Hands fisted, he shoved them into his pockets. He'd always thought so. Had never had trouble coming up with the right solution to a problem.

Until he'd come face-to-face with the woman claiming to be pregnant with his child. He hadn't been able to think straight, let alone figure out how to handle this situation or her.

His answer had been to pay her off. While he was used to throwing money at certain problems, he didn't make a habit of writing checks to women he'd slept with. She was right. It had been a test. And she'd failed.

Why the h.e.l.l was he so disappointed?

"That's it?" he asked, the buzzing finally stopping as she brushed past him. He followed her. "You're not going to try to convince me you're telling the truth?"

Sending him an amused glance over her shoulder, she kept right on walking. "Nope. You're going to believe what you want anyway. And as I've been insulted quite enough for one day, I'll just go on my way."

Because she was lying, he a.s.sured himself.

"Did you know you were pregnant that night and think you could sleep with me, pa.s.s someone else's baby off as mine?" They turned the corner to the foyer. That night he'd hoped she was different, that she wanted him for himself, but it turned out she was like everyone else. A user. Manipulative. "Or maybe you don't even know who the father is," he said quietly.

Her shoulders snapped back, her spine going rigid. She turned, inch by slow inch, her narrowed eyes flashing. But her face was white. Her mouth trembling.

He wanted to take his ugly words back, retract the horrible accusation, but he couldn't.

"You," she said, slowly. Succinctly. "Are an a.s.s."

"So I've been told." But he'd never agreed. Until now.

She whirled around, her hair fanning out. With a low moan, she pressed her hand against the wall next to the front door. Her head was down, her shoulders rising and falling heavily.

He winced. His gut tightened. She was crying. Because of him.

s.h.i.t.

"Maybe, we should start over," he said, edging closer.

"Back. Off."

He couldn't. He had to fix this. "Let's sit down. Talk this through." Rationally. Reasonably. Neither of which he'd been so far. He laid his hands on her shoulders. "Come on."

She yanked away. Stumbled to the other side of the hall, pressed her back against the wall. "Oh my G.o.d," she groaned, then swallowed audibly. "Don't touch me."

And now she was scared of him. Holding his hands up as if to prove he was harmless, he stepped closer. "I won't hurt you."

"Stop right there," she snapped and raised her head. Her eyes were huge, the delicate skin around them bruised and dark, her cheeks colorless.

She wasn't crying. She was ill. "Are you all right?"

"Do I look all right?" she ground out from between her teeth. She tipped her head back, inhaled slowly through her nose. "It's your cologne."

"What?"

"Your cologne or-or aftershave." Another swallow. "It's making me sick."

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, sounding like some d.a.m.n uptight p.r.i.c.k. But it was hard not to get offended when a woman said you made her want to throw up.

"Bathroom," she gasped, pushing away from the wall, her eyes frantic, her hand covering her mouth. "Now."

Grabbing her by the elbow, he led her the few steps to the half bath off the foyer. Flipped on the lights and was debating whether or not to try to squeeze into the tiny room with her when she slammed the door in his face. He heard the lock click, then the unmistakable sound of retching.

He rubbed the back of his neck. Shut his eyes when the sounds behind the door continued. d.a.m.n it. He hated feeling this useless.

Hated that he'd made such a mess of things with her.

He hurried into the study, pulled out a bottle of ginger ale from the mini fridge below the bar and poured it into a tall gla.s.s. Considered adding ice but didn't want to take the chance of being gone too long.

If he wasn't there to stop her, she'd take off. Again. The way she had that night.

He had a right to be suspicious, he told himself, his strides long. To wonder about her motives. But he could have handled this whole situation better. He saw that now. And he would. When she came out, he'd convince her to stay.

He'd get to the truth.

But a niggling part of his brain insisted she could have already told him the truth. That the baby was his.

And he'd given her fifty thousand dollars to never see him again.

He let his head drop, blew out a heavy breath.

He was in such deep s.h.i.t.

Someone knocked on the apartment door. More than likely whoever the front desk had been buzzing him about.

What the h.e.l.l was the point of living in a secure building if the front desk was going to let anyone and everyone in?

The latest visitor knocked again. He glanced at the closed bathroom door. Heard the water running. Another, harder knock. More insistent.

"Coming," he grumbled, then opened the door.

And would have slammed it shut again if Carrie hadn't thrown herself into his arms, forcing him to take several steps back to regain his balance, ginger ale sloshing over the edge of the cup and onto his forearm.

"Oh, C.J.," she wailed against his neck.

He glanced up at the heavens. Mouthed the word help but no a.s.sistance was forthcoming, not even a well-timed lightning bolt. He'd have to get out of this on his own.

Story of his life.

Except he was usually fixing other people's mistakes. Today, the mess he needed to clean up was all his.

He kept his free hand at his side, held the gla.s.s away from them with the other. "Who the h.e.l.l let you up here?"

She leaned back, looking beautiful as always, despite her trembling lower lip and the tears glistening in her eyes. "The nice gentleman at the front desk. He knew you were home and since he recognized me, he buzzed me through."

"He shouldn't have. This isn't a good time."

"I didn't know where else to go." She sniffed. "Everything is such a mess."

C.J. stepped back, keeping a decent distance between them, in case she decided she needed to latch on to him again. "Carrie, what do you want?"

"I need a place to stay. Just for a night or two," she added quickly.

He raised one eyebrow, knew it made him resemble his father even more than usual, but maybe that's what she needed-a reminder of who he was. And who her husband was.

