Pursued (The Diamond Tycoons 2) (9 page)

Nine

N
ic climbed into his car and roared out of the parking lot with no intention of stopping until he was several miles away from Desi Maddox and the
Los Angeles Times
. Running might be a juvenile reaction, but if he’d stood there arguing with her for much longer he would have said something he regretted. And since she was the mother of his child—
his child
—that didn’t seem like the best course of action. For any of their sakes.

For once, LA traffic cooperated with him and as he sped through the streets he tried to calm down, tried to wrap his head around the fact that not only had he found Desi after all these months, but that he was also about to become a father. A
father
. The word reverberated in his head, the weight of it pressing in on him from all sides.

In a little less than five months, he would be a father. To a bouncing baby boy. And then what? He didn’t know the first thing about parenting. How could he, when his own father had set such a shiningly bad example?

Then again, maybe Nic knew more than he thought. If he just did the opposite of everything his own father had done, he could probably win a father-of-the-year award.

He kept driving, sliding his Porsche in and out of traffic as he tried not to panic. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to parent his son, wasn’t that he was afraid of the responsibility of it. Because he wasn’t—no matter what Desi had concocted in her head about him being a soulless monster with a Peter Pan complex. That wasn’t the case. He was more than willing to step up to the plate here, more than willing to take care of his child.

He was just terrified of screwing it up. Of making mistakes that hurt his kid the way his father had hurt him and Marc. He didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want to be the guy who let his family down over and over and over again.

Lost in thought, he cruised through a yellow light as it turned red. Horns blared at him from both sides of the cross-traffic, and he waved a hand in silent apology even as he decided he should probably pull over before he caused an accident.

Griffith Park and Observatory was only a couple of blocks ahead of him, so he angled his way through traffic, moving to the right lane so he could make the turn into the parking lot. But once there, he couldn’t just sit. His thoughts were too momentous, too overwhelming. He needed to be doing something or he would be crushed under the weight of them.

He climbed out of the car and headed for the park. If nothing else, he could walk. Nothing like a shot of nature in the middle of a crowded city to help a guy clear his head.

But as he walked, things only got more muddled. Oh, not the fact that he was going to be a father to this baby. That part he was crystal clear about. His kid, his responsibility.

But the rest of it…yeah, the rest of it was a hell of a lot murkier.

What kind of father would he be?

How would he avoid hurting his own child the way his dad had hurt him?

How would he get past the wall Desi had built around herself and get her to talk to him—and listen to him?

How were the two of them going to build some kind of secure family unit for their child when she seemed to hate him? When she believed the worst of him? When she wanted nothing to do with him?

He’d lived that life, caught between two parents who hated each other and used their children as weapons. There was no way he would let that happen to his kid. No way he would let his son grow up the same way he and Marc had.

But how was Nic going to stop it? How was he going to convince Desi that she could trust him not to hurt her or the baby? And speaking of trust, how the hell was
he
ever going to trust
her
again after everything she’d done?

He was willing to accept that she’d believed the wrong source, that she’d bought whatever ridiculous bill of goods had been sold to her. But she was an investigative journalist—albeit a green one judging from the lack of bylines he’d found when researching her. It was her job to dig for facts. Her job to talk to people on both sides of the issue as she tried to figure out who was telling the truth.

She hadn’t done that. Despite the fact that they’d spent what he’d thought was a fairly spectacular night together, despite the fact that she was carrying the baby who in time would be heir to Bijoux, she’d had no problem writing an article that would have brought his family’s company to its knees. And she hadn’t even had the decency to give him a heads-up, let alone contact him to get his side of the story.

How much did she have to hate him to do something like that? And why? What had he done to her except give her seven orgasms—not that he’d been counting—and try to see her again? He’d liked her, really liked her…at least until she’d done all this.

As he walked, he went over the night they’d spent together, searching for something he could have done to set her off. She’d freaked out a little when he’d gotten her phone number, but they’d compromised. He’d played by the rules she set. And still she’d nearly destroyed him.

