Page 32 of The Nicolaides Baby

Rowan froze. “What are you doing here, Gia?”

Rowan glanced once more at the driver who kept his gaze fixed straight ahead and then back at Gia’s expectant and smirking face. “I don’t have a lot of time right now. I’m—”

“Getting married tomorrow?” The other woman’s gaze narrowed. “We’ll see.”

Rowan held the other woman’s intense, unwavering, and confident stare while pieces of her soul slowly died.

She knows.

“I thought we should have a little chat.”

“I have no idea why you’d think that.”

Gia didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she held up a legal-sized manila envelope. “I think you need to see what I have in here.”

Rowan stared hard at the large, black print on the front of the envelope—Hopper and Mitchell, Private Investigations—and then her pulse raced when she zeroed in on Raleigh, North Carolina. “What is it?”

“Let’s call it a wedding gift.” She lowered the envelope. Her benign smile warred with the calculation shimmering in her eyes. “Where are your manners? Aren’t you going to invite me inside your home?”

Several minutes later Rowan sat in the living room of the villa she had looked forward to being her and Leo’s home—a home where they would raise Mara and Lukas and perhaps more children as the years of their lives went on. She glanced up at the woman who had just imploded that future as her trembling hands crushed the papers comprising the damning words of the investigators’ report and the evidence they had ferreted out in the past few days since the engagement party.

She held copies of the familiar documents she hadn’t seen since a few months after Mara’s birth—all of them pointing to Leo as Mara’s father and giving him custody of her minor daughter in the event of her death as well as the copy of the letter she’d written to Leo explaining her decision to keep Mara a secret from him.

Gia had everything.

“It’s amazing what a bit of perseverance anda lotof money can accomplish in such a short time. Isn’t it?” Gia said, conversationally—not like she hadn’t just destroyed Rowan’s future and happiness. The other woman leaned back and crossed her legs, her nose curling as she glanced around the room before she turned her gaze back on Rowan. “Now, tell me something. How did you intend to get away with this? I mean, at some point Leo would have to be told the truth.” She snickered. “He’s going to be furious when he finds out.”

Gia sat forward and pinned her in place with her hate-filled gaze. “And hewillfind out. But sooner than you would like.”

Rowan tensed.

“You see, once I leave here, if we haven’t come to some kind of agreement, I have someone waiting outside the hospital with an identical envelope. All it will take is one call from me, and it will be delivered.”

Rowan’s pulse raced harder with each threat from the other woman. And then Gia said the one thing that had struck fear in Rowan’s heart since the day she’d discovered she was pregnant. “Then he’s going to want to keep your child with him part of the year—perhaps sue for total custody. Honestly, who would blame him after you’ve been soverydeceitful? Certainly not the courts.”

Rowan cleared her throat and held onto her emotions with an iron fist as her eyes burned and pricked. Gia might have just devastated her, but she wasn’t going to give the other woman the satisfaction of seeing her break down.

She would do thatafterGia left.

“So, what is this agreement you want?” She couldn’t lose her daughter, so she would have to do whatever the woman demanded.

“It’s quite a simple one.” Gia held her gaze for a moment before her delicate features went hard. “I want you to leave.”

10

“Leo.”

Leo frowned at his whispered name and the dipping of his bed bringing him awake. “What—”

His foggy brain quickly cleared as he sighed in pleasure into Rowan’s mouth when her lips took his and she slid her naked body against his.

“Mmm…” He pulled her close and then groaned when she wrapped one leg around his hips and pulled him into her body. He reluctantly lifted away from her searching mouth and strained to look over his shoulder at his bedside clock, but he couldn’t quite turn far enough with Rowan’s tight hold on him. “What time is it?” He turned back to her and nuzzled into her neck.

“Almost three.”

No wonder he was having a hard time coming awake, but it was getting easier by the moment as her wet center rubbed over his cock. “I thought you said it would be bad luck to see the bride the day of the wedding.”

“Can you see me?”

---