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THE TEXAS TATTLER

All the news that’s barely fit to print!

Paternity Shocker!

DNA tests conclusively prove that Matthew Fortune, eldest son of Texas billionaire Ryan Fortune, is the biological father of a child whose identity has plagued and baffled a family, national law enforcement and the entire Lone Star State. Time for a quick “scandal” recap.

One year ago, Matthew and Claudia Fortune’s million-dollar-darling Bryan was snatched by kidnappers demanding a jaw-dropping ransom. FBI agents recovered a baby with the distinctive crown-shaped birthmark identifying him as a Fortune—but the child wasn’t Bryan. Matthew and Claudia agreed to care for little “Taylor” until the mystery of his parentage was solved.

Even in the face of hard scientific evidence to the contrary, husband Matthew claims he’s never strayed. Hmmm…Taylor is about one year old and the newlyweds in question tied the knot a little over two years ago…. Matthew must be using the new, new math for those figures to add up!

And more titillating tid-bits from the Double Crown Ranch… Tattler sleuths report royally gorgeous hunk Sheikh Ben Ramir in the close company of legal eagle Eden Fortune. Sources say these two had a fast-’n’-furious fling in Paris years ago. And Eden’s son, Sawyer, is beginning to look like a prince sized secret!

About the Author

KASEY MICHAELS

is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than sixty books. She has won the Romance Writers of America RITA^® Award and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for her historical romances set in the Regency era.

The Sheikh’s Secret Son
Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Meet the Fortunes of Texas

Eden Fortune: The last thing she expected was a reunion with the father of her child. And she never anticipated that her feelings for the dashing and virile sheikh would be stronger than ever.

Sheikh Ben Ramir: He’d lost Eden due to his father’s interference. But now the time had finally come for this lion of the desert to make his move and claim the only woman he’d ever loved—and the princely heir he’d never known.

Baby Taylor: The stunning revelation about his parentage had repercussions for the entire Fortune family, especially his foster parents—Matthew and Claudia.

Wyatt Grayhawk: The rugged lawman knew the prominent Fortune family had weathered its share of scandals, and he was determined to protect his friends at all costs.

To Melissa Jeglinski, one more time.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

One

The wedding had been beautiful. But then, weddings usually were beautiful, wonderful. Eden Fortune’s brother Logan had been handsome and adorably nervous. Emily, his bride, had been lovely and serene. Together, Logan and Emily had taken their vows and become a family to Amanda Sue, Logan’s no longer motherless daughter.

Happy endings were nice.

Not that Eden would know much about that.

The digital clock next to her bed blinked itself past midnight, and Eden knew she couldn’t just lie there and watch as it passed one, then two…counting down the hours all the way to dawn.

Pushing back the soft down comforter, she slipped from the queen-size bed; a bed too large, too lonely. Too cold and empty.

Sliding her feet into her slippers, she brushed a thick lock of dark brown hair behind her left ear, pushed herself erect, and padded to the doorway, led by the light she always left on in the hallway in case her five-year-old son Sawyer woke during the night and she had to go to him.

He was quiet tonight, probably worn out from their long day. But, if he did wake, she knew she could calm his childish nightmares. She could sing him nonsense songs and hold his small body close and rock him back to sleep.

But she couldn’t answer his questions.

Ciara Wilde had heard Sawyer ask the most unanswerable question tonight, at the small wedding reception held at the Fortune ranch after the ceremony. Ciara was a sweet girl, and Eden had been happy to hear that she and her uncle, Jace Lockhart, planned to be married. In fact, Eden had been offering Ciara her best wishes when Sawyer had asked the first question.

The boy’s timing was impeccable.

“Mommy?” he’d asked, tugging at her skirt, looking up at her with those penetrating dark eyes of his, eyes that lived in her memory, in her dreams…and in her son. “Amanda Sue has a mommy and a daddy now, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, darling,” Eden had answered as her stomach knotted. She must have betrayed herself in her tone of voice, or in the quick flush of her cheeks, because Ciara had taken her hand, squeezed her fingers. “Uncle Logan and Aunt Emily are Amanda Sue’s daddy and mommy now.”

