But as of last week, it appeared she didn't have a choice. This baby belonged to him as much as he or she did to Greer. To keep a child from him … No, she had to tell him. Her stomach rolled, tightened. It had nothing to do with morning sickness. And everything to do with the idea of having to see him again after months. Especially considering the last time had been in the police station as he saved her ass, and she'd said … nothing. Done nothing. Now she would show up on his doorstep-or office-and announce that he was her baby's daddy.
She was so damn afraid.
Don't go there. Don't. You. Dare. Go. There …
"What's wrong?" Noah glanced at her. "Are you okay? Any aftereffects from last night?" he asked, looping an arm around her shoulders. After Ethan had taken her to the hospital, he'd called Noah, and her friend had arrived soon after they did.
"Nope. I'm good to go."
He nodded. "Good. Damn, Greer. You scared the hell out of me."
"Me, too," she murmured.
She inhaled a deep breath, slowly let it go. She didn't want to dwell on her impending conversation with Raphael right now. Not when in thirty minutes she would be listening to her baby's heartbeat. A warm glow pulsed in her chest and radiated outward. Anticipation and delight for the moment lent her feet speed. The newly green branches of a nearby tree cast shade over the front end and windshield. When the baby came in September, the leaves would be gold, red, and orange. She smiled. Her child would come during her favorite season …
"What the hell?" Noah barked, drawing to a hard stop, his arm dragging her close.
"Noah, what's-"
She gasped. Cried out.
Her car. A dense web of cracks and lines spun out from jagged holes in her windshield and the driver's side window. Several shards of glass clung to the frame like diamond teardrops. The violence in the shattered windows seemed to vibrate in the morning air, staining the pretty day with its ugliness.
Who would-?
But even as the question formed in her head, she answered it.
She didn't know a name. Or a face. Still, she knew with a certainty who had committed the cruel act.
She edged toward the car.
"Greer, wait. I don't think … "
She didn't heed his warning. Moments later she wished she had.
Fear-stark, heavy, and malicious-knocked her back from the car several steps. The horror tunneled into her chest, invaded her body until she breathed the oily, putrid stink of terror. Another cry ripped past her lips. She closed her eyes, sinking to the ground, heedless of the cold sidewalk.
Yet the image remained in her brain like a parasite she couldn't purge.
A letter-sized envelope sat on the driver's seat. The plain white color, her name in block letters on the outside, no return address-most likely containing the same vicious insults and accusations as the others she'd received over the months.
But the doll …
The doll with the eyes gouged out, lips blackened, and soft body torn apart …
That was new.
Chapter Six
On Raphael Marcel's fourteenth birthday, his Uncle Salvatore had pulled him outside on his aunt's front porch and passed along two pieces of sage advice.
One: Never become involved with a girl or woman with bigger tits than brains. Perky knockers were temporary; good conversation was forever.
Two: Always wear your jimmy hat. Or else you'll become chained for life to a woman with more tits than brains.
Since he intimately remembered the small but perfect handful of Greer Addison's breasts with HD clarity, he could state with definite certainty that her intelligence exceeded her bust size. But according to the words she'd just uttered, it appeared he had somehow slipped up with Salvatore's second pearl of wisdom.
Again.
"What did you just say?" he rasped, hoping against desperate hope that maybe he'd heard wrong or gone spontaneously deaf.
"I'm pregnant."
Nope. His hearing was perfect. And he was fucked.
Anger. Hurt. Bitterness. Damnable hope. It all converged on him at once. In seconds he was transported back to his old apartment seven years earlier opening a manila envelope and a wound in his heart that had never fully healed. A wound that was being ripped open all over again by Greer Addison.
His fingers curled into the arms of his office chair, and his feet were glued to the floor beneath his desk. Something. He should do something, say something. Kick something. But nope. It appeared that remaining planted on his ass was all he could manage as he blinked at Greer like a damn owl. Greer-still lovely, still composed, still all lady-of-the-manor-ish.
And apparently very knocked up.
As if her showing up in his office at Liberty Security Services, the security and information systems firm he owned with one of his best friends, Chayot Grey, wasn't shocking enough. It'd been almost four months since he'd last seen her in the police station. The familiar flicker of anger kindled to life in his gut and chest. Shit. He hated that just the memory of her rejection still retained the power to make him angry. Hated that just recalling her aversion caused the ghostly fingers of shame and unworthiness to scratch down his spine. Hated that he'd allowed another pampered socialite to make him feel like shit beneath her expensive shoe.
Hell yeah, he was angry-angry, not hurt. Hurt feelings were for pussies … damn it.
And yet, even after she'd avoided his touch as though he'd contracted the clap, he'd tried to contact her. To say what, he'd had no idea. How's it going? Are you okay? What the hell?
All of those opening lines had sounded stupid and lame even in his own head. But he'd still located her cell phone number off the consultation information sheet she and her ex had completed when they'd visited the office back in December, and he'd called. She hadn't answered. So he'd called her parents' home only to be informed she no longer lived there. He'd even phoned her brother's office and was turned away again. At that point, he'd realized she probably didn't want to be contacted. Especially by him, since what was supposed to have been a discreet one-night stand had become part of an official police report … and leaked to the press. Socialite's Scandalous Sleepover Is Alibi for Murder! That had been one of the more creative headlines slung across one of those shitty tabloids. He figured he wouldn't see or hear from her again.
Until she strolled into his office bringing the news of his supposedly impending fatherhood.
A band constricted his chest, steadily squeezing tighter and tighter. He'd been here-a woman announcing he was going to be a father-before. And it was like a bad sitcom rerun. Or a jacked-up case of déjà vu. Except this time he knew how it ended. In lies, betrayal, and heartbreak. In debilitating grief and loss.
Well, no fucking way. Turning the channel.
God, Mondays sucked.
"Since you're telling me this, I assume I'm the nominee for the father." Maury Povich, where the hell are you? He half expected the talk show host to appear in his office. His grasp on the chair's arms tightened until his fingers could've been talons.
Greer didn't reply immediately. Instead, she nodded, but not before something flashed in her eyes. The-whatever it was-was there and gone before he could analyze its presence, but a hollowed-out crater took up residence in his chest. For some reason he felt as if he'd just kicked her dog or stolen her Gucci purse. Asshole. He'd pretty much just insinuated she slept around.
Memories of their night together in the backseat of his SUV still haunted him like Casper the Nymphomaniac Ghost. With crystal-clear, slightly obsessive clarity, he remembered the fresh apple scent of her hair, the silken softness of her skin, the not-quite-a-handful perfection of her breasts, and the wet, shrink-wrap fit of her sex. Goddamn, she'd been tight as a fist. Sweat prickled on his palms just thinking about it. Getting into her that first time had been slow going. And hot as hell.
She'd been engaged, and he wasn't the village idiot, so sex with her fiancé was pretty much a given. But either dearly departed Gavin had possessed a dick the size of a cocktail wiener or he and Greer hadn't been tearing up the sheets on a regular basis. Probably both. Guys like the son of a bitch who'd been her fiancé usually wrapped themselves in arrogance and self-entitlement to compensate for lack of other things-confidence, personality, class, penis.
Still didn't mean he was the father of her baby. They'd had sex once-well, technically three times-but she'd been lovers with Gavin for years. He would have to be the world's biggest hypocrite to point fingers at her or call her a whore for being confused about the dates and which man could've fathered her child. But the odds … He didn't sit in judgment over her, but he damn sure wasn't going through this You-My-Baby-Daddy circus again either. Nope, sorry. Been there, done that. Bought-and burned-the T-shirt.