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Blue’s expression flickers with irritation. “I didn’t believe her. I used a condom. I told her I wanted a paternity test. That’s why we agreed to meet—she said she’d bring a kit to take a saliva sample.”
“Do you still want a test done?” James asks. “As far as I know, Maddie wasn’t seeing anyone else.”
Blue leans forward. “I’m prepared to forgo the test, if the price is right.”
“The price?”
“What do we get?” Jasmine asks. “If we take the baby?”
James and I both stare at them. It occurs to me then that neither of them has looked at Leia once.
“You get custody of your daughter,” James says carefully.
Blue taps on the table. “Let’s stop beating around the bush. You’re a rich playboy, and the last thing you need hanging around your neck is a kid that isn’t yours. You want me to take her off your hands. Fine, I’ll do it. If the price is right. So what are you offering?”
A surge of fury makes me inhale. “You piece of shit,” I say before I can think better of it. I’m absolutely aghast. “She’s not a secondhand car. She’s your daughter.”
“Fuck off,” Jasmine spits. “What’s this got to do with you?”
“I want half a million up front,” Blue says, lifting his chin, “and a hundred thousand every year after that.”
James just stares at him.
Blue narrows his eyes. “I know you have the money. You and Maddie were fucking loaded. If I’m going to take on her kid, I expect to be compensated.”
Her kid, not my kid. He’s not even sure Leia’s his. But Jasmine’s eyes gleam with excitement. They don’t care about Leia. The two of them just think she’ll be their ticket to a fortune. It wouldn’t surprise me if they offload her as soon as they get her.
James gets to his feet. The rest of us rise quickly.
He looks at me and says quietly, “Pass me Leia.”
I stare at him in horror. He’s going to give her to them. “Oh my God, James, no. Don’t do it. I beg you.”
He meets my eyes and gives a small smile. “Pass her to me, please.”
I swallow hard, then lift Leia’s seat and hand her to him. He takes the handle in his left hand. Then he moves closer to Blue.
When he speaks, his voice is soft and menacing. “I wouldn’t give her to you if you were the last man alive.” He trembles, and I realize it’s with anger. Oh, thank God.
Blue’s jaw drops. Then his eyes blaze. “I’m her father. She’s mine by right.”
“Oh, so now you’re claiming you’re her father?” James moves closer and towers over him. “Maddie might have slept with you in a moment of madness, but that does not make you Leia’s father morally or legally. A father cares for his partner when she’s pregnant, he holds her hand when she gives birth, and he’s there to support her when the baby’s young. She didn’t put your name on Leia’s birth certificate. And she named me Leia’s guardian. I don’t know why she called you that morning—if it was to involve you in Leia’s care, I’m sure she would have changed her mind if she’d heard what you just said to me.”
“So what?” Blue scoffs. “You’re going to give up your parties and your whores to stay at home and play Daddy?”
“He can give her up for adoption,” Jasmine says warily.
Blue snorts. “Any lawyer worth his salt would convince the Family Courts to give the kid to me over strangers. And he’d also be able to persuade the judge to give us part of Maddie’s fortune to bring the baby up.”
“I promise you, you won’t get a single cent of Maddie’s money.” James’s voice is like ice.
“We’ll see,” Blue says.
James turns on his heel and, carrying Leia, marches out of the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
James
