Read the book: «Valentine's Secret Child»
And then, at last, he said, “And now, it’s with great pleasure and sincere admiration that I introduce to you… Mitch Valentine.”
There was roaring. It was partly the applause and it was partly the blood spurting so fast through her veins. It made a rushing in her ears.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit with a snow-white shirt and a lustrous blue tie strode confidently across the stage. She thought, Chestnut-brown hair, like Michael’s.
He stepped up to the podium under the hard gleam of the spotlight. And he spoke. “Thank you, Dr Benson. I’ll do my best to live up to that glowing introduction.”
She’d known for certain in her mind when he faced the audience, but when he spoke, she knew in her heart.
The final shreds of her doubt unravelled and dropped away.
Kelly knew.
He was Michael. She had found her daughter’s father at last.
CHRISTINE RIMMER
came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything, including an actress, a sales clerk and a waitress. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job – she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma. Visit Christine at her new home on the web at www.christinerimmer.com.
Valentine’s Secret Child
Christine Rimmer
MILLS & BOON
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For Leena Hyat,
brilliant and tireless advocate
for so many romance authors.
Lee, your warmth and thoughtfulness
mean so much!
Chapter One
“Valentine.” Renata Thompson sighed. Dramatically. “Won’t you be mine?”
Kelly Bravo glanced over her shoulder, coffeepot in hand. “Doubtful.”
Renata let out a laugh. “Not a problem. You may be the boss, but you’re just not my type.”
Kelly filled her mug and put the pot back on the warming plate. She took the chair across from Renata. “So, then. Who’s your valentine?”
“His name is Valentine. Mitch Valentine.” Renata had the Sacramento Bee spread open on the round breakroom table. She pointed a slim brown finger at a publicity headshot of some guy. Kelly glanced at it without really looking, shrugged and sipped her coffee.
“You must have heard of him,” Renata insisted. “Guy has billions. Owns a bunch of companies. Started from zip. Now he’s written a book. Making it Happen: Change Your Mind, Transform Your Life.”
Kelly sipped again. “Sounds…uplifting. But, no. Sorry. The name’s not ringing a bell.”
Renata’s mug said Shrink. She grabbed it and took a swig of the murky breakroom brew. “He’s speaking at Valley University tonight. I may have to go. Whether he changes my life or not, he is superhot. And as rich as they come. Hot and rich. Does it get any better?”
“Well, now.” Kelly raised her own mug high. “A good sense of humor. Gotta have that.”
“Honey, if he’s rich and hot, he doesn’t need to make me laugh. We’ll spend our lives shopping—and having sex.”
“I am shocked, I tell you.” Kelly put on her most disapproving frown. “Shocked.”
Renata spun the paper around and slid it across to Kelly’s side of the table. “Look.” She plunked her finger down hard right above the photo of Mr. Hot-and-Rich. “Tell me you’d pass up a chance with that.”
Kelly groaned. “Sorry. Not interested. I’m a single mom with a full-time job. I don’t have time to go chasing after some Tony Robbins wanna-be.”
“The eyes alone. In-tense. Look.”
So Kelly looked. “Oh, my. He’s very…” The words trailed off. “Not possible,” she heard herself whisper.
“’Scuse me?”
But Kelly didn’t answer. She stared at the photo and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
From somewhere far, far away Renata was asking, “Kelly? Kelly, are you all right?”
She was not all right. Not in the least. Because she knew those eyes. That mouth. That straight slash of brow…
Michael.
He looked…older.
But of course he would, wouldn’t he? It had been a decade, after all.
His face, once hollow-cheeked, had filled out. His shoulders—what she could see of them—were broader. Much broader. He seemed, in the photo, so…confident. This man looked as if he was ready to take on the world, a mover and shaker if ever there was one, the polar opposite of the boy she had loved.
But still. She would know those eyes and that mouth anywhere. Her thin, withdrawn video-game-obsessed high-school sweetheart, Michael Vakulic, had become someone named Mitch Valentine.
“God. Kelly. Are you—”
“Fine.” Kelly forced herself to lift her head and aim a smile at the dark, exotic face across the table. “I’m fine.” She played it light, pretended to fan herself. “Whew. You’re right. The guy is hot.”
