Derek Messina stared blankly at his brother, Dex. In his arms, Dex held a sleeping infant, which Derek pointedly did not look at.

The child could not be his.

True, sixteen days ago, she'd been left on his doorstep in the middle of the night with an ambiguous note pinned to her chest. Since his brother lived with him, it had been only logical to assume she was Dex's mess to sort out. Which was why—after they'd both taken a paternity test the next morning—Derek had left on a business trip to New York and Antwerp feeling confident the baby wasn't his.

"She can't be mine," he repeated firmly. But the conviction in his voice couldn't block out the doubt and confusion that had begun to settle in his belly.

Dex merely looked at him with a wry smile. "She's yours."

Was that a hint of regret in Dex's voice?

"If this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny."

"You think I would joke about this?" Dex shot him a look of annoyed disbelief. "No. Don't answer that. The results of the paternity test we both took are sitting over there on the counter."

With a growing sense of dread, Derek crossed to the kitchen counter where a short stack of papers sat. However, he couldn't quite force himself to pick them up. To face the possibility that his brother wasn't lying to him…

Because if he was honest with himself, he knew Dex wasn't. When they were just kids, Dex had pulled his share of pranks, but those days were long past.

No, if Dex said this baby was Derek's, then she was his.

Damn it.

The timing couldn't be worse. Not that there was a good time to find out you'd fathered a five-month-old.

Finally Derek picked up the papers and read them. Documentation that he was