The Wedding Wager: Dakota Daddy

In silence they rode the elevator to the fifth floor, where they entered a large suite decorated in muted earth tones of umber and green and deep red. Sunshine poured through floor-to-ceiling glass windows and doors, giving a sunny glow to the room and sharply contrasting Jared’s icy rage.

She crossed the sitting room, putting distance between them before she turned to glare at him defiantly. “You walked out, Jared. You have no claim. Absolutely none.”

“The hell I don’t!” he snapped, shedding his coat to drop it on a chair. “That’s my son. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Call you?” she raised her voice, her cheeks flushing a deep pink, shaking with anger. She leaned forward. “Why would I call you when it was obvious that you never wanted to see me again?”

He crossed the room to clasp her shoulders. “You should’ve let me know that I was going to be a father. You damn well know it,” he said, grinding out the words, shaking himself.

“Get your hands off me!” she ordered, jerking away from him. “You asked for whatever happened.”

“Is that why you married, or did you have some kind of rebound relationship?”

She looked away and bit her lip before turning back to him. “The marriage was solely because I was pregnant.”

“You were never in love?” he asked in surprise, feeling glad even through his rage. “You didn’t marry to get even? Wasn’t that guy furious when he discovered what you’d—”

“No, he wasn’t, because our marriage was a business arrangement. My father negotiated it to cover up the paternity of my baby!” She flung the words at him.

“Negotiated?” Jared asked in disbelief. “You went along with that?”

“Damn you, Jared! You crushed me and left me and I was pregnant. My control freak father was enraged. He said horrible things. Then he contracted for the marriage and it was all settled beforehand.”

His anger toward her father returned full force. How the bastard tried to govern everything. “Your meddling father—what did he do exactly?” Jared asked, unable to stop prying, yet knowing he was going to hate what he would hear.

“He arranged or, rather, bought my marriage,” she said, pronouncing the words slowly and distinctly as if Jared were unfamiliar with English.

“Where did he find the guy?” Jared asked while his hurt multiplied.

“Mike was the son of a Montana rancher. By then, he was an engineer, living in Phoenix. My father paid him to marry me.”

“And you went along with that?”

“What was I supposed to do? It was a paper marriage, a business arrangement to give the baby a father.”

“He wasn’t our baby’s father. Did you even live under the same roof?”

“For a little over a month. The marriage was never consummated. We had separate bedrooms and each of us went our own way. Mike had no interest in me. He only wanted the money to open his own firm. But under that guise of respectability, my father would pay for the baby and my care.”

“That bastard!” Jared exclaimed, rage eating at him. He had thought when he’d left South Dakota that the Sorensons could never hurt him again. How wrong he’d been! To discover she’d hidden the most important thing in his life from him—his son—cut to his soul.

“Who are you to say that?” she answered. “You walked out and left me pregnant! Damn you, Jared! I was uneducated, young and dependent on my dad.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to reveal her father’s duplicity, but he wasn’t going to get into that now, or hurling accusations would be all they would do. He wanted to know about Ethan.

“So go on—tell me what you did. You married Mike and moved to Arizona.”

“That’s right. Under the circumstances, I was less than pleasant. Mike was interested in his career and I think there was someone in his life, but he was kind enough to keep her out of our lives. We got a quiet divorce after seven weeks and I left.”

“You came home once for a reception, I heard.”

“Yes, so Dad could convince people that Ethan was Mike’s son.”

“How could anybody believe that lie after Ethan was born?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what gossip flew, nor did I care by then.”

“I got a degree of revenge on your father in Ethan, since he looks exactly like me. Your father had to be constantly reminded of me,” Jared said. No one who knew both him and Ethan could mistake the connection. “Do you ever see Mike?”

“No. We went our separate ways and I haven’t talked to him since,” she said, and Jared was surprised by the relief he experienced over her answer. “My dad used to tell me about him occasionally. I think he’d even hoped we’d stay married. Mike established his own firm and married. That’s the last I heard about him.”

“Damn it,” Jared said. All they had both gone through because of her father. “And in all that time, it didn’t occur to you to let the father of your baby know about his son’s existence?”

“Don’t, Jared! Don’t accuse me—”

He grasped her shoulders again, fighting the urge to shake her. “I’m the father, and in this day and age I have rights. Yes, I accuse you. You know damned well you should’ve let me know we were having a baby.”

“I never once when I was pregnant thought I should let you know,” she said, the words tumbling out in a rage.

“When I first spoke to you last Saturday, you went white as a sheet and looked as if you might faint.” His voice was low, and he leaned closer with anger white hot. “You were filled with guilt for keeping silent. Admit it, Megan! Admit that you know you should’ve told me about Ethan.”

Her eyes were wide and green with anger as she shook her head, adding to his fury. “No. You gave that right up when you walked out without a word. You cut all ties with me in the cruelest possible way.”

When he flinched because what she accused him of was true, he still couldn’t bring himself to reveal to her that it was her father, because it would sound weak, as if he were making excuses. “Maybe I deserved for you to keep me out of your life, but when Ethan was born, you know you should have informed me. If you’d told me you were expecting a baby, I would’ve come back here.”

“Oh, please, Jared! Don’t stretch credulity to that point! You know you wouldn’t have. You would have run all the more, if I’d called you and said you were about to become a father. Or you would’ve asked if I was sure it was your child.”

“That’s not true,” he said in a voice that was low and vehement. “I damn well would’ve come back.”

“You’ll never, ever convince me of that. It’s a moot point now,” she said, glaring at him and he noticed she was breathing as rapidly as he was.

“Even so, I can’t believe that in all these years you haven’t told me. I can’t understand why my own parents didn’t tell me, but they moved from here two years later.”

“I didn’t see your parents. I didn’t come home to live for a year and a half. People here met Mike at the reception, so they accepted the story that he was the father. Your parents moved shortly after I returned.”

“I still say you should have told me. You know you should have. When you moved back here, you could have faced dealing with letting me know. We’d put enough time between us—”

“Enough time between us that I no longer hurt from what you did?” she flung the words at him as he clamped his jaw closed while he clenched his fists.

“Even so—”

“All right,” she said, her voice suddenly sounding restrained. “When Ethan was one, I should’ve informed you. But I always thought I would when he got a little older, or if you came home and we crossed paths. Or if you tried to contact me, which of course, you didn’t until you wanted something I have. Whenever a year rolled by, I put off telling you again.” His anger was mirrored in the depths of her eyes. “What was I to do? Pick up the phone and call the man who walked out on me and say, ‘Oh, by the way, we had a baby’? You left without a word—that means you wanted to sever all ties with me. Why on earth would I call you?” she cried. “Can’t you get it?”

“I deserved to know, Megan, simply because I’m his father,” Jared said. “I guess you don’t know a parent’s rights, but I do have rights. Where was Ethan born?”

“In Chicago, where we had gone to college. It’s a large city and far from here.”

Jared’s pain over the past intensified. “You were alone in Chicago? Did you have any friends?”