She stepped around him. He let her go, watched as she headed for the door.
The lady was impressive but then, she’d been impressive the night they’d met. It was an interesting combination, that silk-over-steel quality. Her morals left a lot to be desired but he had to respect her for having balls.
He waited until she was almost at the door.
“Ms. Dalton. You call my client’s behavior harassment—but he lost his only son. Now you’re telling him he’s going to lose the only grandchild he’ll ever have.”
She turned and looked at him. “Why don’t you ask him when he really lost David, Mr. Wilde?”
Caleb suspected there’d been a distance between father and son. The fact was, he didn’t like Caldwell. There was something unpleasant about the man, but that wasn’t his affair. He was an attorney, not a shrink.
“Family quarrels,” he said evenly, “are not my concern.”
“Apparently, neither is justice.”
He smiled thinly. “Trust me, Sage. You’re not going to hurt my feelings.”
Her chin rose. “How could I? You don’t have any feel—”
He moved fast, grabbed her hands and held them at her sides.
“The feelings I have for you,” he said in a rough voice, “are the ones any man would have for a woman who took him into her lover’s bed.”
Whatever color remained in her face drained away. “I despise you,” she whispered.
“You didn’t that night.” He closed the inch between them, transferred both her hands to one of his and lifted her face with the other. “For all I know, you were already carrying his baby.”
Tears rose in her eyes. “Go to hell!”
“Were you? Was his child in your womb that night?”
She called him a word he wouldn’t have thought she’d know—but then, she knew a lot of things he wouldn’t have imagined.
“You parted your legs for me,” he growled, “and once I left, you parted them for him—”
Sage spat in his face.
Caleb stood very still. A dozen responses raced through his head, starting with slapping her...
And ending with hauling her into his arms, taking her back to the loveseat and burying himself inside her.
One thought was more contemptible than the last.
And she—she had brought him to this lowest level of hell.
He let go of her. Took a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face.
“I suppose,” he said with terrible calm, “this is as good a time as any to ask a question.”
She lifted her chin. Looked straight at him.
“No,” she said evenly. “I’m not carrying your child. Believe me, if I were, I might have dealt differently with this pregnancy.”
Caleb nodded. He’d known this didn’t involve him but only a fool wouldn’t ask—and only a fool would be hurt by the vehemence of her answer.
What would she say if he told her that it seemed he did have feelings, after all?
Still, the “no” was what mattered.
And it was what he’d expected.
He’d only made love to her one time—had sex with her one time, he thought, coldly correcting himself. And she’d assured him she was on the pill.
“Then I have only one last thing to tell you.” Caleb paused. “My client will agree not to contact you again.”
She blinked. “But you said—”
“With one proviso. He wants proof of paternity.”
Sage threw up her hands. “Are you as deaf as he is? This baby isn’t David’s.”
“Let’s say it’s for his own peace of mind.”
“Can’t you ever speak the truth, Mr. Wilde? He wants the test because he thinks I’m lying.”
“Either way, take the test and you can put all this behind you.”
“So this—this was all subterfuge.”
“If the child isn’t your dead lover’s, you have nothing to fear.”
Sage took a steadying breath.
“When does he want the test done?”
Caleb took a long white envelope from the inside pocket of his dark gray suit jacket and handed it to her.
“Tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock.”
Her smile was bitter. “Are you always so damned sure life is going to go exactly your way?”
“Always,” he said, but it was a lie. Life had not gone his way at all. If it had, he wouldn’t be filled with anger and hate for a woman he had so recently wanted more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life.
“What do I have to do?”
“It’s all there. Details of the procedure, the location of the ob-gyn’s office, her credentials. She’s Chief of Obstetrics at Manhattan Hospital. Unless you’d prefer your own doctor...?”
Sage’s “own doctor” was a pleasant nurse-practitioner she’d seen once at a Planned Parenthood clinic. She doubted if they even did paternity tests, plus that word, procedure, had a very clinical ring to it.
“I’ll read through this material. If I find a problem with any of it, I’ll let you know.”
“The lab that will analyze the results has been provided with samples of David Caldwell’s DNA.” Caleb’s lips thinned. “If there are samples from other men you wish to provide...”
Sage pinned Caleb with a look.
“You are,” she said, “the most horrible man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”
At that, she opened the door to the suite and stomped out.
CHAPTER SIX
SAGE spent an hour reading the material Caleb had given her...and the rest of the night trying not to think about what was going to happen in the morning.
The procedure was called CVS. It involved either a catheter or a long, very sharp needle. Neither sounded pleasant.
The brochure referred to “minimal discomfort.” More troubling, there was “a slight possibility” of damage to her or the baby.
That sent her in search of more information.
