Billionaire Baby Dilemma

by Barbara Dunlop

  “You must have really ticked her off,” Byron ventured.

  Lucas wished he knew what he’d done. If he had a clue, he could at least try to fight back.

  The ocean waves bubbled up on the rocky beach of the secluded San Juan Islands resort where Devin was holed-up with Amelia and Lexi.

  Her lawyer Hannah Snow had taken the ferry from Seattle and now joined them on the wooden deck in front of the cottage, shaded by massive cedar trees that blocked the hot, noonday sun.

  “Your only job is to tell the truth,” said Hannah, crossing her tanned legs beneath a simple, sleeveless, white linen dress. “The decision is up to the judge.”

  Devin hated the thought of playing into Steve’s hand. But she wouldn’t lie to protect Lucas. She could live with any outcome, except for one where she lost Amelia.

  “The judge understands why I left?”

  Hannah nodded. “I only get to tell the truth, too. But I gave the judge a written brief. She’ll know you didn’t maliciously kidnap Amelia.”

  Devin’s stomach clamped tight. “You didn’t use the word kidnap.”

  Hannah reached out to pat Devin’s knee. “Certainly not. I told her about the reporters, and that you had to leave the mansion on short notice.”

  Lexi chimed in from the padded, wooden bench swing where she’d curled up in a corner. “And that’s not shading the truth.”

  Hannah quirked a smile. “No, it’s not. I also told her about Texas.”

  Devin leaned her head back, scrunching her eyes shut against the crackling, blue sky. “I just want this to be over.”

  Hannah came to her feet. “It’ll be over in three more days. You’ll come to the office Thursday morning?”

  “I will,” Devin agreed. “Lexi is going to stay with Amelia.”

  “Good. We’ll go over your testimony then.”

  “Am I allowed to give my opinion on the stand?” Devin couldn’t help remembering Lucas’s accusations about hearsay and opinion versus fact.

  “The truth as you remember it,” said Hannah, straightening her purse over her shoulder. “That’s all you need to do.”

  “And let the chips fall where they may,” Devin couldn’t help muttering.

  “The judge will make sure it’s fair, reasonable and legal.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

  Hannah’s expression was compassionate. “You know worrying won’t help, right?”

  Devin nodded. She was trying hard not to worry, but so many things were going wrong in her life lately. “Thursday, then?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Hannah took her leave down the short staircase to the resort road where her rental car waited.

  “I hope I’m not making a huge mistake,” Devin said, as the engine caught and Hannah put the sedan into reverse.

  “Have you fully considered your other options?”

  Devin had done nothing but fully consider her other options for three nights running. But there were no other viable alternatives. She couldn’t trust Lucas. She couldn’t trust Steve. And she couldn’t commit perjury for anyone.

  “There are boats to Canada every day of the week,” Lexi pointed out. “Just say the word.”

  Devin appreciated the sentiment, and the unwavering support, but going on the run was yet another non-viable option.

  “I have to believe I won’t lose custody,” she stated. It was the only thing keeping her sane.

  “I absolutely believe you’ll win custody,” said Lexi with a decisive nod. “Lucas is going to look like the manipulative creep that he is, and, in the end, you’re going to chalk this all up to experience.”

  Devin forced out a laugh. “What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger?”

  “What doesn’t kill you, is fodder for your next book.”

  “There is that,” Devin agreed.

  She’d spoken to her editor last week, and they were interested in her book idea for Nice and Rich. They were also willing to give her an extension on the deadline for Snarled Traffic in the Information Age. Thank goodness.

  “I’ll have to find a new rich family to study,” Devin pointed out.

  “Byron might—” Lexi snapped her mouth shut.

  A chill washed over Devin. “Are you still planning to see Byron?”

  Lexi vigorously shook her head. “No. I don’t know what I was thinking. That just kind of slipped out.”

  “Do you want to see Byron?” Devin was embarrassed to admit that her friend’s happiness hadn’t even crossed her mind. But it did now, and she felt incredibly selfish. Lexi and Byron had really seemed to have something going.

  “No way,” Lexi denied. “How would I ever trust him? He was in on it the whole time. You caught Lucas talking openly to him about their schemes. No, I’m not going to see him. I don’t want to.”

  Devin took in the flush on Lexi’s face, and the way she plucked at her khaki shorts while she talked, her gaze darting from her shorts, to her toes, and back again.

  An unsettling thought came over Devin. “Lexi? Did you fall in love with Byron?”

  Lexi blinked to meet Devin’s gaze straight on. “Did you fall in love with Lucas?”

  Devin’s heart thumped deep in her chest, while pain tightened the cavity around it. Her throat closed up, and when she finally spoke, there was a catch to her voice. “I don’t know.”

  Eleven

  Three days later, Devin climbed from a taxi into the bright sunshine in front of the Seattle courthouse. She straightened her blazer and smoothed the matching skirt. Then she ran light fingertips over her hair to make sure everything was in place. She wanted to look every inch the credible witness and capable mother-figure for this.

  Before she could move, Lucas appeared in front of her on the sidewalk, grasping her by the arm and pulling her over to one side. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded.

