this is about you?”
“No, it’s about our daughter.”
His gaze narrowed as suspicion swirled in his eyes. “Why should I believe you after all this time? What are you after, Em? What do you want from me?”
Emily hadn’t believed it was possible to hurt more than she had the night she’d tried to tell Cal Westen about his baby, but she was wrong. His second rejection was twice as painful because of Annie. How could he reject that sweet baby girl? The innocent child who was depending on Em to take care of her. That’s all she was trying to do in spite of what Cal thought.
“I was wrong not to tell you right away,” she admitted.
“You think?” Sarcasm rippled between them.
“I’m hoping you won’t punish your daughter for my mistake.”
“There’s no reason I should believe she’s my daughter. I always used protection when we were together. It’s not something I take for granted.”
“Me, either,” she said. That long-ago mistake made her pretty cautious. “I don’t know what to tell you except I guess the condom broke.”
At that moment Rhonda Levin walked in. Emily had seen the E.R. nurse manager from time to time when she worked here at Mercy Medical. The plump, brown-eyed, bleached blonde looked at each of them, narrowed her eyes, then settled her gaze on Cal.
“You’re on, Doc. Paramedics are bringing in car accident victims. One of them is an eleven-month-old with head trauma. Whatever is going on here will have to wait. ETA, three minutes.” Rhonda gave them a pointed look before walking out.
The baby coming in couldn’t be in better hands, Emily thought. If it were her daughter there’s no one she’d trust more than Cal. But he was looking at her now as if he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her.
“The condom broke? Come on, you can do better than that.” Apparently he planned to use his three minutes to grill her.
“Did you read the directions? It’s not guaranteed one hundred percent,” she said.
“The percentage of security is in the high nineties,” he shot back. “Again I have to ask why I should believe you’re not trying to pass her off as mine.”
Emily had pictured this scene in her mind and not once had it included the part where he doubted Annie was his child. Now she knew how naive that was, because he was within his rights to question it. But tell that to the anger building up inside her.
She glared at him. “If you can ask me that, it’s clear you never knew me at all. I’d never lie to you, Cal. Especially about something like this.”
It felt like déjà vu all over again when she turned and walked out on him, but this time her heart was breaking for Annie, too.
Two days after Emily Summers had turned his life upside down, Cal sat in a booth at Coco’s coffee shop on Eastern Avenue near the 215 Beltway and wondered whether she’d show up. If she’d changed her cell phone number he wouldn’t have been able to contact her at all. She no longer lived at the address where—too many times to count—he’d picked her up for dinner and brought her back to make love to her. When she walked out on him, he’d missed her.
When she walked out on him again yesterday, he’d gone to work on that eleven-month-old. Fortunately the head trauma was superficial and the few stitches would eventually be covered by her hair and she’d probably have no memory of the ordeal. But he wasn’t lucky enough to forget Emily’s words: Our baby. She’s eleven months old. He’d never known her to lie, and she’d looked sincerely surprised and angry that he hadn’t believed her.
He took a sip of coffee and glanced at his watch for the umpteenth time. Eight-fifteen and almost dark outside. She’d picked the place—neutral territory—because she’d refused to give out her address. That implied a lack of trust, which was pretty ironic when you thought about it. She was passing her kid off as his and he couldn’t be trusted?
Still, if there weren’t doubts in his mind, he wouldn’t have set up this meeting.
He looked up and saw Emily walking toward him. After all these months and this stunt she was trying to pull off, how could one look at that face tie him in knots? Her mouth was made to be kissed. Those full lips had turned him on more times than he could count and thoughts of running his hands through her dark, shiny hair had fueled more dreams than he wanted to admit.
She stopped by the table. “Cal.”
“Have a seat.” He indicated the booth bench across from him.
She was wearing a thin-strapped yellow tank and white capris. Her flip-flops matched her shirt and gave him an unobstructed view of her coral-painted toes. Sexiest feet in Vegas, he thought, again feeling stupid for the gut-level turn-on that he couldn’t control. Apparently he hadn’t outgrown his fatal flaw. Attraction to a deceitful woman had cost him big time and here he was again.
“So what did you want to talk about?” she asked. “You made your feelings pretty clear. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing left to say.”
“Maybe you don’t think so, but I wasn’t finished when you walked out the other day.” He forced himself to relax his grip on the coffee mug in front of him. “Would you like something?”
“Just to get this over with.” Her big brown eyes were defensive and still as beautiful as ever.
“Okay, then.” He met her gaze and asked the question that had been gnawing at him since she’d left the E.R. “If she’s my child—”
“Your daughter’s name is Annie.”
Without acknowledging that, he continued, “Why didn’t you tell me I was going to be a father?”
She let out a breath and her gaze wandered out the window, to the congestion of cars on Eastern, waiting to turn left onto the Beltway. It was cool inside, but he knew on the street it was still more than a hundred degrees. This was Vegas and it was July. Hot was a way of life. But hot didn’t do justice to how he felt.
“Do you remember the last time we were together?” she asked, sliding into the place across from him.
“Yeah.” Of course he did. “One minute everything was fine, the next you said we were done. A guy doesn’t tend to forget something like that.”
One corner of her mouth curved up, but not from amusement. “A guy like you doesn’t forget because you’re always the one who ends things. It was different with me and that bothered you.”
The fact she was right didn’t help. He liked women, and they returned the favor. He did end things before anyone got serious. So sue him. But with Em he hadn’t been ready for things to be over.
“It came out of left field.” That’s all he’d admit.
Her eyes looked big and brown. Innocent and hurt. “Were you there for the last conversation we had?”
Maybe. “Refresh my memory.”
“I know how you feel about commitment.”
“We
