Baby Vs. The Bar. M.J. Rodgers

      “Excuse me, please,” she said, still maintaining her mellow tone as she squeezed forward.

      She squirmed through the crowd, pushed open a hallway door marked Women, and disappeared quickly inside. The sign on the door immediately halted the male reporters just outside it. They set their cameras down to wait.

      Marc saw his chance and took it. He dove through the throng. Then, much to everyone’s surprise, he burst through the door with the Women sign on it.

      He knew this door. It was the one he had come through this morning. Despite its outside labeling, it led to an exit stairwell as well as to the ladies’ room. Marc suspected the former was where Remy was really headed.

      The moment the door closed behind him, he heard the quick click-clack of her high-heeled shoes on the metal stairs about a flight and a half below. He had been right. He hurried down the stairs after her. But even in those heels she moved fast. It took some effort to catch her.

      “Dr. Westbrook, I have to talk to you,” he called.

      Remy had always prided herself on keeping her cool, but this untenable situation was sorely testing her patience. She recognized the arrogant attorney’s voice right away. She kept moving down the stairs as fast as she could as she sent her response back to him. “No.”

      His words followed her, as did the sound of his footsteps.

      “Dr. Westbrook, I’m sorry about your being dragged into all this. Believe me, I’m on your side. I don’t think your child is David’s, either. I agree that Binick probably selected your record from his files only because the timing would sound right to the jury. He’s just using you and your child in order to try to lower the settlement Louie Demerchant will get in his suit against Bio-Sperm.”

      Remy halted on the next landing and whirled on him. “If that’s really what you believe, Truesdale, why did you insist on so ruthlessly exposing my personal life on the stand?”

      “Because I thought you were lying. At first.”

      His deep-set, cobalt blue eyes stared at her as they had since the moment she had stepped into the courtroom. Their focused intensity was laser blue hot. His body was a tall, lean inverted triangle in a perfectly cut dark blue suit. The stairwell lights lit the thick polished brass of his hair, a color that perfectly matched his far-too-brassy manner.

      But the smile he flashed her now was pure charm and overlaid that hard, finely chiseled professional face with an impossibly engaging light of boyish sincerity.

      He was so obviously one of those men gifted from birth to simply fly over those obstacles that clobbered the rest of humanity. She thoroughly resented that in him. But resisting that surprisingly boyish smile was something even she was finding very difficult to do.

      “Why did you think I was lying?” she asked.

      “I thought you were in on this nasty scheme to get Louie Demerchant to think he has a great-grandchild. Binick knows Louie Demerchant would love to believe it’s true. He’s playing on the old man’s emotions, banking on the false hope working to his advantage. If the jury thinks there’s a great-grandchild, Binick believes they might deny Louie’s claim to damages or, at least, lower the damages.”

      “I...see. Well, I’m sorry for Mr. Demerchant if that’s what Binick’s doing, but none of this has anything to do with me. Now, I really must go.”

      As she turned, she heard the stairwell door a few flights up swing open. The pounding of the quickly descending footsteps told Remy that the news reporters were hot on her heels again. Should she take a chance and try to outrun them? If only she had time to change back into the running shoes stuffed in her shoulder bag!

      She felt Marc’s hand on her arm.

      “They’ll be here any minute,” he said. “This is the third floor. Duck in here and you can take the elevator down the rest of the way. That should throw them off.”

      She nodded and sailed past as he pulled the door open for her. She got her bearings quickly and headed directly toward the third-floor elevators.

      As soon as she reached the circle of elevators, she pressed the Down button. She felt Marc Truesdale move behind her, and then his hand was on her shoulder. She turned at his touch.

      “Dr. Westbrook, I need to talk to you.”

      His hand felt solid and strong and fired tiny trickles of warmth through her shoulder. She knew she could step back and shake it off. But she didn’t. He seemed to be on her side now. She decided she could forgive his earlier transgressions.

      Besides, she liked the feel of that strong hand. She also liked the sophisticated, woodsy after-shave that clung to that finely chiseled chin beneath that boyish smile. She couldn’t deny the guy was handsome as hell, and all her female parts were happily sitting up and taking notice.

      “What about?” she asked.

      “Louie Demerchant believes if he sees your child, he’ll be able to know if—”

      Remy felt an instant anger whip through her. She jerked back, quickly shaking off his hand. She kept her outward cool, but only just, as she quickly interrupted.

      “First, you assure me you don’t believe my child is David Demerchant’s, and then you want me to parade him before Louie Demerchant so he can decide. What do you take me for, a fool?”

      “No. Of course not. But don’t you see? Because of Binick’s deviousness, this claim of a great-grandchild is going to haunt Louie Demerchant until he can see for himself that your child can’t possibly be David’s.”

      “And you think one look will assure him of that?”

      That simple, boyish sincerity just oozed out of his smile. “I hope so.”

      Remy silently cursed herself for being such a gullible sap. She should never have allowed herself to be taken in by that handsome face and boyish smile. No substance lay behind them. They were only weapons this man wielded to get his way.

      “You hope so. Yeah, right, Truesdale. Well, forget it. Neither you nor your client are getting anywhere near my son.”

      A downward-heading elevator dinged as it stopped on the third floor. Remy swung around to step inside its opening doors. Both of Marc’s hands landed on her shoulders this time and whirled her back to face him, forcibly staying her retreat.

      The boyish smile faded into one flooded with earnest desperation. “Look, it’s not going to hurt your son for Louie Demerchant just to look at him.”

      Remy angrily shook his hands off her shoulders once again. “Listen, Truesdale. This is over. I never want to see you or Demerchant or Binick again, do you understand?”

      “Please—”

      “Your pleases are wasted on me. Now, go away and leave me alone.”

      She swung back to the elevator at the same instant that its doors closed in her face.

      She sucked in an enormous breath and began to count to ten.

      “Sorry,” Marc said from behind her, not sounding sorry at all. “While we’re waiting for another elevator, you can tell me about your son.”

      Remy’s hands balled into fists. She told herself sternly that she must not lose her cool. She must remain in control. Otherwise, she was going to end up decking this guy.

      Suddenly, the stairwell door they had exited a few moments before crashed open. Remy’s eyes darted to the sound in time to see a horde of newspeople come spilling out onto the third floor. It took only a second for them to spot Marc and Remy.

      “There they are!” one of the reporters shouted, as they all took off at a run. Remy groaned. Marc swung boldly forward into the reporters’ path, his hands raised in a halting motion.

      Remy ducked behind him, frantically pressing the Down button in futile hope an elevator would come before