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warring in his voice.
"It wouldn't be perjury, merely a lapse of memory." Her lips curved in a
taunting smile. "Regrettably, I had too much to drink that night. I don't
remember anything about it too clearly, certainly not the man who ultimately
took advantage of my weakened condition."
"As I recall, you were the aggressor that night." Logan's voice vibrated with
the control he placed on his anger.
It was not the sort of information she wanted her father to hear. She came
back quickly to cover it. "And I have no memory of that at all."
"Cat, you're not using your head," her father put in. "Don't you realize how
costly a court fight will be?"
"I know. But fortunately money won't be a problem for me, although it could
put a strain on your wallet, couldn't it, Logan?" she challenged. "It's quite
possible you'll have to finance it. In fact, you may even have to find a
better paying job somewhere else," she murmured with honeyed sarcasm. "Because
I promise you, my attorneys will come up with so many cross-petitions and
postponements that it will be years before you see the inside of a courtroom."
"You're determined to get me out of here, aren't you?" Logan's eyes were cold
with anger.
"Yes, I want you gone-far away from me and from Quint. It's what I've wanted
all along," she shot back.
"That's enough!" Her father's voice cut hard across them. "Answer me one
question, Cat. Is he the father of your child or not?"
"I told you-" she began, all cool and arrogant, her eyes still on Logan.
His hand slammed the desk as he rose from his chair. "Don't give me any of
your carefully rehearsed speeches for the judge. I want the truth!"
"Yes, he's Quint's father , for all the good it does him," she addressed the
last to Logan.
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Chase straightened to his full height, his dark gaze boring into her. "Your
mother and I did a good job of spoiling you." It was one of the rare times he
had ever mentioned her mother. The surprise of it drew Cat's glance, but it
was his look of disgust that held it. "But I never guessed you had grown so
selfish that you can't bear to share your son's love with his own father."
She paled a little at his harsh censure. "But he's my son.."
"And if you truly wanted what was best for Quint, you would marry this man and
give your son a name and two parents," he stated, his mouth coming together in
a tight, white line.
"An excellent suggestion," Logan murmured, and the sound of his low voice was
like an intimate caress sliding over her skin, stimulating her senses and her
much-too-vivid memory of that night. She didn't want to remember the strength
of those hands, the gentleness of them or-most of all-the raw and heady
sensations she had felt under their touch.
Cat turned from the memory, and from Logan, worried now that her father
actually meant what he said. "My son has a name-the best one of all. He's a
Calder."
"He's illegitimate, a bastard. Maybe that isn't the harsh stigma it once was.
But as long as he stays around here, that's the way he'll be defined when he
becomes a man, the Calder bastard. People may not say it to his face, but I
guarantee they'll say it behind his back." His words carried an unmistakable
ring of truth.
Cat tried to deny them. "You're wrong."
"I wish I were." His shoulders slumped a little with the heavy sigh that
claimed him. "One thing I do know-if you marry Logan, the circumstances of
Quint's birth will be forgotten."
"But-" She looked at Logan. His eyes had gone from stonegray to smoke,
disturbing in their intensity, tripping her pulse. "-I don't love him."
"There you go again, Cat," Logan taunted softly, "thinking of yourself first."
"You must have felt something for him once," her father pointed out. "Or you
wouldn't have a child upstairs now." She opened her mouth to protest that, but
he stopped her with an upraised hand. "And don't give me that nonsense about
being drunk. You may have been drinking, but something tells me you weren't so
drunk that you didn't know what you were doing or who you were with, although
I don't doubt that you might have tried to convince yourself otherwise, both
then and now."
She went hot under the shrewdness of her father's gaze. "This entire
conversation is ridiculous."
"I'm not so sure about that anymore." He eyed both of them thoughtfully. "Your
mother and I had a lot less going for us than the two of you."
"But you loved her," Cat argued.
He shook his head. "At the time I married her, we hadn't seen each other in
sixteenn years. She was a stranger. I couldn't be sure what my feelings were.
I only knew how much she had hated me. Still, it worked out for us. There's no
reason it can't for you two." He sat back down. "We'll keep the ceremony
simple, just the minister and Jessy and me for witnesses-"
Cat broke in angrily, "I am not going to marry him."
He glanced from her to Logan, a questioning arch to one eyebrow. "What are
your feelings?"
"I'd marry the devil himself if it meant having my son with me," Logan
answered simply, holding Cat's gaze in silent challenge.
"Then you'd better go find the devil, because I'm not marrying you," she
flared. "The whole idea is so preposterous I can't believe you would even
consider it, Dad."
"Unlike you, I'm thinking of Quint," her father fired right back. "Marriage
is, after all, a partnership that requires mutual respect, tolerance, and a
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