by Anna Antonia
“Are you divorced?”
“No. I’m a single mother and have been from the beginning.”
Now why did that bother him? Was it the idea that someone had abandoned her or that she’d never once come to him for help?
Idiot. Why would she do that? Victoria’s not a user and she’s definitely independent in everything she does.
“I didn’t expect that. I assumed you’d be the marrying kind.”
She shrugged. “No, it didn’t work out that way.”
“I’m happy to hear that. I know I shouldn’t be and that makes me ten kinds of a bastard for saying it, but it’s true.”
Victoria’s fingers entwined at her waist. She lowered her gaze, but a shy smile eased the tenseness of her expression. “You are?”
Once again, Adrian was transported back to when he first met her. No matter how many years had passed she still seemed so innocent and shy, so much like the girl who’d easily captured his heart.
But that image wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Victoria was a mother and no longer an innocent girl. Worse, she was a mother who’d failed to mention the existence of her daughter to him.
It could only mean that she had no expectation of seeing him again after today. No matter what she’d said to him just this morning.
“How old is she?”
Victoria’s fingers tightened. The knuckles stood out in stark relief. Adrian frowned deeply. Why did that question worry her so much?
“She’s three.”
His agile mind did the math. A hateful sneer crossed his face before he could control it. Victoria hadn’t wasted much time before replacing him with someone else. A someone else she cared enough about to have had his child.
You’ll never learn, will you?
Adrian bitterly regretted indulging her wish for him to come to her hotel room. He should’ve refused her instead of giving into her wishes like a lovesick idiot.
Better yet, Adrian should’ve never found out where she was staying. He should’ve pretended that he hated her enough to never want to see her again, much less spend the whole night making love to her and thinking that maybe, just maybe, they’d had another chance to start over again.
Victoria’s feelings for him had never been as strong as his for her. When was he going to learn that? How many times would he allow her to make a plaything of his heart?
Although his heart and pride were shredded beyond repair at the moment, Adrian managed to keep his thoughts steady.
It doesn’t matter. She had every right to move on after their end.
Besides, hadn’t he done the same in a twisted, impersonal sort of fashion?
“Congratulations, Victoria. She’s beautiful and I’m sure you must be proud of her.”
“I am. She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Her strained whisper barely made it to him. Adrian pushed off the wall. He needed to put as much distance as possible between them. Finding this out about her, he couldn’t be the gentleman he needed to be. He hurt too damned much.
“Well, I’ve kept you long enough. I better leave you to your conference.”
What else could he say? She had a life that permanently put him out of her sphere. She had a permanent bond with another man and a child as a result of it. While Adrian was many things, he wasn’t the kind of man to disrespect someone else’s family—even if he didn’t know the first thing about being in one himself.
Goddamn her. Goddamn her for making me think that we could be more than just one night. She has a life that doesn’t belong to her or me anymore. She’s a mother and she has to be there for her daughter.
I won’t interfere or take her away from that responsibility.
He stalked across the small room, passing her body within inches. Adrian didn’t even glance at her, afraid that if he did he would dishonor them both by losing control of his rage and calling her all kinds of names beginning with “bitch” and ending with “whore.”
Adrian made it to the door when she called out in strangled panic. “Wait!”
Shameful relief netted him. Just knowing she wasn’t ready to let him go eased the raw hurt a bit. He looked over his shoulder and wished he hadn’t.
Victoria looked fragile, as if her entire heart had shattered at her feet and there was no way to ever fix it. Adrian clenched his jaw and bit back the words offering comfort.
“Yes?”
Victoria took a small step towards him. Her hand reached for him. “I…ah…I have something to tell you.”
He let out a sharp sigh and turned fully around. “Okay. Now what? What else could you possibly tell me now, Victoria?”
She stared at him, as if she didn’t know quite where to begin. If at all. Impatience edged his words. “Spit it out please. I really have to go.”
Adrian felt like the biggest jerk on the planet when her shoulders slumped. An apology balanced on his tongue, but he didn’t quite feel like a noble individual towards the woman who had so easily replaced him with another man and had his child.
He didn’t hate her daughter, never that, but the girl’s father—oh, yes. Adrian loathed him sight unseen. The fact that this bastard would let Victoria have his child and not step up to the responsibility of husband and father? He was absolute garbage in Adrian’s mind.
Victoria straightened up and looked him in the eye. “You didn’t ask me who the father is.”
“Frankly, I don’t want to know.”
“Well, I’m sorry but you need to know.”
“Why?” Adrian shook his head and abruptly stopped. Something akin to a sliver of wonder wrapped in disbelief slipped inside him. Why was this so important to her?
No, he had to be wrong.
“I do?”
His uncertain reaction seemed to fuel her. “Do you remember that I’m named for my father Victor?”
He jerked. It couldn’t be! Victoria couldn’t possibly…
“I carried on the tradition when I named my daughter Adriana.”
