Caitlin had left the door open and Dex walked inside. He heard her sobs and took the stairs two at a time, following the sound of her voice.
He entered the bedroom at the precise moment she reached for a tan-colored jacket that was tossed across a chair. The masculine decor of the room, smelling of pipe tobacco, had been her father’s. Clutching the jacket to her chest, her shoulders began to shake.
Dex swiftly crossed the room and gently pulled Caitlin into his arms. Once again the need to protect and shield her from pain overwhelmed him.
She tried pulling herself out of his arms, but his hold on her tightened. “You don’t have to take care of this now, Caitlin. Come downstairs and let me get you something to eat before I leave to go check into the hotel.”
She trembled in response to the tenderness in his voice and shook her head against his shoulder. “I—I need to tell you about Jordan, Dex.”
Dex attempted to control the anger renewing itself within him at the mention of the man’s name. “Not now, Caitlin. We’ll talk later. I’ll come back, after you’ve rested.”
“No, Dex. We need to talk now. Jordan is…”
Caitlin didn’t finish the statement. She felt Dex’s body push away from her. Gazing up into his face, she saw a nerve in his jaw twitch. Harsh lines etched his face. Her gaze followed his and came to rest on the picture frame sitting on her father’s dresser.
A suffocating sensation overtook Caitlin. She stepped back out of Dex’s arms. She watched as he walked over to the dresser and picked up the frame. Her breath caught in her throat when he stood studying the photograph of her and the little girl who sat in her lap. He turned to her, his expression stony, his eyes narrowing. “Who’s this in the picture with you?”
Caitlin’s voice was barely a whisper when she responded. “Jordan.”
Dex stared at her in both shock and surprise. Jordan wasn’t a man but a little girl? He gazed at the photograph he held in his hand, closely examining the face of the little girl. He studied the abundance of black wavy hair entwined into two fat braids, the shape of her nut-brown face, the curve of her eyebrows, the thick lashes fanning her eyes and the fullness of her lips. But what really caught his attention was the color of her eyes. They were charcoal-gray. The photographer’s camera had picked up the color perfectly.
A heaviness erupted in his chest. “How old is she, Caitlin?” His question thundered loudly in the room.
Caitlin’s voice was filled with apprehension when she answered. “She turned three on March first.”
Dex’s gaze never left Caitlin as he stared in disbelief. He began doing calculations in his head. If she was born the first of March then she was conceived the end of May, during the first week of their marriage.
Dex’s jaw hardened as his anger escalated. He knew without a doubt he was looking into the face of his child. A child he’d known nothing about. He also had a sinking feeling as to why Caitlin’s father had gone through so much trouble to preserve their marriage, and why Caitlin still used his name.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked in a voice that shook with rage. “How could you not let me know I had a child? What kind of a woman are you to keep something like that a secret? It was just fine and dandy that you didn’t want me, but you had no right keeping the existence of my daughter from me. You had no right at all, lady!”
Anger washed over Caitlin. She stood facing him, her body stiff with indignation. “I didn’t try keeping anything from you. I didn’t find out that I was pregnant until after I’d filed for divorce, Dex. But I did write to you when I found out. How could you think I wouldn’t tell you? She belonged to you as much as she belonged to me. I would never have kept her existence from you. Never.”
A quiet uncertainty lingered in Dex’s stare as his hard gaze touched Caitlin. “I never got a letter from you, Caitlin.”
“But I sent it, and you never responded,” she said louder than she had wanted.
Her statement slashed through him. “I didn’t answer because I didn’t get a letter. If I had, I would have responded.” Dex couldn’t help but wonder if the envelope in his pocket, the one given to him by Dr. Flores, contained the missing letter. How far had Halston Parker gone to keep him away from Caitlin and from ever finding out about his child? Caitlin should have come to him in Australia like she’d promised. He could never forgive her for not doing so.
“For the sake of argument,” Dex said in a controlled tone. They weren’t getting anywhere raising their voices at each other. “Let’s say you did send the letter. Weren’t you concerned when I didn’t write back or call?” he asked curtly.
“No. I assumed you hated me for choosing to stay with my father instead of coming to you. I thought you—”
“You thought I didn’t want my child?” Dex thundered. An incredulous look of disbelief crossed his face. He quickly strode across the room. Snatching her wrist, he pulled her closer to him. “What kind of man do you think I am?” he asked, his dark eyes blazing with fury. “How could you think what happened between us could’ve had any bearing on how I felt for my child, my own flesh and blood?”
Caitlin snatched her hand from him. She tilted her chin and glared up at him. “I wrote you.”
“I have no proof of that. Besides, if I didn’t reply to the first letter the decent thing would have been to write again or even call. They do have telephones in Australia, and you had my number. Something that important deserved a phone call. Your flimsy excuse won’t wash with me, Caitlin. And what about my family? If you couldn’t reach me, all you had to do was get in touch with them. Any one of them would have been more than happy to hear from you.”
“I’d met them only once. I thought they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. We were no longer married, and I’d hurt you. I thought they despised me for what I’d done to you. When I didn’t hear from you, I assumed the worst.”
Caitlin struggled mentally for a few seconds, telling herself she needed to make Dex understand. “Can’t you see I had my doubts, Dex? You’re right. I should have known you better. But as far as I’m concerned, you should have known me just as well. The truth of the matter is that we really didn’t know each other at all. Everything between us happened so fast. We got caught up in a whirlwind romance that quickly moved into marriage.”
“If you felt that way, why did you marry me? Why didn’t you turn me down when I asked you to become my wife?”
“Because I wanted to be with you. You swept me off my feet, Dex, and at the time, nothing else mattered, not the short time we’d known each other, nor how my father would react to the news of our hasty marriage. There were so many things we didn’t know about each other.”
Dex’s jaw hardened. “We knew enough. You should have known the most important thing about me, Caitlin. You should have known how I felt about you. I didn’t want an affair with you for those three weeks. I wanted more, I wanted forever. I made the mistake of thinking that you did, too.”
“No, Dex, you didn’t make a mistake. I did want forever. But after you left for Australia, I began having my doubts about a lot of things. And when you didn’t answer my letter, I accepted what I thought was your decision not to want your child. I continued on with my life. But I never once gave up hope that one day you would want to see her. I’ve not once kept Jordan in the dark about you, even when I thought you didn’t want her. She began asking questions about her daddy when she noticed all of her friends had fathers and she didn’t. She knows all about you. Although I didn’t have any pictures of you to show her, Jordan knows who her father is.”
Dex frowned. She was right about not having any pictures. There hadn’t been a lot of time for any. The only photo of them together had been the one his mother had taken when he’d taken Caitlin home to meet his family.
He moved toward the window. He looked