Читать книгу The Tie That Binds - Laura Gale - Страница 11

“What the hell are you talking about? Have you lost your mind? Do you think I’m stupid?”

Rachel paled at Lucas’s tone and, no doubt, at his volume, but gave no other outward sign of her trembling nerves. “What part are you having trouble with?”

“The part where you claim I have a daughter! That we have a daughter!” He laughed without humor. “And everything else that comes after that!”

Lucas stood, his agitation so deep he simply could not hold still. He began pacing behind his desk. “I don’t believe any of this, do you understand? If you want money for some reason, fine. Admit it. We’ll talk about it. I’m not sure I’d contribute to the upkeep of some kid that can’t possibly be mine—if you actually have a kid of your own, if you’ve been that irresponsible—but trying to convince me that the child would be mine? If that’s what you’re trying to do here, Rachel, you might as well leave now. I don’t have time for lies.” He quit pacing and whirled to face her. “Are you listening? Forget it! Don’t expect me to buy a story like that! Do you hear me?”

He was yelling and he knew it, but he was powerless to stop. It occurred to him that if a scene was erupting, he was to blame. But what other reaction could he have to Rachel’s ridiculous claim?

“Of course I hear you, Lucas,” she responded quietly, with dignity, although she was shaken. She’d be damned if she’d let it show.

“Where should I start?” Mentally enumerating, she began quietly, unruffled only on the outside. She had to make him understand—it was too important. “Okay, Lucas, I repeat: I do not want your money. I want your bone marrow. Or, rather, Michaela does.”

“Mee-kay-la?” he sneered.

“Yes, Michaela. I named her after my parents—Michaela Juanita. Papá, of course, is Michael and Mamá’s middle name is Juanita, as is mine.” She sounded tired but proud. “She’s beautiful, too. Smart. Sweet. La niñita más linda del mundo.” Rachel gave a start, alarmed that she had accidentally said aloud her private motto that her daughter was the most beautiful little girl in the world. “Anyway,” she rushed on, “she is indeed your child—”

“Oh, give it a rest, Rachel! She can’t be mine and we both know it! Our sex life was practically nonexistent when you decided to walk out.”

“Practically nonexistent, yes. But not entirely.” She refused to rise to the bait. This was not the time to argue over who had done the abandoning. “Think about it, Lucas. We weren’t celibate with each other, even at the lowest point in our marriage. Our sex life was irregular, yes. Inconsistent, yes. But not nonexistent. And before you start suggesting I was sleeping around, let’s just recall which one of us sought external…companionship. That was you and you know it.” She clamped her lips together, regretting her outburst. Bringing all that into it would not help her cause.

“Maybe you just hid it better than I did.”

Her eyes shot daggers at him, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she just opened her briefcase and pulled out an envelope. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I wanted a one-year separation before we talked divorce?”

“That’s a good question. Since you started the whole legal thing, why didn’t you finish it? Why didn’t you file for divorce?”

“Why didn’t you?” she snapped, her breathing rapid. “Oh, yeah, I forgot, Lucas.” She mockingly tapped her forehead. “You didn’t need to. Everything suited you just fine the way it was. You had a wife if you needed her, and other more interesting playmates for the rest of the time.”

Dios mio, but I hate to lose control. Rachel took a deep breath, willing some calm to enter her spirit. “I did what I had to do to deal with the situation. So I went to the trouble of making it legal. I think I never filed for divorce because once we were separated, as far as I was concerned, we were divorced. It was over. Our lives were completely separate from that day on. Anyway—” she paused, trying to stick to the matter at hand “—Lucas, back to the question. Given that our marriage was finished in the day-to-day way, why do you suppose I wanted it to officially, legally continue for another year?”

“Maybe so you could foist some other man’s child off on me,” he suggested coldly. “Get me to pay for the kid’s up-bringing. Maybe you already knew you were pregnant, knew that you had to cover yourself somehow. Maybe you thought your other man would claim you and then he backed out. How would I know what happened? I sure wouldn’t have bought this story then, if you’d brought it to me. Just like I’m not buying it now.”

At least he wasn’t yelling anymore.

“Fine, Lucas, we’ll play it your way. I wanted some other man’s child to have your name. Of course I did. How clever of you to figure it out.”

Her voice fairly dripped with sarcasm. Lucas squirmed in spite of himself.

“Is that how it’s done in the world you live in? Do people you know do such things? If so, you need to find some new friends, Lucas.” She tapped the envelope on her lap. “Now give my question a little thought. Why do you suppose I wanted an official year of separation?”

