Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(6)

Taking the last several steps two at a time, she hurried in and found   her aunt pacing back and forth across the floor, bouncing and hushing   and doing everything she could think of to calm the red-faced child in   her arms.

"Poor baby," Vanessa said, reaching for Danny.

"Oh, thank goodness." Helen sighed in relief, more than happy to hand   over her squalling charge. "I was just about to give him a bottle, but I   know how much you prefer to feed him yourself."

"That's all right, I've got him now," Vanessa told her, continuing to   bounce Danny up and down as she moved to the ugly, beige second-hand   sofa along the far wall, unbuttoning her blouse as she went. "Thank you   so much."

"How did things go? Is Marcus gone now?" Her aunt wanted to know.

"Yes, he's gone."

When the words came out more mumbled than intended, she realized it was   because she wasn't entirely pleased with that fact. She might have   thought Marc was out of her life for good, and may have been desperate   to keep him away once he'd shown up in Summerville unexpectedly, but she   realized now that seeing him again hadn't been entirely unpleasant.                       
       
           



       

One glance from those moss-green eyes and her body went soft and pliant.   Her blood turned the consistency of warm honey, her brain functioning   about as well as too-flat meringue.

Spending a short amount of time with him while she'd shown him around   the bakery had been … not horrible. If it hadn't been for the secret she   was hiding just one floor above, she may even have gotten him that cup   of coffee and invited him to stay a while longer.

Which was a really bad idea, so it was better that he'd taken off when he had.

She had Danny pressed to her chest, content now that his belly was being   filled, when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Considering  that  everyone who knew about the second floor apartment-namely she and  Aunt  Helen-was already up there, she suspected she was about to get a  very  rude surprise.

There was no time to jump up and hide the baby, no time to yell for Aunt   Helen to run interference. One minute she was glancing around for a   blanket to cover her exposed chest, and the next she was frozen in   place, staring with alarm at her stunned but furious ex-husband.





Three




Marc honestly didn't know whether to be stunned or furious. Perhaps a   mix of both. He wondered if the whooshing sound in his ears and the tiny   pinpricks of white marring his vision would ever go away.

It wasn't hard to figure out what was going on.

First, Vanessa had lied to him. The space above the bakery wasn't used   primarily for storage and as a place for her octogenarian aunt to nap   when she started to feel run-down. It was actually a fully furnished and   operable apartment, complete with a table and chairs, a sofa, a   television … a crib in one corner and a yellow duckie blanket covered with   baby toys in the middle of the floor.

Second, Vanessa had a child. She wasn't sitting for a friend; hadn't   adopted an infant after their separation just for the thrill of it or to   exert her independence. Even if she hadn't been breast-feeding the  baby  in her arms when he'd walked in the room, the protective flare in  her  eyes and the alarm written all over her face told him everything he   needed to know about her connection to the child.

Third and finally, that baby was his. He knew it as well as he knew his   own name. Felt it, deep down in his bones. Vanessa would never have  been  so determined to keep him from discovering she was a mother if  that  weren't the case-if she didn't believe she had something momentous  to  hide.

Not only that, but he hadn't become the CEO of his family's very   successful textile company by being stupid. He could do the math. The   only way Vanessa could have such a young infant was if she'd either been   pregnant before their divorce had become final or if she'd been   cheating on him with another man. And despite the differences that had   pushed them apart, infidelity had never been one of them-not by him and   not by her.

"Want to tell me what's going on here?" he asked, slipping his hands into the front pockets of his slacks.

It was safer that way. Burying his hands-now curled into tight, angry   fists-in his pockets kept him from reaching out to strangle someone.   Namely her.

And though his words might have been delivered in the form of a calm,   unruffled question, the sharp chill of his tone let her know it was a   demand. He wasn't going anywhere until he had answers. All of them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blur of blue-topped motion as   Aunt Helen bustled forward and tossed a blanket over Vanessa's half   exposed chest and the baby's head. Marc didn't know which was more   disappointing-losing sight of his ex-wife's creamy flesh … or of the child   he hadn't known existed until thirty seconds ago.

"I'll be downstairs," Helen murmured to her niece before turning a critical glare on him as she passed. "Yell if you need me."

What Aunt Helen had to be annoyed about, Marc couldn't fathom. He was   the victim here. The one who had never been told he was a father, who'd   had his child kept from him for so long. He didn't know how old the  baby  was, exactly, but given the amount of time they'd been divorced  and the  nine months of her pregnancy, his guess would be about four to  six  months.

Vanessa and her wily Aunt Helen were the bad guys in this situation.   Lying to him. Hiding pertinent facts from him for the past year.

After glancing over his shoulder to be sure they were finally alone, he took another menacing step forward.

"Well?" he prompted.

At first she didn't respond, buying some time by rearranging the   lightweight afghan so that it covered her exposed flesh, but not the   baby's face. Then with a sigh, she raised her head and met his gaze.                       
       
           



       

"What do you want me to say?" she asked softly.

Her seeming indifference had his molars grinding together and his   fingers curling even tighter, until he thought his knuckles would pop   through the skin.

"An explanation might be nice." Followed by a few hours of abject   groveling, he thought with no small amount of sarcasm, while outwardly   he struggled not to let his true level of annoyance show.

"I didn't realize it at the time, but I was pregnant before the divorce   became final. We weren't exactly on speaking terms then, so I couldn't   find a way to tell you, and to be honest, I didn't think you'd care."

Fury bubbled inside his chest. "Not care about my own child?" he growled. "Not care that I was going to be a father?"

What kind of man did she think he was? And if she could believe he was   the sort of man who wouldn't care about his own flesh and blood, why had   she bothered to marry him in the first place?

"How do you know it's your baby?" she asked in a low voice.

Marc laughed. A sharp, humorless bark of sound at the sheer ridiculousness of that question.

"Nice try, Vanessa, but I know you too well for that. You wouldn't have   broken your vows to have some sleazy, sordid affair. And if you'd met   someone you were interested in while we were still married … "

He trailed off, a sudden thought occurring to him that hadn't before.   "Is that why you asked for a divorce? Because you met someone else?"

It would be just like her. She would never have cheated on him, never   been physically unfaithful. But emotional infidelity was another matter,   and toward the end, he had to admit that they hadn't been as close or   connected as at the beginning of their relationship.

With his brother as second-in-command, he'd taken over the Keller   Corporation and started spending longer and longer hours in the office   or traveling for business. Vanessa had complained about feeling lonely   and being treated like an outsider in her own home-which was something   he could understand, given his mother's less-than-warm nature and the   fact that she'd never really cared for the woman he'd married. Hadn't   she made that clear from the moment he'd first brought Vanessa home for a   visit and announced their engagement?

But even though he'd heard Vanessa's complaints, he knew now that he   hadn't listened. He'd shrugged off her unhappiness, thinking perhaps she   was turning into a bit of a bored trophy wife. He'd let himself be   consumed by work and told himself it was just a phase-that she'd get   over it. He even thought he remembered suggesting she find a hobby to   keep her busy in hopes that it would distract her and keep her off his   back.