Pursued

by Tracy Wolff

  How were the two of them going to build some kind of secure family unit for their child when she seemed to hate him? When she believed the worst of him? When she wanted nothing to do with him?

  He’d lived that life, caught between two parents who hated each other and used their children as weapons. There was no way he would let that happen to his kid. No way he would let his son grow up the same way he and Marc had.

  But how was Nic going to stop it? How was he going to convince Desi that she could trust him not to hurt her or the baby? And speaking of trust, how the hell was he ever going to trust her again after everything she’d done?

  He was willing to accept that she’d believed the wrong source, that she’d bought whatever ridiculous bill of goods had been sold to her. But she was an investigative journalist—albeit a green one judging from the lack of bylines he’d found when researching her. It was her job to dig for facts. Her job to talk to people on both sides of the issue as she tried to figure out who was telling the truth.

  She hadn’t done that. Despite the fact that they’d spent what he’d thought was a fairly spectacular night together, despite the fact that she was carrying the baby who in time would be heir to Bijoux, she’d had no problem writing an article that would have brought his family’s company to its knees. And she hadn’t even had the decency to give him a heads-up, let alone contact him to get his side of the story.

  How much did she have to hate him to do something like that? And why? What had he done to her except give her seven orgasms—not that he’d been counting—and try to see her again? He’d liked her, really liked her…at least until she’d done all this.

  As he walked, he went over the night they’d spent together, searching for something he could have done to set her off. She’d freaked out a little when he’d gotten her phone number, but they’d compromised. He’d played by the rules she set. And still she’d nearly destroyed him.

  It didn’t make sense.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Push me higher!”

  The high-pitched squeal got his attention, followed by the sound of deep male laughter. He glanced over toward the playscape, saw a man about his own age pushing a small boy on the swings. The kid was adorable, dark, wild curls and big brown eyes and the biggest smile Nic had ever seen.

  “Faster, Daddy, faster!”

  The man laughed again, then did as his son requested.

  Nic didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t look away. They both looked so happy, the kid and the dad, who looked as if there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be.

  Nic wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but it was long enough to have the dad giving him a weird look. Great. He’d gone from human rights violator to park pervert in under an hour. It was shaping up to be one hell of a day.

  “Sorry,” he said, putting a little more distance between him and the kid. “I just found out I’m…um, expecting…an, uh, boy.” What was wrong with him that he was tripping over his own tongue? That never happened to him. He was the guy who always had a joke or a story, the one who could put anyone at ease. And yet, here he was, trying to form a simple sentence about the fact that he, too, was going to be a father, and he ended up sounding like a blathering idiot.

  But blathering idiot must be the language of fathers everywhere, because, somehow the guy got what Nic was saying. The suspicious look disappeared from his face, giving way to a grin that was a tad sympathetic. “You just found out you and your wife are expecting a boy?” he said.

  Not quite, but it was close enough that Nic was willing to go with it. “Yeah. It’s…”

  “Intense,” the other guy filled in.

  “Yes. Exactly. Totally intense. I can’t quite wrap my head around it yet.”

  “Daddy, higher!” the kid said again.

  “Any higher and your mother will have my head,” the guy responded. But Nic noticed that he pushed the boy a little bit harder, let him go a little bit higher. “Yeah, it’s crazy. But it’s great, too, you know. Because—” he nodded toward his son “—you get this awesome kid out of the deal.”

  “I can see. How old is he?”

  “Just turned four.”

  “He’s great.”

  The guy’s chest puffed out a little. “He is, isn’t he? A bit of a daredevil, always wanting to go faster or climb higher. He keeps us on our toes.”

  “I bet.”

  “Slower, Daddy!”

  “Slower?” The man looked down at his son in surprise.

  “I want to go on the slide now.”

  “Oh, sure.” Nic watched as the man carefully stopped the swing and helped his son off. “You want to go on that slide over there?” he asked, pointing to the largest one on the playscape.

  “No. I want to do the big one. Over there.” The kid pointed to a huge, curved slide obviously meant for older kids.

  “Of course you do.” The dad rolled his eyes, but he held out a hand for the kid and the boy took it. “Let’s go.” He glanced back at Nic as they started to walk away. “Hey, good luck with the baby.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “You’ll need it. It’s the craziest thing you’ll ever do. But also the best.”

  And then he scooped his kid up onto his shoulders and took off running across the park while the little boy shrieked in delight.

  Nic stood where he was for long seconds, staring after them until they reached the other playscape. Then as the kid climbed up the slide and his dad climbed up right behind him, Nic felt himself calm down. Everything was going to be fine. He might not know anything about parenting yet, but he had five months to learn the basics. And a lifetime to learn the rest of it.

  Desi had better get on board. He was willing to take a backseat, willing to do things her way. As long as her way didn’t involve cutting him out completely. Because she was carrying his kid—his son—and while he was willing to compromise, the one thing he wasn’t willing to do was walk away. The sooner she accepted that, the better off they would all be.

