One Heir...Or Two?

Suddenly the diamond solitaire ring he had in his breast pocket felt like it was burning through the lining of his suit. He and Dani were totally on the same page on this subject. They gave to the community through their philanthropy and their skills. They had no desire to add to the world by having children. In fact, it was something they both specifically planned to avoid. Bad enough that Kayla already had one baby with his DNA. One child with a genetic predisposition for alcoholism was more than enough. But more? Being raised by a mother as flighty and unreliable as Kayla? It was a recipe for disaster.

“No,” he said emphatically.

A small frown pulled between Kayla’s brows. “No, you’re not going to loan me the money?”

“No, you’re not going to have those babies.”

Two

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not going to happen. Not again.”

Kayla began to protest. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Five years ago, you said—”

He cut her off. “I will fight you on this with every last cent I have if necessary. I made a mistake agreeing to Sienna’s request to serve as her donor in the first place. I’m not compounding that mistake by assisting you now.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m the one who makes the decisions about what happens with the embryos, not you.”

“Not once my legal team gets a hold of this. I can keep this tied up through the courts for as long as it takes, and I will.”

Who was this man? She barely recognized him. But once upon a time he’d been different. He’d wanted to help. Maybe she could still reach that man somehow. She had to try. For her sister’s sake.

“We both loved her, Van. Don’t you remember why you wanted to help her in the first place? Because you supported her and wanted her to fulfill her dreams. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here. See her dreams come to fruition.”

“Don’t, Kayla!” He spoke sharply and baby Sienna, startled, popped off her breast.

Kayla quickly covered herself up again. “Don’t what, Van?”

“Don’t try to use Sienna to manipulate me. Everything is different now. Sienna’s dead. Her dream of motherhood died with her,” he said bluntly.

Kayla rose to her feet and rested Sienna against her shoulder, rubbing her little back more for her own comfort than for the child’s.

“No, Van, they didn’t. This beautiful little girl is proof of that. And I’m going to see to it that she doesn’t grow up without a brother or a sister. You, more than anyone, should understand why I’m determined to do that.”

“Be prepared for a long fight, then, because there is no way I’m sanctioning the birth of any more of my children. Not now. Not ever.”

Kayla forced a smile to her lips. “It doesn’t really matter whether you sanction them or not. You have no say. You signed your paternal rights away, remember?”

“Nothing is ever carved completely in stone, Kayla. And I have more than enough money to ensure that you won’t be permitted to go ahead with this.”

“We’ll see about that,” she answered with an equally determined tone. “You know, I feel sorry for you. You’ve become cold and unfeeling. Somewhere in the last five years you lost your heart.”

* * *

Kayla could barely think straight on the drive home. Some of it she put down to hormones. After all, she’d already begun the preparation for the embryo transfer as soon as she got the letter from the clinic to say they were closing. But now she had to decide if she was going to go through with it. And she had to decide whether to go with the single transfer, like she’d done with Sienna, and hope for the best or take the option of a multiple transfer of both remaining embryos with its higher likelihood of a multiple pregnancy. If only she wasn’t on such a short time frame. She’d budgeted so carefully to ensure she could have her sister’s children without putting herself in dire financial straits. It wasn’t cheap raising a kid, but with lots of overtime, diligent planning and a strict savings plan, she’d tucked away a tidy nest egg. But would it stretch to cover a multiple birth? No matter which way she looked at it, she’d be coming up short somewhere.

Well, she told herself optimistically, it wasn’t as if she couldn’t keep working and continuing to build her nest egg for now—even if the cost of day care for Sienna would now eat into her earnings. She wondered why her housemate, Zoe, had just up and left her like that. No notice, no anything. It was just weird. She and Kayla had enjoyed what Kayla thought was a fair arrangement—in exchange for an allowance, room and board, Zoe cared for Sienna while Kayla was at work. Zoe had never once mentioned she was unhappy with their situation.

