Sophie.
But he couldn’t have any of them.
None of them were meant for him.
All he could do was be satisfied with the here and now, because it, too, would eventually end. Sophie would eventually leave him when she became discontented with what he could offer her. What he couldn’t give her.
But he knew that going in. Everything ended. Everyone left.
Shaking his head, he frowned, refocusing on the work he had left to finish. But then a notification for an email popped up on the bottom of his screen.
The frown deepened, as did an unnerving sense of dread.
He hesitated, his cursor hovering over the notice. Dammit, what was he doing? It could be anyone. His clients and some of his employees worked longer hours than him. The message could be from any one of them.
Clenching his jaw, he resolutely clicked on the notification.
Anonymous.
Just like the name on the message that had arrived in his inbox yesterday.
Congratulations, Papa! Your daughter can’t wait to meet you!
He’d passed it off as some kind of joke. Since no one had contacted him about a possible child, and Sophie hadn’t found anything more concrete yet, he’d assumed the DNA test had been a mistake. Or a way to just mess with him by inserting his name at the top. Wouldn’t he know, somehow feel, if he had a child out there? Though it’d thrown him, he’d ignored the email yesterday...and hadn’t told Sophie about it.
But now, he stared at another email from the same person. Disquiet settled over him like a suffocating weight. Trepidation churned in his gut, and his grip on his mouse tightened until the casing squeaked a threatening crack.
He didn’t want to open it.
So he did.
Don’t know why you’re denying it. I paid good money to make sure you’d get the proof.
The words blurred, jumbled together, then leaped into startling clarity. They glared up at him, almost blinding him. Tearing his gaze from the message, he pushed from his chair and stalked across the room, thrusting his fingers through his hair. But he couldn’t escape the image branded into his head.
I paid good money to make sure you’d get the proof.
There was only one person who’d brought an illegitimate child to his attention.
One person who’d provided him with the so-called proof.
Sophie.
Anger rolled through him like an ominous storm cloud spiked with bolts of lightning. Hot, heavy, sizzling.
He’d been so stupid. So goddamn blind.
What had been her endgame? Send him on this wild-goose chase, pretend to help him just to get close and what? Write a story on the whole journey? Paint him as some deadbeat? Or a pathetic father on the search for a child who wasn’t his? That maybe didn’t even exist?
Pain tried to course through him, but he blocked it. Allowed the fury to capsize it.
Fury was better. It razed everything to the ground. Including the fact that he’d started to trust this woman, and he’d been betrayed.
Again.
Sophie stepped off the elevator onto the second floor of the Black Crescent building. Anticipation danced a quick step inside her, and she smiled. Joshua would be surprised to see her there, since they’d planned to meet at her apartment later. But she couldn’t wait. She’d finished the follow-up article and wanted to give him the first look at it before Althea saw it Friday morning.
God, this trod so close to her experience with Laurence. She’d made the mistake of granting him the opportunity to read her articles first. But unlike her ex, Joshua wouldn’t use this as a chance to sabotage the story or have her change it to fit his needs or agenda. One, Joshua didn’t have an agenda. But two, and most important, he wasn’t Laurence.
Nerves trotted in her belly, but they didn’t trump the happiness spilling through her veins. This week had revealed even more of the man she’d fallen so hard for.
Yes, she could admit it to herself.
She loved Joshua Lowell.
And no, he hadn’t rescinded his “no relationships” condition, but he felt more for her than someone to warm his—or her—bed. She sensed it in his every small but genuine smile, the casual affection, the endearments, in the time he asked to spend with her.
God, did it make her pathetic that she was another woman believing she could change a man?
Probably.
But the knowledge didn’t dim her smile as she knocked on his door, then pushed it open.
“Josh,” she greeted, entering his inner sanctum. “I know we were supposed to meet at...” She trailed off, taking in the guarded, aloof expression she hadn’t seen in a week. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
She rushed forward to his desk, but drew to an abrupt halt when he rose, that glacial stare not melting or wavering from her face. No, it hardened, and dread curdled in her stomach. What the hell was going on here?
“Josh?” she whispered.
“Joshua,” he corrected in an arctic voice that matched his gaze.
Only her hands flattened on his desk kept her from crumbling to the floor. But it couldn’t prevent her heart from cracking down the middle and screams wailing from every jagged break.
“What’s going on?” she rasped. “Why—”
Without shifting his contemptuous regard from her face, he slowly spun the monitor on his desk around to face her. She dragged her eyes from the stark lines and sharp angles that she’d just traced with her lips the night before and shifted them to the computer screen.
A thread of emails. From an address named Anonymous.
She skimmed them, her horror growing, the slick, grimy strands twisting around the happiness that had filled her only moments earlier, strangling it until only sickness remained. Bile surged up from her stomach, past her chest and raced for her throat. Convulsively, she swallowed it down.
Not because of what the emails stated; she had no idea who had sent them or what they were implying by paying to make sure Joshua had received the DNA test. Because she hadn’t received any money. But obviously, just one glance at the
