Her Secret His Heir Read online

  With that, she turned on her heel and walked out, aware of Roy trailing behind her but, thankfully, he was silent. There wasn’t any brotherly teasing or pithy comments about her taste in men. He simply walked beside her, a big, reassuring presence that Melanie was grateful for.

  It took about three minutes for the elevator to bring them down to the lobby and another five to leave the building and head down the block. But that was as long as she could hold it in. As soon as she rounded the corner she burst into tears, grateful for Roy’s presence as he pulled her in close for a hug.

  “I know, Mel. I’m sorry.”

  Somehow, she got home. Probably due to Roy’s gentle guidance. But as soon as she stepped through the door, she climbed the stairs, tossed her shoes into the corner, and curled up on her bed. She couldn’t sleep, but simply stared out the window, wondering what she’d done wrong. Why he’d acted like that. None of it made sense! There’d been no warning of his intentions yesterday or the day before. In fact, she’d thought he was just as deliriously happy as she was.

  Apparently, she’d been wrong.

  She ignored the gentle knock on the door, but her brother poked his head in anyway. “Mel, I’m making some soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. You’re going to eat something.” It wasn’t a question, it was an order.

  Melanie didn’t respond and Roy quietly closed the door, leaving her alone with her thoughts. But a half hour later, he reappeared, carrying a tray with two bowls of soup and two grilled cheese sandwiches. “You have to eat,” he ordered. “You didn’t eat dinner last night or breakfast this morning.”

  He set the meal on the bedside table and stuffed pillows behind her back. When she didn’t move to take the food, he sighed and shook his head. “Mel, this is crazy. You have to eat. You start back at school in a week. You will be facing twenty-five to thirty fifth graders and they will eat you alive if you don’t keep up your strength.”

  Any other day, Melanie might have laughed. But she was cold and numb, in more pain than she’d thought possible. Moving in any way might cause her to shatter. So she sat very still, not able to contemplate moving.

  “Here,” he set the soup on a pillow on her lap. “Eat,” he ordered and handed her a spoon.

  Melanie eyed the soup and the spoon in her hand, not sure what to do. “I can’t eat anything,” she told her brother, feeling nauseous at the thought.

  “Try,” he urged, nudging the hand holding her spoon.

  Melanie shook her head slightly. “Please,” she sobbed, choking slightly. “Just take it away. I’ll eat something. Later. Not right now.”

  Roy took the soup and moved it away as Melanie crumpled into a heap of misery. He pulled her into his arms and held her as she cried, sobbing incoherently at times. Finally, exhausted and cried out, the tears stopped. She sniffed, gratefully accepting the tissue Roy handed her. “Thanks,” she whispered. “I just need to sleep, okay?”

  He looked at her, his eyes worried. “Okay, but promise me that you’ll eat something tomorrow.”

  “I promise,” she said, already sliding down in the bed, pulling the quilt up and over her shoulder. And continued staring, although this time, she stared at the wall instead of the window.

  “You’re being an ass.”

  Jackson glared at his sister across the island countertop. “I love you too,” he replied sarcastically. She was making him breakfast, but Jackson wasn’t hungry. Not even his sister’s famous chocolate chip pancakes that she made every year when the whole family went camping together could tempt him, although she was trying. And he loved her for it!

  “You know that I love you,” Chloe said, then flipped over a perfectly browned pancake and poured more batter in for the next round. “But you’re being an ass.”

  He sipped more coffee, ignoring the burn in his stomach. “Why are you here? Don’t you need to be taking Della and Danny to school? Isn’t Girad irritated that you’re out of the country?”

  “Girad is perfectly capable of handling the kids, and he has plenty of staff to help him.”

  Jackson took another gulp of coffee, his stomach roiling. “And I’m not capable of getting myself ready for work on my own?”

  She glanced at his jawline. “You missed a spot while shaving this morning.” Another pancake flipped and she tossed two more onto a plate. “But you’re still handsome, even if you’re being an ass.”

