Luke. I appreciate the fact that you realize I wasn’t lying to you. But that doesn’t change anything. It’s best for you to see my associate.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” she said.
“Tell me again.” His mouth straightened to a grim line.
“All right.” She did her best to rein in her runaway emotions, not an easy feat when pregnancy hormones were thrown into the mix. “There must be absolute trust between attorney and client. If you could entertain the slightest doubt that I was telling you the truth, it’s best if you see someone else.”
“You have to admit what you told me was a shocker. If Mother Teresa had dropped that bombshell on me I’d have called her a liar.”
“But you didn’t sleep with her.” She looked at her clasped hands as heat suffused her cheeks. It was hard to maintain the upper hand while she sat there with humiliation in living color on her face. “It was a mistake. We can’t take it back. And it compromised our association. It changed everything.”
Boy did it ever. Tell him now, she thought. It would be relatively simple to segue into “You’re not going to believe what happened.” But the expression on his face stopped her. It was a look somewhere between anger and pain, laced with a healthy dose of irritation. She’d never seen anyone drowning, but Luke’s face showed her what a man would look like going down for the third time. Not now, she decided. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it yet.
“Look, Maddie, I just found out everything familiar to me is a fabrication. I don’t understand any of it—”
“It will take some time. But there’s no doubt in my mind that your parents love you. I think they were just trying to protect you.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Your mother?” she asked, chilled by the coldness in his tone. “You don’t believe her?”
“Why should I? She cheated on Tom and passed me off as his son all these years. Give me one good reason why I should believe her now, Maddie.”
She didn’t have the heart to correct him on the nickname. “Put yourself in her shoes, Luke. Wouldn’t you try to do what was best for everyone involved?” Madison folded her arms across her abdomen. She was beginning to understand a mother’s protectiveness toward the tiny new life she carried. “She’s your mother. Isn’t that reason enough to trust her to do what’s best for everyone, including an innocent baby?”
“Truth is the most important thing. Up front and as soon as possible.”
She winced at his sharp tone. “You think that now. But things aren’t always black-and-white. Just wait until you have children of your own.”
His eyes went hard and cold. “I don’t ever want kids.”
Her heart skipped a beat, followed by a crushing pain that stole her breath. “You don’t mean that.”
“The hell I don’t. Why would I want to bring a kid into this world? What could I give him? I don’t know who I am, and the people I once trusted aren’t who I thought.”
“All the more reason for you to see my associate.” That would give her time to catch her breath from the blow he’d just dealt her.
He stood up and set his palms on her desk as he leaned close. The fragrance of his aftershave drifted to her mixed with the essence of Luke. She’d spent just a single night in his arms, yet she remembered it so well. But in the flesh Luke was so much more compelling than her memories. If she spent time with him, how was she supposed to resist him? Yet he’d just told her he didn’t want children. Why would he want her? No, she had to keep her distance. The potential for pain was too great. Somehow she would pull herself together. Somehow she would tell him because it was the right thing to do. He had the right to know. But that time wasn’t now.
“Maddie, listen to me. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. But you caught me off guard. This is the bottom line—you’re the one person who had the guts to tell me the truth. I know you always will. I need that now more than ever. I don’t want a stranger. I want you.”
In spite of the curve he’d just thrown her, she felt his pain. She wanted to ignore her instinctive caution and give him what he needed. She almost blurted out that she would handle the matter. But spending time with him would be a disaster. The attraction hadn’t abated. On the contrary, it was stronger. At least on her part. They smoldered together. They could go up in flames without warning. It happened once; it would happen again. She was certain of it.
But she had a new little someone depending on her and her alone. Especially since Luke had made it clear that he didn’t want to be a part of the experience. Now, more than ever, it was important for her to build her career. Before it had been about justifying her own existence, showing the world that it could be a better place for her having been here. Now her job was about someone else’s well-being. A dalliance with one of the firm’s most influential clients was ethical gray area. But it could derail her career plan as easily as saying, “fiduciary responsibility.”
A small voice inside her said putting him off was more about protecting her heart. She was in charge of the Marchetti business file. But what he was asking her to do was personal, not business. It was her call whether or not to take it on.
“Luke, I can’t handle this matter for you. We crossed a line. There’s no way to go back, and neither one of us wants to go forward—”
“Speak for yourself.”
She stared at him. “That’s it. That’s the reason right there.”
“What reason?”
“Why I can’t handle this. You put a personal spin on everything.”
“You’re in charge of the Marchetti business—” He stopped, and his blue eyes went cold. “Is it because I’m not a Marchetti?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. No matter who your father was, you’re still the same exasperating man you always were.”
He grinned. “I knew you would do this for me. Why don’t you get the file and we can go over it. We can order in lunch. I’ll buy and—”
It would be so easy to let him sweep her away. Just like that night. But she couldn’t afford to lose her grasp on objectivity. She had to keep her eye on the ball. Her career was so much more important than ever before.
“No, Luke. It would be best if you talk to Nate about this. Let me call him in—”
He straightened and backed one step away from her desk. When she had the courage to meet his gaze, winter was back in his eyes.
“Forget it, Maddie.”
Without saying anything else, he turned and walked out of her office. She would have felt better if he’d yelled at her and slammed the door. She would have felt better if he’d slid her his boyish grin, his seductive smile, his wolfish, hang-on-to-your-hat-here-I-come expression. All of the above she could handle. But that look of abject desolation made her feel like the worst despicable lawyer joke she’d ever heard.
“Oh, Luke. Please don’t do anything
