Fortune's Christmas Baby (Fortunes of Texas)

Which made her feel powerless.

While so many of her college friends were out partying on their parents’ dime, Lizzie had been the student who’d had to work two jobs on campus, in addition to a fast food job, just to pay for incidentals and books. She was the one who’d be paying for the next ten years on all of the school loans she’d had to take out just to get through college.

Nolan’s family owned a bank, while she owed a bank close to a hundred thousand dollars in student loans.

Not that she cared, personally. She and Nolan weren’t a thing. But there was Stella...

Carmela seemed to ooze energy all of a sudden as she slid a little closer to Lizzie, leaning forward, her face alight as she said, “This is so great, Liz! DNA can prove paternity and you’ll be home free!”

No! No. No. No.

She couldn’t shake her head enough. Or stop the sudden tears that sprang to her eyes.

“He can’t know about her,” she whispered when Carmela stilled.

“He has to know about her, hon, he’s her father.”

She shook her head again, everything inside her crying out against the words Carmela had put into their living space.

“He’s not named on her birth certificate. He wanted nothing more to do with me or the consequences of those two weeks last year. He deliberately disconnected the phone number he gave me, Carmela, leaving me no way to contact him. To include him in any decisions. I did this. I made the choice to have her. He’s an unknowing sperm donor. That’s all.”

Carmela’s silence was almost as painful as her words had been.

“He has a huge family.” Lizzie said the words that had been giving her cold sweats since Nolan Fortune had announced his identity on her doorstep. “What if they want her? What if they sue for custody? I’d never have the money to fight them. They could take her away from me!”

“Aw, sweetie.” Carmela scooted closer, took one of Lizzie’s trembling hands and held on. “He can’t take her away from you, even if he wanted to! You’re her mother!”

She shook her head. “You don’t know that,” she said. “There’s a different set of rules for rich people. Really rich people. Look at that kid in Texas who was driving drunk and killed those people and didn’t even spend one day in jail because his family had power. It happens all the time. Read the news. Or just look at my past. The Mahoneys got what they wanted. They took my family, Carm. You don’t know the insidious way money draws people to it, or makes them agree with those who have it. Besides, look around us. We give her a couple of rooms. Cheap floors. Box-store clothes. Public school is the only thing her future holds with me. They could probably give her the moon, if she wanted it. Or a trip to it at least.”

Her last words hung there like a thick haze in the room. Lizzie had been hearing renditions of them in her mind all afternoon.

They always stopped right there. With that trip to the moon.

Just...

“And what about all that, hon?” Carmela’s soft question came after minutes of silence. “Wouldn’t you like your daughter to have those things? Doesn’t Stella deserve the chance at every opportunity her father’s family could give her?”

No! She meant to shake her head, but just started to shake instead.

“Money’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” She said aloud the arguments she’d come up with to appease the other side of her fighting self. “A lot of rich kids grow up entitled. They have skewed senses of value. Of their own value. They miss out on a lot of important life lessons, like compassion for others, or an understanding of what it means to fend for yourself. Or the sense of satisfaction you get when you provide for yourself. They don’t know the priceless value of sincere laughter. Or...or how a lifetime could be built in two weeks...”

Damn Nolan Fortune and his fake alter ego. He’d been out for a two-week escape. Had embarked on a holiday fling knowing it was no more than his little secret.

His little secret had created her little secret, and even if she wanted to tell him now...how could she? Oh, by the way, I failed to mention earlier that I gave birth to your daughter a few months ago.

He’d hate her.

And why should she care?

How could it possibly matter anymore what he thought of her? Yeah, believing that he’d cared as much as she had, that they were something different and deep and meaningful, was a nice fairy tale. And if, for a short time, she’d hoped that it could last, that hope was long dead.

The man was probably richer than the Mahoneys. There was no way she wanted him now.

“I want her to care more about the trials and joys of the majority of the people in society than she does about what designer brand she’s going to wear to dinner,” she finally answered.

“You’re her mother. You’ll teach her that.”

“And you think, if she’s growing up in their world, that she’ll care what I have to teach her?” Lizzie had seen a fast-forwarded mental image of that, too. Her parents had been drawn to the Mahoneys’ wealth and they’d been adults. How could she even hope that Stella, an innocent child, could remain immune? She could just see it, her own daughter eventually pitying her, looking down on her, the lowly public school teacher who’d gotten herself knocked up by someone she hardly knew during a holiday fling. Nothing in Lizzie’s home would ever equal the grandeur and luxury that teenager would know in a mansion. Hell, they might give her some Mercedes sports car for her sixteenth birthday, and Stella wouldn’t even be able to drive it to Lizzie’s neighborhood without worrying about having it vandalized or stolen.