Passionate Proposals. Andrea Laurence

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СКАЧАТЬ were right,” Brooks said.

      Carson didn’t know how to react to the news. He’d braced himself for this moment, part of him hoping Sutton wasn’t his father and part of him hoping he was, just so he’d have the answer at last. Well, now he had it. He was that old bastard’s son. He’d known in his heart that he was, but having the official confirmation just sealed it in his mind.

      The man he’d been looking for his whole life, the one his mother warned him about, had been right under his nose the whole time. Sutton had always treated him like a nuisance. The Newport Corporation and its owners were just an annoying fly buzzing around the King of Chicago’s crown. He’d never once treated them like anything else, certainly not like his own children. It was one thing not to be able to publicly acknowledge your illegitimate sons, but to deliberately handle them like pebbles in his shoe their whole lives...

      “Carson, are you okay?” Brooks asked.

      He realized that he’d been holding his breath and let it out in one big burst. “Yes.” He reached for the tequila bottle and did another shot without them. “Let’s read yours and get this over with.”

      Graham shuffled the papers in his hands until he could read the second report. “The alleged father, Sutton Winchester, cannot be excluded or confirmed as the biological father of the children, Graham and Brooks Newport. The children’s samples were tainted or mishandled, containing foreign contaminants, and must be recollected and retested for final results.”

      “Mishandled?” Brooks exclaimed. “Are you kidding me? After all this?” Now it was his turn to reach for the bottle and take a shot.

      Graham just shook his head. “I guess we need to go back tomorrow and get swabbed again.”

      “And while we wait for those results, we can plan how we want to move forward,” Carson said, trying to distract his brothers from their disappointment. “We know at the very least that I’m his son, so we can do some contingency planning.”

      “No,” Brooks says. “We can’t wait. We need to jump on these results, especially if he’s as sick as Georgia makes him sound. Sutton has gone long enough without receiving his comeuppance. He needs to pay for abandoning us. He needs to pay for using and tossing our mother aside. He may be our father, but this is war. It’s best to attack while the opposing side isn’t expecting it.”

      Graham gave a curt nod in agreement, making Carson’s stomach start to ache again. “Let’s set up a meeting with the Winchesters for tomorrow.”

      * * *

      Georgia was surprised to brush past the Newport twins as they got off the elevator in Carson’s building and she was getting on. They gave her a polite wave but didn’t stop to say hello. They both had a cold, calculating look in their eyes that worried her. What had happened? She got the feeling her date with Carson would be different from what they’d planned.

      She waited patiently after ringing the doorbell. When Carson finally answered, the expression on his face worried her even more than his brothers’ scheming scowls. He looked heartbroken. His mouth was drawn down into an uncharacteristic frown and his face was flushed. His eyes looked a little red and his brow was furrowed in thought.

      “Hey, Georgia,” he said in a flat tone. “I have to apologize in advance. I’m not going to be very good company tonight. Do you mind if we don’t go out?”

      “We can stay in,” Georgia said and pushed past him into his apartment. She got the feeling he wanted to turn her away, and she wouldn’t let him. He needed someone to talk to, and she was going to be the one whether he liked it or not.

      She set her purse down on the counter beside a half-empty bottle of tequila and three shot glasses. That explained the flushed face and red eyes. Then her gaze ran across the paperwork and the lab logo across the top. He’d gotten the results of the paternity test.

      Georgia didn’t need to read the papers. She could tell by the look on Carson’s face that Sutton was the father he’d never wanted. Turning to face him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up into his green eyes. “Are you going to be okay?”

      “Eventually. I just have to forget about everything I know to be true and adjust to a world where a man like Sutton could produce a man like me.”

      “Sutton didn’t produce a man like you, Carson. If he had been in your life, you’d be a completely different person and likely one I wouldn’t date. He might be your genetic contributor, but you were produced by the loving environment your mother raised you in. That’s what’s important. You’re nothing like him.”

      “Oh really?” He pulled away and wandered into the living room, where he dropped down onto the couch. “I’m more of a cutthroat bastard than you might think. We’re going to destroy him, you know.”

      Georgia’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

      “Graham and Brooks want to go after his estate. No holds barred. They think we’re owed something after years of neglect and now is their chance to make Sutton pay the piper.”

      Georgia sat down on the couch beside him and rested her hand on his knee. “You don’t agree with their plans?”

      “I do and I don’t. I mean, I want him to suffer. I want him to spend the rest of his life regretting what he did to my mother and to us. But at the same time, I guess I just don’t have the killer instinct. That’s the one thing I wish I had inherited from him.”

      “Don’t wish that. It’s your conscientiousness that I’m drawn to.”

      Carson looked at her with some of his previous sparkle in his eyes. “You mean it’s not my dashing good looks and rock-hard abs?”

      Georgia smiled wide. She was happy to see a glimmer of her Carson beneath the gloom. “Those certainly don’t hurt.”

      He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and Georgia snuggled in against his chest. “I’m glad you came over tonight. If I was alone, I’d probably stew all evening and finish off that bottle of tequila.”

      “You’d regret it tomorrow.”

      “I usually do. But enough of my parental drama. I don’t want to waste our night together talking about that. But I do have to ask how it’s going with your mom. Hopefully better news than on my end.”

      “Good. Better than I ever could’ve expected or hoped,” Georgia said. She knew that Carson was feeling down, but she was filled with more optimism than she’d felt in years. Maybe even her whole life. The last few days had been amazing. She’d gotten answers to questions she’d never even thought to ask. “We’ve spent hours talking. I’ve learned so much about her and my family that I’ve never met. Did you know I have a brother and sister somewhere?”

      “Really?” He chuckled and slowly shook his head. “That seems to be going around lately. I’ve suddenly got more siblings than I know what to do with.”

      “The hardest part, though, is hearing about her life. I mean, I thought I had it rough growing up in the foster care system, but it’s nothing compared to what she went through. I’m not surprised she turned to drugs. I don’t even know how she gets out of bed every morning.”

      “Where is she now? We could’ve rescheduled tonight until after she went back to СКАЧАТЬ