Little Secrets:Unexpectedly Pregnant(33)

The phone slid from his hand, dropping halfway down to the chair before  Damon slapped at it, stopping the descent by pinning the cell to his  chest.

He went motionless, holding the device in place while keeping his heart in his rib cage at the same time.

What. The. Hell.

"What kind of joke is this?" He knew Caroline couldn't be out there.  He'd hired private investigators to find her. He'd paid a ransom to  someone claiming to have kidnapped her. He'd searched half the world for  her himself, convinced something had happened to her even though her  wealthy and powerful father insisted Caroline had simply found Damon  unsuitable and no longer wished to be married.

Stephan Degraff had said Caroline wished to travel and was entitled to  her privacy, a story that was upheld by the occasional hits on her  credit card. An apartment rented briefly in Prague. A used car purchased  in Kiev.

Damon had never bought it.

He shot to his feet.

"No joke, sir." The housekeeper's voice was cool and modulated, as if  she'd grown accustomed to disagreeable clients long ago. "She has a  marriage certificate with your name on it and she looks like the  photograph I'm staring at over the mantel. Shall we open the gate?"

Caroline on his doorstep after her father insisted she'd seen the error  of her ways in marrying Damon and had walked out on him for good? Not  damn well likely.

"I'll be right there." Damon was already charging toward the door. He  shoved his way through with one shoulder. "Find the number for the local  police, in case we need to send this crackpot a message about what  happens to people who play pranks like impersonating my wife."

Cold fury roared through him. Caroline had been gone for ten and a half  months. He'd chased false leads all over Europe, tracking withdrawals  from her bank account and use of her credit card, trying to find her.  All the while her father insisted she'd left her marriage and wished to  be left alone. But then a ransom note had shown up weeks later, which he  saw as proof she'd been kidnapped. But the police had never believed  the kidnapping theory, insistent the ransom note was sent by someone who  took advantage of her disappearance by demanding cash for her safe  return.

Damon had gladly paid, transferring money to an offshore account on the  appointed day. He'd never heard from the so-called kidnappers again.

Pounding his way up the stairs to the main floor, he couldn't wait to  see who would have the nerve to pull a prank like this. He barreled  through the handcrafted double doors that had delayed their move-in date  by two weeks and stalked down the stone walkway covered in dried leaves  that led to a fountain imported from India.

He hated all of it. And he rarely had an outlet for any of the fury that  had seethed in him for weeks-fury that was a welcome change from the  old fears for Caroline, the guilt that he hadn't done more to find her  and the stark sense of loss …          

     



 

Holy. Hell.

He stopped on the stone driveway leading down to the wrought iron gate.

A woman stood outside the heavy bars, her fingers clutching the filigree  that surrounded the house number in the center of the entrance. She was  the right height. Even from this distance, he could recognize those  dark brown eyes. The delectably full lips. The hair that had once been  sun-streaked blond was now a shade of honey gold and pinned back in a  way that showed hollows under cheeks formerly rounded with good health.  Her frame was thinner. Her skin paler. And her expression was wary,  lacking the vibrant self-confidence of the capable businesswoman he  remembered.

Yet there wasn't a single doubt in his mind.

Caroline Degraff had blindsided him the first time they met, igniting an  incendiary passion that made him overlook every need for caution. Her  father coveted Damon's company, but it didn't matter. Stephan Degraff  had sent his smart, exquisite daughter to spy on Damon's operation,  possibly to undermine him and oust him from his own company. But who  cared? Damon would have given up everything-everything-to have Caroline.

Just when he'd thought he'd won her forever, after a honeymoon so  beautiful that it hurt to recall, Caroline had vanished. She took her  wallet and her car, a bag of clothes and a few prescription pills, all  signs that, according to the cops, meant she left of her own volition.  Her powerful father had convinced the police his daughter was entitled  to her privacy and that she would file for divorce in her own time. The  fact that Caroline left behind her wedding ring seemed to support the  theory. Local law enforcement refused to file a missing person report,  leaving Damon on his own to locate her. He'd been advised by multiple  private investigators and the police not to talk to the media, so he  hadn't. A story had been leaked to the press at one point, but her  father had forced the news outlet to print a retraction. His lone effort  to reach out to the public-discreetly asking for any information about  her from the employees who had worked with them both at Transparent-had  resulted in that ransom note.

