Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (21 page)

"I'm sorry I didn't say good-bye."

"I'm sorrier you left."

"I explained why I had to go."

He nodded. "Now, I guess it's my turn to explain, huh?"

"Only if you want to."

"My mother was Mark's mistress for fifteen years. They'd been together a little over a year when she got pregnant. I think she believed he would leave his society wife and make their relationship permanent. It didn't happen that way. He moved her to another small town nearby and provided for us financially, but he refused to divorce his wife. He didn't believe in divorce and then there was the social stigma attached to it as well. He wasn't willing to put his other two children through it."

She felt her insides tighten in response to the pain Marcus must have experienced as a child and the bitterness she could still hear in his voice. "Did he ever come to see you?"

"Twice a week."

Then she remembered him saying that his mother had been his father's mistress for fifteen years. "They had an affair forfifteen years?"

She couldn't fathom something like that. It sounded so sordid, so pointless. She wondered if living it had felt the same way for Marcus.

"Yes," he said, in answer to her question. "When I was little, I didn't understand why my dad only lived with us two evenings a week. Why he never stayed over. My mom left him once, when I was about five. I remember begging her to take us back to my daddy and how she cried."

"She took you back?"

"Yes. She left again when I was ten. By then, I understood that I wasn't legitimate, that my dad belonged to a couple of other kids first."

"She went back again?" Veronica was trying to understand.

"Mark hired a private investigator to find us. He showed up one day and took us back. I didn't want to go. In my new school, I wasn't somebody's bastard son; I was just me. Mom had moved us to

Seattle and things were different. No one cared about our past."

"But your parents are married now."

"Mark's wife died when I was twelve. He waited a year for decency's sake after her death and then he married my mom. My older brother and sister were already away at college. He thought the three of us could play happy family."

"It didn't work?" But then, how could it?

A man with Marcus's immense sense of compassion would despise the man who had hurt his mother so much and his pride would be unwilling to forgive the stigma of being the slighted son, the one who only had his father two nights a week.

"No."

Cold dread poured through her at the prospect of telling Marcus about his own son. After hearing his parents' background, she didn't think he was going to take too well to discovering that she had given birth to his son without the benefit of marriage or even telling him about it.

She took a deep breath. "Marcus, there's something I need to tell you."

Chapter Twelve

Marcus felt every muscle in his body tense at Ronnie's words. She'd told him she had something she needed to tell him yesterday morning, but he had refused to listen.

Out of fear.

He might as well admit it. He didn't want to know she was guilty of selling company secrets again. And he couldn't fool himself anymore into believing her confidences had anything to do with his attempt to blackmail her into his bed.

They'd dealt with that.

But now, he realized he'd rather hear the truth and get it over with. Somehow he had to protect her from the consequences of her actions. He didn't know how he would succeed completely, but he had a suspicion that if they took it straight to Kline and she confessed her guilt, the older man would be reasonable.

Particularly if Ronnie told him about what she'd been through with Jenny since their parents' deaths. It would take a rock to remain condemning in the face of the choices she'd had.

He moved the tray with dinner onto the floor and then met her gaze squarely. She looked wary, but determined.

He bit back a sigh. Hell. He wanted to build a future with a woman who sold her loyalty to the highest bidder. It didn't make him feel like the brightest spark at the bonfire.

"Okay, Ronnie. Let's hear it." If his voice sounded resigned and slightly bitter, he could be excused.

She jerked back, her gaze veiling, her mouth thinning.

She took a deep breath and let her eyes focus somewhere to the left of his shoulder. "This isn't easy. I'm not sure where to begin or how to say it."

'The truth would be nice, though I realize that might be a tough one for you." He hadn't meant to let his bitterness spill over into his speech.

He felt like cursing at the way her face drained of color.

"Yes. Well, it's not really a matter of having lied to youper se . It's more a matter of not having told you something. Something pretty important."

Her rambling explanation wasn't making him feel any more charitable. He had damn well figured out that part. It wasn't as if he'd come right out and asked her if she was guilty of espionage again. No. She hadn't lied. To him.

"Spit it out," he ordered, his voice harsh.

He just wanted this part over so they could start picking up the pieces.

She swung her gaze back to him and glared.

"You don't have to be so impatient. This isn't easy for me."

He glared right back, doubly irritated because her look of censure was turning him on for some inexplicable reason—maybe just the male chromosome's natural inclination to solve a dispute between him and his woman with physical pleasure and intimacy. It was a primitive response and he'd heard women didn't think it worked. He wasn't so sure. He was more than willing to give it a try… after she told him the truth.

He waited, trying to be patient, feeling more frustrated as every second of silence ticked by, and he came close to blurting out the truth for her, just to get it over with.

"Marcus, I—"

The phone rang. Shrill and unwelcome. She stopped speaking.

He frowned. "Ignore it. Finish what you were saying."

She shook her head. "No. Please. I gave Jenny your number in case she needed anything."

Unwilling understanding of her concern for her once very ill sister warred with his irritation at the interruption. "I doubt very sincerely your sister is going to call."