Renata’s worried frown faded. “Told you so.” Now she was looking exceedingly smug. She reached to take the paper back.
But before she completed the action, Carol Pace, the center’s business manager, appeared in the open doorway. “Renata. I need the file on the J. Carera family.”
Renata was one of the four family counselors Kelly had on staff at Sacramento County Family Crisis Center. The woman was amazing with families in trouble, but not so hot at keeping on top of her paperwork. “It should be there. Filed under C.”
“No kidding. Not there.”
“All right, all right. I’m coming…” Shaking her curly head, Renata got up and followed Carol out.
There was no one else in the breakroom. Kelly had never been so grateful to be left alone in her life.
Ordering her hands to stop shaking, she folded the paper with Michael’s picture on it, grabbed her coffee and stood on shaky legs. Once upright, she raced out the door and down the hall, sloshing coffee as she went.
At last, she reached her corner office. She darted inside, then stuck the paper under her arm to free a hand so she could close the door and turn the lock.
The lock clicked shut. She leaned her forehead against the doorframe and whispered desperately, “It can’t be him, no way it’s him….”
Her heart was galloping like a hundred wild horses. She sucked in a long breath, let it out with agonized slowness and ordered her pulse to stop pounding so loud she couldn’t hear herself think.
God. Her whole body was shaking. She’d splashed coffee on the back of her hand—and her shoes, as well.
With another deep breath, she pushed off from the door, turned and made herself walk to her desk. She set her coffee cup on the stone coaster, where her nine-year-old daughter, DeDe, had personally painted a stick-figure deer along with the words Mommy, you’re a dear in shiny pink letters.
The newspaper slid out from under her arm and flopped to the floor. Swearing under her breath, she grabbed it up, slapped it down on the desk and whipped out a few tissues from the box by her computer monitor.
She wiped the coffee off the back of her hand and then slipped off one tan suede shoe and then the other, to try and get the coffee off of them. Were they ruined? She’d take a brush to them when she got home. But at the moment, a wrecked pair of shoes was the least of her problems.
Michael. Oh, God. Michael…
Her phone rang. She punched Hold without picking up, then buzzed the receptionist. “Melinda, I’m in the middle of something here.” Well, it was true. And it was something big—even if it wasn’t the least work-related. “Could you take that call for me and get a message? And hold my calls until further notice… Yes. Terrific. Thanks.” She hung up and dropped into her swivel chair.
The section of paper was right there on the desk pad in front of her, folded and folded again, the pages slightly disarranged now….
Gripping the chair arms in white-knuckled hands and glaring at the folded paper, Kelly swung the chair sharply back and forth. Such a seemingly harmless thing. The Sacramento Bee for Tuesday, February 13th. Innocuous. Mundane.
Yet it threatened to change her life and the life of her only child. Forever.
DeDe, in pink tights and a tutu, beamed at her from the picture on the corner of her desk. That one had been taken at one of her dance recitals last fall. Next to it, there was one of DeDe and Candy, the ancient black mutt that had showed up on their doorstep five years before and swiftly become one of the family. DeDe, seven at the time the picture was taken, had her arms around the dog’s neck. She was smiling wide, proudly displaying the gap where she’d lost two front baby teeth. There were others pictures of DeDe, on the bookcase, as well as on the credenza. Two of them showed Kelly and DeDe together, one was of DeDe with her uncle Tanner and another of DeDe, Kelly, Tanner—and Hayley, who was Kelly and Tanner’s long-lost sister. They’d found Hayley just that previous June….
Kelly closed her eyes, sucked air through her nose. She could look at all her office pictures again. And again. A thousand times. But eventually, she’d have to open that paper. There was, in the end, no escaping the image there. The truth had to be faced.
With swift, determined movements, she hauled her chair in close to the desk and spread the paper wide.
And there he was again. Michael.
Older, bigger, stronger, more confident, more…everything. But still. It was Michael. She was certain.
She touched the face in the picture, closed her eyes, whispered fervently, like a prayer, “I tried, I swear. I tried to find you. I knew I would find you. At first. But I never did. And somehow, over the years… Oh, God. I’m so sorry. But I had started to think it was never going to happen….”
