Secrets and Sins:Raphael(10)

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.