Secrets and Sins:Raphael(11)

"Sit," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Please," he added,  envisioning his mother, Sharon Marcel, smacking him on the back of the  head over his lack of manners.

"Thank you," she murmured, and lowered to the visitor chair in front of  his desk. She didn't say anything, just stared at the top of his desk as  if it were a crystal ball. Hell, if it were, he would be perched over,  trying to figure out when his life had taken a turn from Pretty Normal,  USA, to Baby Daddy-ville. "I'm sorry about showing up unannounced. I  didn't think this was something I could tell you over the phone. I know  it's … surprising."

"The Cubs winning the World Series is surprising. Elvis buying coffee at  the local 7-Eleven is surprising. You being pregnant is somewhere  between a Beatles reunion      tour and Mariah Carey winning an Academy  Award for Glitter." He leaned forward and propped his forearms on the  desk. "I used protection, Greer."

Her full, bare lips thinned into a straight line. She isn't wearing  lipstick or gloss. Why that thought hit him so hard, he couldn't  explain, but it struck him as odd. And out of place.

"Nothing is foolproof. Accidents happen."

"I'm not trying to offend you, but you and Gavin … " He couldn't bring  himself to complete the question. Not because he was squeamish or even  particularly sensitive. But putting her, Gavin, and sex in the same  sentence …  It incited an inexplicable urge to punch a hole in the wall.  "Since you were with him for a while, it seems more likely he would be  the father than me."

Before he finished speaking, she was shaking her head. "No, not  possible. We hadn't … been together for six months before you and I-" She  faltered, a faint blush rising to stain her elegant cheekbones.

He remained silent, waiting-eager-to hear how she would describe their  night together. Fucking? Screwing? Making love? The die-hard bachelor in  him shied away from the last phrase like a skittish horse.

"Anyway, it's why I wasn't on birth control," she continued, abandoning  the line of thought. Disappointment arrowed through him. "I'd stopped  taking it after we decided to be celibate in the months before our  marriage, and since we planned on starting a family right away."

Well, she got the "family right away" part, didn't- Whoa. Wait. What?  "Hold on a second. Are you trying to tell me you two had an agreement to  be celibate? He actually said yes to no sex with you?"                       
       
           



       

The tint in her face deepened, but her chin rose a notch, her green eyes containing a hard challenge. "Yes."

He stared at her, dumbfounded. The bark of laughter escaped him before  he had a chance to contain it and boomed in the office like a crack of  thunder. What the hell was she playing at? Did she actually expect him  to believe Gavin had had her at the ready, and he chose not to have her  under him? Unless she'd caught the motherfucker cheating with a woman  with a huge Adam's apple, there was no way in hell he was buying what  she was laying down.

He loosed another disbelieving hoot.

"Are you kidding me?" Taking her stony silence as affirmation, he  snickered, shaking his head. "If I did believe your story-which,  frankly, I'm having a hard time buying-then you should be delighted  there's a chance the baby's mine. Otherwise the kid you're carrying  might have half that ass's DNA. God knows we wouldn't want that gene  pool to continue."

"It's not kind or appropriate to speak ill of the dead," she snapped.

He snorted. "If you wanted manners, you should've fucked Emily Post."

"Raphael," she whispered, closing her eyes.

The weariness in her voice snagged his attention first. Then he looked  at her-really looked at her. The faint shadows under her eyes. The  patrician bone structure that seemed slightly sharper then he  remembered, as if she'd recently lost weight. The fine tremor in the  hand that squeezed her forehead. She seemed tired. No, exhausted. The  baby? That could be it, but he had two older sisters and four  nephews-had been there through a pregnancy himself. He recognized  prenatal fatigue. This was something else.

Uneasiness and alarm almost propelled him from his seat and around the  desk. A part of him wanted to sink into the chair next to hers, lift her  hand in his, and assure her that whatever was wrong, he'd fix it. But  he didn't; he remained behind his desk. They weren't friends. Hell, they  were barely acquaintances. Onetime lovers-that's it. And a screw in the  backseat didn't add up to a connection. She didn't need comfort from  him. Didn't want it. She'd made that abundantly clear in the police  station when she'd nearly leaped on top of that detective to avoid his  touch.

No, she just wanted to pin a baby on him.

If he were a woman, he might've called the twinge in his chest hurt or  anger. But since he wasn't, he chalked it up to indigestion from the  Reuben sandwich he'd had at lunch.

"What's wrong?" He braced his elbows on the arms of his chair. And when  she lifted her lashes and met his gaze, he clutched the armrests, hoping  she didn't notice how he strangled the hard plastic. Even with the  obvious signs of strain, her beauty stole his breath away. Made his body  tighten. His cock pulsed in hunger. Apparently his dick didn't give a  damn that she didn't want him. Or that she was trying to run the same  okeydokey another pampered socialite had played on him at another time.

Nope. All his johnson cared about was her thick chocolate hair that was  drawn back into a ponytail. How the rich tone emphasized and enhanced  the emerald green of her eyes. Eyes that reminded him of the one and  only time he'd visited the gorgeous New Hampshire lake region when his  older sister got married there five years ago. Throw in the delicate  bone structure she could probably date back to some English noble  ancestor and the Angelina Jolie mouth, and Greer Addison almost made him  forget why imagining her half naked and orgasming on his lap was a bad  idea.

Almost.

"I … " She paused, nervously wet her lips, and he found himself fascinated  by the damp bottom curve. Wanted to glide his thumb over the naked skin  and discover if it was as soft as he remembered. Focus, damn it. She'd  come to his office for a reason, and it wasn't for a repeat performance  of the night they'd spent together. If that was the case, she could've  contacted him before now. No, Greer had a purpose-other than informing  him of his supposed fatherhood.

"You, what?" he prompted, hardening his voice.

"I need your help." An audible breath shuddered from between her lips,  and he could almost see her gathering her nerve to continue. "A couple  of weeks after Gavin … died I started receiving letters."

He frowned. "What kind of letters?"

"Harassing. Things like ‘whore,' ‘rich bitch,' telling me I won't get away with murder or I can't escape justice."

Ice crept through his veins. "How often?"

"There were only a couple until about a month after Gavin died, and the  police decided I was no longer their prime suspect, merely a person of  interest." A humorless smile ghosted across her lips. "After that, the  letters started arriving once a week, sometimes twice. All with the same  messages."                       
       
           



       

"You've been cleared?"

He, along with the greater Boston area, had caught the media coverage of  Gavin Wells's murder. Within hours of his death, the coverage had  resembled a shark feeding frenzy with Greer as the chum thrown in the  middle of the melee. Rafe had immediately gone to the cops and given his  statement about being with her from about eight thirty when he'd  approached her in the bar until well after 2:00 a.m., when he'd dropped  her off at her apartment building. Since news of her arrest had never  broken, he'd figured the time of death had fallen somewhere in the hours  she'd been with him.

"Cleared?" Again that non-smile. "I wouldn't go that far. I think I'm  just a bit less guilty than I first appeared. Other than the knife in my  hand, they couldn't find any trace evidence on me. No blood on me-his  or mine. The knot on the back of my head that I could have inflicted  only if I'd suddenly became a contortionist." She shrugged, a faint  frown darkening her brow before she focused on him again. "And then, of  course, the time of death. The medical examiner recorded it as between  nine thirty and twelve thirty. You confirmed my alibi. Thank you," she  murmured. "I meant to … well, just thank you."