The Paternity Promise. Merline Lovelace

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СКАЧАТЬ eyes and tawny hair that the hot Oklahoma sun streaked to a dozen different shades of gold.

      Blake caught Alex’s eye and casually, so casually, shook his head. He had to forcibly blank both his face and his mind to block any more subtle signals. In the way of all twins, the Dalton brothers could pick up instantly on each other’s vibes. Time enough for Alex and Julie to hear the news when they got back from Tuscany. By then Blake would have dealt with it. And with the shock and fury it had generated.

      He rigidly suppressed both emotions until the newlyweds were on the way to the airport. Even then he did his duty and mingled until the last guests finally departed. His training as an attorney stood him in good stead. No one, not even his mother, suspected there was fury boiling in his gut.

      “Whew!” Ebullient but drooping, Delilah Dalton kicked off her heels. “That was fun, but I’m glad it’s over. Went off well, don’t you think?”

      “Very,” Blake answered evenly.

      “I’m going to check on Molly.” She swooped up her shoes and padded on stockinged feet to the circular marble staircase. “Then I’m hitting the tub to soak for an hour. You staying here tonight?”

      “No, I’ll go back to my place.” With a vicious exercise of will, he kept his voice calm. “Would you ask Grace to come down? I’d like to talk to her before I go.”

      His mother lifted a brow at his request to speak to the woman she’d hired to act as a temporary nanny. In the weeks since a baby had dropped into the lives of all three Daltons, Grace Templeton had proved indispensable. Become almost part of the family. So much so that she’d served as Julie’s maid of honor while Blake stood up with Alex as best man.

      She’d also started the wheels turning in Delilah’s fertile mind. His mother had begun dropping unsubtle hints in recent days about how sweet Grace was. How well she interacted with Molly. And just tonight, how good Blake had looked standing beside her at the altar. The fact that he’d begun to think along those same lines only added to the fury simmering hot and heavy.

      “Tell Grace I’ll be in the library.”

      For once Delilah was too tired to pry. She merely waved her shoes and continued up the stairs. “Will do. Just don’t keep her too long. She has to feel as whipped as I do.”

      She was about to feel a whole lot more whipped. Yanking on the ends of his black bow tie, Blake stalked down the hall to the oak-paneled library. The soft glow from the recessed lighting contrasted starkly with his black mood as he retrieved the report he’d stuffed into his pocket more than an hour ago. The facts were no less shattering now than they had been then. He was still trying to absorb their impact when Grace Templeton entered the library.

      “Hey, Blake. Delilah said you wanted to talk to me.”

      His eyes narrowed on the slender blonde, seeing her in a wholly different light. She’d changed from the lilac, off-the-shoulder tea gown she’d worn for the wedding. She’d also released her pale, almost silvery hair from its sophisticated upsweep. The ends now brushed the shoulders of a sleeveless white blouse sporting several large splotches.

      “’Scuze the wet spots,” she said, brushing a hand down her front with a rueful laugh in her warm brown eyes. “Molly got a little lively during her bath.”

      Blake didn’t respond. He merely stood with his shoulders rigid under his tux as she hitched a hip on the wide, rolled arm of the library’s sofa.

      “What did you want to talk about?”

      Only then did she pick up on his silence. Or maybe it was his stance. Her head tilting, she gave him a puzzled half smile.

      “Something wrong?”

      He countered her question with one of his own. “Did you happen to notice the man who arrived at the reception just before Alex and Julie left?”

      “The guy in the brown suit?” She nodded slowly, still trying to gauge his odd mood. “I saw him, and couldn’t help wondering who he was. He looked so out of place among the other guests.”

      “His name’s Del Jamison.”

      Her brow creased. Blake guessed she was mentally sorting through the host of people she’d met during her stint as Molly’s temporary nanny. When she drew a blank, he supplied the details.

      “Jamison’s a private investigator. The one Alex and I hired to help search for Molly’s mother.”

      She was good, he thought savagely. Very good. Her cinnamon eyes transmitted only a flicker of wariness, quickly suppressed, but she couldn’t keep the color from leaching out of her cheeks. The sudden pallor gave him a vicious satisfaction.

      “Oh, right.” The shrug was an obvious attempt at nonchalance. “He was down in South America, wasn’t he? Checking the places where Julie worked last year?”

      “He was, but after Julie made it clear she wasn’t Molly’s mother, Jamison decided to check another lead. In California.”

      She couldn’t hide her fear now. It was there in the quick hitch in her breath, the sudden stillness.

      “California?”

      “I’ll summarize his report for you.” Blake used his courtroom voice. The one he employed when he wanted to drive home a point. Cool, flat, utterly devoid of emotion. “Jamison discovered the woman I was told had died in a fiery bus crash was not, in fact, even on that bus. She didn’t die until almost a year later.”

      The same woman he’d had a brief affair with. The woman who’d disappeared from his life with no goodbye, no note, no explanation of any kind. Aided and abetted, he now knew, by this brown-eyed, soft-spoken schemer who’d wormed her way into his mother’s home.

      And into Blake’s consciousness, dammit. Every level of it. As disgusted by her duplicity as by the hunger she’d begun to stir in him, he stalked across the room. She sprang to her feet at his approach and tried to brazen it out.

      “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

      Still he didn’t lose control. But his muscles quivered with the effort of keeping his hands off her.

      “According to Jamison, this woman gave birth to a baby girl just weeks before she died.”

      His baby! His Molly!

      “She also had a friend who showed up at the hospital mere hours before her death.” He planted his fists on the sofa arm, boxing her in, forcing her to lean back. “A friend with pale blond hair.”

      “Blake!” The gold-flecked brown eyes he’d begun to imagine turning liquid with desire widened in alarm. “Listen to me!”

      “No, Grace—if that’s really your name.” His temper slipped through, adding a whiplash to his voice. “You listen, and listen good. I don’t know how much you figured you could extort from our family, but the game ends now.”

      “It’s not a game,” she gasped, bent at an awkward angle.

      “No?”

      “No! I don’t want your money!”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