Книга - Covert Conception

Covert Conception
Delores Fossen


Natalie Sinclair was stunned to discover she'd been drugged - and impregnated.Even more shocking was the identity of her baby's father: Rick Gravari, her sworn enemy. Now the only way to uncover the truth and reveal the mastermind behind their mysterious one night together was to join forces with the one man who was completely off-limits.As the peril around them intensified, Natalie realized the dangerous men on their trail were nothing compared to the tender emotions provoked by her baby's father. But could she trust her once formidable foe's determination in his role as hard-nosed defender?









“Is this your idea of a bad joke?” Rick asked.


Natalie carefully studied his reaction. It was too similar to what her own reaction had been when she’d learned about her test results. She’d expected…what? An explanation that would cause all of this to make sense? However, it was obvious that Rick didn’t have any answers.

“How did this happen?” he amended.

She’d already asked herself that. At least a dozen times. And she knew that Rick was not a part of this—he wasn’t the sort of man that required drugging or any coercion to get a woman into bed. She didn’t know how it happened and her only clue was that surveillance video.

“I don’t know what happened. I need answers and that’s why I am here—because I am pregnant with our child….”




Covert Conception

Delores Fossen





















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Rickey. I can never thank you enough.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former U.S. Air Force captain Delores Fossen feels as if she was genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.




CAST OF CHARACTERS


Natalie Sinclair—Someone drugged her and her nemesis, Rick Gravari, so they’d have sex. Now, pregnant with Rick’s child, someone wants them both dead and Rick is her only hope. Can they overcome a bitter past and work together to save their child?

Rick Gravari—He’s more comfortable building custom motorcycles than he is in Natalie’s high-society world. But he’ll do whatever it takes to keep Natalie and his baby safe…even if that means moving in with the very woman he’s sworn to resist.

Dr. Claude Benjamin—Creator of the Cyrene Project, a plan to produce genetically superior babies. Can the doctor have changed his mind about continuing his research, and does he now want to eliminate them all?

Dr. Isabella Henderson—She also worked on the Cyrene Project, but now vehemently objects to it.

Carlton Gravari—How far will Rick’s uncle go to put an end to the Cyrene Project?

Macy Sinclair—Is Natalie’s flamboyant mother covering for someone, or is she too the victim of the Cyrene Project?

Troy Jackson—A product of the Cyrene Project, he holds a grudge against Rick and Natalie.

Brandon Steven—He has answers that Rick and Natalie need, but he’s not willing to share.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen




Chapter One


San Antonio, Texas

“You’re pregnant, Natalie.”

Natalie Sinclair blinked, stared at her sister, Kitt, and then waited because she was certain that Kitt was about to deliver the punch line of a silly joke.

But the punch line didn’t come.

Judging from Kitt’s expression, she was serious. However, Natalie was serious, too, and she knew for a fact there was no way she could be carrying a child.

“I haven’t had sex in over a year,” Natalie admitted. Though her sister no doubt already knew that. And it was the realization of the no doubt that caused any remaining amusement to vanish.

Pulling in her breath, Natalie set her teacup aside, the delicate bone china rattling against the saucer. Some of the Irish blend splashed onto a pair of entwined hand-painted yellow roses.

“Dr. Benjamin did the pregnancy test,” Kitt continued, her voice shaky and thin. “He called when you were in the meeting with the antique broker, and when I pressed him about what was wrong with you, he finally told me. You don’t have the flu, and you’re not anemic—”

“Stop right there. I can’t be pregnant.” Natalie waited for Kitt to agree to that, but her sister made no such acknowledgement. In fact, nothing about Kitt’s ultra-solemn expression changed. “But you think I am?”

Kitt nodded.

Okay. This obviously wasn’t some joke. Besides, Kitt wasn’t a joking kind of person. Still, there was no way this could be true.

No way.

Natalie shook her head. “The test is wrong.”

Kitt did some head-shaking of her own. “The doctor used your blood and urine samples to repeat it. Not once. But twice. And then he repeated it again at my request. All three times, the tests were positive. Based on the physical he gave you and those test results, Dr. Benjamin thinks you’re about four weeks pregnant.”

Forcing herself to remain calm and think this through, Natalie snapped her fingers in rapid succession. “I’ve heard about this sort of thing. They’re false-positive results. They have to be.”

Natalie was well aware that she sounded desperate.

And she was.

What was going on here?

Kitt didn’t respond to her false-positive theory. Instead, her sister turned the computer monitor around to face Natalie and typed in something on the keyboard. “You remember a couple of months ago I had surveillance cameras installed throughout the house?”

“Of course, I remember. Some items were missing, and we thought someone on the staff might be stealing from us. The surveillance tapes proved it.” And Natalie wasn’t pleased about this seemingly mundane topic when they had something not so mundane to clear up.

“I didn’t have the cameras removed after the problem was resolved,” Kitt continued. “I figured the extra security wouldn’t hurt.”

Impatient, Natalie huffed. “Is this leading somewhere, Kitt?”

“Unfortunately, yes. After I finished my conversation with Dr. Benjamin, I went back through the surveillance tapes for the past four weeks. I found something.”

Oh.

That nearly stopped Natalie’s heart.

“Explain something,” Natalie insisted.

Kitt typed in a code on the keyboard, and Natalie instantly recognized the video feed that appeared on the screen. Nearly a month earlier.

The night of her surprise twenty-ninth birthday party.

Though Natalie was familiar with the scene, it wasn’t an entirely pleasant memory. She’d arrived back in San Antonio from a week-long antique-buying trip in Ireland and had stopped by Dr. Benjamin’s office because she was sick. The diagnosis was an upper respiratory infection. The doctor had done some lab tests and given her prescription meds. By the time she made it home, she had been exhausted, ready to fall face-first into bed. Only instead of bed, she’d discovered that her mother had assembled three dozen or so of her close and not-so-close friends for a surprise birthday celebration.

“Are you saying this is when the so-called pregnancy happened?” Natalie asked. “Because, trust me, I would have remembered something as monumental as having sex with one of the guests.”

Though Natalie had to admit to herself that some of the night was a complete blur. She blamed the big blur on the prescription meds. Of course, the fatigue from the business trip hadn’t helped, either. She’d felt like a zombie throughout the entire party. Still, her zombie-haze wouldn’t explain that pregnancy test.

“Just watch,” Kitt instructed.

Even with Kitt fast-forwarding the event, Natalie had no trouble spotting her mother, Macy, in the crowd that had gathered in the foyer to say their goodbyes. With her Marilyn Monroe platinum-blond hair, curvy body and dazzling smile, Macy had a way of monopolizing space and drawing attention to herself.

Then, Natalie spotted someone else.

Rick Gravari.

She automatically frowned. Rick had a way of monopolizing space as well, but in a totally different way. Wearing jeans and a white shirt, he appeared his usual self. Aloof. Surly. Her mother had no doubt invited him, but he definitely fell into the unwanted-guest category. Natalie had spent the evening avoiding and ignoring him, and was thankful he’d done the same to her.

