that was the only word that made sense. Her skin was the color of lightly burnt sugar, wispy espresso curls covered her head and her rounded cheeks were pure perfection. The little girl had the wide Harper mouth and pointed chin.
Tate unzipped the diaper bag and peered inside. Seeing a brown envelope flat against the side, Tate pulled it out, her heart hammering. She opened it with shaking fingers, yanked out the papers and slowly flipped through them. There wasn’t much besides inoculation certificates and medical cards and a birth certificate stating that the baby was Ellie Harper, the mother, Kari Harper, and father unknown.
God, Kari. How could you not know who the father was? Or did she know and just decided not to inform the state? The last piece of paper was a letter scrawled in Kari’s handwriting.
Tate,
I know what you are thinking and I don’t blame you. This looks bad; it is bad. I need you to take Ellie. Something has come up and I can’t keep her. You’ll figure out what to do with her.
If you’re freaking out—and you probably are—call Linc Ballantyne, your nephew’s dad. His number is below. Ellie is Shaw’s half sister and he’ll help you out.
I know that you won’t believe this but I do love her.
K.
Her eyes still glued to the letter, Tate shoved her hand into her bag and pulled out her smartphone. Feeling like she had a sumo wrestler sitting on her chest, she entered the phone number and held her breath as she stared down at the small screen.
What was she doing? Linc Ballantyne’s connection to Ellie was tenuous at best—he was Kari’s ex-fiancé and, yes, the father of the now-four-year-old son she’d abandoned. Linc had lived Tate’s current reality four years ago, and maybe he could help her make sense of Kari’s crazy. It wasn’t in her nature to ask for help, but desperate times trumped pride.
Tate lifted the phone and held it to her ear and listened to it ringing. She was transferred from one efficient Ballantyne employee to another before a deep male voice muttered a harsh greeting in her ear. As Linc Ballantyne’s sexy voice rumbled through her, Ellie opened her eyes, and Tate was struck by the burst of bright, cobalt blue.
Kari’s eyes...
“This is Tate Harper, Kari’s sister, and I have a massive problem. Can we meet?”
* * *
Some days, running a multibillion-dollar company gave Linc Ballantyne a splitting headache. Hell, make that most days lately. Needing an aspirin, Linc walked into the middle office separating his and his brother Beck’s office, and, ignoring Amy’s concerned expression, he pulled out a bottle of aspirin from the top drawer of her desk. He tossed two into his mouth and dry swallowed, very used to the bitter taste.
Amy, the executive assistant he and Beck shared, tucked her phone between her neck and ear and reached across her desk to throw Linc an unopened water bottle. He caught it, cracked the lid and looked through the glass walls to see his still-slim, still-pretty mother walking down the hallway and, as he always did, said a quick, silent thank-you to whatever force that had driven her into the arms of Connor Ballantyne.
Well, not his arms—as far as he knew Connor and his mom were never romantically involved—but into his house, at least. Moving into the brownstone known as The Den and meeting the kids who would become his siblings was the best day of his life; losing Connor, the worst.
Linc hurried across the office to open the door to her and bent down to kiss Jo’s cheek.
“Hi.”
“Hello, darling,” Jo replied. Her eyes were gray, like his, but hers were the color of gentle rain while his were a darker, edgier granite. “I’m sorry to drop in on you without warning.”
“That’s never a problem,” Linc assured her.
Jo greeted Amy with a kiss and a hug, and gestured to his office. “Have you a minute for me, Linc?”
“Always.”
In his office Jo sat down as he perched on the edge of his desk and folded his arms across his chest, feeling the burn in his biceps. He’d pushed himself last night, storming through his late-night workout, hoping that the exercise would ensure a good night’s sleep. It had helped somewhat; he’d slept for a solid four hours only to be woken up by Shaw having a nightmare. It had taken an hour to get his son to settle again, and by then he was wide-awake.
“Gary has asked me to move in with him.”
Linc jerked his attention back to his mother, trying to contain his shock. “You want to leave The Den? But why so soon?”
Jo rolled her eyes. “We have been in a relationship for more than six months, Linc, so stop acting like I met him two weeks ago! You like him, you told me so.”
That was before he was encouraging you to move out, Linc silently groused. Every time Jo mentioned Gary, her eyes glowed and her cheeks warmed. If he believed in love and all that crap, he’d say his mom was head over heels in love with the ex-banker. Since he didn’t, he looked past all that and saw two intellectually and socially compatible people who simply enjoyed each other’s company. Truth be told, he still didn’t like the fact that Jo was choosing Gary over Shaw, the grandson she’d been helping Linc raise since he was six weeks old.
“I think that we’ll marry eventually, but I—” Jo continued, rubbing her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I’ve lived in The Den for twenty-five years and I love it, but now I want my own home, Linc. I want a place that’s all mine, and we want to travel.” His mom lifted worried eyes to his. “You know I love Shaw and I was happy to help you when he was a baby because, frankly, you needed the assistance. I still want to help out but—”
“But you don’t want to do it every day,” Linc said and Jo nodded.
Linc cursed. Bad time to defect, Mom! He had a massive company to run and grow. They were rebranding the business, he was considering investing in a diamond mine in Botswana, they had a strike looming at a mine in Colombia, they were opening new stores in Abu Dhabi and Barcelona, refurbishing stores in Hong Kong, LA and Tokyo.
His business life was ridiculously busy and consistently stressful, and he was only able to do what he did because he didn’t have to worry about Shaw. His home life ran like clockwork: he took Shaw to pre-K, Jo picked him up and spent the afternoon and early evening with him, feeding and bathing him if he was running late. It worked so damn well because he trusted his mom implicitly, and he never worried about his son’s emotional and physical welfare. She was irreplaceable.
“I’ve been looking after kids for so long.” Jo shrugged, lifting delicate shoulders. “I’m nearly sixty, Linc. I want to have some fun, take a break, travel. Have a glass of wine at lunchtime if I feel like it. I’m tired, Linc. Can you understand that?”
Linc stood up and walked to the window, conscious of his accelerated heartbeat and his constricted throat. He hated change, especially in his personal life, and now she’d thrown him for a total loop. Keep calm and think it through. As a father of a mischievous four-year-old and as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, keeping his head while everyone else was losing theirs was how he navigated his life.
He’d had a lot of practice at being the calm port everyone ran to in a storm. When he was eleven, Jo had secured the position to be Connor Ballantyne’s
