Entangled (The Accidental Billionaires, #2)(59)

Maya idolized Aiden.

And I wanted it to stay that way.

“Should I get my backpack?” she asked.

I nodded. “Put some clothes for school in it, and everything you need for tomorrow.”

I’d figure out the details later. Aiden and I would have to talk to each other eventually.

The lab was actually close. I’d go to San Diego after Maya went to school if I needed to, and find out how and why the results had been screwed up.

And I knew they had.

I’d been with two men in my life.

Aiden.

And I’d endured the rapes my husband had dished out.

So I had no doubt who the father was, since I’d been pregnant before I’d even considered taking Marco up on his offer of marriage.

My chest ached for the pain Aiden had to be going through at the moment.

Maybe it was hard to believe me when the DNA results had been right there in front of him.

But it still destroyed me that he had doubted me, even when he had good reason to be skeptical.

I only wished that he could have listened to his heart.





CHAPTER 27

AIDEN



“Please don’t tell me that you think, for even a second, that Maya isn’t really your daughter,” Seth drawled as he handed me a beer and then dropped onto his sofa with his own bottle.

When I’d left my house, I’d had no idea where I was going. For some reason that I was currently questioning, I’d headed down the beach to my brother’s place.

No matter how pissed off I may have been with Seth, I’d always shared stuff with him, and it had been my natural instinct to show up on his doorstep.

My head was still reeling from the lab results. I hadn’t thought it was possible for Skye to lie about something this damn important. Actually, as far as I knew, she wasn’t really the type of woman to tell falsehoods at all.

“I’m excluded from being her father, Seth. It’s there on the papers. I guess I should have brought them with me for you to see, but you’ll just have to believe me. I saw it with my own eyes. Many times. Excluded means I can’t possibly be her biological father. It’s DNA, for fuck’s sake. How could it be wrong?”

He shrugged and took a slug from his beer. “Shit happens. Nothing is ever one hundred percent if you have humans doing the work. Think for just a minute, Aiden. Maya is like a mini you. There’s no mistaking that she looks just like Brooke and Jade did at her age.”

“Coincidence,” I grumbled. “All of us are dark haired.”

“It’s not just her hair. It’s her facial features, too, and you know it. She’s undeniably a Sinclair. Believe me, if I thought she wasn’t, I would have told you. But not one of us has ever questioned it, because she looks so much like you.”

“Then tell me what the hell you’d think,” I demanded. “Wouldn’t it have messed with your head, too?”

“Hell, yeah,” he answered. “I’d probably believe the test results. But I’m trying to make you calm the hell down and see that even though the possibility is minute, the test could be wrong.”

“And the chances of that?”

“Slim to none,” he answered matter-of-factly. “But it could happen. And in this particular case, you should at least think about it, since she bears an uncanny resemblance to a Sinclair.”

I tossed my head back and swallowed half of my bottle of beer before I replied, “I already love Maya like she’s mine. So what in the hell do I do now?”

“Love isn’t about DNA,” he remarked with uncharacteristic candor. “I guess I think a kid can still be yours without having your genes.”

“I’d still love her just as much,” I confessed. “This is more about Skye lying to me in the first place. Hell, she didn’t have to. If she’d shown interest when she got back to Citrus Beach, I’d have dated her. Maybe that makes me a fucking idiot, but I could have fallen for both her and Maya once she’d come back home. She didn’t have to lie.”

“I don’t really see her as a user,” Seth mused. “All she seems to want is a successful business. And you said yourself that she’s been helping you get your shit together for Sinclair Seafood. I’m not defending her, because most likely she did lie. I’m just being honest about what I’ve seen since you two have gotten together. She’s not exactly out spending your money, if that’s what she was really after.”

And if she’d asked, I would have given it to her. Any damn thing she wanted. But Skye has never even hinted that she wanted money.

That observation made everything just that much more complicated. I had no idea what her motives could have been.

I drained my beer. “She has been helping me,” I admitted. “And her business ideas for the restaurant are phenomenal. She even insisted we do the partnership paperwork so my investment was safe.”

“Hard worker. Honest in business. And a good mother. Does it make sense that she’s trying to get something for nothing?” Seth pondered.

“I’ll call the lab in the morning,” I said flatly. “If I have to, I’ll do the test again just to verify the results.”

“Maybe the results are true. Then what are you going to do?” he asked.