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He stared at her. “And if I tell you what you think you want to know?”
“Then, it ends here.”
She hoped.
Mercy, it had to end here.
Dr. Keyes gave a curt, brace-yourself nod. “I believe an embryologist who used to work at the clinic might have done some experimental research on asexually replicated cells.”
Delaney mentally repeated that. She understood the individual words, but the term, asexually replicated cells, meant nothing to her. “Try that again in English.”
He opened his mouth and closed it, as if rethinking what he was about to say. Then he shook his head. “The embryologist, William Spears, died about three weeks ago. His records are apparently missing now, and I only got a glimpse of them beforehand, so I’m not exactly sure what he did. I’m not even sure if the embryo you were given was part of his research. In fact, I’m not sure of anything. I only learned what he’d done after he was dead—and that means I’m innocent of any charges this watchdog group might bring against the clinic.”
Using the grip she still had on his jacket, Delaney hauled him closer. “Frankly, I don’t care what part you had in this. All I care about is my son. I need to make sure he’s all right, that someone didn’t manipulate or mutate the embryo so that it could end up harming him.”
That improved his posture. “Is there something wrong with your son?”
“Not that I know of. That’s why I’m here. I want to make sure there’s nothing lurking in his DNA that could turn out to be a deadly time bomb.”
“No time bomb.” More hesitation. Another check around the parking lot. “I don’t believe your son’s DNA was altered.”
The breath of relief instantly formed in her lungs and then stalled there, because that wasn’t a relief-generating look on the doctor’s face. “Then what did you do to him?”
“Me personally? Nothing.” He groaned and kicked at the puddle of rain that was deepening around their feet. “Asexually replicated cells aren’t mutated or altered. They’re just that—asexually reproduced.”
Delaney wished she’d paid more attention in her Biology 101 class at Texas A&M. She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Dr. Keyes lowered his voice to a whisper. “Your son’s embryo was cloned.”
She pulled in her breath. “Cloned?” The grip she had on the doctor’s jacket melted away, and Delaney’s hand dropped to her side.
“Yes. I only got a quick look at Dr. Spears’s records, but he claims to have taken the DNA from a six-week-old male infant who died two years ago right here in San Antonio in an automobile accident that killed both the baby and his mother.”
A sickening feeling of dread came over her.
Two years ago.
A car accident.
A child and mother left dead.
Delaney was positive there’d been plenty of other accidents, other deaths during that time frame. But only one incident came to mind.
“It’s possible that you might have received the cloned embryo from that infant,” Dr. Keyes said.
Delaney felt herself stagger, and because she had no choice, she leaned against a nearby car.
An experimentally cloned embryo.
The genetic copy of a child who had already been born.
And died.
Delaney tried to respond, tried to question that. She tried to accuse Dr. Keyes of lying. Yes, that was it. He had to be lying. But she couldn’t make herself say anything. Her throat clamped shut, and the tightness in her chest squeezed like a fist.
“If the information in that record is correct,” the doctor continued. He waited until Delaney’s eyes came back to his. “Then, the child you gave birth to is Ryan McCall’s son.”
Chapter Two
Ryan McCall cursed the storm. It was a brutal reminder of the gaping wound that just wouldn’t heal.
The rain had been relentless, going on for hours. And each new assault against the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of his office drew him out of the concentration that he was fighting hard to maintain.
Concentration he desperately needed tonight.
Ryan tried—again—to lose himself in the quarterly business projections for his company, McCall Industries. A vital report. One he needed to absorb and study so he could give input to his department heads. It worked. Well, it worked for a minute or two anyway. And then there was another wave of rain. Another burst of wind.
Another stir of painful memories he didn’t want.
It had rained the afternoon of the accident two years ago. Violent weather, violent consequences. The connection wasn’t logical, but it was there nonetheless. Ryan considered it a battle to fight, and win.
Eventually.
That’s why he didn’t close the curtains. One way or another, he would conquer this particular demon just as he’d conquered all the others in his life.