  Jackson stared at the growing pile of chocolate chip pancakes, wondering how he could politely tell his sister to get the hell out of his house. He was fine in his misery! He didn’t need her to fly halfway around the world to take care of him. “I don’t want to eat anything. I don’t have time.”

  “Doris already canceled your first meeting,” Chloe told him and nudged his shoulder until he was sitting in one of the chairs pushed up to the kitchen island. “You have time.” She took his coffee cup, replacing it with a glass of milk. “You need the calcium and I suspect that your stomach needs a break. Over the past week, I haven’t seen you without a cup of coffee in your hand unless it was a glass of scotch.”

  Jackson eyed his sister with surprise and a touch of admiration. “You’re a bit bossy, aren’t you?”

  Chloe laughed softly, turning to fill another plate with chocolate chip pancakes for Jake who was just coming out of the guest room, showered, dressed in a pressed suit, and freshly shaved. “Just noticed, huh?”

  “I have to get to the office,” Jake announced, walking by Jackson and punching his arm. “Take care of our wee beastie, okay, Chloe?”

  Her grey eyes danced as she nodded. “I’m on it.”

  A moment later, the front door to Jackson’s house closed.

  He shrugged off Jake’s jab and took a long sip of the milk, surprised that it did make his stomach stop churning. Although, it wasn’t his stomach that hurt the most, he thought.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’ve always tried to annoy you so I never noticed when you were annoying me.”

  “Good point,” she replied, tossing another pancake onto his plate. “Eat.” And she pulled a bowl of fruit from the fridge. She didn’t say anything until he’d finished the whole plate of pancakes as well as a large portion of fruit.

  When he leaned back in his chair, obviously full, she went for the kill shot. “Want to talk about it?” she asked gently.

  “Nope,” he snapped, rinsing off their plates and loading them into the dishwasher. “What are you and the kids doing this weekend?”

  “I get it,” Chloe replied, standing and walking over to him. She didn’t say anything. She simply hugged him. He stood there for a long moment, not moving, before he hugged her back. They didn’t move for a long time. Just stood there and Chloe knew that Jackson was in real pain if he was willing to accept her affection without doing something annoying, like pulling her hair.

  When he pulled back and took a deep breath, she knew that he was back to trying to be superman.

  “I have to get to work.”

  “I know,” she said, nodding as he grabbed his keys. “Good luck.”

  He stopped and kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  “You’re welcome.” And he was gone. Chloe watched him, her heart aching for how sad he was. And the poor guy didn’t even know it. His pain was shrouded in anger because that was easier for him to deal with. She understood it, but knew that he couldn’t move past it until he acknowledged the pain. Which he wouldn’t do, if Jake was any barometer. Jake had pined for Megan for years, not acknowledging his pain after she’d left him abruptly so many years ago. They’d been college sweethearts, until Megan had…well, that was all water under the bridge now.

  Thankfully, they’d worked things out, even if there was still that cloud of worry hanging over them. Every day, there was the chance that Megan’s cancer could return. The horrible disease had changed their perspective though. Each of them considered a day together to be a gift, a chance to explore their love. They lived life every day as if it could be their
last.

  And now they were going to have a baby! Chloe was excited about becoming an aunt, but as she looked around at Jackson’s impeccably decorated and depressingly boring house, she wondered if it would take him a decade to get over whatever his lady-love had done.

  She certainly hoped not. Jackson was a great guy, for a brother. No, she thought as she grabbed her keys and headed out the door, ensuring that the alarm system was activated. “He’s a great guy no matter what,” she muttered as she walked out of his house.

  Chapter 8

  Melanie got through each day moment by moment, breath by breath. The week before school had started, she’d looked around at the parents and children who had helped with the tomato project and smiled, relieved that everyone was on board. With every step of the project, she sent off reports detailing the progress of the project to everyone who had helped raise the funds for the effort. That included Jackson. When she slapped that address sticker onto the envelope, she felt a painful sense of loss and betrayal.

