The Bride and the Bargain. Allison Leigh

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СКАЧАТЬ his soft lips pursed together, his fists curled. Three months now, Amelia couldn’t help but marvel. Three months that had passed in a blink.

      She’d cared for the baby since she’d brought him home from the hospital. Without his mother. Three months focusing on everything she’d ever convinced herself she didn’t want in this life. Not after the way she and Daphne had grown up.

      How quickly a lifetime of belief had spun on its ear. Just because of this tiny, small being.

      She chewed the inside of her lip, resisting the urge to touch the sweet boy. Just because she wanted the comfort of cuddling Daphne’s baby was no reason to disturb his sound sleep.

      If Daphne hadn’t left Oregon at all, this beautiful baby wouldn’t even exist and there would have been no reason whatsoever for Amelia to take on Grayson Hunt.

      Less than an hour later, bandages on her knees hidden beneath her gray slacks, Amelia was handing Timmy and his diaper bag and extra bottles over to Paula Browning. The woman wasn’t only their neighbor; she was about the only person Amelia considered a friend in Seattle. She was ten years Amelia’s senior, widowed, and her only child was already away at college. If it weren’t for Paula, Amelia wasn’t quite certain how she would have managed. It was Paula who’d volunteered to watch the children. To mind Timmy during the day, and Amelia had been so far out of her depth, that she’d gratefully accepted. Not only was Paula unfailingly reliable, but she was a font of practical advice about babies.

      And on that subject, Amelia had needed all the advice she could get.

      Paula’s green eyes were nothing if not sharp, though, and there was no hope of her failing to notice the bandages Amelia had taped to her palms as she transferred Timmy to the woman’s arms. Timmy’s fingers twined around her hair and she worked the strands free, kissing his soft little fist as the other woman took him.

      “I figured there must be something wrong for you to be running late,” Paula said now, smiling into Timmy’s bright eyes. “What happened?”

      “I tripped when I was running. Nothing major.”

      Paula looked knowing. “That’s what happens when you run before the sun even comes up.” She shook her artfully blond head. “Not like you need the exercise, either. You’re even thinner now than when you arrived in Seattle.”

      Amelia frowned down at herself. She supposed it was true that her clothes hung a little more loosely on her frame these days.

      “Any luck spotting the great one, himself?”

      Amelia flushed. Before she’d gone into labor, Daphne had confided in Paula about the identity of her child’s father. She knew that Amelia’s choice of running trails had far more to do with him than anything else. “He was there, actually,” she admitted. “I couldn’t believe it, at first. I’ve never even spotted him before. And—” She broke off.

      Paula’s eyebrows rose. “And?”

      “And…nothing.” Amelia was still kicking herself. “I mean, I did nothing.” Except get run over by the man, and that truly had been unintentional. Until it had happened, she wasn’t even aware that Grayson Hunt was on the trail at all.

      And then when he was there—helping her, even—she hadn’t told him who she was, hadn’t told him that if he didn’t come to some terms over his responsibilities, she was going straight to the media.

      She had done absolutely nothing.

      “Well, at least you know all the interviews you’ve been poring over for the past month haven’t been wasted,” Paula consoled.

      Grayson hadn’t announced to the news outlets that he chose to run in a small, hilly park over an hour away from his waterfront home. That comment had been strictly off-the-cuff, captured only in a live feed moments before he’d addressed the graduating class at MIT over a year earlier. But the close proximity of the park to the restaurant where Daphne had waitressed and met Grayson had been enough reason for Amelia to try her chances there.

      Goodness knows her efforts at obtaining a meeting with the man in person had been utterly futile. Regular people just couldn’t get in to see him without good reason, and she knew the second she mentioned her sister and paternity, she’d be shuffled off to his attorneys. As it was, then, the closest she’d been able to get was an appointment with some underling of his—and that was set for six months down the road.

      Amelia didn’t have six months.

      More importantly, Daphne didn’t have six months. If her sister’s condition was going to improve, it would take a miracle. A miracle by God, or a miracle by money.

      Amelia wasn’t taking her chances, either way. She went to bed at night praying, and she started her day running in the park on the off chance that she just might encounter him.

      And when she had, what had she done besides end up with her nose in the dirt?

      Paula watched her. “So what are you going to do now?”

      Amelia curled her fingers, feeling the bandages on her palms. It was fine to envision herself tackling Goliath head-on. But she’d never before been good at confrontations, never been good at fighting battles.

      That had been Daphne’s strong suit, and even she had chosen not to fight for her child’s rights. If it hadn’t been for the way she and Amelia had been raised, that fact would have had Amelia wondering if Daphne could somehow be mistaken. Her sister had never lacked for male company, even though she’d kept her companions away from her children and her home.

      But Amelia did remember how it had been for them as children. Both she and Daphne knew what it felt like to be acknowledged by a father only because the law had forced it, so it wasn’t surprising that Daphne had shied away from forcing that issue herself.

      “The only answer I can still think of is to go to the media if he does threaten me with a lawsuit like he threatened Daphne,” Amelia admitted.

      Paula looked uncertain. “It’s pretty rare for anything unflattering about the Hunts to make it into the news.”

      Which left the gossip rags, they both knew, who’d lap up anything salacious about the wealthy man. “I hate the idea. I don’t want the world looking at Daphne. Or the children. But I have to do something, Paula. He’s my last hope where my sister is concerned. Even the attorney I hired has told me that Daphne’s case is at a standstill. She has no health insurance and unless it’s privately financed, there is no hope of her receiving the kind of care and therapy that could improve her condition.”

      “Honey, I hate to say it, but even if you find a way to get her into that rehabilitation institute you found, Daphne might not improve. I know it’s tragic, but she did have a major stroke the likes of which many people don’t even survive.”

      The doctors—all but one—had claimed the same thing. “She’s my sister,” Amelia said quietly. “She and the kids are all I have. I have to try.”

      “Even if it means going against Grayson Hunt? Once that lawyer of his threatened Daphne with that lawsuit when she notified him of her pregnancy, she vowed never to acknowledge his existence again.”

      How well Amelia knew that. Daphne was a fighter, but she’d had her pride, as well.

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