The buzzing sound of the intercom echoed through the room only seconds before he heard the familiar voice of his household manager, Lena Sanchez. “Sorry to interrupt you, boss, but you have a visitor at the front gate.”
Ryan automatically checked the antique Seth Thomas clock on the polished-stone-and-mahogany mantel. It was just after seven-thirty. Not late, but since his estate wasn’t exactly on the beaten path, it was hardly the hour for an unexpected guest. And an unwanted one. Ryan didn’t have to know the person’s identity to determine that. Anyone was unwanted at this point. He was not in a receiving-visitors kind of mood.
“It’s Delaney Nash,” Lena added, sounding concerned. “And she said it’s important.”
That captured Ryan’s attention.
Tossing the report aside, he reached over, accessed the security feed on his computer and zoomed in on the wrought-iron gate that fronted his estate. Even through the thick gray rain and the dusky light, he had no trouble spotting the blue car. Or the woman sitting behind the wheel. Her window was halfway down, and she was staring blankly at the intercom and security camera, apparently waiting for Lena to open the gate so she could visit.
Even though Ryan knew her name as well as his own, he’d yet to meet Delaney Nash, the woman he’d spoken to and corresponded with too many times to count. That didn’t mean he wanted their first meeting to happen tonight. Still, there was something about her ashen face and shell-shocked stare that had him reconsidering if he would let her in.
She looked upset. And her shoulder-length coffee-colored hair was plastered against her head and cheeks. She’d obviously had a run-in with the rain, and she didn’t look any more pleased about her encounter with the precipitation than he was.
“What does she want?” Ryan asked Lena.
“She said it was personal. That she urgently needed to speak to you.”
Of course it was personal. It couldn’t be anything but. Old scores to settle and all of that. And the urgent part? Well, that was expected, too. Things always seemed urgent when it came to the Nash family.
This little visit was no doubt about her father. Maybe he’d attempted suicide again. Or maybe Richard Nash had filed yet another frivolous lawsuit to right the wrong that he felt had been done to him. Either way, it couldn’t be good.
“She’s probably here to try to kill me,” Ryan mumbled under his breath.
And it wasn’t a joke.
A thought like that should normally have elicited fear or at least a sense of dread, but it’d been a while since he’d felt fear. That could happen when a man had lost everything: the woman he loved and their child.
There was literally nothing left for him to fear.
Or lose.
What he’d dreaded most had already happened.
“Open the gate,” Ryan instructed Lena. “Show her in.”
At least Delaney Nash would be a distraction from the storm. Sad but true. He preferred to face an irate, possibly homicidal, adversary than deal with the blasted conditioned responses caused by the weather.
“Lena, do a quick background check on Ms. Nash,” Ryan added, because, while he didn’t mind the distraction, he preferred to be informed. Especially if Ms. Nash had come with murder on her mind. “I haven’t kept tabs on her or her father in a while.”
“Sure, boss.”
Ryan watched as the gates slid open. Delaney Nash wasted no time. Once she had adequate space, she gunned the engine and started the half-mile uphill drive that would bring her to his doorstep.
He winced when she took one of the curves way too fast. Her tires skidded through slick asphalt, and for a second, one horrible gut-tightening second, Ryan thought she might lose control of her vehicle and crash into the massive oaks that lined the road.
She didn’t.
No frantic flash of brake lights. She simply slowed down until she finally came to a stop in the covered entryway of the main house.
“Delaney Elizabeth Nash,” Lena said through the intercom. One of the servants opened the front door and escorted his visitor inside. “She’s twenty-nine, lives in San Antonio. No police record. She owns a day-care center—small but apparently thriving.”
Nothing new. Ryan was already aware of those details. “Anything recent on her or her father?”
Ryan gave the security feed another adjustment so he could follow Ms. Nash’s little journey through the foyer and onto the wide spiraling stairs that would take her eventually to his office. Unlike other visitors, not once did she stop or even glance at her surroundings. She kept her attention pinned straight ahead. Zombielike.