  She’d braced herself for seeing him today, made sure her anger was fresh and her defenses were firmly in place. But the minute he was there in front of her, memories pushed at the wall she’d built up, and her chest contracted with emotion.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he growled. “One minute we were together, and the next you’d disappeared into the night.”

  “Together?” she reflexively choked out, commanding her legs to start moving. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t talk to him directly. Everything this smooth-talking, persuasive man had to say, could be said in front of the judge.

  She fought his grip as she marched toward the steps.

  He kept pace beside her, and she glanced around for her lawyers. Steve had said they’d meet her here.

  “I trusted you,” Lucas persisted.

  Devin clamped her jaw, refusing the temptation to engage in a debate.

  “You’re handing it to him. You have to know that. You’re betraying me, and you’re betraying Amelia.”

  “Betraying?” Her low voice shook with repressed fury.

  “Yes. We could have worked this—”

  “You betrayed me. I was your backup plan, Lucas. You’re as bad as Konrad. You’re worse than Konrad.”

  Lucas’s hand dropped from her arm, and it took her a second to realize he’d stopped dead in his tracks.

  Good. She hadn’t wanted to talk to him anyway. She increased her pace. She was only steps from the door. Once she was inside, she’d be home free—nothing to do but testify and win permanent guardianship of Amelia. Nothing.

  But he caught up again, tone incredulous. “What did you say?”

  She ignored him.

  “Devin.”

  She gave in to temptation. “You heard me. Well, really, I heard you talking to Byron. ‘Devin. Me. Babies.’ I believe that’s an exact quote.”

  Lucas was silent for a full, stunned second. “You misunderstood.”

  She whirled to face him, jamming her thumb against her chest. “I misunderstood. Monica misunderstood. How many other people misunderstand your despicable conspiracies
?”

  “My backup plan,” he enunciated, voice scoffing as he leaned in, “was falling in love with you.”

  She ignored the constriction of her chest. “Oh, you’re good.”

  The man would say anything if he thought it would put her off balance.

  “I was telling Byron that if worse came to worst, and we lost Pacific Robotics, I was grateful that I’d still have you.” Lucas’s expression was open and frank, and for a second there, she almost fell for it.

  But then she mentally smacked herself, turned on her heel and marched into the courthouse.

  Inside, she was swallowed up by Steve’s team of lawyers, who escorted her to the front of the courtroom. She barely heard their last-minute instructions, and though she caught movement in her peripheral vision, so she knew Lucas’s team had sat down, she kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead.

  The judge began to speak, but Devin was fighting a ringing in her ears. Her palms were sweating, and her mouth had gone dry. Lucas was lying. He was absolutely lying about falling in love with her.

  She needed to concentrate on Amelia. Amelia was back at the San Juan Islands resort with Lexi where they’d spent the last few days. Devin and Lexi had joked about taking a boat to Canada and hiding Amelia until she turned eighteen. Right now, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  “Ms. Hartley?” the judge prompted, and the lawyer next to Devin nudged her.

  “Yes, Your Honor?”

  “Please take the witness stand.”

  Devin rose shakily to her feet, surreptitiously smoothing her damp palms down the side of her charcoal-gray skirt. She walked carefully on her high heels, keeping her gaze fixed on points along the walls—the flag, a water pitcher, an antique portrait, the judge’s gavel.

  She climbed into the witness stand and swore to tell the truth. She couldn’t wait to tell the truth.

  Her lawyer went first, and the opening questions were innocuous, factual. They’d rehearsed them a dozen times. She talked about Monica and Konrad’s whirlwind courtship, the fact that she was surprised at how quickly Monica became pregnant, and that Monica hadn’t known about the inheritance until she’d overheard Lucas and Konrad discussing her pregnancy.

  Partway through her testimony, Steve slipped into the courtroom and took a seat at the back of the gallery. There were few other spectators, except for the overflow of lawyers sitting in the gallery benches directly behind each of the tables.

  Devin’s lawyer gave her an encouraging nod and a wink, then he sat back down at the table.

  One of Lucas’s lawyers stood up. “Did your sister love Konrad Demarco?” he asked without preamble, dropping his pencil and moving from behind the table and into the center of the courtroom.

  Devin leaned slightly into the microphone. “I believe she did.”

  “What makes you believe she loved him?”

  Devin couldn’t help a reflexive glance in Lucas’s direction, reminded of their conversations about what she knew for certain and what she only surmised. “She told me that she loved him.”

  “Was she excited to get married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she excited to be pregnant?”

  Devin nodded. “Yes.”

  “Did your sister believe Konrad loved her?”

  Devin hesitated, trying to remember what Monica had specifically said about Konrad’s love for her.

  She remembered the wedding photos. She pictured their early months together, Monica with her arms wrapped around Konrad’s neck, his whispered words to her, her grin, the way his hand encircled her waist, the way his eyes lit up when he spoke her name, and the way he watched her from across the room, like nobody else on earth existed.

  “Ms. Hartley?”

  “I’m sorry.” She blinked to bring the lawyer back into focus. “What was the question?”

  “Did your sister believe Konrad loved her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you say they were happy together?”

  “At first,” Devin admitted.

