“So, Ariana—Do you mind if I call you that?”
“I’m feeling pretty old lately, but Ms. Fitzpatrick really does me in. Ariana would be great.”
A tiny smile tipped the sides of his mouth. “And I’m Grant. Somehow you don’t look like a Fitzpatrick. Irish, isn’t it?”
The expression on his face said her tan skin and mahogany hair sharply contrasted with the image of an Irish woman.
“My dad is Irish. Mom is Cuban.”
“Ah. That explains it. I’d wondered.”
Ariana batted her eyes in surprise. Grant Lawson, aka Mr. Perfect, had wondered about her? She was seven and a half months pregnant with twins and a man like Grant had wondered about her? The teeny compliment lifted her spirits immeasurably.
“So tell me about this ex-fiancé.” Grant resumed his relaxed posture, leaning on the desk. Ariana suspected he struck the stance as a means to disarm people and gain their confidence. His pose worked. Some of the tension eased from her shoulders, relieved to finally share her problems—and the truth—with someone in the company.
For weeks, ever since she’d waited three hours at the courthouse only to discover Benjy not only wasn’t going to marry her, but he had moved in with a woman he’d been seeing for weeks, Ariana had propagated the myth that they were awaiting the twins’ birth before tying the knot. Wintersoft had been good to her, giving her a chance in the competitive field of Public Relations, and the software company didn’t deserve a tarnished image because of her.
“Benjy ran off the day we were supposed to be married.”
“Benjy?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that your dog?”
She could tell he was kidding. “I wish. Then I could have taken him to the pound.”
“Or had him put to sleep?”
Ariana laughed, surprised that the coolly aloof Grant Lawson had a sense of humor. She appreciated his efforts at levity. Anything to ease the awful strain she’d been under. “Unfortunately, Benjy is the father of my twins. The very absent, unconcerned father of my twins.”
“He is a dog.”
“More like a lap poodle. I only wished I’d recognized his penchant for expecting women to take care of him. And when I say women, I mean multiple women.”
An instant change came over her new attorney. The cool pose stiffened. His top lip thinned to a narrow line. When he spoke, his voice was harsh. “He cheated on you?”
“I suppose I should have suspected it by the way he avoided making definite wedding plans, but I was clueless until he didn’t show up at the courthouse. Even then, I worried he’d been in an accident.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Stupid, huh?”
“You had a right to expect fidelity from the father of your children. Trust is an important part of a relationship.”
The news of Benjy’s betrayal had been a knife in the back. She’d tried so hard to help him when he came out of rehab, but as soon as she was too pregnant to be his pretty little toy anymore, he found other playmates. And she’d been too naive to recognize the symptoms. Admitting such a thing aloud, even to a lawyer, was humiliating.
“And what about you?” Grant pinned her with a courtroom gaze that would have quelled any witness. “Were you unfaithful?”
“Never.” Ariana blushed at the blunt question. Though Benjy was not the first in a long line of bad relationships, he had been her first and only lover. She’d been so certain her love was all he needed to overcome his problems that she’d given herself to him completely.
Ariana’s self-confidence suffered to know she’d been used, that Benjy had only wanted someone to take care of him while he got back on his feet. He’d never wanted to marry her. In fact, he’d been furious about the pregnancy and had even urged her to end it. But after a terrible fight, Benjy had done an about-face, asking her to marry him at some vague, future date.
Grant rocked away from the desk and stalked around to his chair. “I’ll take your case.”
Ariana batted her eyes in surprise.
Just like that? He’d take her case.
He yanked a legal pad from beneath a neat stack on his desk. “Mr. Poodle will do his part to look after your children. You have my word on that.”
Grant furiously scribbled notes on the pad, letting his mind drift over the bits of information Ariana had shared. He did plenty of pro bono cases, especially for company employees, and he enjoyed doing them. Those were the cases that made him feel like a true champion of the law, serving those in need. But he hadn’t taken Ariana’s case out of altruism, not totally anyway. If there was one thing he knew about it was ugly domestic cases in which one partner cheated the other and then tried to skip out scot-free. No one should have to live through that kind of pain.
He raised his eyes to the woman who knew exactly how that felt and was struck again by her smooth skin. Though every previous conversation had been business related, he’d noticed Ariana before. She was lovely. Almond-shaped eyes that defied him to name the color. And dark brown hair that floated around her shoulders with a rich, natural shine. Always warm and friendly even to the biggest jerks in the building, she had a dark beauty that would fascinate any man who still had a heart in his chest. Which left him out since a great gaping hole occupied the area in his rib cage where a heart once resided.
He tried not to look at her stomach—a near impossible task. He’d never seen anyone quite so pregnant. Behind the brave thrust of her chin and the steady gaze, he saw the tear-stained cheeks and detected the vulnerable quiver of her full lower lip. All his protective urges leaped to the fore. Urges he hadn’t acknowledged for a long time. And though they disturbed him no little bit, he’d be hanged if this fiancé of hers got away without taking equal responsibility for those children.
“Do you know this Benjy character’s current address?”
“I know where he works.” She gave him the address. “But don’t expect him to be cooperative.”
The idea angered him. What kind of worthless scum refused to acknowledge his own offspring? Children didn’t deserve to be pawns in domestic litigation. If he’d been fortunate enough to have a child…
He put the brakes on that thought immediately. Just as he’d closed the door on love, he’d promised not to dwell on what could never be.
He pushed a pad toward Ariana. “Will you write that address down? Along with the correct spelling of Mr. Walburn’s name?”
The element of surprise was always important in these cases, so he needed to make certain he had every last detail, right down to the correct spellings. He was nothing if not thorough.
Ariana gripped the chair arms and rocked several times, her off-center body not cooperating. When he started to offer his assistance, she held up one hand to stop him, and shook her head. “I can do this.”
She rocked again and then again. On the next try she stood. Hiding a smile, Grant exhaled, unaware he’d been holding his breath. Her stubbornness appealed to him.
He watched her move toward the desk, a light green dress billowing softly around her legs. Except for the enormous midsection, Ariana Fitzpatrick was actually very small and graceful. Tiny hands, slim shoulders, fine-boned, heart-shaped face with the kindest eyes he’d ever seen. An odd twist wrenched his gut. Sympathy pains surely, though he wasn’t prone to such feelings. A man couldn’t find a woman appealing when she was pregnant with someone else’s baby. Could he?
Absolutely not.
Taking the pen, Ariana leaned over the paper. Her hair spilled forward, inches from his nose. He inhaled—purely a function