Lucas considered the question again, thankful he could continue in the icy vein. “Well, at first I couldn’t believe you were serious about leaving, let alone that you were thinking about doing anything legal about it. I couldn’t believe you’d gone to a lawyer. I was amazed and maybe even amused by what you were doing. Later—” he cocked his eyebrow “—later, I just figured you thought I’d come back to you—you know, that I’d come to my senses eventually—and that you thought a separation would be easier to undo than a divorce.”

He’d never thought any such thing, but he was still on the attack and the words emerged all by themselves. They sounded good to him—and they kept rolling. “Nowadays, Rachel, from my perspective, it’s convenient to be married. I mean, I’m not at risk around other women since I already have a marriage in place. I’m not the type for bigamy.”

“Apparently, you weren’t the type for monogamy, either, Lucas,” she responded sourly, her eyes flashing.

Ouch, Lucas thought, mentally cataloguing Rachel’s first flares of anger over the whole business. He would have expected anger before this, had always wondered at her composure. Maybe she has claws after all.

“So,” Rachel said, “to return to the topic, how long before you realized that I intended to go on living without you?” Her sarcasm was back.

“Several months, I guess.”

“Did I really seem that pathetic to you? That I would cling to you that way?” The words were ripped from her. “You thought I’d take you on any terms you dished out?” She eyed him incredulously, stunned to the core.

“Okay.” She started afresh, one deep breath later. “For the record, I asked for the separation because I wanted our child to be born legitimately. I didn’t want there to be any question about it—”

“I’d say there are all kinds of questions about it, Rachel.”

“Not if you agree to be tested. If you’re a match…well, it’s unusual for nonblood related individuals to match. Of course it happens, or there’d be no need for a donor registry. But I’m sure we can dig up the statistics on the likelihood, something that would at least partially satisfy you. Secondly, if you agree to be tested, you can request a DNA-based test. DNA work is what you’d really be interested in, right?” He nodded, and she continued. “Well, as I said, you can pursue that.”

Looking down in her lap, she commented, “I brought some things for you, Lucas.”

She began sorting the enclosures she’d dumped out of the envelope. “She is your daughter. Legally she is yours. We were still married at her birth. I named you on her birth certificate.” She placed a page on his desk in front of him. “Check the dates, Lucas. We were still together when she was conceived.” Watching him carefully, she plopped a stack of papers on his desk. “There are a lot of medical test results. Dios mio, but she’s had enough of them. But what I told you before, that she has your blood type, not mine and not a combination, is here on this report.” He opened his mouth, but she waved him off. “Sure, I could have run blood type IDs on potential lovers, choosing one who shared B-negative with you, then managed to get pregnant by him exactly during the dying moments of our marriage. But I didn’t.”

Handing him something else, she said, “Of course, there’s also the fact that she looks like you. Her eyes are just the same as yours. Her hair—it’s not only the same color as yours, it even curls the way yours does. Mine is completely straight….” She paused, waving the photo in the air, emphasizing her point. “Her bone structure, her nose and mouth, that’s more like me. That’s her on her fourth birthday,” she was pointing at the snapshot she’d placed before Lucas. “She was diagnosed several weeks after that. She’d had symptoms for a while and I was just starting to face things. But that day, she was feeling good.”

She smiled briefly, remembering, then sat back in her seat to wait. She knew Michaela was a lovely little girl. She had definitely inherited her father’s black hair, not her mother’s brown. She also shared his smoky-gray eyes, eyes that were nearly black at times yet had a translucent quality that Rachel had never seen on anyone else. Rachel knew that Lucas would not be able to block out the obvious resemblance.

Michaela was a spunky, active little girl. She was curious and direct. She was quick to smile and laugh. Or at least, she had been, before her illness had begun to wear her down. Yes, in Rachel’s view, she was the most beautiful little girl in the world, but it wasn’t just her physical appearance that made her that way.

Lucas knew the color had drained from his face, felt his breathing halt. He recognized himself in the child. How could he not see it? Still, he couldn’t accept it, couldn’t believe that he’d been a father for over four years and hadn’t had a clue. He felt humbled, although he wasn’t capable of identifying the emotion at the time. “You said we can check DNA?”

“One of the tests used for donor type is based on DNA, so yes, you’ll be able to obtain significant information that way. I’m not sure on the details. You’ll need to talk to the doctors about it.”

A brief silence ensued.

“If I don’t do this, what happens to her?”

