Facing Up To Fatherhood

Shock held Dominic speechless for a split second. But then anger swept back in. If Sarah thought she was going to pin the paternity of a baby on him on the strength of that one night, then she could think again!

‘Sarah was my secretary, I admit,’ he ground out. ‘But we did not have an affair!’

The brunette folded her arms and practically rolled her eyes at him. ‘Oh, come now, Mr Hunter. I didn’t come down in the last shower. I know exactly what happened between you and Sarah. How you can stand there and deny having slept with her is beyond me!’

‘I don’t deny having slept with her,’ he bit out. ‘But it was only the once and I used protection. I repeat, I am not the father of that baby, or any other baby. As I said to you before, honey, you’ve got the wrong man.’

She actually smiled at him, an icy smile which set his teeth on edge. ‘You are Dominic Hunter, the head of Hunter & Associates, aren’t you?’

‘You know damned well I am.’

‘Then I’ve got the right man. But if you insist on a DNA test, I won’t object.’

‘A DNA test!’ he exploded. ‘I’m not having any damned DNA test!’

‘Oh, yes, you are, Dominic.’

Dominic spun round to find his mother eyeing him with one of those stern looks which spelt her complete unwillingness to be persuaded otherwise. He knew because he’d seen that look many times during his lifetime. He groaned, then sighed his resignation to the inevitable. If he didn’t succumb to a DNA test his life was going to be hell!

Still, once he’d calmed down a little, Dominic realised it was probably a good idea to have the test done. What better way to back his denial of paternity than with irretrievable scientific proof?

‘Very well,’ he agreed, with a return to composure, and both women looked surprised, even the dark-eyed brunette.

Who in hell was she? he began wondering. And what was she to Sarah? Her sister, perhaps?

He stared at her, thinking she looked nothing like Sarah at all. ‘So tell me, Miss Know-it-all, why didn’t Sarah come and see me in person about this baby of hers? Why send someone else in her place? Don’t tell me it’s because she’s afraid of me because I won’t believe that.’

Dominic was taken aback when those coal-black eyes, which till now had held such cynicism and contempt for him, suddenly shimmered with tears. When his mother walked over and put a comforting arm around the girl’s shoulders, the penny dropped.

Sarah was dead.

That beautiful, sweet, lovely girl was dead.

His heart squeezed tight, and he wondered how she’d died. In childbirth, perhaps? But surely that kind of thing didn’t happen these days.

‘Sarah was killed in a road accident a couple of weeks ago,’ his mother explained before he could ask, her own eyes reproachful towards him. ‘She stepped out in front of a bus and was critically injured. Witnesses said she seemed to be daydreaming. Sarah didn’t have any close relatives so she made Tina Bonnie’s legal guardian. They were best friends. Tina’s come here today to see if we’ll help raise the child.’

‘That’s all very sad,’ Dominic said. ‘And I’d be glad to give Tina some money, if that will help out. But, Mum, I am not Sarah’s baby’s father.’

His mother nodded. ‘I appreciate you probably believe that, son. It explains your otherwise appalling behaviour. But Tina says Sarah told her you were the father for certain. She also said Sarah came to you and told you about her pregnancy when she was just a few weeks along. You denied you were the father back then, but gave her some money for a termination.’

‘But that’s just not true!’ Dominic denied, truly shocked. ‘If Sarah told you this, then she lied,’ he directed forcibly at the brunette, who seemed to have swiftly recovered from the threat of tears to look at him coldly once more, her mouth pursed with scorn. ‘I swear to you, I knew nothing of Sarah’s pregnancy. Neither did she come and see me about it.’

The brunette’s already disapproving lips curled over in even more derision. ‘Sarah didn’t tell lies.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, everyone tells lies!’ he snapped.

‘Do they indeed?’

Her sarcasm stung, as did her ongoing scepticism. She didn’t believe a word he’d said. Dominic wasn’t used to having his credibility doubted, and he didn’t like it one bit.

He glared into those hard black eyes of hers, but they held his easily, and scornfully. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by the most amazingly strong feeling, a mad compulsion to make her believe him, to take her in his arms and kiss that contemptuous mouth of hers till she melted against him, till she was all soft and compliant, till she was incapable of disbelieving, or denying him anything.

His head whirled with the dark intensity of his desires, his hands actually twitching with the urge to grab her right then and there. If his mother hadn’t been standing guard he might actually have done so.

