No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to put the matter of Rosebud to rest. He found himself worrying about her at the strangest times. Who could predict how many hotel rooms she’d stumbled into recently, with her story about SPPs and spiritual advisors? For all he knew, she’d moved on to the Bears by now, and he couldn’t help wondering which one of them she wasn’t undressing for.
“Who is she, Jodie?”
She wore only her hostess uniform, a clingy scooped-neck top with a zebra-striped short skirt, and her teeth were already chattering. “A hooker I found out about.”
Part of his brain whispered a warning that maybe he should let it go at that. How did he know he wasn’t poking into things he was better off not knowing? But one of the factors that made him a great quarterback was his ability to sense danger, and for some reason he didn’t understand, the hairs on the back of his neck had begun standing up.
“You’re bullshitting me, Jodie, and I don’t like it when people do that.” He let go of her arm, but, at the same time, he moved a few inches closer, trapping her between himself and the brick wall.
Her eyes darted to the side. “She’s somebody I met, okay?”
“I want a name.”
“I can’t— Look, I can’t do that. I promised.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
She started rubbing her arms, and her teeth began to chatter. “Jesus, Cal, it’s colder than hell out here.”
“I don’t even feel it.”
“She’s… Her name is Jane. That’s all I know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“This is bullshit!” She jerked to the side, trying to push past him, but he shifted his weight, blocking her way. He knew he was scaring her, and that was just fine with him. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
“Jane what?”
“I forget.” She clutched her arms tighter and hunched her shoulders.
Her defiance annoyed him. “Hanging around the guys means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
She regarded him warily. “It’s okay.”
“I think it’s a lot more than okay. I think it’s the most important thing in your sad little life. And I know you’d be real upset if none of the players came in to Zebras anymore. If none of them wanted to hang out with you, not even the backups.”
He knew he had her, but she made one last stab at defying him. “She’s a nice lady having a hard time, and I’m not going to hurt her.”
“Name!”
She hesitated, then gave in. “Jane Darlington.”
“Keep talking.”
“That’s all I know,” she said sullenly.
He lowered his voice until it was barely more than a whisper. “This is your last warning. Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll make you off-limits to every player on the team.”
“You’re a real shit.”
He didn’t say a thing. He just stood there and waited.
She rubbed her arms for warmth and regarded him with belligerence. “She’s a physics professor at Newberry.”
Of all the things he had expected to hear, that one wasn’t even on the list. “A professor?”
“Yeah. And she works at one of those labs, too. I don’t know which one. She’s a geek—real smart—but she doesn’t have a lot of guys, and… She didn’t mean any harm.”
The more answers he got, the more the skin on the back of his neck tightened. “Why me? And don’t try to tell me she’s a Stars’ groupie because I know that’s not true.”
She was shaking with the cold. “I promised her, okay. This is like her whole life and everything.”
“I’ve just run out of patience.”
He could see her trying to figure out whether she was going to protect her own hide or rat on her friend. He knew the answer even before she spoke.
“She wanted to have a kid, all right! And she doesn’t want you to know about it.”
A chill shot through him that had nothing to do with the temperature.
She regarded him uneasily. “It’s not like she’s going to show up when the kid’s born and ask for money. She’s got a good job, and she’s smart, so why don’t you just forget about the whole thing.”
He was having a hard time dragging enough air into his lungs. “Are you telling me she’s pregnant? That she used me to get herself pregnant?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like it’s really your kid. It’s like you’re just a sperm donor. That’s the way she thinks about it.”
“A sperm donor?” He felt as if he were going to explode—as if the top of his head was about to blow right off. He hated any kind of permanence—he wouldn’t even live in the same place for very long—yet now he’d fathered a child. He had to fight to stay in control. “Why me? Tell me why she choose me?”
A thread of fear reappeared beneath her hostility. “You’re not going to like this part.”
“I’ll just bet you’re right.”
“She’s this genius. And being so much smarter than everybody else made her feel like a freak when she was growing up. Naturally she didn’t want that for her kid, so it was important for her to find somebody who wasn’t like her to be the sperm donor.”
“Wasn’t like her? What do you mean?”
“Somebody who… Well, who wasn’t exactly a genius.”
He wanted to shake her until every one of her chattering teeth hit the ground. “What the hell are you trying to say? Why did she choose me?”
Jodie eyed him warily. “Because she thinks you’re stupid.”
“The isotope’s three protons and seven neutrons are unbound.” Turning her back on the eight students in her graduate seminar, six males and two females, Jane continued sketching on the board. “Take one neutron away from Li-11, and a second one will also leave. Li-9 stays behind, binding it and the two remaining neutrons as a three-body system.”
She was so intent on explaining the complexity of neutron halos in isotopes of lithium that she paid no attention to the slight disturbance that was arising behind her.
“Li-11 is called a Borromean nucleus along with…” A chair squeaked. She heard whispers. “Along with…” Papers rustled. More whispers. Puzzled, she turned to investigate the source of the disturbance.