Rachel took a shuddering breath and her gaze dropped to her lap. Her voice came in a whisper. “Well, you are not absolutely the last resort for a donor. There are some other techniques. I don’t think she can take much more chemo—”

“But you already said that wasn’t working.”

“Well—” she took a deep breath “—it did what it could. Technically, she’s in remission, but it took longer to get her there than we expected. She’s weak. She needs continuing therapy to keep her well. In her case, the bone marrow transplant is the best—”

“People die of leukemia,” Lucas stated flatly.

“Yes,” Rachel whispered. “They do. Technically, it’s a kind of cancer.”

Lucas released a long breath, contemplating the cigar resting in its ashtray, deciding not to pick it up. There was a chance his hands were too shaky to manage the task.

“We might still have some success through the donor registry, too. It happens. But if you don’t do it… She needs this, Lucas. Frankly, her long-term chances aren’t very good. They never are. Without this kind of care, it will come back. Or spread.”

“But this treatment can cure it?”

“Well…” she hesitated “…they’re always cautious about throwing around the word cure. But, yes, this treatment is a ical step in helping patients maintain remission and live life leukemia free.” Finally she looked up at Lucas again, her golden eyes dark and shadowy. Whatever emotions caused those shadows were off-limits to him and he knew it. That was as it should be. Right?

It hit him then that he didn’t know what those emotions might be. Not anymore. How he felt about that…well, he didn’t know that, either.

Rachel’s control, which had been eroding since she entered Lucas’s office, was in danger of snapping. “Look, Lucas, if I had a lot of reasonable options, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have involved you. I’ve raised Michaela on my own, as my daughter. It didn’t occur to me to involve you until things got…bad, because I’ve never involved you in anything where she’s concerned. I knew you’d have accusations, I knew it would be ugly. Why would I set myself up for that? There was no reason to force that until now. Until now—” she sighed, her breath catching on emotions that she kept in check “—I had no reason to try to involve you.”

For better or for worse, she added silently. Keeping your daughter from you seemed like my only option at the time. That’s just how it was. Suddenly Rachel was angry—angry at what life had dealt her daughter, angry at what she needed from Lucas. “If you understand nothing else, understand this—I will do whatever I can to help my daughter, including come to you. If you won’t help voluntarily, well—” she faltered, but flared again “—I’ll see if you can be legally forced to do it. At least to find out if you’re compatible.”

She knew that would get his attention. Lucas would go a long way to avoid confrontation of that kind. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t want this dragged into the public arena of the courts. His parents certainly wouldn’t. At least, not on her terms.

“Right now,” she continued, “I’m talking about hope. That’s the best weapon I have—that and continuing medical care.” She took a deep breath and pressed on. “You are her father and I just can’t ignore that when her life may be at stake. In good conscience I need to give you the chance to know your child. To deprive you of that wouldn’t be fair to either of you. You’ve gone long enough without knowing each other. I never would have planned for you to meet this way, of course, but…” Again, her voice trailed away. “I probably should have found a way to tell you about her before now, but there wasn’t an obvious good time or way to do it. Or at least I didn’t think there was, knowing what our reunion would be like. I had to protect her from—” Rachel caught herself before she finished the thought, before she said, I had to protect her from you. She couldn’t be sure if Lucas realized what she’d been about to say.

Lucas understood what she was saying. He didn’t want to, because it made him uncomfortable. Still, he did understand that this might be his only chance to meet the little girl, a child Rachel swore was his daughter. If he truly might hold the key to her cure—to her remission, he corrected—how could he withhold that? How could he walk away without finding out?

Lucas James Neuman, who had steadfastly avoided personal involvement and responsibility as well as emotional entanglements for the past five years, who went out of his way to avoid conflict of any kind, was being slammed in the gut by something he didn’t want to recognize but was afraid he did. He thought it had something to do with doing the right thing.

It was then that he knew he would do what Rachel asked, even though he wasn’t sure what it involved exactly. He was human, after all, and this was the humane thing to do. Had there been no possibility it was his own child, he would have chosen to do it, to see if he could help. So if there was a chance that it was his kid, he didn’t really have any other option.

“I’ll do it, Rachel,” he stated. “What’s next?”

Rachel’s shoulders slumped, her eyes closed, the sting of unshed tears causing her to blink. She jumped to her feet and looked for a private corner where she could compose herself, where she could hide. She found herself standing in front of the bar, hugging herself, swallowing over the lump in her throat that seemed to be connected to her tear mechanism. Otherwise, why would her eyes suddenly water and sting—and surely those same eyes shouldn’t struggle so to focus on a bottle of Jack Daniels, be so unable to read the fine print on the label.

