Covert Conception Read online

  But then, this was Natalie.

  By the time she stepped inside the shop, all the mechanics and customers had stopped to gawk. It wasn't unwarranted. Natalie was attractive. Not drop-dead gorgeous, either. Her face was much more interesting than the surgically perfect socialites who were part of her world. It was an honest face. A face with character. A few tan freckles on her nose. A dimple in her chin.

  Natalie had the brains to go with that interesting face, too. Everything she'd done in life was the best. She'd graduated from college with honors, on an athletic scholarship no less. As if that weren't enough, she'd built from the ground up one of the most successful antique shops in the state.

  Rick stayed put, gawking at her just as the others were doing. Waiting to see what she wanted. He heard her ask Hal if "the boss" was around, but before Hal could answer, her deep-violety blue eyes slid in his direction. Through the glass, their gazes met. And held.

  Natalie didn't even attempt an obligatory smile or offer him a semi-polite nod. Not that he expected it. They were well past the stage of exchanging even fake greetings.

  She made her way through the reception area and into the work bay. It was a cemetery of motorcycles and pieces of motorcycles in various stages of repair, disrepair or assembly. Tools, fans and spare parts littered what little floor space there was. The air was heavy not just with heat and humidity but with old oil and gas fumes. Hardly a fitting place for Natalie Sinclair.

  He briefly lost sight of her when she meandered around the Harley that he'd just finished, but Rick could hear her heels clicking on the bare cement. And those heel clicks got louder and louder until she appeared in the doorway.

  Her gaze landed on him again, and she slid her eyes from his hair, which was still soaking wet, down to his T-shirt. Also drenched. Not just drenched from the water he'd poured over his head, either, but from an ample amount of sweat. If she'd been any other woman, Rick would have wished for a shower and a shave before facing her.

  But she wasn't any other woman.

  There was no need to impress Natalie. She hated him. And he felt no love for her, either. In many ways, that made things a lot easier between them. He'd long ago come to terms with their animosity.

  Not the attraction though.

  "Are you lost?" Rick asked, just so he could make sure his mouth was working.

  She stepped inside and slammed the door shut.

  Oh, yeah. She was riled.

  The stuffed-to-the-brim office was barely big enough for one person, so Rick had to work hard to keep some space between them. He leaned his shoulder against the filing cabinet, folded his arms over his chest and generally tried to appear surly. With the unbearable heat and her impromptu visit, it wasn't a difficult look to achieve.

  He hoped.

  She stared at him. Nope, it was a glare. And it was a glare through slightly swollen, reddened eyes.

  Had she been crying?

  Odd. Natalie wasn't a crier.

  "I want you to know that I intend to have you arrested," she announced.

  Okay. So much for his ploy to be laid back. Her greeting captured Rick's complete attention. "For what? Attending your birthday party?"

  Her glare got worse, and her teeth came together. "Attending it wasn't all you did."

  He was certain his confused look intensified. "Care to explain that?"

  She aimed her index finger at him. "You're the one who needs to explain."

  Rick mentally went through any and all of the possibilities, but he didn't come up with one that would warrant this kind of strong reaction.

  "Look, we can trade smartass remarks and pointing fingers for hours, but I have a business to run," Rick reminded her. "So, if you're here because you're in a snit about your mother inviting me to the party, then you can get right back in your overpriced car and head home. Because I'm not apologizing. Macy begged me to come to your party, and I came as a favor to her. End of story."

  Natalie used her fingertips to blot the perspiration from above her upper lip, but she was blotting so hard that Rick was surprised that she wasn't leaving bruises on her skin. "Are you saying nothing out of the ordinary happened that night?"

  Rick had already opened his mouth to say you bet nothing happened, but he had to take one giant pause.

  Something had happened.

  Someone had slipped something into his drink.

  His silence seemed to rile her even more, and Natalie flipped open her purse and extracted a small silver handheld DVD player. She deposited it on his desk and pointed to the sole chair in the room. "I think you'll want to sit down for this next part."

