The Texas Valentine Twins. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ kidding, Wyatt thought. Their one and only night together had sure left him feeling as if he had been rocketed to the moon, his every wish come true, and then...as soon as Adelaide had come to her senses...sucker punched in the gut by her. Again.

      “Unless, of course, one of you is impotent and concealed it, which is clearly not the case,” Gannon continued.

      No kidding, Wyatt thought, remembering the sparks that had been generated during his and Adelaide’s one and only night together.

      “You’re saying we can’t get an annulment?” Adelaide asked.

      “Too much time has elapsed—nearly ten years—for you to request one from the court,” Gannon said.

      Claire soothed, “You can, however, get a divorce.”

      Wyatt knew what Adelaide was thinking. An annulment was a mistake, quickly remedied. A divorce meant being part of a marriage that had failed. That didn’t sit well with her. He hated failing at anything, too.

      “But we went to a lawyer at the time!” Adelaide protested.

      Claire looked up from her computer. “Who, according to public record, has apparently not been a practicing member of the Nevada bar for nearly a decade.”

      Wyatt nodded. “The private detective agency said Mr. Randowsky had quit his practice and left the state shortly after we saw him. His practice dissolved accordingly.”

      Adelaide looked both shocked and crestfallen. “So there’s no record of us ever being in his office? No real proof we ever tried to get an annulment?”

      “None,” Wyatt confirmed irritably. He had already been down that avenue with the private investigators. “I couldn’t even locate anyone who worked in his office at the time.”

      Adelaide buried her head in her hands. “Which means that getting Mr. Randowsky or his former staff to testify on our behalf is a lost cause.”

      “Plus, there are children involved now,” Claire pointed out.

      Adelaide sat up abruptly, her pretty face a mask of maternal ferocity. “My children,” she stated tightly. “I went to a fertility clinic and was artificially inseminated two weeks before I saw Wyatt in Aspen.”

      Gannon looked at Wyatt. “You knew about this when you were together?”

      Even as Wyatt shook his head, he knew it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had. When he had seen her again that night, so happy and glowing and carefree, he had wanted her. She had wanted him, too. Recklessly. Wantonly.

      And the rest was history.

      “Adelaide didn’t tell me she was starting a family until after I slept with her in Aspen.” “Nice as this was, and it was nice, nothing else can happen, Wyatt. I’ve got other plans...”

      She tossed her mane of glossy dark hair and gave him a defensive look. “It was a one-night stand, Wyatt. A kind of whimsical ‘what if’ for both of us ten years too late. I didn’t think my pregnancy was relevant.”

      He hated her habit of downplaying what they had once meant to each other. Even if she hadn’t had the guts to follow through. He looked her up and down, refusing to let her pretend any longer. “Oh, it was as relevant as the protection I wore.”

      Adelaide’s mouth opened in a round O of surprise. “Wyatt!”

      “Don’t mind us,” Gannon said dryly. “We’re lawyers.”

      Claire added, “We’ve heard it all.”

      “Anyway,” Wyatt stated, “I know what you’re thinking.” What he’d thought before reality and statistical probability crept in, given the fact that she’d already been inseminated and he’d worn a condom every time. “But the twins are not mine.”

      And he was glad of that. Wasn’t he? Given the fact he still felt he couldn’t quite trust her?

      Adelaide’s slender shoulders slumped slightly. “Thank heavens for small miracles!” she muttered with a beleaguered sigh.

      She turned her glance away, but not before he saw the look of defeat in her eyes.

      Wyatt felt a pang of remorse. So, the situation had ended up hurting her, too—despite her initial declarations to the contrary. Maybe he should try to go a little easier on her.

      Certainly, they had enough strife ahead of them...

      Oblivious to the ambivalence within him, Claire went back to taking notes. “So this...Adelaide’s decision to have children via artificial insemination and sperm bank...is why you parted acrimoniously. Again.”

      Wyatt only wished it had been that simple. “I wouldn’t have cared about that,” he said honestly, ignoring Adelaide’s embarrassment and looking her square in the eye.

      Adelaide returned his level look. “Over time, you might have.” She glanced at the baby monitor, as if hoping it would radiate young voices. It was silent. She cleared her throat, turned to regard their lawyers. “In any case, the insemination at the clinic took place before Wyatt and I ever saw each other again and were...reckless.”

      Reckless was one way to describe it, Wyatt mused. There was also passionate. Tender. Mind-blowing...

      “And I was already sure I was pregnant...from the way I was feeling...”

      Which was why, Wyatt thought, she’d been so happy. In retrospect, he could see that it’d had little to do with seeing him again.

      And for reasons he couldn’t explain, and didn’t want to examine, that stung, too.

      More lawyerly looks were exchanged between the two attorneys.

      Clearly, Wyatt noted, there was another problem.

      Claire’s brow furrowed. “Is the donor’s name on the birth certificate?”

      Adelaide shook her head. “No. Just mine. But I know exactly who the biological father is. Donor #19867 from the Metroplex Fertility Clinic’s sperm bank, where I was inseminated.”

      More glances between attorneys.

      “This is a problem,” Claire said.

      Gannon agreed. “Under Texas law, any children born during a marriage are legally the offspring of the husband, unless and until proved otherwise. Meaning court-ordered DNA tests are going to be necessary.”

      “Why court-ordered?” Wyatt asked, his impatience matching Adelaide’s. “Can’t we just have them done on our own?”

      “Not if you want them to be part of any legal record,” Gannon said. “When DNA tests are court-ordered, a strict chain-of-custody procedure is followed, ensuring the integrity of the samples. Everyone who has contact with them has to sign. This protects against tampering, or ill-use.”

      Made sense.

      “Then court-ordered it is,” Adelaide said grimly, as Wyatt nodded.

      “Luckily, СКАЧАТЬ