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rather be in the ring, fighting a couple of classes over my weight, than having this conversation.”
“Have you talked to anyone before about it?”
“I’m talking to you, now.”
He kissed her forehead. “I’m honored you would trust me. But I hope you will keep talking. And not only to me, but to a trained counselor, or maybe even with other people who’ve been through this. People who will help you learn to be as proud of yourself as I am of you right now...and as I’d be as your husband, if you think a guy who was recently canned from his last job could possibly be good enough for a woman as brave and smart as—”
“Fired from his last job? But that ridiculous requirement that you have to have ‘Colton blood’ to be the CEO in the company bylaws certainly wasn’t your fault,” she erupted, sounding righteously indignant on his behalf.
“No, it definitely wasn’t,” he agreed, refusing to take any blame for Micheline Anderson’s schemes. “But it does mean my future could be a lot different than I’d imagined. Less of this—” he gestured toward the mansion “—and something a lot more modest, based on how the firm for energy consulting I intend to set up after we finally get my family situation sorted, does—”
“With all your industry experience, it’ll be a huge success. I know it,” she said, her eyes burning with sincerity. With belief in him.
“But whether or not it is, I’ll only be going through the motions, Sierra, unless I have you there by my side. So tell me, are you with me?”
The smile that warmed her eyes melted the iciest reaches of his own heart. “Didn’t I tell you not long after we met, cowboy? You’re well and truly stuck with me, for better or for worse.”
Chapter 17
“There’s the lucky man,” said Ainsley, running around her desk to give Ace an exuberant hug when he stepped inside her office at Colton Oil the following afternoon. “I didn’t get to tell you in person before, with everyone else from the family gushing over the two of you, but I am so happy for you and Sierra. I knew there was something going on between the two of you!”
After giving his cheek a noisy kiss, she turned toward the doorway, where their blonde younger half sister, Marlowe, the current CEO, stood smiling, and offering her best wishes, too. “I’ve met her, and I think she’s perfect for you. So are you two planning a long engagement?”
“Depends on how long it takes her to negotiate a signed contract with everybody that, after Nova’s baby’s born, she’s not to be called Grandma before we get the chance to try for our own kids.”
The two of them laughed, and Ace grinned, wondering when he’d ever been so happy and excited for the future, despite the questions still hanging over them—and the fact that he had come to finally clean out his desk...and permanently walk away from a job he’d loved and taken pride in.
There was a tap at the door, and Ainsley’s assistant was shaking her head. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but—but there’s a woman here, Micheline Anderson, insisting that she see you. All of you. I sent her into the conference room to wait.”
Ace caught his sisters’ wide-eyed looks of alarm, but his own shock was wrapped up in a white-hot ball of emotion. Curiosity. Rage. Dread over why the self-help guru—the former nurse who was believed to be his own biological mother—had come. Did she mean to finally reveal her end game? Or could Ace at least force her to admit, at last, and even to explain why she had switched him so soon after birth for his parents’ true firstborn son?
Glancing anxiously from one face to the next, Ainsley’s assistant shook her head. “Did I do the wrong thing? Should I have called security? Or the police?”
The siblings exchanged uncertain looks before Ace shook his head. “No. You’re fine. We should hear her out, thanks.”
“But stay close, if you will,” Ainsley urged her. “If you hear raised voices from inside there, or anything alarming, don’t hesitate to call for help.” Looking from Marlowe to her brother, she added, “I don’t think she’s the type to get her own hands dirty with anything violent, but I definitely don’t trust that woman.”
As they walked past their father’s office—the same room where he had been shot—on the way to the smaller conference room, Marlowe pulled out her cell phone and showed them both that she was switching on an app that would make a voice recording of their meeting.
Ace nodded in approval and tried to mask his emotions before stepping into the richly paneled room, where a long, mahogany table sat surrounded by comfortable rolling chairs.
Exquisitely dressed as ever, the elegant, blonde cult leader had seated herself at the head of the table, her long fingers interlaced and her features arranged in the self-satisfied expression of a woman who owned the place.
“What is it that brings you here?” Ace demanded. Ever since that email had arrived, they’d all been waiting anxiously, desperate to know whether the sender’s true game would be money or some form of blackmail. Or was the real purpose of Micheline’s visit something even darker?
Clearly oblivious to his mood, she smiled broadly and clapped her hands together. “I have some wonderful news to share with you today.”
“Wonderful for whom?” asked Ainsley, perching on the edge of her seat as they all claimed chairs, each of the siblings keeping a safe distance from this uninvited guest.
Ignoring her, Micheline went on to say, “Finally, after that dreadful business with that horrible phony, Jace Smith, trying to cash in by pretending to be my son, I’ve found him. I’ve actually found my real son, my darling boy, Jake Anderson, and he’s coming home soon! Isn’t that fantastic?”
“Your real son?” Ace spat out. “Don’t you mean Payne and Tessa Colton’s stolen child?” Feeling sick, he knew then that he’d been holding out hope that Ainsley had been wrong about what she’d said back at the hospital about him having a biological connection to this woman.
“Well, you don’t—you can’t possibly understand.” Micheline’s painted nails splayed out to fan out over her chest.
“So you’re finally admitting it?” Marlowe erupted. “You’re confessing that you switched your own baby—” the mother of an infant son herself, she gave Ace a look brimming with emotion “—for a child that wasn’t yours?”
“I—I—”
