Susan Crosby - Secrets of Paternity

She did? She was so straightforward, usually, and so…unintriguing. Was it because she was keeping herself mysterious, and therefore, hard to get? “Then I should keep doing what I’m doing,” she said leisurely.

“Ah. It’s the chase that excites you.”

Caryn stared to flirt back, then realized she had no right to. What was she thinking? She gathered up her long-denied, flattered libido and adjusted her body language and tone of voice. “How do I get home from here?”

He barely skipped a beat before giving her directions, then took a step back. His smile disappeared.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” she told him.

He nodded.

She felt awful as she pulled away, like a big tease, like a teenager without any life skills. She’d responded to him without thinking it through. She was sinking deeper into a situation she should be avoiding at all costs.

And she was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to stop.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Silhouette Desire, where this month we have six fabulous novels for you to enjoy. We start things off with Estate Affair by Sara Orwig, the latest installment of the continuing DYNASTIES: THE ASHTONS series. In this upstairs/downstairs-themed story, the Ashtons’ maid falls for an Ashton son and all sorts of scandal follows. And in Maureen Child’s Whatever Reilly Wants…, the second title in the THREE-WAY WAGER series, a sexy marine gets an unexpected surprise when he falls for his suddenly transformed gal pal.

Susan Crosby concludes her BEHIND CLOSED DOORS series with Secrets of Paternity. The secret baby in this book just happens to be eighteen years old…. Hmm, there’s quite the story behind that revelation. The wonderful Emilie Rose presents Scandalous Passion, a sultry tale of a woman desperate to get back some steamy photos from her past lover. Of course, he has a price for returning those pictures, but it’s not money he’s after. The Sultan’s Bed, by Laura Wright, continues the tales of her sheikh heroes with an enigmatic male who is searching for his missing sister and finds a startling attraction to her lovely neighbor. And finally, what was supposed to be just an elevator ride turns into a very passionate encounter, in Blame It on the Blackout by Heidi Betts.

Sit back and enjoy all of the smart, sensual stories Silhouette Desire has to offer.

Happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor

Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

believes in the value of setting goals, but also in the magic of making wishes. A longtime reader of romance novels, Susan earned a B.A. in English while raising her sons. She lives in the central valley of California, the land of wine grapes, asparagus and almonds. Her checkered past includes jobs as a synchronized swimming instructor, personnel interviewer at a toy factory and trucking company manager, but her current occupation as a writer is her all-time favorite.

Susan enjoys writing about people who take a chance on love, sometimes against all odds. She loves warm, strong heroes, good-hearted, self-reliant heroines…and happy endings.

Susan loves to hear from readers. You can visit her at her Web site, www.susancrosby.com.

For those who’ve loved and lost, and somehow carry on, especially Bobbie, Judy, Patt and Ruth.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Caryn Brenley waited until dark before staking out the beautiful home in San Francisco’s upscale Forest Hill area. She might be a rank amateur at such intrigues, but two things she did know: first, she had a better chance of seeing someone arrive home on a weeknight after five o’clock than before it, and second, night provided better cover for someone to sit in a car and observe unnoticed. This late in October, with the switch back to standard time, night came early.

She didn’t have to wait long before a silver van pulled up to the residence she was watching from across the street and down a few houses. The garage door opened and the van disappeared inside. Caryn clenched her steering wheel. Would the driver have to come outside and go up the stairs, or was there access from the garage to inside the house?

Her question was answered quickly when two children, a boy about eight and a girl about five, emerged from the garage followed by a tall, slender woman in a black business suit.

He was married. With children.

It changed everything.

Before the woman and children went into the house, a Mercedes pulled up beside them. The kids jumped up and down and waved. The woman smiled. Again the garage door opened—

A motorcycle pulled up behind Caryn’s Explorer. In her rearview mirror she saw a man in full biker gear climb off the bike and head to the nearest house, the one in front of which Caryn was hiding in plain sight. He grabbed the contents of the mailbox and jogged up the stairs.

She went back to watching the family greet each other, but she focused on the man in the business suit who’d just arrived across the street. Husband. Father. He wasn’t as tall as she would have imagined, although his hair was dark, as she expected. There was no way of checking out his eye color from where she sat, and his dark suit and overcoat didn’t show his physique well.

Now what? She’d come to satisfy her curiosity, to see him for herself. But short of marching up and asking his name, she couldn’t know for sure that he was James Paladin, her son’s biological father.

Maybe she should leave well enough alone—

No. As appealing as that sounded, she couldn’t. Paul made a promise nineteen years ago. He could no longer keep that promise, but he would expect her to. She expected it of herself. That’s why she was here, skulking like the amateur sleuth she was.

The family went into their house together, the man carrying the little girl, her arms wrapped around his neck. She gave him repeated kisses on his cheek.

The fire went out of Caryn. There had to be a more subtle way to get her answers than confronting the man to verify that he was James Paladin—someplace away from his family. Then when she knew for sure, she would tell Kevin. The choice had to be his, a tough decision for an eighteen-year-old, especially one who’d been to hell and back in the past year.

She drummed her fingers on her steering wheel as she considered possibilities, then decided to go home and come up with a solution for another day. Maybe she could come back in the morning, follow him to his work and see if there was a way to determine his identity there. She would have to call in sick, herself. Lose a day’s wages and tips, something she couldn’t afford to do.

Resigned, Caryn started her engine, shifted into Reverse and released the emergency brake just before she spotted the biker hurrying back down the steps. He looked straight at her. She grabbed the map from the seat beside her and buried her face in it, not wanting him to get too close a look, in case she had to stake out James Paladin again.

She heard his motorcycle rev but kept her map raised, waiting for him to pull away first. His engine cut out, then a sharp knock on her window startled her, panicked her.

The map went flying. Her foot slipped off the brake. The Explorer rolled backward.