Natalie dismissed her surly, jeans-wearing nemesis and continued to study the surveillance tape. As the guests idled by the front door, she managed to locate herself. Alone. Her head down with her chin practically touching her chest. Leaning against the wall next to the fireplace. She definitely wasn’t in the throes of having wild sex.

The video stopped, and a second later, the screen became blank.

“Something went wrong with the surveillance equipment at this point,” Kitt explained. “I’m not sure what. But that’s not the only camera we had in operation that night.” Kitt typed in something else on the keyboard. “The lighting isn’t very good, but here’s some footage taken from the hall outside your bedroom. The time lapse is about a half hour from the segment you were just watching.”

The hall was indeed poorly lit. And empty. It didn’t stay that way for long. Natalie soon saw the approaching couple. Mere shadows moving within the shadows.

“There’s no camera in your bedroom so this is all we have,” Kitt explained. She latched onto her Texas A&M coffee mug, took a long drink of the heavily scented espresso, and that’s when Natalie noticed that her sister’s hand was trembling. “Still, I think it’s enough.”

“Well, it’s not much.”

Natalie couldn’t see the faces of the couple, and without audio, she couldn’t tell who was approaching her bedroom door. At least, she couldn’t tell until the figures got closer to the camera.

Then, Natalie realized that she was one of those shadowy figures.

Seeing herself, however, didn’t jog any memories. She had absolutely no recollection of being in the hallway that night though she was certainly aware it’d happened. After all, she had woken up in bed the following morning.

Alone.

Still, hadn’t she had a feeling that something was wrong? A feeling she’d dismissed.

Maybe she shouldn’t have.

And with that uncomfortable thought repeating in her head, Natalie moved to the edge of her seat, closer to the monitor. And she studied every inch of the screen. Praying. Hoping. That whatever image appeared, there would be a plausible explanation for it.

Natalie watched herself as she slowly approached her bedroom. The person walking beside her had his arm looped around her waist.

It was definitely a man.

He was at least a head taller than she was and outsized her by at least fifty pounds. And neither of them was too steady. When she reached the door, she staggered forward, and her arm rammed into the wall. The reaction on her face could have been either pain or giddiness.

Sweet heaven, she acted drunk.

But she knew for a fact that she’d consumed no alcohol that night. The only thing she’d had to drink was a glass of sparkling fruit juice that someone on the catering staff had gotten for her shortly after she arrived home.

“Okay, here it is,” Kitt said.

Natalie waited and watched. The man in the video turned, shifting his weight. So did Natalie, except she wasn’t as graceful. He barely managed to catch her before she stumbled again. Once he had her semi-steady, he kissed her. She didn’t resist. In fact, she kissed him back and groped behind her to open her bedroom door. And that’s when the security camera and the meager lighting worked together to catch his face.

Kitt froze the image. Not that Natalie needed a second look to know who he was.

The man taking her into her bedroom was the one person on earth she considered her enemy.

Rick Gravari.




Chapter Two


Rick Gravari pushed himself away from the custom Harley he was building and glanced at the Pennzoil clock mounted on the back wall of his shop.

It was already past five-thirty.

Less than an hour to closing time, and there was at least a half day’s work left to do.

“Hell,” Rick grumbled.

He used his forearm to mop the sweat from his forehead and neck, and then he cursed the air-conditioning. Why had it picked the hottest day of the year to go out?

There wasn’t much of a chance he’d get any of his four mechanics to stay late. Not on a Saturday. And not with the broken air conditioner. Overtime, a pizza and complete use of every fan in the place might be enough enticement for Hal, the head mechanic, but it’d be midnight before Hal and he could finish all the service orders on their own.

The phone rang, again, and Rick walked through the motorcycle clutter, fans and tools toward his equally cluttered office. Along the way, he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drank some and poured the rest over his head. The cold liquid snaked down his face and back.

It didn’t help.

Slinging off the excess water, he snatched up the phone from his desk and grabbed a service order so he could close out the Harley job. A little multi-tasking might get him out of here a few minutes earlier.

The caller was the soon-to-be owner of a custom bike who said he wouldn’t be able to pick it up until at least Wednesday. Rick considered it a blessing. One down, too many to go.

Most days, he loved his job. He loved having his own business. Loved working with his hands to build custom motorcycles and repair them.

But today wasn’t one of those days.

“Hey, Rick? You’ll wanta take a look at this,” Hal called out when Rick hung up the phone.

Hoping they weren’t about to get another customer, whom he’d almost certainly have to turn away, Rick glanced through the porthole-shaped window that separated his office from the reception-waiting area. The only person there was Bennie, one of the mechanics, who was at the cash register ringing up a client.

“In the front parking lot,” Hal added.

Before the last syllable had left Hal’s mouth, Rick was already looking in that direction. Specifically at the vehicle that’d just pulled up in front of the shop. A sleek platinum-colored sports car. As expensive as they came.

The driver’s door eased open, and thanks to the tinted window and the door itself, the only thing Rick saw of their visitor was a foot. One wearing a sexy, three-inch heel that was almost the same color as the car.

It was like watching a striptease. A delicate hand slid over the top of the driver’s-side window and door. Perfectly manicured nails—the color of ripe raspberries—gripped the glass and metal. The other foot touched down on the concrete. Graceful. Like a dancer getting ready to strut her stuff.

Rick felt like fanning himself, and it wasn’t all a result of the broken A/C, either. It’d been a while since he’d taken the time to appreciate the sight of a woman. This was a reminder that he truly needed a life outside the shop.

Correction: he needed a life, period.

Inch by inch, the top of their visitor’s head came into view as she rose from the seat. Honey-blond hair cut short and choppy. Fashionable but not overly done. It still looked touchable, and he could almost feel his fingers sliding through it.

But then, the striptease came to a non-gratifying, abrupt halt.

Rick’s gaze landed on her mouth. A full, sensual mouth covered with just enough gloss to make it noticeable. And notice it he did. Even though he hadn’t immediately recognized the hair, he knew that mouth. It was the mouth of a woman he hadn’t expected to show up at his shop. A woman he definitely didn’t want to see. Not now. Not ever.

Natalie Sinclair.

She used her elbow to push the car door shut, eased off her sunglasses and started toward the shop entrance. No cautious footsteps for her. Just the long determined stride of a woman who appeared to be on some sort of a mission.

The muggy summer breeze flirted with her turquoise suit, fluttering the slim skirt around the tops of her knees. And even slightly higher. He saw a good portion of her toned and tanned right thigh. Rick obviously wasn’t the only one to notice that because Hal mumbled something about being in lust.

Rick understood completely.

He felt the lust.

And he wanted to kick himself hard for feeling it.

Thank goodness that lust was tempered with a hefty dose of reality and vivid, godawful memories. That lust had already cost a man his life, and it didn’t matter how good she looked, Rick had made a solemn promise that he’d have no part of Natalie Sinclair.

Now, the question was—did she want a part of him?

He didn’t mean that in a sexual sense, either. Rick knew Natalie would never think of him that way again. However, she had left her high-and-mighty estate and driven all the way downtown to his shop—which wasn’t located in the best part of the city. She wouldn’t have done that for just any old reason. Plus, judging from the tightness around her mouth, she was seriously riled. And she no doubt planned to aim that riled-ness at him.

