been an accident.” He set his jaw as he looked down at his son. “But your lie to me for the last year and a half was not.”

      “You’re not being fair!” she cried. “You told me you never wanted a child. If I’d told you I was pregnant, you’d have insisted I was a gold digger who’d purposefully set out to ‘trap’ you!”

      “Like the devil, you twist my own words against me,” he said, then gave a low laugh. “You are the most cold, heartless woman I have ever known. Which is a high mark indeed.”

      “I’m not,” she whispered.

      “You looked into my face and lied to me. I’m not pregnant, you said.” He nearly choked on the words. “When were you planning to tell me the truth, Louisa? After he was a grown man? Or did you mean to punish our son as well as me,” he said harshly, “by only telling him the truth after I was dead?”

      She went pale. “I would never do that to you.”

      “You already have.”