Falling for Her Enemy

  She’s falling for the one man who could destroy everything…

  Alex McAllister always dreamed of a life filled with the laughter and love of a family, but being abandoned at a young age left her wary of letting anyone in. Now that she’s settled in Still Harbor, Alex struggles between keeping her distance and the magnetic pull of the handsome stranger who claims he’s the biological father of her adopted daughter.

  Hayden Brooks never wanted to be a father. Long hours spent building his family’s real estate empire suits him just fine. But when he discovers an ex put the baby he unknowingly fathered up for adoption, his world crumbles. He tracks the child to Still Harbor with the intention of bringing her home—and comes face to face with his daughter’s stunning adoptive mother.

  The paternity test is in. And Hayden’s about to make the most shocking decision of his life, just in time for Christmas…

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Discover the Still Harbor series… Falling for the P.I.

  The Rancher’s Second Chance

  Rescued by the Rancher

  A Risk Worth Taking

  The Best Man’s Baby

  The Doctor’s Fake Fiancée

  The Billionaire’s Christmas Baby

  Find your Bliss with these great releases… A Touch of Chardonnay

  Just for Appearances

  Your B&B or Mine

  The Switched Baby Scandal

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Victoria James. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Bliss is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles, visit http://www.entangledpublishing.com/category/bliss

  Edited by Alethea Spiridon Hopson

  Cover design by Heather Howland

  Cover art from iStock

  ISBN 978-1-63375-470-6

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition November 2015

  Dear Reader, I absolutely love writing romances set in small towns that are filled with huge personalities. Add in the bonus of the holiday season and I’m over-the-top happy. There’s nothing like imagining a town filled with people and places that evoke a sense of community and family. I imagine Still Harbor to be a town with a little bit of mystery, a lot of charm, and some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

  I’m so thrilled that this November, I will have two holiday romances to share with you. To make things even more fun, the hero in this book, Hayden Brooks also makes an appearance in my other holiday release, The Billionaire’s Christmas Proposal. The two are long-time friends and both end up in situations they could have never imagined...but they’ll end up finding their happily-ever-afters with women who challenge and love them.

  Thank you so much for taking the ride into Still Harbor with me.

  Happy Holidays

  Victoria James

  xoxo

  Prologue

  Hayden Brooks gazed blankly at the woman who was apparently supposed to mean something to him.

  He stared and stared, trying to figure out why she was supposed to be significant to him. There was a vague familiarity about her, sort of like remembering a fading dream hours after waking. She was tall, sleek, with jet-black hair that hung straight down past her shoulders. She was attractive in an unapproachable sort of way. Her eyes were rimmed with too much black makeup and her lips were bright red, a contrast to her flawless porcelain skin. Why didn’t he remember her name? And why was she standing on his doorstep?

  “You don’t know who I am, do you? You are Hayden Brooks, right?”

  He gave a short nod and leaned against the doorjamb trying to look casual even though every single muscle in his body was now tightly wound. He wanted to appear casual. He wanted her to feel at ease and let her guard down so he could figure out what was going on.

  “We hooked up about seven years ago.”

  “Seven years ago?” He could barely remember the names of the women he’d dated last year. Not that there had been that many. They just hadn’t been that memorable.

  She nodded, her bright red lips thinning. She obviously didn’t like being forgettable. “Yes, it was at The Oceanside Bar. You were there with a bunch of guys and I was there with my girlfriends… We hooked up and spent a great night together at the Oceanside Hotel.”

  He ran his hand over his jaw, his eyes not leaving hers. He remembered, vaguely. It had been a bad night for him, a bad week. She had been available and pursued him.

  “So what are you doing here now?”

  She pulled a newspaper out of her large black purse and handed it to him. He stared at the picture of himself. He’d been on the cover of the city’s newspaper last week. He had just closed the biggest real estate deal in the city’s history. The article was flattering. It spotlighted the father-son success team that made up Brooks Building Group. “I only knew your first name that night… We didn’t really exchange information after. I had no way of contacting you again. Then last week I was drinking my morning coffee and saw your face on the cover of the newspaper. It’s not really a face a girl forgets.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I tried looking everywhere for you seven years ago. I went back to the Oceanside, but you were never there. I asked at the hotel, they didn’t know.”

  “Why were you looking for me?”

  “Because I was pregnant.”

  Hell no. Hayden looked past her, into the distance, listening as the rain pounded the ground, trying to focus on a sight that would calm him down. It was a typical Vancouver fall morning—typical except for the fact that there was a woman claiming to have been pregnant by him. Seven years ago. He looked at her again, searching her blue eyes for something. It was impossible, really. He was the most cautious man on the planet. There was no way he’d ever risk getting someone pregnant. He had made mistakes as a teen. He’d learned to look at himself in the mirror again, but it had taken a long time, and he’d learned responsibility the hard way. He was also a man that didn’t make the same mistake twice.

