“You’re one of my best friends, you and Bart,” she said gently. “That will never change.”

He sipped coffee. “Okay,” he said finally. “But I’ll never give up hope.”

HE WALKED HER back to her hotel. Even this late at night, the streets were full of people.

“I love Manhattan,” she said with a sigh. “It has to be the most beautiful big city in the world.”

“I’ve always thought so,” he agreed.

“The lights are…are…” She stopped dead, her eyes on a battery of tabloids in machines near the hotel. She was staring at the cover of one with shock.

Because there, in lurid color, was the man who’d seduced her so tenderly, who’d said he wanted a child with her, who’d stolen her heart.

Cort Grier was on the cover of the tabloid. The headline was shattering. “Texas millionaire and Hollywood starlet discuss wedded bliss.”

She looked up at Jake with sheer horror. She was almost shaking from the revelation.

He ground his teeth together.

“You knew,” she exclaimed.

He bit his lower lip.

“You knew,” she repeated, stopping under a streetlight as people filed by on their way to theaters or late dinners.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I knew. We sit on some of the same committees. I’ve known Cort for years.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, as tears rolled silently down her cheeks.

“I couldn’t. It was like playing dirty pool, to sell out a rival that way,” he added quietly. “I mentioned it to Bart. He said his cousin was sick of being hunted by women for what he had. He just wanted to be an ordinary cowboy for a while.”

“He’s a playboy,” she said, almost choking on the words.

“Well, yes, I guess he is,” he told her with obvious reluctance. “His name has been linked with movie stars and debutantes and, once, with a princess. He’s worth millions. He owns a big ranch in West Texas. He runs purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle and his family is heavily into real estate and oil.”

She wanted to sit down, but there was nothing she could do but put one foot in front of the other and go toward her hotel.

“I am truly sorry,” Jake said as he fell into step beside her.

“So am I.”

SHE CRIED HERSELF to sleep. The next morning, she got up and started to make coffee in her hotel room when a sudden uprush of nausea sent her rushing into the bathroom, where it felt like she lost two days’ meals.

Great, she thought as she flushed the commode and washed her pale face. What a wonderful time to discover that she was probably pregnant, when the man she’d planned a future with turned out to be a two-timing snake!

She looked in the mirror. “You are a terrible judge of character,” she told her image. “And just what are you going to do now?”

It was a good question. A termination, while it might be a solution for most women, was impossible for her. She couldn’t bear the thought of giving up the tiny life inside her, even if she never saw its father again. Amazing, how hungry she was for a baby, even under the circumstances.