The By Request Collection

“I don’t care who hears me,” he went on, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “When you left yesterday I knew I had to take drastic measures to get you back. So, if I have to make a fool of myself in front of your family, then so be it.”

Eve didn’t want to hear it, though she wouldn’t mind him looking like a fool considering she’d been played for one.

“I’m not discussing the baby’s last name. I know that’s all you care about.” Eve stepped back because being this close, knowing she still loved him but couldn’t touch him was agonizing. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m visiting my father.”

Eve had just turned away when Graham’s soft, “I love you,” hit her hard.

Frozen in her steps, she looked to her sisters, her father, to see if she’d heard correctly. And saw three pairs of eyes wide with shock staring back at her. Yeah, he’d said that.

Eve looked back over her shoulder, her heart aching more than she’d ever known possible. “That was cruel,” she whispered as tears clogged her throat. “Throwing those words around won’t make me marry you.”

Graham reached for her, turning her to face him fully. “I’m not proposing. I love you, Eve. I want to be with you. Not for the baby, for you.”

If he’d said those words two days ago she’d have believed him. “Revelation has certainly come at a convenient time.”

His hands curled around her shoulders as he stepped in closer. Her entire body brushed against his, as if she needed the physical reminder of how much she’d missed his touch.

“Nothing about us has been convenient,” he told her. “I didn’t want a child, a relationship, but now I can’t live without either. I don’t want to try. I know I hurt you, I know I destroyed everything we’d started building, but I’m asking for another chance.”

Eve couldn’t say anything. What was there to say at this point? He was a shark in the courtroom because he knew the exact thing to say at precisely the right time.

If she even thought he was serious, she’d wrap her arms around him and start fresh. But she knew better. Graham was only looking out for his best interests where the baby was concerned.

“You need to go,” she whispered.

The muscle in his jaw clenched as he nodded, dropping his hands from her shoulders. “I’m not giving up, Eve. I love you. I’ve only had two women in my life who heard those words from me.”

His mother and Gerty.

Eve turned away from him and went back to her father’s bedside. She listened to Graham’s footsteps as he left the room. Once the door was closed behind him, Eve couldn’t stop the emotions from washing over her.

“I hate him,” she sniffed. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Her father reached for her, tipping her chin up so she could look him in the eyes. “I’m not sorry at all. I saw a man who loves a woman. I saw a man who stood in the same room as his sworn enemy and didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought.”

“He’s only saying those things because he wants to marry me so the baby will have his name.”

“The baby can have his name without marriage,” Grace pointed out. “He could fight you for custody in court and probably win, if that’s the way he wanted to go about it.”

Eve knew all of this. She wasn’t stupid, wasn’t ignorant when it came to laws. But she had been blindsided and refused to let Graham have another swipe at her.

“I’ll agree he didn’t go about things the right way,” her father said, swiping a tear from her face. “But men are fools when they’re in love. Most of the time they don’t even know it until they’ve lost someone.”

Eve knew her father was referring to Cynthia. There were no secrets about the fact that Eve’s parents didn’t love each other. Eve fully believed that her father was in love with Graham’s mother at one time. But he’d let her go.

“I can’t let him back in,” she whispered.

“You can’t let him out,” Nora countered. “He loves you, Eve.”

Eve met the eyes of her family. “Are you all defending him?”

Sutton smiled. “I’m just as shocked as you are, but I want my daughter and grandchild to be happy. When I saw the way he looked at you, the way he didn’t care how he laid his feelings on the line, I knew he loved you. Any man who is that strong and passionate is exactly what I want for you.”

Eve couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You want me to forgive him? Just like that? It’s that easy?”

When her fathered smiled, wrinkles formed around his sad eyes. “I want you to follow your heart. I don’t believe Graham will give up and that has everything to do with his feelings for you. Grace was right. He could fight you in court, where things would get ugly if he only wanted the child to have his name. I don’t think he realized how much he cared for you until you left.”