  How had she screwed up this badly? Desi stared at the evidence on the desk in front of her, sorted through it for what had to be the fiftieth time as she wrapped her mind around the fact that she had made a terrible mistake.

  Nic had brought all kinds of documentation with him, including page after page of chemical analysis of the diamonds sold by Bijoux. Diamonds whose environmental coating and chemical thumbprint matched exactly those being dug up in Canadian diamond mines. Not African mines. Canadian. All of which were conflict-free and responsibly sourced.

  That wasn’t all the evidence Nic had brought, though it was certainly damning enough considering it was signed by one of the top conflict-diamond experts in the world. But he’d also brought affidavits from the foremen at each of the mines, explaining the amount of diamonds each mine yielded and how many pounds of diamonds had gone to Bijoux in the preceding three years. Amounts that matched Bijoux’s certified goods received records.

  He had done all his homework, had provided the paper with everything he could possibly need to debunk her story. And maybe she still wouldn’t believe it no matter what he said—documents could be forged after all—except Malcolm had spent the past few days running her source to ground. After Darlene had spoken with Nic last week about the article and he had been so adamant about filing a libel claim if they published the information, Malcolm had wanted to triple-check her source.

  Which she’d done herself after he’d given his information to Desi. But she must have missed something because early this morning Malcolm had talked with him. And had somehow managed to get from the man what she couldn’t. An admission that he had forged the documents he’d given her—from Bijoux and from the two diamond mines in Africa—in order to make it look as if Marc and Nic Durand were dirty.

  All of it, forged. All of it, lies. Pages an
d pages of forgeries that she had bought hook, line and sinker. Because she’d wanted the story to be real—had needed the story to be real so she could write the article and move her career away from dresses and into real news. And to hell with whether or not she wrecked the lives of two innocent men. To hell if she brought down an entire business—and an entire newspaper—with her mistakes. She’d needed to get the scoop.

  How could she have been so stupid? So gullible? So anxious to get the information that she’d overlooked her source’s tells. And now that she looked back on it, there had been many. She’d just been so caught up in getting the story and not disappointing Malcolm, in getting the truth—ha, wasn’t that a joke—that she’d looked past them. She’d made excuses for them in her own mind.

  The source was nervous.

  The source was a little confused but once he calmed down, he sorted it out.

  The source was doing a brave thing coming forward and blowing the whistle, but he was just an amateur. Of course he hadn’t known exactly what she’d need for the story.

  God, she was such a fool. And the worst kind of fool—the arrogant kind who refused to see, let alone admit, when she was wrong. Just thinking about what she’d said to Nic when he’d tried to hand her the documents… She’d had in her hands the proof that he was none of those things but she’d been too stubborn to look at it. Too stubborn to admit that maybe, just maybe, she’d been wrong.

  And now, the story she’d worked so hard on was dead. Malcolm told her it wasn’t her fault, told her Candace—the more experienced reporter he’d put on the case to work with her—had missed the same things she had. Which was true. Candace had.

  But Candace hadn’t spent the time on this story that Desi had.

  Candace didn’t know it the way she did.

  Candace hadn’t been trained at an early age by Alan Maddox, one of the best investigative journalists who had ever lived.

  If Candace had made a mistake, it was in trusting Desi, who had assured her over and over again that the information they had was legit.

  Which it wasn’t. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

  So now, here she was, back in the society pages—for a little while anyway. Malcolm assured her that her job wasn’t in jeopardy, but with a screwup of this magnitude, how could it not be? If that story had run—if Malcolm and Darlene had been just a little less conscientious—the paper would be in really hot water right now. And Bijoux would be under siege from everyone from the press to human rights organizations to consumer groups to lawyers bringing civil suits on behalf of clients who’d purchased Bijoux diamonds…the horrors would have gone on and on.

  And it would have been all her fault.

  Yet Nic had still wanted to talk to her, had still wanted to listen to her. And in her utter and complete arrogance, she’d driven him away. Worse, she’d backed him into a corner where he thought that the only choice he had was to fight her—for his company and for their baby.

  Nice job, Desi. Somehow she’d managed to mess her life up so royally, so completely, that she could not even begin to imagine how to fix it. She didn’t even know if fixing it was possible.

  But she also knew she had to try. She’d made this mess, and while Malcolm was helping her clean it up on the professional level, she owed it to Nic, and their baby, to try to fix it on the personal front, as well.

  Which meant she would have to call him. And explain the situation. And grovel—a lot. God. She closed her eyes, lowered her head to the desk. She hated groveling. She really, really, really hated groveling—especially when she was the one in the wrong.

  But she was smart enough—and woman enough—to admit that she had brought it on herself. She was the one who hadn’t listened to Nic and she was the one who was so wrapped up in her investigation, and the kind of man she’d thought he was, that she’d left one voice mail for him and then given up. Even though she was carrying his baby. And even though she’d known—though she would deny it to her dying day—that there was a good chance that after she’d ignored him for weeks that he wouldn’t listen to any message she left.

