"I won't let you anywhere near her or my son, old man." Byron put as much into those words as he could because, as far as he was concerned, that's all Leon Harper was. An impotent old man with too much free time and too many lawyers kowtowing to him.
Harper paused and then slowly turned around, a smug smile distorting the features of his bitter face. "Is that so? And just who do you think called me in the first place?" He chuckled to himself and damn it all, Byron was too stunned to even come up with a stinging parting shot.
All he could do was stand there and watch as Harper and his various lackeys shuffled out.
No. He couldn't believe it-he wouldn't. Even if she'd decided that she was better off as a single parent living with her sister, she wouldn't have gone crawling back to Leon Harper. She might hate him, but she cared too much for Percy to let her father do her dirty work. Especially if she were pregnant again.
He stumbled back into the kitchen and leaned against a counter, trying to breathe. She couldn't be pregnant again, could she? No, that wasn't the right question. The condom had failed. She could be pregnant.
The question was, how could she be pregnant again and not have told him?
It didn't matter how much he apologized. It didn't matter what he did to take care of her. It didn't matter one damn bit how much he loved her-her and only her.
None of it mattered.
He was done. This was just like the last time, he realized. She would always withhold the truth and she would always hide behind her father so she didn't have to do the dirty work herself. She would always hurt him.
He had to stop letting her-them-win. He was a Beaumont, for God's sake. He would protect his son-his children-from the Harpers. Always and forever. And if that meant he had to take Leona to court, then so be it.
If the Harpers expected him to turn tail and run again, they'd soon find out-no one messed with a Beaumont.
Sixteen
Talking to Byron wasn't working, so Leona decided to take a different approach-when Percy fell asleep for a nap, she started writing him a letter.
"Dear Byron," she started, "I'm pregnant and I don't want to fight about raising our children. I want us to be a family and I want us to be as happy as we can be."
Okay, she thought, good start. She had to get that pregnant part out there first. She'd tried to tell him last night, but he'd cut her off and done everything in his power to make her feel two feet tall.
She put the pen back to the paper and wrote...nothing. What else was she supposed to say? She was tired of being made to feel like a bad person because she hadn't disclosed her father's identity on the first date? She was sorry she hadn't contacted Byron when she had Percy, and she was sorry she'd assumed he'd rejected her again-like it felt he was doing right now.
No matter what, she wasn't going to leave her children-and what she really wanted was the reassurance that he wouldn't take them from her and he wouldn't abandon her again but it was hard to see how he wasn't going to do just that when she couldn't even have a face-to-face conversation with him without it going off the rails.
Dang it. Writing it down-without having to say it to Byron's face or being interrupted-was supposed to make this easier, not harder.
The doorbell rang and she glared at the clock. If this were May, back again without calling, Leona was going to be pissed. It was Percy's nap time-she should know that.
Leona opened the door and was stunned to see that, instead of the slight form of her sister, a weaselly-looking man in a suit was standing there. A familiar weaselly-looking man. "Leona Harper?"
Lights began to pop in front of Leona's eyes and for a second, she was afraid she was going to faint on the feet of her father's favorite lawyer. All of the emotions coursing through her-worry for Percy, exhilaration about the pregnancy-all of them smacked headlong into the wall that was Leon Harper.
"Mr. York?"
The lawyer stepped to the side and there her father was. His face was twisted into something that made a mockery of joy. Leona's stomach lurched again.
One thought bubbled up through the misery of the moment-she should have married Byron already. She'd told him that this was the very thing she'd lived in fear of for a year-her father deciding to make her life his business again.
She clung to the door for support. It was tempting to slam it in their faces and throw the bolt, but damn it all, she couldn't overcome years of subservience to this man.
"Father," she said, her voice a shaky whisper.
"My dear," he replied in his most acid tone. She was not now, nor had she probably ever been, his dear and they both knew it. "I must say, I'm disappointed in you."
What else was new? She'd always been a disappointment to him. Her name said it all. If she'd been Leon Harper, Jr., things would have been different. But no. She was Leona. A disappointment with an a.
"I gave you a chance," her father went on, mocking condescension in his voice. "Your mother convinced me that I should let you move out-as long as you didn't cause any more trouble than you already had."
Oh, God-she could not believe this. This was not happening. He was still talking at her-not to her-as if she were a messy girl of six again.
No. She couldn't stand here and take whatever he felt like dishing out. Things had changed. She was a mother, soon to be twice over. She owed it to her son, to Byron-and to herself-to be well and truly free of the blight that was Leon Harper.
"As I recall, Father, you didn't 'let' me do anything. I left without your permission."
Anger flared in the old man's eyes-dangerous anger, as she knew from too many years of experience. But she wasn't afraid of him, not anymore. Not much, anyway. So to make herself feel brave, she added, "And I'd do it all over again. What do you want?"
Any pretense of happiness at seeing her vanished off her father's face. He'd never been good at pretending he cared, anyway.
"I must admit," her father said in a calm, level voice that only amplified his rage, "that I was surprised when he called me."
"He who-Byron?"
Her father shrugged in what, on any other human on the planet, would have been an innocent gesture. "He made his intentions clear-he'd won and I had lost. He said he was going to take the child and that-and I'm quoting here-'No Harper would ever see it again.'"
"You're lying," she gasped. So what if Byron had said almost that exact thing last night? She couldn't believe that he'd call her father. "You always lie."
"You can, of course, believe what you want. You always did. You're the one who convinced yourself that he could love you-that any Beaumont was capable of love-when we both know that's not really possible, is it?" He managed a pitying smile.
"No," she said again, but she didn't sound convinced, even to her own ears. Her mind flitted back to the positive test still safely hidden in her bedroom. What would her father say-what would he do-if he knew that she was expecting again?
Her knees began to shake and she knew that if she didn't sit down, she really would pass out. But she couldn't show him weakness. She couldn't let him think he'd won.
"He's going to take the child," Father went on. "Both of them."
Leona gasped. How did he know about that? Not even Byron knew. Then it hit her-May. May was the only other person who could possibly know. She'd been in the bathroom while the test had still been in the trash. Leona had thought May hadn't seen it-but she'd thought wrong.
"Sadly," her father continued, "I can't help you-that is, unless you help me, my dear."
If there was one thing in this world that Leon Harper did not need, it was help. "How?"
"It's easy," he said. "Turn legal guardianship of the child over to me. Come back home. Let me protect you from them."
Mr. York handed her a thick envelope. "Just sign these," he said in an oily voice, "and it'll all be taken care of."
She stared at the envelope that was suddenly in her hands. She'd always thought that when-not if-her father came after her, he'd do it the hard way and try to destroy her credibility, her job-destroy her.
But this? This offer of protection...
Was he serious?
No. Leona knew she could not trust a single word that came out of Leon Harper's mouth. He never did anything that wasn't completely self-serving.
If Byron had decided that marriage wasn't truly in the cards, he would have told her himself.
But then her father said, "I do hope you'll sign the papers before he disappears-again," and all of her doubt came crushing back.