Baby for the Billionaire - By Maxine Sullivan Page 0,150
of a woman who didn’t deserve him.
She swallowed the thick ache that misery had lodged in her throat.
“This is all about Dana.”
Her voice came out all wrong. Instead of sounding cool and composed, it was an accusatory croak.
“Dana?” He did a wonderful job of looking totally blank.
“Yes, Dana.” So he was going to make her spell it out. “Dana, who used to work with you, who used to share your bed—”
“I know who Dana is,” he cut in impatiently, putting his hands on his hips and managing to look even more intimidating than ever. “But I fail to see what she has to do with this discussion.”
“Everything!” Couldn’t he see it? It was so obvious. “She got married last week.”
“Yes, I know Dana got married. So what?”
Somehow Victoria didn’t think he’d appreciate her telling him he was still hung up on his ex. Especially if he was desperately denying that truth to himself.
Denial was a terrible thing. Ask her, she knew all about that. She’d been telling herself for two years that she disliked Connor, despised him, that he was the most arrogant jerk she’d ever met. When the truth was so much more shameful. She wanted him, she craved him, she’d been wanting to crawl into his bed and do exactly what they had the night of Dana’s wedding.
And she’d reveled in every minute of it.
But she wasn’t telling him her sordid little secret. “You only married me to get back at Dana.”
“That’s utter rubbish.” His eyes had started to blaze with unfamiliar emotion.
She drew a shaky breath. “It’s not rubbish—”
“It’s crap.” He glared down at her. “We got married because of Dylan. You’re making it sound like I’m still hung up on Dana—I’m not.”
Maybe she was over-reacting.
According to the newspaper article, he had known Dana and Paul were getting married. No argument there. Victoria tried desperately to regroup her thoughts.
His eyes snapped with fury, and it took all Victoria’s determination to carry on with him towering above her like a dark lord full of fury and wrath. But she had to—if she wanted any chance at keeping Dylan.
“But knowing that they were getting married is different from living with the reality of Dana wedded to Paul.” If his love for Dana was anything like the unfurling love she’d discovered for him, that would have been terribly painful. “It took her out of your life permanently. I can understand—”
He edged closer, knee to knee with her now.
“You understand nothing!”
“I can understand,” Victoria continued as though he’d never interrupted so rudely, “that you wanted to get back at her. And what better way than by going through with our wedding?”
To Victoria’s dismay, he didn’t deny it.
After a long moment, she said, “Clearly you’ve since decided that our marriage isn’t what you want.” Because Connor loved Dana.
When he finally spoke again his voice was icier than she’d ever heard it. “Spare me the psychobabble. The issue here is not Dana, it’s your commitment to Dylan.”
Her commitment to Dylan was not in question; he was her child, for heaven’s sake. And it was time Connor learned that.
“You don’t want to be married to me because I’m not Dana. I can understand that. But you need to understand that I’m not giving Dylan up. He’s—”
“I’m not going to give you a choice, Victoria.”
“You have to,” she said with grim satisfaction. “I’m coguardian, joint custodian, and I’m—”
“And I am Dylan’s biological father!”
Horror struck, she leaped to her feet. They stood face-to-face, both breathing raggedly.
“You’re Dylan’s father?”
He nodded.
“You can’t be! Michael is his father.”
She wanted to howl. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Dylan couldn’t be Connor’s baby.
Not with everything the way it was between them. The way it had always been, right from that very first meeting when she’d wanted him after one look and he couldn’t even remember her darn name. They could not possibly have created together the perfect being that was Dylan.
It was too cruel to be true.
“I’m his biological father. It’s my seed that gave him life. And I will do whatever I can to protect him. He’s my son.”
Just the sound of that possessive claim knocked the bottom out of her world.
Victoria put her fingers to her throbbing temples.
She wasn’t giving up her baby. Connor was going to have a fight on his hands like he’d never seen before. The fight for his company against Dana and Paul would be nothing compared to the war she would wage.
She flung her head back, and their gazes locked. “Even if