Why?

He had a darn good guess. Maybe because he’d shown up at her surprise birthday party? If so, a month was a long time to hold onto that much anger.

But then, this was Natalie.

By the time she stepped inside the shop, all the mechanics and customers had stopped to gawk. It wasn’t unwarranted. Natalie was attractive. Not drop-dead gorgeous, either. Her face was much more interesting than the surgically perfect socialites who were part of her world. It was an honest face. A face with character. A few tan freckles on her nose. A dimple in her chin.

Natalie had the brains to go with that interesting face, too. Everything she’d done in life was the best. She’d graduated from college with honors, on an athletic scholarship no less. As if that weren’t enough, she’d built from the ground up one of the most successful antique shops in the state.

Rick stayed put, gawking at her just as the others were doing. Waiting to see what she wanted. He heard her ask Hal if “the boss” was around, but before Hal could answer, her deep-violety blue eyes slid in his direction. Through the glass, their gazes met. And held.

Natalie didn’t even attempt an obligatory smile or offer him a semi-polite nod. Not that he expected it. They were well past the stage of exchanging even fake greetings.

She made her way through the reception area and into the work bay. It was a cemetery of motorcycles and pieces of motorcycles in various stages of repair, disrepair or assembly. Tools, fans and spare parts littered what little floor space there was. The air was heavy not just with heat and humidity but with old oil and gas fumes. Hardly a fitting place for Natalie Sinclair.

He briefly lost sight of her when she meandered around the Harley that he’d just finished, but Rick could hear her heels clicking on the bare cement. And those heel clicks got louder and louder until she appeared in the doorway.

Her gaze landed on him again, and she slid her eyes from his hair, which was still soaking wet, down to his T-shirt. Also drenched. Not just drenched from the water he’d poured over his head, either, but from an ample amount of sweat. If she’d been any other woman, Rick would have wished for a shower and a shave before facing her.

But she wasn’t any other woman.

There was no need to impress Natalie. She hated him. And he felt no love for her, either. In many ways, that made things a lot easier between them. He’d long ago come to terms with their animosity.

Not the attraction though.

“Are you lost?” Rick asked, just so he could make sure his mouth was working.

She stepped inside and slammed the door shut.

Oh, yeah. She was riled.

The stuffed-to-the-brim office was barely big enough for one person, so Rick had to work hard to keep some space between them. He leaned his shoulder against the filing cabinet, folded his arms over his chest and generally tried to appear surly. With the unbearable heat and her impromptu visit, it wasn’t a difficult look to achieve.

He hoped.

She stared at him. Nope, it was a glare. And it was a glare through slightly swollen, reddened eyes.

Had she been crying?

Odd. Natalie wasn’t a crier.

“I want you to know that I intend to have you arrested,” she announced.

Okay. So much for his ploy to be laid back. Her greeting captured Rick’s complete attention. “For what? Attending your birthday party?”

Her glare got worse, and her teeth came together. “Attending it wasn’t all you did.”

He was certain his confused look intensified. “Care to explain that?”

She aimed her index finger at him. “You’re the one who needs to explain.”

Rick mentally went through any and all of the possibilities, but he didn’t come up with one that would warrant this kind of strong reaction.

“Look, we can trade smartass remarks and pointing fingers for hours, but I have a business to run,” Rick reminded her. “So, if you’re here because you’re in a snit about your mother inviting me to the party, then you can get right back in your overpriced car and head home. Because I’m not apologizing. Macy begged me to come to your party, and I came as a favor to her. End of story.”

Natalie used her fingertips to blot the perspiration from above her upper lip, but she was blotting so hard that Rick was surprised that she wasn’t leaving bruises on her skin. “Are you saying nothing out of the ordinary happened that night?”

Rick had already opened his mouth to say you bet nothing happened, but he had to take one giant pause.

Something had happened.

Someone had slipped something into his drink.

His silence seemed to rile her even more, and Natalie flipped open her purse and extracted a small silver handheld DVD player. She deposited it on his desk and pointed to the sole chair in the room. “I think you’ll want to sit down for this next part.”

“No thanks.” That chair would put him even closer to her, and Rick wanted all the distance between them that he could get. “I don’t expect this’ll take long anyway. I’m not into home movies, and we don’t have much to say to each other.”

Natalie flexed her eyebrows in a suit-yourself, you’ll-regret-it gesture, sat on the edge of his desk next to the DVD player and jabbed the play button. “This is the security film from the night of my party,” she explained. Her voice was strained with emotion. “It was taken in the hall just outside my bedroom.”

When Rick saw a couple on the small screen, he bit off another surly question about what this could possibly have to do with him. Instead, he concentrated on the images. However, it took him several moments to make out exactly what he was seeing.

Natalie and him.

Or rather it was a couple who looked like Natalie and him. Because there was no way it could actually be them.

Not caring for the sickening feeling that suddenly came over him, Rick pushed himself away from the filing cabinet and moved closer to study the images on the screen. “Are you going to tell me why you doctored this video?”

Outrage flashed in her eyes, but she didn’t voice it. The rush of emotion seemed to make her queasy. Or maybe it was the sweltering heat. Because she wiped away the perspiration again and slid her hand over her stomach as if to steady it. “I didn’t doctor it.”

“Then someone did,” he fired back.

“Kitt checked,” Natalie explained. Her breath was uneven now, and the color was draining from her cheeks. “The images haven’t been altered.”

“The hell they haven’t.” Rick watched as the couple got closer and closer to Natalie’s bedroom door.

The couple staggered. The woman’s right arm banged against the doorjamb. The man didn’t fare much better. He crossed in front of her. Staggered as well. And his left shoulder hit against the wall.

That caused Rick’s mouth to turn to dust.

The couple’s awkward intimate dance continued until the man caught the woman. She went into his arms. Willingly. Their bodies came together. Mouths, too.

In a desperate, hungry kiss.

“I know for a fact that I would have remembered that,” Rick insisted in a rough whisper.

Natalie swallowed hard enough that he could hear it. But what she didn’t do was agree with him. Instead, she froze the images and pointed to the woman’s right arm. “I had a bruise there the morning after my party. I didn’t know then how I’d gotten it.”

Hell.

Rick waited for the other shoe to fall.

She pointed to the man’s left shoulder. To the spot that had rammed into the wall. “Did you have a bruise or any kind of mark?”

Rick didn’t even have to think about it. “Yeah. I figured I’d gotten it here at work.”

Natalie’s posture and bearing were suddenly as unsteady as the couple in the video. “I don’t think you got that bruise here.”

It took him a moment to get his teeth unclenched so he could speak. “Are you saying you think that happened?” Rick asked. “You really believe the two of us had a hot and heavy kissing session outside your bedroom door?”

She closed her eyes. Paused. Gathered her breath. “I don’t think the hot and heaviness stopped there. I believe we went inside my bedroom and finished what we started.”

Her eyelids lifted, and she met his gaze head-on. “I’m four weeks pregnant. And judging from that video, you’re the baby’s father.”




Chapter Three


“Is this your idea of a bad joke?” Rick asked.