Sawyer’s bottom lip had come forward in a pout. “That’s not fair,” he’d protested, glaring past Eden to where Logan was sitting in a chair on the front porch, rocking a sleepy Amanda Sue in his arms. “Why can she have both a mommy and a daddy when I can’t?”

Eden had immediately knelt in front of her son, this five-year-old with questions and heartaches too big for his small body. “Sawyer, I—”

“Not fair! Not fair!” he’d shouted, pulling away from her, running off toward the stables.

Eden had continued to kneel in the dirt, stunned, watching Sawyer’s straight, sturdy legs carry him away from her, and then flinched as Ciara’s hand came to rest on her shoulder.

“Do you want me to go after him, Eden, talk to him?” Ciara had asked, offering her help, her friendship, her comfort.

“No, thank you, Ciara,” Eden had said, returning to her feet slowly, like an old woman whose joints didn’t always cooperate. “He’ll be fine. He’s probably going to visit with his pony for a while. Hercules is quite good at listening to Sawyer’s problems, as long as the carrots hold out. He just needs some time alone, and then he’ll be…fine. Really, he’ll be fine…”

Eden had been right. Logan had brought Sawyer back to the house about a half hour later, and the boy had held his uncle’s hand tightly as he apologized to her for running off without telling her where he was going. Then, as Eden watched, and as her brother had given Sawyer’s hand a small squeeze, her son walked closer, his body stiff and straight, and motioned that she should bend so that he could kiss her cheek.

Always the gentleman, her son, once he was over his temper. Almost princely in his forgiveness of her for his own impolite actions.

Eden smiled now as she opened the door to Sawyer’s room and a wedge of light from the hallway spilled into the room, exposing her son’s outline on the bed. Tall for his age, old for his age. Straight and strong. Oddly formal for a child, with the manners of a much older child, with the sometimes autocratic ways of the man he’d never known.

And yet he was five years old. Only five years old.

Eden tiptoed into the room, stopped, and smiled again. Her big boy. Her great big, brave, wonderful boy. With his thumb stuck in his mouth and his teddy bear, Fred, clutched tight in one arm.

She bent and adjusted the covers over him, then pressed a kiss to her fingers before touching those same fingers to his cheek. He was her baby.

Her baby with the grown-up questions.

And she was his mother, the woman who didn’t have any answers for him.

Eden Fortune had been born to just that. Fortune. There was wealth, yes, but she also had a more important fortune, that of her family. Eden’s was a large family, the sort that swept you up, welcomed you in. Sometimes smothered you.

But she tried to not think about that anymore, about how she had run away when the love and concern had felt more like pity. She’d been young then, young and stupid. Young, and stupid, and pregnant. More than a little worried that, after vowing never to be like her father, she had acted with his same disregard for consequences.

Cameron Fortune was dead now, killed when speed, alcohol and poor judgment had combined to send his car racing out of control on his way back to the ranch from San Antonio, the nubile young woman tucked into the passenger seat dying as well. He’d always been irresponsible and she’d promised herself that, much as she’d loved her dad, she would never be anything like him.

But despite her vow, Sawyer was born…the consequence of an impetuous love, unprotected sex, and no thought at all about consequences.

But if Eden was her father’s child, she was also her mother’s daughter, and she had the same for-better-for-worse character that had kept Mary Ellen Fortune standing at her husband’s shoulder, loving him no matter what.

Eden had made a mistake, but she had owned up to it in true Mary Ellen Fortune style. She’d packed herself up, straightened her spine, her resolve, and done what had to be done. She’d had her baby, kept her baby.

And she’d never regretted her decision.

Buying the house in San Antonio had been one of her best moves, as now she was close enough to the ranch to have the love and companionship of her family yet far enough away to maintain her independence. She had her brothers, Holden and Logan, she had her mother, and the entire Fortune menagerie of loving aunts and uncles and cousins.

And she had her career. Eden thanked the good Lord every night for her career. Her career as an international business lawyer filled her days. Sawyer filled her leisure hours.

Nothing filled her nights….

Eden was running late Monday morning, always a warning sign that the whole day would be one full of glitches and irritating minor problems—beginning with her pulling a hole in her last pair of panty hose. She’d had to run to the local convenience store to pick up a new pair. Worse, she’d come downstairs to learn that Sawyer had awakened with the sniffles, and even though Mrs. Betts had promised to watch him closely and call the doctor if he began to run a fever, Eden had been loathe to leave him.

