Having Jay's Baby (Having His Baby #2) (14 page)

BOOK: Having Jay's Baby (Having His Baby #2)
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Elizabeth sobbed. “What if they come here?”

“They won’t,” I said. Incredulity kept me suspended in silence for a moment. A small seed of doubt glimmered underneath it, but I kicked dirt over it. “They won’t,” I said with more certainty. “Just sit tight and I’ll call you later.”

“When?”

“Later.”

“No, I need you to tell me when,” she said, yelling now. “I’m going out of my mind, Jay. I can’t sit here and wait for you to get a report of the situation. I mean, for God’s sake, your father had a heart attack! Don’t you even want to know how he is?”

“Of course, I do,” I hissed down the line, “but I’d rather get that information from the hospital. So you’ll wait for me to call them, check on my mother, and to call my contacts at the bureau, and then once I know where the land lies, I’ll call you back,” I said. “More importantly, I have to make sure this doesn’t get into the press, so I’m hanging up now.”

“Jay–”

“Goodbye, Elizabeth.” I hit the call button again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

Stella

 

Nina woke hungry. I tried her at the breast, but my milk wouldn’t come. Disoriented, glancing through at the empty unmade bed across the hall, I threw on a robe and padded down the stairs to make up a bottle. A quick check of the kitchen and garden showed no sign of Jay. There was no time for relief or disappointment, though; Nina’s wailing was shaking the foundations.

Running around the kitchen, I made up the formula with dizzying speed, pouring it into the bottle and almost throwing it into the microwave. As I watched the seconds counting down, my eyes glanced around in the room in agitation.

I’d gone to his room last night like a binge eater unable to resist a midnight snack. Blowing out a breath, I ran a hand through my hair and contemplated what this meant. At the most basic level, I’d picked up the gauntlet laid down by Elizabeth Fitzsimmons. She’d threatened to take him away, and I’d gone after him.

I wanted Jay.

Unable, still, to process exactly what I wanted Jay for, I noticed the note by the fruit bowl. “
Stella,”
it said at the top.

 

I have business back in New York, apologies for the abrupt departure. The au pair arrives at four. The housekeeper works from nine to five, Monday through Friday. Call me on my cell if you need anything.

J.

 

The microwave beeped. Nina’s wails escalated. I stared at the note blankly, hearing Elizabeth’s tinkling laughter somewhere deep in my consciousness.

#

Vanguard’s offices were small but distinguished, just a few blocks from Capitol Hill and with a view over Theodore Roosevelt Island. There were sixty full-time employees. I started with the executive team on Monday. Jay didn’t call, and I didn’t call him. On Tuesday, I spoke to the marketing team. Wednesday, I started with coders—still no word from Jay. I finished up with the coders on Thursday. One of them asked me out for drinks. I called Astrid and Sandra, the au pair and housekeeper respectively, and they urged me to go.

The bar was tacky and full of college-aged kids with lofty political aspirations, and we drank cheap beer from pitchers. It was exactly what I needed. I got more solid leads than I’d gotten all week in the office. I also laughed more than I had done for a while, even if it was a little forced. I’d spent all week trying, unsuccessfully, not to dwell on this aborted attempt to get closer to Jay, so it was a welcome distraction.

The taxi pulled up to the townhouse just before midnight. The lights were still on in the kitchen, but it was dark elsewhere. I took off my heels at the door and padded through to the kitchen, looking forward to seeing Nina.

He sat at the island in the centre of the kitchen, his eyes fixed on me. “Jay!” Stumbling through the door, my hand flew to my neck to steady the pulse there.

His features were thrown into relief under the dim centre light. A bronzed statue, his shadowed eyes pinioned to mine. As though I’d been starved of his presence all week, my brain went into overdrive cataloguing each small nuance. The burnished hair that he’d obviously been manhandling; the tense jaw, evenly speckled by stubble; the crow’s feet and the sensuous lines curving his tight mouth.

Speaking of a tight mouth … I could see something resembling anger simmering under his skin. The silence echoed in my head. God help me but arousal seared low across my stomach before I could control it as memories of him rearing above me surfaced—in my throat, bitter acrimony surged. The silence of the past week echoed like a deafening gong between us.

