LITMIR.BIZ

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by getting pregnant deliberately…turns out you were way ahead of me.”

      Casey straightened up, insulted to the bone. She was trying to do the right thing and he thought she’d— “I was doing no such thing.”

      “You purposely set out to seduce me that night.”

      “It wasn’t difficult,” she said reminding him easily that she hadn’t exactly kidnapped him, tied him to the bed and had her wicked way with him. But at the first memory of that night, her body stirred despite her best efforts.

      “Not the point.” He waved one hand as if dismissing that argument. “You had an agenda and saw it through. What I want to know, is why?”

      Picking up a napkin, she leaned over, wiped Mia’s mouth despite her daughter’s efforts to pull free. Then Casey looked at Jackson again. “I went there to get a sample of your DNA.”

      He laughed again. Louder. Harsher. “You went a hell of a long way to collect it!”

      She flushed and she knew it. She could feel heat staining her cheeks and hated the fact that she’d never been able to keep from doing that when she was embarrassed. Glancing around the diner, she made sure the other customers weren’t paying them the slightest bit of attention before she said in a vicious whisper, “I took strands of your hair. Remember when you kissed me—”

      “You kissed me as I remember it,” he interrupted.

      That’s right. She had. All part of the plan that had taken a seriously wrong turn almost instantly after her mouth had touched his. And there was the uncomfortable twist and burn inside her. “Fine. I kissed you. Remember I pulled on your hair?”

      “Ah yes,” he said, leaning back into the seat and folding his arms over his chest. “You were feeling wild, you said.”

      “Yes, well.” She shifted in her seat and wished she could get up and move around. She’d always thought better when she was walking. But she couldn’t very well spring out of the booth while Mia was there, strapped into a booster seat. “I needed a follicle of your hair so I could have it tested.”

      “Why not simply ask?”

      Now she laughed. “Sure. I’m going to go up to a strange man and ask for a sample of his DNA.”

      “Instead, you went up to a strange man and kissed him?”

      Frowning, she admitted, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

      “And what about the rest of it?” he asked. “Was that part of your plan, too? Spend the night with me to what? Trap me into something somehow? Get me so wound up that neither one of us was considering any kind of protection?”

      She cringed a little. She hadn’t even thought of protection that night. The way she remembered it, she’d been so hot, so needy, so completely over the edge with a kind of desire she’d never known before, the thought of condoms hadn’t even entered her head. And just how stupid was that?

      “I didn’t plan any of that,” she said firmly. “The rest of that night just…happened.” Her gaze snapped to his. “And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to assure you that I’m perfectly healthy. I hope you can say the same.”

      “Yes. I am.”

      One worry taken care of, she told herself.

      “That’s good.”

      “And what about the other concern?” He asked the question slowly, as if judging her reaction.

      “You mean pregnancy?”

      He tipped his head toward Mia. “You seem to be fertile enough, it’s a reasonable question.”

      “You don’t have to worry,” she told him. “The doctors say I would have a difficult time conceiving in the usual way.”

      One dark eyebrow lifted and she squirmed a little. Her personal history was just that. Personal. It wasn’t something she discussed with just anyone.

      “And yet…”

      Again, he nodded toward Mia, gurgling and now slapping that teething biscuit against the tabletop.

      “Look,” he said, capturing her attention again, “let’s leave everything else for the moment and go back to the real matter at hand.” He glanced at Mia and Casey wanted to hide her daughter from his appraising gaze. “You needed my DNA. Why? We’d never met. How could you think I’m the father of your child?”

      More personal history that she would prefer not to discuss. Yet, she’d come here tonight because she’d felt she didn’t have a choice.

      “Nearly two years ago,” she said, her voice low enough that no one could possibly overhear her, “I went to the Mandeville clinic…”

      She saw understanding dawn on his features. His eyes opened, his firm mouth relaxed a little and his gaze, when it shifted to Mia, was this time, more stunned than angry or suspicious.

      “The sperm bank,” he muttered.

      “Yes.” Casey shifted in her seat a little, uncomfortable discussing this with anyone, let alone the “donor” who’d made her daughter’s birth possible.

      He shook his head, scrubbed one hand across his face and said, “That’s just not possible.”

      “Clearly,” she said, “it is.”

      “No, you don’t understand.” His gaze locked on hers again, silently demanding an explanation for how this could have happened. “Yes, in college, I admit, I went to the clinic with a friend of mine. We’d lost a bet and—”

      “A bet?”

      He frowned at her. “Anyway, I went, made the donation and didn’t think about it again until about five years ago. I realized that I didn’t want a child of mine, unknown to me, growing up out there somewhere. I told them I wanted that sample destroyed.”

      A chill swept through her at those words. She glanced at her daughter and as a wave of love rushed through her, she tried to imagine a life without Mia in it. And couldn’t. Somehow, through some bureaucratic mishap, Jackson’s order had gotten lost in the shuffle, overlooked and ignored. She could only be grateful. Knowing how close she’d come to never having Mia only made her treasure her daughter even more.

      She smiled. “Well, I’m glad to say they didn’t do as you requested.”

      “Obviously.”

      It wasn’t hard to judge his current feelings. He was now avoiding looking at Mia at all. And that was fine with Casey. She didn’t want him interested in her daughter. Mia was hers. Her family. Casey was only here because she’d felt that Jackson had a right to know he had a child.

      “I thought sperm banks were anonymous,” he said a moment later.

      “They’re supposed to be.” When she’d gone to the Mandeville clinic, she’d specifically made sure that she would never know the identity of her child’s father. She wasn’t looking for a relationship, after all. She didn’t need a partner to help her raise a child. All she’d wanted was a baby to love. A family of her own.

      When she was assured that their donors’ identities were very strictly protected, Casey’d been relieved. And that relief had stayed with her until about a month ago.

      “I got an e-mail almost four weeks ago,” she said softly. “From the Mandeville clinic. It listed my name, the donor number I’d selected and identified you as the man who’d made the original deposit.”

      He winced a little at that.

      “Naturally, I was furious. This whole thing was supposed to be anonymous, remember. I called the clinic to complain,” she told him and with the memories flooding her mind, she felt again that helpless sense of betrayal she’d experienced when she first read that e-mail. “They

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