Which was silly. Mrs. Betts was more than just a housekeeper. She was Eden’s friend, and she loved Sawyer to pieces. He’d be fine, Eden knew that. He didn’t need his mommy hovering over him, feeling his brow and handing him tissues. It had been Sawyer who had told her that, too, and not Mrs. Betts. What an independent little creature she was raising!

Pushing back her jacket sleeve as her high heels clicked against the marble floor of the tall office building, Eden checked her watch one more time, grimaced one more time, and headed for the bank of elevators.

Naturally, her gas gauge had somehow crept all the way to Empty when she hadn’t been looking, further proving her theory that a day begun badly never goes well. The stop at the crowded gas station had taken precious minutes she hadn’t had to spare.

Still fretting over the time lost at the gas station, she tapped one elegantly clad foot on the floor as the security guard checked for her name on the list in front of him.

She looked at her reflection in the golden doors of one of the elevators, quickly running a hand through her shoulder-length dark brown hair, squinting a little as she decided that she probably should have worn more blush with her dark blue suit, for her cheeks looked a little too pale.

“Oh, okay, here you are, Ms. Fortune,” the security guard said after what seemed an eternity of time, pointing to one of the names on his list. “And here’s your security pass. You can just pin it to your suit, okay?”

Eden nodded, took the pass. She had taken three quick steps toward the last elevator in the hallway before she stopped, turned, and walked back to the desk. She was wasting more time, she knew, but she just had to ask.

“Henry, I’ve been coming here for two years now. I know you, you know me. I know your wife packs you meatloaf sandwiches every Thursday, and you’ve met Sawyer a couple of times—enough times that you know he likes those cherry candies you keep in your pocket.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Eden looked at him a moment, shook her head. “So,” she asked, pointing to the badge she’d pinned to her jacket, “what’s all this? The checking the list, the badge—those two goons standing in front of the elevator that goes to the twenty-sixth floor?”

Henry stole a quick look over his shoulder at the “goons,” then motioned for Eden to step closer, as if he were about to tell her some state secret.

“It’s this guy,” he whispered conspiratorially. “I don’t know who he is, see, but he shows up about an hour ago. Big black limousine. Bulletproof, I’m thinking, and with a car in front, another in back. All these guys come piling out of the two cars, come marching in here, demanding all sorts of stuff. I had to clear out the whole lobby before the guy steps so much as a foot out of the limo. And then I could barely see him for all the guys walking with him, speeding him into the elevator, whisking him upstairs. Tall, though. I could see the top of his head. He had one of those things on it, you know? One of those headpieces or what-you-want-to-call-its.”

The guard leaned even closer to Eden and his voice dropped another notch. “You know what I think, missy? I think he must be some government type. And not ours, neither.”

“Sounds intriguing, Henry,” Eden said, trying to sound suitably impressed. She’d only been working in international law for two years, but she’d already seen her share of important people—those who really were and those who only thought they were. “And was he definitely going to the twenty-sixth floor?”

“Like you said, missy, you’ve been coming here for a while now,” Henry said, standing straight once more and nervously beginning to shuffle the papers in front of him, as if he knew he’d said more than he should. “We both know that’s the only elevator that goes all the way to the twenty-sixth floor.”

Eden frowned, thanked Henry, and headed for the elevator once more, mentally reviewing the coming meeting in her head, mentally going over the names of those expected to attend the meeting.

There were all the usual suspects, of course. Her boss; her boss’s boss. Three other lawyers on her level, each one assigned to a particular area of international law. Her area of expertise was international law as it pertained to oil and gas rights.

Today her firm was to represent a triad of American companies hoping to do business in the small oil-and-gas-rich Middle East kingdom of Kharmistan. Which, she supposed, explained all the heightened security and the big-shouldered, dour-faced men standing on either side of the elevator. They had reason to be a nervous bunch, Middle East tensions being what they were.

Eden had a bad moment at the elevator—fearing she was about to be frisked for the first time in her life—before the two big-shouldered “goons” finally let her pass, muttering to each other in their own language.

