Page 27 of After-Hours Heir

“Not at all?”

“I had no idea. Did you?”

He looked truly appalled by the thought that he would’ve ever slept with her while knowing it was her. Great. Somehow, he had managed to take her deepest fear, turn it into one she hadn’t even known she had, but include some of the original features. He really was a modern marvel, that man.

“I did not know.”

“I thought… I thought I was coming here to meet a stranger. I thought that the hardest part about today was that I was going to have to look into an unfamiliar face and discuss the terms of…whatever is going to happen here. But it’s worse. Because I’ve already negotiated to deal with you, and I know that I hate it. I know that I hate you.”

He laughed. “What a waste of energy. Hate.”

“Is it? Because I have it on good authority that you hate your father.”

His face turned to stone. “Anything that I said to you in the confines of a text conversation might well have been overinflated. Did it never occur to you that I might have just wanted the sex?”

She would be tempted to think so. But the truth was, Christos could have anyone. In person or online. So it really didn’t make any sense why he would’ve been wasting time with her, unless he had been saying something somewhat honest.

“So now what?” she said.

“Obviously a paternity test.”

“Prenatal paternity tests have risks. I know because I had to look it up for a book that I helped edit.”

“A risk is acceptable. Everything has risks.”

“Are you kidding me?”

He shrugged. “No. Why would I be kidding?”

“Because we’re talking about your child.”

“Maybe.”

Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

But she was boiling with rage. She could barely contain it. She thought that she was going to overflow. To burst.

“I was a virgin, you arrogant bastard.”

He froze. And just at that moment, a woman came over with their order.

Christos didn’t bother to try to smile, but she did.

The woman set the food down and then went away.

“Impossible.”

“Oh, good. Now you’re going to tell me about my own vagina. I look forward to hearing all your opinions about my uterus, which I am certain is going to be in the next part of the conversation.”

“I am just saying, what virgin would meet a man for anonymous sex in a hotel room?”

“One that thought she was in love with him.”

She shouldn’t have said that. Because she wasn’t. Not now. In truth, she hadn’t been, not ever since she had really accepted that he wasn’t going to contact her again. So it didn’t feel so awful to admit it now. Mainly because it wasn’t the biggest, most awful thing hovering between them.

“You really are a fool,” he said.

“I guess so. But who spent so much time talking to a fool?”