Having Jay's Baby (Having His Baby #2) (4 page)

“Got it,” the young man said. “Here she is.” He looked back at me. “How many copies do you need?”

“How much are they?”

“Fifteen dollars,” he said efficiently, “plus a two-seventy-five processing fee.”

I ordered three copies, just in case. I didn’t want to go through this again anytime soon. Taking a seat after I’d paid, I waited for my number to be called. My email inbox was relatively slow today, so I answered a few messages, made a call, and then ventured out to the lobby to the coffee cart. I’d just reached the front of the queue when I spied a tall, blond-haired man entering the hall.

“What can I get you, sweetheart?” the barista said.

My heart hammered, stopped, and then hammered again. Was that Jay Fitzsimmons? I turned back to the barista. “Uh… a small flat white, please.”

I stared back at the door the second the barista had turned away. The newcomer had his back to me, but it was Jay. His gait was unmistakable; I could have poeticised the way he carried himself a suit. He turned, giving me a snapshot of his brooding profile, and a dagger of unexpected alarm stabbed low down and deep.

I exhaled, risking a glance back. The alarm shifted like mud giving way to a deluge of ... I went very still, unable to describe it as anything else but yearning. His was a beautifully-shaped profile. His was a beautifully-shaped everything. I drooled mentally as he ran a hand through his damp hair. He said something to one of the security guards, the two men laughing. Deep, delicious indentations appeared next to his mouth, juxtaposed against a firm jaw.

I swallowed. How could another human being make my mouth water? Was that natural?

“You want sugar with that?”

I turned back to the barista. “Sorry?”

His brows lifted. “Sugar?”

Did I take sugar?
“No,” I said, finally, uncaring.

“Six dollars, sweetheart.”

I thumbed through my purse and handed him a note. Taking the change and the coffee, I stepped aside. It was with a tumbling sense of finality that I noticed Jay watching me from the entrance. I dropped my purse. I leaned down to retrieve it and spilled my coffee.

He was walking towards me. I couldn’t have said if he was smiling exactly. His eyes were sparking with something, and it wasn’t polite recognition.

He stopped a foot away from me, causing me to crane my neck to meet his gaze. I smiled on autopilot. “Jay,” I said, hesitant. “This is a coincidence.”

“It is,” he said. We looked at each other for a second, and then he touched my left arm. It was all I could do not to flinch or shudder in reaction. He leaned in to kiss my cheek, but in a moment of gaucheness, I jerked my face to the side—the wrong side—and he almost brushed my lips.

We both paused. The intimation pulsed between us. His light cologne, maybe shower gel, wafted around my brain like an airborne drug. He leaned in again and this time, staying perfectly still, I let him kiss my cheek.

Cool breath fanned my skin, chased by a trace of roughness from his jaw as he eased back slowly. Oh boy … that kiss in the car had been a bad, bad idea. It might have been months ago now, but it had reminded me exactly, post-motherhood, what that mouth tasted like. I could remember the sensation of being aroused—not the normal variety, but the Jay Fitzsimmons variety, which was like industrial strength arousal. The cause of it was standing right here in front me: six-feet three inches of sex in a suit.

Had I really said I wasn’t ready for this? Because I feel ready.

Guilt scalded my cheeks as flashes of carefully honed fantasies came scorching into my head. I blinked, unable to look him in the eyes. He seemed much less reluctant. His eyes studied mine, giving me no option but to keep his gaze. “Are you here on an assignment?” he asked.

I ignored the throb low in my stomach and shook my head. “Paperwork. I need a copy of Nina’s birth certificate.” I didn’t register, at first, the implications of what I was saying, but his narrowed gaze brought them home quickly enough.

Christ, the note…

“It’s for my lawyer,” I said, rushing the words in an effort to explain. Instead of stopping, I lifted the proverbial booted foot and it hovered over my mouth. “It’s just a child support thing.”

Jesus, Winters—shut up!