He looked me up and down with narrow eyes, taking obviously careful note of the dishevelled black dress and bare feet. His brows rose. “How was work?” he asked.

I stared at him. I realised I was probably tipsy; certainly not a hundred percent sober. “Fine,” I said.

“Where have you been?”

There was a complex, if slow, system of assessment going on in my head. Civility warred with instinct. Was that—judgement in his tone? I knew in that split second that I could avoid a scene if I wanted to, but after having been ignored for an entire week, I wasn’t sure if that was something I necessarily wanted to avoid.

Who the hell is he, pitching up here out of the blue and demanding to know where I’ve been?

My jaw clenched. “Where have I been?” I asked, my voice low. I paused for effect. “Never mind where I’ve been. I’ve been here, in your house, where you told me to be. Where the hell have you been?”

And … it was done. The words had left me, crossed the room, and slapped his face with accusation. A dubious tingle fluttered up my spine.

His features tensed, causing his jaw to flex. “I’ve been taking care of business,” he said pointedly. “Family business. So I’ll ask you again: where the hell have you been?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” I said with an outraged gasp.

“Oh, you don’t?” His tone suggested this was not, in fact, an accurate assessment of our relationship. “So, we’re back to this? I ask a question and you prevaricate.”

“I’ve been working!”

“Doing what?”

“Taking care of business,” I said, mimicking his lofty tone.

“Oh, I see,” he said, without missing a beat. “What kind of business would that be?”

“None of yours, for a start.”

He smiled. There was little humour at the base of it. Quite the contrary, it seemed full of menace. “Is this normal for you, staggering in at midnight after work?”

“I’m not staggering,” I said, outraged again. I glared at him for a moment before I realised my jaw was slack. I snapped it shut. “I had a couple of beers with some of the programmers. I’m tired! I’m bringing up an eight month-old baby. You must be joking if you think I’ve got time to go out for beers every night after work.”

“Well, you certainly made use of the facilities, I’ll give you that,” he said. He got up slowly but the move was controlled. I was distracted by the sound of the soft material of his suit brushing against his limbs. “If I’d known you planned to party this week, I would have asked Astrid to move in. Then you could have just stayed out all night if you’d wanted.”

Affront zapped me like a current. “You’re the one who insisted we stay here, and now you’ve got the cheek to criticise me for going along with your plans? After you take off to New York without even a proper explanation–” I bit my tongue. My brain was tired and slightly fuddled by the beer and the outrage was sharp as a needle. “A note in a fruit bowl, Jay, and you have the gall to accuse me. I mean – is that the best you can do? Do you own a working cell phone?”

Bewilderment creased his brow. “What’s your point, exactly, Stella?”

“I didn’t even get a call from you all week to let me know what was going on,” I said. I wished I hadn’t taken off my heels. Even from two metres he loomed. “Unbelievable arrogance, to just presume we’d sit around here all week waiting for you.”

“I called you,” he countered. “I must have called you twenty bloody times. You’ve been working, haven’t you? Nina was being well taken care of.”

“That’s not the point,” I said, snapping off the words. “What do you mean, you called me?”

“Is your phone even working?”

“Of course it is!” Anger, which had been smouldering around the frayed edges of my tiredness, was doused suddenly by cold determination. My voice dropped. “It’s too late now, anyway. I don’t want to talk about this. Nina and I are leaving tomorrow.”

There was a small beat of silence. “No, Stella, you’re not,” he said. “You’ll stay until Sunday like we agreed.”

“No.” I stared at him, dumbfounded by his response. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

“I just got back,” he said obviously.

“Yes, well, I’m sorry to rain on your parade, Jay, but we’ve been here all week. Now we have to get back to New York. You should have checked with me first if you wanted to make plans for the weekend.”

He stepped towards me and then stopped. Frustration made his jaw work. “Goddammit, Stella.”

“What?”

“I had important business to take care of.”

“I heard you,” I said. I gathered some ground up, too, swaying a little with exhaustion but refusing to be beaten. “I have important business to take care of this weekend, too. At least I’m giving you the courtesy of some warning, in person. I don’t treat people like they’re waiting staff, hanging around on call until I’ve got time to deal with them.”

