The Boss's Baby Affair(31)

His face said it all. “If there is a signature there, I’m sure an expert would pronounce it a forgery.”

“Why did she go to such lengths?” It puzzled Candace. “Did she hope you’d spend more time with her if there was a baby in the house?”

“You know nothing about what my wife expected. And she’s dead now, so it’s all in the past. But, believe me, our marriage should never have taken place.” Nick changed the subject. “But now I have to start accepting that Jennie came from your womb. Did the egg belong to you—” Nick paused “—or was there another donor I don’t know about involved?”

Candace had to feel pity as she watched him grappling with the enormity of his discovery. “The egg was mine—and I carried Jennie in my womb. That’s why I am her biological mother.”

“Biological mother?” Nick swore. “Your egg was fertilized by—” He broke off.

“Your sperm.” Candace added the words as clinically at she could. She was a nurse. She worked with babies all the time, knew where they came from. Nothing about this was foreign to her. So why did she feel as if she stood on the edge of a whole new dimension?

This time Nick said politely but with far more force, “Hell.” He shook his head again as if to clear it. “I still can’t believe Jilly planned this.” He paused, his face hardening. “I should be thankful, I suppose, that she bothered to use my sperm.”

Beneath his anger Candace could sense his hurt and confusion. She touched his arm. “Nick, I really don’t think there was a lover. Jilly told me you were soul mates. She wanted your baby. Desperately. That’s why I had to undergo DNA confirmation after Jennie’s birth—she wanted to be sure the baby was yours.”

An indecipherable emotion flickered across Nick’s face—guilt perhaps?—and then it was gone. “Jilly certainly didn’t ask my permission to take a sample for DNA for matching—assuming she took one.”

“Oh, she had a sample, the test confirmed you were my baby’s father. It could’ve been your toothbrush…a hair from your brush…as long as it had your DNA on it.”

“Anything Jilly wanted Jilly got—and the hell with what it cost.”

There was a savage note in his voice that warned Candace this was about much more than Jilly taking tissue samples without his knowledge. Candace got the impression that Nick was a man who had been pushed to the brink of his endurance.

And that conviction only grew when he added grimly, “I’m still going to need proof before I accept that I’m Jennie’s father.”



The axis of Nick’s world had tilted.

He was grateful for the string of meetings that kept him occupied the following morning. Yet his mind kept buzzing with questions to which he had no answers: Why hadn’t Jilly told him about her infertility? How could Jilly have arranged a surrogate and fooled him so easily? And, more importantly, what was he going to do about Candace?

There was one final question that was the easiest to resolve…was Jennie his daughter? Deep in his heart he knew it didn’t matter, because either way she was his. The blood tie no longer mattered.

But there was something very seductive about the idea that part of him and part of Candace had merged to produce the little girl who was fast becoming the most important person in his life.

At midday, a break in his schedule gave Nick the opportunity to visit the doctor. Within twenty-four hours he’d know for sure whether Jennie was his child or not. Once a swab had been taken and bagged, he headed the Ferrari to Valentine’s Garden Center and walked down to the lake. The grassy edge was crowded with preening ducks—the ducks that had so intrigued his Jennie—while the trio of trouble-causing geese stood in the lee of a nearby willow tree.

Damn birds didn’t know what they’d unleashed. Nick knew he had his work cut out to convince Candace that he was perfectly capable of caring for Jennie. That he wasn’t the unfit father she’d pegged him as.

The question of what he was going to do about Candace remained unresolved.

If Nick was honest with himself, he knew precisely what he wanted to do with Candace. He wanted to take her to his bed, slake this restless need that vibrated through him—the hunger and desire that sent his thoughts winging her way at the most inopportune moments. Thoughts that had him fantasizing about pulling her to him, covering her mouth with his and…

Hell, why not call it what it was? He wanted to cover her body with his, and he hardly cared whether he got her naked or not. All he cared about was possessing her—every inch of her creamy flesh. Touching her, tasting her, making her his.