Revealed: His Secret Child by Sandra Hyatt Page A

bags upstairs. Gillian crouched in front of Ethan to remove the T-shirt he’d managed to spill water down the front of.
    Gone. Soon Max would be gone. She held on to that thought as she blew a raspberry on her laughing son’s tummy. Laughing in her turn. Soon she’d have the space to make sense of where her life was now at. So much had happened yesterday. It seemed a lifetime ago.
    Max came lightly back down the stairs, his stride carrying him to the front door. Gillian held her breath. Ethan escaped her grasp and trotted to the living room, eager to play with his trains. Max paused with his hand on the handle. “I’ll get my things and be back in an hour.”

Seven
    â€œB ack here?” Gillian repeated, straightening from her crouch. “With what things?”
    â€œI don’t have much. Just my clothes and a few books. I lent my apartment back east to a friend and have been living at the Beach and Tennis Club.”
    â€œYour clothes.” She sounded like a dim-witted echo, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to accept what he was saying. “But…you’re not…you don’t think…?”
    He frowned, opening the door to let in bright rays of winter sunshine. “We’re married. So that my son can have two parents. So there won’t be messy, part-time custody issues. Naturally we’re going to live together. What did you think?”
    Her mind and her heart raced. She certainly hadn’t thought that. She deliberately hadn’t thought anything at all. Shutting out the possibilities and probabilities. Because if she had allowed herself to think about it she would have known. Asimple addition of two and two to get a solid four. Max and his determination. The way he wanted to order his world, and the people in it, to his liking.
    But the prospect was too unnerving. Max in permanent close proximity. Where she could watch him, touch him, share things with him. Maybe want things from him. All bad.
    â€œAnd here,” he continued, oblivious to, or perhaps just unconcerned by, her spiraling agitation, “is far more suitable for a child than the Tennis Club. You have to see that. Ultimately, I’ll buy another house for us or have one built. In fact, I noticed a for-sale sign on a beachfront property—”
    â€œNo.” She shook her head.
    â€œNo?”
    â€œWe can’t move. It would be too disruptive for Ethan. He’s not even used to you yet.”
    â€œFair enough.” He looked around her simple home. A home that she knew was nothing like the mansions and luxury apartments that made up his world. But he seemed unperturbed by the differences.
    And maybe she should be grateful for that fact. Maybe. But right now she couldn’t find that emotion in her. She tried to formulate a quick and convincing argument that would stop Max from moving in, or at least put him off.
    But words failed her. He watched her for several seconds and when still she didn’t speak, said, “Good, that’s settled then.” And left.
    Clutching Ethan’s damp T-shirt to her chest, Gillian leaned against the nearest wall.
    Disruptive?
    For Ethan?
    She pushed off from the wall. She had limits, but things had happened so fast the past two days that she hadn’t had time to draw a line and hold to it.
    That time had come.
    She’d let him live here if that was what he thought he wanted. She’d even try to make the adjustment easy for him. For Ethan’s sake. But if he thought anything else about this marriage—sex—was going to be real, he was very much mistaken. Or at least she wanted him to be.
    He’d crushed her hopes and dreams once already. She wasn’t going to let herself even have hopes and dreams again where he was concerned. That kind of relationship was both too much and not enough for where she was at now.
    Already last night, in the darkness, she had wanted him. But she’d been caught