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He’d always been a loner and he knew himself well enough to acknowledge that he probably was essentially the same sort of man that he’d always been. However, for the first time since he’d left his parents’ home and their fortune behind, he felt charged with a sense of purpose.
He just wasn’t sure what that purpose was.
A son. The thought still made his hands shake. He shoved aside his own nerves, put his hands on the table and leaned over toward her.
“I’d like to see my son,” he said again. He was going to keep asking until he saw him. Until he held him in his arms. He couldn’t believe he had a son.
She nodded. “It will be easier if you and I do this on our own. Once our families are involved it will get messy.”
She had no idea how messy, Dec thought. Especially when Kell found out. Kell was a maniac when it came to the Chandler family, and given that he’d grown up with their grandfather and his mother hadn’t brought in an influx of cash the way that Helene had, Kell had been bitter and focused all of his energy on revenge. His cousin, who was always looking for another way to bring the Chandlers to their knees, would use DJ as a pawn. He could easily imagine Kell urging Dec to be the sole guardian of the boy so he could be raised to hate the Chandlers the way Kell had been. Dec was sure of it.
In his mind he ordered the important events that had to take place. Order and planning were how he’d managed his life, and despite the fact that Cari was sitting across from him with those big blue eyes of hers and a determined stare, he planned to take charge. In the end she’d thank him.
“I will come to your house tomorrow and meet our son,” he said emphatically.
“Just call him DJ.”
“Why? He’s my son.”
“Yes, but you’re not ready to be a father.”
He arched one eyebrow at her, prepared to brazen out the fact that he could be an excellent dad. But then he thought of giving up his Maserati. Thought of the fact that a baby couldn’t live on a yacht. Thought of all the things that he’d used to keep his life from having a real anchor and a real home. All of that would have to change….
“I am willing to try,” he said.
She nibbled at her full pink lower lip and tipped her head to the side to study him. She was searching for something, and he tried to look earnest and not desperate, but he couldn’t shake the fact that for the first time since he’d been brought into the Montrose family, he truly had flesh and blood of his own. He and his cousins were united in purpose, but they knew the same way Dec did that he wasn’t really a Montrose. Now, though, he had a son. Someone who belonged to him. No one ever had before, and when he was alone he’d explore these unfamiliar feelings coursing through him for the first time.
The full importance of the moment hit him hard in the gut and he gripped the table to keep locked in this moment. He wasn’t alone anymore. But this woman was the key to access to his son. He knew nothing about her except the sounds she’d made when she’d been in his arms.
“Trying is good,” she said.
To be honest, he had no idea what she was talking about. Only knew that she was willing to give him a chance, and that was all he needed. “Okay, so I will come by your house tomorrow morning.”
“I have to pick him up from Emma’s first thing and then we can meet at the beach.”
“Why the beach?” he asked.
“DJ likes it there. Plus my housekeeper will be at home and her sister is Emma’s housekeeper. I want to keep this between you and me for right now. I don’t want DJ to be part of what’s been going on between our families.”
“Agreed,” he said. “When I said I wasn’t ever having a family, that was just me trying to keep you from knowing that I wanted you.”
She gave him a knowing look. “Yeah, right. That was you warning me that you weren’t planning to stick around this time either.”
That was exactly what it had been. And he was glad that she wasn’t looking to him to be something he wasn’t sure he could be. A part of him wanted to be upset with her for not instantly seeing him as part of her little family, but another part of him was relieved. Maybe he could be like a favored uncle to DJ?
But he knew that wouldn’t satisfy him. Knowing he had a son was making him think of things that had never seemed important or that he’d never thought would be applicable to him. Suddenly he wanted to visit that mansion in Beverly Hills that he’d inherited when his mother had died eight years earlier. Suddenly he wanted to hold his son in his arms and show him how to be tough enough—no, to protect him so he didn’t have to be tough enough to survive in the world. He knew that he wanted that little boy that he’d only seen on Cari’s phone to grow up without the issues and fears that had dominated his own life.
