Czytaj książkę: «Covert Conception»
“Is this your idea of a bad joke?” Rick asked.
Natalie carefully studied his reaction. It was too similar to what her own reaction had been when she’d learned about her test results. She’d expected…what? An explanation that would cause all of this to make sense? However, it was obvious that Rick didn’t have any answers.
“How did this happen?” he amended.
She’d already asked herself that. At least a dozen times. And she knew that Rick was not a part of this—he wasn’t the sort of man that required drugging or any coercion to get a woman into bed. She didn’t know how it happened and her only clue was that surveillance video.
“I don’t know what happened. I need answers and that’s why I am here—because I am pregnant with our child….”
Covert Conception
Delores Fossen
MILLS & BOON
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To Rickey. I can never thank you enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former U.S. Air Force captain Delores Fossen feels as if she was genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Natalie Sinclair—Someone drugged her and her nemesis, Rick Gravari, so they’d have sex. Now, pregnant with Rick’s child, someone wants them both dead and Rick is her only hope. Can they overcome a bitter past and work together to save their child?
Rick Gravari—He’s more comfortable building custom motorcycles than he is in Natalie’s high-society world. But he’ll do whatever it takes to keep Natalie and his baby safe…even if that means moving in with the very woman he’s sworn to resist.
Dr. Claude Benjamin—Creator of the Cyrene Project, a plan to produce genetically superior babies. Can the doctor have changed his mind about continuing his research, and does he now want to eliminate them all?
Dr. Isabella Henderson—She also worked on the Cyrene Project, but now vehemently objects to it.
Carlton Gravari—How far will Rick’s uncle go to put an end to the Cyrene Project?
Macy Sinclair—Is Natalie’s flamboyant mother covering for someone, or is she too the victim of the Cyrene Project?
Troy Jackson—A product of the Cyrene Project, he holds a grudge against Rick and Natalie.
Brandon Steven—He has answers that Rick and Natalie need, but he’s not willing to share.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter One
San Antonio, Texas
“You’re pregnant, Natalie.”
Natalie Sinclair blinked, stared at her sister, Kitt, and then waited because she was certain that Kitt was about to deliver the punch line of a silly joke.
But the punch line didn’t come.
Judging from Kitt’s expression, she was serious. However, Natalie was serious, too, and she knew for a fact there was no way she could be carrying a child.
“I haven’t had sex in over a year,” Natalie admitted. Though her sister no doubt already knew that. And it was the realization of the no doubt that caused any remaining amusement to vanish.
Pulling in her breath, Natalie set her teacup aside, the delicate bone china rattling against the saucer. Some of the Irish blend splashed onto a pair of entwined hand-painted yellow roses.
“Dr. Benjamin did the pregnancy test,” Kitt continued, her voice shaky and thin. “He called when you were in the meeting with the antique broker, and when I pressed him about what was wrong with you, he finally told me. You don’t have the flu, and you’re not anemic—”
“Stop right there. I can’t be pregnant.” Natalie waited for Kitt to agree to that, but her sister made no such acknowledgement. In fact, nothing about Kitt’s ultra-solemn expression changed. “But you think I am?”
Kitt nodded.
Okay. This obviously wasn’t some joke. Besides, Kitt wasn’t a joking kind of person. Still, there was no way this could be true.
No way.
Natalie shook her head. “The test is wrong.”
Kitt did some head-shaking of her own. “The doctor used your blood and urine samples to repeat it. Not once. But twice. And then he repeated it again at my request. All three times, the tests were positive. Based on the physical he gave you and those test results, Dr. Benjamin thinks you’re about four weeks pregnant.”
Forcing herself to remain calm and think this through, Natalie snapped her fingers in rapid succession. “I’ve heard about this sort of thing. They’re false-positive results. They have to be.”
Natalie was well aware that she sounded desperate.
And she was.
What was going on here?
Kitt didn’t respond to her false-positive theory. Instead, her sister turned the computer monitor around to face Natalie and typed in something on the keyboard. “You remember a couple of months ago I had surveillance cameras installed throughout the house?”
“Of course, I remember. Some items were missing, and we thought someone on the staff might be stealing from us. The surveillance tapes proved it.” And Natalie wasn’t pleased about this seemingly mundane topic when they had something not so mundane to clear up.