The realisation stunned him. For he wasn’t that kind of man. Not normally.

Shaken at such an uncharacteristic loss of control, he curled his wayward fingers into fists and jammed them into his trouser pockets, only to discover to his horror that he was partially aroused.

He could not believe it. Never in his life had a woman got under his skin like this. He was torn between a black fury and an even blacker frustration. The more he tried to will his flesh into subsidence, the harder it became. Finally, he whipped his hands out of his pockets and did up the buttons on his suit jacket, at the same time drawing himself up tall in an outer display of dignity.

The irony of his actions was not lost on him, but be damned if he was going to risk being humiliated in front of this female.

‘You actually believe all this rubbish?’ he demanded of his mother, looking for distraction in argument.

‘Tina showed me a photograph of Sarah,’ she replied coolly. ‘She’s one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen.’

‘Meaning I wouldn’t have been able to resist her, is that it?’

‘Most men couldn’t, Mr Hunter,’ the object of his torment piped up. ‘Especially when Sarah imagined herself in love with them. She confessed to me she was in love with you last October, not long before Bonnie must have been conceived. When Sarah was in love with a man, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for them.’

Not like you, Dominic thought as he glared at her scorn-filled face. You would never be any man’s slave.

Which only made him want her all the more.

The discovery of where this over-the-top and stunningly uncontrollable desire was coming from was little comfort to Dominic. His flesh remained stubbornly resistant to reasoning.

Okay, so he’d always liked a sexual challenge in a woman, but this was ridiculous. This woman despised him. It was extremely perverse to desire someone who was making it blatantly obvious he would be the last man on earth she’d go to bed with.

‘I repeat,’ he stated forcibly. ‘I only slept with Sarah the once. And I used protection. It was the last night of her employ as my secretary. Her boyfriend had just gone off with some other woman and Sarah was very upset.’

‘So you comforted her,’ Tina said, the most blistering sarcasm in her tone.

His eyes clashed with her coldly cynical gaze, and again, something happened within him. Something deep and dark and even more dangerous. For this time he could not even control his thoughts.

One day, madam, he vowed hotly, I’ll make you look at me differently to that. One day you’ll give me fire, not ice. One day!

The moment of mental madness was over as quickly as it had come. But it still rattled Dominic, for it betrayed a lack of control previously unknown to his character.

He really had to get a grip on this situation.

And his body.

Or was it his mind playing havoc with him?

No, no, not his mind. This woman.

‘Something like that,’ he grated out.

‘Condoms have been known to fail, you know,’ she challenged tartly.

‘Not the ones I buy.’

Her eyebrows lifted. Wickedly mocking, taunting eyebrows. ‘I know of no such infallible brand.’

Neither did Dominic. But he was not going to give an inch where this woman was concerned.

‘When and where can I take this test?’ he asked, determined to have done with this appalling scenario as quickly as possible.

‘I’ve rung the doctor,’ his mother informed him. ‘He said if you and Bonnie come in first thing on Monday morning, he’ll take the required blood tests and have them sent off straight away. But, given it’s not an urgent criminal case, the results might take anything up to a couple of weeks.’

‘Surely they can do it quicker than that!’

‘You can ask, I suppose. But I doubt it will make any difference. Apparently there’s a bit of a backlog, due to increased demand for DNA tests, and they only give priority to real emergencies. Police work and such. Meanwhile, I’ve asked Tina and Bonnie to stay here with us. She’s been working and living in Melbourne this past year and doesn’t have anywhere decent to stay in Sydney other than the little bedsit Sarah was renting.’

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Mum,’ Dominic said firmly, gratified that he didn’t sound as panic-stricken as he felt at this development.

‘Why not?’

‘For one thing, you’ll grow attached to that baby in two weeks. How do you think you’re going to feel when you find out she’s not your granddaughter?’

She gave him a disturbingly smug look, as though she had some secret knowledge he wasn’t privy to. ‘I’ll cope, if and when that happens. What other objections do you have?’

‘I don’t like to be pedantic, but you really know nothing about this woman, here, except what she’s told you. For all you know, that baby in there could be anyone!’

Actually, this thought hadn’t occurred to him before, but now that it had, he ran with it.

‘And so could she!’ he said, jabbing a finger towards the brunette. ‘To invite a stranger into our home without checking her story with independent sources is not only naive, but downright stupid!’

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