Mind you, compared to living on the street, as Zoe had been when Kayla met her—down on her luck and down to her last five dollars—staying with Kayla must have been a massive relief. In fact, it was Zoe, an out-of-work child-care provider, who’d suggested she look after Sienna in the first place. So why had she just up and left?

By the time Kayla reached the two-bedroom apartment she rented on the outskirts of Lakeshore, she was no closer to finding an answer. She let herself inside and put Sienna, who’d fallen asleep in the car, into her crib. Kayla paused and gazed lovingly at the little girl. The daughter of her heart, but very much Sienna and Van’s child at the same time.

Why had Van been so distant, so determined that no more of his and Sienna’s children be born? It didn’t make sense. He’d willingly entered into the arrangement with her sister.

Well, whatever, she would still go ahead. She’d made a vow and she wasn’t going to break it. It would take a lot of planning, a lot of organization—two things that had never been her strong suits. But she’d built those skills over time. She’d needed to, in order to prepare herself for becoming a single mother. The important thing, she knew, was to take things one step at a time. So for now, her first major headache would be getting the baby back into the day care where she’d been before Zoe had moved in.

Kayla reached for her phone and noticed she had a message waiting. She frowned slightly, wondering why she hadn’t heard the phone ring before realizing the sound had been turned off. Strange, she didn’t remember doing that. She started to listen to the message, hoping that maybe it was from Zoe, with an explanation about where the heck she’d taken off to today.

But no, it wasn’t from Zoe—it was an automated message from her bank, notifying her that her account had gone into overdraft. That couldn’t be right—in fact, it had to be downright impossible. Nausea rose in Kayla’s gut as she pulled up her online banking app on her phone and checked her balance. But there it was on the screen, plain to see. The entire balance of her account had transferred out last night. But how...?

With shaking fingers, she keyed in the phone number for the bank and went through the menu options that would finally lead her to a human voice. Kayla felt her throat choke as she told the customer service rep just how much money should be in her account. She ought to know. After all, she checked it on her phone every night. And last night... The sick dread that enveloped her thickened and made her stomach flip uncomfortably. Last night she’d been checking her balance when there’d been a knock at the door to her apartment. She’d left her phone on the coffee table when she’d gone to answer and Zoe had been alone in the living room for about five minutes. Through the roaring sound in her ears, she could just hear the customer service rep.

“You made a large withdrawal last night, Ms. Porter. It’s all there on the screen—a payment to one of your regular payees, a Ms. Zoe Thompson.”

“But I didn’t do it. She must have done it herself.”

Kayla swallowed back the tears that collected in her throat. All her money. Gone. How the heck was she going to cope?

“Did you give Ms. Thompson access to your account? Under the terms and conditions—”

“I’m well aware of the terms and conditions, and no, I didn’t give her permission to access my account.”

“Ms. Porter, even if the payment was made by mistake, please be advised that we cannot reverse that payment without the consent of the person who owns the account the funds were paid into.”

“But I didn’t authorize the payment!”

Kayla’s voice rose on a desperate note and in the bedroom she heard Sienna stir—the sound of her mother’s distress obviously having woken her.

“Ma’am, if we assist you to recover a payment made from your authorized mobile device, we will have to charge you an electronic credit recovery fee. You’ll find the fees set out in our guide.”

“Whatever, do whatever you can, whatever your fees are. I accept. I need my money back.”

It was only later, when the bank called her back to say that Zoe had closed out her accounts and the funds could not be retrieved, that Kayla felt all hope die. After filing a claim with the bank and reporting the theft to the police, Kayla finally gave in to the tears that had burned at the back of her throat for what felt like hours.

Kayla looked around her. Her only remaining belongings were her furniture, her personal things and the small amount of cash in her purse. Zoe had left her with nothing else. No backup money, no nest egg. Zip. Zero. Nada. Rage, fear, confusion and a deep sense of violation all jangled within her. When she’d brought Zoe into her apartment, adamant in her belief that giving another person a fair chance to make a good life would help put something worthwhile back into the universe, she’d thought she was making a positive difference in the other woman’s life. And she’d trusted her. So much so that she’d left Sienna with her on a day-to-day basis.