“I didn’t have the cameras removed after the problem was resolved,” Kitt continued. “I figured the extra security wouldn’t hurt.”
Impatient, Natalie huffed. “Is this leading somewhere, Kitt?”
“Unfortunately, yes. After I finished my conversation with Dr. Benjamin, I went back through the surveillance tapes for the past four weeks. I found something.”
Oh.
That nearly stopped Natalie’s heart.
“Explain something,” Natalie insisted.
Kitt typed in a code on the keyboard, and Natalie instantly recognized the video feed that appeared on the screen. Nearly a month earlier.
The night of her surprise twenty-ninth birthday party.
Though Natalie was familiar with the scene, it wasn’t an entirely pleasant memory. She’d arrived back in San Antonio from a week-long antique-buying trip in Ireland and had stopped by Dr. Benjamin’s office because she was sick. The diagnosis was an upper respiratory infection. The doctor had done some lab tests and given her prescription meds. By the time she made it home, she had been exhausted, ready to fall face-first into bed. Only instead of bed, she’d discovered that her mother had assembled three dozen or so of her close and not-so-close friends for a surprise birthday celebration.
“Are you saying this is when the so-called pregnancy happened?” Natalie asked. “Because, trust me, I would have remembered something as monumental as having sex with one of the guests.”
Though Natalie had to admit to herself that some of the night was a complete blur. She blamed the big blur on the prescription meds. Of course, the fatigue from the business trip hadn’t helped, either. She’d felt like a zombie throughout the entire party. Still, her zombie-haze wouldn’t explain that pregnancy test.
“Just watch,” Kitt instructed.
Even with Kitt fast-forwarding the event, Natalie had no trouble spotting her mother, Macy, in the crowd that had gathered in the foyer to say their goodbyes. With her Marilyn Monroe platinum-blond hair, curvy body and dazzling smile, Macy had a way of monopolizing space and drawing attention to herself.
Then, Natalie spotted someone else.
Rick Gravari.
She automatically frowned. Rick had a way of monopolizing space as well, but in a totally different way. Wearing jeans and a white shirt, he appeared his usual self. Aloof. Surly. Her mother had no doubt invited him, but he definitely fell into the unwanted-guest category. Natalie had spent the evening avoiding and ignoring him, and was thankful he’d done the same to her.
Natalie dismissed her surly, jeans-wearing nemesis and continued to study the surveillance tape. As the guests idled by the front door, she managed to locate herself. Alone. Her head down with her chin practically touching her chest. Leaning against the wall next to the fireplace. She definitely wasn’t in the throes of having wild sex.
The video stopped, and a second later, the screen became blank.
“Something went wrong with the surveillance equipment at this point,” Kitt explained. “I’m not sure what. But that’s not the only camera we had in operation that night.” Kitt typed in something else on the keyboard. “The lighting isn’t very good, but here’s some footage taken from the hall outside your bedroom. The time lapse is about a half hour from the segment you were just watching.”
The hall was indeed poorly lit. And empty. It didn’t stay that way for long. Natalie soon saw the approaching couple. Mere shadows moving within the shadows.
“There’s no camera in your bedroom so this is all we have,” Kitt explained. She latched onto her Texas A&M coffee mug, took a long drink of the heavily scented espresso, and that’s when Natalie noticed that her sister’s hand was trembling. “Still, I think it’s enough.”
“Well, it’s not much.”
Natalie couldn’t see the faces of the couple, and without audio, she couldn’t tell who was approaching her bedroom door. At least, she couldn’t tell until the figures got closer to the camera.
Then, Natalie realized that she was one of those shadowy figures.
Seeing herself, however, didn’t jog any memories. She had absolutely no recollection of being in the hallway that night though she was certainly aware it’d happened. After all, she had woken up in bed the following morning.
Alone.
Still, hadn’t she had a feeling that something was wrong? A feeling she’d dismissed.
Maybe she shouldn’t have.
And with that uncomfortable thought repeating in her head, Natalie moved to the edge of her seat, closer to the monitor. And she studied every inch of the screen. Praying. Hoping. That whatever image appeared, there would be a plausible explanation for it.
