Jasmine Cresswell - Suspect

Liam’s expression remained controlled but she saw a faint flicker of emotion in his eyes before he once again retreated behind his mask of impassivity. “You’re claiming that your daughter was conceived at the Grovelands’ party?”

“She was conceived in a motel on Hampden Avenue, but we met at the Grovelands’ house in Cherry Creek. Do you remember the occasion? It was the year the Grovelands threw a fancy dress party.”

Liam’s eyes narrowed and the faintest trace of color flared along his cheekbones. The color vanished almost as soon as it appeared. “I remember the party,” he admitted.

“You came as John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States.” And he’d damn near taken her breath away in the velvet coat and ruffled cravat of an eighteenth century gentleman.

Liam said nothing.

“I came dressed as Cleopatra,” she added.

His head jerked up, but his face still gave away nothing.

He remembers, Chloe thought. Thank God. She was relieved that he had some recollection of their time together, even if the memory hadn’t been scalded into his soul.

Given how smooth Liam’s seduction techniques had been, Chloe suspected that sleeping with a woman he barely knew was his standard operating procedure. But from her perspective, their encounter had been infinitely memorable, and not just because Liam had been a fantastic lover, or even because of the epic fact that it had resulted in Sophie’s conception. It had also been her single foray into adultery. No point in telling him that, though. He certainly wouldn’t believe her.

“My costume explains why you didn’t recognize me,” she said. “I wore lots of eye makeup and a dark wig. Almost nobody recognized me that night.”

“Tell me something, Mrs. Hamilton.” She was sure Liam’s continued use of her married name was intended as an insult, not as a mark of professional courtesy. “Did you deliberately set out to get pregnant that night, or was I just the lucky son of a bitch who happened to be hanging around when you felt in the mood to get laid?”

“I didn’t plan to get pregnant. I swear I didn’t.” On her good days, Chloe was almost sure that was true. On her bad days, she considered that, mere hours before the party began, she’d discovered Jason was sterile. Not only that, but he’d known of his sterility for over two years and had chosen not to tell her, for fear that she would leave him. She’d gone to the Grovelands’ party in a volatile state somewhere between furious anger and extreme despair.

But surely even in that dangerous mood she’d been smart enough to realize that the solution to the multiple problems of her marriage was divorce? She couldn’t have been brainless enough to think that getting herself impregnated by a virtual stranger was a smart or correct thing to do.

“It’s highly unlikely you conceived your daughter that night we were together,” Liam said tersely. “I know I used a condom. I always use condoms.”

“Condoms aren’t fool proof. There’s something like a five percent failure rate.”

Liam’s gaze touched hers. “Well, hell, didn’t I get lucky?” He gave a short, hard laugh. “One chance in twenty and you’re claiming I hit the jackpot?”

Chloe drew in a shaky breath. “I’m quite sure you’re Sophie’s father but we can arrange for a DNA test if you want to be one hundred percent certain. There are plenty of labs that will make the identification without needing to know the names of the people being tested.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Whose identity are you trying to protect, Mrs. Hamilton? Mine or yours?”

“Everyone’s,” she said. “Especially Sophie’s. If there’s anything we can agree on, surely it’s the fact that she’s the one completely innocent person in all of this.”

“I’m feeling pretty innocent myself,” Liam said curtly. “I didn’t go to the party planning to have sex with a married woman. More to the point, I came away not knowing I had.”

“I didn’t plan to commit adultery, either. I’m not in the habit of sleeping around.”

“That’s hard to believe. You were married, Mrs. Hamilton, but you told me—more than once, in more ways than one—that you were single.”

She made the mistake of attempting to justify the inexcusable. “Jason and I had an argument right before we left for the Grovelands’ New Year’s Eve party. We both said some hurtful things and I was in a reckless mood by the time you and I met.”

Liam’s expression remained controlled but she realized that his anger was rapidly escalating toward the tipping point. “So I was your therapy for the night? A little bit of sex on the side to get back at your husband?”

The wretched truth was that her flirtation with Liam had started out pretty much as something that sordid and that unforgivable. She’d just never intended to let the situation progress beyond mild flirtation. “You’re sounding very self-righteous,” she said quietly. “But I seem to recall that you were the person who put the moves on me, not the other way around.”

It was absolutely the wrong thing to have said. Liam leaned across the desk, his hands gripping the edge until his knuckles gleamed white. Probably so that he didn’t give in to the temptation to bop her one, Chloe thought wryly.

“You’re forgetting one minor fact,” Liam said, teeth clenched. “I had every right to solicit sex with you because I wasn’t married! I wasn’t even dating seriously. You, on the other hand, had a husband.”

“It was wrong of me, I know—”

“Wrong? A little more than that, Mrs. Hamilton. Do you happen to remember that annoying bit in the marriage vows where you promised to remain faithful and hang in there when times got tough? As I recall, there’s absolutely nothing in the wedding ceremony that says adultery is okay if the spouses have had a spat before they leave for a party.”

He was quite right. There was no defense for what she’d done, and Chloe felt her face burn with shame for the lies she’d told when they first met—and since. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Except that I can’t regret what happened that night because I have Sophie as a result.”

“Unfortunately, I can and do regret what happened that night, Mrs. Hamilton, precisely because you have Sophie.”

“If you’d ever met her, you’d know that she’s the most wonderful person—”

“But I haven’t met my own daughter, and that’s the point, isn’t it?” He looked at her with shriveling scorn. “Did your husband know that Sophie wasn’t his child? Come to think of it, why are you so sure Jason isn’t her father?”

There was no way to preserve Jason’s privacy at this point. “My husband is…he was sterile.”

“So how did you explain the fact of your pregnancy to him?”

“He was shocked when I told him, of course—”

“You have a gift for understatement, Mrs. Hamilton.”

She ignored his mockery and plowed on doggedly. “Jason was shocked and upset, but once Sophie was born, he fell in love with her. She is…she became Jason’s daughter in every way, except biologically. He loved her as much as I do.”

“As a divorce lawyer, I find that hard to believe. My experience strongly suggests that men have a difficult time accepting living proof of their wife’s infidelity.”

“Hard to believe or not, it’s the truth.” For once, the whole truth and nothing but. Jason had adored Sophie and been grateful for her existence.

“In case this hasn’t occurred to you, the cops are going to find your husband’s supposedly forgiving attitude impossibly hard to believe.” Liam sounded grim.

She stared at him, appalled. “Why do the police have to know Jason isn’t Sophie’s father? What on earth does my daughter’s biological background have to do with Jason’s murder?”