Having Jay's Baby (Having His Baby #2) (9 page)

“Jay, I have no interest in causing trouble in your marriage,” I said with a sigh, finally.

He watched me carefully, the dark, intelligent eyes assessing. “You might be interested to know,” he said, with deadly lightness, “that your little surf coach was the one sending me the notes.” His expression didn’t falter when I stilled. “Aaron Anderson and some girl he’s been—dating, for want of a better word. Seems like he was worried you might hit him up for child support.” Jay laughed suddenly. “Considering it was a long shot, he hit the fucking bull’s eye.”

“Aaron?” I panted a little, disguising it as a humourless laugh.

“Yes, Aaron,” he said. He watched me with renewed interest in his gaze. “The surfer.”

Nausea curled around me like a snake.

“Did you tell him about us?” Jay asked me.

I shook my head, and said, “No. Well, I had nothing to hide, but not in any detail.” An approaching storm rumbled in my mind, dense and impenetrable. “I mentioned you once, I think, and he knew your family.”

God almighty—Aaron had been sending notes to Jay?
Was he trying to extort money from him?

“I’m sorry,” I said, finally, unable to think of anything else to say. “You and I always used protection. And if Aaron was suspicious, I don’t understand why he wouldn’t just ask me.”

“We weren’t always careful, Stella,” Jay said, and his voice rasped as he added, “obviously.” He rubbed his face as though exorcising a lingering sensation. “Paternity tests can be expensive. I get the feeling your ex isn’t exactly flush right now; he probably thought this was the cheapest way to solve the problem, especially if you’d refused to get tested. He had to know I’d eventually do it for him.”

“But he didn’t even sign the birth certificate,” I said, confused. “He was under no obligation-” I stopped. “What do you mean, if I’d refused to be tested?”

Jay shot me a side-long glance. His hair fell over his forehead, obscuring the best part of his expression.

“You said it wasn’t illegal, what your friend in Washington did,” I said, only lowering my voice when I realised Nina was sleeping. “You were supposed to get my consent.”

“Yes, and you were supposed to agree to the test when I asked you. None of that matters now,” he said, tossing the phone down again with an impatient twist of his hand. A heavy platinum watch glinted in the half light. “We have to decide what we’re going to do. You have to let the surfer know he’s off the hook, for a start.”

Off the hook?
Meaning Jay was now on the hook?

“Will you stop telling me what matters and what doesn’t?” I came to my feet. After checking on Nina, I stepped away from her towards the fireplace. I was careful not to approach Jay; he was intimidating today, and in a way that made me feel like I was meeting him for the first time. He seemed angry, frustrated. He was not the man I’d so willingly gone to bed with a couple of weeks ago.

“Your ex might be the one who started all of this,” he said, his voice hushed but intense, “but you’ve been adamant that Nina isn’t mine ever since I brought it up. You wouldn’t even entertain the notion.”

Frustrated, I rolled my eyes and turned away.

“I had to go behind your back to get her tested,” he said. “What if I hadn’t done that? I might never even have known that I have a child.”

“That’s not true!” I turned on him again. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything. Aaron was just about the worst thing to happen to Nina. If I’d known you were her father I’d probably still be living in my own house. I wouldn’t be sleeping on friends’ sofas and flat-sitting.” It was only when I’d stumbled to a halt that I noticed Jay was watching me with what looked like shock.

“What does that mean?” he asked. “What about your house?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, already regretting the outburst.

“Where are you living now?” he asked.

“Why?”

He glanced at me impatiently. “You’ve just told me that you and my daughter are homeless.”

“We’re not homeless, Jay. We’re—between apartments.”

“I’m starting to wonder if you’re capable of giving a straight answer to anything.”

“Well, you have your answer about Nina.” Though I hated myself for reacting like this, his accusations were like salt on an already raw conscience. “What are you going to do about it?”

He stilled at my hushed, rapped out question. His mouth tight, I could see he was warring with something in his head. His eyes remained opaque.

I relented with a sigh. “What are you going to do, Jay? I’d like to know what your intentions are going forward.”

“To provide for my daughter,” he said.

The grated words were not exactly full of expectant joy.
Provide
? That could mean a lot of things. In the content of the life of a Fitzsimmons, it most likely meant money. Last night’s dream flashed behind my eyes and I had to look down.

