Ginny. If you thought me so, it was your own misguided judgement.” I would not fight with her. Certainly not here. “Is she mine?”
She tore her gaze from me and walked away. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Is she mine?”
This time, she didn’t bother to respond.
****
Ginny
“Is she mine?”
He’d shouted the question, as if he didn’t care there were others in the park. As if he didn’t care that his reputation might be ruined, that my position with the Lamier women might end. I should have been angry.
Is she mine?
Part of me was furious that he’d even have to ask. I wanted to slap his handsome face for wondering if I’d slept with someone else. Scream at him for not seeing how much she looked like him. The other half of me, the frightened half, wanted to deny his connection. Claim that I had slept with another so that he might have no power over me.
“Will you claim to care?” I turned to face him. “Claim you’re a good man who wants to do right?”
I didn’t miss the two maids who stood only ten steps away, watching us with wide eyes. No doubt they would rush home and spread the gossip to whomever they worked for.
“No,” he said softly. “Never that.”
And I might have believed him, if not for the emotion in his eyes. The desperation. The pain. The confusion. I could feel my body soften as I swayed ever so slightly toward him. I wanted to slide my arms around his neck, to press up close and breathe in his musky scent. I wanted to…I wanted to punch him in his perfect, aristocratic nose for hurting me.
Mostly, the scared part of me wanted to run. To run and never look back. I had a good life, and if I worked hard, there was no reason why I couldn’t continue to rise in the ranks. But here he was, throwing everything off balance.
He stepped closer; his gaze hard, darker than I’d ever seen it before. So close I could smell his lovely, masculine scent. “You owe me an explanation.”
My hands fisted so tightly, my nails bit painfully into my palms. “I owe you nothing!”
There, in the park, he gripped my upper arms. “She is my child!”
I shoved my hands against his chest and pushed him back. “Don’t ever touch me again, and don’t you dare come near either of us!”
His lips pressed into a firm line; his frustration palpable. More than one person looked our way.
“She’s my daughter, Ginny. You can’t keep her from me.”
Panic and anger combined, almost choking the breath from me. “And how will your fiancé handle the news, my lord? Will you welcome my child into your home? Will you treat her as your own? You know as well as I that she will be labeled a bastard. That she will be shunned. Would you be that cruel? That spiteful?”
“And so you’ll let the world think her father died?”
I tilted my chin stubbornly high. “It’s for the best.”
“For you or her?”
“For both of us, Lord Chambers. For all of us.”
His jaw clenched, unclenched. I would have felt sorry for him if I thought he actually cared. But I had no doubt he only wanted my child out of spite. He knew she was better off with me, and an imaginary, deceased father.
“She is my daughter,” he whispered. “You think that doesn’t matter?”
“No, my lord. It doesn’t.” I would not fall for the hurt in his gaze. The Gabe I knew cared about no one. The Gabe I knew would do whatever it took to get what he wanted. I prayed he would lose interest in my child. Lose interest in me. Prayed that his upcoming wedding would occupy his time, even as a stab of jealousy shot through me at the thought of him marrying another.
On trembling legs, I turned and started down the path toward the shop. “Leave us alone.”
My arrogance was all bravado. Every step sent my heart thundering. Every noise made me flinch. Until I reached the end of the footpath, I fully expected him to pounce. I could feel his heated gaze burning my back. It was only as I turned the corner, and his attention faded, that I could breathe a sigh of relief.
The shop façade was a welcome sight. It felt like home when no place had since Aunt Helen’s death. As silly as it sounded, I felt safe in the room above the modiste shop. Even as I realized that