The Boss's Baby Affair(29)

Perhaps his morbid curiosity had freaked her out. But he’d wanted to know, dammit. A surge of unfamiliar possessiveness swept through him.

Hell, he couldn’t stop thinking about her—and he couldn’t remember when last he’d had the hots like this over a woman.

He’d certainly never felt this way about Jilly in the seven years’ famine that had been their marriage.

Candace was on her feet, rebuttoning the knit top, her color high, her gaze averted.

“Tell me about him.” Nick stood. “I need to know.”

She raised her head. Her mouth was set, her eyes flashed. “C’mon, Mr. Valentine. Stop playing games. You must know you’re Jennie’s father.”





Seven





Nick looked pole-axed.

“I need a Scotch,” he said, and crossed over to the liquor cabinet to pour two fingers of amber liquid into a heavy crystal glass. “Can I get you one, too?”

Candace shook her head and suppressed the instinctive urge to tell him that sugar water would be better for shock. Somehow she didn’t think Nick would appreciate it.

His hand closed around her wrist and he gently drew her down onto the couch beside him. “Now run that past me again.”

She simply wasn’t ready to confront the fact that she and this man who caused such an emotional response in her had made a child together.

A perfect, wonderful little girl.

Jennie…

A child Candace had no intention of leaving in his care, a child she wanted back…whatever it took.

But she was starting to suspect that Nick might not surrender Jennie so easily. And Candace was delaying the inevitable moment of confrontation, thinking about the best way to address it.

“Jennie is your child.” Candace’s stomach churned. “Your sperm was used for the IVF. And the DNA tests after her birth confirmed that you are her father.”

At the time she’d signed the surrogacy agreement, she’d been affronted by the clause requesting a DNA test before the baby was delivered to the Valentines. But she’d understood that the couple had wanted to be assured that the baby was Nick’s—not the child of some stranger she’d slept with.

“Frankly, I’m stunned that you believe Jennie is my child,” he finally admitted, not looking at her, “and more than a little skeptical.”

He hadn’t known. Her suspicion that he and Jilly had worked together to pull off the pretense of a lifetime had been off the mark. She’d been so sure he’d known that Jennie wasn’t Jilly’s baby, that for reasons of their own he and Jilly had wanted to keep that secret.

Now it appeared Nick really had believed Jennie was his wife’s child all along.

That stunned her.

Her attention shifted back to him as he ran his hands through his hair in a distracted manner. “I told you Jilly was pregnant—and my sister confirmed it.”

“But…” Candace’s voice trailed away.

He raised an eyebrow. “But?”

“Jilly couldn’t have children,” she said slowly.

“She told you that?”

Candace nodded, miserably conscious that every word was knocking the nails further into the coffin of her hopes. Oh, heavens, what had she done? Had she ruined her chances of securing custody of Jennie? “She said that the IVF wasn’t working—that her doctor had established that she’d been one of those unlucky women who undergo menopause very early.”

Nick blew out a pent-up breath. “Well, clearly my wife was lying to someone. She told me that the IVF had been successful. That she was pregnant.” There was a strange note in his voice. “I watched her pregnancy progress over nine months…even though I was away a lot of that time. Hell, she spent a fortune on designer maternity wear.”

“And, of course, you had no reason not to believe her.”

Nick shook his head. “I had my doubts, but not for the reason you think. You see, I thought Jilly had a lover.” His mouth kinked. “Someone who’d obviously been more successful at impregnating her than I had been.”

Nick hadn’t even believed Jennie was his child?

Candace suppressed the urge to howl with frustration at the injustice of it all. If she’d said nothing about him being Jennie’s father, maybe he would’ve been only too glad to relinquish custody of the baby to her.

It was enough to make Candace feel seriously sick with regret.

Yet it wouldn’t have been right. How could she have taken Jennie under false pretenses? Nick had been lied to enough already…

She drew a deep breath and said slowly, “That must’ve been hard to accept.”

“Somewhat.”

Normally the dry retort would’ve amused her, but Candace couldn’t bring herself to smile. Not now. Maybe not ever…if she’d destroyed her chance of getting Jennie back. Yet she couldn’t stop the flood of sympathy for Nick.