She was sagging again, kind of crumpling into herself. Not good. She needed to sit tall. Once more, she drew herself up. She reached for the phone and dialed her brother’s cell.
Tanner answered on the second ring. “Tanner Bravo.” Tanner was a private investigator. He owned his own detective service, Dark Horse Investigations. He’d been looking for Michael all along, with no luck.
“It’s me.” Her voice came out sounding absurdly small.
“Kell. You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sound—”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Look. I was wondering. Do you think you could come over tonight, keep an eye on DeDe for a couple of hours?”
“Got a hot date?” Tanner was forever teasing her about her dateless state. As a rule, she teased him right back, razzed him that he ought to find someone nice and settle down.
Right now, though, she didn’t feel much like teasing. “Har-har. And no. It’s not a date. There’s this guy speaking at Valley U.A motivational thing…”
“You need motivating?”
“One of the counselors here at the center recommended him.” Well. Renata had recommended him. Though not exactly for his skills as a speaker.
“Do I get a free meal out of it?”
“Slow-cooker pot roast. Biscuits. For dessert, vanilla ice cream and oatmeal-raisin cookies.”
“Right answer. You’re in luck. I don’t have anything going on after five. What time d’you need me?”
She scanned the article in front of her, looking for a time. “Uh, the program starts at seven-thirty. Come at six. We’ll eat before I go. I should be home by ten at the latest.”
He agreed he’d be there and they said goodbye.
She hung up feeling guilty for not telling him that the motivational speaker just happened to be Michael.
But no. She wasn’t absolutely sure the man was Michael, not yet. She needed to see him in person first, needed to be beyond-a-doubt certain about this before she got everyone all stirred up.
Mitch Valentine was speaking in the sociology center, an auditorium called Delta Hall. The hall had theater-style seating for at least a thousand and when Kelly arrived at twenty after seven, a good half of the seats were taken.
Quite a crowd for a self-help speaker on a Tuesday night. Was Renata here somewhere? Kelly hoped not. The situation was tough enough. She didn’t need the added stress of trying to behave normally for one of her colleagues.
Kelly dithered—upstairs or down? Front, center or at the rear? More people filed in around her.
Finally, frazzled to no end, a bundle of nerves at the prospect that Michael might be in the same building with her and in ten minutes she would see him in the flesh, she chose a seat about a third of the way up from the stage. Close enough that she should be able to tell if the man named Mitch Valentine was actually Michael.
And far enough back that she doubted he would pick her out of the crowd—again, if he did turn out to be Michael. And if he remembered her.
It was possible, after all, that he was Michael and he’d totally forgotten he was ever passionately, possessively in love with a girl named Kelly. He’d clearly moved on. And he didn’t know about DeDe. Yet.
What was there to hold him to the memory of those long-ago days?
Next to her, a college-age girl wearing a shearling jacket and boots that looked as if they belonged on an Eskimo, giggled and turned to the girl on her other side. “Hottie. I’m so not kidding. Fully doable. You should have gone to the reception before. He shook my hand. God. Those eyes. That voice. I think I came. And you know how I feel about the damn required lectures. But here I am. And you don’t hear me complaining….”
Her girlfriend was not impressed. “I’ll wait ’til I see him. And I still hate these lectures.”
“Trust me,” said the girl in the Eskimo boots. “You get a look at him, you’ll change your mind.”
The two put their heads together and started whispering.
Kelly tuned them out. Michael had always had a fine, deep voice and beautiful eyes. Most people hadn’t noticed, back then. They saw a skinny, withdrawn teenager and never looked beyond that.
So was that more proof that she’d found him, at last?
Wait, the voice of caution warned. Get a look at him. You’ll know soon enough.
It was warm in the hall and her nerves weren’t helping her cool down any. She wiggled out of her winter coat and draped it over the back of her chair.
By the time she faced front again, the lights were dimming over the seats—and getting brighter on the stage, brightest of all on the podium, center stage. A man came striding out of the wings: tall, thin, gray hair…
Not Michael. Or even the man she suspected might be Michael.
The gray-haired man stepped up to the podium to polite applause. He introduced himself as the head of the sociology department and then launched into a glowing introduction of the evening’s guest speaker.
