The Boss's Baby Affair(30)

“So Jilly faked her pregnancy.”

“Faked her pregnancy?”

This was awkward. “Only you know for sure whether it was possible. I have heard of women who hate their bodies when they’re pregnant—don’t want anyone to see them naked, move into a separate room. If Jilly had been like that…” Candace could feel herself coloring. She didn’t want to be privy to this man’s personal life with his dead wife. The thought of him and Jilly together caused her stomach to sink.

“It’s possible,” he said tightly.

“Jilly flew with me to the clinic where the insemination was done.”

“You went to Namkhet Island?”

Candace nodded.

“Jilly said she was planning to be inseminated there. I consented to my sperm being used—and acted out the whole fiction. I even received bills,” he said. “I never knew that she’d traded places with you nor that she never intended to undergo any of the procedures there herself. In fact, I came to believe she’d taken her lover with her and replaced my sperm with his.”

“I can vouch that there was no lover.”

“So the bills I received for the IVF procedures were your bills, not Jilly’s as I assumed?”

Candace’s discomfort increased. “Yes—that was part of the arrangement.”

“Of course.” Nick’s mouth twisted. “There was also a bill for double accommodation and shared meals at the most glamorous resort on the island. Jilly told me she needed time alone to steel herself against the very real possibility that the IVF might again not work. Once the hotel bill was forwarded to me for payment, I knew instantly that she’d lied to me.”

Candace felt sick. Clearly Nick had assumed Jilly had stayed there with her lover. “That was for me—I told Jilly it wasn’t necessary.” She hadn’t needed a luxury holiday to convince her that she was doing the right thing. She’d done it for Jilly and her husband who had no other way of getting the child they craved. “Jilly said it was important to her that she get to know me. It felt a little weird, but I told myself she wanted to make sure the surrogate she’d picked wasn’t a lunatic before she went through with the final insemination. I might’ve done the same thing in her place.”

Nick laughed without humor. “Receiving the bill was a relief. The worst of it all was I didn’t care that Jilly had taken a lover. I even hoped it might finally pave the way for a divorce.”

Poor Jilly.

What he’d told Candace gave her some insight into the relationship—or lack of relationship—between Jilly and Nick. It appeared they’d drifted apart…so separate they might as well have lived in different houses, on different continents. No wonder Jilly had been able to fake a pregnancy while arranging with a surrogate to create a baby her husband had known nothing about.

“That’s why you didn’t go to the island with her,” Candace said. “Because she convinced you she wanted time alone. And once you discovered she’d lied, it was easy to convince yourself that she had no intention of having your baby.”

He nodded.

Jilly had told her Nick had been too busy. She’d accepted it at the time, but now Candace found that she desperately wanted to hear Nick’s own version of how events had unfolded.

“But I never confronted her with it. We’d been through IVF before—several times. Unsuccessfully. Jilly told me I didn’t have to be there. That the frozen embryos and sperm would be forwarded by the specialist we’d been dealing with here in Auckland.”

He met her eyes. “I questioned how reputable the institution was—hell, I even did some checking. Everything seemed fine. There’d been some breakthroughs achieved, and I could understand why Jilly wanted to give it a try—why she thought it might be her last chance.” Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “To be honest, my first reaction was relief that she didn’t appear to want me along. Jilly could be very…” he paused “…demanding.”

“She only wanted what any wife would expect—your time and your love.”

Dropping his hand, Nick slanted her a mocking stare. “Not quite. She wanted a baby—a totally different thing. Clearly she had already put in place an elaborate plan to switch the recipient of…”

“Your sperm,” Candace added helpfully.

“Exactly.”

“It’s hard to believe you didn’t know.” Candace’s head was whirling as she tried to process everything Nick had told her. “I signed contracts…” Her voice trailed away. “You must’ve signed them, too.”