Read Online Just for Fun by Rosalind James - Free Book Online Page A

tonight.”
    “Yeh. Took him out. He’s really good. Burning to play.”
    She brushed that aside as the irrelevancy it was. “How do
you know? That he’s yours?”
    “No proof yet,” he admitted. “We’re doing that on Wednesday.
And then I’ll make it official, do the legal things.”
    “So you don’t really know,” she pointed out. “What
makes you think she’s telling the truth? That she isn’t just trying to trap
you? So you slept with her. So what? Who knows who else she was sleeping with
at the time, somebody like that?”
    “I know. We were together. Trust me, there wasn’t anybody
else. It wasn’t like that anyway. And why would she agree to the blood test,
otherwise? Anyway, he looks like me. Got my eyes. When you see him, you’ll know
too. I don’t need a test to be sure.”
    “But you’re getting one. You have that much sense, at least.
What does she expect? What’s she looking for?”
    “She’s not looking for anything,” he protested. “She wasn’t
too keen on my being there at all.”
    “Right.” She was clearly unconvinced. “She wasn’t happy that
a meal ticket fell at her feet. How do you know she didn’t do the whole thing
on purpose?”
    “That was her strategic plan?” He was getting angry now.
“She’s a bloody bad schemer, then, isn’t she? Took about seven years to pay
off.”
    “So it didn’t work out the way she was hoping. That doesn’t
mean she didn’t plan it.”
    “This doesn’t matter anyway,” he said with exasperation.
“He’s here, and he’s mine. He’s in our life now, no matter how it started out.”
    “ Our life? How? What is she expecting?” Claudia asked
again.
    “She’s not expecting anything. I told you. What I’m expecting is that I’ll pay the maintenance. And work out some kind of
visitation.”
    “What kind of maintenance?” she asked in alarm. “What have
you said to her? You shouldn’t be having any kind of conversation like that.
Let your lawyer handle it, with hers. What were you thinking?”
    “She doesn’t have a lawyer,” he said impatiently. “Can’t
afford one, I’m sure. They’re living in a tiny flat. It’s not hard to suss out,
anyway. There’s a formula. I checked already.”
    “You checked. With Oliver?” she asked, referring to his
attorney. “Well, thank goodness for that. What did he say?”
    “About the money? There’s a formula,” he repeated. “Simple
enough.”
    “How much money are we talking about?” she demanded.
    “Fifteen hundred a month,” he admitted. “That’s the top
bracket. If she has him all the time.”
    She drew in her breath with a hiss. “Not like we can’t
afford it,” he pointed out.
    “Now we can. What about when you’re done playing,
though? This is our time to lay down a foundation for the future. We’ve
discussed that. Rugby isn’t forever.”
    “He’s part of the future too,” Nic said angrily. “He’s my son, Claud. Not some . . . some disaster. A collapsed roof or something.”
    “And what about our own children, when we have them? What
are you taking away from them?”
    He’d never seen this side of her before, not in their
personal life. He’d known she could be ruthless at work—that was why that
partnership was looking so promising—but whatever he’d expected when he told
her, it wasn’t this.
    “I’ll be as concerned for their welfare as I am for Zack’s,”
he said, his own voice hardening. “And that’s his name, by the way. Even though
you didn’t ask. Zack. Zachary, I guess. I don’t even know,” he realized. “I’ll
have to get the birth certificate sorted, too. So there isn’t an empty space
there.”
    “She must feel like Christmas has come early,” she said
sarcastically. “Already planning the big move, I’m sure. On our money.”
    “Nah. She hasn’t said a word about it. Hasn’t talked to me
about money at all. We’ve hardly had a chance. Barely had a conversation. She doesn’t
even want me to tell him