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“Perhaps—but it would be difficult to choose. I don’t know you very well.”
“You don’t get your assistant to pick out gifts for all your women?”
There was a buzzing in his ears. “Are you saying you’re one of my women?”
She paled. “Of course not!” She fussed with the bottle that Holly had discarded. “I can think of nothing worse.”
“Nothing?”
Her gaze dropped to the baby and he knew she’d gotten his point. Giving Holly up for adoption was far, far worse than being his woman—or the next step, having a child with him.
Then he spelled it out, “It would be easier to give Holly away, would it?”
Ella went white, and for the first time he noticed the sprinkling of bronze freckles across her nose. “It won’t be giving her away. She’ll be going to a family who desperately wants a baby to love—and I still intend to see her from time to time.” She paused. There was a peculiar light in her eyes. “If you really want to know, my birthday was Friday before last.”
It took him only a moment to make the connection. “The day Holly was born.”
There was no way in hell he could say any more.
Ella didn’t look at the baby on the blanket beside her. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself. “I better get back to work. I have one more appointment before I’m done for the day.”
* * *
“What do you mean you don’t care?” Frustration soared as Yevgeny changed the cell phone to his other ear and tried to ignore the crackle that distorted his brother’s voice. Yes, it must be the crack of dawn in Africa. Without a doubt, he’d woken his brother out of a deep sleep. But he wasn’t sorry. He was too relieved he’d finally made contact, after almost twenty-four hours of trying. He’d pulled the Porsche over to try calling—and gotten lucky. “But you never wanted anyone to know you’re sterile. You swore me to secrecy.”
Dmitri mumbled something to the effect that Keira already knew—and that was all who really mattered.
Of course Keira knew!
How else had Holly been conceived with Yevgeny’s donated sperm?
Which Ella didn’t know. She still believed Dmitri was Holly’s biological father. And Yevgeny had been so confident that she’d ultimately allow him to adopt Holly without the need to air Dmitri’s tragic secret.
He’d sure been wrong about that.
Yevgeny was relieved that the baby wasn’t here to experience his raised voice. He never wanted her associating her daddy with anger. He’d left her with Deb only ten minutes ago; soon he would be back at his penthouse.
“But you were so adamant about it,” Yevgeny gritted out. Hell, if he’d known his brother had become so casual about who knew about his sterility he’d have told Ella yesterday at that bewitching house. Or earlier today at the park.
He’d had the opportunity.
A year ago it had been a different story altogether...then Dmitri hadn’t wanted anyone—except Keira—to know the truth. He appeared to have forgotten all about that.
“Yevgeny, it was you who was so uptight about it.” Even over the distorted line he could hear his brother’s protest.
“Me?”
That wasn’t true. His brother had always been deeply embarrassed about the sterility that had resulted from his contracting mumps when he was young. During his teen years it had been a shameful secret as he roared around wildly with gangs of girls to prove his virility. Even now the memory of those days, the fights he’d had as Dmitri leaped from one disaster to the next made Yevgeny shudder.
“Yes. You thought it made me less of a man. A sissy.”
“I never said that!” He struggled with an impotent sense of growing outrage.
“But you thought it.”
Never! “Where the hell did you get that screwed-up idea from?” he growled.
“You.”
Yevgeny sucked in a breath, counted to ten. Outside the Porsche the street was alive with people hurrying home at the end of the day. “Then you read me wrong.”
“You were terrified about it getting into the papers. You didn’t want anyone to know you’d donated sperm in case Babushka found out.”
That part was true.
“Maybe I overreacted about that.” It was a huge admission to make. Again he was guarding his brother. His grandmother’s one shortcoming in life was that she’d always been very conservative—and tended to be too outspoken and hurtful at times. “Babushka was probably a lot tougher than I give her credit for being. But it was more than that. I was terrified of the paparazzi stalking you. The stories in the gossip rags would emasculate you.” And shame his brother further.
