Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (3 page)

"Why did she leave CIS?"

"I don't know."

It was the truth. He didn't know why she'd sold out her company toHarrison and he could only guess at why she'd left town without bothering to say good-bye.

He didn't feel guilty for not telling Kline the whole story. He was doing it for the man's own good. He'd learned early on when they opened the corporate investigations side of CIS not to share too much information with a client. It had a way of backfiring on him and his investigation, which he didn't like.

He'd developed a policy of telling as little as possible until heknew the answer.

"I got the impression you wanted to keep tabs on her, that maybe there was some unfinished business between you two."

Kline was an astute businessman, too smart to have been completely unaware of the undercurrents between Marcus and Ronnie. "You're right."

"Is working with her going to be a problem for you?"

"No." In fact, staying close to Ronnie was important to his investigation.

'You don't want to talk about it, I take it."

"I don't make a practice of discussing my past, my personal life or my predictions for the World Series on the job."

Kline smiled at Marcus's subtle humor. "Okay. Point taken. Did you find anything out today?"

Other than the fact that Kline had a former corporate spy working for him, not a damn thing. "I met your marketing staff. Your director wants to have lunch with me and discuss expansion."

Kline smiled. 'Jack's a smart businessman. He's always got ideas for growing the company."

Marcus nodded. "That would make him a good marketing director."

"That and his charm. That man could sell a new operating system to Bill Gates." Kline's expression turned sly. "Veronica seems to think so, too."

Marcus restrained himself from demanding an explanation for the last comment. Barely.

"Are they dating?" he asked casually.

Kline shrugged. "I don't know. We don't encourage personal relationships among the employees at Kline Tech. Too much opportunity for sexual harassment lawsuits, but you can't police your employees in their off-hours."

Then why the hell had he said that about Ronnie finding her boss charming?

Kline went on, just as if Marcus's silence hadn't turned lethal. "I've seen them together in the employee cafeteria a time or two. Of course, that doesn't mean anything. She works for his department. Could have been a business lunch. It's what I told myself at the time anyway."

And just what was the man saying now? Marcus wouldn't give Kline the satisfaction of asking. He'd come to realize the older man shared his somewhat offbeat sense of humor.

He remembered the hard time he'd given Alex about his wife, Isabel, before they got married andalmost felt remorse.

Realizing the direction his thoughts had strayed, he put a firm mental clamp on them. His situation with Ronnie was nothing like that of Alex and Isabel. Ronnie had betrayed him and CIS, whereas Isabel loved Alex.

There had been a time when Marcus had wondered if Ronnie hadn't fallen in love with him too.

Instead of sending him packing like he expected, the idea had taken root and tempted him to think of a future. Until she had forcefully reminded him that love was an illusion and taught him his budding trust had been misplaced.

"Mr. Love 'em and Leave 'em is working for Kline Tech? I can't believe it!" Jenny's voice rose until she fairly vibrated with her agitation. "He wants to have dinner with you? Why? Did you tell him about Aaron?"

Veronica felt Jenny's disbelief and confusion beat at her already overburdened emotions.

"He isn't the one who left and he never said he loved me," she reminded her sister dryly.

Jenny snorted and her hazel eyes narrowed in skepticism. "He sureliked you enough. He gave you a baby."

Veronica's gaze skipped to the munchkin playing on the carpet. Oblivious to his mother's distress or his aunt's anger, her tow-headed son stuck the corner of a colorful plastic car into his mouth and drooled. She stifled the urge to grab it out of his hand and give him a teething ring. The pedia-trician had assured her it was perfectly normal for a ten-month-old to be so oral.

She turned her attention back to Jenny. "I knowhe gave me a baby, but he doesn't."

And right now, she didn't want that to change. After leaving Marcus that afternoon, she'd rushed to her cubicle and hidden her pictures of Jenny and Aaron in a drawer. She'd also cleaned all the baby paraphernalia out of the car so that when she met Marcus for dinner later, the car seat and baby toys wouldn't give her away.

Jenny ran her fingers through her spiky brown hair. "Then why don't you tell him?" she asked, with exasperation. "It isn't fair that you work so hard to support Aaron while his dad doesn't even pay minimal child support."

"It isn't Marcus's fault I got pregnant." She was the one who had forgotten to take her pill.

She still couldn't believe that missing just that one day in her routine could have impacted her life so hugely.

She stepped around the kitchen bar and walked into the living room. Dropping to her knees on the carpet, she reached out and pulled her son into her lap, cuddling him close. The unique scent of baby filled her senses and indescribable love filled her.

She didn't have the father, but she would always have a part of Marcus and she couldn't regret that. She could not be sorry she had a son.

Jenny made a rude noise from the kitchen. "Yeah, like you got that way all by yourself. There's only been one Miraculous Conception in history and Aaron wasn't it. He definitely had a sperm donor."

Her sister's tenaciousness on this particular subject increased Veronica's sense of guilt.

She couldn't admit to her sister the overriding reason she hadn't told Marcus about the baby— her fear he would try to take Aaron away from her. He could be so hard and cynical. Whywouldn't he believe a woman who had sold company secrets would make an unfit mother?