  "No thanks." That chair would put him even closer to her, and Rick wanted all the distance between them that he could get. "I don't expect this'll take long anyway. I'm not into home movies, and we don't have much to say to each other."

  Natalie flexed her eyebrows in a suit-yourself, you'll-regret-it gesture, sat on the edge of his desk next to the DVD player and jabbed the play button. "This is the security film from the night of my party," she explained. Her voice was strained with emotion. "It was taken in the hall just outside my bedroom."

  When Rick saw a couple on the small screen, he bit off another surly question about what this could possibly have to do with him. Instead, he concentrated on the images. However, it took him several moments to make out exactly what he was seeing.

  Natalie and him.

  Or rather it was a couple who looked like Natalie and him. Because there was no way it could actually be them.

  Not caring for the sickening feeling that suddenly came over him, Rick pushed himself away from the filing cabinet and moved closer to study the images on the screen. "Are you going to tell me why you doctored this video?"

  Outrage flashed in her eyes, but she didn't voice it. The rush of emotion seemed to make her queasy. Or maybe it was the sweltering heat. Because she wiped away the perspiration again and slid her hand over her stomach as if to steady it. "I didn't doctor it."

  "Then someone did," he fired back.

  "Kitt checked," Natalie explained. Her breath was uneven now, and the color was draining from her cheeks. "The images haven't been altered."

  "The hell they haven't." Rick watched as the couple got closer and closer to Natalie's bedroom door.

  The couple staggered. The woman's right arm banged against the doorjamb. The man didn't fare much better. He crossed in front of her. Staggered as well. And his left shoulder hit against the wall.

  That caused Rick's mouth to turn to dust.

  The couple's awkward intimate dance continued until the man caught the woman. She went into his arms. Willingly. Their bodies came together. Mouths, too.

  In a desperate, hungry kiss.

  "I know for a fact that I would have remembered that," Rick insisted in a rough whisper.

  Natalie swallowed hard enough that he could hear it. But what she didn't do was agree with him. Instead, she froze the images and pointed to the woman's right arm. "I had a bruise there the morning after my party. I didn't know then how I'd gotten it."

  Hell.

  Rick waited for the other shoe to fall.

  She pointed to the man's left shoulder. To the spot that had rammed into the wall. "Did you have a bruise or any kind of mark?"

  Rick didn't even have to think about it. "Yeah. I figured I'd gotten it here at work."

  Natalie's posture and bearing were suddenly as unsteady as the couple in the video. "I don't think you got that bruise here."

  It took him a moment to get his teeth unclenched so he could speak. "Are you saying you think that happened?" Rick asked. "You really believe the two of us had a hot and heavy kissing session outside your bedroom door?"

  She closed her eyes. Paused. Gathered her breath. "I don't think the hot and heaviness stopped there. I believe we went inside my bedroom and finished what we started."

  Her eyelids lifted, and she met his gaze head-on. "I'm four weeks pregnant. And judging from that video, you're the b
aby's father."

  Chapter Three

  "Is this your idea of a bad joke?" Rick asked.

  Natalie carefully studied his reaction—his iron jaw, his narrowed gunmetal-gray eyes and thunder-struck expression—and she quickly realized she didn't care for any of it. It was too similar to what her own reaction had been when Kitt first told her about the test results.

  She'd expected…what?

  A confession?

  Perhaps an explanation that would cause all of this to make sense?

  Or maybe that's what she hoped he would do, help her make sense of the situation. A miracle of sorts. However, it was obvious Rick didn't have answers or a miracle. Or if he had them, he wasn't ready to share them with her.

  That didn't mean he was innocent in all of this.

  "Please tell me this is a joke," he amended.

  "Are you saying you didn't orchestrate what happened?" Natalie countered.

  He looked at her as if her ears were on backwards. "You're damn right that's what I'm saying."

