“Thank you,” he murmured. “I’ll be back shortly.”
“Take your time,” she replied with a charming curve of her lips, but Kayla could see her eyes remained full of questions.
Without wasting another second, Van took Kayla by her upper arm and steered her out of his office and toward Reception. She made a sound of protest but he ignored it until he’d shown her into a small conference room and the door behind them was closed.
“No more beating around the bush, Kayla. I want answers from you and they had better be good.”
“Van, I wasn’t kidding around. I really need your help.”
Sienna whimpered a little and Kayla smoothed her hand over the baby’s head nervously. Suddenly this didn’t seem like a good idea after all. But she’d thought and thought and she hadn’t been able to come up with any other way she could raise the money she needed.
“What’s wrong with her?” Van demanded, the roughness of his voice making Sienna’s whimper grow louder.
“She’s hungry, and in a strange place. This is messing with her routine. I’m sorry. The timing of this is all out of whack, isn’t it? I should have thought this out a bit better.”
Even now her breasts tingled with that full heavy warning that accompanied nursing.
“You think? But when has that ever stopped you?” he muttered.
She ignored his question. “Five years ago you offered to be there when I needed someone. Did you mean what you said?”
She had to hope that his offer still held. Without it, she had nothing and no one and her plans for the future, her promise to her sister, would all be shattered.
Van flashed a glance at his wristwatch. A Breitling with more whizzes and bangs on it than her food processor, she noted, unimpressed. But his action was a reminder for her, as well. Time was fleeting.
He flung her another look of irritation. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean. How about you explain it to me. You’ve got ten minutes, max.”
“Thank you.”
She moved forward and put her hand on his chest. Even through his suit she could feel the heat that poured from his body, feel the muscled perfection of his chest beneath the expertly tailored fabric. Against her will, her body began to react—her heart rate kicking up a beat, her senses that much more focused. He stared down at her hand and then back at her. She felt a rush of color stain her cheeks and let her hand drop.
* * *
Kayla’s innate ability to push his buttons hadn’t lessened with the time and distance between them. He reined in his impatience and directed her to sit down. The baby fussed again, tugging at Kayla’s top. Mesmerized, he watched as Kayla lifted her blouse and did something with her bra, exposing one breast and guiding her nipple to the baby’s mouth. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a woman breast-feeding and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but he couldn’t help the fascination that poured through him at the sight.
His child—the child he’d never believed would be born—being nurtured, here, right in front of him. Her birth shouldn’t have happened, not with her biological mother dead these five years. But that was one puzzle he didn’t need her to piece together for him. He remembered agreeing to be a donor for Sienna so that she could have embryos stored before starting cancer treatment. The logistics of how this little girl could be his baby and Sienna’s were perfectly clear. What he didn’t know was why—why had Kayla carried his child?
“Explain,” he said curtly, trying to fight the sensation of awe that threatened to overwhelm him.
He hadn’t wanted to be a father—he’d immediately signed his paternity rights away. And that had been before he’d found out the truth about his own birthright. Before he’d learned that the alcoholism that had plagued his birth parents’ lives and seen him removed from their custody as a toddler could, in part at least, be hereditary. Before he’d realized he had been heading down the same path and made a decision that he would never pass that potential legacy on, ever.
“I need money. A loan.”
“That explains why you’re here now but doesn’t explain her.” He pointed at the baby. “Sienna and I had an agreement. If she couldn’t go through with embryo transfer, they’d be donated to research or—”
Destroyed. Even he couldn’t bring himself to say the word out loud. At the time it hadn’t meant all that much to him. But now, faced with living proof? It was another thing entirely.
Kayla filled the silence. “Before she died, she changed her mind. With her lawyer’s help, she amended the paperwork and donated the embryos to me so that the children she’d always wanted would still have a chance. I promised her that her dream would still come true.”
“And now you want money from me for maintenance, is that it? For a child I don’t want?”
The words hung baldly in the air between them. He’d been deliberately provocative with his phrasing and could see Kayla fighting back her instinctive response to snap back—they’d frequently rubbed each other the wrong way in the past and today was a perfect example of that. When she’d composed herself, she spoke.
“Not for maintenance for Sienna, no. You may find it hard to believe, but I didn’t enter into parenthood lightly. I saved hard, I have a job I love and she has had excellent care while I work. But things have changed and I wouldn’t be asking you for help if it wasn’t vitally important. We’ve...” She seemed to choose her next words very carefully. “We’ve suffered a bit of a setback and I just need a loan, until we’re back on our feet.”
“A loan?” He searched her face to see if she was lying. “How much?”
He reached in a pocket for his cell phone, flicked out the stylus, opened a blank memo and put the device on the table next to her. “Here, put your account details in there and I’ll get my bank to transfer the money directly to your account.”
When Kayla didn’t move to pick up the stylus, he paused.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just like that?”
“Like what?”
“Any sum I mention. You’ll just give it to me?”
