"You don't have to..." He cut her off with a look. She sighed in resignation. "Fine. Go ahead."
In forty minutes, they sat down to mashed potatoes and green beans-Percy's being slightly more mashed together than theirs-and pan-fried chicken in a parmesan crust. "This is delicious," she said in between spooning Percy's dinner into his mouth and taking bites of her own. Percy agreed by thumping the top of his high-chair tray with both hands and opening his mouth for more.
"Good," Byron said, watching Percy swallow another mouthful. "I used to cook for the new kids, you know. When my dad would remarry and his new wife had babies. Dad expected us all to like the same things he did, but it was hard for a four-year-old to really get into steak au poivre, you know? George always had something else for us, but we had to eat it in the kitchen so neither of our parents would catch us." He looked at his plate. "That was a long time ago."
"That sounds a lot like dinners in my house growing up."
Byron looked at her. "We never really did discuss your past. You always changed the subject." He stabbed at his chicken viciously. "And I never caught on."
She couldn't tell who he was madder at-her or himself. "I knew who you were-it was hard to miss that last name. But I..." She sighed. "I wanted something different than Harpers versus Beaumonts. I wanted to see if you were really what my father claimed you were. I wanted to know if you liked me for me, not because I was heiress to a fortune."
She'd never gotten the chance to say those words out loud to him. Everything had happened so fast that night... "I just wanted to be something more than Leon Harper's daughter."
Byron set down his fork. "You were." He stood, picked up his plate and headed back to the kitchen. "You were..."
Leona leaned forward to catch the end of that sentence because it seemed important. But when she didn't hear the ending, she got up and followed Byron into the kitchen. "What?"
"Nothing," he said gruffly, scraping his plate into the trash and running hot water into the sink.
"Byron." She stood next to him and put her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to turn him toward her. He didn't budge. "What?"
"You should have told me," he replied, grabbing his plate and scrubbing it furiously. "It wouldn't have mattered if you'd told me yourself. Instead I had to learn it from your father."
Guilt, which had been creeping around the edges of their conversation for the past few minutes, burst out into the open. "I wanted to. But I didn't want to risk ruining the best thing that had ever happened to me."
For a second, she thought he was going to give her that smile, the one that always melted her. But then his face hardened. "You didn't trust me."
She stared at him as a new emotion pushed back at the guilt-anger. "First off," she snapped, "I'm not the one who bailed. I was right here, dealing with the fallout of you abandoning me. I went on with my life when all I wanted to do was run and hide, too. I did not have that luxury, Byron."
Byron opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "Secondly, this is exactly why I haven't said yes to your marriage proposal. At least this time it wasn't an order, but I simply do not know when you're going to switch from doting father to angry ex-lover."
Percy began to fuss, no doubt unhappy about being left behind while everyone else was in the kitchen. However, for the first time in her life, Leona didn't rush off to pick him up.
"And finally, you didn't trust me, either. Four days, Byron. That's how long it took to get away from my father-and you were gone. Gone. You couldn't even stick around for a damn week to wait for me." Unexpectedly, her throat closed up, but she would not crack. "So you'll forgive me if I want a little more reassurance that you're not going to up and disappear again, that 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.