One Heir...Or Two?

“Not for maintenance for Sienna, no. You may find it hard to believe, but I didn’t enter into parenthood lightly. I saved hard, I have a job I love and she has had excellent care while I work. But things have changed and I wouldn’t be asking you for help if it wasn’t vitally important. We’ve...” She seemed to choose her next words very carefully. “We’ve suffered a bit of a setback and I just need a loan, until we’re back on our feet.”

“A loan?” He searched her face to see if she was lying. “How much?”

He reached in a pocket for his cell phone, flicked out the stylus, opened a blank memo and put the device on the table next to her. “Here, put your account details in there and I’ll get my bank to transfer the money directly to your account.”

When Kayla didn’t move to pick up the stylus, he paused.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Just like that?”

“Like what?”

“Any sum I mention. You’ll just give it to me?”

That sense of foreboding washed through him again. “What’s this about, Kayla?”

She adjusted the baby in her arms, and when she looked back up at him, he could see her eyes shimmer with tears.

“I miss her. Don’t you?” she whispered.

Van felt his gut twist in a knot. Yes, he missed her sister—she’d been his best friend growing up, after all, and it hurt to think of a world without her in it—but in many ways she was a reminder of his failures, of a past he was none too proud of. After she died, and particularly after that night with Kayla, he’d resolved to never look back, to only look forward.

“Yeah, I do,” he acknowledged. “But we have to move on, right?”

She nodded. “That’s what I’m doing. I’m moving on. I’ve made plans, very specific plans.”

Van’s spider senses were screaming. “Tell me,” he intoned cautiously.

“I’m going to have the rest of your babies, Sienna’s remaining two embryos. I was on track. I was going to space each of the pregnancies two years apart but—”

Whatever she said next was lost in the buzzing sound in his ears. Babies? Everything in him protested. Kayla’s voice finally penetrated the fog.

“—and with the clinic closing down, I can’t wait until I’ve built up my savings account to support two more individual pregnancies. Time is running out.”

A shudder of horror rippled through him. This couldn’t be happening. Not now that he knew about the awful heritage that had been passed down through generations on both sides of his family. And certainly not now that he was on the verge of expanding DM Security and merging not only with Dani Matthews’s company but with the woman herself.

Suddenly the diamond solitaire ring he had in his breast pocket felt like it was burning through the lining of his suit. He and Dani were totally on the same page on this subject. They gave to the community through their philanthropy and their skills. They had no desire to add to the world by having children. In fact, it was something they both specifically planned to avoid. Bad enough that Kayla already had one baby with his DNA. One child with a genetic predisposition for alcoholism was more than enough. But more? Being raised by a mother as flighty and unreliable as Kayla? It was a recipe for disaster.

“No,” he said emphatically.

A small frown pulled between Kayla’s brows. “No, you’re not going to loan me the money?”

“No, you’re not going to have those babies.”

Two (#ue1bdcc9f-1437-5722-81be-e99a9203aa6e)

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not going to happen. Not again.”

Kayla began to protest. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Five years ago, you said—”

He cut her off. “I will fight you on this with every last cent I have if necessary. I made a mistake agreeing to Sienna’s request to serve as her donor in the first place. I’m not compounding that mistake by assisting you now.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m the one who makes the decisions about what happens with the embryos, not you.”

“Not once my legal team gets a hold of this. I can keep this tied up through the courts for as long as it takes, and I will.”

Who was this man? She barely recognized him. But once upon a time he’d been different. He’d wanted to help. Maybe she could still reach that man somehow. She had to try. For her sister’s sake.

“We both loved her, Van. Don’t you remember why you wanted to help her in the first place? Because you supported her and wanted her to fulfill her dreams. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here. See her dreams come to fruition.”

“Don’t, Kayla!” He spoke sharply and baby Sienna, startled, popped off her breast.

Kayla quickly covered herself up again. “Don’t what, Van?”

“Don’t try to use Sienna to manipulate me. Everything is different now. Sienna’s dead. Her dream of motherhood died with her,” he said bluntly.

