"Always has been."
"You named me as her father when she was born?"
Again Jamie nodded. It had been the right thing to do.
"I just assumed…" He looked shocked. "With you thinking I'd paid and left, like all the others…" He broke off again.
He grinned, so boyishly pleased Jamie smiled, too, glad now that she'd made the decision she had all those years ago. She'd anguished about it for months.
"Thank you." His voice was thick.
Eyes glistening with tears, Jamie nodded.
"Okay," Kyle finally said, "so what we need is joint custody."
TARA TAYLOR QUINN
Jamie started to relax—until Kyle proceeded to outline, in detail, all the steps necessary to obtain the type of custody in question. And that wasn't all. He knew the differences between the various types of child-custody agreements in the state of Colorado and what was necessary to obtain each of them.
Suddenly Jamie's blood ran cold. He'd sought legal custody advisement without telling her. Seeking the information, in itself, was understandable. But he had extensive information. And he'd never said a word.
Because he'd had something to hide?
She missed much of what he was saying after that, too overcome with horror to concentrate. Had he merely been biding his time, letting Ashley get to know him, to trust him, before he sued for custody? Like a fool, she'd given him every bit of ammunition he'd need to take the child away from her.
"Yes, I had sex for money, Kyle. I was working the night I met you…''
"That waiting period is…" He rambled on and Jamie had no idea what he was talking about.
"/ have this little room…"
She wanted to curl up and die. Right there, underneath the lawn chair where the air was cool and fresh.
Had this whole "heading beyond friendship" thing simply been a clever ploy to get Ashley? Thinking back, Jamie realized she should have seen it all along. "She's a two-bit whore…" He'd hated his mother for what she was. How could he tolerate his daughter being raised by the same type of
HER SECRET, HIS CHILD
woman? Sure, his mother had been working when Kyle was growing up, and Jamie hadn't turned a trick since Ashley was conceived. But they'd both been women who sold their bodies—and for Kyle that was enough.
He had such strong, uncompromising morals because of the way he'd been forced to live growing up, and that was how he'd see things. He'd probably always intended to take Ashley away from her—at least, from the moment she'd been fool enough to confess her sins.
She had no idea how long he'd been silent when she noticed he was no longer speaking.
"You're very well versed," she said, trying to keep the tremors out of her voice. To think.
"This is important to me."
She was sure it was. "True or false, Kyle. Did you, in your research, find out how to go about taking Ashley away from me?"
She knew the answer before she even asked. He wouldn't have the information if he hadn't sought it.
His sudden silence was almost worse than an attempted denial.
"I knew it," she said, the bitterness rising up to choke her. It was never going to end. Hell was just the place she'd been born to live.
"Stop," Kyle said, reaching for her hand.
Jamie snatched it away from him and pulled both hands up to her breasts. "No, you stop, Kyle." She had to grit her teeth to force the words out. "Get out of my house now."