Most of it had been in the paper that morning.
“Mitch Valentine is living, breathing proof that the American Dream really can come true. At nineteen, he designed his first video game. How many of you ever played DeathKnot or Midnight Destroyer?” Hands went up all over the hall. The professor smiled. “From there, he moved into software development, then created a job-search engine for students. Many of you here tonight have or will use FirstJob.com before you send out those resumes. From there, Mitch moved into desktop publishing. Now, at twenty-eight, he owns two publicly traded companies with headquarters in Dallas and in Los Angeles. And he’s written a book about how he did it.”
Her heart was beating too fast again. Michael would be twenty-eight now….
And the video games. They hadn’t mentioned the video games in the paper, had they?
The department head was still talking. About how Mitch Valentine had started from nothing, lived on the streets of Dallas, turned his life around. How he had no formal education beyond a high-school diploma, and yet…look at the man today.
And then, at last, he said, “And now, it’s with great pleasure and sincere admiration that I introduce to you…Mitch Valentine.”
There was a roar. It was partly the applause and it was partly the blood spurting so fast through her veins, it made a rushing in her ears.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit with a snow-white shirt and a lustrous blue tie strode confidently across the stage. She thought, Chestnut-brown hair, like Michael’s…
He stepped up to the podium under the hard gleam of the spotlight. And he spoke.
“Thank you, Dr. Benson. I’ll do my best to live up to that glowing introduction….”
He spoke.
She’d known for certain in her mind when he faced the audience, but when he spoke, she knew in her heart.
The final shreds of her doubt unraveled and dropped away.
Kelly knew.
He was Michael. She had found her daughter’s father, at last.
Chapter Two
Mitch Valentine, who had once been Michael Vakulic, talked for over an hour, without notes. He rarely stood still. Instead, he paced back and forth in front of the podium, pausing now and then to turn his arresting gaze on the audience as he emphasized a certain point. He wore one of those little portable mikes that hooked over his right ear, with a thin mouthpiece curving over his cheek, so his voice was crystal clear even though he spoke in a conversational tone.
He talked about starting from nothing. About never giving up. About making the impossible into the possible. About translating dreams into reality, about goals, about what gets in the way of getting what we want.
He was funny and he was brilliant and he was inspiring. And he had that audience in the palm of his hand. Even Kelly, though hardly in a receptive frame of mind, was impressed. Hey, she just might have learned something under different circumstances.
That night, though, she sat there wide-eyed, her heart in her throat, images of the Michael she had known back then popping in and out of her stunned mind, warring with the reality of Mitch Valentine now.
Up on the stage, the broad-shouldered man in the designer suit said, “Set yourself up in opposition, and where does all your energy go? Exactly. Into the fight—into opposing. But set yourself up in cooperation, and something altogether different occurs….”
In her mind’s eye, she saw Michael, her Michael, in a cheap white T-shirt and battered, sagging jeans, his arms like two sticks, his hair shoulder length and stringy. His dark, hazel eyes were shining and his thin face seemed to glow from within.
He said, “I love you, Kelly. You’re everything to me. I’ll always take care of you. It’s you and me against the rest of them….”
Mitch Valentine said, “Ultimatums? I believe they’re the simplest way to sabotage yourself, to make certain you get the short end of the stick instead of what you want….”
And she remembered Michael the day he made her choose. “Me and you, Kelly. Don’t you remember? It was supposed to be me and you, always. If you leave with him, it’s over. So make a choice. Him. Or me.”
“But Michael, he’s my brother….”
“Him or me, damn you. Just make a choice.”
And so it went the whole time Mitch Valentine spoke.
She tried to put aside her fears as to how finding Michael would change her life—and her daughter’s life—irrevocably. She tried to focus her attention on the man Michael had become. And then that man would say something else to send her spinning back in time.
Past. Present. Future: what had happened, what was happening this moment, what might happen next…
The present was unbearable, the past so hard to face. And the unknowable future? It seemed to bear down on her like an avalanche, like an asteroid on a collision course with the world she had created for herself and her child….
When the speech ended, Mitch Valentine took questions.
That went on for half an hour.
