Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 310 - 48

Chapter 310: Chapter 48

Will Parker watched Rayne walk back to the sofa a few minutes later, her face the color of chalk, her arms wrapped around her stomach again.

In the middle of the room, she paused and looked around with tears filling her eyes. "I keep expecting Ethan to dash out of his playroom," she whispered, looking at Parker, her green eyes swimming with tears. "I want my baby. I want to see him smile at me. You have to promise me you’ll get him back unharmed. Please, promise me you will."

"Let’s talk about the ransom money first—"

"I don’t have that much money!" she cried. "Weren’t you listening to me? I can’t raise 1 billion dollars within hours. I’m not sure I can raise a hundred million dollars, but I’ll start trying." Suddenly she launched into feverish haste, heading for her phone on the table beside the sofa. "I’ll call my banker—"

"No, you won’t," Parker said shortly. "You’ll call Ethan’s father."

She wrinkled her forehead as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. "What?"

"Are you certain Liam Thompson is Ethan’s father?" Will asked to confirm his suspicion about the boy’s father.

"I am certain—" Her mouth dropped open, and she glared at him through her tears as she realized he’d made her slip and admitted Liam as Ethan’s father, but then she didn’t care anymore and said, "Of course I’m certain!"

"Then get him on the phone."

Rayne felt as if her heart were breaking and her mind were splintering. "Do you think for one minute that if I knew how to reach him—and if he actually picked up my call—that he would believe me or come up with the money?"

"Do you have any other choices?"

"That’s not a choice. That’s not even something I want to consider."

"I repeat, do you have any other hope of raising the ransom money, Miss Wallace?"

Rayne stared at him, frozen in a trance of stark terror, anguish, and helplessness. Slowly, the realization began to penetrate that she could take action now, and that any action, no matter how futile, was a way of doing something to help keep Ethan safe.

In the space of seconds, her realization became resolve, and she threw herself into desperate action. Crossing swiftly to the sofa, she picked up the phone, then she stopped and looked at Will Parker.

"I have no idea how to reach him. Do you?"

"I have various addresses and phone numbers for him, but it could take hours to track him down. He has close friends here in the country—Neil Wayner and James Wilbert. Neil Wayner may be able to point us in the right direction."

Rayne bit her lip as she decided to dial Mia’s number to ask her if she knew how to contact Liam, but to her dismay, Mia’s phone was switched off and she suddenly remembered that Mia was out of the country for some important business trip with her team at the company, and judging from the time, she might be on set by now.

Even though they were best of friends, Rayne had never mentioned to Mia that Liam was the father of her son, all because she didn’t want the words to get to Neil and then get to Liam. She wanted to keep Ethan for herself and she’d lied to her friend that Max was the father of her son.

Feeling even more anxious at the thought of speaking to Neil directly now that Mia was unavailable, Rayne began to dial the number of his secretary she’d taken from Will Parker. When it began ringing, she handed the phone to the detective.

"I’ll talk to him, but you’ll need to get him to take my call first."

With a puzzled look, the detective took the phone from her hand, and Rayne said, "The last time I saw Liam," she explained in answer to his puzzled look, "Neil was there, and he heard the things his friend accused me of being. Liam accused of being an immoral bitch. When Neil walked away, he looked at me as if I’d just become invisible. Since then, he’d treated me like a nobody in his world. Believe me, from what I know of Neil, he wouldn’t want to give even a minute of his day to hear what I have to say now."

"Don’t worry. I’ll get him to take your call. There’s one more thing," he added after he asked the receptionist to connect him to Neil Wayner’s office.

"Liam is going to want some form of proof that Ethan is his before he forks over 1 billion dollars. I have Liam’s DNA on record, and we’ll have Ethan’s DNA in a few hours. If you will guarantee me that there is no way Ethan is anyone else’s child, I’ll vouch for a DNA match now, on this phone call. If it turns out you’re wrong, I’ll retract my statement before Liam hands over the money and tell him there was a mistake."

"There’s no mistake!"

He nodded, then spoke into the phone. "This is Will Parker," he told Neil Wayner’s secretary. "Is Neil in? This is an emergency."

Rayne unconsciously held her breath while the seconds ticked by, and she thought of Ethan out there somewhere with strangers.

"Mr. Wayner," Will said suddenly into the phone. "I’m with Rayne Wallace. Her little boy was kidnapped this morning. You’ll hear a Crimson alert any minute now if you turn on a radio or television. Rayne needs to talk to you. Before she does that, I want you to know that the DNA evidence will back up what she’s going to tell you. Here’s Rayne—" he finished.

Rayne stood up as she took the phone from him with trembling hands. "Mr. Wayner," she said formally and firmly as she knew he no longer considered her a friend of his, "Liam Thompson is Ethan’s father." Rayne paused, waiting for some reaction, and when there was none, she continued to speak.

"The kidnappers are demanding 1 billion dollars by ten o’clock tonight. I can’t even come close to paying that much money." Again Rayne paused, and again there was no reaction, so she drew an unsteady breath and said shakily, "Would you please ask Liam to call me? I’ll give you my personal phone number. Tell him...tell him I’ll sign over the restaurant to him in return, and I’ll find some way to pay him back the rest."

Tears constricted her throat, and Rayne grasped the phone harder. "Please, Neil, you have to find Liam and tell him. Ethan isn’t even two yet and he’s out there somewhere with—" She broke off, swallowed, and got herself under control.

"Tell Liam that Will Parker will show him proof that Ethan’s DNA matches the DNA in Liam’s file at the detective office. Here’s my phone number at the restaurant. But I’ll be heading home in a few minutes," Rayne added quickly so that Neil Wayner wouldn’t think she was working as usual while her son was missing.

Finally, the silent man on the other end of the phone spoke. "I will call him," he said, "and I’ll give him your message."

"Thank you," Rayne said weakly. She’d started to take the phone from her ear when he added, "I’m very sorry about your son."

That snapped Rayne from pleading to ire. "Ethan isn’t just my son; he is also Liam’s son."

"I’ll remind Liam of that," he said to her surprise.