The Paternity Promise

“I think she was happy for the few weeks we were together. I was never sure, though. Took me forever to pry more than a murmured hello from her. Even after I got her to agree to go out with me, she didn’t want anyone at DI to know we were seeing each other. Said it would look bad, the big boss dating a lowly file clerk.”

He hooked his wrists on his knees and contemplated his black dress shoes. He must not have liked what he saw. A note of unmistakable self-disgust colored his deep voice.

“She wouldn’t let me take her to dinner or to the theater or anywhere we might be seen together. It was always her place. Or a hotel.”

It had to be that, Grace knew. Her cousin couldn’t take the chance some society reporter or gossip columnist would start fanning rumors about rich, handsome Blake Dalton’s latest love interest. Or worse, the paparazzi might snap a photo of them together and post it on the internet.

Yet she risked going to a hotel with him. She’d come out of her defensive crouch enough for that. And when she discovered she was pregnant with his child, she’d had no choice but to run away. She wanted the baby desperately, but she couldn’t tell Dalton about the pregnancy. He would have wanted to give the child his name, or at least establish his legal rights as the father. Hope’s false IDs wouldn’t have held up under legal scrutiny, and her real one would have led Petrie to her. So she’d run. Again.

“Did you love her?”

Damn! Grace hadn’t meant to let that slip out. And she sure as heck hadn’t intended to feel jealous of her cousin’s relationship with this man.

Yet she knew he had to have been so tender with her. So sensitive to her needs. His mouth would have played a gentle song on her skin. His hands, those strong, tanned hands, must have stroked and soothed even as they aroused and…

“I don’t know.”

With a flush of guilt, Grace jerked her attention back to his face.

“I cared for her,” he said quietly, as much to himself as to her. “Enough to press her into going to bed with me. But when she left without a word, I was angry as well as hurt.”

Regret and remorse chased each other across his face.

“Then, when I got the report of the bus accident…”

He stopped and directed a look of fierce accusation at Grace.

“I wasn’t with her when it happened,” she said in feeble self-defense. “She was by herself, in her car. The bus spun out right in front of her and hit a bridge abutment. She was terrified, but she got out to help.”

“And left her purse at the scene.”

“Yes.”

“Deliberately?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Grace shook her head. “I can’t tell you why. I can’t tell you any more than I have. I promised Anne her past would die with her.”

“But it didn’t,” he countered swiftly. “Molly’s living proof of that.”

She slipped off the sofa and onto her knees, desperate for him to let it go. “She’s your daughter, Blake. Please, just accept that and take joy in her.”

He was silent for so long she didn’t think he would respond. When he did, the ice was back in his voice.

“All I have right now is your word that Anne and I had a child together. I’ll send in the DNA sample you offered to provide. Once we have the results, we’ll discuss where we go from here.”

“Where I need to go is back to your mother’s house! She’s exhausted from the wedding. She told me tonight she was feeling every one of her sixty-two years. She can’t take care of Molly by herself for the next few days.”

“I’ll help her, and when I can’t be there I’ll make sure someone else is. In the meantime, you stay put.”

He pushed out of the chair and strode to the wet bar built into the far wall. For a moment Grace thought he intended to pour them both a drink to wash down the hurt and bitterness of the past hour, but he lifted only one crystal tumbler from one of the mirrored shelves. He returned with it and issued a terse command.

“Spit.”

Three

The melodic chimes of a doorbell pierced Grace’s groggy haze. When the chimes gave way to the hammer of an impatient fist, she propped herself up on one elbow and blinked at the digital clock beside the bed.

Oh, God! Seven-twenty! She’d slept right through Molly’s first feeding.

She threw the covers aside and was half out of bed before reality hit. One, this wasn’t her room in Delilah’s mansion. Two, she was wearing only the lavender lace bikini briefs she left on when she’d changed her maid of honor gown. And three, she was no longer Molly’s temporary nanny.

Last night’s agonizing events came crashing down on her as the fist hammered again. Scrambling, Grace snatched up her now hopelessly wrinkled khaki crops and white blouse. She got the pants zipped and buttoned the blouse on her way to the front door. She had a good idea whose fist was pounding away. She’d spent almost a month now with Blake Dalton’s often autocratic, occasionally irascible, always kindhearted mother.

So she expected to see the raven-haired matriarch. She didn’t expect to see the baby riding on Delilah’s chest, nested contentedly in a giraffe sling. Grace gripped the brass door latch, swamped by an avalanche of love and worry and guilt as she dragged her gaze from the infant to her grandmother.

“Delilah, I…”

“Don’t you Delilah me!” She stomped inside, the soles of her high-topped sneakers slapping the marble foyer. “Don’t you dare Delilah me!”

Grace closed the door and followed her into the living room. She wished she’d taken a few seconds to brush her hair and slap some water on her face before this showdown. And coffee! She needed coffee. Desperately.

She’d tossed and turned most of the night. The few hours she’d drifted into a doze, she’d dreamed of Anne. And Blake. Grace had been there, too, stunned when his fury at her swirled without warning into a passion that jerked her awake, breathless and wanting. Remnants of that mindless hunger still drifted like a steamy haze through her mind as Delilah slung a diaper bag from her shoulder onto the sofa and released Molly from the sling.

Grace couldn’t help but note that her employer had gone all jungle today. The diaper bag was zebra-striped. Grinning monkeys frolicked and swung from vines on the baby’s seersucker dress. Delilah herself was in knee-length leopard tights topped by an oversize black T-shirt with a neon message urging folks to come out and be amazed by Oklahoma City’s new gorilla habitat—a habitat she’d coaxed, cajoled and strong-armed her friends into funding.

“Don’t just stand there,” she snapped at Grace. “Get the blanket out of the diaper bag.”

Even the blanket was a riot of green and yellow and jungle red. Grace spread it a safe distance away from the glass coffee table. Molly was just learning to crawl. She could push herself onto her hands and knees and hold her head up to survey the world with bright, inquisitive eyes.

Delilah deposited the baby on the blanket and made sure she was centered before pointing an imperious finger at Grace.

“You. Sit.” The older woman plunked herself down in the opposite chair, keeping the baby between them. “Now talk.”

“You sure you wouldn’t like some coffee first?” Grace asked with a hopeful glance at the suite’s fully equipped kitchen. “I could make a quick pot.”

“Screw coffee. Talk.”

Grace blew out a sigh and raked her fingers through her unbrushed hair. Obviously Delilah had no intention of making this easy.

“I don’t know how much Blake told you…” She let that dangle for a moment. Got no response. “Okay, here’s the condensed version. Molly’s mother was my cousin. When Anne worked at Dalton International, she had a brief affair with your son. She died before she could tell me which son, so I brought Molly to you and finessed a job as her nanny while Alex and Blake sorted out the paternity issue.”

Delilah pinned Grace with a look that could have etched steel. “If one of my sons got this cousin of yours pregnant, why didn’t she have the guts or the decency to let him know about the baby?”

Grace stiffened. Shielding Hope—Anne!—had become as much a part of her as breathing. No one knew what her cousin had endured. And Grace was damned if she’d allow anyone, even the formidable Delilah Dalton, to put her down.