  “What changed?”

  Devin’s glanced drifted to Lucas again. “She found out it was all a scam. Lucas and Konrad wanted Amelia to inherit their grandfather’s estate.”

  The lawyer moved closer, his voice going lower, less theatrical. “How did she find this out?”

  “She overheard a conversation between Konrad and his brother Lucas.”

  “What did they say?”

  “That they’d thwart Steve by having Amelia.”

  “Any chance your sister misunderstood their meaning?”

  “No.”

  “Any chance she heard the words out of context?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “I spent the next year helping her get over Konrad’s betrayal.”

  The lawyer backed off, and Devin took a breath. She tried hard not to meet Lucas’s eyes, but she found her attention drawn in his direction, more and more frequently.

  “And what did Konrad do during that year?” asked the lawyer.

  “He tried to win her back.” Devin said the words more to Lucas than to anyone else. “He tried every trick in the book to get her and Amelia to come back to him. But she wouldn’t do it.”

  Lucas’s lips compressed in a thin line.

  “You believe Konrad was insincere?” asked the lawyer.

  “Yes.”

  The lawyer looked to Lucas, and Lucas gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

  The lawyer cocked his head sideways and waited.

  Lucas shook again.

  There was some kind of silent argument going on between them.

  Then the lawyer turned back to Devin. “Ms. Hartley, I understand you broke into Lucas Demarco’s personal email account.”

  Lucas brought his hand down on the table and started to rise, but another lawyer grasped his shoulder to hold him down.

  “Ms. Hartley?”

  “I didn’t ‘break’ into it.” There’d been no password. It was conceivable that she’d accidentally opened it.

  “But you did look at Mr. Demarco’s private emails.”

  Devin swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Her voice came out slightly high-pitched, but the man was beginning to frustrate her. “To prove I was right.”

  “And did you prove that?”

  Devin resettled herself in the witness chair and told herself to calm down. “I read an email from Lucas to Konrad that said, ‘I’m counting on you.’ They were talking about Monica.”

  “And you interpreted that to mean Lucas was counting on Konrad to woo Monica, marry her quickly and have a baby in order to capitalize on their grandfather’s will.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what the email said?”

  Devin didn’t understand the question, and she gave her head a reflexive little shake.

  “Was the email that specific?” asked the lawyer. “Did it go in to the details of the alleged plot, or did it simply say ‘I’m counting on you’?”

  “‘I’m counting on you,’” Devin repeated.

  “So, for all you know, Lucas could have been counting on Konrad to pick up a quart of milk on the way home?”

  Devin’s lawyer jumped to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor.”

  “I’ll allow it,” said the judge.

  The lawyer carried on. “They could have been referring to anything.”

  “Maybe,” Devin was forced to admit. “But—”

  “Why would he try to win her back?” the lawyer shot out, startling Devin.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why would Konrad, having already married Monica, already impregnated Monica, clearly having fulfilled the terms of his grandfather’s will. Why would he then spend pretty much every waking minute for the next year trying to win her back?”

  Devin hesitated.

  Once again, she found her glance going to Lucas.

  For some reason, he’d stopped looking aggre
ssive. He almost looked compassionate. Was he feeling sorry for her? Was she doing so badly on the stand that she evoked his pity?

  “He wanted her back because he loved her,” said the lawyer.

  “Speculation,” said Devin’s lawyer.

  “Rephrase,” said the judge.

  The lawyer moved closer to Devin, speaking slowly and deliberately. “If Konrad had truly loved Monica, and if she had misunderstood a conversation between him and his brother, and if she had left him, what would you expect him to do?”

  Devin paused. She knew she’d walked right into a trap. But there she was. She couldn’t get out.

  And the lawyer was right. If she took a giant step back from her sister’s emotional upset, Konrad had done everything a man in love might do. Devin couldn’t be positive he hadn’t loved Monica. Nor could she be positive he’d manipulated her.

  The truth came to Devin in a blinding wave.

  Lucas was right. He’d been right all along, and she couldn’t lie about it.

  She looked directly at Lucas. “I’d expect a man in love to try to win his wife back.”

  Lucas gave Devin a ghost of a soft, compassionate smile. He looked genuinely regretful at the turns of events. He couldn’t be, of course. By rights, he should be celebrating.

  There was a strangled exclamation from the back of the room, as Steve threw up his hands in disgust.

  “I ask again,” said the lawyer to Devin, “is there any chance Monica misunderstood Konrad and Lucas’s conversation?”

  “Yes,” Devin admitted, blinking against the sting of tears. Lucas was going to win it all. And he was going to take Amelia away from her. And she’d have to beg him for every second she spent with her niece.

  The lawyer looked to Lucas again, and this time Lucas nodded.

  “Why did you take Amelia away from the Demarco security last weekend?” asked the lawyer.

  Here it was. The final nail in Devin’s coffin. She drew a bracing breath. “I found out Lucas was manipulating me.” She stopped talking, feeling sick to her stomach. Was Lucas really going to make her admit in open court that they’d had an affair.

  “Because you overheard a conversation?” asked the lawyer.

  Devin nodded. Her throat was closing over and her stomach was in knots.