“Aaron, Nina’s father,” I added, as the final, awkward nail in the coffin. “He’s a surf coach.”

His expression pretty much echoed my discomfort. He mouthed a silent ‘oh’ but didn’t comment. He looked uneasy, as I should have anticipated. I resisted the urge to groan aloud.

“Do you have long to wait?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I hope not.” I looked back at the more exclusive part of the hall where he’d been heading before his detour. “Are you here on business?”

“Yeah,” he said shortly. “A meeting ... I should be done in half an hour.” Unlike my clumsy effort, he clearly didn’t feel the need to fill me in on the details. He surprised me by adding, “Do you want to grab some lunch?”

I stumbled into a stunned pause before saying, “Okay.” A spark of excitement erupted like a rogue firework in my chest. “Sure, why not?”

“What’s your number?”

“Oh, I had to change my phone,” I said, frowning. Aaron’s antics had meant downsizing my whole life, not just my house. “I still can’t remember the new one.” I was about to fumble in my bag when he shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter. Wait for me here,” he said, nodding towards the pews near the door. He left me with a parting smile, the dark eyes effortlessly raking across every nerve-ending I owned.

#

We found a deli a few blocks from City Hall. It was underwhelming from the outside, but inside it was like a home kitchen. It was still raining and we were soaked when we rushed in. We chose a booth near the window, the glass partially steamed up. I worried that my hair was everywhere in a thick tangle, but mostly I was entranced by the effect the water was having on Jay. He gleamed with energy, slick and sexy.

He brushed back his hair and smiled at me. “Do you remember that Polish deli you took me to in D.C.?”

I managed a smile. A gentle memory stole into my consciousness and overrode the other battling emotions. “Sure,” I said.
A lifetime ago
. “In Mount Pleasant?”

He nodded. “I was there last week.”

This made me unaccountably happy. “Is it still the same family who run it? The Kowalski’s?”

“Yep. It’s still the same—chipped Formica and peeling linoleum.”

I shared his smile for as long as I could bear. It was like staring into the sun. Looking down at the menu, my brain revisited the little deli in question. I’d been on an assignment, and Jay in town on business. We’d spent a couple of lazy mornings there, post-coitus. I was smiling to myself as my eyes traced the menu blindly.

I’d presumed it only existed now in my memories. Had he gone back there by accident or out of nostalgia? He had kissed me the last time we’d met, so obviously he had good memories of our time together, too. And what a time that had been … before Nina, yes, but also before Aaron had self-destructed on me.

As though outraged by the endorphins flooding my system, reality swooped in and dumped its careless, dusty weight on my shoulders. I resisted the urge to rest my elbows on the table and cover my face with my hands.

The birth certificate ... Aaron’s name was on it, but he hadn’t signed it. Or at least, City Hall didn’t have a copy of the signed version. I still couldn’t believe it. I knew I was in dire straits, but I hadn’t had a chance yet to absorb the full extent of it. Why hadn’t I checked? Was there still time to fix it?

The waiter arrived. I looked up in surprise. I hadn’t even read the menu. My eyes darted to Jay, who was watching me with cautious eyes.

“We’ll need another minute,” he said to the waiter.

I glanced down, embarrassed by my obvious agitation. “There’s too much to choose from here,” I said. Then I noticed there were only five sandwiches on the menu. My cheeks warmed. “What are you having?” I asked.

Jay was silent for a moment, perusing me rather than the menu. He laid it down casually. “I’ll see what the specials are,” he said.

“Me, too,” I said in relief. I pushed the menu aside, glad not to have to deal with it anymore. “How did your meeting go?”

He blew a breath out of the side of his lower lip, his brows raised. The phone turned up and down in his agile fingers. “Okay,” he said, anticlimactically. “Did you get your birth certificate?”

I nodded tightly.

We watched each other for a moment. “Is your ex causing problems?” he asked.