Natalie carefully studied his reaction—his iron jaw, his narrowed gunmetal-gray eyes and thunder-struck expression—and she quickly realized she didn’t care for any of it. It was too similar to what her own reaction had been when Kitt first told her about the test results.

She’d expected…what?

A confession?

Perhaps an explanation that would cause all of this to make sense?

Or maybe that’s what she hoped he would do, help her make sense of the situation. A miracle of sorts. However, it was obvious Rick didn’t have answers or a miracle. Or if he had them, he wasn’t ready to share them with her.

That didn’t mean he was innocent in all of this.

“Please tell me this is a joke,” he amended.

“Are you saying you didn’t orchestrate what happened?” Natalie countered.

He looked at her as if her ears were on backwards. “You’re damn right that’s what I’m saying.”

And he was adamant about it, too.

Natalie suddenly felt even more desperate, and it was desperation that made her toss the next question at him. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I’m telling you the truth, that’s why.” Rick opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head. Cursed. “Hell’s bells, Natalie, do you really believe I’d drug you so I could sleep with you?”

She’d already asked herself that. At least a dozen times. And during none of that personal questioning had she convinced herself that Rick would do something like this. He wasn’t the sort of man who required drugging or any coercion to get a woman into bed.

“I’m pregnant,” she restated. “I don’t know how it happened, and my only clue is that surveillance video. I need answers, and that’s why I’m here.”

He shook his head. “What you need is to have the pregnancy test repeated.”

“I’ve already done that.” She was up to a dozen times of watching for minus signs on little urine-soaked white plastic sticks. She’d try a dozen more if necessary, praying for one negative result. “They’ve all been positive.”

“Then, you need to see a doctor right away,” Rick quickly suggested.

“I did that a few hours ago. I had an ultrasound and a thorough examination. There’s definitely a baby.”

He cursed again, made his way to the chair, gripped the armrest and dropped down onto the seat. “This can’t be happening. The tests, the doctor, the ultrasound and the video are all wrong. They have to be.”

She’d had that reaction, too. Denial. It’d taken hours to get past just the tip of it. But she couldn’t afford Rick that same amount of time to work through his issues. She had an eerie feeling that time wasn’t on their side. “I need you to think back through—”

“Something happened that night,” he interrupted. But he didn’t say anything else.

Natalie froze. Waited. She forced herself to stay calm. “Obviously something happened,” she said when Rick just sat there.

He glanced at her stomach. “I didn’t mean that. I mean I blacked out.”

Her heart had been racing before that, but she could have sworn it stopped mid-beat. Natalie shook her head. “When? How?”

But before he could answer, the phone rang. He waved it off, but the ringing continued and when he perused his shop and apparently realized his employees were all busy, he reached across the desk and answered the phone.

Natalie actually welcomed the interlude. Yes, they needed to get to the bottom of this. Yes, she desperately needed to know what’d happened to her. To them. But she also needed a moment to compose herself. Right now, a thin thread of composure was the only thing that prevented her from screaming. And she didn’t want to lose it in front of Rick.

What was going on?

What?

Natalie had been asking herself that for a day and a half and was afraid she wasn’t any closer to the truth than she had been when Kitt had first dropped this bombshell.

She was pregnant.

Pregnant!

With a child she couldn’t even remember conceiving.

Unplanned motherhood alone would have been more than enough to deal with, but motherhood under these circumstances was terrifying.

“I’ll get that work order,” she heard Rick say at the end of a heavy, frustrated sigh.

He stood, brushed past her. He was so close that she had no trouble catching his scent. With the nonexistent A/C, the steamy claustrophobic office and the fact that he’d obviously just finished a long day of manual labor, his body odor should have been offensive.

It wasn’t.

Far from it.

Oh, there was sweat all right. His white cotton T-shirt was practically soaked, and the snug fabric strained across his toned pecs and arms. His hair was wet as well. His slightly too-long coffee-colored hair fell, permanently disheveled, almost to his shoulders. But he didn’t smell sweaty. He somehow managed to smell, well, manly.

He snatched one of the forms from the top of the filing cabinet and read off some figures. Because her energy seemed sapped and her pulse had turned thick and syrupy, Natalie simply sat on the edge of his desk, watching and listening. Waiting for him to finish—without a clue what they would say to each other once he was done. None of her life experiences had prepared her for this.

Rick’s movements were jerky. Stiff. Angry. And he kept casting glances her way. Natalie was casting some his way as well.

Sweet heaven, if she thought for one minute that he’d had any voluntary part in this, she would have had him arrested. Except an arrest wouldn’t really have given her answers.

Nor would it change what had happened.

She slid her hand over her stomach. A baby. Even though she’d seen the ultrasound, it didn’t seem real. Maybe once she understood the circumstances, once she’d heard a plausible explanation—any explanation—maybe then she could come to terms with this. It wasn’t logical, but at the moment, she needed that hope.

Rick said an abrupt goodbye to the caller and slammed down the phone as if he’d declared war on it. In the same motion, he waved off one of his employees who was trying to get his attention through the small window.

“What exactly do you remember about that night?” Rick demanded.

The answer was readily available on the tip of her tongue—mainly because she’d already asked herself the same question again and again. “I was on prescription meds, and I was exhausted. So, most of the party is a little blurry.”

“How could we not remember that?” He pointed to the frozen image of them on the screen.

“I don’t know.”

He made a sound of agreement. It blended with his jagged huffs of breaths. “How do we know it really happened? Those people could be actors.”

“They aren’t. Kitt had the images enhanced, and if they’re actors, then they’re exact replicas of us, right down to my freckles and that little scar on the left side of your neck that you got fly-fishing when you were a kid.”

He threw his hands in the air before dropping them to his hips. “Then, maybe that’s what they are—actors with very authentic makeup.”

She gave a weary been-there-done-that sigh. “I would love it if that were true. But it wouldn’t explain the bruise on my arm. Or the bruise on your shoulder. And it certainly wouldn’t explain this pregnancy.”

“Maybe the pregnancy happened some other time,” he fired back.

For some reason, a reason Natalie didn’t want to explore, that stung. Yet, Rick certainly had a right to ask that. If their positions had been reversed, she would certainly want to know.

“I haven’t had sex in over a year,” Natalie explained. Not easily. Discussing her love life—or lack thereof—with Rick Gravari wasn’t tops on her list of favorite things to do. “At least, I haven’t had sex that I know about.”

He cocked his head to the side and gave her a flat look. “And you think you unknowingly had sex with me?”

Weary of the questions and the verbal battle between them, she tipped her head back to the screen. “It’s you in that video, Rick. But if you’re looking for definitive proof, I don’t have it. The video can’t be further enhanced. There’s no footage from a different angle that might give us a clearer image. And it’s too early to do a DNA test to prove paternity. I asked,” she added when his flat look was no longer so flat.

That caused a slight lift of his eyebrow. Natalie responded by lifting an eyebrow of her own. And by asking one very important question. “You said you blacked out at the party. What happened?”

He didn’t respond right away. Rick groaned softly and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Your caterer, I think.”

The fit of temper that Natalie had nourished and fed suddenly cooled. “What does the caterer have to do with any of this?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.” He paused, caught her gaze. “Someone put something in my drink.”