  “No, there’s no way I got you pregnant.”

  She gave a small smirk, unbuttoned her trench coat, revealing a lithe figure in a skin-tight black dress. “Now, I know you must be thinking that there’s no way this body could have ever had a baby, but it’s true.”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking at all. Here’s what I’m thinking.” He pushed himself off the doorjamb and stood straight up. No one tried to screw with him, and not about something like this. This was life altering. This would mess with his carefully controlled life. It would bring out demons he’d long since buried. “I’m thinking you saw that article, remembered our night together, and thought you could cash in.”

  She blinked furiously, but not before he saw her eyes fill with tears. He wasn’t backing down. “I would never do that. I’m doing my civic duty an
d letting you know that you’re a father.”

  “Well, then where’s my kid?”

  She lifted her chin. “I don’t know.”

  Alarm bells were going off, and a slow sweat was now trucking down his spine. “How do you not know where your child is?”

  “I gave her up for adoption right after birth.”

  He shut his eyes for a second and searched for remnants of a prayer from his childhood. He came up blank. This wasn’t happening.

  “I understand that if word got out you impregnated some woman, took off, and denied that you had a child, and refused to provide for said child, it would be damaging to a person of your stature.”

  His eyes snapped open, his gaze locked on hers. There it was. The blackmail, the motive.

  “So I’m here to help you out. You give me one million, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  Blood roared in his ears and it took him a full ten seconds to find the words. He leaned forward. “I’m not paying you a dime. You’re an opportunistic liar.”

  She held her hand to his mouth. “Opportunistic, yes. Liar? Not so much. I had a baby girl. You had a baby girl, though by now I’d say she’s six. But don’t worry. She’s been adopted. You don’t have to do anything. Pay me, I’ll keep my mouth shut, and we can both go on with our separate lives.”

  He grabbed hold of her wrist and firmly moved it away from his mouth. “I’m not paying you a freaking dime.”

  She shrugged. “That’s fine. Your loss.”

  “If I have a kid out there, I’m going to find her.”

  She frowned. “Wow, I didn’t expect that.”

  “Where is she?”

  She shrugged. “No idea. Handed over my rights. I don’t even know her name. You can go ahead and try to find her.”

  Shame and fear washed over him with the force of unrelenting waves. He cleared his throat, trying to focus, for now, until he was in private.

  “But no matter what, you need to pay out.”

  “I’m paying you nothing.”

  “Then prepare to have your name dragged through the mud.”

  There were very few moments in his life when he was at a loss for words. He’d always had a sharp tongue and wit in business dealings. This had rendered him speechless, because it wasn’t business, it was personal and she was unknowingly bringing out all of his old demons. He didn’t give a crap about his name, but his father did. His father was eighty years old, and he and Hayden had been through many rough years together. He couldn’t do that to him. He needed time to fix this. He ran his hands through his hair.

  “Give me a few months.”

  She crossed her arms and smirked. “No.”

  “Fine. Until Christmas. That’s the best offer you’ll get from me, so I suggest you take it.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’ll see. But if she’s not mine, you’ll regret ever coming to my door and trying to blackmail me.” There was no way in hell he was planning on paying a woman that had abandoned a child that might be his and not come forward for years. He held her gaze and saw the exact moment doubt trickled into her expression.

  He had it all. He had extreme wealth, homes in his favorite parts of the world, a fleet of cars, and every luxury he could ever want. He loved his job. He loved running his company. He loved acquiring business and real estate and turning them into something spectacular. But if he had a daughter out there, none of it mattered. Every success he’d ever achieved would mean nothing if he’d had a daughter that was living in foster care. All of it brought him back to the worst day of his life.

  He looked at the woman staring at him. If she was telling the truth, if he had a daughter out there, nothing was going to stop him from finding her. He would find his little girl and try and make all of this right.

  He’d find her and bring her back home with him.

  Chapter One

  If the Grinch himself had walked into the bakery, eaten all the pastries, stolen all the candy canes from the tree in the window, and the cash out of the till, it would still have been a more promising Christmas than the impending one. It was like every day brought more bad news.

  Alexandra McAllister stared through blurry, tired eyes at Mrs. Cooper who was currently wringing her wrinkled hands and frowning.

  “I’m so, so sorry my dear. I know you had your heart set on buying this bakery from me in five years, but I can’t wait that long.” The elderly woman grabbed one of the old-fashioned candy canes in the glass jar beside the cash register, ripped off the plastic wrapping, and broke off a piece with her false teeth. Alex watched her, wondering if the hard candy might pull Mrs. Cooper’s dentures loose. She tried to be a good friend to the woman she had grown to adore, even though this news was disastrous. She was able to keep this in perspective. She could do that. She was calm and collected.