Finally, he thanked everyone and said he’d be signing his new book at the campus bookstore the next day, between three and five. The applause was protracted and enthusiastic. The house lights got brighter as the stage lights dimmed. Most of the audience headed for the exits, but fifty or sixty of them rushed onstage.
Another twenty minutes dragged by as Michael—correction: Mitch—accepted praise and shook hands. Kelly waited in her seat until only a few students remained.
When all but those last stragglers had headed for the doors, she made herself rise and put on her coat. Her heart hammering in her ears as it had been doing for most of the night, she slid out into the aisle and strode purposefully down front. There were stairs leading up to the stage on either side. She took the set to the left.
Once up there, she hung back, until the final student had finished gushing and shaking the speaker’s hand.
The student turned to go. The man who had once been Michael glanced toward Kelly where she hovered on the edge of the stage. He smiled.
Her heart stopped racing. It seemed to expand in her chest. A shiver went through her at the same time as heat bloomed in her midsection. This was really happening, the impossible moment was upon her, at last.
He asked, “Kelly?”
Sweet relief poured through her. It mattered a whole lot, that he remembered. That he recognized her. She gulped and nodded.
He started toward her, so big and strong and…imposing. Imagine. Her Michael had grown up to be imposing.
He stood in front of her. She looked up into those velvety eyes that looked deep brown in some lights, and in others, showed glints of green: Michael’s eyes. He said, “I have to admit, I kind of wondered if you might be here, if you might have come back to Sacramento….”
When they split up, she’d moved to Fresno, where Tanner was living and working when he finally got their mother to admit he had a sister. Tanner was twenty-one at the time and the court allowed him custody, once Kelly stood up before a judge and declared that she wanted to live with her brother.
She gulped in air and made herself explain. “My mom got sick again, a year after Tanner came for me. She needed us. And I wanted to go to Sac State anyway….”
He smiled again. He had the most beautiful smile. But then, so had Michael, though his smiles were rare. “Let me guess. You got a full scholarship?”
“That’s right.”
“I knew you would. And you’ve been here in Sacramento ever since?”
“Yes, I…have a house. A job I love. An old black dog.” And a daughter. Your daughter…
“Mitch. Ready?” said a voice from behind her. A glance over her shoulder showed her that the gray-haired professor waited in the wings.
Mitch gave him the high sign. “Be right there, Robert.”
She faced Mitch again. “I guess you have to go, but…” What to say next? It seemed all wrong to just dump the news on him without preamble, right there on that darkened stage.
“Listen.” He looked at her so intently, scanning her face in a way that seemed both eager and hungry at once. A funny thrill skittered through her. And the warmth in her stomach seemed to expand outward, to radiate all through her.
My God. I’m attracted to him—and he feels it, too….
After all these years. Who knew? He’d changed so much. And then there was DeDe. God. What would he do when she told him about DeDe?
He said, “I believe in keeping it simple and direct.”
“Oh. Yes. I prefer that, too.” But obviously not that direct. Or she would have told him already that he was a dad.
No. Really. Bad idea, to just blurt it out, out of nowhere, with that professor lurking behind them, waiting to lead Mitch off to who knew where.
Mitch asked, “Are you married? Engaged? With someone special?”
A short burst of surprised laughter escaped her. “Well, that was simple and direct. And the answers are no, no. And no.”
“Perfect.”
She actually found herself teasing him. “Which no do you mean?”
“All of them.” The air seemed to crackle around them. With energy. With…heat. He said, “I’ve got this faculty party I have to be at right now, but I’m in town ’til Thursday morning. How about dinner tomorrow night?”
Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day. How weird was that? To go out with her child’s father, whose name was now Valentine…on Valentine’s Day?
Weirdness aside, though, dinner would work. Just the two of them, sharing a table in a quiet restaurant. It would be a good opportunity—if there was such a thing—to break the news.
He said, “You’re taking too long to answer. I’m getting worried you’ll say no again—this time to me.”
Her cheeks felt too warm. She couldn’t resist. “No.” She paused just long enough for him to look disappointed. Then she added, “I’m not saying no.”
He laughed, then. “Seven?”
“Fine.” She hurried right on, before he could suggest that he would pick her up. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant, if that’s all right?”