The words were snatched from my mouth by an infinitesimal movement in Jay’s features. Whatever it was—whatever darkness was behind it—it seemed to snap like a cord. One minute I was brash and angry, and the next my emotions shrank into a corner like a whimpering dog. I couldn’t even have described what it was … it stung me, though. I flinched internally, the restraint in every tensed muscle in his body like a wall in front of me.

The tension, suspended, taut, stretched on and then sparked. He exhaled sharply. “We’ll talk about this in the morning,” he said after a pause.

I breathed out, too.

He glanced away from me. “Go to bed,” he said, “before one of us says something we regret.”

I swayed like a long-distance swimmer emerging from the water. My attention absorbed the surroundings again, taking in the silence. Alarm pricked my sub-conscious. “Where’s Astrid?”

“I sent her home.”

“Where’s Nina?” I said in a much more urgent tone.

“She’s asleep,” he said, and his even tone told me he didn’t appreciate my reaction.

I didn’t care about offending his sensibilities. He knew nothing about babies. It might be an unreasonable anxiety—Jay might be her father—but he wouldn’t have known what to do if something had happened.

“You had no right to do that, to send her home,” I said, picking up my shoes. “I left her with Astrid, not you. I’m going to check on her.”

A sound of frustration escaped him. “She’s fine. If you were so bloody worried why did you spend all night in a bar?”

“Enough!” The word left me of its own accord. I looked up; he towered over me, his expression autocratic, but I didn’t back down. I yanked myself back mentally from his reach. “The two things are not related,” I said. “And even if they were, you don’t get to make that kind of decision yet, not where Nina’s concerned.”

“I’m her father whether either of us likes it or not.” His voice rasped with control. “Do you hear me, Stella?”

“Either of us?”
I balked.
A minor detail
... Elizabeth’s voice hissed inside my head. My expression hardened. “If you were trying to impress me with your paternal skills this week, let me tell you: you didn’t.”

“I left you with a housekeeper and an
au pair.
I’d hardly say you were abandoned,” he said in a low tone.

“Just let me check on her,” I said, impatient now.

In truth, I felt a little guilty. This was the first time I’d been out socially since she’d been born. I jogged upstairs and tiptoed into the bedroom. My heart was beating fast, too fast for the minor exertion. I was angry—worried now—but mostly angry. The unacknowledged resentment building up all week had found a small hole in my defences. I could feel the pressure seeping out, the hole threatening to burst open.

Damn him for striding back in here as though all of this was my fault! Why had I even gone out tonight? I’d given him ammunition against me, something to deflect from his poor behaviour. Stalking off and not even bothering to let me know where he was. I’d been a guest in the house of a stranger all week, my daughter tended by well-meaning employees, to boot.

Whether he realised it or not he’d made it perfectly clear what kind of priority Nina would have in his life going forward.

Nina was fast asleep, in the determined way only babies can sleep. Exhaling, I dropped my heels on the floor and leaned on the cot bars, staring at her wordlessly. I took in her clean, innocent smell, letting it wash through me with relief. Her chest worked furiously, up and down; her lips were pouted and defiant even in sleep. She was so like Jay it broke my heart.

He’d seemed defiant in sleep, too, last weekend when I’d stolen into his bed. Could that only have been a week ago?

I turned with some fatality to see him standing in the doorway. My gaze lingered on his now wary eyes. They did nothing to diminish the force of his stubborn jaw. Tired, overloaded with ambivalence, I said “I’m going to bed,” and glanced away.

“Which bed?”

The question resounded in me with the force of a blow, low in the stomach. “This one, in here,” I said. I didn’t meet his eye, pulling back the comforter on the large guest bed.

He sat down and regarded me evenly. Lean and long, he was incongruously male in the nursing chair. His hair gleamed gold in the half-light, his tawny gaze insufferably arrogant. I unzipped my dress. He considered me, waiting for my dress to fall to the ground.

“Jay,” I said, my tone a warning as tension coiled at the back of my throat.

“I’m not leaving,” he repeated.

Frustration exploded in my chest. “What do you want?” When he didn’t answer, I exhaled, suddenly out of energy for the day. “I have work in the morning. I don’t have time for this.” I let the dress fall and stepped out of it. Ignoring his intense gaze, I crawled into the bed in my lingerie.

BOOK: Having Jay's Baby (Having His Baby #2)
3.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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