And saw Cal Bonner leaning against the sidewall, his arms crossed, fingers tucked under his armpits.
All the blood rushed from her head, and for the first time in her life, she thought she was going to faint. How had he found her? What was he doing here? For a moment she let herself pretend that he wouldn’t recognize her in her professional attire. She wore a conservative double-breasted woolen dress, and her hair was pulled into the French twist that kept it out of her way when she worked. She had her glasses on—he’d never seen her with glasses. But he wasn’t fooled for a moment.
A thick silence fell over the room. Everyone in her class seemed to recognize him, but he paid no attention to their reactions. He only looked at her.
She had never been the target of such undisguised hatred. His eyes were narrowed and deadly, hard lines bracketed his mouth, and, as she watched him, she felt as unbound as the nucleus of the isotope she had just been describing.
With so many curious eyes looking on, she had to pull herself together. There were ten minutes left in the class. She needed to get him out of here so she could finish. “Would you wait for me in my office until I’m done here, Mr. Bonner? It’s just down the hall.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” For the first time he turned to stare at her eight graduate students. “Class is over. Get out.”
The students scrambled to their feet, closing their notebooks and grabbing their coats. Since she couldn’t engage in a public battle with him, she addressed them as calmly as possible. “I was nearly done anyway. We’ll pick up here on Wednesday.”
They filed out of the room within seconds, darting curious glances at the two of them as they left. Cal uncoiled from the wall, shut the door, and punched the lock.
&nb
sp; “Open the door,” she said immediately, filled with alarm at being confined with him in this small windowless classroom. “We can talk in my office.”
He resumed his earlier position. Leaning against the doorjamb, he crossed his arms and tucked the fingers in his armpits. His forearms were tan and muscular. A strong blue vein throbbed there.
“I’d like to take you apart.”
She sucked in air as panic raced through her. His posture suddenly seemed full of significance, the sign of a man forcibly restraining himself.
“Nothing to say? What’s the matter, Dr. Darlington? You sure were full of words when we met before.”
She fought to calm herself, hoping against hope that he had simply discovered she wasn’t who she’d said she was and had come here to redeem his warrior’s pride. Please don’t let it be anything else, she prayed.
He walked slowly toward her, and she took an involuntary step backward.
“How are you living with yourself?” he sneered. “Or is that genius brain of yours so big it’s taken over the place where your heart should be? Did you think I wouldn’t care, or were you just counting on me never finding out?”
“Finding out?” Her voice was barely a whisper. She bumped into the chalkboard as dread slithered down her spine.
“I care, Professor. I care a lot.”
Her skin felt hot and clammy at the same time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bull. You’re a liar.”
He purposefully advanced on her, and she felt as if she were trying to swallow great lumps of cotton. “I want you to leave.”
“I’ll just bet you do.” He drew so close his arm brushed her own. She caught the scent of soap, wool, and fury. “I’m talking about the baby, Professor. The fact that you set out to get yourself pregnant with my kid. And I hear you hit the jackpot.”
All the strength left her body. She sagged against the chalk tray. Not this. Please, God, not this. Her body felt as if it were closing down, and she wanted to curl in on herself.
He didn’t say anything; he simply waited.
She drew a deep, shuddering breath. She knew it was useless to deny the truth, but she could barely form her words. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you now. Please. Just forget about it.”
He was on her in a second. She gave a guttural scream as he gripped her by the shoulders and jerked her away from the board. His lips were pale with suppressed rage, and a vein pulsed at his temple. “Forget about it? You want me to forget?”
“I didn’t think you’d care! I didn’t think it would matter to you!”
His lips barely moved. “It matters.”
“Please… I wanted a baby so badly.” She winced as his fingers dug into her arms. “I didn’t mean to involve you. You weren’t ever supposed to know. I’ve never—I’ve never done anything like this before. It was an… an ache inside me, and I couldn’t come up with another way.”
“You had no right.”
“I knew—I knew what I was doing was wrong. But it didn’t seem wrong. All I could think about was having a baby.”
He slowly released her, and she sensed he was barely holding onto his self-control. “There were other ways. Ways that didn’t involve me.”
“Sperm banks weren’t a viable option for me.”
His eyes raked her with contempt, and the menace in his soft Carolina drawl made her want to cringe. “Viable? I don’t like it when you use big words. See, I ain’t a hotshot scientist like you. I’m just a dumb jock, so you’d better keep everything real simple.”
“It wasn’t practical for me to use a sperm bank.”
“Now why’s that?”
“My IQ is over 180.”
“Congratulations.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it, so it’s not something I’m proud of. I was born that way, but it can be more of a curse than a blessing, and I wanted a normal child. That’s why I had to be very careful in my selection.” She twisted her hands in front of her, trying to think how she could say this without angering him even more. “I needed a male with—uh—average intelligence. Sperm bank donors tend to be medical students, men like that.”
