If this baby were his son, nothing would ever be the same again.
A child’s bubble of laughter erupted in the other room and Simon took a breath and held it. Something inside him tightened and he told himself to move on. To get this first meeting over so that plans could be made, strategies devised.
But he didn’t move. Instead, he noticed the framed drawings and paintings on the walls, most of which were of a lop-eared bunny in different poses. Why the woman would choose to display such childish paintings was beyond him, but Tula Barrons, he was discovering, was different from any other woman he’d ever known.
The child laughed again.
Simon nodded to himself and followed the sound and the amazing scents in the air to the kitchen.
It didn’t take him long.
Three long strides had him leaving the living room and entering a bright yellow room that was about the size of his walk-in closet at home. Again, he felt as out of place as a beer at a wine tasting. This whole house seemed to have been built for tiny people and a man his size was bound to feel as if he had to hunch his shoulders to keep from rapping his head on the ceiling.
He noted that the kitchen was clean but as cluttered as the living room. Canisters lined up on the counter beside a small microwave and an even smaller TV. Cupboard doors were made of glass, displaying ancient china stacked neatly. A basket with clean baby clothes waiting to be folded was standing on the table for two and the smells pouring from the oven had his mouth watering and his stomach rumbling in response.
Then his gaze dropped on Tula Barrons as she straightened up, holding the baby she’d just taken from a high chair in her arms. She settled the chubby baby on her right hip, gave Simon a brilliant smile and said, “Here he is. Your son.”
Simon’s gaze locked on the boy who was staring at him out of a pair of eyes too much like his own to deny. His lawyer had advised him to do nothing until a paternity test had been arranged. But Harry had always been too cautious, which was why he made such a great lawyer. Simon tended to go with his gut on big decisions and that instinct had never let him down yet.
So he’d come here mainly to see the baby for himself before arranging for the paternity test his lawyer wanted. Because Simon had half convinced himself that there was no way this baby was his.
But one look at the boy changed all that. He was stubborn, Simon admitted silently, but he wasn’t blind. The baby looked enough like him that no paternity test should be required—though he’d get one anyway. He’d been a businessman too long to do anything but follow the rules and do things in a logical, reasonable manner.
“Nathan,” Tula said, glancing from the baby on her hip to Simon, “this is your daddy. Simon, meet your son.”
She started toward him and Simon quickly held up one hand to keep her where she was. Tula stopped dead, gave him a quizzical look and tipped her head to one side to watch him. “What’s wrong?”
What wasn’t? His heart was racing, his stomach was churning. How the hell had this happened? he wondered. How had he made a child and been unaware of the boy’s existence? Why had the baby’s mother kept him a secret? Damn it, he had had the right to know. To be there for his son’s birth. To see him draw his first breath. To watch him as he woke up to the world.
And it had all been stolen from him.
“Just…give me a minute, all right?” Simon stared at the tiny boy, trying to ignore the less-than-pleased expression on Tula Barrons’s face. Didn’t matter what she thought of him, did it? The important thing here was that Simon’s entire world had just taken a sharp right turn.
A father.
He was a father.
Pride and something not unlike sheer panic roared through him at a matching pace. His gaze locked on the boy, he noticed the dark brown hair, the brown eyes—exact same shade as Simon’s own—and, finally, he noticed the baby’s lower lip beginning to pout.
“You’re making him cry.” Tula jiggled the baby while patting him on the back gently.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You look angry and babies are very sensitive to moods around them,” she said and soothed the boy by swaying in place and whispering softly. Keeping her voice quiet and singsongy, she snapped, “Honestly, is that scowl a permanent fixture on your face?”
“I’m not—”
“Would it physically kill you to smile at him?”
Frustrated and just a little pissed because he had to admit that she was at least partially right, Simon assumed what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
He kept his voice low, but didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “You might want to back off now.”
“I don’t see why I should,” she countered, her voice pleasant despite her words. “Sherry left me as guardian for Nathan and I don’t like how you’re treating him.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Exactly,” she said with a sharp nod. “You won’t even let him get near you. Honestly, haven’t you ever seen a child before?”
“Of course I have, I’m just—”
“Shocked? Confused? Worried?” she asked, then continued on before he could speak. “Well, imagine how Nathan must feel. His mother’s gone. His home is gone. He’s in a strange place with strangers taking care of him and now there’s a big mean bully glaring at him.”
He stiffened. “Now just a damn min—”
“Don’t swear in front of the baby.”
Simon inhaled sharply and shot her a glare he usually reserved for employees he wanted to terrify into improving their work skills, fully expecting her to have the sense to back off. Naturally, she paid no attention to him.
“If you can’t be nice and at least pretend to smile, you’ll just have to go away,” she said. Then she spoke to the baby. “Don’t you worry, sweetie, Tula won’t let the mean man get you.”
“I’m not a mean—oh, for God’s sake.” Simon had had enough of this. He wasn’t going to be chastised by anybody, least of all the short, curvy woman giving him a disgusted look.
He stalked across the small kitchen, plucked the baby from her grasp and held Nathan up to eye level. The baby’s pout disappeared as if it had never been and the two of them simply stared at each other.
The baby was a solid, warm weight in his hands. Little legs pumped, arms waved and a thin line of drool dripped from his mouth when he gave his father a toothless grin. His chest tight, Simon felt the baby’s heartbeat racing beneath his hands and there was a…connection that he’d never felt before. It was basic. Complete. Staggering.
In that instant—that heart-stopping, mind-numbing second—Simon was lost.
He knew it even as he stood there, beneath Tula Barrons’s less than approving stare, that this was his son and he would do whatever he had to to keep him.
If this woman stood in his way, he’d roll right over her without a moment’s pause. Something in his gaze must have given away his thoughts because the small blonde lifted her chin, met his eyes in a bold stare and told him silently that she wouldn’t give an inch.
Fine.
She’d