“Are you okay?”

His voice behind her startled Rachel. His hand on her shoulder caused her to jump and recoil in one motion. Her effort to gain composure had been so complete that she had not sensed his approach.

His presence, so close to her that she could breathe his oh-so-familiar scent, was doing nothing to help her in her quest for calm. His touch—or rather, the place on her shoulder where he had touched her—still burned. He had caused that quivering inside her with just that simple touch. Rachel hadn’t felt such sensations in years. In fact, she hadn’t felt it since the last time Lucas had caused it. Certainly, no one else had inspired it in the past five years. But she couldn’t reflect on that. Not right now.

“No…yes, I mean, I will be. I just need to…collect myself. Just give me a minute.” She glanced up at Lucas, caught the flicker of something liquid and black in his eyes, felt herself melt somewhere deep inside. He seemed so like the Lucas of old—and she was responding to it.

Biting her lip, she broke their eye contact, looking somewhere, anywhere, for a route that would put distance between them. Between the counter of the bar and Lucas’s solid body, she didn’t have much room to move. But she had to. She had to get away from him.

She turned abruptly, finally freeing herself of his presence, and drifted back to the couch. Dios mio, I need some space.

And she needed him—there was no way to get around that. But she couldn’t need him for herself. Only for Michaela. She couldn’t trust him, no matter how much he might seem like the Lucas she used to know, however briefly he might seem that way. No, she couldn’t let those kinds of thoughts cloud what was happening. She couldn’t afford to. She was better off keeping certain emotions, and the paths to those feelings, well and truly buried. It had worked for her so far. It was the only way.

“Okay,” she said on a deep breath. “You’ll need to talk to Dr. Campbell.” Normalcy, that’s what she needed to project. But it wasn’t terribly convincing. Her careful facade had cracked, and they both knew it.

“Dr. Campbell,” she continued steadfastly, “will explain the typing procedure as well as the donor procedure. Typing has to be done first, of course, then if you’re compatible, they’ll set you up for the donation procedure. He’ll be able to tell you about DNA, too. He’s at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, in the Samaritan Medical Center.”

“Is that where…Michaela is?”

“Yes,” came her prompt answer. “Lucas, you have to understand. Michaela’s a very sick little girl. Her leukemia came on fairly quickly and it just sapped her energy, her strength. The chemo took whatever was left. She doesn’t…she doesn’t look much like that picture anymore.”

“But she can again, right?”

“Yes. In time. But it will get worse before it gets better.”

She met his eyes again, this time wondering if her eyes reflected as many silent messages as his. And wondering what those messages were. There had been a time when she had understood them. Now she couldn’t be sure. Now she wondered how much Lucas had seen in her eyes this afternoon.

“I can make time today to see this doctor.”

“Bueno. That would be great. Let me see what I can do.” She pulled out a cell phone, quickly punching in numbers.

“Hi, Linda. It’s Rachel. Is Evan available? I need to schedule an appointment with him today.”

Within a few minutes, Rachel had set the appointment and ended the call. “Three o’clock it is then, Lucas.” She slipped the phone back in her briefcase and gathered her things.

“Lucas, you know there is nothing I can do to repay or thank you adequately for doing this. If there were, I’d do it. Please know how grateful I am.” She started toward the door, knowing he was just a few steps behind her. Her personal radar, the one that sensed him, was working again.

“Rachel.” His voice stopped her. “Why didn’t you tell me before? I mean, that you were pregnant?”

She looked at him carefully before responding. “Deep down, Lucas, I think you already know the answer.”

“But five years, Rachel. That’s a long time to hide such a big secret.”

“It was never a secret, Lucas. We were separated, remember? It was part of the new life I started for myself and, well, I just lived my life. There was no reason to think we’d ever run into each other. We don’t exactly move in the same circles. That was part of the problem in our marriage. Not seeing each other, moving in different circles.”

She smiled sadly. “It’s funny, you know. You were always going on about how you needed me to support you. But I had needs, too, Lucas. I needed a husband. I thought I had one, but you…vanished somehow.

“I wanted to tell you about the baby so badly, Lucas. I was excited.” Rachel looked down at her hands, the ones gripping her briefcase strap so tightly that her knuckles showed white. “I found out I was pregnant when you were in Las Vegas, that last trip. But I wanted to see your face when I told you, so I didn’t call you.” She lifted her head, seeking his face this time, too. “Of course, you didn’t call me, either. And once you got home, well—” she shrugged “—a different kind of conversation was forced then, wasn’t it? Telling you about the baby didn’t seem to be a priority anymore. I knew you’d make accusations, that you would make it ugly. I didn’t need that.”