Jenny didn't know the price Veronica had paid to come up with the money necessary for her younger sister's medical treatment inFrance .

And Veronica would never tell her.

That burden was hers alone to carry. Jenny's sense of right and wrong was as strong as Veronica's own. Her little sister would feel a crushing guilt to realize Veronica had chosen to ignore her own honor to provide Jenny with a chance at life.

Veronica herself was tormented by the thought that there must have been another way, but she still didn't know what it would have been.

She'd had no one else but herself to rely on since she was twenty years old and that hadn't changed when she and Marcus became lovers.

No ties.

No commitments.

No sisters dying from a blood disease that did not have effective FDA-approved treatments in the States.

As she looked at her sister, over Aaron's silky blond head, satisfaction washed over her.

The treatment had worked.

Jenny's disease was in remission and she had regained most of her natural vitality. At sixteen she'd been weak and so pale her skin had looked like tracing paper. At seventeen and a half, Jenny was fast returning to the feisty sister Veronica had grown up with and ended up raising. Feisty enough to argue the merits of telling Marcus Danvers about his son.

"He told me he didn't want any commitments. He never lied to me." Veronica didn't believe for a minute the argument would halt her sister's tirade, but she had to try.

It didn't. Jenny's eves snapped with anger. "He's thirty years old. It's time he learned that life is full of responsibilities." She grew silent and her expression turned pensive. "Have you considered that he wants to know about his son? Just because he doesn't want a wife doesn't mean he'd turn his back on his child."

Only all the time.

The possibility that she was denying Marcus a relationship he might want with Aaron made her heart twist with pain.

'That's a pretty smart observation for a teenager to make," she couldn't help saying.

Jenny leaned on the kitchen counter and soberly regarded Veronica.

She returned Jenny's look with understanding. Her sister's wisdom beyond her years had come at a heavy price for both of them and the knowledge hung in the air between them.

Jenny had lost her parents at the age of thirteen and been diagnosed with a potentially fatal blood disease a year later. She'd spent her sixteenth birthday in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, with the knowledge that she might never go home again hanging over her.

That had been the day Veronica had decided to approach Mr. Harrison with information about a hostile takeover that threatened his company. A takeover in which her own company, CIS, played a key role.

She'd tried to justify her actions by telling herself that Alex Trahern, the owner of CIS, had no right to destroy a company and the lives of hundreds of its employees to serve his own vengeance. He'd actually agreed with her when she called fromFrance to apologize for the unforgivable.

Hehad forgiven her and assured her that he had no intention of taking legal action against her.

It was too bad she couldn't forgive herself.

She hadn't had the courage to ask how Marcus had taken her defection and had never called again.

However, knowing she didn't have the threat of prosecution against her, she had been able to bring her family home to thePacific Northwest when Jenny got a clean bill of health from her French doctors.

They hadn't moved back toPortland . That would be pushing Alex's understanding too far, she had thought.Seattle had been the next best alternative. Only now it looked like it wasn't far away enough and Marcus wasn't nearly as forgiving as Alex.

Memory of the chilling disgust in his eyes when he had looked at her earlier that day settled in her heart like a lodestone. Her entire new life hung by a thread and she had a horrible feeling he would enjoy snipping it.

* * *

Marcus parked his black Jaguar outside the restaurant Ronnie had suggested. Scanning the lot for signs of her, he realized it was an exercise in futility. He had no way of knowing whether she still drove the decade-old Volvo she had owned when working at CIS. Hell, why would she? With the money she'd gotten fromJohn Harrison for selling out, she could afford a new car to go along with her new life.

So, why was she working as an admin at Kline Tech? Surely her big payoff hadn't run out already. And where had she been for the past eighteen months? Kline said she'd only started working for his company six months ago. That left a year of time unaccounted for.

Had she developed a taste for corporate espionage? Had she been moving from one unsuspecting company to another, selling their secrets for cold, hard cash?

The scenario didn't ring true for the woman he had known her to be, but then neither had her betrayal. He swore under his breath, using a word he saved for times of utter frustration.

He had worked with Ronnie for three years before they became lovers. She had been honest and loyal that entire time. He would have staked his life on it.

And he would have been dead by now if he had, he reminded himself.

That bone-deep sense of integrity he could have sworn she possessed had been a sham and nothing more. Who knew how many tidbits of information she had sold over the years before making her big deal withHarrison .

Unfolding his legs from the Jag's driver's seat, he climbed out to stand next to the car and noticed a dark blue compact enter the lot. It was an older domestic model, a car with a reputation for being cheap but reliable. It took him a few seconds to recognize the driver. What in blazes was she doing driving that tin can? It was older than the Volvo.

She pulled into a spot near his and climbed out of the car.

She'd changed out of her business clothes into a pair of snug-fitting, sand-colored jeans and a loose, buttoned-up top the color of caramel. Her hair swung around her face as she turned after locking her car. It flirted with the pale skin of her cheek and he wanted to reach out and brush the silky strands back into place.