  She didn’t understand why he’d rejected her so callously and so abruptly. One day, everything had been wonderful and beautiful and passionate, then the next, he doesn’t show up for dinner? That was so unlike the man she’d come to know over those six, wonderful weeks.

  Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and stacked the envelope on top of the others.

  “Stop thinking about him,” she told herself.

  “Who are you trying not to think about?” Beth, one of the other teachers, asked as she sat down to help Melanie label the envelopes.

  “Just…” she shook her head, feeling sick to her stomach. “No one.”

  Beth looked at her gently. “Hey, you’ve lost weight over the past couple of weeks and you’re not looking any better now. What’s going on?” She tossed another envelope onto the stack. “Could it have anything to do with that stud who helped us put in the raised garden beds?”

  Melanie lowered her eyes, not sure she was willing to talk about Jackson yet. “We need to get these into the mail as soon as possible. They should have gone out last week.”

  Beth nodded understandingly. “Right. You’re not ready to talk about it yet but,” she laid a hand on Melanie’s arm, “know that I’m here when you need a sympathetic ear, okay?”

  Melanie blinked hard, fighting back tears. She was sick of crying and it didn’t help anyway. “Thanks,” she replied, covering Beth’s hand with hers for a moment. Melanie took a deep breath and looked at the reports. “I’m going to run these over to the post office. Thanks for your help.”

  “You’re welcome. The kids are excited about this project. You did a great job of getting it ready. Come springtime, we’ll have those tomato plants in their pots and ready for sale. It’s going to be an interesting project and it’s all due to your vision.”

  Melanie smiled weakly and shook her head. “Not mine. This idea came from another teacher who works in Alexandria, Virginia. I’m just following up on the article I read about the project.”

  Beth stood as well, smiling brightly in the face of Melanie’s pain and modesty. “Well, it’s brilliant! It teaches the kids about the environment, math, business, art, and writing, all in one cohesive project that the entire school can rally around. I think the kids are going to make a lot of money too!”

  “Always a bonus,” Melanie laughed.

  “Yep! Everyone loves making money!”

  Melanie thought about that statement as she fought a feeling of something just not being right. She wasn’t eating well, but that was mostly because she didn’t feel good. Something just…she felt off.

  Pushing her melancholy aside, she forced herself to focus on getting through the day, just as she’d done for the past two weeks and just as she would going forward. “I can do this,” she told herself. If she felt exhausted and sluggish, well, that was to be expected since she hadn’t been eating well.

  With the start of school, she’d been so busy, she didn’t have time to think about Jackson. She didn’t have time to wonder why he hadn’t shown up that fateful evening or why he wouldn’t take her calls or respond to her texts. For all she knew, he’d blocked her on his phone so he wasn’t even getting her texts or phone calls.

  After another two weeks, as the school days slowly settled into a steady rhythm, Melanie managed to convince herself that she was fine. She wasn’t hurt by his abandonment, because that was just who he was. She’d known from the first moment she’d met him that he was a player, a man who liked the ladies and variety. He was the kind of man who simply left when he was bored.

  If she saw his picture on the news or the internet, Melanie convinced herself that she didn’t care that he was alone at the fancy galas he attended or that he looked to be just as miserable as she was.

  Because she wasn’t miserable. She wasn’t feeling well and she was losing weight, but that was a good thing. Not the feeling bad part, but the losing weight. But the losing weight was…okay, so she hadn’t needed to lose this much weight and now all of her clothes looked…sad. Baggy.

  This wasn’t good, she told herself one afternoon as she smiled to the last of her students as they left for the day. This wasn’t good at all. She was tired all the time, losing weight, and feeling sick. Time to start eating better and being more conscious of what she was doing. Time to get over Jackson and move on with her life.

  And she needed to get back to exercising. She’d been going to her yoga classes, but not as consistently as she should. Even when she made it to class, she didn’t put much energy into the exercises and stretches. Sometimes, she didn’t have the energy for even a half-hearted effort.

  “Time to change!” she announced when she walked into her house that evening. With renewed determination, she changed clothes and hurried out of the house. She made it to her yoga class with only moments to spare.