It didn’t make sense.

“Daddy! Daddy! Push me higher!”

The high-pitched squeal got his attention, followed by the sound of deep male laughter. He glanced over toward the playscape, saw a man about his own age pushing a small boy on the swings. The kid was adorable, dark, wild curls and big brown eyes and the biggest smile Nic had ever seen.

“Faster, Daddy, faster!”

The man laughed again, then did as his son requested.

Nic didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t look away. They both looked so happy, the kid and the dad, who looked as if there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be.

Nic wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but it was long enough to have the dad giving him a weird look. Great. He’d gone from human rights violator to park pervert in under an hour. It was shaping up to be one hell of a day.

“Sorry,” he said, putting a little more distance between him and the kid. “I just found out I’m…um, expecting…an, uh, boy.” What was wrong with him that he was tripping over his own tongue? That never happened to him. He was the guy who always had a joke or a story, the one who could put anyone at ease. And yet, here he was, trying to form a simple sentence about the fact that he, too, was going to be a father, and he ended up sounding like a blathering idiot.

But blathering idiot must be the language of fathers everywhere, because, somehow the guy got what Nic was saying. The suspicious look disappeared from his face, giving way to a grin that was a tad sympathetic. “You just found out you and your wife are expecting a boy?” he said.

Not quite, but it was close enough that Nic was willing to go with it. “Yeah. It’s…”

“Intense,” the other guy filled in.

“Yes. Exactly. Totally intense. I can’t quite wrap my head around it yet.”

“Daddy, higher!” the kid said again.

“Any higher and your mother will have my head,” the guy responded. But Nic noticed that he pushed the boy a little bit harder, let him go a little bit higher. “Yeah, it’s crazy. But it’s great, too, you know. Because—” he nodded toward his son “—you get this awesome kid out of the deal.”

“I can see. How old is he?”

“Just turned four.”

“He’s great.”

The guy’s chest puffed out a little. “He is, isn’t he? A bit of a daredevil, always wanting to go faster or climb higher. He keeps us on our toes.”

“I bet.”

“Slower, Daddy!”

“Slower?” The man looked down at his son in surprise.

“I want to go on the slide now.”

“Oh, sure.” Nic watched as the man carefully stopped the swing and helped his son off. “You want to go on that slide over there?” he asked, pointing to the largest one on the playscape.

“No. I want to do the big one. Over there.” The kid pointed to a huge, curved slide obviously meant for older kids.

“Of course you do.” The dad rolled his eyes, but he held out a hand for the kid and the boy took it. “Let’s go.” He glanced back at Nic as they started to walk away. “Hey, good luck with the baby.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“You’ll need it. It’s the craziest thing you’ll ever do. But also the best.”

And then he scooped his kid up onto his shoulders and took off running across the park while the little boy shrieked in delight.

Nic stood where he was for long seconds, staring after them until they reached the other playscape. Then as the kid climbed up the slide and his dad climbed up right behind him, Nic felt himself calm down. Everything was going to be fine. He might not know anything about parenting yet, but he had five months to learn the basics. And a lifetime to learn the rest of it.

Desi had better get on board. He was willing to take a backseat, willing to do things her way. As long as her way didn’t involve cutting him out completely. Because she was carrying his kid—his son—and while he was willing to compromise, the one thing he wasn’t willing to do was walk away. The sooner she accepted that, the better off they would all be.

How had she screwed up this badly? Desi stared at the evidence on the desk in front of her, sorted through it for what had to be the fiftieth time as she wrapped her mind around the fact that she had made a terrible mistake.

Nic had brought all kinds of documentation with him, including page after page of chemical analysis of the diamonds sold by Bijoux. Diamonds whose environmental coating and chemical thumbprint matched exactly those being dug up in Canadian diamond mines. Not African mines. Canadian. All of which were conflict-free and responsibly sourced.