She turned on her laptop computer and Googled Chorionic Villi Sampling. The search led her to a website where she asked questions of a couple of women who’d gone through it.
Both said it sounded worse than it was.
More importantly, they, and their babies, had come through just fine.
It’ll help if you have someone with you who cares about you, one woman typed, and the other quickly added a smiley face and a heart.
But there was no one who cared for her. There never had been, not really. Her mother had died a long time ago and the simple truth was, she’d done her maternal duty but “love” had never been part of the equation.
David was the only person who’d ever cared for her...
Until Caleb, and the night when he had been her defender, her protector, her lover.
Her accuser.
Sage looked at the blinking cursor on her computer screen, typed a quick Thanks, closed her computer and stood up. Her back ached. Another new thing, courtesy of pregnancy. She stretched, then went to the window.
It was dawn.
Not much sense in doing anything except getting ready for what lay ahead.
She showered, dried her hair and pulled it into a ponytail. She put on a white cotton bra and panties; old, faded jeans that were getting a little snug but still fit; and an ancient Wonder Woman T-shirt she’d found in a resale shop.
Comfort clothes, physically and emotionally. She had the feeling she was going to need some kind of comfort today.
Then she made a cup of herbal tea, sat down at the kitchen table and went through her options one last time.
If she refused to go through with the test, Thomas Caldwell would continue to intrude on her life as he waited for her baby�
��s birth.
No. Not Thomas Caldwell.
He’d delegated her to Caleb Wilde.
He was the man who would haunt her every footstep, every breath until the baby arrived and a much simpler test finally sent him, and his client, packing.
Sage drank some of the hot tea.
She had lots to do in the next six months.
Find a place to live. Out of the city. She could never afford to raise her child in New York as a single mother. Besides, she wasn’t really a city person.
The one good thing about her own childhood was the memory of green meadows, trees and country roads. She wanted those same things for her child.
So the first thing was to figure out where she wanted to live. Then she had to find a place to rent.
Mostly, she had to find a job.
The dream of becoming an actress could wait.
She had two years of college—night school—that would look good on a résumé. And she had employable skills.
She was a good waitress—she’d put in more time than seemed possible at everything from diners to delis to small, mostly ethnic restaurants.
She could sell things, too. Three Christmases spent behind the jewelry counter at Macy’s were proof of that.
Bottom line? She was ready to begin her new life, and how could she do that with Caleb Wilde on her heels?
She couldn’t.
And, dammit, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, either.
Being in this miserable apartment didn’t help. The memory of him was everywhere. The living room. The kitchen. The bedroom, where they’d made love...
No. Not love.
They’d had sex.
She understood that now but that night—that night—
“Idiot,” she said in a harsh whisper.
Sex. Lust. That was it, plain and simple, the same thing that had got her mother in trouble, that had led to her birth twenty-four years ago...but with a huge difference.
She would love her baby. She already did.
All she had to do was get Caleb Wilde out of her life.
Sage spread her hand over her belly, felt the gentle rise that marked the new life within it. Then she pushed back her chair, dumped the remnants of her cold herbal tea in the sink, grabbed her purse and went out the door.
* * *
Caleb had made arrangements for Dr. Fein to have no other appointments the morning of the test.
Fein’s office was in a handsome old townhouse just off Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side.
At nine-thirty, Caleb stepped out of a taxi, went up the steps to the door and rang the bell. A disembodied voice came over the intercom.
“Yes?”
“Caleb Wilde. I’m the attorney of record for the CVS test to be performed on—”
The door clicked open on a small, empty waiting room. The receptionist, seated behind a handsome desk, smiled pleasantly.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning. Is Ms. Dalton here yet?”
“She’s not scheduled until ten.”
Caleb nodded. He knew that. The question was, would she show up? Had she changed her mind about the test...especially now that she’d read the stuff he’d given her?
He’d read it last night.
And then he hadn’t slept anything worth a damn until it was time to shower, shave and get dressed.
Which was pointless.
The procedure sounded like hell. Yes, but lots of medical procedures were unpleasant, and Sage had brought the need for this one down on her own head.
So, what was he doing here?
It turned out that the receptionist was wondering the same thing.
“Mr. Wilde?” Another professional, pleasant smile. “You’re welcome to stay, sir, but I’m sure you know it isn’t necessary. We’re a certified facility and we absolutely guarantee a legal chain of custody.”
“Yes. Of course. I, ah, I thought I’d see if Ms. Dalton keeps the appointment.”
If she didn’t, the receptionist said, they’d notify him.
“Of course,” he said briskly. “And I do have another appointment...”
The doorbell rang. The receptionist pressed a button, the door swung open...
Sage stepped into the office.
