The Magnate's Marriage Merger

He rested an elbow on the railing, relaxing his posture.

“That’s actually one of your less well-guarded secrets. I hired a friend to learn the identity of Mallory West in the hope of sparing Cameron any further embarrassment.” Ian shrugged a shoulder. “And to spare Sophia Koslov further embarrassment, since Cameron’s potential bride turned out to be the love of Quinn’s life.”

“I read about that. I’m glad that some good came out of the situation.” She hesitated a moment before deciding to press on. “You hired someone to find me?”

What else did he know about the last year of her life? Worry knotted her gut, but she had to hope that the confidentiality of her medical records had withstood his investigation.

“I wasn’t expecting to find you, Lydia. I hired someone to track Mallory West.” His words were clipped. “I can’t begin to describe my surprise at discovering you’d had a hand in my affairs ever since you broke things off with me last summer.”

“You gave me no choice,” she reminded him, remembering the sting of seeing his smiling, handsome face on a friend’s page of potential matches on the Mates International dating site. “You not only betrayed me, you did so publicly. If we’d been dating in Manhattan instead of Rangiroa, I can only imagine the fallout.” She needed to leave now. To escape whatever dark plans he had in mind by following her to South Beach and insinuating himself back into her life. “But thankfully, that wasn’t the case and the rumors of our affair died quickly enough.”

Pivoting on her heel, she retrieved her tote bag, prepared to request an Uber.

“I just have one question.” Ian followed her across the private terrace, his arms folded over his broad chest as he walked.

“I’m listening.” She found her phone and clutched it in one hand.

“Why do all the profits go to a charity benefiting single mothers?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to lie. To tell him that it was a way to help women like her mother, who’d allowed being a single parent to turn her into a bitter person.

But she knew that he wouldn’t believe her. He knew her better than that, understood the complex and difficult relationship she had with her mom.

“I met a few women who worked with the group.” That was true. Still, her mouth went dry and the heat was beginning to get to her. This whole day was getting to her.

No. Ian McNeill was getting to her.

Those intensely blue eyes seemed to probe all her secrets, seeing right through her.

“How? Where?” he pressed, even as he gestured her toward a seat on the couch again.

He lowered himself to sit beside her as she wondered how much he already knew. She didn’t want to equivocate if his personal investigation had already revealed the truth.

“At a support group for single mothers.” Her eyes met his. Held. “I attended a few meetings in the weeks after our affair.” She had been so touched by those women. So helped by their unwavering support. She took a deep breath. “That was before I lost the pregnancy and...our child.”

* * *

Ian felt like he’d stepped into the elevator shaft and fallen straight down all forty stories.

“What?” He thought he’d been shocked to discover Lydia was the woman behind Mallory West. Yet the blow he’d felt then was nothing compared to this. “You were pregnant when you ended things between us?”

She’d been so fierce and definite. So unwilling to listen to any explanation even though Ian hadn’t done a damn thing to post that stupid profile. And all the time she’d been carrying his child? A new anger surged—putting all the other frustrations on the back burner.

How could she hide that from him?

“I didn’t realize it at the time. But yes.” Lydia unclenched her hand where she’d been holding her cell phone. Setting it carefully aside on the table beside their untouched lunch, she shifted her tote to the outdoor carpet at her feet. She seemed unsure where to look, her eyes darting around the terrace without landing on any one thing. “I realized later that the pregnancy hormones were probably part of the reason why I reacted so strongly to finding your profile online. But it never crossed my mind that I could be pregnant for another week, and then—”

“We were so careful.” His mind went back to those long, sultry nights with her. Lydia all wrapped around him in that villa with no walls where they could look straight out into the Pacific Ocean, the sea breezes cooling their damp bodies after their lovemaking. “Every time we were careful.”

“There were a couple of nights we went in the water,” she reminded him, nibbling on her lower lip. “The hot tub once. And the ocean...remember?”

