Yuletide Baby Surprise (Billionaires And Babies #38)(32)
Author: Catherine Mann

“We were both drunk that night, but my brother was eighteen years old. I was only sixteen, a minor. The penalty would be less for me, but Dylan could serve hard time in jail. If I confessed to driving the car, Dylan could still have a future, a chance to turn his life around while he was still young.”

“So you took the blame for your brother. You allowed yourself to be sentenced to a military reform school because your family pressured you, oh, Rowan…” She swept back his hair, her hands cool against his skin. “I am so sorry.”

But he didn’t want or deserve her comfort or sympathy. Rather than reject it outright, he linked fingers with her and lowered her arms.

“There was plenty of blame to go around that night. I could have made so many different choices. I could have called a cab at the party or asked someone else to drive us home.” The flashing lights outside reminded him of the flash of headlights before the wreck, the blurred cop cars before he’d blacked out, then finally the arrival of the police to arrest him. “I wasn’t behind the wheel, but I was guilty of letting my brother have those keys.”

His brother had been a charismatic character, everyone believed him when he said he would change, and Rowan had gotten used to following his lead. When Dylan told him he was doing great in rehab, making his meetings, laying off the bottle, Rowan had believed him.

“What about your brother’s guilt for what happened that night? Didn’t Dylan deserve to pay for what happened to that woman, for you giving up your high school years?”

Trust Mari to see this analytically, to analyze it in clear-cut terms of rights and wrongs. Life didn’t work that way. The world was too full of blurred gray territory.

“My brother paid plenty for that night and the decisions I made.” If Rowan had made the right choices in the beginning, his brother would still be alive today. “Two years later, Dylan was in another drunk-driving accident. He drove his truck into the side of a house. He died.” Rowan drew in a ragged breath, struggling like hell not to shrug off her touch that left him feeling too raw right now. “So you see, my decisions that night cost two lives.”

Mari scooted to kneel in front of him, the sheet still clasped to her chest. Her dark hair spiraled around her shoulders in a wild sexy mess, but her amber eyes were no-nonsense. “You were sixteen years old and your parents pressured you to make the wrong decision. They sacrificed you to save your brother. They were wrong to do that.”

Memories grated his insides, every word pouring acid on freshly opened wounds. He left the bed, left her, needing to put distance between himself and Mari’s insistence.

He stepped over the tapestry pillows and yanked on his boxers. “You’re not hearing me, Mari.” He snagged his jeans from the floor and jerked them on one leg at a time. “I accept responsibility for my own actions. I wasn’t a little kid. Blaming other people for our mistakes is a cop-out.”

And the irony of it all, the more he tried to make amends, the more people painted him as some kind of freaking saint. He needed air. Now.

A ringing phone pierced the silence between them.

Not her ringtone. His, piping through the nursery monitor. Damn it. He’d left his cell phone in his room. “I should get that before it wakes the baby.”

He hotfooted it out of her room, grateful for the excuse to escape more of her questions. Why the hell couldn’t they just make love until the rest of the world faded away?

With each step out the door, he felt the weight of her gaze following him. He would have to give her some kind of closure to her questions, and he would. Once he had himself under control again.

He opened the door leading into his bedroom. His phone rang on the bamboo dresser near the bassinet. He grabbed the cell and took it back into the sitting area, reading the name scrolling across the screen.

Troy Donavan?

Premonition burned over him. His computer pal had to have found something big in order to warrant a call in the middle of the night.

Mari filled the doorway, tan satin sheet wrapped around her, toga-style. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know yet.” He thumbed the talk button on the cell phone. “Yes?”

“Hi, Rowan.” Hillary’s voice filled his ear. “It’s me. Troy’s found a trail connecting a worker at the hotel to a hospital record on one of the outlying islands—he’s still working the data. But he’s certain he’s found Issa’s mother.”

Ten

Mari cradled sleeping Issa in her arms, rocking her for what would be the last time. She stared past the garland-draped minibar to the midday sun marking the passage of the day, sweeping away precious final minutes with this sweet child she’d already grown to love.

Her heart was breaking in two.

She couldn’t believe her time with Issa was coming to an end. Before she’d even been able to fully process the fact that she’d actually followed through on the decision to sleep with Rowan, her world had been tossed into utter chaos with one phone call that swept Issa from them forever.

Troy Donavan had tracked various reflections of reflections in surveillance videos, piecing them together with some maze of other cameras in everything from banks to cops’ radar to follow a path to a hint of a clue. They’d found the woman who’d walked away from the room-service trolley where Issa had been hidden. They’d gone a step further in the process to be sure. At some point, Mari had lost the thread of how he’d traced the trail back to a midwife on the mainland who’d delivered Issa. She’d been able to identify the mother, proving the baby’s identity with footprint records.

The young mother had made her plan meticulously and worked to cover her tracks. She’d uncovered Rowan’s schedule to speak at this conference then managed to get hired as a temp in the extra staff brought on for the holiday crowd. That’s why she hadn’t been on the employee manifest.

It appeared she’d had a mental breakdown shortly after leaving her child and was currently in a hospital. Issa had no grandparents, but she had a great aunt and uncle who wanted her. Deeply. In their fifties, their four sons were all grown but they hadn’t hesitated in stepping up to care for their great niece. They owned a small coastal art gallery on the mainland and had plenty of parenting knowledge. They weren’t wealthy, but their business and lives were stable.

All signs indicated they could give Issa a wonderful life full of love. Mari should be turning cartwheels over the news. So many orphans in Africa had no one to call their own and here Issa had a great family ready and eager to care for her.