The Billionaire's Christmas Baby (3 page)

Hannah’s eyes settled on Jackson’s razor and toothbrush on the counter. Seeing his belongings felt oddly personal, private.

“Does it meet your approval?”

Hannah forced a smile. “It’s beautiful. Really, I’m sorry about how I intruded on you.”

The half smile that had teased his lips fell slightly, and his dark eyes held a note of surprise. Hannah took a step back. She didn’t know how they’d ended up standing so close, close enough that she could see the tiny flecks of cognac in his eyes, and the dark stubble on his face. And smell the fresh, woodsy aftershave he wore…

“And?”

“We honestly never meant to spend the night here.”

“Whatever.” He walked into the washroom and opened a dark drawer, pulled out a toothbrush still in its packaging, along with a square basket wrapped in clear cellophane filled with women’s toiletries. He must have a lot of female guests.

“Help yourself to whatever you need, though I don’t have anything a baby could want.” He flicked off the switch and walked to the room next door without waiting for her to reply. He opened the next door, the one directly across from his, and felt for the light switch.

“This is beautiful.” There was a king-sized mahogany sleigh-bed with a chocolate brown velvet duvet and matching throw pillows that looked so magnificent and comfortable that Hannah fought the urge to run over and sink into it. A stone fireplace was on the outside wall, with two leather armchairs in front of it accompanied by matching side tables and an antique rug.

“Thanks,” Jackson said, walking past her and turning on the bedside lamp.

Hannah tucked her hair behind one ear. “You have good taste.”

He smiled a patronizing, bored smile. “I had an interior designer do it.”

Of course he did, Hannah. As if he would have spent weeks picking out fabrics for curtains and duvet covers.
“Oh. Well. She, or whoever did a great job.”

Hannah walked over to the bed and opened her purse. She felt like an idiot for letting her guard down and actually trying to have a conversation with him. Why couldn’t he have been the stereotypical computer geek with pale skin, thick glasses, and scrawny body? Maybe if she started getting settled he’d get the hint and leave her alone for a few minutes, long enough to contact Mrs. Ford and let her know that she was going to be delayed.

“I’ll get you some something to sleep in,” he said, leaving the room.

A minute later, Jackson was beside her holding a folded navy blue T-shirt. “Here, it’ll be a bit big, but it should be okay for one night.”

Hannah took the T-shirt without looking at him and placed it on the bed. It was his. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen whenever you want that hot water.”

“Sure,” she mumbled. This was going to be the longest night of her life. She hoped Emily would sleep well tonight. She could use all the rest she could get.

“I’ll let you get settled. There’s a phone beside the bed if you need it. I’d use it sooner than later. I wouldn’t be surprised if the phone lines go down. Cell phone reception out here gets a bit sketchy at the best of times.”

“Great. I’ll, uh, be a few minutes.”

He walked out of the room without saying anything.

…

Jackson leaned against the kitchen counter, staring at the baby sleeping in the car seat. What he’d give for a night’s sleep like that. He had moved her closer to the fire. Even a moron knew not to keep a baby by a door during a blizzard. He ran his hands through his hair, letting out a rough sigh. His evening had been going perfectly well until little-miss-smart-mouth crashed his annual
escape
-Christmas bash.

He glanced down at his watch. What was taking her so long? What if the baby woke up?

He decided she’d had more than enough time to get settled, he thought walking down the hall to her room. Besides, she was staying for one night, not a month.

He stopped himself from walking into her room. He heard her voice, her door slightly ajar. He would have knocked, but when he heard his name, he thought it might be wise to listen fir
st.

“I found Jackson Pierce. I found little Emily’s uncle. Thank you for letting me do this, Mrs. Ford. I’m so grateful… it’s the weekend so no one from the child services bureau will be contacting you… yes… thank you. I’ll call you when I know more… take care, Mrs. Ford.”

Jackson stared at her back, trying to make sense of what she said, but that sick feeling he got whenever someone mentioned his family was lodged in his gut.

