“Boyfriend, likely,” David said. “If he couldn’t keep it in his pants despite her religious beliefs, then he can’t be a prince.”
Nodding, Thea laid her head down on his shoulder, her palm over the strong, steady beat of his heart. “We’ll get through this, David. Together.”
The next three days weren’t easy. Naomi Hughes hadn’t yet gone to the media, but neither would she budge from her story. Thea made sure she was in the room during a legal meeting and the impression she had was of desperation and greed both. The girl wasn’t as much the innocent as David believed.
That ring on her finger, the decision to use Zeke’s gift against David, it spoke of cold calculation. And her manner was no longer meek and scared as it had been in the photo Thea had seen.
“He did this to me,” Naomi said midway through the meeting, her hand fisted on the gleaming gloss of the wooden conference table and her lips white at the corners. “He needs to pay!”
“Since you’ve made your stance clear,” Bailey said, his green-gray eyes striking against the deep brown of his skin, “there’s no point in further discussion. We’ll wait for the DNA results and go from there.” The lawyer met the eyes of his opponent. “Mr. Rivera will, of course, provide for the child should it be his.”
“I’m not giving permission for my baby’s DNA to be taken!” The girl ignored her attorney’s attempts to get her to quiet down. “I won’t violate my child that way!”
David’s lawyer didn’t flinch, his face impassive. “The prenatal paternity test I’ve suggested requires a simple blood test from you. There’s no risk to the child.”
“No, I won’t do it!”
“As your attorney should have explained to you before you made your claim,” Bailey said in his implacable tone, “your word is not enough, Ms. Hughes.” Stone-cold words. “Especially since our private investigator tells us you’ve been in a sexual relationship with one Juan Ortez for”—he looked down at his notes as, across from him, the girl went white—“the past year.”
Naomi turned to her attorney, who suddenly wasn’t looking as hard-nosed as he’d been to date. “Can they do that? Spy on me?” She swung back to David’s team, shaking off her attorney’s restraining arm. “I’ll go to the television stations.”
That was when Thea lost all remaining sympathy for the girl. The threat hadn’t been desperate but smug, as if Naomi was pulling an ace out of the hole. Definitely a planned shakedown.
“That’s your prerogative,” Bailey said without missing a beat, having already discussed this scenario with Thea. “You should, however, be aware that should the DNA test come back negative for paternity, we will also release that information to the media.”
The implication was clear: if she was lying, the girl would have to face some ruthless media attention. “Furthermore,” Bailey said, proving his worth as a shark in a suit, “should you go to the media and the child later proves not to be Mr. Rivera’s, we will also be filing suit for damages.” He raised an eyebrow at the opposing attorney. “Perhaps you should explain what that means to your client.”
The other man didn’t blink, Naomi having hired a shark herself—one who was most likely working on a contingency-fee basis, with the expectation of being paid from the proceeds of Naomi’s claim against David. Rising, the tanned brunette male said, “I’ll contact you to arrange a mutually acceptable lab to handle the paternity test.”
Naomi was still arguing that she wouldn’t agree to any such thing when she and her lawyer left, but her voice had gone from smug to shrieking to shaky.
“She’s dead in the water.” Bailey’s smile held no mercy. “This was an attempt at extortion pure and simple, and now she’s finally realized it’s not as easy as the tabloids make it appear.”
Having seen the calculation in the girl’s eyes, Thea wasn’t so sure Naomi wouldn’t push things further, so she kept her ear to the ground. It was difficult to be away from David given the stress of the situation, but she had to be in New York, where everything was going down. At least Schoolboy Choir’s Manhattan concert was in a few days’ time, so she’d see him then.
And her and David’s line of communication was wide open. Thea had broken through her final self-protective walls in that hotel suite when David had told her he loved her—she’d never forget the passionate fury of that instant. She had no problem with laying her own heart out there. Her reward was seeing the brilliant light in his eyes, a light that didn’t fade no matter the continued shadow thrown by Naomi’s claim.