Her Secret, His Child: A Little Secret by Tara Quinn (rosie project .txt) 📕

Ashley—the one where her two-year-old chubby cheeks were surrounded by a halo of riotous curls—was on the mantel. The little girl was wearing her most impish grin.

"Must be a relative," Kyle said, following her gaze. "She looks like you."

Her throat was so tight she couldn't have spoken if she'd had to save her life. Jamie nodded.

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"Looks too young to be a sister," he observed. "She your niece?"

She'd had sex with this man. Which made it almost impossible to understand why she still found him so damned attractive.

He seemed not to notice her silence as his gaze moved slowly around the room. Jamie's accompanied it. And landed on the pile of children's books under the coffee table at exactly the same time. Her eyes reached the baby doll tucked so carefully into the rocker before his. But only just.

It didn't take him long to put two and two together, college professor that he was.

"She's yours."

She'd always thought that when the world came to an end, it would do so with a lot of clanging noises and blurs of action. But then, that would be the whole world ending; this was only hers.

Kyle's gaze took another stroll around the room before coming back to rest on her.

"You have a daughter."

Crushing his envelope of papers between her fists, Jamie nodded again. He knows nothing. He knows nothing…

She repeated the words, like a catchy tune, over and over in her mind.

Relentless, watching her with his hard brown stare, he finally spoke. "You said you weren't married."

"I'm not."

"Where's her father?"

"Gone."

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"You loved him?"

"I thought I did."

He moved closer to the photo on the mantel, studying it—and her. "She must be about two."

And because he'd just given her an out, because she was desperate and didn't know what else to do, Jamie stood there, mute. Ashley had been two in that picture.

Her knees almost collapsed as he approached, his eyes warmer now. He reached out and brushed her cheek. "She looks very much like you—beautiful."

"Thank you." She forced herself not to flinch from his touch. Nor to press her face into it. She had to stay calm, satisfy his curiosity and get rid of him. Once and for all.

Glancing from the blanket she still clutched around her, to the cold hallway behind her, he said, "Where is she?"

"Away for the night." With the irrational thought that he might ask to see Ashley if he knew she was sleeping right next door, she scrambled for something else to say. "Visiting friends," she added.

He nodded, apparently satisfied, and Jamie relaxed just a little, giving herself a huge, if imaginary, pat on the back for an acting ability she'd forgotten she possessed.

"Here." She shoved the crumpled envelope at him. "Your completed forms."

If he thought it odd to have his accountant handing him his tax forms in a less-than-pristine condition, he was gentleman enough not to say so.

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He also didn't seem particularly interested in opening the manila envelope to examine them.

"I've x'd all the places you need to sign. If you have any questions just call."

He continued to stand there, assessing her. Making her nervous as hell.

"I'll be happy to mail them for you as soon as they're ready."

"Have dinner with me."

"I already ate."

"Won't you have to do so again sometime?"

Of course. In the morning. And at noon. And tomorrow night. With Ashley. "I don't date."

His eyes narrowed. "He burned you that badly?"

She couldn't have this conversation. Not with him. "I have different priorities now."

"You're no longer a woman?"

"I don't have to date to be a woman."

"Ah," he said, running his hand lightly through her hair. "But you're forgetting that I know how passionate you really are."

"That was a long time ago."

"Not so long, Jamie." The pad of his thumb brushed her lip. "See?" he asked, meeting her eyes with his own. "You still tremble for me."

"No, I don't." She pulled away from him. He couldn't be right. She couldn't let him be right. She had to remember the money. "I'm just cold."

"One dinner, Jamie," he said softly, all teasing gone. "One meal together, and if we don't find the conversation as stimulating as it was five years ago,

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if we find that we are indeed two different people now, then I won't bother you again."

"Not ever?" she whispered. Dear God, could she do it? Could she control her odd connection with this man for one evening?

"Never," he said. "You have my word."

Thinking of the little girl tucked securely in bed next door, of her daughter's quest to know her father, Jamie had no choice but to do whatever she had to do to protect Ashley's future. Including going to dinner with the one man who'd made her forget all the rules. Who'd made her forget, for a few short hours, that she was a woman men paid to take to bed, not a woman they gave their hearts to.

"How about Friday?" she whispered.

CHAPTER SIX

Over the years Jamie had perfected the art of coping. Of shutting down enough of her mind to get her through one day after another. Surviving. And so it was the rest of that week. She got through each day by concentrating on small moments, not big pictures.

The repairman came to fix her furnace, to the tune of only a couple of hundred dollars instead of the many hundreds she'd envisioned. That was a good thing. A small moment that got her through Wednesday.

On Wednesday night, after Ashley's bath and her bedtime story, Jamie gathered her daughter on her lap and plopped down on the floor beside Ashley's bed.

"We need to talk, punkin," she said softly. How to correct her child while at the same time making sure she understood that she wasn't to blame? To be honest with her without telling her the truth?

"What, Mommy?" Ashley's thumb went straight to her mouth.

"I guess most of the other kids at school have daddies, huh?"

Leaning sideways to look at Jamie with big ear-

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nest eyes, Ashley pulled