“I need some time,” I said, the words leaving me of their own volition.

“For what?”

“To think things over,” I said. “I know you think there’s a big conspiracy behind all of this, but I’m actually still a bit shocked. There’s nothing wrong with taking a bit of time to consider our options.”

“I’m surprised you still think there are options, Stella.”

My mouth gaped.

He blew out a breath and said, “Why are you so determined to push me away?”

“Up until Friday I was convinced another man was my daughter’s father,” I told him. “Whether you want to believe it or not, that’s what I believed.”

I wavered, something inside my chest tearing at the lingering accusation in his amber eyes. I caught the light scent of his cologne and the tear widened. With all the stress of the last few weeks, I hadn’t expected to add Jay to my list of problems. Quite the opposite.

“I’m not pushing you away,” I said. “I’m just— need some time to assimilate things.”

“What things?”

My hackles rose again. “The fact that my daughter’s father’s actually a married man, for example.”

There was a pause. His jaw flexed. “I won’t tell you again,” he said, and threat rumbled behind the words, “that’s irrelevant to this discussion. To any discussion about Nina going forward.”

I shook my head, my mouth opening and closing but no words coming. “Fine,” I managed through my teeth. “Well, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me. You’re so determined I’m pushing you away—you’re in such a rush to organise me and my life this morning—why don’t you tell me what your plan is for the next eighteen years.” I grabbed the pram and angled it towards the door. “For you and your wife, for that matter. Because I’ll be very interested to know once both of you decide.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Jay

I was staring at the stack of paper in my hands, but, as I had been for the last few hours, inside I was reverberating from the impact of seeing my daughter. My daughter ... Nina Fitzsimmons. The disbelief wouldn’t give me peace for more than ten seconds. Her sleeping face was imprinted on my brain. Before it had been a result on a piece of paper, now it was real, a live human being.

I’d never wanted to be a father. Why, then, did I just feel like the kid who just got exactly what he wanted from Christmas?

“Are you listening?” Elizabeth said.

My father and Elizabeth were watching me from the other side of the table. Stiff-backed and perfectly-coiffured, they could have been sitting for an elegant, if faintly miserable, family portrait.

“No,” I said. I swallowed back the gluey mess of emotions.

My immediate family glared back at me with poorly-concealed malice. No, I wasn’t a family man, not by a long shot. My parents and their ilk pampered their pets better than their children. What did I know about bringing up a child? This euphoria was just an errant response to a disruption in my otherwise predictable life. It was nothing more that misplaced macho pride in my own fertility.

I went back to the stack of paper with grim determination.

“Your father is talking to you, Jay,” Elizabeth said, her tone disapproving. “I’m used to your derision, but there’s something terribly wrong with you if you can’t behave in a dignified manner with your father in the room.”

“What kind of man doesn’t treat his wife with respect?” Abel commented in a low, disapproving tone. “
Ante familia nihil venit
.”

Ante familia nihil venit:
nothing comes before family—my mother’s family crest. My father generally chewed up the words until they were intelligible, much as he treated the principle itself. I let out a long-suffering sigh at their melodrama. There was never a good time for it, but it was especially irksome today. I just wanted to be left alone to assimilate the fact that I was actually someone’s father. That I potentially had a family that I might be able to put before everything else.

Elizabeth got to her feet. Her heels marked a jagged tune as she crossed to the window. Abel cursed and checked his watch.

“Okay,” I said, tossing the report down. “What’s this about?”

“My father,” Elizabeth said with all the weight of a Shakespearian heroine, “is, at this moment facing an unspeakable future. This could very easily be your father, Jay, and if it were, I’m sure you wouldn’t be quite so—so—lackadaisical about the whole thing.”

“I might surprise you,” I said.

Elizabeth’s expression hardened, but it was nothing compared to the ice-cold disdain I could feel coming from my father’s corner.

“It all seems mighty easy when you’ve had your life handed to you on a plate,” Abel said. A smile touched his mouth as he gestured around the apartment. “All of this: the beautiful wife; the connections; the backing.” He considered me for a second. “I bet you really believe you did it on your own. Do you really think that this beautiful woman here would have looked at you twice if you weren’t a Fitzsimmons?” He paused. “If you weren’t my son?”