Natalie considered what he was saying. “You think that someone was the caterer?”

He nodded. “The only thing I had to eat or drink that night was at your party.”

“That proves nothing.”

Or did it? Because someone on the catering staff, a man, had given her a drink as well. Sparkling fruit juice. It’d had a somewhat bitter tang to it. At the time Natalie had attributed the taste to her prescription meds.

“No. But the lab test I had done proves something,” Rick corrected.

That captured Natalie’s complete attention. “What lab test?”

There was no sign of cockiness or victory in his stormy gray eyes. There was only frustration and yes, lots of anger and confusion. “When I woke up that morning after the party, I realized I didn’t have a clue how I’d gotten home. My motorcycle was there, parked outside the garage, a place I’d never leave it. Never. Since I felt like hell, I went to see my doctor right away. He ran some tests, and the lab found a substance in my blood.”

“What kind of substance?” Natalie asked.

Rick shook his head. “It was some kind of narcotic. My doctor had no idea what it was so he sent it out for further testing. The lab is still trying to identify it.”

Natalie was so glad she was sitting down. If she hadn’t been, that would have sent her in search of a chair. She felt a couple of steps past being light-headed. But she wasn’t so light-headed that she didn’t immediately spot an inconsistency in his account.

“Why didn’t you go to the police with this?” Natalie demanded.

“And tell them what, exactly? That maybe someone at your party slipped an unspecified narcotic into my drink? I decided I’d wait for the lab results before I started pointing any fingers. Of course, that was before I saw that surveillance video. I’m ready to do some finger-pointing now.”

Natalie shifted her position slightly, trying to find some kind of equilibrium both mentally and physically. “Why would someone on the catering staff have drugged you?”

“I’ve asked myself that a dozen times, and the only thing I could come up with was maybe it wasn’t intentional. Maybe the beer was contaminated or something.”

“Then why wasn’t anyone else affected?” she immediately asked.

He stared at her and waited for her to draw her own conclusions. It didn’t take long. Rick was likely the only person at the party drinking beer. It was indeed a champagne crowd. But then, she was probably the only one who’d had sparkling fruit juice.

And that in turn meant it would have been fairly easy to drug them.

That explained the how, but it certainly didn’t explain the who and why.

“I don’t know the caterer,” she continued. “And I don’t know the man who handed me my drink.”

But she could find out, and that’s exactly what she intended to do.

Natalie checked her watch. It was nearly 6:00 p.m. and she wished for more hours in the day, because her list of things to do was growing. “I want to talk to your doctor and the lab technician who ran the test on you. I’ll also want to talk to my mother, since she’s the one who hired the caterer. She’ll be home from her therapy session by now. I’ll call her.”

Rick caught onto her wrist when she reached into her purse for her phone. “Think this through. If you start asking questions about the caterer, your mother will want to know why. And she won’t quit until she gets the truth. The whole truth. So, if you plan to tell her about the baby tonight, you won’t want to do that over the phone.”

That was true. Natalie only wished she’d thought of it first.

“We’ll drive over there and talk to her,” Rick insisted, keeping hold of her wrist.

Natalie shook off his grip. “We?”

“We,” he confirmed. Without warning, he peeled off his damp T-shirt, grabbed a clean one from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and slipped it on. “I want to get to the bottom of this, too, and I want as much information as we can get about this caterer.”

Natalie almost argued with him. Mainly because it was natural to argue with Rick about any- and everything. But he had a point. The caterer or someone on his or her staff could have orchestrated all of this.

After all, someone had cleaned up the “crime scene.”

Someone had gotten both Rick and his motorcycle back to his house. Someone had dressed her for bed and discarded any evidence that anything out of the ordinary had happened. So that meant someone at her party had been involved on a very personal level. Her mother was the first step to figuring out whom.

And they could do that after they told Macy about the pregnancy.

Natalie was already dreading the conversation. It would be messy. Her mother just wasn’t very good at handling contingencies, and this pregnancy definitely fell into that category. There’d be tears and perhaps hours of melodrama. Unfortunately, her mother had to know.

Rick grabbed his keys from the desk and headed for the door. Natalie was right behind him.

“We’ll take my car,” she insisted.

Rick glanced over his shoulder and gave her that look. One she instantly recognized. And hated. She called it his blue-collar/chip-on-the-shoulder glare.

“This has nothing to do with the price of my vehicle,” she pointed out. “It’s just I’m conveniently parked right out front, and I’m not exactly dressed to climb onto the back of your Harley.”

He made a sound to indicate he didn’t believe her explanation.

She made a sound to indicate she didn’t care what he thought.

It was going to be a long drive to Macy’s.

“Besides,” she added, “riding a motorcycle in my condition wouldn’t be smart. And even you can’t argue with that.”

He didn’t.

With both of them still stewing and no doubt asking themselves a dozen unanswerable questions, Rick let one of his employees know that he needed to run an errand before they got into her car.

Natalie hadn’t thought the tension could get any worse, but she was obviously wrong. Without the noise and the distraction of the shop, the silence settled uncomfortably between them. And with each additional moment of silence, Natalie became more and more upset. More and more frightened.

More and more incensed.

Why was this happening?

Why had she become pregnant with Rick’s child?

Rick, of all people.

They had so much bad blood between them. Too much. But it hadn’t always been that way. Rick and she had known each other since childhood, and her mother had tried to get them together for years. Why, it was never clear to Natalie, but apparently Macy felt that Rick and she were the “perfect couple” destined to lead the “perfect life.”

Ironic.

Because her family was old money. To the proverbial manor born. Rick, on the other hand, was a self-made businessman with a keen sense of turning nothing into plenty of something. No Ivy League degree for him. No degree at all. He’d shunned his parents’ investment business and had become everything they hadn’t wanted him to be—the owner of a custom motorcycle shop. Yet, the normally socially conscious Macy had seemingly overlooked all of that so she could encourage a relationship that Natalie and Rick knew would never happen.

And it wouldn’t happen because of that one lapse in judgment three years earlier.

Neither Rick nor she had had much luck coping with that lapse. Hell on earth wasn’t just a meaningless expression for them. They were living it.

“You’re totally certain about this pregnancy?” Rick asked.

Natalie almost preferred the silence to the question. There was none of that chip-on-the-shoulder animosity in his voice, which meant all of this was likely sinking in, and he wasn’t taking it too well.

“Dead certain,” she assured him.

Rick shook his head, leaned forward. “I don’t remember even speaking to you that night.”

“Same here,” she agreed.

“Yet according to that video, we ended up in the hall outside your bedroom. Kissing. Touching…”

Oh, yes. Definitely kissing. Definitely touching. They’d been all over each other—literally.

Though she knew it wasn’t possible, especially since she hadn’t remembered anything else, Natalie could have sworn she recalled that kiss.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and it was as if that one glance opened the hormonal floodgates. There were still no specific memories for the night of the party. But there were other memories, ones that were best forgotten.

As was Rick.

And she’d spent the last three years trying not to remember that he was the most unforgettable man she’d ever known.

