LITMIR.BIZ

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to. He’d never risk his reputation just to be a part of his baby’s life.

      Which was why she had to tell him. He’d be spiteful if he found out some other way. She needed this to be quick, easy and painless. Which meant she couldn’t just stand here.

      She heard a noise from behind her and turned to see a back door opening. Dylan stepped out, looking perfectly dapper in a suit with a briefcase clutched in his hand. He slid sunglasses onto his face in defense of the setting sun, his dark looks tinged with gold in the fading light.

      She’d never understood her reaction to him—a tug, a want. No matter how much she knew she did not want the uptight, soft banker boy, something deep inside of her begged to differ.

      Luckily, she was a smart woman who knew when not to listen to stupid feelings. She just needed to explain to him how things were going to be, and be done with him for good.

      “Dylan.”

      He startled, as if he recognized her voice instantly and how incongruous it was at his precious bank. He immediately scanned the lot before turning his gaze to her.

      When he’d seen there was no one else around he took a few steps toward her, suspicious and uncomfortable, but not sneery. She would have preferred a little sneery to get her back up.

      “Vanessa,” he said, his voice cool and clipped, though not nasty.

      “Dylan. We need to talk.”

      He raised an eyebrow. Such a disdainful look, and yet she didn’t feel that same animosity from him she’d always had when they’d been growing up. They’d avoided each other even more carefully than usual since Laurel and Grady’s wedding, which was hard to do in a small town when your siblings were married. But they’d done it.

      Still, there’d been a cooling of antagonism on both their parts. Perhaps they now knew a little too well where unchecked dislike could lead. Being apathetic worked a heck of a lot better.

      But she wished he’d be nasty, so she could be angry and defensive instead of so nervous she felt sick.

       This is better. You can be calm and collected and show him he’s not the only one with some control.

      “We really need to talk,” Vanessa repeated when he said nothing. “Privately.”

      Again he scanned the lot and seemed satisfied no one lurked in the dusky shadows. “Follow me.”

      He used a key card on a pad outside the door he’d come out of, then pulled it open and gestured her inside. She went, chin too high and sharp, shoulders back and braced for a fight.

      But it wouldn’t be a fight. It would be a quick, informative conversation, and then she’d walk right out of the bank with this awful weight off her shoulders. She wouldn’t run her mouth. She’d just say it plain.

      He stepped inside, the door closing behind him with a definitive slap. With a nod, he moved down the hallway, leading her to another door—this one glass. Inside was a fancy office. Evidently his, since his name was printed on the glass.

      “You know, in my shop I don’t have to put my own name on the door to my office.”

      “I’m guessing, in your shop, you’re not entertaining wealthy clients in your office.”

      She flashed him a hard-edged grin. “You’d be surprised who likes me doing the oil change on their car.”

      His lips pressed together. She couldn’t help but remember him not as the slick, suited businessman who stood before her but as the rumpled, slightly shaken man she’d woken up with that morning all those months ago.

      He set his briefcase down and took a seat behind the big, gleaming desk, then ran a hand over the lapel of his suit jacket. He looked impossibly elegant. He wasn’t like his siblings. They were the down-home noble type. Laurel the cop, Cam the former marine and Jen the shopkeeper.

      Dylan had style—with an edge to it. She didn’t know why he stayed in Bent when he was clearly meant to be somewhere a lot more posh than this nowhere Wyoming town.

      She didn’t know why she had this odd memory of his hands on her feeling right.

      Just insanity and liquor, she supposed.

      “What did you need to discuss?” he asked in the cool, detached voice he’d almost always used on her. Even when they’d been in the same class in first grade, he’d spoken like that to her at the age of seven. Like he was inherently better.

      It should have put her back up, but all she could do was stare at him behind his big desk, looking imposing and important in this big, fancy bank office.

      She swallowed as an unexpected emotion swamped her. Regret. It was a shame the way her baby had been conceived because this whole Delaney legacy belonged to him or her too.

      Money. The kind of reputation people slaved a lifetime to never live up to. The baby wouldn’t even have to deal with being the first commingling of Carson and Delaney. Laurel and Grady would always take whatever heat people blamed on a foolish curse, because they’d promised to love each other in front of God himself.

      Not everyone in town took the feud between the Carson and Delaney families as seriously as she did, and not everyone in town believed the old tale that if a Carson and Delaney ever fell in love, the town itself would be cursed to destruction.

      A story passed down from generation to generation since the Carsons had accused Delaneys of stealing their land back in the eighteen hundreds.

      Enough people believed it to make it a thing.

      The fact Bent hadn’t immediately crumbled or been struck by lightning didn’t soothe the most superstitious. They were still waiting for it. As for Vanessa, she was more of a take-life-as-it-comes type of girl. She’d deal with a curse if there was one, and she wouldn’t be surprised if life went on as it always had.

      “I know you’re not here for the view. Or a repeat performance,” Dylan said, shocking her out of her reverie.

      Repeat... She clamped her jaw shut so it wouldn’t drop. No one ever turned her off-center like this.

      It was the baby softening all her edges. Which was fine and dandy, once she’d done her business. She was determined to be a good mother—the kind hers had never been—where her kid came first and foremost. And not one man was going to ruin that for her kid. She’d soften every last edge, sand off her tattoos and cut out her own swearing, drinking, idiot tongue if it meant giving this baby the kind of idyllic childhood she’d never had.

      Which meant no strife with the father of the baby, even if Vanessa didn’t plan on him being involved.

      The best way not to have any strife was to be quick and to the point. She took a deep breath in and let it out, forcing herself to meet Dylan’s dark, imposing gaze.

      “I’m pregnant.”

      * * *

      THE WORDS LANDED like a blow, the kind that had your ears ringing and your eyes seeing stars. Even as Dylan’s brain scrambled to make sense of those two simple words, he desperately held on to his composure.

      In business, composure was everything.

      This wasn’t business.

      Pregnant. Baby. She was telling him she was pregnant and that meant...

      He opened his mouth to speak, though he wasn’t sure what it was he meant to say. No words or sound came out, anyway.

      “I’m not asking you for anything,” she said clearly. Her gaze was calm, direct, but he saw the way she clutched her hands together in her lap. For a woman like Vanessa she might as well have been shaking in her boots. “I’d rather—”

      “Yes, I can imagine all you’d rather,” he muttered. He glanced at her stomach where her hands were clutched. There was no evidence a child grew there, but one did and

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