âActions speak louder than words. And what youâre doing is ignoring me and Rose.â
âIâm not ignoring the baby, Iâm ignoring you.â
âWhy?â Lilah demanded, tossing both hands high.
Could she really not see what it cost him to avoid her company? Was she clueless about the attraction sizzling between them? Well, if so, Reed thought, it was time to let her know exactly what was going on here.
Her scent reached for him, surrounded him and he threw caution out the damn window. âBecause of this.â
He grabbed her, pulled her in close and kissed her as heâd wanted to for days.
* * *
The Baby Inheritance is part of Mills & Boonâs no.1 bestselling series,
Billionaires and Babies: Powerful men⦠wrapped around their babiesâ little fingers.
One
âDivorce is reality,â Reed Hudson told his client. âItâs marriage thatâs the anomaly.â
Carson Duke, Americaâs favorite action-movie star, just stared at his attorney for a long minute, before saying, âThatâs cold.â
Reed shook his head slowly. The man was here to end a marriage that most of the country looked on as a fairy tale come to life, and still he didnât want to accept the simple truth. Reed had seen this over and over again. Oh, most of the people who came to him were eager to end a marriage that had become inconvenient or boring or both. But there were a few people who came to him wishing they were anywhere but in his office, ending a relationship that theyâd hoped was forever.
Forever. Even the thought nearly brought a smile. In his experience, both business and personal, there was no such thing as forever.
âLike I said,â Reed told Carson with a shake of his head, ânot cold. Reality.â
âHarsh.â Then Carson snorted a short laugh and crossed his legs, his ankle on top of his knee. Frowning a little, he asked quietly, âYou ever been married?â
Now Reed laughed. âOh, hell, no.â
Just the idea of him ever getting married was ridiculous. His reputation alone, as what the tabloids called the âdivorce attorney to the stars,â was enough to make sure no woman he was involved with developed long-term plans. And representing most of Hollywood and New York in high-profile divorce cases had all started with a single client five years before. Reed had represented televisionâs most likable comedian in a nasty split from a wife who made the âbunny boilerâ look like a good time.
Word had spread in Hollywood and across celebrity lines, and soon Reedâs practice was littered with the rich and famous. He enjoyed his work, relished protecting his clients from bad relationships and shattering the occasional prenup. And, if there was one thing heâd learned through the years, it was that even the best marriage could dissolve into misery.
But, he hadnât exactly needed his clients to teach him that lesson. His own family was a sterling example of just how badly marriages could go. His father was now on wife number five and living in London, while Reedâs mother and husband number four were currently enjoying the heat and tropical atmosphere of Bali. And from what Reed had been hearing, his mother was already looking for husband number five. Thanks to his serially monogamous parents, Reed had ten siblings, full and half, ranging in age from three to thirty-two with another baby sister due any minute thanks to his fatherâs ridiculously young, and apparently fertile, wife.
For most of his life, Reed, as the oldest child in the wildly eclectic and extended immediate family, had been the one who stepped in and kept things moving. When his siblings had a problem, they came to him. When his parents needed a fast divorce in order to marry their next âtrue love,â they came to him. When the apocalypse finally arrived, he had no doubt that they would all turn to him, expecting Reed to save all of their asses. He was used to it and had long ago accepted his role in the Hudson clan. The fact that his experience as a mediator had served him so well as an attorney was simply a bonus.
Looking at his latest client, Reed thought back over the past year and remembered the innumerable articles and pictures flashed across the tabloids. Carson Duke and his wife, Tia Brennan, had graced the covers of magazines and the pages of newspapers, and the two had been favorites on the celebrity websites. Theyâd had a whirlwind romance that had ended in a fairy-tale wedding on a Hawaiian cliff overlooking the Pacific.