She knew Zoe had had a hard past, having to look out for herself after losing her job and being thrown out of her apartment by her boyfriend. Kayla knew Zoe didn’t trust easily, but she’d believed they’d gotten past that and thought Zoe had learned to see the good things that life had to offer. And Zoe had at that, a scathing little voice inside Kayla said. She’d seen what Kayla had to offer and she’d taken it—all of it.

Kayla brushed tears from her cheeks. It was all her fault. She trusted people. Always. Now it had bitten her well and truly in the backside. The hard reality of what this meant pressed down on her like a ton of lead.

“Think, Kayla, think. And breathe. You can’t lose it now,” she said firmly to herself, desperately trying to calm the shudders that now began to ripple through her body.

She tried to center herself—to breathe in slow and deep and find the inner calm that was usually never far from the surface of her mind—but all to no avail. The police hadn’t been optimistic about her chances of getting her money back. Despite the information she’d given them about Zoe, she was just one opportunistic thief in a great big city full of them. She could even have gone out of state by now.

What the heck was she going to do? Her mind remained a blank. It was hopeless. She was hopeless. She needed money—those precious savings had been for her babies’ future and to help her raise them, not to mention covering rent and utilities while she couldn’t work—but who would loan her what she needed? The bank clearly wouldn’t be any help, since they seemed to hold her responsible for losing the money in her account. She didn’t have any family left. Most of her friends were in the same financial situation as she had been before she’d decided to have Sienna’s kids—choosing to live in the present rather than plan for the future. So, if her friends were out, who did that leave?

One name whispered through her mind, making her nerves vibrate with tension and a swarm of butterflies skitter about in her stomach—Van Murphy. Even though he’d made his position painfully clear today, perhaps with time he’d soften his stance. Surely any man with a shred of decency left in him would want to help his children? It wasn’t as if he was strapped for cash.

But no, she remembered the coldness on his face as he’d threatened to keep her from using Sienna’s remaining embryos. He wouldn’t help her. In fact, he’d do whatever he could to stop her.

There was no way she could afford a legal battle—especially against the kind of lawyers he could afford. She’d have to scrape together whatever resources remained and go through the procedure without any kind of nest egg.

The alternative was giving up on those babies and her promise to her sister completely—and that was something she would never do.

* * *

Van ended the call with his lawyer and calmly and deliberately slid his cell phone back into his pocket. He didn’t dare move, or he might destroy something, although right now a bar brawl would come in handy to help him relieve the anger that infused every cell in his body.

She’d gone and done it.

Despite what he’d said, or maybe in spite of it, she’d carried on with the transfer of Sienna’s remaining embryos before he could arrange an injunction to stop her. Two embryos, to be precise, if his lawyer’s information was correct. Van slowly let go of the breath he’d been holding and focused on the picture on the wall of his office. Normally the vista, painted from the balcony of his home overlooking the sea on the Monterey Peninsula, calmed him. Reminded him of just how far he’d come. But nothing calmed him now.

This was his worst nightmare come to life.

For the first time in a long time, he was lost for what to do. Automatically he pulled out his car keys. He shrugged into his suit jacket and walked down the corridor and into his private elevator. Down in the parking garage, he slid onto the fine dove-gray leather seat of his late-model Audi and activated the GPS—inputting the address he’d committed to memory about two hours after Kayla had left his office just over a month ago.

He hadn’t wanted to see her again—hadn’t wanted to need to have this conversation—but with her decision to ignore his wishes, he had no other option. Anger rolled in waves beneath the surface, forcing him to utilize every last ounce of training he’d ever endured to keep it under control. One step at a time, he reminded himself. His primary objective right now was to see her, talk to her. What he wanted to say—well, he had no idea yet, nothing civil, anyway, but he knew something would come to him.

The roads were relatively quiet heading out of the city and he made the journey to Lakeshore in good time. Van’s brows pulled into a frown when he saw the red-and-blue flashing lights as he drove up to Kayla’s apartment building. He got out of his car and locked the doors.