She kept her smile bright until the elevator doors closed in front of her, then grumbled something that sounded very much like “male chauvinist pigs,” certain that the two had difficulty believing a woman could possibly have anything constructive to do with business. Now there was a prejudice that had no trouble crossing international borders!

She forgot the guards and watched the numbers light up one after the other as the elevator swiftly and silently whisked her to the twenty-sixth floor. One last check of her watch told her she had cut it fine, but would arrive on the dot of nine.

She gripped the handle of her attaché case tightly in both hands, holding it in front of her in an unconsciously defensive posture, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly as the doors opened. Several men standing in the lobby of the penthouse office suite turned to look at her, then turned away again to resume their conversation.

Eden continued to stand in the elevator. She couldn’t move. Her feet had rooted to the floor, her brain had gone on stun, robbing her of the ability to walk.

The elevator doors whispered closed again and she collapsed against the back wall, her hand pressed to her mouth as she told herself not to scream. Not to scream, not to faint, not to run…run…run. Run out of the building. Run to her car. Run to her house, where she would grab up her son and then run some more.

Run as far and as fast as she could.

Thankfully, sanity returned before anyone summoned the elevator back to the lobby, and she swallowed down hard and pushed the Door Open button so that she could leave the elevator and join the men who had probably already forgotten her.

He doesn’t know, she told herself, repeating the words over and over like a mantra. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. And what he doesn’t know can’t hurt me.

Drawing on every resource at her command—her upbringing, her independent nature, her long years of taking care of herself—Eden willed her heart to slow. Willed her lips to smile. Willed herself to remember who she was, where she was, and why she was here.

She was here to explain international oil and gas law to her bosses, to her firm’s clients, and to a Sheikh Barakah Karif Ramir of Kharmistan or his representative.

Which one was the tall guy wearing the headpiece Henry had talked about? The representative? Or the sheikh himself?

Did it matter?

Because she knew this man, if not his true name or position. She’d never forget him.

He was the self-assured gentleman standing smack in the middle of the reception area, holding court over those from her office and the clients her office represented.

He was the devastatingly handsome man she’d known almost six years ago in Paris.

He was the fickle, duplicitous man she’d known as Ben Ramsey…and she’d borne him a child. A boy child, with his same aristocratic features, his same dark eyes and hair, his same elegant posture, his same almost princely air of confidence.

Eden didn’t feel much like humming a chorus of “It’s a Small World After All.”

Jim Morris broke away from the group before the elevator doors had closed, and for once Eden was happy to see the ambitious young lawyer. Jim looked worried, which made her even happier, as that meant he was probably going to grab her by the elbow and quickly drag her into another room so that he could tell her why the universe was about to explode here on the twenty-sixth floor.

“Trouble?” she asked almost eagerly as she kept her head down, carefully avoiding the eyes of the dozen or so men who probably wouldn’t have given her a second look if her hair caught on fire.

“That depends, Eden,” Jim said, hurriedly taking her arm—she’d almost offered it, she was that anxious to be rescued. “Come in here, okay? And tell me, please, please tell me that you know why in hell the sheikh felt the need to be here today?”

Eden tugged her elbow free of Jim’s tight grip and sat herself down in the nearest chair. It was more elegant than falling down.

Her stomach clenched into a tight ball, and she swayed slightly as a wave of panicked nausea hit her. Had she heard Jim right? Ben Ramsey was a sheikh? For crying out loud, Sawyer was the son of the Sheikh of Kharmistan? No. How could that be? Ludicrous. That was simply ludicrous.

Oh, God. Jim meant it. Now she knew. Ben was the sheikh. Sawyer was his son, the son Ben didn’t know existed, thanks to his defection all those years ago in Paris.

How much danger was Sawyer in, now that she knew? If she was to tell Ben…

She cleared her throat, tried to focus on Jim Morris. “So he is the sheikh, then? Mr. Klinger said he might show up, but I thought—but then I hoped…well, never mind. What you’re saying is that the guy in the headcloth—what do they call those things, anyway—is the sheikh himself, and not just his representative? What’s the representative’s name? Wait, I have it in my notes.”

