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 cla.s.s. 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. "Cla.s.s 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.
"Open the door," she said immediately, filled with alarm at being confined with him in this small windowless cla.s.sroom. "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, Please don"t let it be anything else, she prayed. 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 b.u.mped 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, G.o.d, not this. Not this. Please, G.o.d, not this. Her body felt as if it were closing down, and she wanted to curl in on herself. 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 practical for me to use a sperm bank." 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 bra.s.s b.u.t.tons 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 cla.s.sroom 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 h.e.l.l. 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
"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 full custody of that baby. I can keep you in court until I bankrupt you." custody of that baby. I can keep you in court until I bankrupt you."
"Please don"t do this. This is my baby! n.o.body"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 h.e.l.l until the day I die. But it"s not his fault that his mother is a lying b.i.t.c.h. 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 a.s.sets, and you sure as h.e.l.l can"t touch mine. My financial responsibility is to the kid."
"I don"t want your money! 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 cla.s.sroom wearing that dark orange dress with a double row of gold b.u.t.tons 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 gla.s.ses 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.
He stalked over to the windows, where he stared blindly down at the parking lot. In two more days he"d be a married man. Son of a b.i.t.c.h Son of a b.i.t.c.h. Everything inside him rebelled, everything except the moral code he"d been raised with that told him a man didn"t abandon his kid, even a kid he didn"t want.
The idea of this kind of permanence made him feel as if he were strangling. Permanence was for after his career, for the time when was too d.a.m.ned old to throw a ball, not for now, while he was still in his prime. He"d do his duty by this kid, but Dr. Jane Darlington was going to pay the price for manipulating his life. He didn"t let anybody push him around. Never had and never would.
He ground out the words. "I want her punished for this, Brian. Find out everything you can about her."
"What exactly are you looking for?"
"I want to know where she"s vulnerable."
Delgado was still young, but he had the eyes of a shark, and Cal knew he was the right man for the job. Delgado had been representing Cal for the past five years. He was smart, aggressive, and no leaks had ever come out of his office. Sometimes Delgado could be overeager in his desire to please his most valuable client-a few times he"d gone off half-c.o.c.ked-but Cal figured there were worse faults. So far he"d handled this mess with speed and efficiency, and Cal didn"t doubt that he"d handle the rest of it equally well.
"She"s not going to get away with this, Brian. I"m marrying her because I have to, but that"s not the end of it. She"s going to discover she picked the wrong man to push around."
Delgado looked thoughtful as he tapped the prenup with the top of his pen. "She seems to lead a quiet life. I don"t imagine I"ll find too many skeletons."
"Then find out what"s important to her and bring her down that way. Put your best people on it. Investigate her work life and her professional life. Find out what matters most to her. Once we know that, we"ll know exactly what we"re going to take away."
Cal could almost see the wheels turning in Delgado"s mind as he sifted through the challenges of the job he"d been given. Another less aggressive attorney might have balked at an a.s.signment like this, but not Brian. He was the sort who enjoyed feasting on a kill.
As Cal left the office, he made up his mind to protect the people he most cared about from what Jane Darlington had done. His family still mourned the deaths of Cherry and Jamie, and he wouldn"t add to their wounds. As for the baby ... People"d been calling him a tough son of a b.i.t.c.h for as long as he could remember, but he was also fair, and he wouldn"t let the kid be punished for its mother"s sins.
He shied away from thinking any more about the baby. He"d deal with those responsibilities later. For now, all he cared about was revenge. It might take a while, but he was going to hurt her, and he"d do it in a way she"d never forget.
The night before the wedding, Jane was so full of dread she couldn"t eat or sleep, but, as it turned out, the actual ceremony proved to be anticlimactic. It took place at the office of a Wisconsin judge and lasted less than ten minutes. There were no flowers, no friends, and no kiss.
At the end of the ceremony, Brian Delgado, Cal"s attorney, told her that Cal would be returning to North Carolina in another week and that Delgado would handle any necessary communications. Other than his brusquely delivered wedding vows, Cal didn"t speak to her at all.
They left the ceremony in separate cars just as they had arrived, and by the time she got home, Jane was light-headed with relief. It was over. She wouldn"t have to face him again for months.
Unfortunately, she hadn"t counted on the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune. Two days after the ceremony, a Tribune Tribune sports writer, acting on a tip he received from an anonymous Wisconsin county clerk, broke the story of the secret marriage of the city"s most famous quarterback to Dr. Jane Darlington, a distinguished professor of physics at Newberry College. sports writer, acting on a tip he received from an anonymous Wisconsin county clerk, broke the story of the secret marriage of the city"s most famous quarterback to Dr. Jane Darlington, a distinguished professor of physics at Newberry College.
The media circus began.
[image]
"I"ll never forgive you for this," Jane hissed as she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the two halves of her seat belt and shoved them together.
"Just remember who showed up with a bow around her neck." Cal jabbed the stubs from their boarding pa.s.ses into the pocket of his sport coat and settled into the seat beside her. He bristled with hostility, and she couldn"t remember ever being in the presence of such naked hatred.
It was Monday, only five days since their makeshift wedding ceremony, but everything had changed. The flight attendant serving the first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers stopped beside their seats, calling a temporary halt to the bitter verbal battle that had been going on between them in one form or another since the Trib Trib story had been published three days earlier. She held out a tray with two gla.s.ses of champagne. story had been published three days earlier. She held out a tray with two gla.s.ses of champagne.
"Congratulations! The crew"s so excited about having both of you on board today. We"re all big Stars" fans, and we"re thrilled about your marriage."
Jane forced a smile as she took the champagne. "Thank you."
Cal said nothing.