released Geneva’s hand as he turned, his heart stopping for a brief moment as the girl wrapped her chubby arms around Shannyn’s neck.
I have a daughter. The thought struck him like the sure aim of a bullet.
As if she sensed something was off, the girl turned her head and their eyes met, green to green. Every muscle in his body tightened with the impact of the truth. This is Shannyn’s daughter. She’s in school. I left six years ago. She has my eyes.
Shannyn’s cheeks colored; the blatant guilt on her face and the way she shifted in her chair seemed to confirm his suspicion. This was his daughter, one Shannyn had kept hidden from him all this time. A tiny poppet who looked eerily like the pictures of himself he remembered from his grandmother’s photo album.
All of it left him gutted. How much more could he lose? He clenched his fingers. It wasn’t enough to have the life he’d made for himself ripped away in the space of a moment. Now he had to find out he had another, separate life that he hadn’t even known existed.
It took every ounce of his self-control to not go to the little girl, to kneel before her and demand to see her eyes again. Moss green eyes. His eyes in a miniature of Shannyn’s delicate features. But what would that accomplish beyond frightening the child? She wouldn’t understand. He didn’t understand. No, it was Shannyn who owed him an explanation.
That overriding thought filled him with tense rage. And explain she would. She’d known. Known all this time and hadn’t told him he had a daughter. For six years he’d been a father. She’d deliberately kept it a secret, and then when he did return to town, she’d said nothing, even though she’d had opportunity. This was the third time they’d met and still she hadn’t breathed a single word of it to him.
Shannyn felt as if her head was moving in slow motion. Her daughter’s happy, smiling face looked up at her. Then, turning her head a few degrees, she caught Jonas watching her with a startled expression blanking his face. Emma turned to see what she was looking at and lifted moss-green eyes to the man standing across the room.
Her heart raced even as the moment froze. He would know now for sure. There was no mistaking those eyes. Her own were aqua blue, and the only reason her lashes were dark was because she’d put on mascara that morning. Emma’s eyes were his. Green with lovely thick dark lashes that curled naturally. Just like the brown curls that rested on the tips of her shoulders, the same sable color as his short spikes. She could almost see him mentally counting back six years.
Emma looked from Shannyn to Jonas and then to her baby-sitter, who stood in the doorway looking confused.
“Why’s everyone standing so still?” Emma’s voice piped up curiously in the silence that had fallen.
Shannyn shook herself out of her stupor. She forced a cheery smile to her face, the skin tightly stretched under the false expression. Right now she had to ignore Jonas and deal with Emma. Lord knew Jonas would have to be dealt with later.
“What brings you here in the middle of the day, pumpkin?”
“I told Melissa that I wanted to see you when she picked me up from school.”
Shannyn reached down and lifted Emma up so that she was on her knee, aware of Jonas’s eyes on them unwaveringly. “And how was kindergarten today? Did you have fun? Learn the secret of moonbeams? Solve the mystery of the dinosaur?”
She made jokes, but her stomach churned with anxiety. He must have put two and two together by now. If not, he would have left the office. No, he knew exactly what the deal was. That they had a child and she hadn’t told him.
He would hate her. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen at all. He was supposed to be switching therapists. Out of her sphere of existence. So she and Emma could live their lives as they always had.
“Mommy, that’s silly.”
She forced a smile as Emma’s bright voice brought her back to the present. “And so are you, girly-girl.”
“Can you come home?”
Melissa, Emma’s sitter, stepped forward, holding out her hand for Emma to take. “I thought you were coming to run errands with me? We need to let your mom finish work.” Melissa had sized up the situation, and had ascertained something was wrong. “We’ll meet her at home later.”
“Give me a hug, honey,” Shannyn said, squeezing the tiny waist tightly against her. She blinked back the tears that threatened, already sorry for the changes she knew were coming to Emma’s life. She’d hated the upheaval she’d experienced as a child; had tried to protect Emma from going through the same thing. Now, in the space of a few minutes, all her intentions were blown to smithereens. She gave Emma a little squeeze, wanting to hold on to her and keep the inevitable from happening. “Thanks for coming to see me. I’ll be home soon, okay?”
The response was a smacking kiss on the cheek. “See you later, alligator.”
It was Emma’s latest funny and she never seemed to grow tired of it. “In a while, crocodile,” Shannyn called back, her throat tight.
When the whirlwind had departed again, Shannyn braved a look up at Jonas.
“We need to talk.” She heard his voice and the tight quiver of anger it carried. Trembling, she made her gaze remain on his, no matter how his tone intimidated her. He ignored the other faces in the waiting room, his eyes piercing hers, accusing. She’d lied to him, and right now she knew that was all he could see.
“We need to talk, Shannyn, right now.”
Shannyn’s heart quaked. It would have been too much to ask that he not see the resemblance. She’d spent so much time telling herself that he’d never find out that she wasn’t prepared for this conversation.
“I’m working. We can talk later, Jonas.”
His voice was nail hard as it bit back. “We can do this here, with all these people around, or we can go somewhere more private, but Shannyn—we’re talking now.”
Carrie stood behind her, and Melanie picked up the phone that jangled in the stillness, shattering Shannyn’s nerves. There was no way on earth she and Jonas could talk here. And by the way his lips were thinned, she knew prevaricating further would be a mistake. Plain, unvarnished truth would be the only way to explain. They had to get out of here, somewhere neutral. She looked into his face, all hard angles and unrelenting anger. He was furious, and she knew she didn’t want to be completely alone for this conversation. She needed the protection of somewhere public if she were going to make him listen to her.
“I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off,” she said to Carrie in an undertone. “If you need anything over the weekend, e-mail me.”
“You go,” Carrie murmured back. “And call if you need anything. I mean it, Shan. Anything.” She looked over her glasses meaningfully at Shannyn.
Shannyn grabbed her purse and nodded at Jonas. “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off.”
He followed her out the door.
They stepped out into the June sun, and Shannyn squinted against the glare. She’d left her sunglasses on her desk, and she could really use them now, both to cover her eyes and to put some distance between