The phone rang a third time.

Ronnie's eyes turned pleading. "Please, Marcus."

He picked up the white receiver from beside the bed, his movements jerky with tension. "Marcus here."

"Hello, Mr. Danvers. This is Jenny Richards. Is my sister still there?"

Looking at the naked woman who seemed to be shrinking against the pillows propped behind her, he sighed incredulously. "Yes."

He shoved the phone toward Ronnie. "Your sister."

Her eyes widened in panic for a fleeting second before she masked her expression. "Jen?"

Her sister said something.

"No. It's all right. Don't worry about it. He doesn't mind." She shot Marcus another pleading glance and he took the hint.

Picking up the dinner tray, he left the room.

Veronica felt a twinge of shame at the relief she felt at both the interruption of the phone and Marcus's willingness to leave the room. He wouldn't have had to go anywhere if she'd told him about Aaron immediately upon arrival, as she'd planned. She would have been able to speak freely in front of him, but somehow the words simply would not come. She didn't know an easy way to tell her ex-lover that they had a child together.

Strike that. She moved under the sheet, the feel of the soft percale against her naked body reminding her that she could no longer call Marcus herex anything. She didn't knowwhat to call him, though. Were they lovers again? Did they have a relationship now? Had he meant it when he had spoken of a future on Monday night and was that future still possible?

'Veronica? Are you there?" Jenny's insistent voice brought her abruptly back to reality.

"Yes, of course, Jen. Did you think I'd hung up on you?"

"I didn't know what to think," Jenny replied, her voice chatty and teasing. "I've been blabbing on about Aaron for the past few minutes and you haven't even bothered to say uh-huh, or anything. Is there something going on there I should know about?"

Mother worry raced through Veronica like a shot of adrenaline and she ignored Jenny's teasing to focus on the words that had sent her heart into overdrive. "Is he okay? Did something happen to Aaron?"

"No, he's fine, but he's teething. Like I said a minute ago."

"I must have missed that."

Jenny laughed. "I guess you did. What's going on with you and Marcus? You sound really out of it."

Veronica caught sight of her clothes strewn across the bottom of the bed and Marcus's on the floor. No way was she going to tell her kid sister that she'd leapt back into Marcus's bed with all the enthusiasm of a chocoholic greeting Hersheyland, Pennsylvania. "I'm not out of it. I was just thinking about something else there for a minute."

"Something tall, blond and, according to you, oh so sexy?"

"Jenny!"

"You're so easy to tease. You know that, Veronica?"

Marcus used to say the same thing. He'd laughed because she took life so seriously and he'd found it embarrassingly easy to draw a reaction from her. And yet there had been a time, before her parents had died, when people actually thought she had a sense of humor. She grimaced.

"I guess you haven't told him about Aaron yet, huh?"

She scooted into the pillows against her back, as if she could hide from her own cowardice. "Uh… no." First, she hadn't had the words and then he'd literally swept her off her feet with passion. She was still reeling from the aftereffects, not to mention the emotional dilemma created by learning what she had about his past.

"Maybe you should just invite the guv over. He can meet Aaron and put two and two together, since you seem to have such a hard time getting four to come out of your mouth." Jenny's tone clearly indicated she was kidding.

But Veronica's emotionally battered brain latched on to the idea with the force of a hurricane wind off the coast of Florida.Why not ? Why notintroduce Marcus to his son rather than try to muster her courage tosay something? She didn't know how to tell the blond giant that they'd made a child together, especially after his revelations about his own background.

At one time, she had believed the hardest problem she faced in telling Marcus about their child was his desire to avoid commitment. Now she feared his reaction based on an entirely different set of concerns.

Would Marcus hate her when he realized she'd exposed his son to the same illegitimacy at birth that had so devastated him? Would he think she'd deliberately withheld the knowledge of his son in order to hurt him? She hadn't, but he didn't see the past through the same set of memories as she did.

She had thought he wouldn't be personally af-fected by her disappearance. He acted like the personal aspect of her betrayal was the most devastating.

By inviting him over, she would short-circuit her own ability to cave in to her fears. The truth would be obvious as soon as he saw their baby. Aaron looked so much like Marcus and Marcus knew he had been her only lover. His agile brain would have no problem putting two and two together and coming up with a solid four, the four shehad found impossible to utter.

"Veronica, you've gone silent again."

"I was just thinking that you're brilliant."

"Uh… thanks. But what makes me so smart all of a sudden?"

"You've always been smart, but right now I'm impressed with your insight. Showing Aaron to Marcus will be a lot easier than telling him about our son."

"I was just kidding!"

"I know, but it's a really good idea. I wish I'd thought of it before."

"But, Veronica—"

She wouldn't let Jenny finish. "No buts. I can't seem to make the words come out of my mouth. I've never considered myself a coward before, but I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a streak of yellow a mile wide running down my spine. If I invite him over, there won't be any choice but to tell him. Don't you see?" Jenny's silence vibrated across the phone line.