Jackson felt dread seep through his veins.
Emily? Emily’s uncle?
As though she sensed his presence, Hannah turned around. Her bright green eyes loaded up with tears as they stared into his.
Her uncle. Her uncle.
Those softly spoken words echoed in his mind and they echoed in the beautiful face of the woman standing across from him. Jackson couldn’t move, his body going cold as the truth of Hannah’s visit sank in.

The baby.

That baby wasn’t hers. It was his sister’s.

Chapter Three

Jackson had heard everything.

The look on his face made her forget about Emily for a moment. All she could feel was the painful pumping of her heart and the acrid taste of the tears burning in her throat. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to find out. She’d had a carefully rehearsed speech.

His eyes locked with hers and he strode across the room in what seemed like two steps. Suddenly there was no space between them, the room tiny and stifling. Panic set in.

“I want to know exactly who you are and what the hell you think you’re doing. Everything.
Now
.” His voice was raspy. Harsh. The anger that emanated from him was blatant. His jaw was clenched tight and the eyes that she thought were warm not too long ago, glistened with hate.

Hannah despised showing her hand. Hated showing that she was afraid of anything or anyone. Hated having someone know that she could be weak. But when he took a step closer to her, waiting for her answer, she took a step back, because he reminded her of a different man, of a different world, when she had no one, when she was helpless. But she wasn’t that same girl anymore. She was a grown woman. She had confronted her demons years ago. She held her chin up and looked him squarely in the eye.
Don’t show your fear. Don’t show your fear
.

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but I need you to back away from me and I need you to calm down,” she whispered holding up a hand between them.

…

He nodded slowly. “I am calm. I’m in control. I’ve never been out of control. I’m not going to touch you. I won’t hurt you. I’m angry as hell right now, but I don’t want you to spend another second thinking that you are being physically threatened by me. I’ve never, ever raised my hand to a woman.” He was surprised at how gruff his voice sounded. He watched her try to figure out if she could trust what he was saying. She looked into his eyes and he could swear she saw things that he’d managed to keep hidden from those closest to him. He backed up a step and put his hands in his pockets, willing himself to look relaxed.

She finally gave him a small smile, and it tore at him, more than it should have. He barely knew her, but that expression on her undeniably beautiful face made his gut clench. It made him forget for a moment why he was so angry with her. For a second, the relief of her not being afraid replaced his rage.

She folded her arms in front of her and nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, for God’s sake.” Jackson ran his hands down the front of his face roughly, trying to stay in control of a situation that had the power to tear him down. He needed to get out of the room, away from her and everything she represented. He needed to gather his composure. He turned on his heel and walked out. When he reached the great room, Charlie came up to greet him, his scruffy tail wagging. Jackson patted the top of his head absently.

He heard her footsteps approaching.

“Jackson…” Her hesitant voice was barely audible against the wind and ice pellets drumming on the windows. He didn’t really feel like turning around. He avoided looking anywhere but straight ahead because he was acutely aware of the baby asleep in the room. He did not want to acknowledge what or who she might be.

“I’m a child services worker.” Hannah’s voice halted his emotional auto-shutdown mode. He hadn’t had to use that defense mechanism for a while, but it seemed whenever family was involved it was instinctual.

“Do you want a drink?” Right now, he was thinking he could down the whole bottle of his favorite whiskey.

He glanced over at her when she didn’t reply. She shook her head. Her face was pale, but she didn’t look afraid. He walked passed her to the mahogany liquor cabinet and poured himself a double shot. When he turned around, Hannah was sitting in front of the fireplace, her hands folded in her lap. His disloyal dog was contentedly sprawled across her feet. So much for man’s best friend.

Jackson sat in the club chair opposite her. He stared into the fire, the cool crystal cradled in the palm of his hand, a contrast to the heat that raged through him. He took another drink and then spoke. “So, you’re a social worker.”

She nodded, turning her eyes away from the crackling flames to meet his. He read her expression easily and it made his tight muscles ease slightly. His gut told him that Hannah wasn’t a liar. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t in the mood to mince words.

“I can’t stand social workers.”

