think I’m stupid?”
Rachel paled at Lucas’s tone and, no doubt, at his volume, but gave no other outward sign of her trembling nerves. “What part are you having trouble with?”
“The part where you claim I have a daughter! That we have a daughter!” He laughed without humor. “And everything else that comes after that!”
Lucas stood, his agitation so deep he simply could not hold still. He began pacing behind his desk. “I don’t believe any of this, do you understand? If you want money for some reason, fine. Admit it. We’ll talk about it. I’m not sure I’d contribute to the upkeep of some kid that can’t possibly be mine—if you actually have a kid of your own, if you’ve been that irresponsible—but trying to convince me that the child would be mine? If that’s what you’re trying to do here, Rachel, you might as well leave now. I don’t have time for lies.” He quit pacing and whirled to face her. “Are you listening? Forget it! Don’t expect me to buy a story like that! Do you hear me?”
He was yelling and he knew it, but he was powerless to stop. It occurred to him that if a scene was erupting, he was to blame. But what other reaction could he have to Rachel’s ridiculous claim?
“Of course I hear you, Lucas,” she responded quietly, with dignity, although she was shaken. She’d be damned if she’d let it show.
“Where should I start?” Mentally enumerating, she began quietly, unruffled only on the outside. She had to make him understand—it was too important. “Okay, Lucas, I repeat: I do not want your money. I want your bone marrow. Or, rather, Michaela does.”
“Mee-kay-la?” he sneered.
“Yes, Michaela. I named her after my parents—Michaela Juanita. Papá, of course, is Michael and Mamá’s middle name is Juanita, as is mine.” She sounded tired but proud. “She’s beautiful, too. Smart. Sweet. La niñita más linda del mundo.” Rachel gave a start, alarmed that she had accidentally said aloud her private motto that her daughter was the most beautiful little girl in the world. “Anyway,” she rushed on, “she is indeed your child—”
“Oh, give it a rest, Rachel! She can’t be mine and we both know it! Our sex life was practically nonexistent when you decided to walk out.”
“Practically nonexistent, yes. But not entirely.” She refused to rise to the bait. This was not the time to argue over who had done the abandoning. “Think about it, Lucas. We weren’t celibate with each other, even at the lowest point in our marriage. Our sex life was irregular, yes. Inconsistent, yes. But not nonexistent. And before you start suggesting I was sleeping around, let’s just recall which one of us sought external…companionship. That was you and you know it.” She clamped her lips together, regretting her outburst. Bringing all that into it would not help her cause.
“Maybe you just hid it better than I did.”
Her eyes shot daggers at him, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she just opened her briefcase and pulled out an envelope. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I wanted a one-year separation before we talked divorce?”
“That’s a good question. Since you started the whole legal thing, why didn’t you finish it? Why didn’t you file for divorce?”
“Why didn’t you?” she snapped, her breathing rapid. “Oh, yeah, I forgot, Lucas.” She mockingly tapped her forehead. “You didn’t need to. Everything suited you just fine the way it was. You had a wife if you needed her, and other more interesting playmates for the rest of the time.”
Dios mio, but I hate to lose control. Rachel took a deep breath, willing some calm to enter her spirit. “I did what I had to do to deal with the situation. So I went to the trouble of making it legal. I think I never filed for divorce because once we were separated, as far as I was concerned, we were divorced. It was over. Our lives were completely separate from that day on. Anyway—” she paused, trying to stick to the matter at hand “—Lucas, back to the question. Given that our marriage was finished in the day-to-day way, why do you suppose I wanted it to officially, legally continue for another year?”
“Maybe so you could foist some other man’s child off on me,” he suggested coldly. “Get me to pay for the kid’s up-bringing. Maybe you already knew you were pregnant, knew that you had to cover yourself somehow. Maybe you thought your other man would claim you and then he backed out. How would I know what happened? I sure wouldn’t have bought this story then, if you’d brought it to me. Just like I’m not buying it now.”
At least he wasn’t yelling anymore.
“Fine, Lucas, we’ll play it your way. I wanted some other man’s child to have your name. Of course I did. How clever of you to figure it out.”
Her voice fairly dripped with sarcasm. Lucas squirmed in spite of himself.
“Is that how it’s done in the world you live in? Do people you know do such things? If so, you need to find some new friends, Lucas.” She tapped the envelope on her lap. “Now give my question a little thought. Why do you suppose I wanted an official year of separation?”
Lucas considered the question again, thankful he could continue in the icy vein. “Well, at first I couldn’t believe you were serious about leaving, let alone that you were thinking about doing anything legal about it. I couldn’t believe you’d gone to a lawyer. I was amazed and maybe even amused by what you were doing. Later—” he cocked his eyebrow “—later, I just figured you thought I’d come back to you—you know, that I’d come to my senses eventually—and that you thought a separation would be easier to undo than a divorce.”
He’d never thought any such thing, but he was still on the attack and the words emerged all by themselves. They sounded good to him—and they kept rolling. “Nowadays, Rachel, from my perspective, it’s convenient to be married. I mean, I’m not at risk around other women since I already have a marriage in place. I’m not the type for bigamy.”
“Apparently, you weren’t the type for monogamy, either, Lucas,” she responded sourly, her eyes flashing.
Ouch, Lucas thought, mentally cataloguing Rachel’s first flares of anger over the whole business. He would have expected anger before this, had always wondered at her composure. Maybe she has claws after all.
“So,” Rachel said, “to return to the topic, how long before you realized that I intended to go on living without you?” Her sarcasm was back.
“Several months, I guess.”
“Did I really seem that pathetic to you? That I would cling to you that way?” The words were ripped from her. “You thought I’d take you on any terms you dished out?” She eyed him incredulously, stunned to the core.
“Okay.” She started afresh, one deep breath later. “For the record, I asked for the separation because I wanted our child to be born legitimately. I didn’t want there to be any question about it—”
“I’d say there are all kinds of questions about it, Rachel.”
“Not if you agree to be tested. If you’re a match…well, it’s unusual for nonblood related individuals to match. Of course it happens, or there’d be no need for a donor registry. But I’m sure we can dig up the statistics on the likelihood, something that would at least partially satisfy you. Secondly, if you agree to be tested, you can request a DNA-based test. DNA work is what you’d really be interested in, right?” He nodded, and
