Billionaire Baby Dilemma

the Information Age. Thank goodness.

“I’ll have to find a new rich family to study,” Devin pointed out.

“Byron might-” Lexi snapped her mouth shut.

A chill washed over Devin. “Are you still planning to see Byron?”

Lexi vigorously shook her head. “No. I don’t know what I was thinking. That just kind of slipped out.”

“Do you want to see Byron?” Devin was embarrassed to admit that her friend’s happiness hadn’t even crossed her mind. But it did now, and she felt incredibly selfish. Lexi and Byron had really seemed to have something going.

“No way,” Lexi denied. “How would I ever trust him? He was in on it the whole time. You caught Lucas talking openly to him about their schemes. No, I’m not going to see him. I don’t want to.”

Devin took in the flush on Lexi’s face, and the way she plucked at her khaki shorts while she talked, her gaze darting from her shorts, to her toes, and back again.

An unsettling thought came over Devin. “Lexi? Did you fall in love with Byron?”

Lexi blinked to meet Devin’s gaze straight on. “Did you fall in love with Lucas?”

Devin’s heart thumped deep in her chest, while pain tightened the cavity around it. Her throat closed up, and when she finally spoke, there was a catch to her voice. “I don’t know.”

Eleven

Three days later, Devin climbed from a taxi into the bright sunshine in front of the Seattle courthouse. She straightened her blazer and smoothed the matching skirt. Then she ran light fingertips over her hair to make sure everything was in place. She wanted to look every inch the credible witness and capable mother-figure for this.

Before she could move, Lucas appeared in front of her on the sidewalk, grasping her by the arm and pulling her over to one side. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded.

She’d braced herself for seeing him today, made sure her anger was fresh and her defenses were firmly in place. But the minute he was there in front of her, memories pushed at the wall she’d built up, and her chest contracted with emotion.

“What the hell happened to you?” he growled. “One minute we were together, and the next you’d disappeared into the night.”

“Together?” she reflexively choked out, commanding her legs to start moving. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t talk to him directly. Everything this smooth-talking, persuasive man had to say, could be said in front of the judge.

She fought his grip as she marched toward the steps.

He kept pace beside her, and she glanced around for her lawyers. Steve had said they’d meet her here.

“I trusted you,” Lucas persisted.

Devin clamped her jaw, refusing the temptation to engage in a debate.

“You’re handing it to him. You have to know that. You’re betraying me, and you’re betraying Amelia.”

“Betraying?” Her low voice shook with repressed fury.

“Yes. We could have worked this-”

“You betrayed me. I was your backup plan, Lucas. You’re as bad as Konrad. You’re worse than Konrad.”

Lucas’s hand dropped from her arm, and it took her a second to realize he’d stopped dead in his tracks.

Good. She hadn’t wanted to talk to him anyway. She increased her pace. She was only steps from the door. Once she was inside, she’d be home free-nothing to do but testify and win permanent guardianship of Amelia. Nothing.

But he caught up again, tone incredulous. “What did you say?”

She ignored him.

“Devin.”

She gave in to temptation. “You heard me. Well, really, I heard you talking to Byron. ‘Devin. Me. Babies.’ I believe that’s an exact quote.”

Lucas was silent for a full, stunned second. “You misunderstood.”

She whirled to face him, jamming her thumb against her chest. “I misunderstood. Monica misunderstood. How many other people misunderstand your despicable conspiracies?”

“My backup plan,” he enunciated, voice scoffing as he leaned in, “was falling in love with you.”

She ignored the constriction of her chest. “Oh, you’re good.”

The man would say anything if he thought it would put her off balance.

“I was telling Byron that if worse came to worst, and we lost Pacific Robotics, I was grateful that I’d still have you.” Lucas’s expression was open and frank, and for a second there, she almost fell for it.

But then she mentally smacked herself, turned on her heel and marched into the courthouse.

Inside, she was swallowed up by Steve’s team of lawyers, who escorted her to the front of the courtroom. She barely heard their last-minute instructions, and though she caught movement in her peripheral vision, so she knew Lucas’s team had sat down, she kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead.

The judge began to speak, but Devin was fighting a ringing in her ears. Her palms were sweating, and her mouth had gone dry. Lucas was lying. He was absolutely lying about falling in love with her.

She needed to concentrate on Amelia. Amelia was back at the San Juan Islands resort with Lexi where they’d spent the last few days. Devin and Lexi had joked about taking a boat to Canada and hiding Amelia until she turned eighteen. Right now, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“Ms. Hartley?” the judge prompted, and the lawyer next to Devin nudged her.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“Please take the witness stand.”

Devin rose shakily to her feet, surreptitiously smoothing her damp palms down the side of her charcoal-gray skirt. She walked carefully on her high heels, keeping her gaze fixed on points along the walls-the flag, a water pitcher, an antique portrait, the judge’s gavel.

She climbed into the witness stand and swore to tell the truth. She couldn’t wait to tell the truth.

Her lawyer went first, and the opening questions were innocuous, factual. They’d rehearsed them a dozen times. She talked about Monica and Konrad’s whirlwind courtship, the fact that she was surprised at how quickly Monica became pregnant, and that Monica hadn’t known about the inheritance until she’d overheard Lucas and Konrad discussing her pregnancy.

Partway through her testimony, Steve slipped into the courtroom and took a seat at the back of the gallery. There were few other spectators, except for the overflow of lawyers sitting in the gallery benches directly behind each of the tables.

Devin’s lawyer gave her an encouraging nod and a wink, then he sat back down at the table.

One of Lucas’s lawyers stood up. “Did your sister love Konrad Demarco?” he asked without preamble, dropping his pencil and moving from behind the table and into the center of the courtroom.

Devin leaned slightly into the microphone. “I believe she did.”

“What makes you believe she loved him?”

Devin couldn’t help a reflexive glance in Lucas’s direction, reminded of their conversations about what she knew for certain and what she only surmised. “She told me that she loved him.”

“Was she excited to get married?”

“Yes.”

“Was she excited to be pregnant?”

Devin nodded. “Yes.”

“Did your sister believe Konrad loved her?”

Devin hesitated, trying to remember what Monica had specifically said about Konrad’s love for her.

She remembered the wedding photos. She pictured their early months together, Monica with her arms wrapped around Konrad’s neck, his whispered words to her, her grin, the way his hand encircled her waist, the way his eyes