Easy guess. Not that it mattered. “Are you so envious, Vanessa? So jaded that Blake didn’t marry you?”

Vanessa tossed her head back with a laugh. “Oh, please. That manipulating bastard. It’s easier to see his true nature when you’re not close to him. Too bad you didn’t notice before,” Vanessa let her voice drift off as her eyes settled to Samantha’s stomach.

Sam placed a hand over her waist as if protecting her child from the woman’s stare.

“Blake is one of the most caring people I’ve known.”

“Blake cares only for himself. I wonder though, did he ask you to have his baby, or did he ‘accidently’ forget to cover up one night?” Vanessa used her fingers in air quotes.

Their conversation was toppling off weird and plunging toward bizarre. “I don’t have time for you, Vanessa. If you’ll excuse me.”

Samantha edged away but Vanessa grasped onto her arm.

“My God, you really have no idea, do you?”

Sam tugged her arm, but the other woman didn’t let go. A strange wave of panic hit her. Much like the feeling a dog must get before an earthquake happens, everything in Samantha went silent.

“You know Blake needs an heir for his inheritance, don’t you?”

What?

Vanessa’s smile lifted high on her face and her hand drifted back to her side. “Poor girl. How did he do it I wonder? Did he hide your pills? Or poke holes in the condoms?”

Sam’s jaw started to ache. She held so tight to her control she felt the muscles in her neck ready to snap. What the hell was Vanessa talking about?

Then the words of Parker returned to her ears. I see you’ve secured all your father’s requests.

Not giving Vanessa anything more, Samantha turned on her heel and fled the store.

The furnace heat of New York plastered her hair to her head as she put distance between herself and the viper.

Blake needs an heir for his inheritance. The words echoed inside her brain. Could they be true? If they were, it made sense as to why Blake was so accepting of the one thing Samantha knew he didn’t want from his temporary marriage. No wonder he hadn’t flipped a fuse when she’d announced her pregnancy. Hadn’t so much as shrugged a shoulder. Had he even been surprised?

No, she didn’t think so now that she thought about it.

It wasn’t as if he needed more promises to her because of the baby. Not really.

He’d offered to be a good dad, be there for the baby anyway.

Refusing to let emotion completely control her mind, Samantha hailed a cab and worked her way uptown to the condominium Blake owned on the east coast.

She’d visited there twice now, both on trips back and forth to Europe. It was just after noon when she made her way into the cool air of the guarded door of the building.

Keeping her sunglasses on and avoiding any looks of concern, Samantha waved at the doorman and made it to the bank of elevators.

Unlike their Malibu home, here there weren’t maids or cooks to contend with.

Tossing the forgotten bags on the sofa, Samantha turned on the laptop in the extra room Blake used as an office. She needed to find a few facts out before confronting Blake about what Vanessa had said.

The birth rate of people using condoms had bugged her from the beginning. Responsible men like Blake used condoms their entire adult lives and managed to avoid the title of Daddy. So what had changed? Why with her?

As her fingers clicked away on the keyboard, she pulled up several health and wellness sites about condoms, their use, their effectiveness. It wasn’t until she found a website titled, why do condoms fail, that she held any hope to find anything useful.

Typical information was spouted off. Breaking condoms, but that hadn’t happened. Not that Samantha had noticed in any event. There was a discussion of women interviewed who ended up in the two percent category. On several occasions they confessed to improper use, breaks, expired latex.

Even then, she and Blake had had sex for only a month before she found herself pregnant. It was as if they hadn’t used any protection at all.

How could a man ensure a woman’s pregnancy?

Even in the heat of desire, they’d been responsible.

Samantha pushed away from the desk and worked her way into their bedroom. They’d used the room en route to their reception, so it stood to reason that the box of condoms they’d pulled from would still be in the bedside table.

It was.

Samantha glanced at the expiration date, which was still several months out. The box was nearly empty. She took the box into the bathroom and pulled one of the foil packets out. Careful not to cause any damage, she opened the packet and removed the contents. It didn’t look damaged.

On instinct, she pressed its edges to the faucet on the sink and turned on the water. At first, nothing happened.

But as she turned off the water, and watched the tip of the condom, a small drop started to leak from the tip.

Samantha’s heart fell deep inside her chest as she watched a steady drip, drip, drip of leaking fluid exit the condom.

Her lip trembled and her hands started to shake. The rubber dropped to the sink and Samantha removed another one. The same thing happened.

Unable to believe her eyes, or what her mind was screaming, Samantha removed yet a third condom from the package, and returned to the room. She turned off the overhead lights, placed the foiled packet over a single bulb from a lamp, and turned it on.

A single miniscule beam of light fled the plastic like a beacon.

In all their honesty, all their talk of being open, Blake had executed his need for an heir and manipulated her into thinking it was no more than an accident.