  And he was adamant about it, too.

  Natalie suddenly felt even more desperate, and it was desperation that made her toss the next question at him. "Why should I believe you?"

  "Because I'm telling you the truth, that's why." Rick opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head. Cursed. "Hell's bells, Natalie, do you really believe I'd drug you so I could sleep with you?"

  She'd already asked herself that. At least a dozen times. And during none of that personal questioning had she convinced herself that Rick would do something like this. He wasn't the sort of man who required drugging or any coercion to get a woman into bed.

  "I'm pregnant," she restated. "I don't know how it happened, and my only clue is that surveillance video. I need answers, and that's why I'm here."

  He shook his head. "What you need is to have the pregnancy test repeated."

  "I've already done that." She was up to a dozen times of watching for minus signs on little urine-soaked white plastic sticks. She'd try a dozen more if necessary, praying for one negative result. "They've all been positive."

  "Then, you need to see a doctor right away," Rick quickly suggested.

  "I did that a few hours ago. I had an ultrasound and a thorough examination. There's definitely a baby."

  He cursed again, made his way to the chair, gripped the armrest and dropped down onto the seat. "This can't be happening. The tests, the doctor, the ultrasound and the video are all wrong. They have to be."

  She'd had that reaction, too. Denial. It'd taken hours to get past just the tip of it. But she couldn't afford Rick that same amount of time to work through his issues. She had an eerie feeling that time wasn't on their side. "I need you to think back through—"

  "Something happened that night," he interrupted. But he didn't say anything else.

  Natalie froze. Waited. She forced herself to stay calm. "Obviously something happened," she said when Rick just sat there.

  He glanced at her stomach. "I didn't mean that. I mean I blacked out."

  Her heart had been racing before that, but she could have sworn it stopped mid-beat. Natalie shook her head. "When? How?"

  But before he could answer, the phone rang. He waved it off, but the ringing continued and when he perused his shop and apparently realized his employees were all busy, he reached across the desk and answered the phone.

  Natalie actually welcomed the interlude. Yes, they needed to get to the bottom of this. Yes, she desperately needed to know what'd happened to her. To them. But she also needed a moment to compose herself. Right now, a thin thread of composure was the only thing that prevented her from screaming. And she didn't want to lose it in front of Rick.

  What was going on?

  What?

  Natalie had been asking herself that for a day and a half and was afraid she wasn't any closer to the truth than she had been when Kitt had first dropped this bombshell.

  She was pregnant.

  Pregnant!

  With a child she couldn't even remember conceiving.

  Unplanned motherhood alone would have been more than enough to deal with, but motherhood under these circumstances was terrifying.

  "I'll get that work order," she heard Rick say at the end of a heavy, frustrated sigh.

  He stood, brushed past her. He was so close that she had no trouble catching his scent. With the nonexistent A/C, the steamy claustrophobic office and the fact that he'd obviously just finished a long day of manual labor, his body odor should have been offensive.

  It wasn't.

  Far from it.

  Oh, there was sweat all right. His white cotton T-shirt was practically soaked, and the snug fabric strained across his toned pecs and arms. His hair was wet as well. His slightly too-long coffee-colored hair fell, permanently disheveled, almost to his shoulders. But he didn't smell sweaty. He somehow managed to smell, well, manly.

  He snatched one of the forms from the top of the filing cabinet and read off some figures. Because her energy seemed sapped and her pulse had turned thick and syrupy, Natalie simply sat on the edge of his desk, watching and listening. Waiting for him to finish—without a clue what they would say to each other once he was done. None of her life experiences had prepared her for this.

  Rick's movements were jerky. Stiff. Angry. And he kept casting glances her way. Natalie was casting some his way as well.

  Sweet heaven, if she thought for one minute that he'd had any voluntary part in this, she would have had him arrested. Except an arrest wouldn't really have given her answers.

  Nor would it change what had happened.