Kayla rose to her feet and rested Sienna against her shoulder, rubbing her little back more for her own comfort than for the child’s.

“No, Van, they didn’t. This beautiful little girl is proof of that. And I’m going to see to it that she doesn’t grow up without a brother or a sister. You, more than anyone, should understand why I’m determined to do that.”

“Be prepared for a long fight, then, because there is no way I’m sanctioning the birth of any more of my children. Not now. Not ever.”

Kayla forced a smile to her lips. “It doesn’t really matter whether you sanction them or not. You have no say. You signed your paternal rights away, remember?”

“Nothing is ever carved completely in stone, Kayla. And I have more than enough money to ensure that you won’t be permitted to go ahead with this.”

“We’ll see about that,” she answered with an equally determined tone. “You know, I feel sorry for you. You’ve become cold and unfeeling. Somewhere in the last five years you lost your heart.”

* * *

Kayla could barely think straight on the drive home. Some of it she put down to hormones. After all, she’d already begun the preparation for the embryo transfer as soon as she got the letter from the clinic to say they were closing. But now she had to decide if she was going to go through with it. And she had to decide whether to go with the single transfer, like she’d done with Sienna, and hope for the best or take the option of a multiple transfer of both remaining embryos with its higher likelihood of a multiple pregnancy. If only she wasn’t on such a short time frame. She’d budgeted so carefully to ensure she could have her sister’s children without putting herself in dire financial straits. It wasn’t cheap raising a kid, but with lots of overtime, diligent planning and a strict savings plan, she’d tucked away a tidy nest egg. But would it stretch to cover a multiple birth? No matter which way she looked at it, she’d be coming up short somewhere.

Well, she told herself optimistically, it wasn’t as if she couldn’t keep working and continuing to build her nest egg for now—even if the cost of day care for Sienna would now eat into her earnings. She wondered why her housemate, Zoe, had just up and left her like that. No notice, no anything. It was just weird. She and Kayla had enjoyed what Kayla thought was a fair arrangement—in exchange for an allowance, room and board, Zoe cared for Sienna while Kayla was at work. Zoe had never once mentioned she was unhappy with their situation.

Mind you, compared to living on the street, as Zoe had been when Kayla met her—down on her luck and down to her last five dollars—staying with Kayla must have been a massive relief. In fact, it was Zoe, an out-of-work child-care provider, who’d suggested she look after Sienna in the first place. So why had she just up and left?

By the time Kayla reached the two-bedroom apartment she rented on the outskirts of Lakeshore, she was no closer to finding an answer. She let herself inside and put Sienna, who’d fallen asleep in the car, into her crib. Kayla paused and gazed lovingly at the little girl. The daughter of her heart, but very much Sienna and Van’s child at the same time.

Why had Van been so distant, so determined that no more of his and Sienna’s children be born? It didn’t make sense. He’d willingly entered into the arrangement with her sister.

Well, whatever, she would still go ahead. She’d made a vow and she wasn’t going to break it. It would take a lot of planning, a lot of organization—two things that had never been her strong suits. But she’d built those skills over time. She’d needed to, in order to prepare herself for becoming a single mother. The important thing, she knew, was to take things one step at a time. So for now, her first major headache would be getting the baby back into the day care where she’d been before Zoe had moved in.

Kayla reached for her phone and noticed she had a message waiting. She frowned slightly, wondering why she hadn’t heard the phone ring before realizing the sound had been turned off. Strange, she didn’t remember doing that. She started to listen to the message, hoping that maybe it was from Zoe, with an explanation about where the heck she’d taken off to today.

But no, it wasn’t from Zoe—it was an automated message from her bank, notifying her that her account had gone into overdraft. That couldn’t be right—in fact, it had to be downright impossible. Nausea rose in Kayla’s gut as she pulled up her online banking app on her phone and checked her balance. But there it was on the screen, plain to see. The entire balance of her account had transferred out last night. But how...?