Natalie watched herself as she slowly approached her bedroom. The person walking beside her had his arm looped around her waist.
It was definitely a man.
He was at least a head taller than she was and outsized her by at least fifty pounds. And neither of them was too steady. When she reached the door, she staggered forward, and her arm rammed into the wall. The reaction on her face could have been either pain or giddiness.
Sweet heaven, she acted drunk.
But she knew for a fact that she’d consumed no alcohol that night. The only thing she’d had to drink was a glass of sparkling fruit juice that someone on the catering staff had gotten for her shortly after she arrived home.
“Okay, here it is,” Kitt said.
Natalie waited and watched. The man in the video turned, shifting his weight. So did Natalie, except she wasn’t as graceful. He barely managed to catch her before she stumbled again. Once he had her semi-steady, he kissed her. She didn’t resist. In fact, she kissed him back and groped behind her to open her bedroom door. And that’s when the security camera and the meager lighting worked together to catch his face.
Kitt froze the image. Not that Natalie needed a second look to know who he was.
The man taking her into her bedroom was the one person on earth she considered her enemy.
Rick Gravari.
Chapter Two
Rick Gravari pushed himself away from the custom Harley he was building and glanced at the Pennzoil clock mounted on the back wall of his shop.
It was already past five-thirty.
Less than an hour to closing time, and there was at least a half day’s work left to do.
“Hell,” Rick grumbled.
He used his forearm to mop the sweat from his forehead and neck, and then he cursed the air-conditioning. Why had it picked the hottest day of the year to go out?
There wasn’t much of a chance he’d get any of his four mechanics to stay late. Not on a Saturday. And not with the broken air conditioner. Overtime, a pizza and complete use of every fan in the place might be enough enticement for Hal, the head mechanic, but it’d be midnight before Hal and he could finish all the service orders on their own.
The phone rang, again, and Rick walked through the motorcycle clutter, fans and tools toward his equally cluttered office. Along the way, he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drank some and poured the rest over his head. The cold liquid snaked down his face and back.
It didn’t help.
Slinging off the excess water, he snatched up the phone from his desk and grabbed a service order so he could close out the Harley job. A little multi-tasking might get him out of here a few minutes earlier.
The caller was the soon-to-be owner of a custom bike who said he wouldn’t be able to pick it up until at least Wednesday. Rick considered it a blessing. One down, too many to go.
Most days, he loved his job. He loved having his own business. Loved working with his hands to build custom motorcycles and repair them.
But today wasn’t one of those days.
“Hey, Rick? You’ll wanta take a look at this,” Hal called out when Rick hung up the phone.
Hoping they weren’t about to get another customer, whom he’d almost certainly have to turn away, Rick glanced through the porthole-shaped window that separated his office from the reception-waiting area. The only person there was Bennie, one of the mechanics, who was at the cash register ringing up a client.
“In the front parking lot,” Hal added.
Before the last syllable had left Hal’s mouth, Rick was already looking in that direction. Specifically at the vehicle that’d just pulled up in front of the shop. A sleek platinum-colored sports car. As expensive as they came.
The driver’s door eased open, and thanks to the tinted window and the door itself, the only thing Rick saw of their visitor was a foot. One wearing a sexy, three-inch heel that was almost the same color as the car.
It was like watching a striptease. A delicate hand slid over the top of the driver’s-side window and door. Perfectly manicured nails—the color of ripe raspberries—gripped the glass and metal. The other foot touched down on the concrete. Graceful. Like a dancer getting ready to strut her stuff.
Rick felt like fanning himself, and it wasn’t all a result of the broken A/C, either. It’d been a while since he’d taken the time to appreciate the sight of a woman. This was a reminder that he truly needed a life outside the shop.
Correction: he needed a life, period.
Inch by inch, the top of their visitor’s head came into view as she rose from the seat. Honey-blond hair cut short and choppy. Fashionable but not overly done. It still looked touchable, and he could almost feel his fingers sliding through it.
But then, the striptease came to a non-gratifying, abrupt halt.
Rick’s gaze landed on her mouth. A full, sensual mouth covered with just enough gloss to make it noticeable. And notice it he did. Even though he hadn’t immediately recognized the hair, he knew that mouth. It was the mouth of a woman he hadn’t expected to show up at his shop. A woman he definitely didn’t want to see. Not now. Not ever.