And, her words conveyed, I don’t need it today, either.

“I figured if I was going to end up on my own, at least I was going to do it on my own terms.”

Lucas studied her face but said nothing.

She tossed her head, trying to look beyond Lucas as she focused on something in the past. “I tried to live with the way things were, Lucas, I really did. I tried hard to be reasonable. I even believed, for a while, the things your parents said—that my inability to cope was the problem. It took time before I decided I had the right to expect more than you were giving, that you weren’t being fair.” She reached for the doorknob, knowing she needed to make her escape. Emotions were coming too fast to handle; those emotions were trying to surface. “Do you have any idea what I do for a living, Lucas?”

He shook his head, indicating he didn’t know.

“That’s what I thought. You weren’t in touch with what I was doing.” She sighed again, her words empty of criticism, full of resignation.

“Aside from everything else that happened between us, Lucas, I didn’t tell you I was pregnant because I couldn’t. You wouldn’t have listened to me. Listening to me simply was not on your agenda then. Maybe I could have forced you to listen, but…how? I never figured out a way. Anyway,” she said, seeking a positive note, “I appreciate that you listened today. This was important, too.”

Opening the door, Rachel was nearly flattened by the huffing figure of her father-in-law as he stormed into Lucas’s office. “Damn you, Rachel! What the hell do you think you’re doing here?! You left my boy—you’re out of his life! There’s nothing for you here!”

Rachel couldn’t help it. She stared at this vile individual, this repulsive creature—this man who had been instrumental in causing her so much grief, his features distorted by hatred—and by something else she didn’t want to contemplate but which she recognized anyway. She owed this man nothing. She thought of being polite, then dismissed the idea. In spite of herself, Rachel burst out laughing.

“Oh, Arnold,” she said, shaking her head, “you haven’t changed a bit! And you know what, Arnold? I’m not happy to see you, either. But I’m not the least bit interested in anything you have to say, so—save it.”

“Dad,” Lucas cajoled in hushed tones, “don’t speak to Rachel that way. You’re in the corridor, for God’s sake. Everyone’s listening.” He was embarrassed, for all three of them.

“Oh, Lucas,” Rachel cut in, tsk-tsking at his foolishness. “Give it up, will you? Your father has always spoken to me like that, sometimes even worse. Everyone has always listened. Except for you.” She sobered suddenly. “Somehow you never noticed.”

She looked again at Arnold Neuman, then back at his son. Her husband. The father of her child. “This is your father, Lucas. This is what he is.”

With that, she turned on the high heel of her black pump and headed toward the elevator. She stepped inside and the doors closed promptly. Not quickly enough, however, to drown out her father-in-law’s parting words: “Yes, get out of here! And don’t come back! We don’t need your kind in here!”

Rachel leaned back against the cool stainless steel wall of the elevator. Only then did she notice she was trembling.

Lucas grabbed his father’s arm, propelling him inside his office, out of the corridor and away from prying eyes. And ears.

“Are you out of your mind, Dad?” He glared into his father’s flushed face, noticing how flat his black eyes looked. “How could you talk to Rachel, or anyone else for that matter, in front of the entire staff that way? This is a place of business, isn’t it?”

His father chuckled smugly, slapping Lucas on the shoulder in good-ol’-boy camaraderie. “Oh, don’t work yourself into a lather, boy. There’s no reason for you to defend Rachel, you know. It’s nothing but the truth.” He made to leave the room. “Like she said, it’s nothing I haven’t said to her before.”

With that, Arnold Neuman left Lucas’s office.

No, she doesn’t belong here, Lucas acknowledged silently. But not the way you mean it, Dad.

Lucas didn’t quite know what he meant by that thought.

There it was again. Lucas couldn’t draw a breath. He wasn’t sure what it was, but knew he had first felt it when he’d seen Rachel’s name on his appointment calendar. He’d felt it when she’d walked into his office. And he’d certainly felt it when she announced that they had a daughter.

He walked over to his desk, grabbing his lighter and reaching for the cigar he’d discarded earlier. He put it in his mouth, watched as the lighter’s flame flared. Somehow, it just wasn’t what he wanted, even if his gripping ability had returned. He dropped the lighter on his desk and tossed the cigar back into the ashtray.

Instead, he walked over to the window, gazing out at the expanse of Scottsdale that spread before him, eyeing the mountains visible in the distance. He raked his hands through his springy black hair, ultimately linking them on the top of his head. Seeing Rachel again had thrown him, no doubt about it.