Or so he thought.
Until Ryan zoomed in on her face. Definitely not zombie material. She was determined. Which meant his theory about her being there to kill him might not be so far off the mark.
He glanced at the purse she was practically hugging to her chest. Did she have a gun in there? More importantly, had she come prepared to use it? Maybe something had set her off and brought their old feud back to the surface.
“She had a baby four months ago,” Lena continued. “A son named Patrick Thomas Nash.”
Interesting. Not just because he’d never thought of her as the motherly type but because the child had the same surname as hers. “So she’s not married?”
“No.”
“Save any further details for later,” Ryan said to Lena when the servant knocked at his office door.
It was showtime.
“Should I monitor this visit?” Lena asked.
Monitor. As in keep a close watch through the security cameras in case Ms. Nash went ballistic. “No. I expect this won’t take long.” And in a louder voice, he instructed Ms. Nash to enter.
The door opened. Slowly. And even though there was no eerie creaking sound from the hinges, the room suddenly seemed to take on the ambiance of a horror movie in which the rain and wind battered the glass and a woman, who no doubt hated him enough to kill him, was slowly revealed.
While she stood in the doorway, with the richly stained mahogany framing her, her gaze slid around the room until it landed on him. Only then did she take a step inside. Not a cautious and calculating step, either. She entered with the same determination that she’d had on her trek up the stairs.
He’d been right about the rain doing a real number on her. Her jacket and slim above-the-knee skirt were blotched. There wasn’t a dry spot on her hair, and not much left of her makeup. Nothing except a trace of peach-colored lipstick.
And she looked as if she’d been crying.
That sent a weird curl of emotion through him. It was such a foreign feeling, one he hadn’t had in a long time, that it took Ryan a moment to identify it. But those tear-reddened, jade-green eyes brought out more than a few protective instincts in his body.
Whoa.
That was a truly stupid reaction.
Because Delaney Nash certainly wasn’t feeling protective toward him.
“Did your father send you?” Ryan asked in an effort to change his train of thought.
She blinked, as if shocked by his question. And her shock surprised Ryan, because he’d been almost certain this visit was about Richard Nash.
“This has nothing to do with my father.”
She walked closer, her thin, delicate heels clicking like heartbeats on the hardwood floor, and stopped in front of his desk. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. So slowly that it caused her bottom lip to tremble. “I have a favor to ask.”
Yet another surprise, and one that had probably cost her an ample amount of Nash pride. She would no doubt rather eat razor blades than come to him for a favor. Or for anything.
“What do you want?” Ryan tried to sound nonchalant but figured he failed. He was anything but nonchalant. This rain-soaked woman, his enemy, had piqued his curiosity.
Among other things.
That trembling bottom lip and her teary eyes were touching places in his heart that he never wanted touched again. Realizing what was happening, Ryan did a detach. He took a mental step back, put on his best corporate sneer and gave her a callous go-ahead prompt with his hand.
She nodded, nodded again and swallowed hard. “I need to see a picture of your son.”
Well, that shot the hell out of his corporate sneer and mental step back. He couldn’t stay detached after that. Ryan leaned forward. “Excuse me?”
“I went to the library and looked through all the old newspapers.” A raindrop slipped from the ends of her hair and spattered on his desk. She immediately reached down to wipe it away. “But there wasn’t a picture of him.”
Because Ryan had refused to give one to the papers. He hadn’t wanted anyone, especially strangers, to see his infant son. It was a grief, a hurt so deep, that Ryan hadn’t wanted to share it.
He still didn’t.
“Why?” he asked, aware that the one word encompassed a lot. Not the least of which, he figured it would generate an explanation. Not necessarily a good explanation. Because after all, this was the daughter of a mentally unstable man who’d repeatedly threatened to kill him.
“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”
“Try,” Ryan insisted.
