He’d left his room to fill his ice bucket when he saw her wandering the hall, still dressed in the knockout red dress that had every man at the wedding doing a double take. She’d tried to remain unobtrusive throughout the event, but she was hard not to notice with her curves and that luscious mouth. She stopped a few doors from him, fumbling with her key card. Her door wouldn’t open and she mumbled something in Italian. Will wondered if she’d been drinking more than just the club soda he’d heard her order all day.

“Here, let me try.” He’d been raised in the South, after all.

Startled, she nearly dropped the key card. Will caught her hand and a jolt of electricity shot up his arm. At the time, he attributed it to the storm churning overhead. He tried the card unsuccessfully.

“You must have put it too close to your cell phone in your purse.” He carefully handed the card back to her. “These things demagnetize easily. They can fix it at the front desk.”

A savage bolt of lightning suddenly lit up the floor-length window behind Will, illuminating her face. She wasn’t drunk, she was terrified.

“Hey.” He gently took her elbow. “Why don’t I walk with you downstairs to get this fixed?”

She said something that was a jumble of English and Italian, but he had no trouble picking up the gist: She hated storms. Just as they turned toward the elevator, another crack of lightning hit, knocking out the power, and the hallway was enveloped in blackness. She let out a little squeak and dug her fingernails into Will’s arm.

“Change of plans.” He maneuvered her back toward his room, where the door was propped open by the security lock. The blue glare from his laptop screen provided enough light to guide her over to the king-sized bed. As he eased her down, her eyes locked onto the storm outside the window. Lightning streaked across the dark sky. Will crouched in front of her, gently laying a hand against her cheek. “Shhh,” he said, trying to reassure her. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Her stare darted between him and the storm raging on the beach, fear still paralyzing her face as she fingered a cross around her neck. There was no hope for it. Will lay down on the bed and gathered her in his arms, gently stroking her back.

At this point, things got hazy.

He wasn’t sure who kissed who first, but when their lips met, something ignited within them both. She tasted of coffee and smelled of tropical flowers and he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Their clothes melted away, giving Will’s hands and lips access to warm, soft skin. When he entered her that first time, she welcomed him, wrapping her legs around his hips and bringing him to near-perfect ecstasy.

The thunder and lightning were winding down the second time they made love, her fingers and mouth torturing his body before he found his release. The third time he took her, the storm had dissipated outside but continued to rage on between them as the electricity he’d felt in the hallway reached a fevered pitch. Will had never felt such an intense connection with any other woman.

Until she called out another man’s name while climaxing. And then the condom broke.

When he woke the next morning, she was gone, the battered beach the only evidence of the previous night’s storm. Will’s psyche was as ravaged as the shoreline. His mystery lover had checked out of the hotel and disappeared without a word. As it turned out, she might have taken a lot more from him than a little piece of his ego.

Will took a deep breath and grabbed at his tie to loosen the stranglehold it had around his neck. He needed air. Roscoe and Hank were standing when Will turned to join them.

“You can’t leave!” Mr. Clem threw his body in front of the double doors. “That boy needs you!”

Will felt his chest constrict. A son. I might have a son.

“Mr. Clem.” Roscoe’s voice sounded miles away as the world spun around Will. “We’re not acknowledging anything without a paternity test.”

“We don’t have time for that!” Mr. Clem slammed his fist against the door as his face turned scarlet.

The senator slapped both hands on the table in frustration. “She doesn’t want you to acknowledge the baby! She doesn’t want a red cent from you. You never even have to see him.”

Rage swarmed through Will as he rocked back on his heels. What the hell was going on? Who was this woman? If the boy was his, there was no way Will wasn’t going to acknowledge him! Much less be a part of his life. A very big part.

Hank stepped in front of the senator, getting right in his face. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, Senator. What kind of game are you playing?”

“It’s not a game. My sister never wanted Will to know about him. Her plan was to raise him herself. In Italy. But things have changed. Julianne needs your help.” The senator’s voice sounded like a plea.

Will barely heard Mr. Clem over the roaring in his ears. “She doesn’t want your money!” The man practically wailed. “She wants your blood!”

