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“That’s why you didn’t go to the island with her,” Candace said. “Because she convinced you she wanted time alone. And once you discovered she’d lied, it was easy to convince yourself that she had no intention of having your baby.”
He nodded.
Jilly had told her Nick had been too busy. She’d accepted it at the time, but now Candace found that she desperately wanted to hear Nick’s own version of how events had unfolded.
“But I never confronted her with it. We’d been through IVF before—several times. Unsuccessfully. Jilly told me I didn’t have to be there. That the frozen embryos and sperm would be forwarded by the specialist we’d been dealing with here in Auckland.”
He met her eyes. “I questioned how reputable the institution was—hell, I even did some checking. Everything seemed fine. There’d been some breakthroughs achieved, and I could understand why Jilly wanted to give it a try—why she thought it might be her last chance.” Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “To be honest, my first reaction was relief that she didn’t appear to want me along. Jilly could be very…” he paused “…demanding.”
“She only wanted what any wife would expect—your time and your love.”
Dropping his hand, Nick slanted her a mocking stare. “Not quite. She wanted a baby—a totally different thing. Clearly she had already put in place an elaborate plan to switch the recipient of…”
“Your sperm,” Candace added helpfully.
“Exactly.”
“It’s hard to believe you didn’t know.” Candace’s head was whirling as she tried to process everything Nick had told her. “I signed contracts…” Her voice trailed away. “You must’ve signed them, too.”
His face said it all. “If there is a signature there, I’m sure an expert would pronounce it a forgery.”
“Why did she go to such lengths?” It puzzled Candace. “Did she hope you’d spend more time with her if there was a baby in the house?”
“You know nothing about what my wife expected. And she’s dead now, so it’s all in the past. But, believe me, our marriage should never have taken place.” Nick changed the subject. “But now I have to start accepting that Jennie came from your womb. Did the egg belong to you—” Nick paused “—or was there another donor I don’t know about involved?”
Candace had to feel pity as she watched him grappling with the enormity of his discovery. “The egg was mine—and I carried Jennie in my womb. That’s why I am her biological mother.”
“Biological mother?” Nick swore. “Your egg was fertilized by—” He broke off.
“Your sperm.” Candace added the words as clinically at she could. She was a nurse. She worked with babies all the time, knew where they came from. Nothing about this was foreign to her. So why did she feel as if she stood on the edge of a whole new dimension?
This time Nick said politely but with far more force, “Hell.” He shook his head again as if to clear it. “I still can’t believe Jilly planned this.” He paused, his face hardening. “I should be thankful, I suppose, that she bothered to use my sperm.”
Beneath his anger Candace could sense his hurt and confusion. She touched his arm. “Nick, I really don’t think there was a lover. Jilly told me you were soul mates. She wanted your baby. Desperately. That’s why I had to undergo DNA confirmation after Jennie’s birth—she wanted to be sure the baby was yours.”
An indecipherable emotion flickered across Nick’s face—guilt perhaps?—and then it was gone. “Jilly certainly didn’t ask my permission to take a sample for DNA for matching—assuming she took one.”
“Oh, she had a sample, the test confirmed you were my baby’s father. It could’ve been your toothbrush…a hair from your brush…as long as it had your DNA on it.”
“Anything Jilly wanted Jilly got—and the hell with what it cost.”
There was a savage note in his voice that warned Candace this was about much more than Jilly taking tissue samples without his knowledge. Candace got the impression that Nick was a man who had been pushed to the brink of his endurance.
And that conviction only grew when he added grimly, “I’m still going to need proof before I accept that I’m Jennie’s father.”
The axis of Nick’s world had tilted.
He was grateful for the string of meetings that kept him occupied the following morning. Yet his mind kept buzzing with questions to which he had no answers: Why hadn’t Jilly told him about her infertility? How could Jilly have arranged a surrogate and fooled him so easily? And, more importantly, what was he going to do about Candace?