“God, she is beautiful.”

There…it was said. The words had not left his head since Rachel had walked into his office. He’d been utterly unprepared for it. Maybe saying the words would chase the thought away.

It didn’t.

She was always beautiful, he thought, but now…

He shook his head and took a deep, ragged breath. He tried to shake off his unsettling thoughts, tried to calm the stirring of his body that seeing her again had caused, was still causing, if he was honest about it. He knew she’d felt it, too.

When he’d touched her, just for that instant, he’d felt a shaft of heat knife through his arm, electrifying something inside him. Utterly brief physical contact had done that. Desire, instantaneous and fierce, had fired through him, body and soul. He’d felt her respond, felt that flash of awareness, he was sure he had, especially when she’d finally looked up at him. Her eyes had hinted at her deeper feelings then, the only moment in their entire meeting when her guard had been down. He was sure of that, too.

Maybe there’s hope, he reasoned, if a little touch like that draws that kind of response.

Damn, where did that thought come from? Hope for what? Seducing her? No, Lucas, don’t go there. Hell, he decided, you’d better find yourself a woman. It’s obviously been too long.

He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed his eyes, willing his thoughts in a less dangerous direction.

He’d never seen Rachel dressed like that—so professional, he decided. So composed and serene, although she’d always had those qualities. He contemplated her outfit: bright red, a color that suited her. Fitted, not hiding her curves but not emphasizing them, either.

What would her job be? He wondered, startled that he really didn’t know. She’d asked if he knew, but she hadn’t told him.

He shook his head, shoving his fists into the pockets of his custom-tailored pants, rocking back on the heels of his Italian-made shoes.

“At least now I know why she looked tired,” he spoke aloud. “God, she has a right to be.” The words hit him hard.

Guilt gnawed at him. He pushed it away. He didn’t want to think about what Rachel had gone through, facing their daughter’s illness. If he did, he had to justify to himself the fact that she’d been alone—as if he had no role in her unofficially single status. As if he had in no way contributed to her circumstances. That felt like an acknowledgment of responsibility toward someone else, and he didn’t like to think about that. After all, she’d been the one to leave. She’d brought her single status upon herself. As for him, well, his first responsibility was to himself. Wasn’t it? The mantra his parents had always fed to him didn’t work this time.

He knew helping this child was his responsibility. Even as he fought the knowledge, even as he had made his demand for medical proof, in his heart he knew the child was his. He knew it was their daughter, not Rachel’s daughter with some other man.

He knew Rachel well enough to know that she had too much honor, too much integrity, to have resorted to the sort of schemes he’d accused her of.

Yes, he had loved her. She was the only woman he’d ever met who had captured his attention, his mind, his spirit. She’d come from a different mold than any other woman he’d ever met. And he’d married her.

But he should have married someone who understood what his wife needed to be. Someone who had been prepared for the role. A woman who, unlike Rachel, was the right type. A woman who didn’t grab his heart the way Rachel had, the way she had from the very first moment he’d spotted her at the University Health Clinic, filling out forms for the required measles shots. Not that that was the most romantic way to meet a woman, Lucas conceded, but it was how he’d met Rachel.

Rachel, he had adored. Rachel had had depth, vitality. She was interested in everything. So curious, so smart, so real.

So unbelievably beautiful. Tall enough with full, gentle curves that had always taken his breath away. The amber eyes, the apricot skin. The miles and miles of thick brown hair that Lucas had always thought of as chocolate silk. How he had loved to bury his face in it, combing his fingers through its softness.

And her scent: she’d always smelled of vanilla. Vanilla and a little spice. Natural and sweet and warm. It stirred him to remember, to think of what had drawn him to her in the first place.

She’d been a bad choice for a wife, though. For him, anyway. His parents had warned him, over and over, but he hadn’t listened to them. He had fallen for her so hard, nothing else had mattered. But she hadn’t understood the requirements of society life. She hadn’t found them important or interesting. She hadn’t supported her husband as she should have.

Lucas’s parents had simply said she wasn’t capable of it. They had always pointed to her “background” as being the cause. Sometimes, when they felt bold, they actually mentioned her “ethnicity.” What they really meant was that she was Mexican-American, not “pure” American. That was simply unforgivable where they were concerned.

Privately Lucas had always found their prejudice ironic. After all, his family was only a couple of generations away from being working-class immigrants themselves. Lucas’s own colorings—his charcoal-gray eyes and inky black hair—looked more Hispanic than did Rachel’s.