Two

The monitors in the neonatal ICU beeped incessantly. Their sound, combined with little sleep and even less food, worked to numb Julianne Marchione into a zombielike state. She tried to refocus her thoughts and concentrate on the words her business manager, Sebastian Flanders, was saying, but her mind kept wandering to the incubator containing her four-week-old son, Owen. Her arms ached to hold him, but the disease poisoning his blood kept her baby confined to the NICU, tubes and wires marring his tiny arms and legs.

“Jules, sweetheart.” Sebastian’s British accent permeated the thick fog that surrounded her brain. “You don’t have to do this right now. You shouldn’t be making such rash decisions in the state you’re in, love.”

She gave her head a little shake and gazed over at the man across from her. The handsome black Englishman with the laughing coffee eyes had put as much blood, sweat, and tears into her career these past ten years as she had. His eyes weren’t laughing today, though. They were fearful and apprehensive. Worst of all, Julianne saw pity reflected there.

They were seated at a round table in one of the private vestibules Children’s Hospital provided for the families of its NICU patients. The small, windowless area was not quite a room; a curtained partition made up the fourth wall. Aside from the table and four chairs, the only other furniture was a sofa, too small and too hard to sleep on, and a television. She found it hard to conceive that anyone could watch TV while their child was so ill.

“I don’t have a choice.” Julianne’s voice was hoarse. Her hand trembled as she picked up a pen and let it hover over the documents spread out on the table. “I don’t have medical insurance. At least not the kind that will cover all of Owen’s expenses. Selling JV Designs ensures me enough cash that”—her voice began to shake—“if Owen doesn’t get a blood transfusion his body will accept, I can afford whatever treatment I need him to have to keep him alive.” She didn’t want to contemplate the alternative.

“Julianne,” Sebastian coaxed. “There’s still time. The father will come, love. And the doctor said there’s a seventy percent chance he’ll be a match. If that’s the case, Owen will beat this and go on to give you gray hairs before you’re forty. You don’t need to sell. It’s going to work out.” He covered one of her hands with his and squeezed.

“I have to do this.” Julianne was resolute. She no longer had the confidence Sebastian possessed. Owen was already being punished enough for the mistakes she’d made and the lies she’d told. It was only fair that she suffer, too.

Sebastian’s voice was anguished. “They’re going to take your designs and mass-market them.”

Julianne smiled grimly as her eyes met Sebastian’s. They both knew she hadn’t sketched a single design in nearly six months. She’d begged off commissions as soon as she’d found out about the baby. Even if her pregnancy hadn’t been difficult from the start, the guilt Julianne suffered had completely drained her creative juices. There was no telling when she’d get them back—if ever.

“Last I checked, Princess Kate bought clothes off the rack,” Julianne quipped.

“Carly, help me out here!” Sebastian pleaded to the woman seated on the sofa behind her.

Julianne didn’t have to turn around to feel the wave of disappointment emanating from her closest friend, Carly March Devlin. The two had met when both were students in boarding school nearly sixteen years ago. Theirs was a friendship deeper than sisterhood, born out of the shared experience of each losing their mother at a young age. But Julianne’s lies and omissions these past several months had damaged their friendship. This morning’s confession just might have pushed the relationship past the stage of irreparable.

She heard Carly rise from the sofa and closed her eyes to hold back the tears as her friend approached.

“Sebastian is right.” Carly gently massaged Julianne’s shoulders. “You’re not thinking clearly right now. You’re exhausted and worried about Owen. Now’s not the time to be thinking about selling your company. Instead, you need to concentrate on taking care of yourself so you can take care of Owen.” Carly hesitated. “Once Will gets here, he’ll help you through this.”

Julianne’s shoulders sagged underneath the enormous weight of shame she carried. Will Connelly. What must it feel like to suddenly find out you have a child? Would he be furious? And what would he think of her?

She didn’t have any answers because she knew so little about her son’s father. Embarrassment washed over her as she thought of the meeting taking place in her half brother’s office. She hoped Stephen wasn’t too hard on him. Will, like Owen, was innocent in all of this. Not that her brother saw it that way. He was more concerned with the ramifications to his political career. The senator wanted Julianne and her illegitimate son out of the country and away from any reporters who’d yet to snoop out the story.