Eve shook her head. “I can’t just take him back. Right now, I only want to be here with you guys. I want to visit and laugh and... I don’t know. Pick out nursery themes.”

“I’m thrilled that’s your attitude,” Nora said, reaching over to squeeze Eve’s shoulder. “This baby will be perfectly healthy and come home to a beautiful room and a family who loves her.”

“Her?” their father asked, raising his brows.

“I think Eve is having a girl, too,” Grace laughed. “Another Winchester girl? That has a nice ring to it.”

Eve didn’t care about the sex, she just wanted a healthy baby. Now more than ever, she wanted that happiness in her life. She prayed her father would live long enough to see her child, but the odds were against them.

For now, though, she wouldn’t dwell on the sorrow. She’d live in the moment.

Later she’d deal with the ache...and she’d deal with Graham.

* * *

Three days had passed since she’d seen Graham...since he’d exposed himself before her family. But he’d texted her. He’d checked on her, asked if she was eating, joked that he’d send over some of the fried apples she loved. He didn’t tell her he loved her again, didn’t pressure her to meet him or to make a decision regarding this relationship they’d thrown up in the air and left hanging.

He’d genuinely been...well, caring. And she was positive this wasn’t some game to him. He wasn’t using her. Eve realized that if he’d wanted to use her all along, then he would’ve tried to use her to get closer to her father. If he was that sure her father held secrets about Graham’s past, then he could have easily used his charms and sneaky maneuvers to find out what she knew. Or have her find out what her father knew.

He’d done neither. When they were together, he’d avoided the topic. It had taken Eve two restless, sleepless nights to replay their last seven weeks. There were no red flags, nothing other than an intense affair and unexpected emotions.

Now she stood in the lobby of his building, clutching a photo, more scared than she’d ever been in her life. This was the biggest risk she’d ever taken, but this could also be the greatest thing to ever happen to her.

By the time Eve reached the top floor and stood outside the only door in the hall, she was a little more under control...until the door swung open and Graham stood there in a pair of running shorts, beads of sweat running down his chest.

“Doorman told me you were on your way up,” he explained. “I was on the treadmill.”

Eve still didn’t say anything. Now that she was here, all the speeches she’d rehearsed vanished from her mind. The picture in her hand crinkled, drawing her attention to the reason she needed to gather up that Winchester courage.

“I, um...can I come in?”

Graham stepped back, opening the door wider. The second she passed by him, she was assaulted with that sexy, sweaty, masculine scent. She wanted this to be easy, didn’t want a messy reunion...if he’d take her. They’d been through so much already, Eve wasn’t even sure a relationship was possible.

Eve crossed the spacious entryway and stepped down into the living area. Her eyes were fixed on the skyline.

“I never got to appreciate the view in Tennessee,” she muttered. “I was numb when I left.”

When he said nothing, Eve turned, only to find he’d moved in closer behind her.

“I was still numb when I saw you at my dad’s house,” she went on. “But then I realized you didn’t have to be there. You could’ve let me go, could’ve waited and fought me.”

His intense stare hit her as fiercely as his words. “I’d never fight you, Eve.”

“I’m tired,” she whispered. “Tired of worrying, tired of questioning and tired of wondering what we’re doing.”

Graham reached for her, pulling her into his arms. She didn’t care that his chest was damp with sweat. All she cared about was that he didn’t seem to have changed his mind.

“Put it all on me,” he murmured against her ear. “Every fear, every worry, give it to me. I want to be everything for you, Eve.”

She eased back, hope spreading through her. “Can our lives be that easy? Can we make this work?”

“I’ll do anything to have you in my life, Eve. Anything. Not just the baby, but you.” He framed her face with his strong hands. “I’ve never loved a woman the way I love you. I’ve never wanted to. But we fit, Eve. We get each other and I can’t imagine life without you.”

Sliding the black-and-white image between them, she held up the picture for him to see. “This is for you.”

Graham took a step back and stared at it. It was a sonogram of their baby. His eyes instantly misted as he slowly reached for the glossy image.