It was hard to believe all of his mismatched features could add up to something extraordinary. But heaven help the female population, they did. The olive, bronzy skin: a DNA contribution from his Greek father. Those sizzling gray eyes framed with indecently long lashes. The cheekbones of a Celtic warrior. She’d yet to meet a woman of any age or any background who hadn’t found Rick Gravari hot.

Including her.

Much to her disgust.

That one kiss they’d shared three years ago, that one short lapse in judgment had caused someone to die. Not just someone though. Someone they both loved.

“David,” she said under her breath.

A little over three years ago David had asked her to marry him. She’d said yes, even though David knew she didn’t love him. He also knew she was looking for an out, a way to stop her mother’s relentless matchmaking. That’s why Natalie had agreed to be his fiancée. But not his wife. She’d told him upfront that there would be no marriage.

David obviously had thought he could change her mind.

Natalie had thought an engagement ring would stop her from wanting Rick. It hadn’t. One night, Rick and she had run into each other at a party. They’d talked. Had too much to drink. Had gotten way too close. One thing led to another, and they kissed.

Just as David walked in on them.

Obviously feeling betrayed by his two best friends, David had swallowed what turned out to be a lethal dose of sleeping pills. He’d died in the ER only a few hours later.

David’s death would always be with Rick and her. It would always connect them.

And it would always keep them apart.

At least Natalie had been sure of that until now. Until this pregnancy.

She was carrying Rick’s baby. That was the one element that neither of them could dismiss. And it was the element that had brought them together.

“Take the next turn to get to Commerce Street,” Rick instructed. “And don’t put on your blinker.”

“Why?” she immediately asked, forcing herself out of her troubling thoughts.

“Just do it.”

And for some reason unknown to her, she obeyed him. Maybe it was because she had no fight or argument left in her, but it also had something to do with that suddenly intense expression on Rick’s face.

“Do you recognize that SUV behind us?” Rick asked.

Natalie’s attention flew to the rearview mirror. There was indeed a black SUV following closely behind them. “No. Why?”

“Because it’s been behind us since we left the shop.”

“It’s probably a coincidence.” This particular street wasn’t the busiest in the city, but it did lead to several main intersections.

“Maybe.” But he didn’t sound as if he believed that.

Natalie, on the other hand, decided to hope for the best. She’d already had enough thrown at her for one day without borrowing more trouble.

“Take the next left,” Rick told her.

Without turning on her signal, she waited until the last possible second to make the turn. She was going a little too fast, and the tires squealed in protest.

She checked the mirror again.

The SUV made the same slightly out-of-control turn.

Her heart went into overdrive. That turn didn’t seem to be a coincidence. It seemed deliberate. But why would someone be following them?

“Speed up,” Rick insisted.

Natalie did, and the SUV followed suit. In fact, it continued to mimic her actions when Natalie slowed down and switched lanes.

What the devil was going on?

With that scary question pounding in her head, Natalie slammed her foot on the accelerator and pushed her car well over the speed limit.

The driver of the SUV followed them.




Chapter Four


Rick hadn’t thought this day could get any worse.

But he’d obviously thought wrong.

He didn’t have a clue why that SUV was following them, but it was. He had no doubts about that. Coupled with the drugged sex/baby news, Rick was ready to concede that he was in the middle of one crazy dream.

Except this was too real to be a dream.

“Turn right,” Rick instructed Natalie.

She didn’t argue, but he could see the concern all over her face. She was chewing on her bottom lip, and she had a white knuckle death grip on the steering wheel. Still, she made that right turn and sped up. Once again, the SUV stayed right on their bumper.

Both Natalie and he cursed.

“What now?” Natalie asked.

It was too risky to have her stop so he could confront the other driver because Rick had no idea who or what they were dealing with—carjackers, someone with a case of road rage or idiots who’d taken a car out for a joyride. Natalie might be hurt in a confrontation, especially since she probably wouldn’t just stay put and let him handle it.

Still, he had to do something.

He pointed to an upcoming intersection. “Take that turn, and drive toward the police station on Arbor Street.”

Rick also considered calling the cops, to report what was going on, but he realized he might sound a little paranoid. And he likely was. Besides, if he made the call, there’d be a police report, and he might have to bring up the drugging and the pregnancy. He didn’t want to do that yet. Not until they’d spoken to Macy and gotten the information about the caterer.

Natalie took the next turn that would get them to the police station. “What’s going on?” she asked. There was more than a tad of desperation in her voice, and though he hadn’t thought it possible, she was gripping that steering wheel even harder than before.

Rick didn’t mention his theory about road rage or carjackers. Instead, he went with the most benign scenario. “It’s probably kids taking their parents’ car for a joyride.”

But he couldn’t discount that this was yet another incident of unnerving things that just didn’t make sense. First, someone had drugged them. From the looks of that video, it’d been a date-rape-type drug. Or maybe some weird, powerful aphrodisiac that’d induced memory loss.

And why?

So that Natalie and he would head to her bedroom and therefore place themselves in a compromising position?

Was that it?

Had this really been some sort of elaborate blackmail or revenge scheme? Had someone taken pictures of them having sex and was that person planning to use them in some sinister way?

He gave that some thought and decided that didn’t make sense, either.

Nothing about this made sense.

Neither Natalie nor he was married. Nor were either involved in a relationship. It was the same for their jobs. Their businesses wouldn’t be adversely affected if their customers learned they’d had sex.

So, what could possibly be the point?

Rick didn’t have an answer for that, either.

Frustrated and concerned, he checked the side mirror again and didn’t think it was his imagination that the SUV was even closer. He considered having Natalie slam on her brakes, which would almost certainly cause a rear-end collision. That would allow him to get a good look at whoever was following them, but it would also put Natalie at risk.

And perhaps the baby.

Not only did he have to consider Natalie’s safety, but they both had to consider the child.

“We should be at the police station in about five minutes,” Rick let Natalie know. He’d hoped that would relieve some of the tension in her body. It didn’t.

Instead, her eyes widened.

Rick’s attention went back to the mirror. The SUV had sped up again. And it was no longer behind them. It’d moved out into the lane to the left of them. It pulled up, driving until the two vehicles were side by side.

“Can you see who’s behind the wheel?” Natalie asked. She glanced over at the SUV just for a second.

Rick tried and failed to see who was inside. “The windows are too heavily tinted. Just keep driving and try to stay calm. Nothing’s going to happen. It’s still broad daylight, and there are three other cars nearby.”

However, high visibility apparently wasn’t enough to deter the SUV driver.

The vehicle swerved to the right, moving directly into their lane. Natalie veered to avoid it, but the SUV immediately repeated the maneuver. That wasn’t the action of a bad driver. Or a joyrider.

This person was trying to run them off the road.

Rick caught onto the steering wheel so he could help Natalie maintain control of her car. He kept watch on the front end of the SUV, and every time it made a move toward them, Rick and Natalie moved her car out of the way.

“We’re going into the emergency lane,” Rick explained just seconds before he steered the vehicle in that direction. “Hit the brakes now.”

She did, and instantly there was the sound of tires screeching on the hot asphalt. The SUV apparently hadn’t expected them to do that because it sped on ahead.

Rick saw the other vehicle’s brake lights, but it was too late to try to cut into the emergency lane and back up. There were cars coming directly behind them. The SUV had to speed up to keep from being hit.