A dull roar filled his ears. He could barely make out the rest of her words.
“I named her after you. After her father.”
***
It was finally done.
She had told him.
All the years of silence, the days of watching their daughter grow and the guilt that she’d never even given Adrian a chance to be a part of it, could finally be put to rest.
God help her now.
***
“I’m her father.”
“Yes.” Victoria’s hands fluttered before settling back down by her waist. “She’s three years old and has your eyes. She’s tall too, like you. She’s my world and she’s so beautiful, inside and out, and…”
“I have a daughter.” Adrian looked about him, shocked and empty as the ramifications of what Victoria had done to him, to their little family, truly set in. “You’re not joking with me?”
“I’d never joke about that, Adrian!”
He would’ve smiled at her indignation if the situation wasn’t so serious. “There was never another man? There’s no chance Adriana could someone else’s?”
She colored slightly even as her features hardened. “No. We can do a DNA test if it would put your mind at ease.”
He cut through the air with his hand. “She’s mine? 100% no doubt about it.”
“Yes. No doubts.”
“So if I hadn’t searched you out last night I wouldn’t have known, would I? You would’ve never come looking for me. You would’ve gone back to North Carolina like nothing happened. Do I have that right?”
Kitten, don’t let that be true. Please don’t let that be true.
Victoria’s lovely face blanched. The loss of color had the opposite effect on him.
Adrian saw red.
He exploded in the kind of rage a person felt all the way to their core. It shredded everything in its path. “You kept my child from me for three years? How the fuck could you do this to me?”
Victoria
flinched. “Adrian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to—”
“Shut. Up.” Adrian took one step forward and she took one back. This continued until she bumped up against the wall and had nowhere else to go.
Her dark eyes, the ones that had had the power to make him believe in innocence and sweetness, filled with tears. Adrian had no mercy. He kept his voice razor-sharp even though it barely rose above a whisper.
“No, Victoria. You don’t get a chance to talk, especially to say you’re sorry. Sorry is for stepping on my shoe. Sorry is for spilling a drink on the floor. Sorry is even for running out on me when I needed you the most. Sorry is not the goddamned word to use for stealing my daughter from me.”
Victoria’s hand came up to her temple. It curled into a helpless fist. “I did what I thought was best for all of us. I know now I was wrong but, Adrian, I didn’t know if you’d accept her. I couldn’t take a chance that you’d—”
He couldn’t hear the rest of her protests over the emotional agony rolling over him. Adrian wanted to destroy the room. He wanted to flip the desk on its side and rip the TV right off the wall.
All this time I had a child and I wasn’t there to protect her. Anything could’ve happened to Adriana. Victoria could’ve died and then what would’ve happened to my daughter? Who would’ve taken care of her if not me?
Adrian put several feet between them. He watched as she collapsed against the wall. He raked a hand through his hair, shaken by the hatred pumping through him with every breath.
“Adrian, I never meant to hurt you. I really thought it was for the best. I didn’t think you’d have room in your life for us, for her—especially after what you said to that blond woman that night.”
He pinned Victoria with a look of disgust and fury. She immediately quieted, but her tears rolled down her face. He couldn’t summon the slightest bit of pity for her quiet misery.
“I chased after you, Victoria. I stood there on that fucking sidewalk, hoping, waiting for you to tell me you’d come to see me. You lied to me, didn’t you?”
She nodded and hiccupped. “I was going to tell you but then…” Victoria couldn’t finish.
Adrian let out yell. He knocked the chair over with one swipe of his hand. Why hadn’t he pressed her that night? Why the fuck did he let his feelings for her cloud his judgment? Why the hell had he let her walk away with his baby?
“How long did you know?” Adrian waited several tense seconds before barking the question again.
Victoria swallowed back her noisy tears. “Maybe about a month after we split up.”
“Maybe? Do better.”
“Three weeks.”
He cursed long and lewdly. “You’re telling me you knew about our baby three weeks after you left and it didn’t occur to you that I had a right to know?”
“I was wrong! Adrian, I swear to you—I didn’t plan on keeping her a secret.”
Adrian raked both hands through his hair. How could this be his life? How could the only woman he’d ever loved do something so hateful, so beneath contempt to him?
All the love he’d lived and breathed for Victoria mutated into something ugly and dangerous. Adrian walked into this room still believing in forever and was now going to leave it knowing that there was no such thing.
God, he regretted ever going down to the Sales floor that night. He should’ve just gotten a bottle of water. Yet, loving Victoria had resulted in the little angel staring at him from her place on the nightstand. How could he possibly regret that?
My little girl. She’s mine and I don’t know the first thing about her.
The stark truth of his thoughts staggered him. He’d missed everything about her. Being one of the first people to hold her, cutting her umbilical cord, changing her diapers, watching her take her first steps, hearing her first word.
Damn you!
“Who else knows about this?” he barked.
