Covert Cowboy. Harper Allen
forward, he set his cup and saucer on the large Moroccan leather hassock she used as a coffee table. Under dark brows his green gaze held hers and his mouth quirked up wryly.
“Truth is, it’s me you should pin that label on. No matter what you said you wanted at the time I shouldn’t have left things the way I did between us, but every time I thought about contacting you I lost my nerve. I took advantage of the situation that night. It wasn’t anything I felt too proud about the next day, and I figured you’d have every right to slam the phone down on me if I called.”
His self-deprecating honesty took her by surprise. “We both know it wasn’t that simple,” she said slowly. “I pretty much threw myself at you that evening in my office. I accept half the responsibility for what happened.”
She hesitated, and then went on, her heart in her mouth. “This—” she spread her fingers wide over her belly “—isn’t a result of what we did together, in case you were wondering. I know we were insane enough not to take precautions that third and final time, but the dates don’t work out. I would have already been pregnant when we—when we—”
She floundered to an halt.
“When we made love, cher’?” Taking her by surprise again, he shook his head. “Hell, I know I’m not the father, sugar. Tony Corso is, isn’t he?”
Her brother had asked her that same question, but in a furious tone of voice. She’d refused to give him an answer, knowing full well that her silence would seem to him to be confirmation of his suspicions, and since she’d had no intention of telling Josh that she’d slept with a stranger his assumptions had suited her just fine.
As Connor Ducharme’s same assumption should, she told herself. She didn’t want him to wonder if he was the father of her baby, so why should she feel even the slightest pinprick of disillusion that he was so easily bowing out from the position?
“Tony’s the father,” she agreed tartly. “But what made you so sure you weren’t in the running even before I told you, Detective? Was it a smidge of relief on learning that if anyone’s going to get slapped with a paternity suit, it’s not going to be you?”
The green eyes across from her darkened. As if he felt suddenly restless, Con got to his feet and took a few steps into the middle of the room before halting beneath the mobile swaying gently above. His hands in his pockets, he tipped his head back to look at it.
“I never understood men who needed to get their asses hauled into court before they’d pay support, honey,” he said softly. “I always saw children as a gift. I’d like a whole houseful of them, with a mama to go along with them.”
Still looking up at the mobile he went on, his tone devoid of emotion. “But that’s not in the cards for me. I know I’m not in the running, cher’, because I can’t be in the running. An illness when I was a boy took care of that particular possibility for me.”
She stared at him. “But how can that be?” she began unguardedly. Before she could continue he turned to her.
“Just the luck of the draw, I guess,” he said, his jaw tight and his gaze unreadable. “From what I’ve been told, the consequences could have been a lot more serious. Does Corso know he’s going to be a father?”
There was an added watchfulness in his gaze as he waited for her answer. This was the reason he’d sought her out, Marilyn realized suddenly. He was still hunting Tony Corso. This was an official visit.
But of course it was, she told herself a heartbeat later. What had she expected—that he’d brokenly confess she’d haunted his sleepless nights, that his search for Corso was just an excuse to see her again, that he’d fallen hopelessly in love with her during those few hours they’d spent together and he hadn’t been able to stay away?
She was a damn lead in his investigation. Their unplanned tryst in her office had been an unforeseen perk to him, nothing more.
She didn’t owe Con Ducharme anything.
“Tony and I slept together once,” she said flatly. “He wasn’t the love of my life and I obviously wasn’t his, since the next day I found he’d not only walked out on me but on his job at Mills & Grommett. No, he doesn’t know I’m pregnant, and if I knew where to find him, I still don’t think I’d tell him. But Tony’s not planning on being found, Detective.”
“Something’s happened.” His gaze narrowed. “When I first came to you asking about Corso you made it clear that you didn’t believe he was guilty of any criminal conduct. Now I get the feeling you wouldn’t put anything past him. When did your opinion change?”
Why couldn’t the man have stayed in New Orleans? Marilyn thought hopelessly. What she was about to tell him would have been hard enough over the phone as she’d planned. She wasn’t sure if she could go through with it in person.
But she had to.
“Today,” she said. She looked down at her lap, not wanting to meet his eyes. “Because today I realized beyond a doubt that when Tony left Mills & Grommett so hastily he helped himself to a severance bonus from the company…except what he took from M & G went way beyond the fraud you told me he’d committed in Louisiana.”
“That fraud I told you about—” he began, but she didn’t let him finish. The next sentence was going to be the worst, she knew. Best to get it out as soon as possible.
“He stole viral stock.” Even to her own ears her voice sounded strained. “We’re a pharmaceutical firm. That’s one of the things our research department works with—viruses, some of them deadly. And somehow Corso got into my computer and authorized the transfer of a batch to a nonexistent company.”
Now she did meet his eyes. “Either he intends to sell it on the black market, or…” She’d been wrong, Marilyn thought sickly. This was the sentence too terrible to finish.
But the dark-haired man in front of her seemed to have no qualms. “Or he’s got his own plans for the stuff,” Con said.
He held her gaze, his features so grim they seemed carved. Like emeralds on fire, his eyes blazed with some incendiary emotion in the tan of his face.
That emotion was hatred, Marilyn realized with a sudden chill—a hatred so deep and all-encompassing that it seemed almost an entity in itself. If Con Ducharme’s hatred didn’t consume his enemy, she thought slowly, it would end up not only consuming him but everything he held precious.
Fear ran through her. Her hand spread protectively over the child growing inside her.
“You know what that plan is, don’t you?” Her voice cracked. “You know what Tony used me for.”
Just for a second the emotion in those green eyes darkened to compassion. Then it blazed up again, and when Con answered her his tone was devoid of any feeling at all.
“It’s not his plan, cher’, it’s his mobster uncle’s. And Helio DeMarco would only want to get his hands on experimental viral stock for one reason.” He gave a humorless smile.
“DeMarco intends to use it as a weapon against whoever gets in his way. And that includes anyone who might be too close to discovering what he’s done with your nephew, Sky Langworthy.”
Chapter Four
“You never wanted Tony at all, did you?” Marilyn looked up at Con in dawning comprehension. “The mobster’s the one you’re really after.”
“Helio DeMarco.” He’d drawn something from his pocket, she saw. It gleamed between his fingers as he passed it back and forth, and she realized it was a silver coin. He smiled tightly as he noticed her watching him. “You’re right. I’ve been hunting the bastard for eight months now, ever since he killed a friend of mine. One of these days I’m going to find him, and then—”
The silver dollar flashed upward as he tossed it carelessly into the air. It came down, and