Jo Leigh - One-Click Buy - September Harlequin Blaze

There’s only one way around this. Only one way he would find his way back to Katie.

He was going to have to face the man he had become, and to do that he had to confront Delancy.

THE RIBBON-CUTTING ceremony for the Habitat for Humanity project was about to commence as Liam walked up to the site of the new-home construction. A grandstand had been built in front of the buildings, and the media gathered, setting up to film Delancy getting an award.

The irony didn’t escape Liam. Thirty-one years ago, his mother had been pregnant, jobless and homeless because Delancy had discarded her like an old shoe after he’d had his way with her. Now here was Delancy, lauded as a champion of the poor and downtrodden because he’d hammered a few nails in a wall.

“Liam.” Flanked by his bodyguards, Delancy stepped forward, hand outstretched to greet him. “Glad you could make it.”

Liam hesitated before taking Delancy’s hand. He didn’t want to touch the man, but he knew that he must. In order to move on, in order to heal his troubled soul, he had to forgive this man.

Soldiering past the resentment in his heart, Liam reached out and took Delancy’s hand. “Mayor.”

“Please, call me Finn. Anyone who donates a hundred thousand dollars to this project deserves to call me by my first name.”

“What about your son?” Liam asked. “What does he deserve to call you?”

“Excuse me?” Delancy looked confused.

“My mother is Jeanine James.”

Delancy’s blank face told Liam he didn’t even remember his mother.

Liam tensed against the rage running through him. He would not lose control. He would not give this man the satisfaction of knowing how much he affected him. “Thirty-one years ago you knew her very well.”

“Thirty-one years is a long time.” Delancy made a noise that sounded like a half laugh, half snort of derision. “I’ve met a lot of people since then.”

“You never told her you were married. You wined her, dined her. She was a poor, seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant, and she felt as if she’d won the lottery when you took an interest in her.”

“This is a fabrication.” Delancy bristled.

“You got her pregnant, then told her to have an abortion.”

“I never got any woman pregnant other than my wife, Sutton,” Delancy denied.

“When she refused,” Liam went on, making sure to keep his tone low and measured, “you ignored her. She had no money, no place to live and she was pregnant with your bastard son.”

Delancy’s throat worked silently and his face beat bright red. “Nonsense. Utter nonsense.”

“I’m your son and I’ve spent my entire life hating you. I hated you so much I was determined to make something of myself. Determined to convince myself I was better than you. I put myself through Harvard and became a successful businessman. I’m worth almost a billion dollars and I did it because of you.”

“Your mother is mistaken. I’m not your father, James,” Delancy said coldly.

“Your name is right here on my birth certificate.” Liam pulled the birth certificate from his pocket, slapped it in Delancy’s hand.

Delancy’s bodyguards shifted, moving in closer, getting ready to hustle him off. He shoved the certificate back at Liam. “I don’t care what name your mother put on that birth certificate. I’m not your father.”

“Prove it.” Liam lifted his chin, stared Delancy down. Liam’s palms were sweating and his heart was thumping but he’d never felt more like his true self. “Take a DNA test.”

“I don’t have to prove anything.” Delancy turned away from him, turned toward the crowd collecting around the grandstand.

Liam’s old need for revenge reared its ugly head.

The temptation was there-a microphone, an audience, the media. All he had to do was walk over to the mike and make the announcement that could shatter Delancy’s career. He could spill Finn Delancy’s secret all over Boston and finally have his revenge.

But he didn’t reach for the microphone. Didn’t make the public announcement he’d spent years fantasizing about. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt the innocent people involved-Sutton Delancy, his half brothers. But most of all, he couldn’t put the scrutiny of the spotlight on his mother. She’d suffered enough because of this thoughtless, vain, self-centered man.

He’d done what he’d come here to do. Delancy knew who he was. That’s all that mattered.

As Liam turned and walked down the steps of the grandstand, an immediate lightness filled him. A smile tilted his lips and his heart was flooded with the knowledge that he’d just let himself out of a prison of his own making. Delancy no longer had any hold over him. He was free.

Free to love Katie, wholly, completely without any reservation.

Until now, his identity had been caught up in doing and achieving, trying to prove himself worthy of a man who did not deserve his love. But by facing his demons and confronting Delancy, he was finally able to see the truth of it.

Blue blood or commoner. Rich or poor. Bastard son, recognized or not. He was ten times the man Delancy would ever be.

And he owed it all to Katie for helping him to see who he really was deep down inside. Knowing her, being with her, had changed him forever. Changed him in profound and positive ways.

She’d shown him how to embrace his inner child, to have fun and live in the moment. Strange that he’d accused her of deception because until Katie, there had been no hope of true honesty and genuineness in his life.

Before Katie, he’d been quick and competent and capable. He still was, of course, but making a buck was no longer so important. He no longer had anything to prove. What was important now was being true to what had real value to him.

Katie.

He craved her with a longing beyond reason. He had to have her and he was going to do everything in his power to win her back.

THE MORNING AFTER she returned from Fiji, Katie trudged into Sharper Designs. The final art design for Liam’s campaign was due. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to show up at the office today. All she’d wanted to do was call in to work, hide under the covers and huddle there for the rest of her life.

She had the misfortune of falling in love with Liam James. She loved so many things about him-his sense of honor, his work ethic, the way he could see past the boisterous front she put up to hide her fears.

But his emotional stumbling blocks kept tripping them up. He was a loyal and complicated man. His feelings ran deep, but he had buried them under his stiff upper lip so that she didn’t believe he was capable of expressing those feelings. And dammit, Katie deserved a man who could tell her what was in his heart.

A few minutes after Katie had slumped in her chair with a mocha latte, Tanisha came bounding through the door, her face all aglow.

“Good morning!” She greeted Katie with a gigantic smile.

“Well-” Katie blinked, feeling a tad bit disappointed by Tanisha’s enthusiasm. She had visions of them washing away their man woes together over shots of peppermint schnapps during happy hour at the closest bar. “You look as if you’ve rebounded nicely from your breakup with Dwayne. Did you have an exciting hookup this weekend?”

“I did.” Tanisha grinned slyly, her hands clasped behind her back. “With Dwayne.”

“You guys made up? That’s so wonderful,” she said struggling to control her heartache.

“We didn’t just make up.” Tanisha’s eyes danced.

“No?”

“We’re getting married!” Tanisha let out a squeal and thrust her left hand under Katie’s nose so she could see the big two-carat marquis diamond engagement ring on her finger.