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Monroe jerked his shoulders, tried not to picture her stricken face. ‘Yeah, because it’s not mine, it can’t be.’
‘Monroe, have you ever had yourself tested since—to make sure, I mean?’
Monroe felt his face flush at the quietly spoken question. ‘No, why would I?’
‘If Jessie says she’s pregnant, she is. And if she says you’re the father, you are. She wouldn’t lie about that.’
Linc seemed so certain, Monroe almost wanted to believe it, but he couldn’t let himself go there again. ‘I’m not the father.’
‘Monroe, you’re going to get tested. I’ll find someone near here that’ll do it. If you won’t do it for yourself, for Jessie, you’ll damn well do it for me.’
‘Why are you making me do this?’
Monroe could see the anger and regret in his brother’s eyes, but his mouth was set in a firm line. ‘You’ll do it, Roe—you owe this family at least that much.’
As Monroe watched his brother walk out the door he felt temper take over.
How had he been suckered into this? The result was just going to humiliate him more. He thought of Jessie again and cursed. How could he have been so foolish as to break his golden rule? Never get involved. Never make a commitment. Now he’d made one, not only to a woman who could turn him inside out, but also to a family he’d never wanted any part of.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘DR CARTER WILL see you now, Mr Latimer.’
Monroe threw down the glossy magazine he’d been pretending to read for the last half hour. Clinging onto the anger that had helped keep the pain at bay, he stalked into Carter’s plush private office.
He didn’t want to be here. He’d been forced into this and he was mad about it. He’d had to spend the afternoon yesterday giving sperm samples. If that wasn’t bad enough, now he had to go through the humiliating charade of getting the results. He already knew what Carter was going to say. Had known it for most of his life.
The plump, grey-haired physician looked up from the papers he was busy shuffling and pointed to the comfy leather armchair across from his wide maplewood desk. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Latimer. Take a seat.’
‘No, thanks.’ Monroe didn’t want to sit down. He wanted this over with, so he could take the good doctor’s results and shove them down his dear brother’s throat.
‘Well, Mr Latimer.’ Carter put the papers down and studied Monroe. ‘I’ll cut straight to the chase. There’s no point in beating about the bush, after all.’
Did the man talk in nothing but clichés? Monroe thought bitterly. ‘You do that, Doc.’
‘Simply put, Mr Latimer,’ Carter replied, ‘your sperm count is perfectly normal. In fact, I’d place it in the high end of the range.’
Monroe felt his heart stop. ‘What did you say?’
‘That you’re not infertile—far from it, in fact.’ Carter smiled.
Monroe dropped into the armchair. He felt as if his legs had just been yanked out from under him. ‘But that’s not possible. I was tested, when I was sixteen. The prison doctor said I was infertile.’
‘Well,’ Carter continued, ‘that may possibly have been true at the specific time your sperm count was taken.’
‘How?’ Monroe’s heart was banging away in his chest now as if it were about to explode.
Carter folded his arms on the desk in front of him and happily went into lecture mode. ‘Mr Latimer, there has been a great deal of research into male fertility in the last ten to fifteen years.’ Carter paused for breath, and then gave Monroe a self-satisfied smile. ‘One of the most fascinating discoveries, in my opinion at least, has been how much the male sperm count can fluctuate given certain circumstances. All sorts of factors can affect the count at any one time. If you’d recently had a high fever, say, or were particularly stressed at the time the sample was given, it could wipe out the count completely or lower it substantially. But it would recover remarkably quickly. It’s often the case that—’
‘Hold on a damn minute.’ Monroe’s mind simply wouldn’t engage. ‘How the hell do you know that’s the case with me?’
Carter sighed heavily. ‘Mr Latimer, as I told you, your samples yesterday showed a high volume of active sperm. Whatever the test showed in the past, your sperm now are more than capable of getting a woman pregnant.’
Monroe staggered out of the office in a daze. Carter had droned on for another twenty minutes but he hadn’t heard a word of it. His mind kept reeling back to Jessie and the anguish on her face when he’d last seen her.
There hadn’t been any other guys. If he’d been honest with himself he’d known that all along. He’d had to work harder to get her into bed than any woman he’d ever met. And she hadn’t exactly been the most experienced woman he’d ever slept with. It was one of the things about her he’d found irresistible—that captivating combination of innocence and passion.
Pushing open the double doors of the clinic, he walked onto the sunny street outside. But he didn’t see the snazzy cars flashing past in the high-end neighbourhood, the afternoon shoppers rushing to make their latest purchase. All he could see was Jessie’s shattered eyes, her tear-soaked cheeks.
