DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(55)

“Really?”

“Ashland-Philips Corp.? I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s you? My husband was just talking about that company the other day. That’s you?”

“That’s me. And my sister. She helps run it these days.”

“Cool that you get to work with family.”

I nodded. It was the only bright spot about it.

Silence fell between us as we once again began to study each other. I could see the fine wrinkles at the corner of her eyes now, the slight sag to the skin under her chin. But I would forever remember her as that beautiful girl with the tight, sexy skin I caressed and admired day in and day out over that all too short summer.

“Do you have kids?” I asked to distract myself from my thoughts.

“Two with my husband.”

“Two? Boys or girls?”

“Two girls. The other was a boy, by the way. I wasn’t sure you would want to know, after what the lawyer said, but he was a beautiful little boy.”

There was a sadness in her eyes as she spoke. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the way she said it made a chill run down my spine.

“Who was a boy?”

“The baby,” she said, looking up at me with tears in those perfect blue eyes. She kind of laughed as she reached up and brushed a tear away. “Sorry. Every time I think I’m over it…I think it’s just seeing you again.”

I shook my head even as another chill joined the first and settled in the pit of my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I said slowly, “but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

A twist of confusion filled her expression. She opened her mouth to speak, but the waiter chose that moment to arrive with our entrees—shrimp scampi for me and chicken parmesan for her. It smelled amazing, but my stomach was suddenly so twisted into knots that I wasn’t sure I could take a single bite.

“I tried calling you. Over and over, I called. But they always said you weren’t available.”

“Who said?”

Julia frowned as she stared down at her plate, her fork tearing at the breading on her chicken. “I don’t know. Whoever answered the phone at the number you gave me.”

I tried to remember what number I gave her. The one at the dorms, probably. Or the house? I couldn’t quite remember.

“Why would someone say that?”

She shrugged. “I called Tommy. He said he’d get a message to you, but I never heard back.”

Tommy. He was a childhood friend, one of the guys who came to New York with me that summer.

“He never said anything.”

“And then the lawyer went to your house. He said he spoke to you. That you told him yourself that you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“I never spoke to a lawyer. When did he go to the house?”

Julia thought about it for a second, her fork still tearing at that innocent chicken. “It would have been about February or March.”

“I was still at Stanford then.”

Tears filled her eyes again. “You never knew, then?”

“Knew?”

“I was pregnant, Harry. When you left, I found out a couple of weeks later.”

It was like she’d doused me with freezing water. Every nerve in my body just went numb. I stared at her, unable to truly comprehend what she was saying.

“Pregnant?”

“We were so careful. I couldn’t figure out…something broke or maybe that night in the shower…I don’t know. My parents hit the roof. My dad wanted me to have an abortion, but my mom grew up Catholic. She wouldn’t let that happen. I wanted to keep him, but they refused to help me if I did that. I would have been on my own, and I couldn’t make enough money with my job at the deli to take care of kid.”

“What did you do?”

“I gave him up for adoption.”

I felt seriously ill then. My head was spinning and my stomach felt as though someone had deposited a hot rock there. I leaned forward a little, trying to relieve the pressure that I knew, logically, was all in my head. Then I poured another glass of wine and swallowed a healthy slug, but that sat even heavier on my stomach and made the pressure worse.

“You signed the papers. At least, the papers the lawyer came back with had your signature on it. And I picked this great couple. They had a little girl they said was so excited to have a little brother. It seemed perfect. I’d been an only child and I didn’t want my son to grow up that way…”

She was babbling now, her words high pitched and so quick that I could barely keep up with her. I reached across the table and took her hand.

“Who were they? Where do they live?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know much about them. I was only given their first names—Dale and Robin. They lived in upstate New York then, but it was fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen years?” I shook my head, trying to imagine that I was a father. And that my child was fifteen years old.

It was overwhelming.

I stood up and tossed a handful of bills on the table before walking out. I made it to the corner before I lost what little I’d eaten on the sidewalk.

I was a father. I had a child out there somewhere and someone chose to hide that information from me.