  She slid her hand over her stomach. A baby. Even though she'd seen the ultrasound, it didn't seem real. Maybe once she understood the circumstances, once she'd heard a plausible explanation—any explanation—maybe then she could come to terms with this. It wasn't logical, but at the moment, she needed that hope.

  Rick said an abrupt goodbye to the caller and slammed down the phone as if he'd declared war on it. In the same motion, he waved off one of his employees who was trying to get his attention through the small window.

  "What exactly do you remember about that night?" Rick demanded.

  The answer was readily available on the tip of her tongue—mainly because she'd already asked herself the same question again and again. "I was on prescription meds, and I was exhausted. So, most of the party is a little blurry."

  "How could we not remember that?" He pointed to the frozen image of them on the screen.

  "I don't know."

  He made a sound of agreement. It blended with his jagged huffs of breaths. "How do we know it really happened? Those people could be actors."

  "They aren't. Kitt had the images enhanced, and if they're actors, then they're exact replicas of us, right down to my freckles and that little scar on the left side of your neck that you got fly-fishing when you were a kid."

  He threw his hands in the air before dropping them to his hips. "Then, maybe that's what they are—actors with very authentic makeup."

  She gave a weary been-there-done-that sigh. "I would love it if that were true. But it wouldn't explain the bruise on my arm. Or the bruise on your shoulder. And it certainly wouldn't explain this pregnancy."

  "Maybe the pregnancy happened some other time," he fired back.

  For some reason, a reason Natalie didn't want to explore, that stung. Yet, Rick certainly had a right to ask that. If their positions had been reversed, she would certainly want to know.

  "I haven't had sex in over a year," Natalie explained. Not easily. Discussing her love life—or lack thereof—with Rick Gravari wasn't tops on her list of favorite things to do. "At least, I haven't had sex that I know about."

  He cocked his head to the side and gave her a flat look. "And you think you unknowingly had sex with me?"

  Weary of the questions and the verbal battle between them, she tipped her head back to the screen. "It's you in that video, Rick. But if you're looking for definitive proof, I don't ha
ve it. The video can't be further enhanced. There's no footage from a different angle that might give us a clearer image. And it's too early to do a DNA test to prove paternity. I asked," she added when his flat look was no longer so flat.

  That caused a slight lift of his eyebrow. Natalie responded by lifting an eyebrow of her own. And by asking one very important question. "You said you blacked out at the party. What happened?"

  He didn't respond right away. Rick groaned softly and scrubbed his hands over his face. "Your caterer, I think."

  The fit of temper that Natalie had nourished and fed suddenly cooled. "What does the caterer have to do with any of this?"

  "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything." He paused, caught her gaze. "Someone put something in my drink."

  Natalie considered what he was saying. "You think that someone was the caterer?"

  He nodded. "The only thing I had to eat or drink that night was at your party."

  "That proves nothing."

  Or did it? Because someone on the catering staff, a man, had given her a drink as well. Sparkling fruit juice. It'd had a somewhat bitter tang to it. At the time Natalie had attributed the taste to her prescription meds.

  "No. But the lab test I had done proves something," Rick corrected.

  That captured Natalie's complete attention. "What lab test?"

  There was no sign of cockiness or victory in his stormy gray eyes. There was only frustration and yes, lots of anger and confusion. "When I woke up that morning after the party, I realized I didn't have a clue how I'd gotten home. My motorcycle was there, parked outside the garage, a place I'd never leave it. Never. Since I felt like hell, I went to see my doctor right away. He ran some tests, and the lab found a substance in my blood."

  "What kind of substance?" Natalie asked.

  Rick shook his head. "It was some kind of narcotic. My doctor had no idea what it was so he sent it out for further testing. The lab is still trying to identify it."

  Natalie was so glad she was sitting down. If she hadn't been, that would have sent her in search of a chair. She felt a couple of steps past being light-headed. But she wasn't so light-headed that she didn't immediately spot an inconsistency in his account.