But suddenly he had been handed a tool that might help change things.
He turned around and faced the windows, looked out at the harbor. He could still see the look on her face. Not just the expression, but the depth of fear and desperation in her eyes. The press had a few things right about him, and one of them was that feelings, emotions, mattered little to him. And still … still he couldn’t forget. And he thought of the baby, too.
He had no use for children. No desire for them. But he could remember being one all too well. Could remember being passed around the foster care system for eight years of his life. Could remember what it was like to be at the mercy of either the State, or, before that, adults who brought harm, not love.
Could he consign Ana to that same fate? Or to a family who might not feel that same desperate longing that Paige seemed to feel for her?
And why should he care at all? That was the million-dollar question. Caring wasn’t counted among his usual afflictions.
The door to his office opened and Paige breezed in. Maybe breezed was the wrong term. A breeze denoted something gentle, soothing even. Paige was more a gale-force wind.
She had a big, gold bag hanging off her shoulder, one that matched her glittering, golden pumps that likely added four inches to her height. She also had a bolt of fabric held tightly beneath the other arm, and a large sketchbook beneath that. She looked like she might drop all of it at any moment.
She plunked her things down in the chair in front of his desk, bending at the waist, her skirt tightening over the curve of her butt, and pushed her hand back through her dark brown hair, revealing a streak of bright pink nearly hidden beneath the top layers.
She was a very bright woman in general, one of the things that made her impossible to ignore. Bright makeup, lime-green on her lids, magenta on her lips, and matching fingernails. She made for an enticing picture, one he found himself struggling to look away from.
“You said to come in and see you before I left?”
“Yes,” he said, breaking his focus from her for the first time since she’d come in, looking at the items she’d chucked haphazardly into the chair. He had a very strong urge to straighten them. Hang them on a hook. Anything but simply let them lie there.
“Are you going to fire me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, tightening his jaw. “Tell me more about your situation.”
A little wrinkle appeared between her brows, her full lips turning down. “In a nutshell, Shyla was my best friend. We moved here together. She got a boyfriend, got pregnant. He left. And everything was fine for a while, because we were working it out together. But she got really sick after giving birth to Ana. She lost a lot of blood during delivery and she had a hard time recovering. She ended up … there was a clot and it traveled to her lungs.” She paused and took a breath, her petite shoulders rising and falling with the motion. “She died and that left … Ana and I.”
He pushed aside the strange surge of emotion that hit him in the chest. The thought of a motherless child. A mother the child had lost to death. He tightened his jaw. “Your friend’s parents?”
“Shyla’s mother has never been around. Her father is still alive as far as I know, but he wouldn’t be able to care for a child. He wouldn’t want to, either.”
“And you can’t adopt unless you’re married.”
She let out a long breath and started pacing. “It’s not that simple. I mean, she didn’t say that absolutely. There’s no … law, or anything. I mean, obviously. But from the moment Rebecca Addler, the caseworker, came to my apartment it was clear that she wasn’t thrilled with it.”
“What’s wrong with your apartment?”
“It’s small. I mean, it’s nice—it’s in a good area, but it’s small.”
“Housing is expensive in San Diego.”
“Yes. Exactly. Expensive. So I have a small apartment, and right now Ana shares a room with me. And I admit that a fifth-floor apartment isn’t ideal for raising a child, but plenty of people do it.”
“Then why can’t you do it?” he asked, frustration starting to grow in his chest, making it feel tight. Making him feel short-tempered.
“I don’t know why. But it was really obvious by the way she said … by how she was saying that Ana would be better off with a mother and a father, and didn’t I want her to have that? Well, that made it pretty obvious that she really doesn’t want me to get custody. And … I panicked.”
“And somehow my name came into this? And into the paper?”
Her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink. “I don’t know how that happened. The paper. I can’t imagine Rebecca … If you could have met her, you would know she didn’t do it. Maybe whoever handled the paperwork because I know she made a note.”
“A note?”
Paige winced. “Yeah. A note.”
“Saying?”
“Your name. That we’d just gotten engaged. She said it was possible it would make a difference.”
“You don’t think it has more to do with the fact that I’m a billionaire than it has to do with the fact that you’re getting married.”
He was under no illusion about his charm, or lack of it. And neither was the world in general. The thing that attracted women to him was money. The thing that made him acceptable in the eyes of the social worker would be the same thing. Monetarily, he would be able to provide for a child. Several children, and that did matter. A sorry way to decide parentage in his opinion.
But that was the way the world worked. Coming from having none, to having more than he could ever spend, had taught him that in a very effective way.
“Possibly,” she said, sucking her bright pink bottom lip into her mouth and worrying it with her teeth.
His phone rang and he punched the speaker button. “Dante Romani.”
His assistant’s nervous voice filled the room. “Mr. Romani,” he said, “the press have been calling all afternoon looking for a statement … about your engagement.”
Dante shot Paige his deadliest glare. She didn’t shrink. She hardly seemed to notice. She was looking past him, out the window, at the harbor, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, her knees shaking back and forth. She was the most … haphazard creature he’d ever seen.
“What about it?” Dante asked, still unsure how he was going to play it.
As far as the press was concerned, he was marrying Paige and he was adopting a child with her. To go back on that a day later would kill the last vestiges of speculation that he might possess honor or human decency. That wasn’t exactly a goal of his. Yes, by the standards of some, he lacked charm. Really, he just wasn’t inclined to kiss ass, and he never had been. But it didn’t mean he was angling for a complete character assassination by the media, either.
If things got too bad, and they were headed that way, it might affect business. And that was completely unacceptable to him. Don and Mary Colson had adopted an heir to their fortune, to their department store empire, for a reason. It was not so he could let it fail.
And then there was Ana. Dante didn’t like children. Didn’t want them. But the memories from his own childhood, memories of foster care, of going from home to home, sometimes good, sometimes not, were strong.
Perhaps Ana would be adopted right away. But would they care for her? Would they love her? Paige did; that much even he could recognize.
This concern, for another human being, was unusual for him. It was foreign. But he couldn’t deny that it was there. Very real, very strong. The need to spare an innocent child from some of the potential horrors of life.