Josh stopped pacing to glare at her. “That was a week ago, Kiley. What were you waiting on? Didn’t you think I had the right to know I have a daughter?”
“Oh, no, you don’t, buster,” she fumed, walking up to stand toe to toe with him. “You’re not going to make me feel guilty about not telling you right away that Emmie is your child. Not when I was doing everything I knew how to do to keep from making you think I was trying to use her to influence your recommendation to the funding committee.” She poked him in the chest with her finger. “But I shouldn’t have bothered because you never intended to give the day care center a fair chance anyway, did you?” She turned away, then whirled back to add, “And just for the record, I intended to tell you as soon as the funding committee made a final decision and settled the day care center’s fate once and for all. That way I couldn’t be accused of something I wasn’t guilty of.”
“Let’s leave the day care center out of this for the moment,” he hissed. “I want to finish talking about my daughter.”
“Our daughter,” Kiley corrected. “And there’s really nothing to discuss. I won’t try to stop you from being part of Emmie’s life, if that’s what you want. But I have two conditions before I’ll agree to anything.”
His expression was dark and guarded. “What kind of conditions?”
“I don’t want your money to help support her. I’m perfectly capable of providing for my child.”
“Our child,” he reminded. “And let me make one thing perfectly clear right now. It will be a cold day in hell before you tell me what I will or won’t do to see that she’s taken care of.”
Kiley counted to ten as she tried to keep tears from welling in her eyes. How could she love him so much when she was so darned angry with him? So disillusioned?
“We can cover that another time,” she finally managed to get out around the lump clogging her throat. “The most important stipulation I have is that you love her. Emmie deserves that and if you can’t be the daddy she needs, I’d rather you not try to have a relationship with her at all.”
A muscle worked furiously along his jaw. “I can’t believe you think I would do otherwise.” Staring hard at her for what seemed like an eternity, he finally turned and opened the door to her office. “We’ll talk about this later when we’re both thinking more clearly.”
Through the office window looking out into the day care center, Kiley watched Josh march across the room and leave before she walked back around her desk on shaky legs. Sinking into her chair, she buried her face in her hands. Even before her sister had admitted that Josh wasn’t the snake she’d led their family to believe, Kiley’s instincts had told her that he wasn’t a bad guy. Had she been wrong about him? Was she destined to be like her sister and see traits in a man that simply weren’t there? Why hadn’t he been able to see that she had handled the situation the best way she knew how?
A sudden thought had her sitting up straight in the chair. Could Josh have gotten the issue of the day care center tabled as a way of retaliation? Was he getting even with her for not telling him when she first suspected that he was Emmie’s father?
She wasn’t sure. But a day care center full of children wasn’t the place to have an emotional meltdown. There would be plenty of time for that when she got home and let go of the tight grip she held on her emotions.
Feeling as if her heart had been shattered into a million pieces, Kiley did her best to pull herself together. Fate may have set her and Josh on a path three years ago with the conception of Emmie that would entwine their lives forever, but that didn’t mean she was going to let it break her. She was a survivor. She had made it through the inevitable end of her disastrous marriage and the emotional pain of seeing her child rejected by the man she’d thought until recently was Emmie’s father. She could certainly weather having her heart broken by Josh Gordon’s deceit and betrayal.
She straightened her shoulders, stood up and with a smile firmly in place, walked out into the day care. She might be suffering from a broken heart that she was certain could never be mended, as well as facing the probability of losing her dream job in a few months, but until then, she had parents and children who were counting on her. And she wasn’t going to let them down.
* * *
Sitting in his darkened family room, Josh took a swig from the half-empty beer bottle in his hand as he stared at the Christmas tree he and his daughter had put up during the ice storm. His daughter. He tightly closed his eyes as a wave of emotion surged through him. Dear God, he had a child.