  Or maybe she was reacting so calmly because nothing compared to the news her soon-to-be brother-in-law Matt Lane had delivered last month. Matt was a private investigator and had shaken her world when he’d sat her down and told her that his new client thought he might be Cassy’s father. At first she’d clung to the hope that maybe this was all a mistake, but the evidence pointed to the fact that this man, Hayden Brooks, could be Cassy’s biological father. They still needed to do a paternity test—nothing was certain until that happened.

  “You shouldn’t be worried about me with everything you have going on. I understand. This wasn’t meant to be. You have to take care of you and your husband.” At least she had come up with something polite to say. It was true. She was just leaving out the part about how this would completely screw up her plans and would mess with her need to provide security for her daughter.

  Mrs. Cooper’s eyes filled with tears again, and she waved the candy cane around. “Oh my dear, if only I could give you the bakery. But now that Martin had that awful stroke and I have to find a retirement home for us to live in, I won’t have the money. I need every penny, because those places are a fortune.”

  “I know, of course. There will be other bakeries. I’ll have more opportunities come my way,” she said, lying. She grabbed a candy cane and began eating with her soon to be former employer. They crunched in silence a few minutes, both of them too agitated to lick and enjoy. She knew she had so much to be grateful for—a home, a fresh start in Still Harbor, her family, and most of all her adopted daughter, Cassandra. But owning her own bakery would have been the security she needed for the future. In five years she would have been able to do it. She would have squirreled away money each year. Mrs. Cooper had already given her the figure she needed in order to buy. Except poor Mr. Cooper had suffered a stroke, and they were left with no choice but to sell now. There was no way she could come up with the money on such short notice.

  “What about a small business loan, dear? I know that would be taking on more of a burden, but we know this bakery makes excellent money. Surely Mr. Tuttle over at the bank would help you with a payment plan. Maybe I could put in a good word.”

  “I wouldn’t be approved. I’ve taken on a mortgage with my sisters for the house, and I have Cassandra’s expenses. It would be too much. I know I wouldn’t get the loan.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” the elderly woman said. “And right before Christmas too.”

  Alex swallowed the last bit of her candy cane and decided she needed to ditch the self-pity long enough for Mrs. Cooper to feel better and leave. Then she would wallow in pity privately in the form of an assortment of Christmas cupcakes. “Well, it’s closing time now anyway. You should get home. It’s been a long day. Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something out,” she said, forcing a smile on her face. Right. Figure something out.

  She gave another fake smile as Mrs. Cooper made her way to the front of the store. “I’ll be sure to lock up and put up the closed sign,” Mrs. Cooper called out.

  Alex barely heard her. She was busy sinking behind the old cash desk. On her way down she managed to grab the box of cupcakes she had planned on br
inging home. She sat there, alone in the empty bakery, and wondered how the heck her life, which had finally seemed to be going so well, had just blown up this week. Ripping open the lid, she looked at the mixture of Christmas cupcakes and decided that the candy cane surprise, egg nog, and peppermint chocolate cupcakes would be her first victims.

  She retrieved a takeout dish, lined up her cupcakes like three shot glasses at a bar, and prayed they’d have the same effect on her mood.

  She took a bite of the first one, slowly closing her eyes and letting the sweet mix of vanilla, chocolate, and sugar take her far, far away from the place that she was in right now. Leaning her head back she tried to forget that tomorrow the life she’d carefully constructed for herself was about to be seriously jeopardized. This cupcake was going to be dedicated to misery, her current state at the moment.

  She eyed the peppermint chocolate, deciding not to finish the rest of the candy cane surprise. If she ate half of each cupcake, it would be like she’d eaten only one and half, which would make her total three for the day because of her earlier samplings. She needed to start working out. More than her walk to The Sweet Spot Bakery every day—it wasn’t proving enough of a counterbalance to the calories consumed. The extra fifteen pounds she had packed on was proof of that. Running could help. Her sister, Kate, and her fiancé, Matt, had invited her to join them on their jogs. Those two ran almost every morning, but they were so in shape, there was no way she’d be able to keep up. Maybe she should start training in private and then join up with them in a few months. Maybe they’d be like, “Wow, you’re an amazing runner, Alex…” She stuffed the last piece of chocolate in her mouth, thinking she should make that a New Year’s resolution.

  “Excuse me, sorry to bother you.” She almost choked on the dense cupcake in her throat when a voice, a very deep, amused voice rang out in the supposedly closed, empty bakery.

  Alex swiftly wiped off the crumbs from her apron, her body humming with anxiety made even worse with the amount of sugar now running through her bloodstream.