She set her attaché case on the desk in front of her and quickly unzipped it, then pulled out a thick manila folder and began paging through it. She always kept a “cast of characters” in her private notes, just so she could cram for the final exam that was the actual meeting with her firm’s clients. Mostly, however, she was stalling for time, time during which she hoped to put her shattered brain back together.

“Ah, here it is. Nadim. Yusuf Nadim. How could I have forgotten? He’s the one we’ve all been dealing with the most, right? Man,” she said, pressing a hand against her belly, “I’ve got to stop this, calm down.” She put down her notes, looked up at Morris, knowing she must resemble a doe caught in headlights.

She began to pace, trying to burn off energy as an oil well burned off excess natural gas.

“Is he here, too, Jim? This Nadim guy? I only saw one of those headpieces—Lord, what do they call them? I feel like such an ugly American, calling them ‘headpieces.’ I know what a kimono is, Jim, I know what a kilt is—I even know the proper name for those shorts some Europeans wear on special occasions, although the name escapes me at the moment. So why don’t I know what those headdresses are called? Laziness, that’s what it is. Sheer laziness on my part. I should be ashamed of myself.”

Jim rolled his eyes. “I don’t think that’s important right now, Eden. What’s important is that this Nadim fellow is back at the hotel, sick from the flight or something, and that the sheikh is here on his own, and making one hell of a mess out of six months of our hard work. Why couldn’t this Nadim guy just have postponed the meeting? Why do we have to have this big shot, know-nothing Sheikh of Ara-bee here to screw up the works?”

Pulling herself back from the inanity of trying to calm her badly jangled nerves by thinking about headpieces, Eden did her best to slip into her professional role. Jim wasn’t exactly known for his social skills, and he had just crossed the line.

“One, Jim,” she began firmly, “you’re out of line. Two, you’re still out of line. Unless you want to be that redneck ‘y’all’ lawyer from Texas, and I don’t think you like insults any more than anyone else does. Third—how so? How is everything going wrong? Today’s meeting should have been nothing more than a formality. All the bugs were worked out months ago.”

“Got you, Eden. That was stupid. I’m sorry.” Morris raked a hand through his thinning hair, hair he wore three inches too long in the back in an effort to make the world believe he owned more of it. Eden noticed, withholding a grimace, that he’d had his hair permed since she’d seen him last. Talk about someone who could benefit from one of those headdresses!

She mentally shook herself, once more tried to keep her mind on what was important. Tried to pretend her private world wasn’t falling apart.

“All right, Jim. We’ll forget it. Now, as I said, we should be ready for some signing on the dotted line this morning, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you. You thought so, I thought so, everybody in our firm thought so,” Morris grumbled. “But it turns out the sheikh—this Ramir fellow—is a lawyer of some kind himself, educated at Yale, if you can believe that. A Yalie! He’s got, like, a million questions. We need you, Harvard. Harvard always beats Yale, right?”

“What do you want me to do, Jim? Threaten to tackle him? Besides, I saw Klinger out there, right?” Eden protested, feeling the urge to bolt sliding over her again. This was too much. Too much information, too many memories, too many fears. They were all crowding in on her, bearing her down, crushing her.

She could barely think. “Surely Klinger can handle this. We’re just here for decoration at this point, Jim, and you know that. As I said, a few comments, a lot of ego-kissing, some signing on the dotted line, and we’re outta here.”

“How interesting, Ms. Fortune. And who will be kissing my…ego?”

Eden closed her eyes, wishing the action could make her disappear. The way he’d disappeared so many years ago.

“Oh, God,” she breathed almost soundlessly, looking at Jim Morris, whose thin features had turned the color of putty. Then she squared her shoulders, turned around, and looked straight into Ben Ramsey’s eyes. Into Sheikh Barakah Karif Ramir’s dark, mocking eyes.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” she said quickly. “As you can imagine, you weren’t supposed to overhear my associate and me talking. I apologize.”

Ben kept looking at her. Staring at her. Staring straight through her. With Sawyer’s eyes, damn him.

“You may go now,” he said rather imperiously. “Closing the door behind you as you leave—something you might have considered earlier.”

