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‘I’m so glad we got to bring Thea and the kids here,’ she went on. ‘It’s good to share this place with them.’
‘It’s been a great holiday,’ Flynn agreed, but Helena knew he was barely listening—too languid and lazy in the sun.
‘Maybe we’ll come back again next year with our own child,’ she said as casually as she could.
Flynn stopped walking and Helena grinned, ducking her head so he couldn’t see.
‘Helena. Are you saying...? Do you think you might be ready to maybe...?’ It wasn’t often Flynn fell over his words. It was kind of nice to hear.
She beamed up at him, loving the amazed wonder on his face. ‘I’m saying it’s a little late for that conversation.’
His eyes widened further. ‘You mean you’re already...? And you’re okay? Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I’m fine,’ Helena assured him, taking his hand and placing it on her still flat stomach. ‘We’re fine.’
‘We said we’d talk about this if you ever changed your mind. I don’t want you to feel—’
‘All I feel is happy—’ Helena interrupted ‘—happy and grateful and loved.’
Flynn let out a long breath. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ She grinned. ‘And you did say you wanted to be more spontaneous.’
‘I couldn’t have planned this any better,’ Flynn said, and kissed her.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE HEIR’S UNEXPECTED RETURN by Jackie Braun.
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CHAPTER ONE
FAT THUNDERCLOUDS ROLLED overhead and spat rain like machine gun fire as wave after wave battered Hadley Island’s sandy beachfront. As it was on one of the barrier islands off the South Carolina coast, the sixteen-mile-long stretch of pristine shoreline was used to the abuse. Mother Nature’s fury, however, was no match for the emotions roiling inside Brigit Wright.
Unmindful of the worsening storm, she continued to walk. In the pocket of the yellow rain slicker she wore, she fisted her hand around the already-crumpled piece of paper. Printing out the email hadn’t changed its content.
Miss Wright, I will be arriving home the day after tomorrow for an extended stay. Please have my quarters on the main floor ready.
—KF
Two curt sentences that still had her blood boiling.
Kellen Faust, heir to the Faust fortune, was returning—coming “home” as he’d put it—to continue his recuperation after the skiing accident he’d suffered four months earlier in the Swiss Alps.
If the news reports she’d read about his fall were even remotely accurate, then Brigit supposed she should feel sorry for him. Along with a concussion, dislocated shoulder and broken wrist, he’d snapped his ankle, mangled his knee and shattered the femur in his right leg. Four months out and the man was still in the midst of a long and very painful recovery. Even so, she didn’t want him here while he did his mending, potentially meddling in the day-to-day minutia of running the exclusive Faust Haven resort. Brigit preferred to work without interference.
Kellen’s family had a large home outside Charleston, as well as an assortment of plush real estate holdings sprinkled around Europe. Why hadn’t he picked one of those places to do his recuperating? Surely they would be more accommodating to Kellen’s large entourage and the other assorted sycophants who enabled his Peter Pan–like existence.
Why choose Faust Haven? This wasn’t his home. It was hers, dammit! Just as Faust Haven was her resort, the name on the deed notwithstanding. While he’d spent the past five years hotfooting around Europe, living off what had to be a sizable trust fund and enjoying the life of the idle rich, Brigit had been hard at work turning a tired and nearly forgotten old-money retreat into a fashionable, five-star accommodation that offered excellent service and amenities and, above all else, discretion, in addition to its panoramic views. As such it was booked solid not only for the current calendar year, but for the next three. Brigit had made that happen. And she’d done so without Kellen’s help.
Now the heir was returning and he wanted his quarters readied. His quarters? During the time she’d managed the resort, Kellen had never set foot on the island. It was Brigit’s understanding that he hadn’t visited the island since he was a boy. So she’d made the owner’s private apartment on the main floor her own, and had turned the manager’s rooms into a luxury suite that commanded a handsome sum.
Where was she going to sleep now? She might go to bed after most of the guests were tucked in for the night and rise long before they awoke, but that didn’t mean she wanted to bunk on one of the overstuffed couches in the lobby or the big leather recliner in the library, no matter how comfy she found it to be for reading.
Muttering an oath that was swallowed by the wind, she stopped walking and looked back in the direction she had come. The cedar-shingled resort stood three stories tall—four, really, given the pilings that raised it another twelve feet above sea level to protect it from flooding. Natural sand dunes dotted with clumps of gangly grass buffered the structure from the worst of the Atlantic’s abuse.
Home.
Kellen might refer to it as such, but for Brigit that truly was the case. It was here she’d come after her nasty divorce. Pride battered, feeling like an epic failure. The sea air, the sense of purpose, both had played a key role in ushering her back from the brink of despair.
Her gaze skimmed the balconies that stretched out from every room to maximize the view. Even though it was early afternoon, the lights burned brightly in the windows, beacons of welcome to any guests who had braved the worsening weather and boarded the last ferry from the mainland before the storm halted service. Once travelers reached the island, of course, they would still have to navigate the winding roads over the hilly center of H
adley Island to the eastern shore where the resort was situated. But even accounting for the slow going, those guests would be arriving soon.
With a sigh, Brigit headed back. She had a job to do and she would do it. Right now, her priority was to see that all new arrivals were comfortably settled in their rooms. Once that task was accomplished, she would work on figuring out her own accommodations for the duration of Kellen’s stay.
By the time she reached the resort, any part of her body not covered by the slicker was drenched. She had hoped to have enough time to change into dry clothes and do something with her hair before the first guests arrived, but a full-size black SUV was pulling up under the covered portico at the main entrance as she came around the dune.
The driver hopped out, as did another man, who came around from the vehicle’s passenger side. Both were big and burly. Bodyguards? It wasn’t a surprise. A lot of the inn’s guests were important people—Hollywood A-listers, business magnates, politicians. Before either man could reach for the handle, however, the rear passenger door swung open.
Brigit covered her mouth, but a gasp still escaped.
Kellen Faust. The heir was early.
She’d never met Kellen in person. They exchanged emails and texts a couple times a month, and occasionally a phone call. But he’d never come for a visit. Now here he was. In the flesh. And he wasn’t at all what Brigit had expected.
Every photograph she had seen of him—and the guy turned up in print and online media reports with as much regularity as the tide—showed a handsome young man with sun-lightened brown hair, deep-set hazel eyes, a carefree smile and a body honed to perfection under what had to be the capable tutelage of a well-paid personal trainer.