Natalie Sinclair.
She used her elbow to push the car door shut, eased off her sunglasses and started toward the shop entrance. No cautious footsteps for her. Just the long determined stride of a woman who appeared to be on some sort of a mission.
The muggy summer breeze flirted with her turquoise suit, fluttering the slim skirt around the tops of her knees. And even slightly higher. He saw a good portion of her toned and tanned right thigh. Rick obviously wasn’t the only one to notice that because Hal mumbled something about being in lust.
Rick understood completely.
He felt the lust.
And he wanted to kick himself hard for feeling it.
Thank goodness that lust was tempered with a hefty dose of reality and vivid, godawful memories. That lust had already cost a man his life, and it didn’t matter how good she looked, Rick had made a solemn promise that he’d have no part of Natalie Sinclair.
Now, the question was—did she want a part of him?
He didn’t mean that in a sexual sense, either. Rick knew Natalie would never think of him that way again. However, she had left her high-and-mighty estate and driven all the way downtown to his shop—which wasn’t located in the best part of the city. She wouldn’t have done that for just any old reason. Plus, judging from the tightness around her mouth, she was seriously riled. And she no doubt planned to aim that riled-ness at him.
Why?
He had a darn good guess. Maybe because he’d shown up at her surprise birthday party? If so, a month was a long time to hold onto that much anger.
But then, this was Natalie.
By the time she stepped inside the shop, all the mechanics and customers had stopped to gawk. It wasn’t unwarranted. Natalie was attractive. Not drop-dead gorgeous, either. Her face was much more interesting than the surgically perfect socialites who were part of her world. It was an honest face. A face with character. A few tan freckles on her nose. A dimple in her chin.
Natalie had the brains to go with that interesting face, too. Everything she’d done in life was the best. She’d graduated from college with honors, on an athletic scholarship no less. As if that weren’t enough, she’d built from the ground up one of the most successful antique shops in the state.
Rick stayed put, gawking at her just as the others were doing. Waiting to see what she wanted. He heard her ask Hal if “the boss” was around, but before Hal could answer, her deep-violety blue eyes slid in his direction. Through the glass, their gazes met. And held.
Natalie didn’t even attempt an obligatory smile or offer him a semi-polite nod. Not that he expected it. They were well past the stage of exchanging even fake greetings.
She made her way through the reception area and into the work bay. It was a cemetery of motorcycles and pieces of motorcycles in various stages of repair, disrepair or assembly. Tools, fans and spare parts littered what little floor space there was. The air was heavy not just with heat and humidity but with old oil and gas fumes. Hardly a fitting place for Natalie Sinclair.
He briefly lost sight of her when she meandered around the Harley that he’d just finished, but Rick could hear her heels clicking on the bare cement. And those heel clicks got louder and louder until she appeared in the doorway.
Her gaze landed on him again, and she slid her eyes from his hair, which was still soaking wet, down to his T-shirt. Also drenched. Not just drenched from the water he’d poured over his head, either, but from an ample amount of sweat. If she’d been any other woman, Rick would have wished for a shower and a shave before facing her.
But she wasn’t any other woman.
There was no need to impress Natalie. She hated him. And he felt no love for her, either. In many ways, that made things a lot easier between them. He’d long ago come to terms with their animosity.
Not the attraction though.
“Are you lost?” Rick asked, just so he could make sure his mouth was working.
She stepped inside and slammed the door shut.
Oh, yeah. She was riled.
The stuffed-to-the-brim office was barely big enough for one person, so Rick had to work hard to keep some space between them. He leaned his shoulder against the filing cabinet, folded his arms over his chest and generally tried to appear surly. With the unbearable heat and her impromptu visit, it wasn’t a difficult look to achieve.
He hoped.
She stared at him. Nope, it was a glare. And it was a glare through slightly swollen, reddened eyes.
Had she been crying?
Odd. Natalie wasn’t a crier.
“I want you to know that I intend to have you arrested,” she announced.
Okay. So much for his ploy to be laid back. Her greeting captured Rick’s complete attention. “For what? Attending your birthday party?”