"Something wrong with my father's house?"

A swipe and another reminder about where she came in the pecking order of things. The mansion she'd redecorated after her marriage to Senior, the bed she slept in, the place she called home wasn't hers. Every piece of furniture, every pair of overpriced shoes in her closet, every nickel she spent came directly from Senior.

Without Clinton Bartasavich Sr., she had nothing. Was nothing.

Just as Senior wanted. As he'd planned.

She pressed a crumpled tissue to the inner corner of her eye. "I need a break. Seeing Clinton that way. Watching him suffer is just so...hard. So much work. He needs so much time and attention. What about me? What about what I need?"

"I'm sure it's very difficult for you," C.J. said flatly, "having a full-time staff and nurses taking care of his every need while you sit back and watch them. You want a break? Try a hotel."

Sending him a look from under her lashes, she sidled closer, and he realized he'd backed himself into a corner. Or, to be more specific, against the wall. She laid her hand on his chest. Lowered her voice. "Why should I stay at a cold, lonely hotel when you have all this s.p.a.ce?"

She tipped her head back, her lips parted. She was beautiful, no doubt about it. Then again, all of his stepmothers had been beautiful. Beautiful and, as the years had gone by, younger and younger.

And this one, barely twenty-eight years old, was making him feel a h.e.l.l of a lot older than thirty-six.

C.J. snagged her wrist and held her away from him. "Lonely? Guess your friend Chip is out of town."

Carrie's eyes widened. "Wha-what do you mean?"

He almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Then again, she'd brought all of this on herself. "Chip Foxworth. Your ex? The man you visited last weekend at his room at the St. Regis?"

With a gasp deep enough to use up half the oxygen in the hallway, she laid a hand over her heart. "Are you spying on me?"

"Save the faux outrage. No one needs to spy on you. You paid for Foxworth's room with my father's credit card. His business manager alerted me to the charges. You should be more discreet."

Then again, his father hadn't married his last three wives for their brains.

C.J. had planned on talking to his brother Oakes about what to do with the information that their invalid father's wife was cheating on him. Instead, the problem had landed on his doorstep. Literally.

"What are you going to do?" Carrie asked, sounding small. Afraid. Which was understandable. After all, she was about to lose everything. "You...you can't tell Clinton. It'll kill him."

"The old man's stronger than you think." But C.J. didn't relish the idea of sharing the news. "Be out of the house by Sunday afternoon, and I won't tell Dad. You can file for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and move on with your life. Or, I can hire a private investigator to find proof of your affair. Which, I believe, would mean you would no longer be eligible for the generous settlement allotted in the prenup you signed."

She blinked rapidly. "You wouldn't tell him. Not in his condition."

"I wouldn't want to," he admitted, leading her to the door. "But if it came down to telling him or letting you continue to make a fool of him, I'll choose the former." He opened the door, nudged her into the main hall. "Do yourself a favor. Take the money and run."

She made a squeaking sound, which he took for agreement, and he shut the door on her.

"Your life is a bona fide soap opera."

He couldn't argue with that. He turned, saw Ivy leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door, her face pale, her eyes huge and rimmed red. "How are you feeling?"

"Dandy." Her voice was rough.

"Here." He offered her the ginger ale. "This might calm your stomach."

"How am I to trust you didn't poison it?"

"You have a very creative imagination."

"Hey, you're the one who could give Dallas-the TV show, not the city-and J. R. Ewing a run for their money. For all I know, you regularly poison women and hide their bodies in a bedroom closet."

To appease her, he took a long drink. Held out the gla.s.s. She accepted it and took a tiny sip but that probably had more to do with her having just been sick and not her naturally suspicious nature.

"I want proof the baby is mine," he said, crossing his arms, feeling like an idiot for not just saying that outright when she'd first claimed to be pregnant with his child. "We'll have paternity testing done."

She took another sip. Licked her lips. "It's as if you don't trust me."

"It's a reasonable request."

"It certainly is. Reasonable. Rational. Completely understandable." Another sip. "I would have happily agreed to it had you brought it up earlier. Unfortunately, that ship has long since sailed."

She shoved the gla.s.s at him, giving him no choice but to take it.

"How am I to be sure the child you're carrying is mine?"

With a shrug she walked past him, her heels clicking, the sound loud to his ears. "Thanks to the check you wrote me, that is no longer my problem."

She opened the door. She was leaving. Walking out of his life, just like that.

Exactly what he'd wanted.

Reaching past her he slammed the door shut, and then stepped in front of her. "We're not done."

"When I'm done, I leave. And, believe me, buddy, I am done with you." He didn't move. She raised her eyebrows. "Don't make me kick you in the shin."

It wasn't the threat of violence that had him moving aside, it was the exhaustion on her face. Knowing she'd just been ill.

"In other words," he said, when she opened the door again, "you can't prove you're telling the truth."

"You don't get it. I came here because I thought it was the right thing to do. This pregnancy came as a shock to me, too, but I thought we could sit down, discuss our options and come up with some sort of plan on how to proceed. Together. Instead you treated me like dirt, accused me of being a lying, manipulative s.l.u.t." She shook her head, her hand gripping the doork.n.o.b as if it were a lifeline. "You didn't have to be such an arrogant a.s.s. You didn't have to make me feel so cheap. So beneath you. None of it had to be this way," she continued quietly. "It didn't have to end this way. I hope you remember that long after I'm gone."

CHAPTER SEVEN.