Chapter 3
"Who gave you permission," he asked softly, "to put your hands on what belongs to me?"
Vanessa's mouth opened, then closed. "What belongs to you," she repeated, the words not making sense to her yet. "Mr. Cross, I don't understand what you—this woman is carrying my husband's child, she's a maid in my house, she's been sleeping with Caleb behind my back for months, I have every right—"
"You have no rights here," Damon said, and his voice never rose, which somehow made every word land harder than shouting could have. "The child she's carrying is mine. Has been mine since the night it was conceived, four months ago, in a hotel two blocks from the bar where I met her, on a night neither of us has told a single soul about until this exact moment." He crouched again beside me, and this time his hand found mine, careful of the mud, careful of the bracelet still lying crushed in the grass, and he closed my fingers around it before helping me to my feet. "Your husband has never touched her. I have made certain of that personally, because I have had someone watching over Nora since the week I learned she was pregnant, and Caleb Caldwell has not been within a hundred feet of her that wasn't in a supervised household setting with three witnesses present."
Vanessa's face went through several colors in quick succession, humiliation chasing disbelief chasing something closer to fear. "That's not possible. You don't even know her. You're Damon Cross, you don't associate with—"
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"With household staff?" Damon's voice went very quiet. "I met her on a night when your husband was at a fundraiser telling reporters what a devoted family man he was, and Nora was alone in a bar because your family had scheduled her to work through her own mother's funeral and given her exactly one hour afterward to grieve." He looked at me, and something in his expression softened just slightly before hardening again toward Vanessa. "I don't share details of my life with people, Miss Caldwell. But I will make an exception today, because you just put your hands on the mother of my child in front of her mother's grave, and I want you to understand precisely what that costs you before I explain the rest."
He nodded once toward the men standing by the SUVs. One of them stepped forward with a slim folder, which Damon took and held out toward Vanessa without opening it.
