“The rest of what this woman—Ivy—told me.”
Damian lifted his glass and took a long swallow of vodka. Lucas waited a while before he spoke again.
“You want to explain what that means?”
“The rest?” Damian shrugged. He took another mouthful of vodka. Took a handful of cashews from the dish on the table. Looked around the room, then at Lucas. “The rest is that she’s pregnant with my child.”
If Lucas’s jaw dropped any further, Damian figured it would have hit the table.
“Excuse me?”
&
nbsp; “Yeah.” Damian gave a choked laugh. “Impossible, right?”
Lucas snorted. “How about, insane?”
“I told her that. And—”
“And?”
“And, you’re right. I’m right. It’s impossible. Insane. There’s just one problem.” Damian took a deep breath and expelled it as his eyes met Lucas’s. “She’s telling the truth.”
Damian explained everything.
Then, at Lucas’s request, he explained it all over again, starting with Ivy’s unexpected visit to his apartment and finishing with his impossible dilemma.
Lucas listened, made an occasional comment in Spanish. Damian didn’t always understand the words but he didn’t have to.
The other man’s reaction was just what his had been.
Finally Damian fell silent. Lucas started to speak, took a drink of vodka instead, then cleared his throat.
“I don’t understand. Your mistress convinced Ivy to have a baby for her but didn’t tell you about it. What was she going to do when the child was born? Bundle him up, carry him through the door and say, ‘Damian, this is our son’?”
Damian nodded. “I don’t get it, either, but Kay wasn’t big on logic. For all I know, she never got that far in laying out her plan.”
“And Ivy…” Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of woman is she?”
A beautiful woman, Damian thought, tall and lithe as a tigress with eyes as green as new spring grass, hair shot with gold…
“She’s attractive.”
“I didn’t mean that. What I’m asking is, what kind of woman would agree to be part of a scheme like that?”
Damian lifted his glass to his lips. “Another excellent question.”
“A model, you say. So she must be good-looking.”
“You could say that.”
“A model’s body is her bread and butter. Why would she put herself through a pregnancy?”
“I don’t—”
“I do. For money, Damian. You’re worth a fortune. She wants to tap into that.”
“I offered her ten million dollars to have the baby and give up all rights to it. She said no.”