He frowned. “I don’t understand. Then whose is she?”
Emma pinned him to the spot with a direct stare. “Janey’s. Annie turned six months old three days ago.”
“Damn.” Dillon closed his eyes, pain washing through his chest. They’d been best friends since elementary school, yet Janey hadn’t even told him she was pregnant.
“There’s more.” Emma’s voice was soft and gentle, but didn’t ease the wound the way she likely hoped.
He opened his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not sure I can handle any more.”
She stared him dead in the eye, her gaze soft and understanding, but uncompromising. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. It’s about the baby’s father.”
Unease crawled up his spine. “Let me guess, he dumped her, right?”
Janey never had very good taste in men. She seemed to end up with the ones who left her high and dry, used her up then spit her out. He couldn’t count on both hands the number of times he’d gone to get her when one of them left her stranded somewhere.
Emma gave a slow shake of her head, then dropped her gaze to the floor and slowly paced back and forth along the front of the couch.
“Janey refused to tell anyone who Annie’s father was.” Having reached the right end of the couch for the third time, she finally stopped and looked at him. “All I have to go on is what’s in that letter.”
He gritted his teeth. “Spit it out, Em.”
For an endless moment, she didn’t speak, just stared at him.
“I’m really sorry.” She shook her head. “I have to ask you this.”
Apprehension knotted in his stomach. “Ask me what?”
Emma looked at the floor and drew another breath before finally meeting his gaze again. “Did you sleep with Janey?”
The absolute last subject he ever wanted to discuss with her.
Dillon turned his back to her, didn’t want to know what look would cross her eyes when he told her the truth. He’d seen too much judgment in her eyes over the years. “That’s an awful personal question.”
“Please.” She laid a hand on his back, her voice lowering, softening with understanding. “It’s important. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”
He drew in a deep breath. The muscles in his shoulders tightened. Dillon prepared himself for the judgment sure to come. “Yes.”
Her hand dropped from his back. “When?”
With an indrawn breath, he forced himself to turn and face her, hoped that just once he wouldn’t see that look in her eyes. “A little over a year ago. She went with me down to Vegas, for that liquor convention, remember?”
She nodded absently, made a sound at the back of her throat and pursed her lips. The look turned his stomach. He’d seen it one too many times over the years, usually when she’d caught him sneaking Janey back into the house after a night of fun and assumed he’d been the ringleader.
“You can stop looking at me like that. I didn’t use your sister. It was a mutual decision.”
“I’m not judging you.” She turned her head, met his gaze and shrugged a shoulder. “But you do have a notorious reputation, Dillon.”
She had him there. He prided himself on it once. If the gold diggers in this town were determined to use him, he was determined to enjoy it. Over the years, all Emma ever managed to see were the things that went wrong. More than anything, he longed to change the view she had of him, to show Emma there was more to him than what she saw. Just once he wanted to see trust in her eyes, instead of that damn wariness.
He sighed. “Look, I’m not going to stand here and tell you it was something it wasn’t. Frankly, it just…happened. One thing led to another. You know how it goes.”
A flush rose in Emma’s cheeks, and she jerked her gaze to something beyond him. Her arms tightened around the baby. “Actually I wouldn’t.”
That got his attention. He quirked a brow, his mind twisting in a different direction. “You’ve never gotten caught up in passion?”
The thought intrigued the hell out of him. He suspected inside that cool, always-in-control exterior laid the heart of a very passionate woman.
“No.” Her chin ratcheted up a notch, and she pinned him with a hard stare, those amber eyes daring him to judge her.
He lowered his voice and shook his head. “That’s a crying shame.”
A fierce blush slid across Emma’s cheeks, but true to her nature, she held his gaze with a boldness that made his heart want to escape his chest. Damned if he didn’t want to be the man to coax that fire out of her. He bet she was beautiful when her cheeks flushed with desire.