Rick held his breath until the other vehicle was out of sight. “Are you okay?” he asked Natalie.

“No. I’m not.” She groaned, and Rick pried her hands off the steering wheel so that she wouldn’t have bruises. “What is going on?”

“I don’t know.”

She smacked her hand on the steering wheel. “Do you think this is all connected to the pregnancy?”

“No,” he answered.

And he hoped that was true.

But Rick had a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach that the driver of that SUV had wanted to harm them.

“I fired a mechanic about two weeks ago,” Rick said. He kept a close watch on the cars speeding past them. He wanted to make sure that SUV didn’t do a turnaround and come right back at them. “Maybe the guy was more riled than I thought he was.”

Natalie nodded and she seemed to calm a little. “I had to let someone go, too. A housekeeper. About a month ago. Because she was stealing things.” She paused. “That might explain who was in that SUV, but even a pair of disgruntled former employees probably wouldn’t have come up with a plan to punish us with drugs and a pregnancy. It’d be easier just to hurt us. Or kill us.”

Rick was on the same page with her. But that didn’t mean there weren’t answers out there.

“Macy,” he mumbled.

Natalie repeated her mother’s name under her breath. “Give me a few minutes to compose myself, and then let’s have that chat with her.”

Definitely.

And he prayed that Macy would have answers.



“YOU WON’T be able to see your mother this evening. She’s had a difficult day, and I don’t want her disturbed.”

Natalie stared at her mother’s personal assistant, Troy Jackson, as he delivered his message. Troy, the blond, blue-eyed, beefcake pretty boy, was doing his best to block the front door so that Natalie and Rick couldn’t enter.

No amount of blocking would work this evening. Rick rolled his eyes and just muscled Troy aside.

Troy might have a weightlifter’s body, but Natalie figured he was essentially a wimp and wouldn’t attempt to take on Rick. She didn’t blame Troy. With Rick’s fierce expression and don’t-mess-with-me demeanor, it was clear he meant business.

So did she.

Natalie was tired of having lost control over her life. She was tired of having things happen that didn’t make sense. She was especially tired of not having a logical explanation for what had happened. Only after Rick and she got that explanation would they be able to figure out what their course of action might be.

“You tell Macy that we have to speak to her,” Rick called out as Troy barreled up the stairs—probably to tattle to Macy that they’d barged their way in. “If she’s too tired or upset to come down, we’re coming up. Because one way or another, we’re talking to her tonight.”

Rick was obviously so furious that Natalie considered trying to calm him down. But she wasn’t in a calming-down sort of mood herself. She was pregnant, and someone either wanted to scare her, torment her or kill her. And it was entirely possible her mother could give them some clues as to why this was happening.

Nope.

There’d be no calming down, and this conversation was going to take place.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Rick asked.

She glanced at him and saw that he was watching her. Studying her, really. Probably because she didn’t look too steady. “Trust me, I’m up to it.”

“Because if you’re not, I can do this alone.” His attention drifted down to her stomach.

Oh.

She understood then.

Rick was questioning her delicate condition. Not a bad term for it, either. She did feel delicate. Fragile. Dazed. And confused. But fortunately, the need for answers outweighed the early symptoms of pregnancy and the adrenaline fatigue caused by the incident with the SUV.

“I could do this alone as well,” she countered.

But the sudden steel in Rick’s jaw let her know that he was staying put.

That didn’t surprise her. Rick was the sort of take-charge man who was rock-solid in a crisis. He would indeed stay put and stand by her.

For how long though?

That was a sobering question. Natalie would have preferred someone else’s help—anyone else’s—but she had to admit that Rick had a vested interest in this.

He was the baby’s father.

Just thinking about that little fact caused Natalie’s stomach to sink. Fate certainly had a strange sense of humor.

“You need to sit down,” she heard Rick insist. But he didn’t just insist, he caught onto her arm and led her into the adjacent living room.

Natalie nearly protested the kid-glove treatment, but she quickly realized it was necessary. She was indeed dizzy, and Rick had no doubt noticed that she wasn’t too steady on her feet. He plopped her down on the sofa and went to the bar to pour her a glass of water.

She took the water from him, meeting his gaze over the top of the cut-crystal glass. “Thank you.”

Before Natalie said that last part, he’d looked ready for battle, but the steel in his jaw softened a bit, and after a heavy sigh, he eased down on the granite coffee table across from her. “I don’t want you to worry,” he said. “I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

She believed him. However, Natalie believed in her abilities as well. They would get to the bottom of it. But that wouldn’t change one vital point.

“No matter who’s responsible, I’m still four weeks pregnant.”

“I know.” He groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I can’t go back and change that. Sorry.”

He was sincere. Natalie didn’t doubt that. She also didn’t doubt that this was as much of a life-changing experience for him as it was for her. Which led her to the next question.

What were they going to do about the baby?

It wasn’t as if they were a couple. They could barely tolerate being in the same room with each other.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true at the moment.

They were in the same room together. On the same side, so to speak. With a huge shared concern.

Their baby.

Even though she couldn’t recall the sex that had created the child, the pregnancy itself created a new sort of intimacy between them. An intimacy that she was certain neither of them was prepared to deal with.

“What are the odds?” Rick asked. He didn’t wait for her to ask what he meant. “That we’d have drugged sex at the very time you’d be ovulating?”

Natalie had already been through this during her frantic pregnancy tests and trips to the doctor. Unfortunately, that little detail only made all of this seem more sinister. Had someone planned that, too? Other than herself, there weren’t a lot of people who knew about the timing of her menstrual cycle. Kitt, maybe.

Perhaps even Macy.

Rick opened his mouth. Closed it. And it seemed as if he changed his mind a dozen times about what he wanted to say. “Will you, uh, keep the baby?”

“Yes.” Natalie answered so quickly that he probably believed she’d given it no thought. She had. Plenty of it. “Call it my personal beliefs, whatever, but this child is mine… Ours,” she corrected. “I’ll definitely keep it.”

Though that ours had not come easily.

It might take her a lifetime to begin to feel comfortable including Rick in any part of her life. Still, that discomfort didn’t extend to the baby. Now that she was beginning to come to terms with the fact that she was indeed pregnant, she had also come to realize that she would love this child no matter how it had been conceived.

Rick nodded, but she couldn’t tell if that was a nod of approval or if he simply didn’t know how else to react. She didn’t have time to ask because Natalie heard footsteps. Macy’s footsteps, no doubt. Caused by a pair of ridiculously high spike heels coming down the staircase.

Natalie set her water glass aside and watched her mother make her way from the foyer and into the room. Macy didn’t seem too steady on her feet, perhaps because of the heels. The footwear complimented her outfit: a short, slim lipstick-red dress that would have been more appropriate for a college student on a date than for a fifty-two-year-old woman. Not that Macy looked her age. Far from it. Of course, at least a half dozen cosmetic surgeries and a pampered lifestyle were responsible for that.

“Rick. Natalie,” Macy greeted. But it wasn’t much of a greeting. As Macy walked closer, Natalie could see that her mother’s eyes were red, and her mascara was smeared as if she’d been crying. The extra proof of that was the wadded-up handkerchief she held in her right hand.

