Everything inside her screamed. How could she have been so naive? So gullible? Tears streamed down her face as she cleaned up the condoms, tucking them into the far side of the trash to go unnoticed.
She pocketed one condom in her purse and left two more in the box by the bedside.
There was nothing Samantha hated more than to be used as a pawn for another person’s needs.
How could the man she’d fallen in love with do this to her?
How was she going to survive without him?
****
“Samantha’s pregnant,” Blake told Jeff in the privacy of the lawyer’s office.
“So the tabloids spoke the truth for once.” Jeff waved a royalty rag under his nose and tossed it on the desk.
Blake hadn’t seen the coverage, but only glanced at the telling title. “Duke to Daddy” topped the page.
“I just thought you should hear it from me instead of assuming anything. Things should go smoothly after my birthday next year.”
“I’ll ask Parker’s man to send the necessary papers the week of your birth, and we’ll have everything hammered out in a few short weeks after.” Jeff sat back and smiled. “I can’t believe you did it.”
“Did what?” Blake placed a ankle over his knee as they spoke.
“Talked her into getting pregnant. What did you offer? Ten more million?”
Blake’s skin crawled with Jeff’s words. “It wasn’t like that. Fate simply lent a hand.”
“Really?”
“Accidental pregnancies happen all the time.”
“So the women badgering my clients for child support say. In my experience, accidents are made.”
Blake supposed he saw that comment coming. “You forget that I’m the one benefiting from this baby, even more than Samantha. I’m positive she’s done nothing unsavory.”
Jeff leaned forward in his chair. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
Jeff’s hand reached over the table. “My congratulations.”
After shaking the man’s hand, he went on to more pressing matters. “About the cameras in Samantha’s home, did we find anything?”
Jeff opened a few papers on his desk and spread them out. “As you know, Vanessa confronted Samantha, but when we followed her we didn’t see her return or come in contact with any private investigator. Our own PI snapped a few pictures, but the men and women she’s with here all pan out to be business men like yourself or professionals like me.”
Blake noticed the familiar image of Vanessa, dark sunglasses and porcelain features as she sipped coffee or spoke on her phone. One image caught in his mind as more than familiar. Vanessa spoke to a woman he’d seen before, but couldn’t quite place. “Do you know who this is?”
“A law student… or was it legal secretary?” Jeff asked himself. “Secretary I believe.”
Blake’s mind shifted over the rest of the photos.
Only the one struck him as strange.
“We think the clean up man with the cameras was paid to ditch them. He never led us anywhere but to a trashcan. We can’t find anything linking Parker or your cousin to the States. It’s like a huge dead end, or dump as they say.”
Blake supposed it didn’t matter at this point, but he still wanted to nail whoever invaded Samantha’s privacy.
“Keep working on it.” Some might think a lawyer was used only for legal representation, but in his life, help begot help. And Jeff knew people who could keep a watchful eye on anyone and anything.
“I will.”
Blake grasped onto the picture of Vanessa and the secretary. Until he could name the woman in the photo, he’d keep looking at it.
****
There was no greater impact than seeing a set of bags packed and on a doorstep to know a problem was erupting. Or at least Samantha hoped.
Blake had lied to her. Instead of coming to her with a problem they could have possibly found a solution for, he’d manipulated the situation to produce an outcome to suit his needs. Memories of her father’s arrest, of the feelings Dan provoked with his deceit surfaced.
Blake knew her secrets, her insecurities, and played on them to get what he needed.
Yes, together they’d embarked on this deal with the devil. Marry to suit the needs of a dead man and both leave in the end richer. But that had changed as their attraction grew, as a child had been conceived.
Samantha grasped her belly that had just started to stretch beyond the limits of her jeans. She held in her hand a glass of wine she’d only sipped once. Stomaching more wasn’t an option. For as much as she wanted to hurt Blake, she wanted nothing to do with harming her child.
Damn him. Damn him for making her love him, trust him, and then blowing that all to hell.
The key in the lock twisted and Samantha set her gaze on the bags sitting by the door and lifted the glass of wine in her hand. Perhaps she should have been an actress. Blake had certainly missed his calling.
Two steps into the room and out of the corner of her eye, she noted Blake’s hesitation. “Samantha?”
She’d thought of what to say all afternoon. The image of her running, not saying a thing to his face and leaving him with the knowledge that she’d simply left held some merit. But in the end, she couldn’t leave without a final word of disapproval.
“When were you going to tell me?” she said as he inched into the room as if walking around a minefield full of bombs ready to explode.
“Tell you what?”
“You spent time at your lawyer’s today; surely you spoke of the will.”