have no idea.”
“But I do. Remember, someone stole my baby and tried to kill me. I have an inkling of what it’s like to lose something as important as a child.”
Oh, mercy. She felt the tears threaten, and she tried to blink them back. One escaped anyway, but she quickly wiped it away so there’d be no proof of the pain that had ripped her heart apart.
“Look at me,” Collena requested. “Don’t you see some kind of resemblance between Adam and me?”
It was a gamble, because Collena had no idea if her son did indeed resemble her.
But the gamble paid off.
Dylan combed his gaze over her. Studying her, hard. And at the end of several snail-crawling moments, he groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. He dropped down in the chair across from her and raised his head.
“Adam has blond hair and brown eyes,” he admitted. “Like you.”
The relief washed over her. Not because she doubted this child was hers. No. She was positive of it. But the resemblance might go a long way to convincing Dylan of what she already knew.
It might also convince him to accept the deal she was about to offer.
“I won’t believe any of this until I see DNA results,” he added a moment later.
Collena had anticipated that, as well. “I already have DNA results to prove he’s mine.”
“You couldn’t.”
“But I do. You probably remember telling your adoption attorney that you wanted your baby’s umbilical cord to be stored in case it was needed in the future. Since the storage facility was also owned by Brighton, the police got a search warrant to have all the umbilical cords tested. The newborns’ identities were all in code, so I knew that one of the babies was mine, it just took a lot of DNA tests to figure out which one.”
He pulled in his breath. “And how do you know that you unraveled the code correctly?”
“Because all the other babies have been accounted for. All except Adam. He’s the last one on the list.”
Collena took the small DNA test kit from her pocket, opened it and wiped the sterile swab on the inside of her cheek. She put it in the plastic bag, resealed it and handed it to him.
“You can send it to any lab you choose,” Collena instructed. “Ask for a maternity study. Have them expedite it. Within forty-eight hours you should have the proof you need.”
“Need for what?” He stood and dropped the kit onto his desk. He pressed his thumb to his chest. “I love him. Adam is my son.”
Collena stood also, so she could make eye contact. “I love him, too. And he’s my son.”
He cursed, and it wasn’t mild. “I can’t give him up.”
“Neither can I.”
“I’ll fight this in court.” His stare turned to a glare. “I’ll have to.”
“Maybe not.”
Dylan blinked, and his forehead bunched up. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I know you’re a good father.” She motioned around the room. “And I can’t give Adam all the material things you’ve given him. Or the stability. Or the respectability.”
There was more.
She’d save that for later.
On top of everything else he’d learned, it might be too much for Dylan Greer to hear that they might both lose the precious child they loved.
“And I can’t overlook the fact that you’re the only parent that Adam knows,” Collena added, hoping that she was making her case. “To take him from you now would be as criminal as what happened to me at Brighton sixteen months ago.”
His glare softened. “Are you saying you won’t fight me for custody?”
“Not exactly.”
The softening vanished. “Then, what are you saying?” he asked.
Mercy, she only hoped this sounded better aloud than it did in her head. But it didn’t matter if it sounded insane. She had no choice.
“What I’m offering is more of a compromise,” Collena explained. “When you weigh all the options, when you think about how we can both have Adam in our lives, there’s only one thing you can do.”
His glare returned and intensified. “And what’s that one thing that I can do?”
Collena braced herself for his reaction. “You can marry me.”
Chapter Three
Dylan hadn’t thought there could be any more surprises today, but he was obviously wrong. Collena Drake had just delivered the ultimate surprise.
“Marry you?” he questioned.
She nodded and moistened her lips. “I’m Adam’s mother. You’ve raised him, true, but we both love him. It seems…reasonable that we can both be his parents.”
“You don’t even know him,” Dylan tossed right back at her.
“He’s my child. I love him.”
He couldn’t dispute that. He’d loved Adam, too, from the moment that he learned Adam was his. Dylan hadn’t had to see him to know just how deep that love was. Still, that didn’t mean this woman had a claim to Adam.
“Neither of us wants to lose him,” Collena added as if that would change his mind. It wouldn’t.
“And you think the solution is for us to get married, even though we’re perfect strangers?”
She nodded.
He didn’t agree with her. It was an insane proposition. He couldn’t do it. Could he?
Oh, man. He hated to even consider it, but Dylan went through a mental list of reasons why he shouldn’t. He had no idea who this woman really was. And even if she proved everything she’d said, it would still mean a marriage to a stranger so that he could keep his child.
Dylan wasn’t sure he could go that far, nor was he sure he had to. There was rarely just one solution to a problem, even when that problem was as massive as this one appeared to be.
“And what if I say no to your marriage proposal?” Dylan asked.
She took a deep breath. “Then I’ll petition the courts to return Adam to me. In my car, I have all the documentation to prove that he’s mine and that the adoption was illegal. I’ve already retained an attorney. He could file my petition as early as tomorrow morning. In nearly all the Brighton cases, the illegally adopted children have been returned to the birth parents. And in those cases where they weren’t, it’s because both birth parents were dead.”
Dylan