Her green eyes brought him right back to one of those moments when he’d been looking into them as a rainfall shower sprayed over them in the outdoor Jacuzzi. Her delicate hands had smoothed over his shoulders, nails biting gently into his skin as he moved deeper inside her.

“Yes.” His voice was hoarse with how damn well he remembered. “I recall.”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe one of those times. I don’t know. But I can tell you that I tested positive when it occurred to me I might be pregnant and then—”

“I had a right to know.” That part was only just beginning to really take hold in his brain, firing him up even more. “When you first found out, you should have told me.”

“Because things had ended so happily between us?” she retorted, her brow furrowed. “Ian, you didn’t even deny that you were going to date other people. You said your family wanted you to find a wife.”

“That could have been you.” He articulated the words clearly, restraining himself when he wanted to roar them for all of South Beach to hear. “And I didn’t deny your ludicrous accusation about dating other people because I had no intention of dating anyone but you.”

Hell, he’d fallen in love with her. He’d been ready to propose, thought they knew everything about each other there could be to know. And it had insulted him in the very fiber of his being that a woman he cared about so much could think so poorly of him that he would advertise himself for dates with other women. Clearly, they hadn’t known each other as well as he thought. He’d been too damn impulsive and mistook intense—very intense—passion for love.

Later, he’d forgotten about his grandfather’s plan, pure and simple, because he’d been caught up in his work and in Lydia. Plus, they’d been a million miles from home and the pressure of the McNeill world.

She went so quiet that he wondered what she was thinking. Instead of asking, he helped himself to a swig of the prosecco they’d left out on the table, trying to settle his own thoughts.

“As I said, I was probably operating under the influence of pregnancy hormones. I’ve spoken to a lot of other mothers since then, and they say it’s a powerful chemical change.” She surprised him with her practical admission, especially after the matchmaking games she’d played last summer.

Maybe time had softened her initial anger with him. Or showed her that he might not be fully to blame for his grandfather’s matchmaking transgression.

“Setting aside the fact that you never informed me about our child—” he took a deep breath as he willed himself to set it aside, too “—can you tell me what happened? Why do the doctors think you miscarried?”

He had a million other questions. How far along had she been? Had she ever considered reaching out to him before she’d lost the baby? What if the pregnancy had gone to full term? Would she have ever contacted him?

That last question, and the possibility that the answer was no, burned right through him.

“The cause was undetermined. My doctor assured me miscarriages happen in ten to twenty-five percent of pregnancies for women in their child-bearing years, so it’s not that unusual.” She laid a hand across her abdomen as she spoke. An unconscious gesture? “The most common cause is a chromosome abnormality, but there’s no reason to believe it would happen to me again.”

Hearing the vulnerability in her voice, seeing it for himself in her eyes, made some of the resentment ease away.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you.” He reached to take her hand resting beside him on the couch.

Her skin felt cool to the touch despite the heat. She stared down at his fingers clasping hers, but didn’t move away from the connection.

“I didn’t handle it well.” She retrieved her bottle of water and took a long drink. “It might have been hormones, but the sadness was overwhelming. But I spent a lot of time with the mothers’ group I told you about. Being with them helped me to heal.”

A row of misters clicked on nearby to provide water to the exotic flowers tucked in a planter by the doors to his suite. The cool spray glanced over their skin before the water evaporated in the Miami sun glinting off white stone walls all around the rooftop terrace.

“That’s why you support this group now—Moms’ Connection.” He tried to fit the pieces together in his mind to figure out what she’d been through in the past year.

“Yes. I met some incredibly strong women who inspired me. Seeing their efforts to help other single mothers made me realize how petty it was for me to meddle in the matches that were being sent to you.” She hesitated. “I started to put more effort into really matching up people and I discovered I was good at it.”

Sliding her hand from his grip, she smoothed it along the hem of her dress, straightening the fabric.

“So you kept at it and used the funds to help the group that helped you.” His vision of her shifted slightly, coming into sharper focus. “And what happened with Sofia Koslov and my brother was, as you say, a genuine accident.”