Separate Beds by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online Page A

won't tell me what they are. But once she leaves home, he won't have a leg to stand on as far as a paternity suit is concerned. She refuses to be a part of his scheme.”
    “Quit fooling yourself, Clay. You're almost a lawyer, and I am one. We both know that a paternity suit is one of the hardest nuts in the bucket to crack. It's not the outcome of a suit I'm worried about, it's the reverberations it can stir up. And there's one more issue we haven't touched on yet.” He looked down into his glass, then into Clay's eyes. “Even if the man does decide to back down and cease his demands, there is a moral obligation here that you cannot deny. If you do, I will be far, far more disappointed in you than I am right now.”
    Clay's head came up with a jerk. “You aren't saying you expect me to marry her, are you?”
    His father studied him, dissatisfaction written on every line, every plane of his face. “I don't know, Clay, I don't know. All I know is that I have attempted by both example and word to teach you the value of honesty. Is it honest for you to leave the woman high and dry?”
    “Yes, if it's what she wants.”
    “Clay, the woman is probably scared senseless right now. She's caught between a stranger she doesn't even know and that raving lunatic of a father. Don't you think she deserves every bit of cooperation she can get from you?”
    “You've said it for me. I'm a stranger to her. Do you think she would want to marry a stranger?”
    “She could do worse. In spite of the thoughtlessness and insensibility you've displayed recently, I don't think you're a hopeless case.”
    “I would be if I married her. Jesus, I don't even like the girl.”
    “In the first place, don't use profanity before your mother, and in the second, let's stop calling her a girl. She's a full-grown woman, as is entirely obvious. As a woman, she should be willing to listen to reason.”
    “I don't understand what you're driving at. You can see what kind of a family she comes from. Her father is a lunatic; her mother is browbeaten; look at the way they dress, where they come from. That's obviously not the kind of family you'd like me to marry into, yet you stand there talking as if you want me to ask her.”
    “You should have considered her background before you got her pregnant, Clay.”
    “How could I when I didn't even know her then?”
    Claiborne Forrester had the innate sense of timing peculiar to every successful lawyer, and he used the elongated moment of silence now to speak dramatically before he cinched his case. “Exactly. Which, rather than exonerate you, as you think the fact should, creates—in my estimation—an even greater responsibility toward her and the child. You acted without a thought for the repercussions. Even now you seem to have forgotten there is a child involved here, and that it's yours.”
    “It's hers!”
    His father's jaw hardened and his eyes iced over. “When did you turn so callous, Clay?”
    “Tonight when I walked in here and the buzzards swooped down.”
    “Stop this, you two,” Angela demanded in her quiet way, rising from her chair. “Neither one of you is making sense, and you'll regret this later if you go on. Clay, your father is right. You do have a moral obligation to that woman. Whether or not it extends to asking her to marry you is something none of us should try to decide tonight.” Crossing to her husband she laid a hand on his chest. “Darling, we all need to think about this. Clay has said the girl doesn't want to be married. He's said she's refused his offer of money. Let's let the two of them settle it between them after everyone has cooled down a little bit.”
    “Angela, I think our son needs—”
    She placed her fingers on his lips. “Claiborne, you're running on emotions now, and you've told me countless times that a good lawyer must not do that. Let's not discuss it anymore at the moment.”
    He looked into her eyes, which were luminous with emotion. They were