That wasn’t all the evidence Nic had brought, though it was certainly damning enough considering it was signed by one of the top conflict-diamond experts in the world. But he’d also brought affidavits from the foremen at each of the mines, explaining the amount of diamonds each mine yielded and how many pounds of diamonds had gone to Bijoux in the preceding three years. Amounts that matched Bijoux’s certified goods received records.

He had done all his homework, had provided the paper with everything he could possibly need to debunk her story. And maybe she still wouldn’t believe it no matter what he said—documents could be forged after all—except Malcolm had spent the past few days running her source to ground. After Darlene had spoken with Nic last week about the article and he had been so adamant about filing a libel claim if they published the information, Malcolm had wanted to triple-check her source.

Which she’d done herself after he’d given his information to Desi. But she must have missed something because early this morning Malcolm had talked with him. And had somehow managed to get from the man what she couldn’t. An admission that he had forged the documents he’d given her—from Bijoux and from the two diamond mines in Africa—in order to make it look as if Marc and Nic Durand were dirty.

All of it, forged. All of it, lies. Pages and pages of forgeries that she had bought hook, line and sinker. Because she’d wanted the story to be real—had needed the story to be real so she could write the article and move her career away from dresses and into real news. And to hell with whether or not she wrecked the lives of two innocent men. To hell if she brought down an entire business—and an entire newspaper—with her mistakes. She’d needed to get the scoop.

How could she have been so stupid? So gullible? So anxious to get the information that she’d overlooked her source’s tells. And now that she looked back on it, there had been many. She’d just been so caught up in getting the story and not disappointing Malcolm, in getting the truth—ha, wasn’t that a joke—that she’d looked past them. She’d made excuses for them in her own mind.

The source was nervous.

The source was a little confused but once he calmed down, he sorted it out.

The source was doing a brave thing coming forward and blowing the whistle, but he was just an amateur. Of course he hadn’t known exactly what she’d need for the story.

God, she was such a fool. And the worst kind of fool—the arrogant kind who refused to see, let alone admit, when she was wrong. Just thinking about what she’d said to Nic when he’d tried to hand her the documents… She’d had in her hands the proof that he was none of those things but she’d been too stubborn to look at it. Too stubborn to admit that maybe, just maybe, she’d been wrong.

And now, the story she’d worked so hard on was dead. Malcolm told her it wasn’t her fault, told her Candace—the more experienced reporter he’d put on the case to work with her—had missed the same things she had. Which was true. Candace had.

But Candace hadn’t spent the time on this story that Desi had.

Candace didn’t know it the way she did.

Candace hadn’t been trained at an early age by Alan Maddox, one of the best investigative journalists who had ever lived.

If Candace had made a mistake, it was in trusting Desi, who had assured her over and over again that the information they had was legit.

Which it wasn’t. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

So now, here she was, back in the society pages—for a little while anyway. Malcolm assured her that her job wasn’t in jeopardy, but with a screwup of this magnitude, how could it not be? If that story had run—if Malcolm and Darlene had been just a little less conscientious—the paper would be in really hot water right now. And Bijoux would be under siege from everyone from the press to human rights organizations to consumer groups to lawyers bringing civil suits on behalf of clients who’d purchased Bijoux diamonds…the horrors would have gone on and on.

And it would have been all her fault.

Yet Nic had still wanted to talk to her, had still wanted to listen to her. And in her utter and complete arrogance, she’d driven him away. Worse, she’d backed him into a corner where he thought that the only choice he had was to fight her—for his company and for their baby.

Nice job, Desi.
Somehow she’d managed to mess her life up so royally, so completely, that she could not even begin to imagine how to fix it. She didn’t even know if fixing it was possible.

But she also knew she had to try. She’d made this mess, and while Malcolm was helping her clean it up on the professional level, she owed it to Nic, and their baby, to try to fix it on the personal front, as well.