Page 18 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

“Oh, yeah?” I reply, trying to keep my voice light, not giving too much away. I want her to come out with it. I’m not going to bring it up—even if there is a part of me that wants to.

“That guy who I saw you with the other day, the one who drove you to this apartment,” she says, leaning forward with interest. “You know him?”

“Mhm.”

I truly don’t know where to start with all of this, but the piercing sharpness of her gaze tells me that she’s not going to let me get away with an answer that vague. She’s a journalist, after all—if there’s one thing she knows how to do, it’s get a story out of someone, even when they might not want to come clean themselves. And right now, I want to dodge her interview questions. I’m not the subject of one of her stories, though she might change her mind when she finds out everything I’ve been up to. I can see the front page now—Woman ruins own life for one-night stand with doctor, more news at ten…

“And how do you know him, exactly? You met him at the hospital…?”

I shake my head. I could try to lie, but I know she’d see right through me. She always does. It’s one of the reasons I came to really like her when we first started working together, when she was covering a press conference at my internship. But now, I feel as though I’m being laid out on the dissection table for her to pick apart at will. Why didn’t I pick a best friend who would be a little more likely to leave well enough alone…?

“Uh…we met before,” I reply, shifting around on the couch nervously. I know she’s going to judge the hell out of me—shit, I’m not sureIam not judging the hell out of me, and I have known about this way longer than she has.

“You did?” she replies, with a frown. “When…?”

“Um. When we….when we…” I trail off, trying to find some way to put this into words that aren’t going to hit her too hard. Finally, after a long sigh, I figure it’s best to just come out with it. I muster up the courage, and then spit it out, the words I want nothing more than to hide.

“When we slept together.”

The coffee cup nearly slips from her hand when I say that, her eyes widening so much it looks as though they’re going to bust out of her head. It would almost be funny, if it weren’t for the fact that I doubt she will ever see me the same way again after this.

“You slept with him? When did that happen?”

“Um…nearly a year ago now, I think?”

I watch as her eyes dart back and forth, doing the math.

“Oh, shit,” she gasps. “Is he…?”

I nod. In some ways, it’s a relief to get it off my chest. I don’t have to keep it from her any more. Finally, she knows who Polly’s father is—even if, judging by the look on her face, she’s waiting with a keen desperation for me to tell her this is all a joke.

“You’re kidding,” she intones, her voice low and heavy. “You’re kidding. Right? Aren’t you?”

I shake my head.

“It happened at that mask party we were at, you remember?” I prompt her. “He was there. It was full of people in the upper echelons, not that weird that a doctor was there?—”

“Yeah, but weird that youfuckedhim!” she hisses, glancing toward the door as though Polly might burst through to warn her about her language at any moment.

“It wasn’t like I went there planning to do anything like that,” I shoot back, feeling a little defensive. “You know I would never do something so?—”

“I knew there was something up with you that night,” she mutters, shaking her head, as she casts her mind back. “I got there late, and when I arrived, I thought there was something strange going on. I just didn’t know how to ask you—shit, if I’d thought it was something like this?—”

“Is it that big a deal?” I wonder aloud. “I mean, so he’s a doctor. So what? That’s the kind of job you’d want your baby daddy to have, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, if that was all he did,” she mutters. The hackles on the back of my neck rise up, and I stare at her.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She leans forward, and reaches out to grip my hand.

“I’m sorry I’m being so blunt,” she murmurs to me, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean to be nasty, I’m just…I’ve been looking into him, that’s all. After he was there when you came back for Polly, on the day of the flood.”

“You’ve been researching him?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow.

She smiles at me. “I’m your best friend,” she reminds me. “It’s my job to worry about the guys you have around. Especially now you have Polly to think about…”

“You found something out about him?” I prompt her. I can’t help but let my mind wander back to the conversation I had with Luca in his office—the way he talked to me, as though he didn’t want me anywhere close to him, only to pull me into hisarms moments later. Perhaps there is more going on here than I know…

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