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

"Yes."

He wished she wouldn't cry so hard. It couldn't be good for her.

He wished he was alone. So he could cry, too.

"You were just waiting around for the next guy to offer and that was me?''

"No." She took a deep breath, as though she was trying to get a grip. "No."

He found that hard to believe. Having spent the first sixteen years of his life witnessing the business, he had a little experience with how these things worked.

"I connected with clients by referral only," she told him, surprising him. "And then only after meet-

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

ing them myself. I was there that night to meet a friend of the party's host."

"And did you?" Like it mattered.

"How could I?" she asked him. "I was with you."

Oh, yeah. That.

"Can I ask you something?" He must not have sounded as calm as he felt, because she actually had compassion in her eyes as she turned and looked up at him. He would've thought they were full of love, except that now, of course, he knew they couldn't be.

"Yes," she said, "anything."

"Were you working when you spread your legs for me?"

He'd have given anything to take the words back, hadn't meant to be crude. Hadn't meant to hurt her. At least, he didn't think he had.

Only the back of the couch was between them, but he couldn't comfort her. Didn't know how.

"Would you believe me if I said no?"

Oddly enough, he would. Which didn't make any more sense than the rest of this horrendous conversation.

"Were you working?" he asked again. More insistently.

She sat up straight, still turned to face him, meeting his gaze head-on. "No, Kyle, I wasn't working. I never, ever, reciprocated when I worked."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Others took pleasure, / never did."

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

He needed it spelled out. "Surely a woman with that much experience knows how to enjoy sex."

"I knew how to make a man enjoy it. I knew how to pretend I was enjoying it." She shook her head. "But the first time I truly enjoyed sex, the only time I ever did, was that night with you."

This shouldn't mean so much. It shouldn't mean anything at all. "That wasn't the first time you…" He couldn't finish. Couldn't think about what they'd done that night. Not now. Not like this.

"It was my first climax, yes." She apparently wasn't as shy as he. But then, she wouldn't be. She'd had a bit more experience.

"After that you learned to enjoy it with others, right?" he asked, morbidly curious.

"No, Kyle." She looked him straight in the eye again, making him uncomfortable. "There's been no one else since then."

Ah. That hurt. Pain squeezed his insides until he thought he'd never breathe again. He loved her so damn much. And their night together had been so special to her there'd never been another.

Her career would have been so much easier to take if that night had meant nothing to her. Because then he could start convincing himself it meant nothing to him, either. How could it have mattered if he was the only one who'd felt the incredible bond between them?

Why couldn't those memories have been nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination? A particularly good fantasy?

"What are you thinking?" she asked softly.

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

Clutching the back of the couch, staring down at her, he told her the truth. "You don't want to know." His whole body ached with the effort it was costing him to stay calm. Unaffected.

"Yes, I do."

She was so cool. Even with cheeks still wet with tears, her composure was evident. He'd always liked that about her. Her self-control.

"I was wondering if Ashley's really mine."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

She was right back where she'd started. Disgraced. As if the last five years had never been. From her stepfather to Tom to the wealthy, older men of her college years to the father of her child doubting his paternity. But this time, as she came face-to-face with the kind of woman she was, there wasn't any shock, outrage, confusion. There was something much worse. Resignation.

Oh, and the pain. It never stopped. Jamie knew that now. The kind of hurt she'd inflicted on herself was eternal.

"She's yours," she said. Not for her sake. What he thought of her didn't matter anymore. But Ashley needed her father. She deserved him. They deserved each other—this good decent man and the innocent child he'd created.

' 'How can you be sure?'' Kyle asked, still standing behind the couch. ' 'Obviously there were many others."

Breathing sporadically, she held back tears, promising herself that she wouldn't let them fall. She needed to be able to rely on herself for strength.

"I never had unprotected sex before that night."

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

But that wasn't why she knew. Biology wasn't even why she knew. She knew in her heart.

"Accidents happen." He turned around, moved away from her, ending up over by the fireplace. He took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Do you know the names of all the men you were with in that last month? Would it even be possible to track them down, to narrow the child's parentage down to one man?"

She held up her head against the onslaught and faced the man she still loved. "Ashley needs you, Kyle. Please don't punish her for what I've done."

He blinked. "I'm not trying to punish her. I love her. Whether she's mine or not."

"Then don't punish yourself, either. Don't doubt what you know to be true."

Staring at her hard, he didn't move for several minutes. Solid and strong, he filled up her living room, her life, her heart.

Eventually, he reached the truth he'd had to reach. "She's mine," he admitted.

Jamie had known all along that he'd accept his fatherhood in every sense, biological as well as emotional. The special bond between them had brought them together in spite of what she'd been, and it still existed even now that he knew. It allowed him some kind of