“What do you need, Dad?”

He didn’t answer me, just held my gaze long enough so that the air started to thicken like sauce.

Elizabeth appeared at my side. Her hand touched my jaw, and one red talon scraped against the freshly-shaved skin. A rash prickled with intention just under the surface.

“Darling,” she said, red lips curved in a slow, sad smile. “We need you to testify in court on my father’s behalf.”

“What?” I yanked my chin out from her grasp. Her nail scratched my skin. “Why?”

“Because he needs our help,” she said.

“Then you testify. Both of you. This has got nothing to do with me.”

“Au contraire,” Abel said with a grin that made my chest tighten.

Elizabeth sighed theatrically. “Oh, Jay—honestly! We are asking you for a few hours of your time. For your father-in-law, of all people! The least you could do is just hear us out before you say no.”

I rubbed my jaw, the scratch palpitating.

“Your wife needs your help,” Abel said. He eased his already flat tie down the centre of his shirt. “Your in-laws need your help.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“Who says I get anything out of it?” he asked.

It was my turn to smile. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“How can you be so suspicious of your own family?” A flat, abrupt laugh erupted from Elizabeth like glass breaking. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you.”

I lifted my brows but didn’t comment. Instead, I came to my feet, in search of clearer air by the window. When I turned back they were both watching me; the silence was weighted like a storm cloud. “Why does he need me? He’s got a million other cronies around New York City—plenty of them with a lot more sway than I have. Hasn’t he got a couple of senators on the payroll?”

Elizabeth sat down. She glanced at Abel.

“He’s been collecting judges and politicians for the best part of thirty years,” I pressed on when the tension in the room refused to break. “I could name at least five people that could make this case go away for him. It makes no sense for me to be involved.”

Abel cleared his throat. “Harry won’t spare you if you don’t help him,” he said.

A stone dropped low in my stomach. After the initial alarm, I was relieved that the gloves were off. My father was smiling with an impervious entitlement that was utterly familiar. He wanted me to believe he was in control of this conversation, but he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be here, threatening me, if he was in control.

Not that this made me any more in control ... “Spare me, how, exactly?” I asked. I knew this had something to do with my stock, but I needed to hear it.

Abel’s brows lowered, casting a gloom over his face. I could feel a sermon in the air; a sermon about struggling to make a living, the sixth child in a family of eleven, with barely enough money to put food on the table. A sermon that I’d once revered, but that I’d later realised was used as an excuse to cheat and lie—to extort sympathy—whatever it took to succeed.

“Just tell me what it is you want,” I said in an effort to circumvent the speech. “You already know I’ve got no intention of speaking in Harry’s defence. You and Harry have been trying to shut me down for the last six months; why would I help you?”

“Because you owe me,” Abel said. “You owe Harry for his loyalty, the same way you owe your wife. You know perfectly well you’d be nothing without us.”

“Define nothing.”

“Poor,” Elizabeth said with acidic precision.

“Weak,” Abel added.

I couldn’t stop a laugh from bubbling up in my throat.

“This isn’t funny, Jay.”

“Don’t mistake this for amusement,” I told her.

Abel patted Elizabeth’s hand across the table. “Don’t upset yourself, sweetheart,” he said, taking the opportunity to give me a ripe glance.

I moved to the table and sat down again. “Okay,” I started, “you’re going to have to be crystal-fucking-clear with me here. The last conversation we had, you—and Harry—threatened to shut me down. Now you’re telling me you need my help. I’m the last person Harry wants speaking on his behalf. What can I say under oath that’s going to help him out? I’ll bury him if they force me to tell the truth.”

Abel was nonplussed. “Then you have to be selective about which truth you decide to tell,” he said.

“Are you suggesting I lie?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It sounds a lot like it.”

“No,” he asserted, “I’m suggesting that you think carefully about your situation, son. Take a step back and think for a minute.” He allowed his words to settle on me, his tight gaze holding me captive.

I sat back. Frustration was a dam in my chest, but I closed the gates on it. How had I ended up here again? I glanced at Elizabeth, who was now pacing the room, her heels clacking against the hardwood floors with unyielding determination as she nervously straightened vases and repositioned the curtains. In another life, she was my ex-wife.

