Claiming His Secret Heir

Can he win back his wife?

When Caroline McNeill shows up outside her husband’s mansion, she claims to have no memory of the past year...or their passion-filled honeymoon. But faking amnesia is the only way Caroline can find out if Damon was behind her abduction. She needs to trust him—a man she craves but still barely knows—before she can tell him about their infant son. Did the Silicon Valley mogul merely marry to claim an inheritance then dispose of her? Or is what they share real and forever?

Holy. Hell.

Damon stopped on the stone driveway leading down to the wrought iron gate.

A woman stood outside the heavy bars, her fingers clutching the filigree that surrounded the house number in the center of the entrance. She was the right height. Even from this distance, he could recognize those dark brown eyes. The delectably full lips. The hair that had once been sun-streaked blond was now a shade of honey-gold pinned back in a way that showed hollows under cheeks formerly rounded with good health. Her frame was thinner. Her skin paler. And her expression was wary, lacking the vibrant self-confidence of the capable businesswoman he remembered.

Yet there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind.

“Caroline.”

He forced himself into motion again, even though he had no idea what he would say to his long-lost wife.

* * *

Claiming His Secret Heir

is part of the McNeill Magnates trilogy:

Those McNeill men just have a way with women.

Claiming His Secret Heir

Joanne Rock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Four-time RITA® Award nominee JOANNE ROCK has penned over seventy stories for Mills & Boon. An optimist by nature and a perpetual seeker of silver linings, Joanne finds romance fits her life outlook perfectly—love is worth fighting for. A former Golden Heart® Award recipient, she has won numerous awards for her stories. Learn more about Joanne’s imaginative Muse by visiting her website, www.joannerock.com, or following @joannerock6 on Twitter.

To you. Yes, you, my reader.

Thank you for choosing this book to read, and for spending some of your valuable time with me. Whether you’re reading one of my stories for the first time, or you’ve read many of my books over the years, I appreciate you more than I can say. I hope our shared love of romance brings us together again down the road.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

Steeling herself against the January chill, Caroline Degraff stood outside the gates of the Los Altos Hills mansion that would have been hers and wondered how to get in.

Her grip tightened on the wrought iron fence separating her from the French château-style home she’d helped to design but never lived in. Caroline guessed that she would already be visible on the property’s security footage. Too late to turn back now from this crazy idea to show up unannounced.

Prepared to deceive the husband she’d once loved.

But she had to know the truth about the powerful man on the other side of this imposing enclosure dotted with motion-detecting cameras. The man she’d married eleven months ago but hadn’t seen since their honeymoon, tech company mogul Damon McNeill. Her father, a well-known investor in Silicon Valley projects, had hated Damon even before the marriage. He’d sent Caroline into Damon’s California-based social media software business, Transparent, as an entrepreneur in residence—a common practice in tech start-ups that could benefit from an outside business perspective—in the hope she’d find weaknesses Damon’s investors could use to oust him from the CEO position. Except Caroline had fallen in love with Damon rather than give her father the scathing scouting report he’d craved.

She hadn’t known until that time in her life how cold and manipulative her father could be. He’d called Caroline a traitor and refused to attend the wedding, preventing anyone else in her family from doing so, as well. That had hurt her deeply, but she’d been so in love with Damon, it hadn’t mattered. The weeks they’d spent together in Italy for their honeymoon had been the happiest days of her life.

Then she’d travelled briefly to London on her own after the honeymoon. From there things got fuzzy in her mind. She remembered she’d argued with Damon on the phone because she’d seen her father while she was in London. But she also remembered returning to this very house overlooking San Francisco Bay. She’d never even seen Damon that day, and she’d been trying not to notice too many details of their new, custom-built home so they could enjoy it together when he got home from work. Then, while she’d been staring out over the Bay, she’d heard him enter the house.

Only it hadn’t been him. After that, her memories of the ordeal were totally blurry. But she knew that day had been the beginning of a months-long nightmare. She’d been kidnapped and held for a ransom Damon never paid. He’d never informed her father at all. He hadn’t even reported her as missing; the story was absent from all the news sites she’d scoured online.