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“I hope you’ll come to understand why we made the decision. In time, when you’re less bitter and angry, maybe you’ll see that we had your best interests at heart.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Brad promised. He agreed it was best not to say anything—”
“But he did.” Pain and anger knotted together in his gut. “And in a whacked-out sort of way, that’s some comfort. At least he had a conscience. Maybe I got his gene for telling the truth instead of yours to perpetuate a lie.”
“Luke, listen—”
He turned away and walked toward the door. He heard her footsteps behind him. She put a hand on his arm and he couldn’t break her hold without more force than he was willing to use. Meeting her gaze, he put his hand on the knob.
“Luke, you can be as angry as you want at me. But don’t you dare take this out on your father. And don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean. Tom Marchetti loves you—you are his son.”
“When you bury your head in the sand, you leave your rear end exposed,” he shot back.
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I will not tolerate any disrespect toward your father.”
As much as he hated to admit she was right about anything, the truth was Tom Marchetti was a victim, too. He wasn’t the one who had slept with someone else.
“Don’t—” Whatever she saw on his face made her release his arm.
Without a word from her to stop him, he left the house. He walked across the back grass, skirted the pool area ringed with Malibu lights, and stopped beside his sports car parked in the alley.
The anger, pain, bewilderment and betrayal that had dogged him since Maddie broke the news cascaded over him in a tidal wave that threatened to drown him. How could he have not known his whole life was a fabrication? The woman who had taught him right from wrong, who had given him a moral foundation to live by, had lied to him in the most elemental way. How could he not be bitter and furious?
Happy childhood memories washed over him. Times spent with his siblings, his mother—the man he’d never had a reason to question as his father. How could they let him grow up believing he was a part of that? As a teen, he’d been grounded from his car for trying to pull a fast one. Yet she expected him to act as if nothing had changed for him. How hypocritical was that? Everything had changed.
Leaning against the driver’s door, he ran both hands through his hair. His mother had given him the answers, just as Maddie had said. And she was right. He definitely planned to call a lawyer. But a stranger couldn’t respond to the questions he had. In fact, there was one big one at the top of his list, one that overshadowed everything else.
“Who the hell am I?” he whispered into the dark night.
Chapter Three
A week after breaking the news to Luke, Madison stared at the blinking cursor on her office computer screen and silently begged it to spit out just the right words. He had taken her advice, made an appointment and would be there any minute. She had to hand him over to her associate. And she had to tell him she was going to have a baby. She’d done the test—several times, different brands. Pink and plus signs danced before her eyes until she couldn’t doubt it any longer. He had a right to know. But how could she dump that news on him now?
How could she not?
The intercom on her desk buzzed. She pushed the button. “Yes, Connie?”
“Mr. Marchetti is here to see you.”
“Send him in,” she said, then clicked off.
Moments later her office door opened, and in he walked. She was vaguely surprised that he wasn’t wearing business attire since it was the middle of the workday. But she had to admit his worn jeans and the black T-shirt that hugged his broad chest and muscular biceps could redefine business casual. As far as the females in the workforce were concerned.
The room seemed to shrink when he stood in front of her desk. Suddenly she didn’t have enough oxygen, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she had a tank of the stuff hooked up to a mask over her face. Besides it was a flammable chemical and could create a dangerous situation. Whenever she and Luke were in the same room they set off sparks like burning logs shifting in the fireplace. The stage was set for a monumental conflagration—emotional, personal, professional.
“Hello, Luke. How are you?”
“How do you think I am?”
She studied his face, the dark circles under his eyes, the deep creases bracketing his nose and mouth. He looked so tired. In spite of all her self-warnings, her heart went out to him before she could snatch it back. “Are you sleeping? You look awful.”
“Thanks very much,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking up. He sat in one of the powder-blue barrel-backed chairs in front of her desk. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black. You don’t look so hot yourself.”
There was a reason for that, but she couldn’t just blurt it out. He would start to think she was Typhoid Mary. Every time he saw her she told him something life altering. He would start avoiding her like the plague. That might be for the best, she thought, as at the same time something deep inside her protested.
“I’m fine. Busy.” She laced her trembling fingers together and rested her clasped hands on the paperwork piled on her desk. “What can I do for you?”
“I want to discuss the will.”
“You talked to your mother?”
He nodded. “She confirmed that Brad Stephenson is my biological father.”
“I’m so sorry, Luke. I know it will take some time for you to deal with all the ramifications—”
“Like his estate,” he said crisply. “We should get business out of the way first.”
She ignored his implication that he had a second reason for being there. Probably personal. She had to nip that in the bud. But disregarding the wave of heat radiating through her at the very idea was considerably more difficult. “I’ll buzz Nate McDonald,” she said starting to reach for the phone. “I’ll send you down the hall to his office if he’s available. He has the file.”
Luke leaned forward and stopped her with a soft touch from his large, warm hand. “I want you.”
A shiver raced over her arm and down her back from the physical contact, but mostly from the intensity in his gaze, focusing so unwaveringly on her. She swallowed hard. “I can’t. We already talked about this.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding with resignation. “I need to grovel. I suppose I deserve it.” He gently squeezed her hand, then removed his own. “I apologize for doubting you. I should never have questioned your honesty and integrity.”
“Apology unnecessary but gladly accepted,” she said, missing the warmth of his touch.
“Thanks. You’re very magnanimous. Now about the will. Do you want—”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand, 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 desperate.”
From the picture windows in his family room, Luke stared down at the lights in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. A vision of Maddie came to him. There was something so fragile about her. Was that why he couldn’t stay angry at her for turning him down?
That feeling didn’t extend to his parents. He didn’t blame Tom, except for the conspiracy of silence. But his mother… How could she sleep with another man, then live a lie? Worse, how could she let him live a lie?
Anger still burned hot in him, but before he could explore it further, the doorbell rang. Maddie had turned her back on him. There wasn’t anyone he was expecting or even wanted to see. He was tempted to ignore whoever was there, but something made him curious.
He opened the door and was surprised to see Maddie, holding a large brown bag. Before he could stop it, a sensation of pleasure welled up inside him.
“Hi,” he said. He pulled the door wide. “Come on in.”
“Thanks.”
“You brought food if my sense of smell is still working.” He sniffed. “And I’m guessing it didn’t come from a Marchetti restaurant.”
“I was craving Chinese.” Her sweet, hesitant smile burrowed inside him and surrounded his heart.
“Then I’m guessing you’re going to join me?” At her nod, he took the bag from her. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
“Okay.”
Her heels clicked on the entryway tile as she followed him, then went silent when they got to the plush beige living room carpet.
“I like your furniture,” she said, wryly commenting on the empty space. “It allows one’s imagination free rein.”
“I haven’t had a chance to furnish the room yet.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“A couple of years.”
“Ah. I see your dilemma of time versus motivation.” She slid him a saucy look. “Maybe you haven’t heard. There’s a handy little invention called a decorator. You just pick up the phone, tell them what you want and they do all the footwork. It can be done from the convenience of home or office.”
He glanced down at her and couldn’t help grinning. “Is that sass? From my attorney?”
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