Lucas had viewed his parents’ attitude as something he couldn’t change even if he didn’t agree with them. His parents belonged to a certain segment of society that stroked itself, reassured itself, with ethnic prejudice. That was not Lucas’s way. Still, what they had said about Rachel not fitting in with his family had had a certain ring of truth to it.

Several years later, reeling from his wife’s departure, Lucas had finally agreed with his parents.

His reverie was interrupted by a sudden whoosh of air, announcing the uninvited arrival of Alana Winston.

Gorgeous, glamorous Alana, with her silvery blond hair, her sky-blue eyes and the statuesque body she kept perfectly sculpted with the help of a personal trainer and, Lucas suspected, a plastic surgeon. He didn’t know for sure. Didn’t care that much.

And it didn’t matter anyway. Alana simply understood the value of her appearance, particularly when she was a man’s companion. She’d started working for Neuman Industries shortly before Lucas, just after she’d finished school. She still worked for Neuman Industries, although Lucas had asked himself more than once what it was, exactly, she did. His father always assured him that she “knew how to take care of people,” but had never been more specific than that.

Lucas glanced toward Alana again when he heard the unmistakable sound of her clicking the lock on the door.

“Oh, Luke, darling,” she gushed, approaching, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I just heard.”

“Heard what, Alana?”

She pressed her hips against him, linking her fingers through his belt loops. “Why, Luke, about her, of course! Trashy little Rachel showed up here today! Forced her way in to see you, until Arnold tossed her out!”

Impossibly long red acrylic fingernails locked around his waist, keeping his body tight against hers.

Grabbing her wrists, disconnecting her fingers from his pants, Lucas said, “Watch what you say, Alana. Watch your mouth.”

“Are you watching my mouth, Lucas?” she said, smiling suggestively, licking her lips. “I’m sure my mouth could provide you with some…distraction.” She pushed her body against him again, tipping her head back to look into his face, exposing her exquisite bare neck.

“Stop, Alana.” Lucas pulled away, wondering at some level if this was part of Alana’s official job description. She reached for him again, believing she knew exactly how to seduce him, how to change his reluctant mind and resistant body. She did, of course. That was Alana.

He extricated himself from her grasp again. “I said stop, Alana. I’m not interested.”

“Of course you are, darling,” she purred. “You’ve always been interested. You already know there is nothing I won’t do to soothe you. Let me help take your mind off all that unpleasantness.” She removed her blazer, tossing it carelessly onto the chair behind her. Her ivory silk blouse did nothing to conceal the black lacy bra she wore underneath—a fact of which she was perfectly aware. She stretched her arms over her head, arching her back, ruffling her cloud of ash-blond hair, knowing that the silk of her blouse would outline the hardened state of her nipples. Licking her lips again, she said, “Well, Luke? What’s it going to be?”

“Stop it, Alana, and get the hell out of my office.” He turned away, disgust rocketing through him.

His body apparently had other ideas—physically, a response was possible. She left nothing to the imagination, and he was feeling ragged after Rachel’s visit.

“You know, Lucas, you’ve been mad at the world for what seems like years now. Why is that, do you suppose?” From behind him, her arms curled around his waist, stroking slowly downward. She pressed her breasts into his back, the purr returning to her voice. “I bet I could make a guess, Lucas. You’ve been without a woman for too long, haven’t you? Quite a while, if the gossip is true. I could help you.” She whipped around him then, to stand in front of him, her arms still locked around his waist, her body pressed tight against his. “You’d like it, Lucas. What do you say?”

Hadn’t he just decided that he needed to be with a woman? What was there to stop him accepting Alana’s offer? The release might help.

Sex with Alana would be hot, and…a little dirty. That was part of the appeal, he knew.

And suddenly this moment lost all of its attraction for him. It was cheap and meaningless, and he didn’t need that. That was the reason he’d not been with a woman in so long. Sex, as an animal act or as a means of release, had no appeal for him. A mere physical coupling wasn’t the answer to his perpetual bad mood. While he wouldn’t contemplate what the answer might be, he knew it wasn’t tawdry sex.

Pushing Alana away from him, he straightened his clothes. “Dammit, Alana. Get away from me.” He glared at her, hoping he looked as repulsed as he felt. More calmly he continued, “Rachel had an appointment, Alana. She didn’t barge in. She left. Dad didn’t throw her out.”

He picked up the envelope Rachel had brought him, scooping the contents back inside.

“Do you want me to wait for you, Luke? Or go with you someplace else?”