But not in this one ... not yet, at any rate. Stella’s image popped into my head, adding to the confusion, and then Nina’s tiny face. I crowded them out.

“You made the right choice, son,” he said in satisfaction, “calling off the divorce. Your wife needs you. Harry needs both of you.” He tapped fingers on the table, taking his sweet time. “We’re stronger as a family.”

The pressure increased in my chest but I stayed still, silent.

“Harry needs some reassurance from us, that we’ll stick together,” he said. “He needs a gesture. You’ve always kept your nose clean, Jay; everyone knows that. But these investigators...” He grimaced, and I wondered if he was enjoying this at some level. “They’re not interested in the truth. They just want a neat case. The more big fish they get, the bigger the promotion at the end of it. That’s all they’re thinking about.”

“I’m not a big fish,” I said pointedly.

Abel’s smile was dark. “You’re a link in the chain, son,” he said after a pause. “Do you understand me? You don’t just get up and walk away.”

I knew perfectly well what he was saying: if Harry started talking, he’d take all of them down. It had to stick like bile in his throat to ask me for this. Of course, ‘this’ was closer to a threat than a request, in true Abel style.

Elizabeth was inspecting the light-fittings by this time. I’d never seen her take any interest in the furnishings beyond choosing them. She’d certainly never given so much attention to their level of cleanliness before. It irritated me more than it probably should have—the superficial distraction of her.

“Harry needs your help, and you’ll help him,” Abel continued. “That’s all there is to it.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, as though the conversation had been settled to his satisfaction. “His lawyer will give you the details.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, coming to my feet.

“There’s nothing else to discuss, Jay.”

“No, actually, there’s a boatload left to discuss,” I said, hands on my hips in an effort to bar the exit. Something clattered on to the floor from the vicinity of where Elizabeth was still fussing, but I only spared it an impatient glance before turning back to Abel. “I will not perjure myself in court. Do you hear me?”

Abel glanced towards Elizabeth’s quiet murmurings and I sensed his patience was breaking, too. “No one’s asking you to perjure yourself,” he said.

“Fine,” I conceded, “but I’m making that clear up front. If I don’t like what this lawyer has to say, I walk.”

“How in God’s name did I end up with such a stupid kid?”

Abel’s rasping accusation stilled me like a slap to the face. After a couple of seconds of readjustment, I ground my jaw.

“Talk to the lawyer,” he said, rigid in his gleaming suit. There was a heavy beat between each word he spoke. “Listen carefully to what he has to say.” He shook his head. “Wizen up. If Harry goes down, that’s not good for anyone.”

“It’s not good for you, specifically,” I said.

He laughed. “It’s not good for you, either.”

“I can live with a black mark against my name,” I said. I rounded the table, refusing to relinquish the conversation.

Abel’s fist came down on the table with such unexpected force that the centrepiece toppled over. Elizabeth and I jolted. I was dimly aware of a scratch in the shiny wood surface under the glint of my father’s fat, gold pinkie-ring. When I looked back at his face, the same damaging glint shone in his eyes.

“Goddammit,” he ground out, whether disappointed by me or his unusual outburst, I wasn’t sure. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Don’t spell it out,” Elizabeth said in a reedy voice as she arrived at my side.

Abel ignored her. “You’ll speak to the lawyer, and you’ll say what he tells you to say. Because—trust me—if Harry thinks we’re not on his side, he’ll take every single one of us down with him. You; me; your mother; no one gets out of this unless Harry does.”

“Darling, stop,” Elizabeth said to me.

“You’ve got nothing on me,” I said to Abel. The confidence in my voice was eroded by a thread of genuine fear under the surface. “Harry can’t take me down.”

Abel smiled. “How about fraud?”

And there it was. Though I’d been expecting it, it was still a shock to hear it. Though perhaps shock was not the guiding force; disillusion was circling low in my chest like sediment. All this time I’d wondered if he’d brought my firm into his group just to spite me over the divorce, but it had been a simple money-making endeavour. Nothing to do with me, and everything to do with pure greed.

As a bonus, now they also most certainly had something to hold over me.

“You know perfectly well I had nothing to do with that,” I said. It seemed hard to push my voice through the dense silence. “I can prove it.”