Wife By Deception. Donna Sterling
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the right to joint custody.
And he didn’t know Camryn was dead.
“You can’t just take her like this. She doesn’t know you,” Kate told him, reasoning with a frantic urgency. “She’ll be frightened. She needs me.”
“She’s my daughter, and she doesn’t know me. Whose fault is that?” His eyes blazed; his mouth pulled taut. “I’m taking her. And I’m suing for full custody.”
Kate’s lips parted, but no sound emerged. She shook her head in protest, her vision clouding with a sudden blur. Every maternal instinct in her cried out against handing her sweet baby girl over to this angry stranger. Where would he take her? Why did he want her? Again she remembered Camryn’s claim that he’d been violent. He certainly seemed to be, the way he’d forced his way into her home and manhandled her. She had to think. Think!
She forced words through her clenched throat. “Let me bring her in now for supper. She’ll be hungry.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve packed plenty of provisions for her.”
Her panic escalated. “I’m bringing her in.” She made a move to brush past him.
He caught her by the shoulders. “She’s not there anymore.”
Her eyes widened; her heart slowed. “What do you mean?”
“She’s with…friends. Until I can join them.”
When the news sank in, Kate cried out in pain and beat against his chest with fists to free herself from his grip. “Let me go! I’ve got to stop them. I can’t let them take her like that.”
He caught her fists, forced her arms behind her back and held her against his chest. When her struggles proved fruitless, she closed her eyes and swallowed a hysterical sob. In pained disbelief, she murmured, “You didn’t even let me tell her goodbye.”
“Did you let me tell her goodbye before you ran with her?”
Easing out of his loosened grasp, she refused to feel empathy for him. Camryn obviously had had good reason to run. Violence simmered beneath his surface like a pot about to boil over. She’d felt it in his grip, heard it in his voice, seen it in his gaze. “She isn’t ready to leave home right now. She won’t have any of her clothes or her toys.” At a sudden remembrance, an ache went through her. “She won’t even have her blanket.”
“Her blanket? I have blankets. Plenty of blankets.”
“But you don’t have hers!” she shouted, glaring at him. “You don’t care that she needs it to fall asleep at night, do you.” Her lips trembled. She bit down on them, then added, “She holds it against her cheek and sucks her thumb.” Though she tried to suppress the tears, they seeped from the outside corners of her eyes. She buried her face in her hands and succumbed to quiet sobs.
He shook her and issued a curt order. “That’s enough. Stop the crying.”
She sucked in her breath, sobs and all. Her chin came up, and her bottom lip tightened. The man was heartless. He was tearing a baby away from the only home she’d ever known, without any preparation at all.
“Go get her blanket,” he said.
Stiffly she turned from him, and he followed her to the bedroom she had decorated as a nursery, with yellow walls, bright rainbows and teddy bears. The sight of the nursery now choked her with new tears, but she mastered them. The effort grew more difficult when she found the small patchwork blanket Arianne called her “bankie.” Reverently Kate lifted it from the crib, savoring the softness and the subtle baby scent that clung to it. How could she live without Arianne?
“Here it is.” Kate thrust it at him. “When she cries for her bankie,” she finished on a whisper, “this is what she wants.”
He took it and met her gaze. She saw only cold determination there. “Pack the rest of her things. Anything she might want.”
She’d never met a man as cold and unfeeling. He looked so foreign and invasive in the cozy nursery—huge, hard and forbidding. She sensed a hair-trigger readiness about him, and knew that if she made one wrong move, he’d grab her.
She had to come up with a plan. She couldn’t let this hateful stranger carry her niece off to an unknown future. Yet what could she do? She had no idea where he’d sent Arianne. She had no idea where he lived.
If he disappeared now, she might never find Arianne again.
Should she tell him she wasn’t Camryn—that her twin had died? Perhaps his attitude would soften, and he’d handle the matter with compassion and reason. Then again, he might simply leave, glad to be rid of Camryn once and for all.
She couldn’t let him go until she knew more.
“I’ll have to get a suitcase to pack her things,” Kate told him, stalling for time. She couldn’t very well ask his name or where he lived without alerting him to the fact that she wasn’t Camryn.
“Where do you keep your suitcases?” he asked.
“The hall closet.”
“Lead the way.” He trailed her to the closet and watched as she pulled out a sturdy gray suitcase. “Pack one with Arianne’s things, and another for yourself.”
She glanced at him in surprise as hope surged through her. Had she convinced him that Arianne needed her, at least temporarily? “You’re letting me come?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. In fact, I insist you do. You see, we have a date with a certain judge, you and I.”
“A judge?” She frowned, perplexed. “In court? About…custody?”
He gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Custody will damn sure be on the agenda, along with other issues. Like divorce.”
“Divorce?”
“You left before ours was final. And guess what? Turns out the attorney you hired hadn’t even passed the bar yet. He had no authority to act on your behalf. Nothing he handled was valid.”
Kate stared at him in sick dismay. Camryn hadn’t been divorced. Which meant…oh, God…this man was her husband. And he now believed her to be his wife!
The nightmare just grew worse and worse.
Camryn must have been in a terrible panic to get away from him if she hadn’t even waited for the divorce to be finalized. Foreboding coursed through Kate. Was she placing herself in danger by going with him?
Maybe she’d be wiser to tell him her true identity, and that Camryn was dead. But if she did, he might simply leave, and she’d have a hell of a time finding Arianne. He could easily disappear without ever telling her where he lived, or how to contact him. She might never see her niece again.
She couldn’t allow that! Her sister had run away from this cold, heartless husband of hers. Kate would not willingly relinquish Arianne to him. If that meant impersonating her sister until she came up with a better plan, she’d do it. God help her!
She drew two suitcases from the hall closet.
He nodded curtly toward the nursery. “Go pack.”
In seething silence, Kate carried the suitcases to the nursery and packed one of them full of Arianne’s clothes and toys. He watched her every move. When she’d finished, she moved on to her own bedroom, with her captor following closely. She set the empty suitcase on the bed and opened it, eyeing the telephone on the bedside table.
Even if she could get to the phone, who could she call? If she notified the police, Mitch would probably vanish rather than face possible complications. She had to stay with him at least until she discovered his last name, where he lived and where he’d sent Arianne. A telephone would do her no good now.
“Don’t reach for that phone, Camryn,” he warned, his perceptive gaze on her as he eased his tall form into an armchair near the door.