Not yesterday’s Sage, doing her best to look cool and competent in a suit and pumps. This was the Sage of that night three months back, the Sage who’d gone into her bathroom and worked whatever magic it took to make a woman look sweet and innocent.
Her face was makeup-free. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was dressed in old-looking jeans and an even older-looking T-shirt.
And she was shocked to see him.
Her eyebrows rose, her lips parted—and for one crazy moment, he thought she almost looked glad that he was there.
Wrong.
Her brows drew together, her lips turned down and she said, “What are you doing here?”
Caleb cleared his throat.
“I thought I’d—I’d stop by, just in case you had any—any questions...”
She shot him a look of such disdain that it made him flinch. Then she swept past him.
“Sage Dalton,” she told the receptionist in a steady voice. “I have an appointment with Dr. Fein.”
“Good morning, Ms. Dalton. The doctor will be with you shortly. I have some papers for you to fill out.”
Sage took a clipboard stuffed with what looked like enough pages to fill an encyclopedia, and sat in a straight-backed chair beside a small table.
Time to leave, Caleb told himself. His presence was unnecessary. And unwanted.
He glanced at his watch.
He really did have an appointment. With Caldwell. The man had suggested breakfast but Caleb had reached the point at which the thought of breaking bread with him made his gut knot.
The appointment wasn’t for another hour.
Why not stay around for a few minutes? Sage didn’t want him here but what she wanted wasn’t the issue. Legality was. There might be legal questions she couldn’t answer.
He took a chair across from hers. She didn’t look up. The room was silent, except for the scratch of her pencil.
At five of ten, she rose, went to the reception desk and handed over the forms.
At four of ten, a woman in a pale yellow smock emerged from a hallway behind the desk.
“Ms. Dalton?”
Sage got to her feet. So did Caleb.
“I’m Janet. Dr. Fein’s nurse.” She smiled pleasantly. “She’s ready to meet with you and chat a bit before we get to the procedure. If you’ll just come with me.”
Sage nodded.
Caleb’s jaw tightened. Her face was the color of milk, just as it had been after the attack that night.
She walked toward the nurse. Caleb hesitated, then fell in behind her. The nurse raised an eyebrow.
“And you are—”
“Caleb Wilde. I’m the attorney of record.”
“Not my record,” Sage said coldly.
“I represent the client who ordered this test.”
“And?” the nurse said politely.
And, Caleb thought, what in hell are you doing, Wilde?
“And,” he said, in his best courtroom voice, “I’m going to sit in with Ms. Dalton until it’s time for the procedure.”
The nurse looked at Sage. “Ms. Dalton?”
Sage shot him a look filled with hatred.
“He wants to make sure I don’t change my mind and go out the back door.”
“That’s not—”
“Of course it is,” she said. “Sit in, by all means, Mr. Wilde, while I do whatever it takes to get you out of my life.”
&
nbsp; * * *
The doctor’s consulting room was small and efficient.
The doctor was the same.
She shook hands with both of them, motioned them into chairs across from hers.
“Are you sure you want to permit Mr. Wilde to be present during our chat, Sage?”
Sage shrugged her shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Her voice was low. Not quite as steady as before.
“Well, then,” Fein said, picking up the papers Sage had filled out, “give me a moment to look these over.”
Fein began to read. Sage sat straight in her chair, feet together, hands folded in her lap.
Caleb watched her. Little bits of her self-control were slipping. She was worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. Rubbing one thumb over the other.
Now, she was trembling.
Something twisted inside him.
“Sage?” he said softly.
She looked at him. He cleared his throat.
“Are you all right?”
Now she looked at him as if he were insane.
“Can I get you something? Water, maybe?”
Still no answer. He leaned toward her.
“Look,” he said, his voice low, “there’s nothing personal in this.”
“How could there be? You’re a lawyer.”
Caleb winced. All the lawyer jokes in the world were in those three coldly delivered words.
“What I mean is, this has nothing to do with—with anything but Thomas Caldwell’s rights.”
“He has none.”
“So you claim.”
“So I know, Mr. Wilde, as you will, too, after today.”
“Look, I’m simply trying to tell you that—”
“Do us both a favor. Don’t tell me anything.”
The doctor looked up, her gaze sweeping from Sage to Caleb and back again.
“Well,” she said brightly, “everything seems to be in order. Sage? I just want to go over some of the fine points again.”
“I understand the fine points.” Sage’s voice was husky. “Please, let’s get this over with.”
“This will only take a minute, I promise. First of all, I want to be sure you are aware that it will take approximately five days to get the results. Confirmation of paternity, based on today’s test and the DNA samples of one David Caldwell, such DNA having been properly collected by—”
Harlequin Presents January 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Ruthless Caleb WildeBeholden to the ThroneThe Incorrigible Playboy Page 8