“I didn’t think you’d had the appointment yet.”

“I called the doctor for a favor.” Eve smiled, unable to stop herself as she saw how in love Graham was with this child already. “I wanted to give you this. I wanted you to know that we are both yours if you’ll have us. If you can forgive me for doubting you, for doubting us.”

His eyes instantly sought hers. “There’s nothing to forgive. I’m the one who nearly ruined the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I won’t ask you to marry me. But know that the second you want to, I’m ready.”

Eve started to say something, but he held up his hand. “Because I love you both. I want to build a life with you, raise all the babies you want.”

“My father defended you,” she told him.

Graham looked shocked. “He did?”

“I know you think he has a secret about your father, but this disease, it’s changed him. I—I’ll go with you if you want to ask him. He won’t lie to me.”

Graham pulled her in once more. “I have everything I need right here. I won’t put you between your father and me. Besides, Brooks has a lead with the investigator.”

Eve pulled back. “That’s great.”

Graham smiled. “Roman is out now searching and he’s pretty sure he has the name we’ve been searching for.”

“Oh, Graham. Are you excited?”

“I am.” He kissed the top of her head. “But not nearly as excited as I was the second I knew you were here to see me. Don’t leave. Stay with me.”

Eve leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Maybe we should start with a shower and then talk.”

Graham set the picture down on the accent table and scooped her up into his arms. “That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

* * * * *

Back in the Enemy’s Bed

Michelle Celmer

From lovers to sworn enemies…and back again? A dramatic Dynasties tale from USA TODAY bestselling author Michelle Celmer!

Wealthy private investigator Roman Slater has never forgiven himself for hurting former flame Grace Winchester. And Grace has never forgiven him, either! When she discovers that he now has her family in his sights, she puts up a fight.

But where Roman is concerned, she can’t help it: she’s a lover not a fighter. Despite herself, she’s back in the millionaire’s bed just like that. But is Grace setting herself up for a replay of past betrayals? Or will Roman prove that he’s one of the good guys this time around?

For Mike and Trevor

One

Grace Winchester didn’t get nervous.

As the youngest of the Winchester daughters, she may have had a privileged and pampered childhood, but as an adult she was no spoiled heiress. She’d worked damned hard building her fashion-design business, and she was a well-known and respected activist for women’s rights. In a world where men dominated, she’d trained herself over the years to believe that there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do.

Okay, so there was one thing.

She couldn’t say no to her father.

The closest thing to royalty in Chicago, Sutton Lazarus Winchester was not the sort of man who took no for an answer. One stern look from those piercing green eyes and people fell in line. But with all the recent scandal surrounding their family, and Sutton’s failing health, lately she could see the worn-away edges on his harsh manner and hoped that he would take pity on her. Just this once, because what he was asking of her was truly her worst nightmare.

“Daddy, I don’t want to do this.”

Her father, sitting like a king on his throne at his massive teak desk, in his equally massive office in the Winchester estate, didn’t even look up from the laptop screen. He’d been ill for months, sometimes barely strong enough to climb out of bed. But today was a good day. He even had some color in his hollow cheeks. “We all do things we don’t want to, Princess. It’s called life.”

She felt herself being reduced to the whining and stubborn adolescent who would stomp her foot and huff when her parents told her no. Which honestly hadn’t been all that often. She was the baby of the family, and with a bat of her ultra-long super-dark lashes most everyone gave her what she wanted. But what he was asking her to do now? When he’d said the words, they shook her deep to her core.

Roman Slater is coming to speak to me and I want you here.

Roman Slater, owner of the top private investigation firm in the Midwest, Slater Investigation Services, and the one man on the face of the planet whom Gracie swore never to speak to again. Roman Slater, who’d swept her off her feet and promised to love her forever, then betrayed her and her family in the worst way possible. And not just once, but two times.

All of her life people had used Gracie to get to her father, but she’d thought Roman was different. She’d thought he’d truly loved and trusted her. And she had trusted him with not only her family, but her heart.