He scanned the numbers on the rows of apartments and his frown deepened as he saw that Kayla’s was very near where two police cars jutted out from the curb, along with an ambulance. Even from where he was, Van could hear the angry yelling of a woman the cops were guiding toward one of the cruisers.

“You owe me, Kayla! You owe me! You were supposed to help.”

Van’s blood ran cold. Had this crazy woman attacked Kayla? He quickened his step and drew closer to the crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk. Two police officers tried to restrain the wild-eyed woman, who spat and bucked and twisted and fought them with every step. Where the hell was Kayla in all this? Van looked up to a second-story balcony where a curtain billowed out through a broken glass slider. Without realizing he’d made a decision, he pushed his way through the crowd and started toward the building, only to be stopped by another officer on the sidewalk.

“Sir, you can’t go up there.”

Like hell he couldn’t. “Kayla Porter, where is she?”

“And you are?” The officer gave him a hard stare.

“A friend. A family friend,” he emphasized.

“She’s over there in the ambulance, sir, with the baby.”

Ambulance? A cold rush of fear washed through him. Was she hurt? Was the baby hurt? Without another word to the officer, he strode toward the ambulance. As he neared the back of the vehicle, he spied Kayla inside, a stark white dressing on her forehead. His gut knotted until he saw the sleeping baby in her arms—not crying, not visibly injured, he noted almost immediately. He felt his taut muscles begin to ease. They were okay. A ridiculous sense of relief coursed through him, replacing the chill of alarm that had been there only seconds ago.

From the look on Kayla’s pale face, she was shaken, but aside from that dressing, it looked like she and Sienna were all right. Kayla hadn’t seen him yet. Her eyes were fixed on the woman being bundled into the back of the patrol car. Even from here he could see the way shock and strain had drawn Kayla’s blanched features into a mask of horror and disbelief. She grew visibly paler at the vitriol being flung at her by the woman as one of the officers closed the back door of the cruiser and the vehicle pulled away. A paramedic moved inside the ambulance, blocking Van’s view. As much as it frustrated him, he reminded himself it was okay for now. Kayla was getting the care she needed. The baby was fine. There was nothing else he could do right now but wait.

After another ten minutes he saw Kayla being helped down to the street. He resisted the urge to rush forward. A female officer led Kayla and Sienna back across the street and into the building. He followed them up the stairs.

The front door to what had to be Kayla’s apartment was wide open. He stepped through the threshold, his gaze instantly assessing the chaos inside—the overturned side tables, the broken lamp, the cupboard doors hanging open—their shelves denuded of whatever had been inside.

“Sir, this is a crime scene. Please go back downstairs,” the officer instructed when she caught sight of him.

“I’m a friend of Ms. Porter’s,” he repeated, then forced himself to say his next words. “And the father of the baby.”

“Is that right, Kayla? Do you want him here?”

Kayla came through a doorway and closed it quietly behind her. The second her eyes lit on him, she seemed to jolt in surprise. Shock, rapidly followed by something else—guilt, probably, he surmised, since she likely knew good and well why he was here—shot across her face.

“Yes, that’s okay,” she said. She averted her gaze and studiously avoided looking at him again.

The officer turned to Van. “Fine,” she said. “You can come in.”

He gave the woman a curt nod and moved farther inside, picking his way through the debris to where Kayla stood near an overturned sofa. Shudders racked her body even though the evening air coming through the broken window was pretty mild for May. She was clearly feeling the effects of whatever had transpired here. Looking around, he knew it couldn’t have been pleasant. Van shucked off his suit jacket and placed it over her shoulders. She flinched at his touch as his hands briefly rested on her upper arms, but she didn’t refuse the warmth his jacket offered.

He waited patiently while she gave her statement, his hands curled into impotent fists as she described the invasion of her home by a woman she’d once trusted. But his interest sharpened at the officer’s next words.

“And you say this is the woman who cleared out your bank account last month?”

