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She scoffed and shook her head, obviously disgusted with him.
“Becca, don’t be mad, please.”
“I’m not mad at you. Because even though I don’t sleep around, Nick—before you, I’d never had a one-night stand, and after I got the news, I wished I never had—you couldn’t possibly know me well enough to know that. So I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself for sleeping with a man who doesn’t know me well enough to know that.”
Chapter Three
Just as Nick had maintained that he was within his right to ask Becca to take the paternity test, she was justified in feeling offended and irritated by his request.
However, the all-too-rational part of Becca’s brain knew without a doubt how the results would come back. It would prove that Nick was the father. So, why argue?
Why?
Insult and exasperation kicked up again. Do the words it’s the principle of the matter not mean anything to you?
Her heart had broken a little bit after Nick’s visit. Still tender, it tried to overrule that sickeningly reasonable voice in her brain.
She didn’t have to take the test if she didn’t want to. He wasn’t strong-arming her. She didn’t need to prove herself. But wouldn’t it look as if she had something to hide if she held out? The truth would set her free.
Or would it?
Handing Nick proof positive would not guarantee he’d be any happier about it than he was right now. But that was the chance she’d have to take. She’d meant it when she’d told him she wouldn’t try to force him into anything he didn’t want to do. And she wouldn’t.
In the end, vindication trumped justification. The next day she went to the lab in Dallas that Nick had recommended and let them draw blood for a noninvasive prenatal paternity test. They told her they’d have the results back in two business days.
After the longest two days of her life, Becca braced herself for the news. She wasn’t sure why she was anxious, since the results wouldn’t be a surprise. But last night she’d dreamed that the lab had gotten her results mixed up with another person’s, and she couldn’t seem to make Nick understand that it was a mistake. That the lab had messed up.
All her life Becca, who’d been a straight-A student up through college, had had recurring nightmares of failing tests. They’d only served as incentive to work harder. But this test was out of her control.
As she took the parking garage elevator into the lobby of the Macintyre Enterprises building, she took a deep breath and tried to get in touch with her rational mind, which still seemed to be fast asleep this morning.
Her foolish, emotional, battered heart was not only wide-awake and beating like a cymbal-banging monkey, it had been making her do crazy things like check her email every fifteen minutes since five-thirty this morning. If her rational mind cared to show up, it would convince her that, much like pressing an elevator button repeatedly when waiting for a slow car, refreshing her email browser every fifteen minutes before the workaday world had poured their first cup of coffee was fruitless.
But sometimes exercises in futility were therapeutic.
She stepped off the garage elevator into the lobby and turned toward the bank of elevators that would carry her up to her office on the top floor of the building.
The Macintyre Foundation was housed in a twenty-five-story glass-and-chrome building in the heart of downtown Dallas. The Macintyre Family Foundation shared office space with Macintyre Enterprises, which belonged to Kate’s brother, Rob Macintyre. The foundation mostly served the community of Celebration, Texas, which was located about twenty minutes outside of downtown Dallas. But since Rob Macintyre owned the Dallas-based building, they couldn’t beat the cost of rent.
Every time Becca stepped into the massive glass-enclosed lobby, she looked up. She couldn’t help herself, even after all these years. The ceiling seemed to stretch miles above her head, reaching toward the heavens. All around a gentle green-tinted light filtered in. Even in the soft morning sunshine, it reflected off the chrome furniture, fixtures and giant fountain in the center of the atrium.
Everything about the space was sleek and polished, and this morning it felt particularly cold and fed her anxious nerves, which just proved she needed a hot beverage to warm her up, because there wasn’t anything cold about the Macintyre family. They did a lot of good for the Celebration community.
Becca tightened her cashmere scarf and turned up the collar on her red wool coat to stave off the chill that had worked its way into her bones. She’d worn her favorite gray tweed skirt and ivory cashmere sweater to bolster herself against the emotional day. The ensemble was soft and warm, a comfort outfit, if there was such a thing, even if it was fitting a little snug these days.