  Just because she knew what she needed to do didn’t mean it was easy. Desi gave herself five minutes to sulk and then did what she had to do. She put on her big-girl panties and called Nic.

  Ten

  He brought her to one of his favorite restaurants in LA, a little trattoria in the heart of Beverly Hills. He liked it because the food was great and the owner’s brother had worked for Bijoux for years, but he could tell the moment they walked into the place that he had definitely chosen wrong.

  Though Desi didn’t say anything, it was obvious that she was uncomfortable. He thought about ignoring her discomfort so as not to make it any worse, but they already had a lot of strikes against them. This dinner was supposed to be about finding some common ground, and if it would make her feel better to go someplace else, then he was more than willing to do that for her.

  But when he asked if she’d feel more comfortable at one of the other restaurants on the street, she just shrugged and said, “This is fine.”

  “Are you sure? Because if you don’t like Italian—”

  “Everyone likes Italian food,” she told him with a slightly exasperated roll of her eyes. “That’s not the problem.”

  “Then what is?”

  “This place is expensive.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I asked you out—”

  “I don’t want your money. That’s not why I called you tonight. And it’s definitely not why I’m keeping the baby. I just want to say that up front and you need to believe me. I don’t need or want you to take me to fancy restaurants and spend a lot on me.”

  “Believe me,” he answered with a smirk, “I am well aware that you don’t want my money, Desi. Otherwise you wouldn’t have written an article guaranteed to cost me billions.”

  She flushed, and for the first time since they sat down, she refused to look him in the eye. “I know I already said it, but I’m really sorry about that. I wasn’t out to get you. I just believed the wrong person and…” Her voice trailed off as she ducked her head.

  He didn’t like this new, humble version of her. Yes, ten hours ago he’d pretty much been out for D. E. Maddox’s blood. But that was before he realized D. E. Maddox was also Desi. The woman he’d spent the most sensual, sexy, satisfying night of his life with. The woman who met him point for point with strength and attitude. The woman who, he now knew, was carrying his child.

  “Look, why don’t we just start over?” he told her, reaching across the table and resting his hand on top of hers.

  “Start over?” She looked incredulous. “I’m nearly five months pregnant with your son. I think it’s a little late to try starting over.”

  He laughed. “I don’t mean that I want to walk up to you in a bar and introduce myself to you while we pretend we don’t know each other. I just mean, let’s have a clean slate. Leave whatever’s in the past in the past and deal with where we are now without any of the junk from before messing it up.”

  “You want us to just forget everything?”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you think we can do that?”

  “Do you not?”

  She laughed then. “Are we seriously back to this? Answering each other’s questions with more questions?”

  “Hey. I asked the first question—you’ve just been piling question on question after that.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it happened.” She eyed him skeptically. “But I’m willing to take the blame this time, as a peace offering.”

  He felt himself relax, really relax, for the first time in days. Desi was here with him, they were having a conversation that didn’t involve sniping at each other—and that he hoped would, soon enough, also include real communication. Plus, his company was safe
. At this exact moment in time, what else could he ask for?

  After giving their order to the waiter—chicken picatta for him and angel-hair pasta for her—the two of them made small talk. About LA, about the weather, about a band they had both recently seen in concert. But as the meal went on, Nic grew increasingly frustrated. Not because he minded talking to Desi about that stuff—she was smart and funny and interesting, and if things were normal he’d be happy to spend the evening laughing and flirting with her over their dimly lit table.

  But things weren’t normal, and while he tended to be pretty easygoing about most things that didn’t involve Bijoux, he wasn’t okay with being easygoing about this. Not when she was carrying his child. And not when they had so much to figure out.

  By the time their meal had been cleared and he had ordered dessert—she had passed, but he hoped to tempt her with some lemon marscapone cheesecake—he was more than ready to talk about their son and what arrangements they were going to make for him.

  Desi seemed to sense his mood, because she stopped right in the middle of the story she was telling and looked at him.

  He didn’t like the apprehension in her eyes, or the way her body tensed as if she was waiting for a blow. He’d spent his whole life charming women. The last thing he wanted was for the mother of his child—for Desi—to be afraid of him.

  Reaching across the table, he slid his hand down her hair. She startled at his touch, but he didn’t move his hand away. Instead he pushed an errant lock behind her ear. Then he skimmed a finger down the soft curve of her cheek.

  Her eyes drifted shut at the first touch of his skin on hers and she swayed a little. Leaned her cheek into his hand. And, just that easily, the fire that had burned so hotly on the night they met reignited.

  It had been eighteen weeks since he’d held her, eighteen weeks since he’d kissed his way across her shoulders and down the delicate curve of her spine. But he still remembered what she felt like against him, around him. Still remembered the way she moaned when he slipped inside her and the way she raked her fingers down his back when she came.