Accidental Father Read Free Page B

“This is a lot to process.” He shook his head again. This time it was as if he was trying to clear the confusion. “Obviously, we have a lot to talk about.”
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    It took a while for Julianne and Alex to put the pieces together, but by the time she left two hours later, Alex was convinced of one thing: Marissa Waterford had lied to both of them. She’d lied. How could this woman whom everyone had perceived as such a saint do such a thing?
    She’d lied to her sister, painting Alex as a dead-beat who’d disavowed responsibility and run with his tail tucked between his legs when he’d learned Marissa was pregnant.
    At the same time, Marissa had simply chosen not to inform him that she was pregnant with hisson—even after he’d called her to try to make amends for that night.
    That fateful night two years ago, when Marissa learned that Alex was leaving Afghanistan to accept the position with iWITNESS in Paris. She’d set out on a mission to convince him to stay, complete with mellowing alcohol and lots of female flesh on display. For one crazy moment, Alex had given in to the temptation she offered, but after they’d made love, he’d known he’d made a colossal mistake.
    The next morning as he prepared to leave for Paris, she confessed she hoped that once they’d made love he’d stay. He told her he couldn’t. He knew he could help more people in his new position in Paris than he could working the front lines. While he cared deeply for her, all he could be was her friend. He stressed how important she was to him, that he didn’t want to lose her friendship.
    But it was too late. The damage had been done.
    Obviously stung, Marissa had insisted it was best that they made a clean break. Her goodbye was civil, chilly and punctuated with the firm click of his hotel room door as she walked out on him. After he’d settled in Paris, Alex had called herseveral times to salvage their friendship, but she’d made it clear she wanted no contact.
    She’d told him that hearing his voice hurt. She’d asked him to quit calling. Not wanting to hurt her any more than he already had, he respected her wishes.
    For two years. Then the sad news of her death had reached him through their mutual colleagues, and he’d grieved for the friend he’d lost, for the friendship he’d never been able to repair. Now, three months later, her sister was standing in front of him, informing him that Marissa had borne his child. It was almost too much to comprehend.
    But one thing was certain: Even though he was never in love with Marissa, he would never have turned his back on her and their child…if only she’d informed him she was pregnant.
    Now, as he sat in his dark office, lit only by the amber hues of the setting sun streaming through the lone window to the left of his desk, Alex knew how it felt for the world to spin out of control.
    Or he might know if he weren’t so numb.
    Even so, with Julianne’s utterance of those fateful four words— You have a son —nothing in his world would ever be the same.
    The office was so still that the thoughts in his mind seemed to scream as he replayed theirconversation over in his head: How, at first, neither of them had believed the other. While he’d confirmed that he’d been intimate with her sister, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Julianne the details of what had happened between him and Marissa.
    As she dug in, pouring on the guilt, accusing him of sidestepping responsibility, it crossed Alex’s mind that Julianne might be an opportunist. Given his family’s situation—less than two years ago his brother, Luc Lejardin, had married Sophie Baldwin, the heir to the throne of St. Michel, and had become the prince consort of that wealthy principality. Maybe Julianne smelled an opportunity to cash in.
    But then she’d suggested a paternity test—insisted on one, in