Big mistake.

“I don’t understand why I need to be in the meeting,” she told her father, and if she were hoping for an explanation, she didn’t get it. Sutton Winchester never justified his demands, or explained himself. He’d never had to.

“You’re staying,” he said, an edge of impatience in his tone. It was the voice he used when she was pushing her luck.

The reality of the situation began to sink in. In only a few minutes Roman would be standing there, in the flesh, in her father’s office. So many mixed feelings buzzed through her brain she felt dizzy and disoriented. Instinct was telling her to run and hide, and though she knew that it wasn’t physically possible for her heart to sink, it sure felt as if it had. It was currently somewhere south of her spleen.

Earlier in the day, before her father summoned her home, life had been good. In fact, it had been great. Her new line of purses was flying off the shelves in every boutique in every major city in the United States, and the new fashion app she’d recently created was now on smartphones and tablets all over the world. So other than not having any time for a personal life, and being a tiny bit lonely, she couldn’t complain. Now it felt as if her world had been thrown totally off axis.

Why did it have to be her? Couldn’t her sister Eve take her place? She was the CEO of the family business, Elite Industries, the multimillion-dollar real estate giant Sutton had founded. The business that Roman had recently, under the direction of Sutton’s mortal enemy, Brooks Newport, tried to take down in a scandal of epic proportions.

If there was a competing royal family in Chicago, the Newport brothers, Brooks, Graham and Carson, were it. The Newport brothers were self-made millionaires with axes to grind. Brooks in particular had made it his mission to crush Sutton, run his business into the ground, and ostracize Gracie and her sisters, Nora and Eve. Which had nearly slammed the brakes on the intense love affair between Eve and Graham Newport, Gracie’s future brother-in-law.

And Roman had helped him orchestrate the entire media smear campaign against their family. As if he hadn’t betrayed her family enough already. Seven years after the first scandal he’d been involved with, in which the Winchesters had been exonerated of any wrongdoing, he was coming back for more. But once again Brooks’s outrageous claims had no basis in reality, and in the end had only made the man look like the petty and greedy power-hungry narcissist that he was.

“After all the lies Brooks and Roman spread about us, why take a meeting with Roman at all?” Gracie asked her father. “Have you forgotten the way he dragged our family name through the mud? Twice! And the horrible things that they said you did this time?”

If she had been hoping for outrage, she didn’t get it. In fact, Sutton didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said.

Gracie adored her father, but she wasn’t blind to his faults. And he had more than his fair share. He’d lived large most of his life. He was a narcissistic, arrogant, womanizing jerk, who drank, smoked and lived hard, but he would never sink so low as to commit date rape. And four of the five illegitimate children Brooks had accused him of fathering were a genetic mismatch. Carson, however, had tested positive, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was Sutton’s illegitimate son. Gracie and her sisters were still reeling from the news that they had a half brother. Sutton’s numerous romantic affairs were no secret. But Gracie had strong suspicions that his relationship with Cynthia Newport had been more than an affair. She knew that her parents’ marriage had been one based on financial compatibility more than love, but it still hurt to think that Sutton had been in love with someone other than their mother, Celeste.

But enough already. She was tired of the rumors and conjecture. Sutton was dying and Gracie just wanted him to be able to go in peace.

Not only had the scandal affected Sutton’s failing health, but the risk to their company had been profound, and they were in jeopardy of losing several multimillion-dollar accounts if the attacks on Sutton’s reputation didn’t stop. Eve had managed to keep the company on an even keel, but now that she was pregnant with Graham’s baby, things were even more complicated.

And this whole mess was thanks to Roman and what Grace considered to be his less-than-impressive PI skills. When she thought of all the pain he had caused, all the suffering and humiliation he had subjected them to, anger lit a fire in her belly.

She would choose anger over shaky nerves any day.

“What if Brooks sent him here to dig up more dirt?” she said, hoping to talk some sense into her father. “So he can finish the job and destroy our family.”

