The Secret Son. Tara Taylor Quinn

on a relationship.

      “We accepted from the beginning that one week was all we were ever going to have.”

      Reaching across the space between them, Jefferson pulled her from the chair and into his arms, his touch comforting, completely nonsexual. “We’ve nursed you through a broken heart before, my dear,” he said, sounding certain, if a little tired. “We can do so again.”

      She wished a broken heart was the only consequence of her time with Jack. “I don’t deserve you,” she whispered, fighting tears.

      “Don’t talk like that,” he said, his voice soothing. “You can’t be blamed for being attracted to a man your own age. It’s natural.”

      “You have to be disappointed in me.”

      “I am disappointed,” he admitted with a heavy sigh, and the knife inside Erica twisted further. “But not in you.”

      “How could you not be?”

      “Because I know you, Erica, and I know that you’d never purposely do this—to either of us. How can I blame you for being human?”

      “You’re far too generous.”

      “Marrying you was the most reckless thing I’ve ever done,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “I’m almost three decades older than you. I know, and I’ve always known, that our marriage contravenes the natural order of things. As I said, I don’t fault you for what you did. What you felt…”

      “But you’re disappointed, anyway.”

      “I’m disappointed that I’m not twenty years younger, that when I finally fell head over heels in love with a woman, she wasn’t my own age and at the same place in life. I’m disappointed that I’m too old to do for you whatever this Jack guy did.”

      Erica started to feel sick again. She freed herself from her husband’s arms, whispering, “There’s more.”

      “You slept with him.”

      Though it took more strength than she thought she had, Erica forced herself to keep looking at him. “How did you know?”

      “I suspected as much the day you got back. Don’t forget, honey, I’ve taken you there myself. You get a certain look about you after you’ve made love. A softness, a satisfied peace. It’s a look I haven’t seen in a long time.”

      Only someone as attuned to her as Jefferson would notice such a thing.

      “I’m so sorry, Jeff,” she said hoarsely. “I can’t believe I’ve done this. That I’ve hurt you like this. I didn’t think I could do such a thing. And certainly never wanted to.”

      “I know,” he said, his eyes filled with the sadness he wouldn’t express in words.

      “I’d do anything to take it all back….”

      “I know that, too,” he said, and then held her hand, much like she’d held Jack’s that night he’d told her about losing his wife and daughter. “Of course, it would’ve been best if you’d walked away before there was anything to take back, but if I think that way, I’m going to get angry and that won’t do us any good.”

      “You should be angry.”

      He bowed his head, and she couldn’t see what he was thinking. “No,” he finally said, looking up at her. “Anger is unproductive and so is regret. Rather than wishing for the impossible, the wiser thing to do would be for us to put this behind us and move forward.”

      Did he want a divorce?

      “Forward how?”

      “If, as you say, there’s no chance of a relationship between you and this man, if you still want to continue living the life we’ve created here, I see no reason for anything to change. Our reasons for marrying still stand. I still love you, want to take care of you. Professionally, I still need a wife….”

      She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.

      Because there was more. Something that prevented her from ever returning to Jack.

      But something she didn’t think Jefferson should have to accept, either.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      SHE HAD SOMETHING else to tell him.

      Senator Jefferson Cooley sat next to his beautiful young wife on the pale beige seat and waited.

      He could handle whatever she had to say. She wasn’t leaving him. That was all that mattered—Erica allowing him to share her life.

      He was one hell of a lucky man.

      Or a pathetic man?

      Where that thought came from, he didn’t know. But as his wife looked at him, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, with soul-deep sorrow, with panic and a despair that went beyond anything he’d ever read there before, the thought just disappeared.

      “What is it, love?” he asked, holding both her hands in his. Whatever it took, he’d make it right for her.

      “I…I’m…”

      His heart grew cold.

      “I’m pregnant.”

      Oh.

      Hell.

      He stared at her. Acid burning his stomach. His chest. Every living part of him.

      He preferred the cold.

      “I’m sorry, Jeff. So sorry.” Erica didn’t cry often, which made the tears sliding down her beautiful cheeks that much more threatening. He wondered if tears were falling down his, as well.

      Or if the pain was too deep for that.

      “It’s okay,” he said. Because he wanted it to be.

      Out of the blue he thought of her father. A high-powered attorney, Jefferson’s friend. Would he have approved of Jefferson’s marriage to his daughter? Or would he be finding this night just reward for Jefferson’s sin, his transgression in marrying a woman so much younger?

      “No.” She shook her head, pulling one hand free to run soft fingertips along the side of his face.

      Wiping away tears?

      “It’s not okay.” Her sweet voice tore at him. Making him want to destroy something—preferably the man who could do for her what he could not.

      It touched that chord of love deep inside him, as well.

      She was so strong. But she was lost, too. He could see the confusion, the fear and need in her dark-brown eyes as she gazed at him. And it occurred to him that she was there with him. In their bedroom.

      He was the one she came to when she had a problem. The one who heard her confessions. Who shared the realities of everyday life with her.

      “We’ll make it okay,” he told her. “We always do.”

      “You shouldn’t have to,” she said, and there was no doubt that she meant the words she was saying. “I can’t do this to you, Jeff. And yet, I guess I already have. It’s not as though I can just disappear out of your life. The press would be all over you—us—in a second.”

      A surge of hurt, disguised as anger, shot through him. Even now, did it always have to be about work?

      Couldn’t it ever be just about the two of them? The team they made? Their ability to face anything life had to offer as long as they did it together?

      “Leave the press out of this.”

      “We can’t.”

      The anguish cut a little more deeply. “The press is a surface concern, Erica. There are no reporters here in our home. In our bedroom.” In our life. The life I share with you, the life no one else knows about.

      She didn’t