He wasn’t sure how she was going to respond to that one. A few seconds later she broke the silence. “So that means you’ve been let down by the system.”

She obviously knew about his childhood. Yeah, he’d been let down. Abandoned. He didn’t bother looking at her. “Every social worker that has ever come my way was completely useless to me. Full of empty promises and false hope. Hope is the last thing you give to kids who have nothing.” The first time he told someone about the demented man who called himself a father he’d actually thought they might get help. Not for himself. If it were up to him he would have left, but his sister had refused to leave their home. So he stuck around for her. They lived in a dark, miserable hole of a house that reflected their father’s state of mind. That man that had the power to strike terror with one look, to rule over them like a dictator, had destroyed his sister. But not him. Jackson had shut himself off emotionally, and then he grew. He grew taller and stronger until father and son stood nose to nose and the man that once thought he was so mighty learned to put his fists back in his pocket.

Hannah’s soft, melodic voice clashed like lightning against the violence of his thoughts. “I know you don’t know anything about me. This is a horrible way for me to approach you. I’m sorry that this is bringing you so much pain—”

“This is not bringing me pain.” He hated that she was reading him, hated that she was right.

“You have to believe that I had the best of intentions. I had no choice. I risked everything to come here.” Her words came out quickly and she sounded almost frantic, probably because she was scared he’d kick her out.

He took another sip of the whiskey and met her gaze. She was gutsy. He ignored the sheen in her eyes, the concern that he read in them. He didn’t want to feel her compassion. He clenched his teeth against it, as though he could make himself immune to it, but there was no going back now. She had trudged in here and hauled him back to a past he’d tried to forget. He’d deal with this now and then send her and the baby packing in the morning. He could deal with one tiny social worker and a baby and then go back to his scheduled life. He had his dog and his business. What else did he need?

He leaned forward in his chair, his forearms on his thighs, the cool, smooth crystal of the glass cupped tightly in his hands. “Why don’t you tell me exactly why you are here?”

Hannah cleared her throat. “Your sister became one of my cases when she was pregnant. She was an addict who tried to stay clean for her baby.”

Jackson felt his stomach churn with revulsion as a memory of his sister, strung out, falling into his arms, bulldozed him into the past again. He hated Louise’s weakness. He hated that she hadn’t trusted him enough to keep her safe. He hated that Louise had taken the easy way out. She had abandoned him and the reality of their lives in favor of mind-numbing drugs. She had sold her soul, her body, for a cheap fix. The sound of Hannah’s voice reached in and brought him back.

“We found a group home for her and she did really well. She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy little girl that she named Emily.”

Jackson stared straight ahead, avoiding her probing stare.
Don’t look over at the baby
. She had named the baby after their mother, who had died when they were both children. When they were still friends. When they would tear through the woods bordering their home playing Batman and Robin until their mother would call them in for dinner, always with a smile, always with a home-cooked meal. That was all a long time ago. Such a different world that sometimes he wondered if it had happened at all.

He stared into his lap, seeing his mother’s smile, so like his sister’s. It was an image he rarely indulged in because if there was one thing that could bring him to his knees, it was the thought of his mother, of his sister, of what his life once had been. To him, that was weakness, and he abhorred weakness in himself and others. “I heard that Louise died. I didn’t know there was a baby.”

“You didn’t go to the funeral.”

“I didn’t really think there was a point.”

“She killed herself.”

He nodded, ignoring the twisting in his gut. “I know.”

“It came as a total shock to all of us. I found a baby on a church doorstep.
Her
baby. Emily. She was one month old. Your sister left a note to find the baby’s uncle, Christopher James.” He didn’t have to look at her to know there were tears in her eyes.

Christopher James.
Chris
, as his mother and sister had called him. He swirled the whiskey in the glass, watching as the flames from the fire danced in the amber liquid. He knew no amount of the stuff would ease the pain. He had understood that nothing could ever take away gut-wrenching pain or sick memories. Louise hadn’t learned that lesson.