“However you want it.”
She’d put a business card in her pocket, ready for this moment. “Here’s my work number and my cell, just in case…” Their fingers touched in the space between them. So strange. After all these years, the two of them, standing here. Breathing the same air, his hand brushing hers…
His skin was warm. Dry. And only slightly rougher than her own.
He produced a card and handed it over. It was thick vellum, green with black lettering, a personal card, just his name and a couple of phone numbers.
“If you need to call, use the first number,” he said. “It’s my cell.”
“All right.”
“Shall I ask around, get some recommendations for the right restaurant, or do you know where you’d like to eat?”
She named a place in midtown, on 28th Street. “It’s quiet there,” she said. “And the food’s good.”
“I remember it,” he said. “A Sacramento landmark. Though we never could afford to eat there, back when…” The place wasn’t terribly expensive, but for two kids with no money, it had seemed so—And Dr. Benson must be getting impatient, because Mitch was glancing over her shoulder and nodding. “Right there…”
She stepped back. “I’ll let you go then.”
“Until tomorrow…”
“Seven. I’ll be there.”
Tanner was stretched out on the couch in the family room at the back of the house, channel-surfing, when Kelly got home. He turned off the TV and reached over to set the remote on the coffee table when she came in through the dining room.
He didn’t get up right away, but braced his right arm behind his head and regarded her through lazy, dark brown eyes. “You’re late. I was practically asleep.”
“At twenty after ten? You know you never went to sleep this early in your life.”
He sat up then, kind of stiffly. He’d been in a car accident six weeks before and had only gotten the casts off his left arm and leg a few days ago. A week or two more, his doctors said, and even the residual stiffness should disappear. He yawned. “Good speech?”
“Excellent.”
“What was that name again?”
“Mitch Valentine.”
He shrugged. “Never heard of him.”
She only smiled. She’d made up her mind on the drive home not to tell Tanner that she’d found Michael at last until after she’d managed to tell Mitch about DeDe. It seemed right that she should come clean with Mitch, first and foremost.
But she and her brother were very close. Guilt nagged her, to hold out on him this way.
He was frowning. “Okay, what’s going on?”
And she couldn’t go through with it, couldn’t hold the truth back. Not from Tanner, who was her beloved big brother, her rock, the first one to show her what it could be to have a real family. She came and sat beside him and took his hand. “Is DeDe asleep?” She pitched her voice barely above a whisper.
His brow crinkled with concern. “She went to bed at nine. I checked on her about fifteen minutes ago. Dead to the world.”
“Good. I…”
“God, Kell. What?”
“Mitch Valentine? The guy who was speaking tonight?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s Michael.”
He looked every bit as stunned as she felt. “What the hell?”
“It’s true. Oh, Tanner. I’ve found Michael. At last…”
He let go of her hand. “Are you sure?”
Kelly bobbed her head up and down. “Oh, yeah. He’s Michael, though he’s changed a lot. You know how thin he was? Not anymore. He’s…buffed up. And he’s wealthy. Owns a couple of companies and he’s written a book about how he turned his life around.”
Tanner said patiently, “Kell. Listen. How can you be certain this guy is the kid you knew in high school?”
“What do you mean? I saw him, face-to-face. I talked to him.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. I waited around after he spoke. The minute he saw me, he recognized me, too.”
“You really are certain.”
“I am. You wait. You’ll see. He’s changed, yes, but he’s still Michael.”
“Mitch Valentine. That’s the name he goes by now?”
“That’s right.”
“What’s going on with that? Why did he change his name?” Tanner wore his most unreadable expression. Kelly knew what that look meant. He’d be burning the midnight oil on the Internet tonight, using the various tools at his disposal as a P.I. to find out everything he could about the man named Valentine.
“Oh, Tanner. Come on. Don’t be so suspicious. I know you didn’t like him, but—”
“Sorry. I am suspicious. The guy vanishes into thin air. For ten years. And now he’s back and rich and buffed up—living under an assumed name?”
“Please. I left him and his mother died. A one-two punch. He took off, started over. And people do change their names, you know. It’s not as though it’s a crime.”
The free excerpt has ended.