“I know why you’re here,” Macy said. “I know that you’re pregnant.” She slowly walked to the chair. Sighing deeply, she sank down on the cushion, and she made eye contact with Natalie. “Your sister dropped by about an hour ago and let me know what was going on.”

Natalie should have anticipated that her sister would do that. Kitt was looking out for her. And Kitt was also probably trying to prepare her mother for the shocking news. Judging from her mother’s teary eyes and shaken demeanor, Macy was already on her way to coping. Which was good. Because unfortunately, Rick and she were going to have to press Macy for information.

Macy leaned back against the chair, and Natalie could see that her mother’s perfectly manicured fingers were trembling. “Kitt said you believe you were drugged the night of your birthday party?”

“We were,” Rick verified, his tone tense but somehow still respectful. “I had lab tests done so I have proof of that.”

“So it’s true.” Macy shook her head and swiped at another tear. “I’d prayed it wasn’t true.”

Rick reached over and gently put his hand over hers. “Macy, what do you know about the caterer you hired for Natalie’s party?”

Macy reacted with a sharp gasp, and her eyes widened. “Oh, God. You don’t think…” But she didn’t finish it. She ended with another “Oh, God.”

“We don’t know what to think at this point, but we need the name of the caterer,” Rick pressed. “It’s important that we ask him or her some questions.”

“Of course.” Macy nodded. “It’s Antoine Dupree, but I don’t think he did the work himself. I remember him saying he was going to have to subcontract because he was busy with a wedding.”

That was not what Natalie wanted to hear. If the caterer had indeed hired out the work, then it would be another level to dig through to come up with names of possible suspects. It also wouldn’t help if there’d been a huge staff. She couldn’t remember a lot about her own party, but Natalie figured there were at least a half-dozen people working.

Any one of them could have been responsible.

“We know the caterer or someone on his staff would have had the opportunity to put a drug into the food or drinks,” Rick continued. “But what we don’t know is why someone would do this. There have been no blackmail attempts. And judging from the surveillance tapes, no one entered Natalie’s bedroom to take incriminating photos of us. That leaves us with no motive for this crime.”

“Did the surveillance tapes show you leaving Natalie’s bedroom?” Macy asked. “Or the better question would be—did it show anyone taking you out of there?”

Rick shook his head. “Someone or something jammed the surveillance feed.”

“Kitt said it wouldn’t be that hard to do,” Natalie added. “But that means the person would have known in advance about the security system. In other words, they would have had to bring the jamming equipment with them. Coupled with the drugging, that makes it premeditated.”

When Macy didn’t respond, Natalie asked what both Rick and she needed to know. “Can you think of any reason why the caterer or someone on his staff would want to do this to us?”

“I can think of a reason. A bad reason.” Her voice broke, and Macy stood slowly and made her way to the window. “God help me. I should have told you sooner.”

Natalie froze. She’d wanted to hear her mother’s denial. Any denial. However, this didn’t sound like the start of something like that.

“I’m not really sure if this is all connected. But maybe it is…” Macy turned and faced them. “Your father and I and Rick’s parents were all friends at university together, and we became involved in eugenics research. Specifically, we became involved with the Cyrene Project.”

Natalie repeated those last two words under her breath. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard them. No. As a child, she’d heard her parents say them.

In whispers, sometimes.

Other times, the words had been parts of rather loud arguments.

In fact, Natalie had heard her father mention the Cyrene Project the day he walked out and left his family when she was barely six years old. His leaving had preceded a very bitter divorce. It’d continued to be bitter until her father’s accidental death when she was seventeen.

“The Cyrene Project?” Rick commented, sounding very skeptical and not at all pleased with the topic. “What does this have to do with the drugging?”

“Maybe everything,” Macy said softly. Not her usual drama-queen level of emotion, either. Her voice was small and thin. “The Cyrene Project was an experiment to produce genetically superior babies.”

Natalie had speculated as to what the project was, but she hadn’t even come close in her conjecture.

She stared at her mother and tried to process what she’d just heard.

She couldn’t.

Natalie glanced at Rick, but he didn’t appear to understand this any more than she did. Her mother had been having episodes of odd behavior, and Natalie couldn’t help but wonder if she was having one now.

“Your father and I were paired because our DNA was compatible,” Macy continued a moment later. “That’s why we married. That’s why we had children.”

Rick cursed again. “Macy, you’re not making any sense.”

“I’m making perfect sense,” Macy insisted. “And I’m telling you the truth. Your parents were paired as well, even though they weren’t a couple before. Did you know that your mother was dating your uncle Carlton until the Cyrene Project?”

Rick shrugged. “I knew they’d dated.” He said it in a matter-of-fact tone, but Natalie could see that he was trying to piece all of this together. So was she.

“Your mother agreed to marry your father because he was the most suitable DNA candidate,” Macy insisted. “We wanted superior babies through eugenic matching, and that’s exactly what we got. All of you, including Natalie’s brother and sister, are superior in every way.”

Superior.

Yes, that was true. All four of them had higher-than-average intelligence. All had been better-than-average athletes. Natalie hadn’t really considered that before, but she considered it now.

“All right,” Rick said. He aimed his index finger at Macy. Lowered it. And he started to pace. “For argument’s sake, let’s say this project existed. Actually, it’d explain a lot because heaven knows there wasn’t much love in my parents’ marriage. It was the same for you, Macy. I could see that even though I was just a kid. But what does the Cyrene Project have to do with anything that happened to Natalie and me?”

Macy swallowed hard and lowered her head. “It has everything to do with you. Everything. It’s because of the Cyrene Project that Natalie’s pregnant.”




Chapter Five


To put it mildly, Macy’s revelation floored him.

Rick stopped pacing, and his hands went on his hips. He stared at Macy waiting for more of the explanation. When it didn’t come, he asked, “You’re saying this Cyrene Project is responsible?”

“Yes.” Macy walked to the bar, poured herself a shot of Kentucky bourbon and downed it in one gulp. It took a few deep breaths and a headshake to deal with the straight liquor which had no doubt burned her throat and watered her eyes. “Before you were even born, you two were already paired for the second phase of the project.”

Rick didn’t know whether to continue cursing or to laugh. Judging from Natalie’s expression, she was trying to make the same decision.

This just kept getting crazier and crazier. Which made him wonder—had Macy gone insane? Except she seemed not insane, but adamant.

“That’s the reason I wanted the two of you together when you were younger,” Macy continued. She set the empty glass back on the bar, poured a second shot and drained the liquid. “That’s the reason I pushed so hard with the matchmaking. Not any more though. Not any more.”

“Hell,” Rick mumbled.

Natalie mumbled something similar, and they waited for her mother to continue.

“To the day I die, I’ll regret that I ever got involved with the Cyrene Project,” Macy said. “Because of it, I married a man I didn’t love. A man who didn’t love me. And yes, we had three beautiful, intelligent children, but for years I’ve had to live with the fact that I cheated Mother Nature. I don’t think Mother Nature likes it when people do that. She’s punishing me. That’s why I have these horrible headaches. That’s why I can’t sleep, why I hear these voices.”





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