“I... I can’t talk about this right now,” she said, glancing at Van, her voice jittering with nerves.

“Don’t let me stop you making a full statement,” Van responded smoothly. “Give the officer the information she needs.”

At his prompting, Kayla carried on, although he sensed she was choosing her words carefully because of him. But no amount of care could disguise the facts, and by the end of her statement he was boiling under the surface. Not only had she brought some homeless person into her apartment, she’d left Sienna with her on a regular basis. Was she completely out of her mind? Van swallowed back the fierce wave of frustration that clogged his throat. He’d just have to bide his time until they were alone so he could have this out with Kayla.

He didn’t have to wait much longer before the officer was leaving, with an admonition to Kayla to get her locks changed in the morning.

“I’ll take care of it tonight,” Van said firmly. “Thank you, officer.”

The woman looked from him to Kayla and back again. Then, with a slight nod, she closed the door behind her. Van turned to face Kayla. Silence stretched out between them like a palpable being. He couldn’t hold back a moment longer.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“Tonight? How to stay alive, mostly.”

Her attitude did nothing to assuage the burning anger that smoldered deep inside him.

“Nice try, Kayla. You know that’s not what I’m talking about. You owe me an explanation and I’m not leaving until I get it.”

Three

Kayla righted an armchair and sank into it. She was shattered. If having Zoe return to her apartment, tripping out on the drugs she’d spent all of Kayla’s hard-earned savings on, hadn’t been enough, now she had to deal with Van, as well?

She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat and looked at him. While she might not have been able to see the fury that emanated off him in waves, she could certainly feel it.

“Can’t this wait until tomorrow? As you can see, I have a lot on my plate right now.”

Her head ached where one of Zoe’s missiles had caught her on the forehead and Kayla gingerly touched the dressing the paramedic had put over the cut and closed her eyes. She sensed rather than saw Van move to her side.

“Are you okay? Do you need further medical attention?”

She let her hand drop into her lap and opened her eyes again. “No, I’m okay. It was a glancing blow. Nothing major. I’m just really tired right now. I’m not up for a big argument.” She dredged up the last of her courage and fired her next words straight at him. “Perhaps you could call and make an appointment.”

He looked startled for a second and then reluctantly amused. But frustration and fury soon took over again. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. You know exactly why I’m here. You owe me answers and I’m not leaving until I get them.”

“They’ll have to wait until I can get this all sorted out,” she said with a weary wave of her hand at the mess that was once her sitting room and kitchen.

“Fine. We do that, then we talk.”

“Van, no. It’s late, I’m tired and I just want to go to bed.”

“Without changing the lock? With that hole in your sliding door?”

She just shook her head, unable to find words. Tonight had been terrifying. When Zoe had shown up, letting herself in with her old key and demanding more money from Kayla, she’d thought she could talk the other woman down. How wrong had she been? Zoe went crazy and grabbed Sienna from her crib, making wild threats. Kayla didn’t stop to think. Maternal instinct simply took over and she launched herself at Zoe. Both of them fell onto the bed and she tussled with her, determined to free her little girl from the madwoman’s clutches. It was the last thing Zoe had anticipated and Kayla quickly wrested her baby free. After putting Sienna back in her crib, Kayla shoved Zoe out of the bedroom and barricaded them both inside. Sienna screamed her lungs out through the whole ordeal.

Zoe went completely over the edge at that stage and all Kayla could do was listen helplessly while the other woman destroyed the rest of the apartment. She couldn’t even call the police, because her phone was in the living room. Thankfully, several of her neighbors had heard the commotion.

Another shudder racked her body. It had been only two days since the implantation procedure. She wasn’t supposed to undertake any strenuous activity and things had gotten pretty strenuous when she and Zoe had struggled together—not to mention the strain of dragging her grandmother’s old wooden dresser across the door to stop Zoe from breaking her way back into the bedroom. Already she could feel aches and pains in every part of her body. She wrapped her arms across her stomach, holding herself tight. She couldn’t lose the babies, not now.

“Kayla?”