The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

to provide…”
    “Alex’s father? I…”
    Ha, that was a good one. Her mom had never divulged that salient bit of information.
    Lily was embarrassed at first that a new boyfriend at age thirty-six had resulted in a pregnancy. Hadn’t she learned to stay away from fickle bad boys when she had fallen pregnant with Sabrina and married at eighteen? But as her first child, Sabrina, was the joy of her life, she viewed the new baby as a blessing. The baby’s father promised to settle in New York. He’d promised they’d be a proper family. With his help and Sabrina’s, Lily figured she’d retain her position in real estate sales, and all of their lives would be full.
    That had been the plan.
    Sabrina shook her head.
    “No, no, Alex’s dad isn’t in the picture.”
    She said that as calmly as possible, but still she tensed at the path this conversation was taking. No one could know; no one could ever find out she was Alex’s sister rather than his mom. Social services would descend on them just the way they had when she was a girl. Her care would be found wanting. God only knew where they would go if they couldn’t pay the rent. They would take Alex away. She shivered. No. I can’t go back to that life again. I won’t.
    “Alex has only me. His father doesn’t, isn’t.” She stumbled over her lie.
    ****
    Vlad was quick to sense any weakness. His innate ruthlessness and personal experience of the most sordid failings of human nature was no match for this young woman’s evasions and half-truths.
    He straightened in his state-of-the art leather desk chair, the kind that was so good for his back. It did nothing for the migraine beginning to form behind his eyes. What the hell was she playing at? For the life of him, he was slipping. How had he been so overcome with lust that he failed to see the cuckoo that’d come into his nest? This is where thinking with your cock got you.
    In spite of it all, he was still attracted. Whatever mermaid’s spell she’d cast on him in the break room and later in the car, still had him firm in its grip. She was so far from his usual type it was laughable. Her torrent of hair cascaded down her back in unruly waves and, with a motion he was starting to recognize, she pushed it over her shoulder, then pulled at the hem of her chain store sweater. And what was it about this generation and the fad of ripped tights? Completely inappropriate, even if she did work in VGI’s unseen tech pub division.
    He knew she lived in a rundown building, in an untrendy section of Brooklyn close to the old docks. But like all New York real estate, it probably cost a bundle on her terms.
    He didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He’d fired her.
    He stood, crossed to the window to put some distance between them. The breathtaking view of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty from the vantage point of fifty stories had always served to dazzle visitors and energize him. But right now, all he could see in his mind’s eye was a distant port on the Baltic Sea, imposing cargo ships and grimy tankers crowding the aging docks.
    He was uncomfortable in so many ways with this. She got to him on some elemental level he hadn’t cared to look at in years. Father providing? Like his did? Like he even knew who the guy was? Like he’d ever met him?
    He turned abruptly away from the memory and addressed a point above her head.
    “He may not want to contribute but that’s tough; if you bring a child into this world you need to be responsible for it.”
    He knew that for a fact he felt deep in his bones. Children had a habit of needing to be fed and clothed and some of them, if they were lucky, loved. It was a truism. Kids didn’t ask to be born, but once they were on the planet, parents had to be responsible.
    “It’s not that simple.” Her cheeks reddened at his piercing stare.
    Vlad had used his eyes when he was too young to understand spoken words, and, as he grew older when the English language had still been