That sense of foreboding washed through him again. “What’s this about, Kayla?”
She adjusted the baby in her arms, and when she looked back up at him, he could see her eyes shimmer with tears.
“I miss her. Don’t you?” she whispered.
Van felt his gut twist in a knot. Yes, he missed her sister—she’d been his best friend growing up, after all, and it hurt to think of a world without her in it—but in many ways she was a reminder of his failures, of a past he was none too proud of. After she died, and particularly after that night with Kayla, he’d resolved to never look back, to only look forward.
“Yeah, I do,” he acknowledged. “But we have to move on, right?”
She nodded. “That’s what I’m doing. I’m moving on. I’ve made plans, very specific plans.”
Van’s spider senses were screaming. “Tell me,” he intoned cautiously.
“I’m going to have the rest of your babies, Sienna’s remaining two embryos. I was on track. I was going to space each of the pregnancies two years apart but—”
Whatever she said next was lost in the buzzing sound in his ears. Babies? Everything in him protested. Kayla’s voice finally penetrated the fog.
“—and with the clinic closing down, I can’t wait until I’ve built up my savings account to support two more individual pregnancies. Time is running out.”
A shudder of horror rippled through him. This couldn’t be happening. Not now that he knew about the awful heritage that had been passed down through generations on both sides of his family. And certainly not now that he was on the verge of expanding DM Security and merging not only with Dani Matthews’s company but with the woman herself.
Suddenly the diamond solitaire ring he had in his b
reast pocket felt like it was burning through the lining of his suit. He and Dani were totally on the same page on this subject. They gave to the community through their philanthropy and their skills. They had no desire to add to the world by having children. In fact, it was something they both specifically planned to avoid. Bad enough that Kayla already had one baby with his DNA. One child with a genetic predisposition for alcoholism was more than enough. But more? Being raised by a mother as flighty and unreliable as Kayla? It was a recipe for disaster.
“No,” he said emphatically.
A small frown pulled between Kayla’s brows. “No, you’re not going to loan me the money?”
“No, you’re not going to have those babies.”
Two
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s not going to happen. Not again.”
Kayla began to protest. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Five years ago, you said—”
He cut her off. “I will fight you on this with every last cent I have if necessary. I made a mistake agreeing to Sienna’s request to serve as her donor in the first place. I’m not compounding that mistake by assisting you now.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m the one who makes the decisions about what happens with the embryos, not you.”
“Not once my legal team gets a hold of this. I can keep this tied up through the courts for as long as it takes, and I will.”
Who was this man? She barely recognized him. But once upon a time he’d been different. He’d wanted to help. Maybe she could still reach that man somehow. She had to try. For her sister’s sake.
“We both loved her, Van. Don’t you remember why you wanted to help her in the first place? Because you supported her and wanted her to fulfill her dreams. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here. See her dreams come to fruition.”
“Don’t, Kayla!” He spoke sharply and baby Sienna, startled, popped off her breast.
Kayla quickly covered herself up again. “Don’t what, Van?”
“Don’t try to use Sienna to manipulate me. Everything is different now. Sienna’s dead. Her dream of motherhood died with her,” he said bluntly.
Kayla rose to her feet and rested Sienna against her shoulder, rubbing her little back more for her own comfort than for the child’s.
“No, Van, they didn’t. This beautiful little girl is proof of that. And I’m going to see to it that she doesn’t grow up without a brother or a sister. You, more than anyone, should understand why I’m determined to do that.”
“Be prepared for a long fight, then, because there is no way I’m sanctioning the birth of any more of my children. Not now. Not ever.”
Kayla forced a smile to her lips. “It doesn’t really matter whether you sanction them or not. You have no say. You signed your paternal rights away, remember?”
“Nothing is ever carved completely in stone, Kayla. And I have more than enough money to ensure that you won’t be permitted to go ahead with this.”
“We’ll see about that,” she answered with an equally determined tone. “You know, I feel sorry for you. You’ve become cold and unfeeling. Somewhere in the last five years you lost your heart.”
* * *
Kayla could barely think straight on the drive home. Some of it she put down to hormones. After all, she’d already begun the preparation for the embryo transfer as soon as she got the letter from the clinic to say they were closing. But now she had to decide if she was going to go through with it. And she had to decide whether to go with the single transfer, like she’d done with Sienna, and hope for the best or take the option of a multiple transfer of both remaining embryos with its higher likelihood of a multiple pregnancy. If only she wasn’t on such a short time frame. She’d budgeted so carefully to ensure she could have her sister’s children without putting herself in dire financial straits. It wasn’t cheap raising a kid, but with lots of overtime, diligent planning and a strict savings plan, she’d tucked away a tidy nest egg. But would it stretch to cover a multiple birth? No matter which way she looked at it, she’d be coming up short somewhere.