I inhaled, and said, “Kind of.” I was too embarrassed to admit to the full extent of the problem. “I think I’m going to have to close the book on that chapter of my life,” I said finally, the words forced from inside a vice in my chest. I pushed my hair behind my ear and stared through the misty window to the muffled activity outside. “He’s not interested in Nina. We need to move on.”

“Nina.”

The curious repetition of her name in Jay’s low, crisp voice made me still. “My daughter,” I said, hesitant.

Hadn’t I told him her name?

Jay’s eyes narrowed on me. “Isn’t he helping you financially?”

Part of me wanted to deny it. I’d always prided myself on being an independent person. It was embarrassing to admit I’d had a child with a man who couldn’t have cared less about either me or our daughter. Given that I’d been birthed to a man with the same general affections towards my mother and me, it was faintly terrifying to think that I might have searched Aaron out on some deeply physiologically-scared level.

But that was ridiculous.

I exhaled deeply, and said, “No. He’s isn’t helping … at all.” I delivered the last two words with all of the disbelief sizzling through my veins. “But mostly I’ve just made some really stupid decisions since Nina was born.” I frowned. “Or rather, I haven’t made some decisions that I should have. I know that doesn’t make any sense. As you can see, my brain’s been disintegrating since I’d started breastfeeding.”

His brows lifted in amusement.

“What was your meeting about?” I asked.

He shook his head. He took in the bristling streets outside for a moment, his jaw working. “I was checking into something for a friend of the family,” he said. He flicked his gaze back to me and he exhaled. “Her father’s being investigated. It looks like they’re going to arrest him; they’ve found enough evidence to bring a case against him, apparently.”

“Wow…” My eyes widened, my paltry problems paling in comparison. “Is he a good friend?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

I watched Jay carefully. The dark eyes were still warm, but I sensed a distance in them. “Is there anything you can do?”

“I doubt it,” he said, his tone gruff. “It’s probably a little heartless, but I’m more worried about the knock-on effect.” He smiled without much humour. “He’s a close business associate of my father. There’s a chance the investigation could implicate other people.”

“So you’re worried about your father?”

Jay smiled at this, though there wasn’t much amusement in it. “Well, I guess I’m just waiting to see where the chips fall.”

I took a deep breath and looked outside again. Today was a crummy day, then, and not only for me. Oddly, I didn’t feel down. I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than sitting in this exact diner, among the gaudy Formica and the noisy cries coming from the kitchen. One thing I’d realised during the—admittedly escapist—few months I’d spent with Jay, and before everything had exploded with Aaron, was that things didn’t quite matter as much when Jay Fitzsimmons was around. 

I’d been given morphine once, when I’d had appendicitis; it hadn’t stopped the pain, but I’d cared about it a hell of a lot less. Jay was a lot like morphine.

“So what’s the deal with your ex?” he asked, eventually. “The father?”

I adopted a hesitant expression, and said, “As in his relationship with me or Nina?”

“Do you trust him?” Jay asked, ignoring the hedged query.

I laughed. “No.”

It was Jay’s turn to pause. “I got another one of those messages,” he said simply. “About Nina.”

A nerve bomb dropped in my stomach. I stared at his obvious discomfort; his dark eyes glanced off mine. “Are you serious? What did it say?” I asked.

“It said…” He breathed out with amusement, but it was a cold as frigid air. He paused, laughed lightly again, and said, “It said that the wrong name was on the birth certificate.”

I could feel my mouth and my eyes gaping but I couldn’t quite grasp what he was telling me.

He was still smiling. “Yeah ... The coincidence wasn’t lost on me when I met you this morning.”

I scrambled to make sense of what he was saying. “When did you get it?”

He frowned. “Monday?” Perhaps sensing the genuine alarm threading through me like burning fuel, he softened his expression. “Is there any chance your ex might have an axe to grind?”

“Totally,” I said, “but not about Nina’s birth certificate.” This time I couldn’t stop myself. The weight of it was too much, and I dropped my face into my hands. I took a few deep breaths before surfacing. “He never signed it.”