Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(7)

No wonder she'd left him, he mentally scoffed now. He'd have left him after being dismissed like that.

By her own husband. The man who was suppose to love, honor and cherish   her more than anyone else on the planet. Boy, he'd really messed up on   that one, hadn't he?

As always, hindsight was twenty-twenty … and made him want to kick his own ass.

Which meant that if Vanessa had met another man, Marc couldn't really   blame her for leaving him in hopes of moving into a situation that made   her happier than the one she'd been in with him.

The thought of another man touching her, being with her-especially with   his baby growing inside her belly-made his vision go red around the   edges and his mind fill with images of tearing the aforementioned male   who'd dared to touch his woman limb from limb. But he couldn't blame   her, not when so much of what had gone wrong between them was his own   fault.

"Is it?" he asked again, suddenly needing to know. Though he wasn't sure what difference it would make now.

"No," she answered quietly. "There was no one else. Not for me, anyway."

He raised a brow. "What does that mean? That you think I was being unfaithful?"

"I don't know, Marc. Were you? It would certainly explain all those extra hours you were supposedly spending at work."

"I had just taken over the company, Vanessa. A lot of things required my attention, practically around the clock."

"And I wasn't one of them, apparently," she muttered, bitterness clear in her tone.

Marc rubbed a spot between his eyes where a headache was brewing. He'd   heard that level of frustration and discontent in her voice before, so   many times. The same as he'd heard her complain that he wasn't spending   enough time with her.

But what choice did he have? And why couldn't she have cut him some   slack? The twenty-four-hour workdays hadn't lasted forever. Nowadays, if   he was at the office past five, it was usually because he didn't want   to go home. Why bother, when there was nothing much there for him to   enjoy other than a soft bed and a giant plasma television?                       
       
           



       

"This again?" he ground out. "Do we really have to get into this again?"

"No," she replied quickly. "That's the nice thing about being divorced-we really don't."

"So that's why you didn't tell me you were pregnant?" he demanded.   "Because I wasn't paying enough attention to you before the divorce?"

A furrow appeared in her brow. At her breast, the baby continued to   suckle, though he could only hear the sounds, not see the child's mouth   actually at work.

"Don't be obtuse," she snapped. "I wouldn't keep something like that   from you just because I was pouting or angry with you. If you'll recall,   we didn't exactly part on the best terms, and you were the one who   refused to speak to me. That sort of thing makes it difficult to have a   personal heart-to-heart."

"You should have tried harder."

Blue eyes flashing, she said, "I could say the same about you."

Marc sighed, rocking back on his heels. It was nice to know that even   after a year apart, they could jump right back to where they'd left off.

No growth or progress whatsoever, and to make matters worse, there was a   whole new wrench thrown into the works. One with his blood running   through its veins. One that he should have been told about from the very   beginning.

But arguing with her about it or getting red in the face with fury over   having his child kept from him for so long wasn't going to get him   anywhere. Not with Vanessa. She would simply argue right back at him and   they would end up exactly where they were-in a stalemate.

Striving instead for calm and diplomacy, he said, "I guess that's   something we're going to have to agree to disagree about." For now. "But   I deserve a few answers, don't you think?"

He could see her mulling that over, trying to decide how much pride or   privacy it would cost her to share the details of the last year of her   life … and fess up to something he suspected even she knew had been   wrong-namely keeping his child from him.

"Fine," she relented after a moment, though she sounded none too pleased with the prospect.

While he weighed his options and tried to decide where to start, she   shifted the baby in her arms and quickly rearranged her clothing beneath   the veil of the knitted throw to make sure she was completely covered.

The child, Marc noticed, was sound asleep. Eyes closed, tiny pink mouth   slack with sleep. And suddenly he knew exactly what he needed to know   most of all.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" he asked, his throat clogging with emotion, making the words come out scratchy and thick.

"A boy. His name is Danny."

Danny. Daniel.

His son.

His chest grew tight, cutting off the oxygen to his lungs, and he was   glad when Vanessa rose from the sofa, then turned to toss the afghan   over the back so she wouldn't see the sudden dampness filling his eyes.

He was a father, he thought, blinking and doing his best to   surreptitiously suck in sharp, quick breaths of air in an attempt to   regain his equilibrium.

When he and Vanessa had first gotten married, they'd discussed having   children. He'd expected it to happen before long, been ready for it.   When it hadn't in the first year, or the second, the idea had drifted   further and further to the back of his mind.

And that had been okay. He'd been disappointed, he supposed, but so had   she. But they'd still been happy together, still optimistic about the   future, and cognizant of the fact that they hadn't even begun to explore   all of their options yet. If getting pregnant the fun, old-fashioned   way hadn't worked out, he was sure they'd have discussed adoption or in   vitro or even fostering.

But as it turned out, they hadn't needed any of that, had they? No, she'd been pregnant when they'd signed the divorce papers.

"When did you find out?" he asked, following her movements as she   trailed slowly across the room. The baby- Danny, his son-was propped   upright against her shoulder now and she was slowly patting his back,   bouncing slightly.

"A month or so after the divorce was final."

"That's why you moved away," he said quietly. "I expected you to stick   around Pittsburgh after we split. Then I heard you'd left town, but I   never knew where you'd gone." Not that he'd intentionally tried to check   up on her, but he'd kept his ear to the ground and-admittedly-welcomed   any news he managed to pick up through the grapevine.

She shrugged one slim shoulder. "I had to do something. There was   nothing left for me in Pittsburgh and I was soon going to have a child   to support."                       
       
           



       

"You could have come to me," he told her, just barely able to keep the   anger and disappointment from seeping into his voice. "I would have   taken care of you and my child-and you know it."

She stared at him for a moment, but her face was passive, her eyes blank, and he couldn't read her expression.

"I didn't want you to take care of us. Not out of pity or   responsibility. We were divorced. We'd already said everything we had to   say and gone our separate ways. I wasn't going to put us both back in a   position we didn't want to be in just because our reproductive timing   was lousy."

"So you came here."

She nodded. "Aunt Helen had only been living here a couple of years   herself. She moved in with her sister when Aunt Clara became ill. After   she died, Helen claimed the house was too large for one person and she   could use the company. Unfortunately, she's never met a problem that   couldn't be solved-or at least alleviated-with food, so she baked and I   ate. Then one day, I got the brilliant idea that we should open a  bakery  together. Her recipes are amazing, and I've always been pretty  handy in  the kitchen myself."

"Good for you," Marc said.

And he meant it. It hurt to realize that he'd never known she had such   amazing cooking or baking abilities, or that she'd preferred to move   away and live with her aunt in Mayberry R.F.D. over coming to him when   she'd discovered her pregnancy.

He certainly had the means to care for her and their son. Even if   reconciliation hadn't been an option, he could have set her up in a   small house or apartment, somewhere he could visit easily and spend as   much time with his child as possible.