Sutton folded his hands on the desk in front of him and looked up from the computer screen with the same clear green eyes she saw every morning in the mirror. For a sixty-five-year-old, he’d been in impressive physical shape until his lung cancer diagnosis earlier this year. Now his poor health was undeniable. Though he was a true fighter, the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and there was nothing that his team of doctors could do. It was only a matter of time.

Today, thankfully, was a good day. Some days lately, he could barely make it out of bed.

“Roman didn’t request to see me,” Sutton said. “I asked for this meeting.”

It took a second or two to process what he’d said, then her jaw nearly came unhinged, right along with her temper. And she did something that she never, ever did. She raised her voice to him.

“Why would you do that, Daddy? After all the family has been through, how could you even think of letting that man in our home?”

“It’s something I need to do,” he said firmly, and there was a softness in his gaze, a look of resignation in his eyes that broke Gracie’s heart. Sutton never showed weakness. She had never once seen him cry, or lose his composure, and rarely had she seen him truly angry. But this look of defeat was more than she could take.

She felt her own anger, and what little was left of her resolve, fizzle away. She had to remember that her father had very limited time left on this earth. Weeks. Months. No one could say for sure. If meeting with Roman meant so much to him, what choice did she have but to respect his wishes? Her pride be damned...and her nerves, because although Gracie Winchester never got nervous, right now her heart was thumping against her kidneys and her palms had begun to sweat.

The sudden rap on the door nearly startled her right out of her Manolo Blahniks and she automatically reached up to check her hair, which she had smoothed into a tasteful chignon that morning. Suddenly she found herself wishing she’d worn it down. Though she had no clue why.

As her father’s assistant opened the door, Gracie nervously smoothed the front of her Versace skirt, then folded her hands behind her back, so no one would see them trembling.

“Roman Slater to see you, sir.”

Gracie felt as if the room was spinning around her. Her heart was pounding hard, and that irrational urge to run was back, but her knees were so weak she would never make it to the door.

Or out the nearest window.

“See him in,” Sutton said, and Gracie stood frozen, trying not to hyperventilate.

The assistant stepped back and with a sweeping motion of her hand invited the family’s worst enemy into their most sacred domain. Gracie held her breath as the bane of her existence strolled through the doorway, as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

Wearing all black, he cut an impressive figure in tailored slacks, a dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck and a sport coat that showcased his wide shoulders, thick arms and narrow hips. All designer label.

So different from the Roman of their youth, the jeans-wearing, T-shirt-sporting college student who never gave a hoot about fashion. But now, as owner of a multimillion-dollar company, he had to look the part. And he did, except maybe for the hair. His dark locks were a touch too long, and a little too rumpled, but somehow it worked.

She waited for the anger to crash over her like a suffocating wave, for the resentment to turn her blood to acid and eat its way through her veins, but she felt something so unexpected it took a minute to identify the emotion.

She felt...relieved.

Several years after Roman had betrayed her the first time, he’d gone missing on a military mission, and had been rumored to be dead. It had ripped her to pieces, even after the way he’d betrayed her. At the time, she would have given anything to have him back. Anything to change what had happened, because her leaving him was the reason he’d joined the military in the first place.

She’d thought that maybe if she had forgiven him and they had stayed together he would still be alive.

The guilt had eaten her up for months, until she’d heard on the news that he and several of his fellow soldiers were still alive and being held in a POW camp in the Middle East by an Al Qaeda offshoot. And most likely being subjected to unspeakable forms of torture. Though she had been weak with relief to know that he was alive, had he been dealt a fate worse than death? Would they torture him, then kill him anyway? The possibilities had kept her up nights, and robbed her of her appetite. She’d lost ten pounds in a week, and felt so tired and depressed she could barely do her job. So she’d stopped watching the news reports and reading updates in the papers. She’d pushed him as far from her mind as she could, though there hadn’t been a day since then that she didn’t think of him at least once.