“Not Carolina hillbillies who make their living throwing a football.”
“I know I’ve wronged you,” she said quietly, her fingers twisting one of the brass buttons on the front of her dress, “but there’s nothing I can do at this point except apologize.”
“You could have an abortion.”
“No! I love this baby with all my heart, and I would never do that!”
She waited for him to argue with her, but he said nothing. She spun away, hugging herself with her arms and moving to the side of the classroom so she could put as much distance between them as possible, protecting herself, protecting her baby.
She heard him coming toward her, and she felt as if she were being regarded through the crosshairs of a highpowered rifle. His voice was whispery and strangely disembodied. “This is the way it’s going to be, Professor. In a few days, the two of us are taking a trip across the state line into Wisconsin, where the press won’t be likely to sniff us out. And once we’re there, we’re getting married.”
She caught her breath at the venom in his expression.
“Don’t plan any rose-covered cottage because this is going to be a marriage made in hell. As soon as the ceremony’s over, we’re each going our own way until after the baby’s born. Then we’ll get a divorce.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not marrying you. You don’t understand. I’m not after your money. I don’t want anything from you.”
“I don’t much care what you want.”
“But why? Why are you doing this?”
“Because I don’t believe in stray kids.”
“This child won’t be a stray. It’s not—”
“Shut up! I’ve got a whole ton of rights, and I’m going to make sure every one of them is spelled out, all the way down to a joint custody agreement if I decide that’s what I want.”
She felt as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs. “Joint custody? You can’t have it. This baby is mine!”
“I wouldn’t bet on that.”
“I won’t let you do this!”
“You lost any say in the matter when you came up with your nasty little scheme.”
“I won’t marry you.”
“Yeah, you will. And you know why? Because I’ll destroy you before I let a kid of mine be raised as a bastard.”
“It’s not like that anymore. There are millions of single mothers. People don’t think anything of it.”
“I think something of it. Listen to me. You put up a fight, and I’ll demand full custody of that baby. I can keep you in court until I bankrupt you.”
“Please don’t do this. This is my baby! Nobody’s baby but mine!”
“Tell it to the judge.”
She couldn’t say anything. She had moved into a bitter, pain-filled place where speech was impossible.
“I’m used to rolling around in the mud, Professor, and to tell you the truth, it doesn’t bother me all that much. I even kind of like it. So we can either do this in private and keep it clean, or we can go public and make it nasty, not to mention real expensive. One way or another, I’m calling the shots.”
She tried to absorb what he was saying. “This isn’t right. You don’t want a child.”
“A kid is the last thing I want, and I’ll curse you to hell until the day I die. But it’s not his fault that his mother is a lying bitch. It’s like I said; I don’t believe in strays.”
“I can’t do this. It’s not what I want.”
“Tough. My lawyer’ll get in touch with you tomorrow, and he’ll have a big fat prenuptial for you to sign. The way it’s written, both of us will come out of the marriage with exactly what we took in. I can’t touch your assets, and you sure as hell can’t touch mine. My financial responsibility is to the kid.”
“I don’t want your m
oney! Why won’t you listen? I happen to be able to take care of this child all by myself. I don’t want anything from you.”
He ignored her. “I have to be back in North Carolina soon, so we’re getting this over with right away. By this time next week, the two of us are going to be married, and after that, we’ll use my lawyer to communicate about the kid and set up transfers back and forth.”
He was destroying all her wondrous plans. What a mess she’d made of everything. How could she hand her child over to this barbarian, even for short visits?
She was going to fight him. He had no right to stake a claim to her baby! She didn’t care how many millions of dollars he had or how expensive a court fight would be—this child was hers. She wouldn’t let him barge in and take over. He had no right—
Her indignation slammed headlong into her conscience. He did have a right. He had every right. Thanks to her deviousness, he was the child’s father, and whether she liked it or not, that gave him a say about the future.
She made herself face the truth. Even if she could afford a lengthy court battle with him, she wouldn’t do it. She had gotten into this situation by turning her back on her principles, convincing herself that the end justified the means, and look where that had led her. She couldn’t do it any longer. From this point on, she must base every decision on only one criterion: what was best for this child?
She grabbed her notes from the lectern and made her way to the door. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that. You’ve got until four o’clock Friday afternoon.”
“Dr. Darlington barely made the deadline.” Brian Delgado, Cal’s lawyer, tapped the prenuptial agreement that lay in the center of his desk. “She didn’t get here until nearly four, and she was very upset.”
“Good.” Even after a week, Cal couldn’t contain his rage over what she’d done to him. He could still see her standing in the classroom wearing that dark orange dress with a double row of gold buttons fastening her up tight. For a moment he hadn’t recognized her. Her hair had been swept back into one of those efficient hairdos, and big glasses covered up her green eyes. She’d looked more like the CEO of a company than any woman he’d ever had in his life.