Submitting to the Shadow (Kindred Tales #27) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,52

so different if she had babies that weren’t Roark’s biologically?

Maybe this would even make him decide they ought to be together as more than just boss and assistant, Sammi thought hopefully. Maybe they could make a life together and raise the two little girls and have a happy home.

A picture of the four of them bloomed in her mind—two little girls staring adoringly up at their adopted father and Roark laughing and playing with them while Sammi rocked them to sleep and read them bedtime stories. She had always wanted to be a mom—always wanted a big family. And now maybe she had a chance to do it….

“You know…” she said, sniffing and swiping at her eyes with the handful of tissues Meg had given her. “I think you’re right—I need to go see Commander Roark right now.”

“That’s the spirit!” Meg said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “And I’ll come with you for moral support.”

“No.” Sammi shook her head. “No, this is something I have to do on my own, Meg. Thank you, though,” she added, giving her friend a watery smile. “You’re the best friend a girl could ask for.”

“I know,” Meg said cheerfully. “And soon I’m going to be the best aunt a girl could ask for—two little girls, in fact.” She gently patted Sammi’s tummy. “Go on now—go straighten this out.”

“I will.” Sammi lifted her chin. She was determined to get to the bottom of this…and hopefully come out in a better place on the other side. Visions of a happy family still dancing in her head, she left the Med Center and headed for the lab, taking the two tiny pink flowers with her.

Thirty-Seven

“You’re what?” Roark looked at her blankly.

“You heard me.” Samantha lifted her chin. There was a defiant gleam in her green eyes that said she fully expected him to believe her.

“You can’t be,” Roark said flatly. “There’s no possible way.”

“What do you mean? After all the times you’ve strapped me into that machine and inseminated me?” Samantha demanded.

“The seed I used—” Roark began.

“I know, I know—it was fake seed,” she interrupted him. “But what about the Beast Kindred compound you used to help me open up? If you extracted it from real precum, don’t you think a live sperm might have gotten through? And I was ovulating and twins run in my family so—”

“The compounds are not extracted from real Beast Kindred seed,” Roark snapped, frowning. “They are made in my lab—they’re only based on Beast Kindred emissions. So there is no possible way you could get pregnant from them.”

He was also certain there was no possible way she could get pregnant from his own seed, though he had injected copious amounts into her. He had injected copious amounts into Amanda too—back when he was still trying to bond with her. They had tried everything and nothing had worked—his seed was completely nonviable.

“You must be mistaken,” he told Samantha. “There’s no possible way you cold be pregnant.”

“Oh, no? Then explain these!” She thrust out her hand, shoving two little pink pregnancy flowers at him.

Roark stared at them blankly.

“Pink? As in females? Twin females?” Now he knew the babies couldn’t be his. Even if his sperm had been viable it would have been impossible.

“That’s what the test said.” Samantha’s voice was both shaky and belligerent. “And Liv, the doctor who did it, said the pregnancy tests here aboard the Mother Ship are one hundred percent accurate.”

“Samantha…” Roark strove to keep his voice low and controlled, though he wasn’t feeling very in control at all. “Do you have any idea what the odds of you getting pregnant with twin girls with a Kindred father are?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “Liv said about a million to one? I know it’s rare.”

“It’s so rare as to be nearly nonexistent,” Roark told her icily. “The odds are approximately one in four point seven billion—roughly the same odds a human female has to conceive quintuplets naturally with a human male. It simply doesn’t happen.”

“But…” Samantha shook her head. “But how do you explain this, then?” she nodded at the pink flowers in her palm again.

“I’ll tell you how I explain it,” Roark growled. “I think you were already pregnant when you took the job as my assistant. Probably by the lover who left that note in your old domicile. You pretended not to be because you wanted the job and hoped I wouldn’t notice until it was too late for me to fire you because you already knew