  At the end of the class, she felt much better. Sweaty and starving, she hurried to the grocery store, stocking up on fruits and vegetables, chicken, and even tossed in a few sweet potatoes – because she had a craving for them. “You guys look interesting,” she told the orange-ish spuds. “Why not try using you guys for a while?”

  As soon as she walked into her house, she pulled out the sweet potatoes, leaving the rest of her groceries for a moment while she searched for a sweet potato recipe. “Sweet potato fries? Why not?” She started chopping. She chopped up the whole potato, which was a lot of sweet potato because they were huge! She tossed the sweet potato sticks in cornstarch, a bit of olive oil, adding garlic powder, onion powder, and chili powder. “Yum!” she announced to the empty kitchen as she slid the sliced spuds into the oven.

  Turning, she noticed the rest of her groceries still sitting on the countertop. “Ooops!”

  Tossing the ice cream into the trash because it was melting all over the bottom of the fabric bag, Melanie put the chicken into the fridge, then cut up vegetables and fruit for a salad, deciding that she needed the extra nutrition after the way she’d been eating for the past few weeks.

  When the sweet potatoes were done, she ate on every last one! “Delicious!” she sighed, leaning back in her chair and picking up her book, full for the first time in a long time.

  The following morning, she spied the sweet potatoes on the countertop and shrugged. “Why not?” and she made another batch of sweet potato fries for breakfast. They were high in fiber, had lots of vitamins, and were much healthier for her than a regular potato, which was mostly starch. Plus, the sweet potatoes had potassium. Lots of potassium. Melanie had no idea why a body needed potassium, but the headlines all said that it was good.

  After chopping and spicing them up, she popped them into the oven. The sweet potato fries were exactly what her body wanted and she swept out of the house, ready to start her class with more energy than she’d had in a long, long time!

  At the end of the school day, Beth walked into Melanie’s classroom. “Hey, you were on fire to…”

  Beth stopped, looking over at her friend a
nd co-worker. “What’s wrong?” she demanded, rushing over to Melanie who was leaning against her desk, looking as if she might fall.

  “I don’t know. I just got dizzy for a moment,” she whispered, gripping the desk with white knuckled intensity.

  Beth grabbed hold of Melanie’s arm. “Okay, so hold on. I’m getting you a chair.” She pulled Melanie’s desk chair around and helped her friend to sit down. “You haven’t been eating well lately and have lost too much weight.”

  Melanie sighed, feeling hot and sweaty all of a sudden. “I know. I went to the grocery store last night and stocked up,” she told her friend. “I won’t do it again. I’ve just been…upset.”

  Beth nodded sagely, crossing her arms over her stomach as she leaned against Melanie’s desk. “About a guy?”

  Melanie looked up carefully, not wanting the dizziness to recur. “How did you know?”

  “Losing weight. Not eating. Lack of energy. There are only two things that cause that kind of depletion of energy, you are either pregnant or getting over a bad breakup.”

  Melanie laughed…sort of. But the P word echoed in her mind. Beth started talking about something that happened in her class earlier in the day and Melanie pretended to listen, but she was counting back the days since her last period.

  She’d been with Jackson at that point but…that was over a month ago. Still counting, she felt the blood drain from her face. She wasn’t just a week late, Melanie realized. She and Jackson…they’d…she was over two months late! Was she…? She couldn’t be! No! Oh please, after everything she’d gone through over the past few weeks, please please don’t let her be pregnant!

  “What just happened?” Beth demanded, leaning over and touching Melanie’s shoulder. “Are you dizzy again? Should I call an ambulance?”

  Melanie panicked at the offer of an ambulance. “No! No, I’m fine. I just remembered that I…I forgot to get milk at the grocery store,” she told Beth. With jerky movements, she grabbed her purse and her tote bag, which was full of papers to grade tonight. She’d planned on a sweet potato dinner and grading papers for the rest of the night, sitting in her big chair and relaxing with a glass of wine.