“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Has Malone been giving you a hard time?”
>
“No, it’s not that at all, it’s just...” She bit her lower lip. Marc would kill her if she told him she’d been foolish enough to get romantically involved with Nick Malone. If she considered things from Marc’s perspective, she was behaving idiotically. “I should hear any day now about the genetic testing. I guess I’m just hesitant to call a lawyer and make any big plans when my life is so uncertain right now.”
She heard her brother sigh. “Yeah, well I guess it couldn’t hurt to wait a couple days. Although I’d prefer you at least had Mike Bonella’s name behind you. Are you starting to get nervous? About the test results, I mean?”
“Starting? My nerves have been fried since before I even went for the testing. It just gets worse every day.”
“I can imagine,” Marc admitted.
“It’s kind of stupid for me to be nervous, isn’t it? I mean...it’s not like Mom slept around. If she says my natural father was Lincoln DuBois, it was Lincoln DuBois, right?”
“Right,” Marc said.
“So how come I still feel so nervous?”
“Probably because you know things will really start to get hairy when you discover for certain you are Lincoln’s biological child.”
Deidre wrote down the information about the lawyer, feeling unsettled the whole time. Her night and morning with Nick was still too vibrant in her memory—still singing in her flesh. The phone call with Marc had interrupted her happiness and made her question her loyalties. She thought of how Nick had begun teaching her some of the basics about DuBois this morning and how he’d recommended she contact Abel Warren, Lincoln’s personal attorney. He was starting to support her, mentor her, even. But surely Nick would understand that she might need her own legal counsel, given the possibility of how things may unfold?
She glanced down at the piece of paper with Mike Bonella’s number on it. If she ended up calling Bonella, it would be because Nick told her he was taking her to court. A sick, uneasy feeling grew in her stomach.
She dressed in a scarlet sweater and tucked her black skinny jeans into her tie-up snow boots. She took time styling her hair and with her makeup, trying to distract herself from her anxiety. Afterward, she ran a few errands and stopped by Liam’s and Natalie’s house to collect their mail.
Despite her eagerness to see Nick, nervousness started to twine with her anticipation as two o’clock approached. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat when she heard his car door slam in the driveway at a few minutes past two.
“Hey,” he greeted when she opened the door and cold air rushed across her face.
Seeing his tall, shadowed form against the brilliant backdrop of the sunny winter day and glistening blue lake brought back every detail of last night. The passionate connection they’d made was special, wasn’t it? Unique? It certainly had been in her experience.
He’d changed into jeans and boots. He stepped toward her, taking her in his arms. She realized she’d been gaping at him like she hadn’t seen him in months instead of hours.
“Hi,” she muttered, her gaze stuck on the dazzling sight of his dimples and sexy smile.
“You can do better than that,” he murmured before he edged toward her, leaned down and kissed her. Deidre went up on her toes and improved her greeting enthusiastically. His grin was long gone by the time he lifted his head a moment later.
“I’m already regretting this.”
“What?” Deidre asked, alarm spiking through the sensual lassitude wrought by his kiss.
He tilted his chin toward the driveway. “The plans I made. I’d much rather just take you back to bed.”
“Why don’t you then?” she asked, grinning. The idea of them losing themselves in each other and keeping the rest of the world at bay for as long as they could sounded very, very appealing.
His eyes were fixed on her mouth like he was considering taking another bite out of her, but then he was backing out of her arms. “I wish I could, but...well, come on. You’ll see. I hope you don’t kill me for it,” he added under his breath.
“Nick, what are you talking about?” she asked, mystified by his behavior.
“It’s a beautiful day—perfect for a tour of the area. Let’s go up.”
“Up?”
“Yeah. In my plane.”
“Oh.”