Forgotten Father Read Online Free PDF

stretched, her eagerness to get him alone
nearly choking her. But she made herself sit there, fighting the
urge to haul him onto the breakfast table and kiss him for all he
was worth.
    “If you’re finished,” Mitchell said, a moment later,
“perhaps we can walk down to the lake.”
    She looked up at him quickly, her gaze colliding
with his, darkly blue and unreadable. Behind the calm exterior,
however, she sensed turbulence. He wasn’t used to having a lover
play with him, that much was obvious.
    Remembering everything they’d shared in the heated
darkness hours earlier, she found herself feeling nervous as she
murmured agreement and rose from her chair.
    Was he pleased to have found her so easily after she
snuck away this morning?
    Surely, yes. The thought didn’t even bear
consideration.
    They walked through the open French doors, just as
they had the night before, only this time there were no stolen
kisses on the veranda, no hot blue eyes devouring her.
    Glancing over at him as they walked down the steps
to the lawn, Delanie calmed the puzzlement in her chest. He was
acting oddly quiet. Still, this was all new to Mitchell, she
reminded herself. He’d probably never expected to fall in love like
this—head, heart and soul in one clean swoop.
    On the other hand, she’d been expecting him her
whole life.
    They walked down the sloping green lawn toward the
bath house and the aqua pool situated at the lake shore. Walking
next to each other, neither said anything, the crunch of the
immaculate lawn beneath their feet the only sound to mingle with
the morning birdsong.
    “Mitchell!” she said, turning toward him as his name
burst out of her as they crossed the lawn, her impatience getting
the better of her.
    “We’re almost there,” he responded implacably,
gesturing to the empty terrace around the pool. “Let’s talk where
we’ll have some privacy.”
    Walking beside him with excitement tingling in every
cell, she said nothing else as they traversed the pool patio and
went down a set of steps that led to a picturesque boardwalk along
the very edge of the small lake.
    Stopping there where they were completely alone,
Mitchell turned toward her as he leaned against the white wood
railing.
    The breeze off the lake came up, flirting around
them and Delanie waited for him to speak, her heart jumping in her
chest.
    Something told her that Mitchell needed to take
charge.
    A moment later, he turned toward her abruptly, his
cold blue gaze slamming into hers.
    “You’re not getting a penny out of me. I’m not
paying you off.”
    “What?” she gasped, shock reverberating through
her.
    “This game you’ve been playing,” he gestured toward
The Cedars. “I’m not letting you get away with a cent more than
you’ve already seduced out of Donovan.”
    “Are you kidding?” Delanie demanded in
disbelief.
    “No.” The eyes that had devoured her hungrily last
night now sent a blast of artic chill down her spine.
    She stared at him, the world tilting in front of her
eyes. Reaching for the railing to steady herself, she felt as if
she might actually fall down.
    “I never seduced anything out of Donovan,” she
whispered a disbelieving protest.
    “If you get off on screwing a man forty-five years
older than you, fine,” Mitchell said, disgust and disinterest
echoing in the words, “Go get yourself another pigeon. After last
night, Donovan Riese is off-limits to you.”
    She looked at him in shock, hardly able to think
over the thundering in her head. “You actually think I’m sleeping with Donovan?”
    She clutched at the railing, the wood biting into
her fingers.
    Mitchell’s mouth quirked into an ugly smile. “Don’t
bother denying it, Lanie. I saw the tender hand-holding at
breakfast. You were a pro at handling Donovan, and I know my
grandfather. For the past six months, he’s talked of nothing, but
you and this damned resort. Mostly, you. I know you’ve been trying
to get him to marry you from the