“Umm, my family.”
“Who else? Did your roommates know?”
Victoria nodded miserably.
“Fuck!”
“They knew but they’ve never breathed a word about it.”
“Obviously.”
“We rarely talk now—just so you know. They’re all off living their lives and well, we all sort of drifted apart.”
Adrian stared her down for a long, mean minute. “I would’ve forgiven you anything, Victoria. All this time I’ve loved you and only you. And you did this to me. Keeping Adriana from me, never saying a word about our daughter, especially last night or even this morning when I was spilling my guts to you—to me that is unforgivable.”
His words broke her into pieces. Victoria slapped a hand against her mouth and sobbed brokenly. “I wish I could take it back. I’d do anything to change it. I swear!”
Adrian’s heart ached in a torturous concoction of pity, love, and loathing. Even now he wanted to take her in his arms and let her cry against his chest. A howl burned through his throat. After everything she’d done to him, Adrian still loved Victoria.
He loved her even as he hated her more than he’d ever hated anyone before.
Knowing this sickness about himself, Adrian wanted to hurt Victoria as much as she’d hurt him. And he knew exactly how to do it. Never had Adrian turned his ruthlessness towards Victoria, but she would feel it now in spades.
“Where is she?”
Victoria swallowed and then whispered, “At home with Kathy.”
“That’s why you called her last night?”
She nodded and bit her lip before saying, “I called her this morning too so I could talk to Adriana.”
“When?”
“In the bathroom.”
Adrian’s rage skyrocketed. Even so, he had already thought through all the possibilities. There was only one way this was going to end. He gave her a clipped nod and turned on his heel. Victoria played her part beautifully. She grabbed a hold of his arm before he reached the door. “Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
Victoria’s voice became high-pitched and breathy. “Adrian, I can set things up so you can visit her. Maybe this weekend if that works for you?”
He glared at her until she released him. “You are no longer in charge here.”
She faltered and then straightened her spine. “She’s my daughter, Adrian. I won’t let you take over.”
“I am not asking for permission.”
“What are you going to do, Adrian?”
“I’m going to get on a plane and go get my daughter.”
Victoria’s chest heaved, stronger and faster with each passing moment. Idly, he wondered if she was on the verge of hyperventilating.
“You can’t just do that.”
“Watch me.”
“No! You don’t have legal right, Adrian. I am the only parent she’s had—”
“If I were you I wouldn’t remind me of that fact. I would’ve been there for her, for both of you if you’d only given me half a chance. Now, I can have a team of lawyers on my side within five minutes and I won’t run out of money in this lifetime. Can you say the same?”
Obvious anger tightened her mouth but terror stamped itself across her lying, beautiful features. “You know I don’t. Damn you, Adrian. Don’t do this.”
“That’s right, Victoria. I am damned. I was the damned the night you left with my child in your womb.” A mirthless smile crossed his lips. “Now I’m off to catch a plane. I suggest you pack.”
Pitiful hope stirred in her haunted expression. “You’re taking me with you?”
“Of course, I am. I may hate you, Victoria, but I’m not a monster. Our daughter will not want to come with me if you’re not there. I don’t want her unhappy even if it makes me miserable. If putting up with you is the price I have to pay to be a father to her then I’ll pay it.”
Victoria’s small gasp reached him. “Adrian, it doesn’t have to be that way. I meant every word I said to you last night and this morning. I love you.”
She stared at him for several seconds before spinning around. Victoria pulled out her phone and spoke in low tones to what he assumed was her supervisor.
“Brenda, it’s Victoria. Yesterday went well, but the reason why I’m calling is that I have to get back home now. It’s a family emergency. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for your understanding. Bye.”
Adrian watched as she then hurriedly rushed into the bathroom and came back out almost immediately with toiletries in her arms. Her docility should’ve pleased him and it did. Perversely, it also infuriated him as well.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We weren’t supposed to end up like this.
The ice around Adrian’s heart hardened. This was why he’d never bothered with love before. Look at what it had done to him—he’d fallen for a girl who could rip his heart to shreds and simply move on as if nothing important had happened. This was a woman who could become pregnant with a man’s child and keep it a secret from him.
The memories of their long night before raced through his brain. Not once while Victoria was nestled in his arms did she bother to breathe word of Adriana’s existence.
Her kisses marked him for a fool and her words of love destroyed any chance between them. There was no way she could love him and do something this vile.
“Hurry up.”
Victoria reacted to his icy command by doubling her speed. Within a minute she stood there with a laptop bag slung over her shoulder, her carryon by her side, and the store bag she’d carried the night before.
Adrian zeroed in on it. “Is that for her?”
Victoria clutched it closer, as if worried he’d take it away. “Yes. Adriana likes to make collages.”
He nodded as if he knew exactly what she meant. The knowledge that he didn’t know the slightest thing about his daughter infuriated him further.