“No, Alana, I do not. I don’t want you at all, in any way.”

“You could if you tried.” She stood with her breasts thrust forward, her hands on her hips, sure she could change his mind.

Lucas looked at her, taking in her undeniably sexy presentation, her blatant invitation. “No, I don’t want you, Alana. It has been a long time since I’ve had sex, but I certainly don’t want to be reinitiated by you.”

She laughed. “Right, Luke. Like I said, I’ll be ready when you are.” She was purring again. “Just keep thinking about it, Lucas. You’re a virile man. You can’t deny your physical needs forever. I’ll be ready whenever you are.”

“You’ll have a long wait.” His decision made, Lucas knew he spoke the truth. “I’ve had enough of you, Alana.”

So saying, he slipped into his jacket and left his office.

“Jennifer,” he said, stopping at the reception desk, “I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day. I don’t have any other appointments for today, but I’ll be out tomorrow as well, so please reschedule whatever is listed then.”

He left the building, getting in his Lexus with no particular idea where he was going. Eventually, he found himself near Indian Bend Park, a man-made flood control area that cut through the city of Scottsdale. He parked the car, left his jacket behind and began strolling along the winding sidewalk. Suddenly he realized he was facing a playground. He listened to the squeals and shrieks of the children, punctuated by occasional bursts of laughter or bouts of crying. It was May, and the weather had been mild so far; the brutal sun of summer had not yet rendered the playground equipment too hot to touch. Lucas watched the children interact among themselves and with their parents. On this weekday, mothers were the primary parents in attendance.

Finding a bench, he sat down. He opened Rachel’s envelope, pulling the photo from it. He stared and stared, trying to come to terms with the face he saw reflected there. His eyes, his unruly hair. The hair he hated on himself, he found endearing on his daughter.

Rachel’s apricot skin, her delicate nose and mouth, the curve of her eyebrows—all were reflected in Michaela. But her dark eyes and hair, they came from her daddy.

Our daughter, he acknowledged silently. There was no other possibility and he knew it. He pulled out the birth certificate, seeking the date of birth. He did the quick calculations, counting back nine months, already knowing what he would discover, but needing to confirm it anyway.

Quickly he realized that Michaela would have been conceived in March or maybe even February—long before his ill-advised trip to Las Vegas. Long before May 18, the day the agreement to separate had gone into effect. The separation might have come anyway, of course, but he knew it had been a direct response to his time in Las Vegas the week before.

His mind whirled back to that murky time, five years ago, to what he had privately labeled “the end of the marriage”—the end even if they weren’t actually divorced, a time he rarely reflected upon. In fact, he rarely reflected on anything; introspection seemed a waste of time to him. He avoided reflection the same way he avoided scenes.

Still, today he’d had the past thrown in his face, in the shape of his wife and daughter. He couldn’t avoid thinking at the moment.

He took a deep breath, his eyebrows descending into a frown as he contemplated the end of his marriage to Rachel. He had been traveling a lot. It had been business, but it had been a lot of fun, too. If he was honest with himself, he had traveled more than necessary, every chance he got. He’d been eager to take advantage of what he called “opportunities.” He’d enjoyed spending time with his colleagues, establishing himself, not worrying about the limitations imposed by everyday life. Feeling like a professional in the business world.

Until that trip to Las Vegas. Las Vegas had been a colossal blunder on his part.

Yes, he knew why Rachel had not told him about her pregnancy when he returned from Las Vegas. As she said, they’d had a different sort of conversation to pursue. Back then, he would have made the same accusations he’d made today, even though he was perfectly aware that he had been the one pursuing external activities, not Rachel. Just as she had said.

Had Rachel somehow succeeded in telling him back then, would he have accepted the news? Very likely not. Very likely the scene, the breakup, would have simply been uglier. Regardless, he had lost the first four years of his daughter’s life.

Michaela, who’d spent her entire life without him. He’d never seen her, never even suspected her existence.

Well, that’s about to change, he told himself. I’m a father, and I’m going to be good at it. He felt a genuine smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

Lucas returned the photo to the safety of the envelope. He leaned back against the bench, raking his fingers through his hair in the way that had always suggested inner turmoil. He admitted to the tension he felt now, the sensation of ice-cold butterflies in the pit of his stomach.

Tense, yes, he was certainly tense. Poised for…something he couldn’t name.

How would my life be if I’d spent the last few years with Rachel, raising our daughter?

The question sideswiped him. I won’t think about that.

But he had a strong suspicion it would have been better than how he’d been living.