Found: One Secret Baby Read Free

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    Five-foot-ten and reed-thin, Vanessa could have been a supermodel, but she had a CPA along with her law degree and made her living in the arcane realm of tax law. Friends since college, for the last two years they’d shared an office suite, along with a receptionist and two paralegals, with three other solo-practice attorneys.
    “Leaving early?” asked Vanessa. “Lucky you!”
    Rosalie smiled. “I’m going home to my guy.”
    “Must be true love.” Vanessa winked, took a sip of her coffee, and headed to her office.
    Rosalie let herself into her elderly Saab and dumped her briefcase onto the passenger seat. Time to set aside the lawyer part of her life and focus on the part that made it all worthwhile.
    Morgan Danby’s face flashed across her mind, but she pushed the memory aside. His face may have stirred up a welter of half-forgotten longings, but she never wanted to see it again.
    Ten minutes later she held the man in her life tight in her arms. Her eyes stung with tears of happiness as she kissed his cheek and felt his lips brush hers.
    “Were you a good boy today?” she asked.
    Joey blinked cornflower blue eyes at her and blew a soft raspberry.
    Rosalie brushed a lock of strawberry blonde hair out of his chubby face and hugged his small body so tightly he tried to wiggle out of her arms.
    Joey must have had a busy day at day care because he didn’t indulge in his usual protest at being strapped into his car seat and fell asleep as soon as she started the engine. Which left her with nothing to do on the way home except think about Morgan Danby’s visit.
    She couldn’t believe he hadn’t questioned her more closely about how many months’ pregnant Márya had been when they’d first met. Rosalie had never been a good liar because she rarely lied. She understood the power of truth.
    Her mother had always told the truth about the long illness that had eventually taken her life. Her honesty had made it possible for Rosalie to trust that she always knew the worst. And that, in turn, had given her the strength to move beyond the slow tragedy playing itself out at home and thrive in the world.
    She’d only lied today because she’d panicked, but it had worked. Nothing else mattered. Even her mother would have understood that.
    Still, Rosalie wished she’d started adoption proceedings when she’d first gotten custody of Joey. She hadn’t because it would have alerted Charlie’s relatives to Joey’s existence. She’d thought they wouldn’t care enough to look for the boy, but she’d been wrong.
    She glanced in the rearview mirror at the sleeping child who filled her life with such joy. She’d do whatever was necessary to protect him.
    “I don’t care what you have to do,” Márya had told her right before she died, after she signed the papers giving Rosalie custody of her son, “Keep Joey away from Charlie’s family.”
    Morgan raised his gaze from the laptop and looked down Wilshire Boulevard, the lights of Los Angeles nothing more than so many colored stars from the twentieth floor condo his company owned here. He took a sip of wine and rolled his shoulders.
    When his smartphone beeped he made the mistake of checking to see who it was.
    Lillian. He’d have to talk to her some time. Might as well do it now.
    He saved the spreadsheet he was working on and answered on the second beep.
    “Hello, Lillian. You’re up late.”
    “Why didn’t you call me with the report about your meeting with that woman who testified against Charleston?”
    He swallowed the familiar irritation. “I told you I’d call when I learned something.”
    “You didn’t learn anything at all about my grandchild?”
    If she hadn’t sounded more like a major general barking orders than a grieving grandmother, he might have had more sympathy for her.
    “We’re not sure there was … is a grandchild, remember? I have a couple of new leads to follow up, but nothing definite.”
    “This is taking too long. Are you