Judith McWilliams - Another Man's Baby

The warm, happy sound of her laughter rolled over Philip’s annoyance, vanquishing it. Intrigued, Philip watched the way her soft lips quirked at the corners. He wanted to take her in his arms and press his mouth against her quivering lips. To absorb her laughter into his own body.

If this was the side of her personality that she’d shown to Creon, it was no wonder that he’d... No! Philip emphatically banished the traitorous thought.

“You finish the boy. I’m going to take a shower.” He stalked toward his bathroom, angry at himself for even considering that she might be telling the truth. Creon wouldn’t have done such a despicable thing to Lydia, and he was dishonoring Creon’s memory by even considering the idea.

Philip’s abrupt exit successfully stilled Ginny’s mirth, and she hurried over to the bed before Damon rolled over and fell off.

“Poor little angel,” she murmured soothingly as she deftly diapered him. “Don’t you worry. I don’t hold it against you. Come on, love. Let’s get some food into your tummy and then you can go to sleep.”

Picking Damon up, she went back to the living room and, sitting down on the very comfortable sofa, popped the nipple into Damon’s mouth. He began to gulp the formula down as if he were in imminent danger of starvation.

Damon polished off his bottle in record time, and Ginny was trying to coax a burp out of him when the phone suddenly rang. She glanced from the phone on the end table to the hallway that led to Philip’s bedroom. Was he still in the shower? Would he want her to answer it?

But even if she did answer it, the person calling might not speak English.

“Should I answer it?” Ginny asked Damon, who wrinkled his button nose and then emitted a huge burp. She chuckled and kissed his downy head. “My sentiments exactly. We’ll...”

She turned at the muffled sound of footsteps on the thick carpeting behind her.

Two

Ginny tensed as she watched Philip stride across the living room. He was wearing a short, white towel wrapped around his lean waist, and nothing else. She stared at his broad chest in fascination. It was covered with a thick pelt of dark hair that intrigued her. She wanted to run her hands over it and see what it felt like. To find out if it were soft and silky or crisp and abrasive.

Mesmerized, Ginny watched the supple movement of the muscles beneath his tautly stretched skin as he picked up the phone. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Anywhere. Her eyes drifted lower, down over his flat hips and strong legs. Her mouth dried as she watched water droplets trickle down his legs. Slowly, enticingly, the drops caressed his flesh as they meandered downward. She wanted to follow their path. To trace over it with her fingertips and then with her lips.

Philip gestured emphatically as he responded to something his caller had said, and Ginny shivered as Philip’s towel momentarily parted, giving her a tantalizing glimpse of his masculinity. Her eyelids felt heavy, and a tightness was wrapping itself around her chest, making it difficult to take a deep breath.

This was crazy! She made a valiant effort to regain control of her wayward responses. How could she be sitting here all but drooling over a man that she barely knew, and what little she did know she didn’t like? It made no sense.

Ginny tried closing her eyes to shut out the temptation, but it didn’t help. She found Philip’s powerful body clearly imprinted on the back of her eyelids.

Flustered, she opened her eyes and tried concentrating on Damon, but it didn’t help. All she could think about was how closely the color of Damon’s hair matched Philip’s.

It’s only a mindless chemical reaction, she assured herself. Purely physical. The kind of thing that writers had been immortalizing in song and legend since time immemorial. And the very ferocity of her attraction guaranteed that it would quickly consume itself and burn out. A seed of doubt floated through her mind, but she refused to allow it to take root. She was a competent, modern woman who was more than capable of handling an unwanted sexual attraction, starting right now. She would look at him and see nothing but a superb physical specimen.

Ginny slowly raised her head and looked at Philip. Only a superb physical... Her determination wavered as he raised his hand and the muscles in his chest rippled. She found herself wondering what it would feel like if he were to hold her close to his chest. Close enough to feel the movement of those muscles. Close enough...

“No, I don’t think the boy is Creon’s.”

Philip’s curt words ripped through the sensual fog that had entrapped her, and her arms tightened protectively around Damon’s defenseless little body. Grimly, Ginny bit back a furious retort. Yelling at him wouldn’t help Beth. It would only make Philip feel justified in his pigheaded opinion. Besides, what Philip Lysander thought wasn’t all that important in the final analysis, she reminded herself. It was what Jason Papas thought that counted.

“We’ll be there tomorrow morning, Jason.” Philip hung up the phone and turned to Ginny, frowning when he noticed how rigidly she was holding herself in the chair. She looked brittle enough to break, and there was a deep flush on her pale cheeks.

“Umm...” he began, not sure what he wanted to say.

“What?” Ginny clipped the word out, her eyes focused on a point beyond his left shoulder.

Was she embarrassed? he wondered. Embarrassed because he had so easily seen through her lies? Or angry that he had?

He watched as she leaned over the boy and the light from the lamp created golden sparkles in her hair. How could she look like a Botticelli Madonna and yet have had an affair with another woman’s husband?

Philip watched the graceful movement of her hand and she swept back a tendril of hair that had escaped her chignon. What would it feel like to have her hair brush across his skin? He clenched his teeth as he felt himself reacting to the thought. The urge to touch her again was fast reaching a compulsion. A compulsion that worried him. He knew her to be a fraud, preying on a sick old man, so how could he be attracted to her?

“No one is ever going to believe that you’re supposed to be my lover,” he snapped, irritated at the way she refused to look at him. As if he were the one who was doing something wrong.

Ginny cautiously looked up and then wished she hadn’t when her eyes landed on the slight swell visible beneath his towel. Determinedly, she dragged her gaze upward to his face.

“Might I remind you that pretending we are lovers was your bright idea, not mine,” she said. “No one who knows me would believe it.”

“Why not?”

“Because the men I date are all calm, reasonable men who examine the facts before they leap to conclusions.”

“They sound like bloodless bores!”

Ginny frowned at him, refusing to admit even to herself that some of them had been just the faintest bit stultifying.

“They are men of high principles.” She retreated into platitudes.

“You’re trying to tell me that your dates have all been men of high principles, and yet you claim that a married man is your son’s father?” he asked scathingly.

“Be—” Ginny hastily caught herself and rushed on. “I didn’t know he was married. He certainly never said so.”

“He wore a wedding ring.”

“Not in New York he didn’t! And all that’s immaterial.” Ginny tried to redirect the conversation. She most emphatically didn’t want to discuss her love life—such as it was—with Philip. She was edgy enough.

“It isn’t immaterial that no one will believe that we are lovers.”

“You could take out a newspaper ad!”

“Lovers should be comfortable around each other,” he persisted.