Baby Benefits by Emily McKay Read Free Book Online

forced a nod. “I’m sure she is. She’s rich and in the jewelry business. What’s not to love?”
    “I thought you said it didn’t bother you?” His lips twitched without parting into a true smile.
    What was worse? Knowing that he was making a huge mistake and not being able to do anything to stop him or having him be amused by her reaction?
    “Okay.” She spun around to face him, nine years of pent-up advice bubbling to the surface. “You want to know the truth?”
    The hint of his smile vanished. “I’ve always valued your opinion. Though in the past you’ve been less brutally honest.”
    “Don’t forget you asked for this.” She sucked in a deep breath. It must be true that old habits die hard, because she practically had to force herself to actually voice her opinion. It felt good being as honest with him about a personal matter as she had always been about business. “I do think this is a huge mistake. You hardly know this woman.”
    “Actually, I really have known her for years.”
    “But certainly not well. I manage your business and social schedule. You’ve never even mentioned her before now.”
    “I’ve been courting Kitty for a while. You don’t know everything about my schedule, Raina.” His tone was somehow both gentle and chiding. “You can’t believe you’ve known about every woman I’ve dated since hiring you.”
    She felt his words like a punch in the gut. And here he’d accused her of brutal honesty.
    “Of course not,” she scoffed to save face, because somehow she’d believed exactly that. She’d scheduled his biannual teeth cleaning and his monthly haircuts when his hair began to curl over his ears. She’d made the reservations when he took business associates to dinner and his appointments with his CPA. She’d scheduled his visits to get his blood pressure checked, for goodness sake.
    She wasn’t just his professional assistant, but his personal one, as well. She’d canceled dates and on occasion planned them. She’d returned phone calls and ordered flowers. In all that time, there hadn’t been a lot of women, but there’d been enough that she’d assumed she knew about all of them.
    Until she’d found out about Jewel. And as if she hadn’t felt that betrayal deeply enough, now there was this other woman she hadn’t known about at all. Not just a woman, but the woman he wanted to marry.
    Had she known him at all? Was it really him she loved or just some fantasy man she’d idealized in her mind?
    “Well,” she said with a prosaic shrug and a pointed look at Isabella. “Obviously I didn’t know about all the women you’ve dated.”
    “About Jewel—” he began, but she cut him off.
    “No. You don’t need to explain.” And she really didn’t want to hear any of the details about that. “I can do the math. I figure you had the affair with her about the time your father died.”
    Figuring that out had somehow made her feel better. Okay, so he’d slipped up. In his grief he’d done something he’d normally never do. It could happen to anyone.
    But instead of giving her the reassurances she secretly wanted to hear, he said, “I was going to say that my lawyer’s drawing up the custody papers and I’ll need you to go get them later this week.”
    “Custody papers?” Betrayal sliced through her gut. Even now, even in the midst of this intimate conversation, he treated her like an errand boy.
    “Yes, Lucy’s been talking to Jewel. She convinced her to grant me full custody of Isabella, with visitation rights for Jewel, though I doubt she’ll exercise them.” His lips pressed into a grim line. “She’ll be too busy spending all the money I’m paying her for the privilege of raising her child.”
    She might have felt sorry for him if she hadn’t still been smarting from the twist their conversation had taken. Here she’d been thinking he was about to finally open up, to share his feelings with her. Instead, he was just using her as a