Her Secret, His Child

Karen had been to the hairdresser while the girls were in school that morning and had treated herself to a manicure as well as a trim. She'd even thought about highlights, but Dennis loved the color of her hair.

She'd bought a new outfit, too. A black, long-

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

sleeved dress that reached only enough past her thighs to be decent. And she'd made reservations at Dennis's favorite ski resort. The weekend package included dinner and dancing the following evening, as well as champagne and a whirlpool bath in their room. She and Dennis had gone to the resort only a couple of months before. It had been the best weekend of her life.

Even if the consequences were disastrous.

Dennis was due home any minute. The table was set with candles, flowers and their best china. The makings of a steak dinner waited for him in the kitchen. On the counter, his favorite dessert, blueberry buckle, was still warm from the oven. Fresh sheets adorned the king-sized bed upstairs in their room. His robe lay across the bed, ready for him to get comfortable and relax.

She couldn't wait to see him after their long week apart.

And she'd made up her mind. She wasn't going to tell him about the baby. Not yet. Not until she was better prepared to handle the news herself. She couldn't bear it if his reaction confirmed what she already suspected. That the pregnancy would turn him off, make him not want her anymore. Throwing up and pregnant, she'd never be able to compete with his savvy business associates.

Walking around with spit-up scented clothes and leaking breasts—yeah, that would impress him.

Not only would she lose her husband's interest, she'd lose her chance to be something more than a wife and mother. Any hopes she'd had of starting

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college in the fall when Kayla started school full-time were smashed before they'd ever been born. She could hardly put her own needs before that of a baby. Couldn't even contemplate giving her children over to strangers to raise while she gallivanted like some immature kid around a college campus.

Jamie had been so smart. As usual. She'd gone to college first and then started her family. Karen wished, not for the first time, that she had half the sense her friend had. Jamie always made the right decisions. If Karen didn't love her friend so much, she'd have to hate her for being perfect.

Too tense to sit and wait any longer, and loath to peek through the living-room curtains one more time, Karen slowly climbed the stairs. Lured by the sweet voices coming from the room at the end of the hall, she sought solace from the two little girls, who always managed to make life seem bearable.

Refusing to think of her dinner with Kyle as anything other than a business meeting, Jamie dressed accordingly. After donning one of her simplest one-piece skirt outfits from her "accountant attire" wardrobe, she even closed the top button she normally left open. Navy and white, with a white collar and a navy belt that cinched at the waist, the outfit screamed business. Not woman.

She hoped.

Her hair was halfway up in a professional-looking chignon when she remembered that was exactly how she'd been wearing it when she'd first met Kyle. She had, after all, been working that night, too.

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

She could still remember his fingers pulling the pins from her hair, one by one, his smoky brown eyes devouring every inch of her face, his lips alternating between kissing h

er and telling her how beautiful—how perfect—she was.

The most amazing thing of all was that she'd believed him. She, who'd heard every compliment in the book, who got paid to take compliments while she let men touch her body, had actually believed a John.

The money. She just had to remember the money he'd left on the bedside table—and then she'd be rid of him. Free to get back to the long lonely chore of trying to forget.

What did it matter if he'd come back with breakfast that morning, as he claimed? He'd still paid for her.

She left her hair down, held back from her face with a couple of combs. And wore a minimum of makeup. She'd have put on a pair of glasses if she'd had them. Men weren't turned on by schoolmarms.

At least Kyle wasn't; she knew that much. His tastes ran to the more exotic—enough makeup to disguise even the most distinguishable features, breasts falling from skimpy clothes. Oh, yeah, and young. He definitely liked them young. Jamie had barely been old enough to drink the champagne he'd poured for her the last time—the only other time— she'd spent an evening with him.

Reaching for a bottle of perfume, she stopped. She didn't need to adorn herself. She wasn't going on a date. Hadn't been on a date since she'd slept

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with Ashley's father. Hadn't slept with a man since that night, either.

There was no man alive who could ever love the woman that Jamie had been. The woman she still was, deep inside where the memories lurked. Those memories were always there in the background, vivid reminders of things she'd done.

And there was no reason for Jamie to date a man except for love. Because she was never going to return to the life she'd known. She'd had no choice then. But she had a choice now. And she'd rather die than live one minute of that life again.