Well, she told herself optimistically, it wasn’t as if she couldn’t keep working and continuing to build her nest egg for now—even if the cost of day care for Sienna would now eat into her earnings. She wondered why her housemate, Zoe, had just up and left her like that. No notice, no anything. It was just weird. She and Kayla had enjoyed what Kayla thought was a fair arrangement—in exchange for an allowance, room and board, Zoe cared for Sienna while Kayla was at work. Zoe had never once mentioned she was unhappy with their situation.
Mind you, compared to living on the street, as Zoe had been when Kayla met her—down on her luck and down to her last five dollars—staying with Kayla must have been a massive relief. In fact, it was Zoe, an out-of-work child-care provider, who’d suggested she look after Sienna in the first place. So why had she just up and left?
By the time Kayla reached the two-bedroom apartment she rented on the outskirts of Lakeshore, she was no closer to finding an answer. She let herself inside and put Sienna, who’d fallen asleep in the car, into her crib. Kayla paused and gazed lovingly at the little girl. The daughter of her heart, but very much Sienna and Van’s child at the same time.
Why had Van been so distant, so determined that no more of his and Sienna’s children be born? It didn’t make sense. He’d willingly entered into the arrangement with her sister.
Well, whatever, she would still go ahead. She’d made a vow and she wasn’t going to break it. It would take a lot of planning, a lot of organization—two things that had never been her strong suits. But she’d built those skills over time. She’d needed to, in order to prepare herself for becoming a single mother. The important thing, she knew, was to take things one step at a time. So for now, her first major headache would be getting the baby back into the day care where she’d been before Zoe had moved in.
Kayla reached for her phone and noticed she had a message waiting. She frowned slightly, wondering why she hadn’t heard the phone ring before realizing the sound had been turned off. Strange, she didn’t remember doing that. She started to listen to the message, hoping that maybe it was from Zoe, with an explanation about where the heck she’d taken off to today.
But no, it wasn’t from Zoe—it was an automated message from her bank, notifying her that her account had gone into overdraft. That couldn’t be right—in fact, it had to be downright impossible. Nausea rose in Kayla’s gut as she pulled up her online banking app on her phone and checked her balance. But there it was on the screen, plain to see. The entire balance of her account had transferred out last night. But how...?
With shaking fingers, she keyed in the phone number for the bank and went through the menu options that would finally lead her to a human voice. Kayla felt her throat choke as she told the customer service rep just how much money should be in her account. She ought to know. After all, she checked it on her phone every night. And last night... The sick dread that enveloped her thickened and made her stomach flip uncomfortably. Last night she’d been checking her balance when there’d been a knock at the door to her apartment. She’d left her phone on the coffee table when she’d gone to answer and Zoe had been alone in the living room for about five minutes. Through the roaring sound in her ears, she could just hear the customer service rep.
“You made a large withdrawal last night, Ms. Porter. It’s all there on the screen—a payment to one of your regular payees, a Ms. Zoe Thompson.”
“But I didn’t do it. She must have done it herself.”
Kayla swallowed back the tears that collected in her throat. All her money. Gone. How the heck was she going to cope?
“Did you give Ms. Thompson access to your account? Under the terms and conditions—”
“I’m well aware of the terms and conditions, and no, I didn’t g
ive her permission to access my account.”
“Ms. Porter, even if the payment was made by mistake, please be advised that we cannot reverse that payment without the consent of the person who owns the account the funds were paid into.”
“But I didn’t authorize the payment!”
Kayla’s voice rose on a desperate note and in the bedroom she heard Sienna stir—the sound of her mother’s distress obviously having woken her.
“Ma’am, if we assist you to recover a payment made from your authorized mobile device, we will have to charge you an electronic credit recovery fee. You’ll find the fees set out in our guide.”
“Whatever, do whatever you can, whatever your fees are. I accept. I need my money back.”
It was only later, when the bank called her back to say that Zoe had closed out her accounts and the funds could not be retrieved, that Kayla felt all hope die. After filing a claim with the bank and reporting the theft to the police, Kayla finally gave in to the tears that had burned at the back of her throat for what felt like hours.
Kayla looked around her. Her only remaining belongings were her furniture, her personal things and the small amount of cash in her purse. Zoe had left her with nothing else. No backup money, no nest egg. Zip. Zero. Nada. Rage, fear, confusion and a deep sense of violation all jangled within her. When she’d brought Zoe into her apartment, adamant in her belief that giving another person a fair chance to make a good life would help put something worthwhile back into the universe, she’d thought she was making a positive difference in the other woman’s life. And she’d trusted her. So much so that she’d left Sienna with her on a day-to-day basis.
She knew Zoe had had a hard past, having to look out for herself after losing her job and being thrown out of her apartment by her boyfriend. Kayla knew Zoe didn’t trust easily, but she’d believed they’d gotten past that and thought Zoe had learned to see the good things that life had to offer. And Zoe had at that, a scathing little voice inside Kayla said. She’d seen what Kayla had to offer and she’d taken it—all of it.
One Heir...or Two? Page 2