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Ouch. Although he could argue that fact with her, he wouldn’t. He’d done some crazy shit on drugs, but erasing the memory of sleeping with a woman wasn’t one of them.
He picked up the paper, one hand still strong against his sleeping daughter, and looked at the words spread across the sheet.
Amelie’s birth certificate.
Finally, in his hands.
He wanted to jump with joy that his estimate of her age was pretty damn close. She was a little over five months old. Her birthday was August seventh. No reaction burst free when he saw his name written as the father. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him when he had already accepted Amelie as his daughter, but it did. He now had undeniable proof she was his daughter. And he wasn’t handing this piece of paper back over.
Or giving Amelie away for any reason.
Then his eyes glided to the mother’s name listed.
Melanie Ramseth.
Shit. Not a good time to be horrible with names. He didn’t recognize it.
But he was damn good with faces and he was sticking with his original conclusion.
He did not sleep with this woman.
“Now hand her over.”
* * *
“Get out of my bar.”
Ha! He was out of his mind if he thought she’d leave without Amelie. She came here for one reason only and that was to get Amelie. No matter what it took. No matter how much she was shaking in her brown leather boots that she needed to replace. They were her favorite pair and she’d wear them until she burned holes in the soles.
“Not without Amelie.” She watched in horror as he folded the birth certificate and slid it into his back pocket. “Give that back to me. I didn’t say you could keep it.”
She wasn’t even sure why she showed him it. It didn’t prove anything or help her case.
He shrugged. “The way I see it, she’s my daughter, it’s my document.”
“Give it back.”
She needed it. It was her only lifeline to Amelie.
“No.”
She wanted to stomp her feet and scream at the top of her lungs. He was the most infuriating man she had ever come across, and that was saying something as she dealt with some of the most unscrupulous men before. Although, she couldn’t blame him. Amelie was his daughter. She wouldn’t hand her over either if some stranger walked in demanding she do so.
“You claim you’re her mother, which I don’t believe for a second. But sinceyoubelieve it, I’ll say you lost your rights to her the moment you left her on the floor of a bar and walked away. Amelie is my daughter. I got the proof in my pocket.” He smiled wide. “If you want to fight me so badly about it, take me to court.”
Ugh. She couldn’t take him to court. The court would never side with her.
But, of course, he didn’t need to know that. She could bluff with the best of them.
“If you don’t hand her over, I will.”
“I don’t think you will.”
“You don’t know me.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Her brothers always told her she had a terrible poker face. The one time she needed it to be successful, she was failing miserably at it.
He started swaying back and forth when Amelie made a small cooing noise. It took more control than she cared to admit not to smile at how easily he went into soothing mode with her. She came here to get Amelie with the notion she was not in good hands with this man. A drug addict. A loser. A man with a record. Here he was, showing her different.
