squawked, raising her eyebrows so far they almost disappeared into her hairline. “Is she one of your guests whom you’ve neglected to introduce to me?”
“No, Stephanie,” he said, his patience at an end. “Surprising though it might seem to you, I’m not such a boor that—”
But the reply fizzled into horrified silence as his glance latched on to the woman hovering at the double doors leading out to the foyer where he’d stood at the head of the receiving line not two hours earlier. Flaming red-gold hair caught in the light from the chandelier behind her, she peered at the crowd, clearly searching for someone.
He shook his head, as if doing so would bring him out of the sudden nightmare in which he found himself. This was his wedding day; a day that belonged to Julia and him and the future. His past had no place here. She had no place here.
In his panic, he stepped on Stephanie’s foot, then compounded the sin by ditching her completely. “Just where do you think you’re going?” she exclaimed, outrage lending an unpleasantly shrill edge to her voice.
Loath though he was to give his mother-in-law any more ammunition than she thought she already had, Ben had more pressing concerns on his mind just then than appeasing her, the most immediate being to whisk the newcomer out of sight before Julia noticed her.
Weaving a hasty path among the guests impeding his progress, he finally reached the doors. “What the devil do you think you’re doing here, Marian?” he asked roughly, grabbing her by the elbow and hustling her across the foyer to the private suite reserved for the bridal party. The luggage he and Julia would need for the honeymoon was stowed there, along with their passports and travel tickets. Her going-away outfit, something the color of wild orchids, hung on a padded hanger from a brass coat stand.
“I had to see you,” Marian whimpered. “We need to talk.”
“What?” He stared at her incredulously. “We haven’t spoken in months. And in light of our last conversation, I can’t imagine there’s anything left for either of us to say.”
“You’ll change your mind when you hear what I have to tell you.”
“Marian,” he said, hurriedly closing the door to prevent anyone witnessing the conversation, “I got married today. You just gate-crashed my wedding. Have you lost your mind?”
Tears glazed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. When I went looking for you at the address they gave me at your old apartment, the workmen at your new house just said you were here at a wedding. They didn’t tell me it was yours.”
She sort of crumpled onto the little gilt sofa next to a full-length mirror and sniffled into a tissue she fished out of the big quilted bag slung over her shoulder. For all that he wished she were a million miles away, she made a pathetic sight and Ben couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. “What happened, Marian? Didn’t the reconciliation with your husband work out?”
“Sort of. But it won’t last, unless you agree to help me.”
He rolled his eyes in disbelief. “Why do I feel as if I’m speaking in foreign tongues here? I just got married! My wife is probably wondering where the devil I’ve disappeared to. As for the conclusions my mother-in-law’s arrived at…” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “Hell, they don’t bear thinking about!”
She glared at him through her tears. “If you think you’ve got problems now, wait till you hear what I’ve got to say! And you can take that look off your face, Ben Carreras, because in light of the relationship we once had, the very least you owe me now is—”
“Don’t go there, Marian,” he advised her tersely. “Our relationship, if it could ever have been called that in the first place, is over. It never really began.”
“You didn’t feel that way when you slept with me, though, did you?”
“Are you here to blackmail me?” he asked, his voice sliding to a dangerous whisper.
She shrank into the corner of the sofa. “No. I wouldn’t be here at all, if there was any other way out of this. But there’s more at stake here than just your future or mine, Ben. There’s the baby’s.”
He’d spent most of his thirty-two years facing reality, knowing firsthand that even the most fleeting happiness always came with a price. Over the last five months, though, he’d grown complacent; had woken up every morning marveling that life just kept getting better.
But with Marian’s last words hanging in the air like an ax waiting to fall, he knew he’d been lured into a fool’s paradise. “What baby?” he asked, guessing ahead of time what her answer would be.
“Yours,” she said.
Of course, it was a trick, a lie. One she was more than capable of perpetuating. After all, she’d kept a husband hidden away in the woodwork for the better part of two months.
So why was dread creeping over him like a shroud? Why did the only part of his mind still ticking along recognize that, in this instance at least, she was telling the truth?
Still, he tried to deny it. “I don’t think so. If I’d gotten you pregnant, you’d have mentioned it long before now.”
“I wasn’t sure he was yours,” she whispered, the tears she’d held in check at last running free. “He might have been Wayne’s. I hoped he was.”
“I don’t see how there could have been any doubt, unless you were carrying on with both of us at the same time.”
In a desperate attempt to ward off the nightmare web closing around him, he tossed out the remark almost glibly. But the flush that ran up her face and the guilty way she avoided his eyes stripped the black humor from his words and left them revealed for the ugly truth they were.
Stunned, he lowered himself next to her on the sofa. “Tell me I’m wrong, Marian!”
She spread her hands helplessly and said again, “I’m sorry!”
“For what? For cheating on your husband? For lying to me from the day we met? For telling me you’d taken care of contraception when you’d clearly done no such thing? Well, here’s a news flash for you, Marian. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t begin to cut it!” He heard his voice, tight with anger, bouncing back from the walls and fought to bring it under control. “Tell me this is some sort of sick joke.”
“It’s no joke,” she whimpered. “I wish it were. All through the pregnancy, I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But the baby’s yours, Ben. I know that for a fact because we just got the DNA tests back from the hospital and there’s no way he could be Wayne’s.”
Almost sick with anguish, Ben dropped his head into his hand. “Assuming this isn’t another lie, what is it you want from me now? Money?”
“No,” she said. “I want you to take the baby.”
He looked up at her, stunned. “Take him where?”
“Home with you. I can’t keep him. Wayne’s willing to forgive me having an affair, but he won’t be saddled with another man’s child. If I want my marriage to last, I have to give up the baby. That’s why I’m here. But if you don’t want him either, I’ll place him for adoption. I don’t have any other choice, not