Yet he never saw Caroline again.

Until now.

It occurred to him he'd stopped moving toward her. That he'd been  staring at her like he'd seen a ghost for long, drawn-out moments, his  head flooding with memories while his fingers ached with the need to  touch her and see if she was real.

"Caroline." He forced himself into motion again, even though he had no  idea what to say. Had she left him? Was she here for that divorce her  father promised she would one day demand?

She backed up a step from the gate as he neared. She wore jeans with  threadbare knees and faded thighs that hugged her subtle curves. A gray  wool sweater with fat toggle buttons kept the chill out; the temperature  was in the midfifties, with a cold breeze blowing off the bay. She wore  no makeup, her face looking younger even as the expression in her eyes  seemed far older than he remembered. She looked wary. Cautious.

And, if he read her expression correctly … confused. She appeared  bewildered by his appearance even though she was the one who had shown  up on his doorstep.

"Damon McNeill?" she asked, her arched eyebrows knitting together as she pursed her lips.

Just what the hell was she asking him? He noticed that one of the guys  on the landscaping crew was hovering nearby, a crinkled piece of paper  in his hand.

Damon pressed a button on his phone to open the electric gate and stared  down the gardener while the bars slid silently to one side. "You can  leave now. Water the roses or whatever."

"Sure thing." The guy nodded fast and seemed grateful for an excuse to  leave, but first he ambled closer and handed Damon the faded, worn  paper. "She said she found this."

Damon would have stuffed it in a back pocket to focus on Caroline, but the gold seal in one corner caught his eye.

Their marriage certificate.

"I don't understand." He moved closer to the wife who had once held his  heart. The woman who now stared at him like a stranger. "Why did you  bring this?"

His pulse pounded hard. He braced himself to hear the words he dreaded.  The news that she wanted to end their marriage legally. Forever.

Alone on the private road that led to the mansion, she stuffed her hands  in the pockets of the oversized sweater she wore, the fabric hugging  her body tighter at the movement.

There'd been a time when he would have picked her up off her feet and  wrapped her in both arms. Even not knowing where she'd been, what had  happened or why she'd come back now, Damon still wanted to kiss her more  than he wanted explanations. Something about her body language, so  hesitant, restrained him.         

     



 

"You're Damon." She seemed to seek confirmation, her brown eyes flecked  with gold scanning his face, as if calculating the sum of his features.  "I saw your photo online, but you look so much like your brother.  Cameron."

Half brother, he silently corrected her while his brain tried to make meaning out of the nonsensical words.

"It's been less than a year since you saw me last. Do I look so  different now?" He'd kissed her for long minutes in the airport in  Florence, hating to part from her after the honeymoon. Their home in Los  Altos Hills-this house-hadn't been completed yet. So she'd gone to see a  friend in London while he flew back to the States for business that  couldn't wait. Business he'd come to regret sorely in the last ten  months, especially since they'd argued during the time they'd been apart  and he'd always wondered if that had been the reason she left.

As it turned out, she hadn't just been seeing her friend, after all.  She'd gone to the UK to make amends with her father, who would give  anything to take control of Transparent. Stephan Degraff's plans to oust  Damon were about to come to a head one week from now at the final board  meeting before the product launched.

Had Caroline been helping her father take over Damon's company from the start?

"I don't remember." Her eyes were haunted. Scared. Unsure. "I've been in  Mexico. With amnesia. I remembered my name two months ago, but it's  taken time to recall more than that." She glanced up and away from him.  Shut her eyes for a long moment before she began again. "I've had this  paper ever since I woke up in a fishing village on the Baja Peninsula.  But at the time, I didn't even know that name was mine."