She moved the nurse’s abandoned chair to the other side of the crib and sat down. Her face softened as she looked at her little girl, so peacefully asleep.
Samantha was hers.
No court in the land would separate a mother from her child, not even to satisfy Dante Russo. None, she thought…and maybe because she wished she really believed it, she spoke the words aloud.
“You won’t win,” she said.
He looked at her, his eyes empty. “Of course I will.”
Her face paled. Good. He was happy to see it. She deserved what would come next. She had brought it on herself with her lies.
His attorney was already earning his million-dollar-a-year retainer, drawing up motions and citing precedents even though the hour was late and Christmas was only a couple of days away.
Dante had no doubt as to which of them would gain custody. Tally had apple pie and motherhood on her side, but he had the things that really mattered.
What a fool he’d been, imagining himself in love. He almost laughed. He, of all people, knew that the word had no meaning. His mother had claimed to love him, right up to the day she kissed him, told him to be a good boy, and vanished. His nonna had claimed to love him, too, and proved it by beating the crap out of him at every opportunity until he finally ran away.
Emotion was weakness. Self-discipline was strength. This woman had made him forget that, but he would not make the same mistake again.
The one thing he couldn’t understand was why she had kept her pregnancy from him. He was rich. She could have milked him for a lot of money. He knew men who’d had that happen to them. A woman got pregnant, deliberately pregnant, and dipped her manicured hands into a man’s bank account.
Anyone could see that Tally could have used the cash. The old house in Vermont, the business she’d attempted…An infusion of dollars would have changed her life.
All right. She had not been after his money. He had to admit that. And he had to admit that she seemed to be a good mother.
Why, then, had she lied? Why had she left him?
Because she loved him. That was what she’d said.
What a joke!
A woman who loved a man didn’t run from him. She didn’t give birth to his child and tell him the child was someone else’s. Dio, the anger and pain that had caused him. The nights he’d lain awake, held Tally in his arms, tried not to wonder if she were dreaming of him or of her other lover.
His mouth thinned.
It was some consolation, at least, knowing she had not belonged to anyone else. That she had been his. Only his. That no one else had made love
to her, held her close, felt the whisper of her breath against his throat while she slept in his arms.
He’d blanked his mind to the rest. To what she’d looked like when she was pregnant. Now, knowing Sam was his, that was impossible to do.
Her breasts would have been full, the skin translucent over the delicate tracery of her veins. Her belly would have been round, lush with the life they’d created. She had denied him the wonder of those months. The feel of his child, kicking in her mother’s womb. The moment of his child’s entry into the world.
All those signs, the proof of their love…
Except, it had never been love.
Never. Love was just a polite four-letter word men and women used in mixed company. Taylor’s lies were the issue here, not love.
He’d had the right to know the truth. She should have told him.
He looked up. Tally sat with her head bowed. “You should have told me,” he said coldly.
She raised her eyes to his.
“You’re right. I should have.”
“But you didn’t.”