Emily
. His sister had a baby
. This baby
. Maybe she was better off without his sister. He knew first-hand blood meant nothing when that person was a substance abuser. He had learned that the hard way. Jackson looked up at Hannah. “What about the baby’s father?”

Her green eyes were filled with pain that couldn’t be false. A part of him hated that—hated that the compassion and pain were so genuine. And a tiny, tiny part of him that didn’t want to acknowledge it felt comforted by her.

Hannah shook her head. “She didn’t know who the father was. You are Emily’s only relative. You are documented as her next of kin.”

He needed to shut this down before she got crazy ideas into her head. “So what do you want from me? To sign some papers—?”

“I want you to adopt her.” Jackson felt like someone had ripped his insides out with one hard tug. It was ridiculous. Absurd. It was one thing to inform him that he had a niece, and quite another to expect him to adopt her.

“Are you kidding me?” He bit back the profanities that he thought were missing from that statement to try and keep this civil.

She shook her head slowly.

He was speechless. She actually wanted him to keep his sister’s baby. The sister who turned on him, betrayed everything he’d ever done for her and tried to ruin him. He turned away from Hannah in disgust. Hannah was responsible for bringing all of this to him. He hadn’t asked for this crap. He should have let her drive away.
Adopt a baby.
It was so insane, the idea of him taking in a baby, that he didn’t even try and process it.

“Jackson?” He heard the concern in the soft voice that tried to coax him into speaking. He knew exactly what she was doing now. She wanted him to talk, to open up. Fat chance in hell. His muscles tensed even tighter. He stared into the fire. “You don’t know anything about me. I run a company. I work twelve hours a day and live in a penthouse in downtown Toronto. I don’t know anything about babies.
I don’t want a baby
.”

It didn’t faze her. She folded her hands on her lap and stared at him levelly. “She is your flesh and blood, Jackson. It was your sister’s last wish.”

“My sister was a junkie. I offered her help hundreds of times and she refused. If she wanted what was best for her baby she would have taken the help being offered and sobered up. Blood ties mean nothing to me.”

She nudged her chin toward his drink. “I changed my mind. Could I have a glass of whatever you’re drinking, please?”

He was surprised by the request. He nodded, walking across the room. A moment later she accepted the snifter of whiskey and took a sip while he sat down. He didn’t want to be impressed that she didn’t cough as she swallowed.

“I know you didn’t have a good relationship with your sister, but Emily is just a baby,” she said leaning forward.

He shrugged and ground his teeth together. This was not his problem, no matter how hard she tried to make him think it was.

She frowned at him when he didn’t answer. “She’ll be placed in foster care if you don’t adopt her.”

He tried not to feel anything, especially the ugly emotions that had consumed him for years. The bitterness, the anger… no, he wanted to continue feeling nothing.

…

Hannah crossed her legs in front of her nervously and watched as Jackson digested that last piece of info. She tried not to panic. It didn’t look as though she got through to him at all. The only sign she had that he processed what she said was the rigid, tense lines in his body. If she completely angered him, she’d ruin her chance at getting him to agree to this. But if she stopped now, he might not let her broach this again and tomorrow she was leaving.

“The foster care system is a place for children who don’t have any family capable of caring for them. Your sister thought she could trust her daughter to you.” Hannah would have given anything to have been adopted by some long-lost relative who had come forward to rescue her, to know that she was connected to someone.

She held her breath. He looked into the bottom of his empty glass and then up at her. “Well, I’m sure there’s lots of great people out there who want a kid.”

“There are, but there are also no guarantees. And in the meantime she’ll be in foster care. You don’t know where she’ll end up—”

“It’s not my problem. If my sister wanted me to have anything to do with this baby she would have contacted me when she was born.”

“She said she’d tried so many times in the past, but that you refused to see her. After Emily was born, I think something happened. She became fragile again. I don’t think she could have handled your rejection.” Hannah couldn’t filter out the accusation from her voice. She had her own guilt to work through for not noticing any signs that Louise was failing, but her brother did too. Hannah knew she was too emotionally close to this case, but her past collided with baby Emily’s and she was desperate to honor Louise’s wish.