Jim Morris knew he’d been the one addressed, even though the “Ramir fellow” was still looking at Eden. He didn’t hesitate in escaping the small room. Rats deserting a sinking ship moved slower than he did as he left Eden alone to face the insulted Sheikh of Kharmistan.

Ben took two steps in Eden’s direction.

She backed up an equal two paces, until she could feel the edge of the table against her hips. She placed her hands on either side of her, holding on to that edge, her posture definitely one of defense rather than offense.

Which was stupid. The last thing she wanted to do was to look in the least vulnerable.

“You are looking well, Eden,” Ben said, touching a hand to the soft, snow-white material that made up his headdress. He should have looked silly, or pretentious, dressed in his gray Armani suit, the headpiece held in place by two coils of something that looked very much like gold-wrapped silk, the edges of the material flowing over his shoulders.

But he didn’t look silly. He looked wonderful. Dark, and mysterious, and somehow larger than life. Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, but photographed in sepia tones. His eyes as dark as any Arabian night. His features chiseled from desert rock weathered by desert winds. His tall form muscular but not musclebound. His movements measured, graceful.

His hands…well, she already knew about his hands.

“And you. You’re…um…you’re looking well,” she answered at last, then cleared her throat. Maybe the action would help her to breathe. But she doubted it. “You knew I’d be here today?”

“Yes, Eden, I did. A knowledge you obviously did not share.”

Eden’s temper hit her then, like a sharp slap on the back meant to dislodge a bit of stuck fish bone, or pride. “You’re right, Your Highness. I had no knowledge that you’d be here today. That Ben Ramsey would be here today.”

He bowed slightly, from the waist. A regal inclination, certainly no gesture that her words had impacted him, no sign of any reaction that had even a nodding acquaintance with the word “embarrassed.”

She longed to clobber him with something hard and heavy.

And then he really blew her mind…

“Very well,” he said coldly. “If you wish to play the ignorant, Eden, I suppose I am willing to listen as you tangle your tongue in knots, trying to deny that you did not know who I was—who I am. Or is your memory truly that faulty, that you forgot my letters, my explanations. That you forgot to answer those letters, just as you chose to forget me, forget Paris.”

“Letters? What letters? The only letter I ever received from you was the note you left on the bed. Let’s see, I think I still remember it. ‘Eden, darling. I have been called home. Stay where you are, I shall contact you, explain everything as I should have at the beginning.’ You signed it with love, as I recall.”

She knew very well how he had signed the note, because she had kept it, for all of these years. It was all she could ever give Sawyer of his father.

The anger was back, cold and hard. “Did I know you were really a sheikh, Ben? How in hell was I supposed to know that? By reading between the lines of that note?”

When he said nothing, she stepped away from the table, picking up her attaché case as she headed past him toward the door. “I waited, Ben. I waited for nearly two weeks, long past the time I’d planned to return home, nearly too late to begin my next law school term. I waited, and I worried, and I finally realized that I knew nothing about you. Nothing important—like where you lived, if you had a family. If you had a wife. Finally, I woke up, realized I’d just had myself a Paris fling, and chalked you up to experience. And that’s how I’d like to keep it, Ben. An experience in my past, one I’m in no mood to repeat.”

He took hold of her elbow. Lightly, not really holding her in place, although she couldn’t move. She was too shocked by the sensation his slight touch set off in her body, a warmth spreading throughout her, betraying her.

“I do not believe you have been asked to repeat it, Eden,” he said quietly, his deep tones a seductive rumble low in his throat even as his words cut her, made her bleed. “But we are going to talk. Not here, not at this moment, but later. You will be at my hotel at six this evening, if you please. The Palace Lights here in San Antonio. Do you know it?”

“Oh, sure, like that’s going to happen!” Eden shook herself loose from his grip, using much more force than was strictly necessary. “I wouldn’t cross the street to see you, Your Highness. Put that in your…oh, hell, just stuff that in your headpiece, okay!”

She started for the door—when had the room grown so large?—but Ben spoke again, once more halting her in her tracks. “You will please tell Attorney Klinger and the others that His Highness has decided not to open Kharmistan to foreign investors. You might call them foreign devils, or infidels, if you think it will help prove that this ignorant Arab has no business sense, no concept of the fortune he is turning down.”