Her glare got worse, and her teeth came together. “Attending it wasn’t all you did.”
He was certain his confused look intensified. “Care to explain that?”
She aimed her index finger at him. “You’re the one who needs to explain.”
Rick mentally went through any and all of the possibilities, but he didn’t come up with one that would warrant this kind of strong reaction.
“Look, we can trade smartass remarks and pointing fingers for hours, but I have a business to run,” Rick reminded her. “So, if you’re here because you’re in a snit about your mother inviting me to the party, then you can get right back in your overpriced car and head home. Because I’m not apologizing. Macy begged me to come to your party, and I came as a favor to her. End of story.”
Natalie used her fingertips to blot the perspiration from above her upper lip, but she was blotting so hard that Rick was surprised that she wasn’t leaving bruises on her skin. “Are you saying nothing out of the ordinary happened that night?”
Rick had already opened his mouth to say you bet nothing happened, but he had to take one giant pause.
Something had happened.
Someone had slipped something into his drink.
His silence seemed to rile her even more, and Natalie flipped open her purse and extracted a small silver handheld DVD player. She deposited it on his desk and pointed to the sole chair in the room. “I think you’ll want to sit down for this next part.”
“No thanks.” That chair would put him even closer to her, and Rick wanted all the distance between them that he could get. “I don’t expect this’ll take long anyway. I’m not into home movies, and we don’t have much to say to each other.”
Natalie flexed her eyebrows in a suit-yourself, you’ll-regret-it gesture, sat on the edge of his desk next to the DVD player and jabbed the play button. “This is the security film from the night of my party,” she explained. Her voice was strained with emotion. “It was taken in the hall just outside my bedroom.”
When Rick saw a couple on the small screen, he bit off another surly question about what this could possibly have to do with him. Instead, he concentrated on the images. However, it took him several moments to make out exactly what he was seeing.
Natalie and him.
Or rather it was a couple who looked like Natalie and him. Because there was no way it could actually be them.
Not caring for the sickening feeling that suddenly came over him, Rick pushed himself away from the filing cabinet and moved closer to study the images on the screen. “Are you going to tell me why you doctored this video?”
Outrage flashed in her eyes, but she didn’t voice it. The rush of emotion seemed to make her queasy. Or maybe it was the sweltering heat. Because she wiped away the perspiration again and slid her hand over her stomach as if to steady it. “I didn’t doctor it.”
“Then someone did,” he fired back.
“Kitt checked,” Natalie explained. Her breath was uneven now, and the color was draining from her cheeks. “The images haven’t been altered.”
“The hell they haven’t.” Rick watched as the couple got closer and closer to Natalie’s bedroom door.
The couple staggered. The woman’s right arm banged against the doorjamb. The man didn’t fare much better. He crossed in front of her. Staggered as well. And his left shoulder hit against the wall.
That caused Rick’s mouth to turn to dust.
The couple’s awkward intimate dance continued until the man caught the woman. She went into his arms. Willingly. Their bodies came together. Mouths, too.
In a desperate, hungry kiss.
“I know for a fact that I would have remembered that,” Rick insisted in a rough whisper.
Natalie swallowed hard enough that he could hear it. But what she didn’t do was agree with him. Instead, she froze the images and pointed to the woman’s right arm. “I had a bruise there the morning after my party. I didn’t know then how I’d gotten it.”
Hell.
Rick waited for the other shoe to fall.
She pointed to the man’s left shoulder. To the spot that had rammed into the wall. “Did you have a bruise or any kind of mark?”
Rick didn’t even have to think about it. “Yeah. I figured I’d gotten it here at work.”
Natalie’s posture and bearing were suddenly as unsteady as the couple in the video. “I don’t think you got that bruise here.”
It took him a moment to get his teeth unclenched so he could speak. “Are you saying you think that happened?” Rick asked. “You really believe the two of us had a hot and heavy kissing session outside your bedroom door?”
She closed her eyes. Paused. Gathered her breath. “I don’t think the hot and heaviness stopped there. I believe we went inside my bedroom and finished what we started.”
Her eyelids lifted, and she met his gaze head-on. “I’m four weeks pregnant. And judging from that video, you’re the baby’s father.”
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