Time stopped as they stood there, bodies locked together in a too-intimate bid for dominance—of the situation and each other. He didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t know what he was pushing for. All he knew was that part of him wanted to punish her for what she’d put him through but the other part of him wanted nothing more than to take her back to his house and make love to her until she screamed his name. Until she couldn’t even think of defying him again.
They might have stayed there forever in their oddly intimate standoff, except just as Nic shifted to make sure she was comfortable, he felt a small but very definite kick against his abdomen.
“What was that?” he demanded, jumping back.
“That,” she said, looking pointedly down at her gently rounded stomach, “is why I left you a voice mail.”
Eight
She couldn’t tell if Nic looked more stupefied or stupid as he gazed down at the firm curve of her stomach. “Close your mouth,” she told him after a minute, “or you’ll end up catching flies.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“Sure looks like it, doesn’t it?” She didn’t mean to be flippant, but come on. How long was he going to keep up this charade? After trying to get him on the phone three different times, she’d finally given up and broken the news to him in a voice mail. And she hadn’t been delicate about the information, either. She’d told him, straight up, that she was pregnant and that she’d very much like it if he’d call her back.
Needless to say, he hadn’t.
And now, here he was, looking completely shocked by her baby bump seconds after he’d accused her of falsifying evidence for her article. Which was total and complete bull. She’d double-, triple- and quadruple-checked everything in that article, so for him to come around here beating his chest and threatening her just because he didn’t like what she’d found out…well, that wasn’t exactly her problem, was it?
Except the longer he stood there, the more it began to feel as if it was totally her problem. And when the elevators started dinging, marking the return of most of the staff, she knew she had to get him somewhere more private. Standing in the middle of a room of reporters was not where they needed to hash this out—especially if she wanted to keep hidden the fact that he was the father of her unborn child.
“Come on,” she said, making an executive decision to get them both out of there before things got even messier than they already were.
She grabbed his arm and propelled him toward the staircase situated in the left corner of the building. She’d get him outside to the back parking lot. Since the Times’ staff had been cut down to a fraction of its former size, no one needed to park back there anymore.
He seemed to be somewhat recovered by the time they made it down the stairs and out of the building. Or at least recovered enough to ask, “It’s mine?”
“Of course it’s yours. Otherwise I wouldn’t have felt the need to call you and leave you that voice mail.”
“I swear, I didn’t get the voice mail. If I had, I would have called you. I would have—” He broke off, shook his head. “So you’re eighteen weeks along, then?”
“You came up with that number pretty quick,” she told him, surprised that he remembered exactly when they’d met.
“I’m not the one who walked away.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, I wanted to see you again. I texted you numerous times trying to get you to respond. You’re the one who chose not to.”
He was right. She knew he was right, but still, she couldn’t let it go. “If you were so interested in me, why didn’t you call me back when I called you? Even if you didn’t get the voice mail, you had to have seen that I called.”
For the first time since he’d shown up in her office like some kind of avenging angel, he wouldn’t look her in the eye. Which told her everything she needed to know even before he said, “I erased your number. If you called—”
“When I called,” she corrected him.
“When you called,” he conceded, “you would have come up as an unknown number.”
Well, if that didn’t tell her exactly where she stood with the man who was the father of her child, nothing else would. She’d spent weeks, months, obsessively rereading his texts while he’d simply erased her from his life.
Then again, that was about par for the course with her, wasn’t it? Growing attached when she knew she shouldn’t and then being shown, again and again, that she didn’t matter at all.
“Right. Of course.” She tried to sound flippant, but from the look on his face she wasn’t carrying it off nearly as well as she’d hoped to. “That’s fine. Perfect, really, just go back to that.”
“Go back to what?”
“You living your life, me living mine and never the twain shall meet.”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I hate to break it to you, Desi, but the twain has already met. And it made a baby when it did.”
“You say that like I’m supposed to be surprised by the consequences of our one night together. I’m the one who’s been carrying this kid for the last eighteen weeks. And I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with it after it’s born. So you can take all your ‘we made a baby’ crap and go back where you came from.”
“You don’t really think it’s going to be that easy, do you?”
“I don’t see why it has to be complicated. You go about living your life exactly as you always have and I’ll figure out what to do about the baby.”
“As we’ve already established, you’re eighteen weeks along. Which means you’ve already decided what to do about the baby. And if you’re not having an abortion—”
“I’m not! So you’re out of luck on that front.”
Nic made a low, angry sound deep in his throat, shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. “Are you being deliberately obtuse? I said it was obvious that you’ve made up your mind to have the baby and you read that as I want you to get an abortion? What’s wrong with you?”
She nearly laughed. If she had a dollar for every time someone had asked her that question in her life…well, she wouldn’t be working a crappy entry-level journalism job, that’s for sure. “Look, I don’t even know why we’re having this discussion. It’s not your problem—”
“Not my problem?” he squawked.
“Exactly. Not your problem. My job isn’t great but it’s got good benefits and my dad’s life insurance left me pretty well off when he died. So you don’t have to worry that I want something from you, because I don’t. I know this is my baby and—”
“Your baby?”
She glared at him, totally exasperated by his continued interruptions when she was trying so hard to get through this conversation without crying. Since she’d gotten pregnant, the hormones had her emotions all over the place.
“You know, you’re really beginning to sound like a parrot.”
“And you’re beginning to sound like a lunatic. That baby you’re carrying is as much mine as it is yours and—”
“Really? As much yours as mine? Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Nic, and right now he’s inside my body, so…” She gave a little shrug to underscore her meaning—and to irritate the hell out of him. Judging from the way he was suddenly grinding his teeth together, it was working.
“It’s a he? You know it’s a he already?”
She almost lied, almost told him she didn’t know. From the time she’d found out about the baby, but particularly after she’d called Nic and not gotten a response, she’d begun to think of this baby as exclusively hers. Someone she could take care of, someone she could love. Someone who would never go to sleep wondering where she was or when he would see her again.
And now, Nic was here. Talking about the baby as if he was already invested in hi
m or something. She didn’t trust it…and she didn’t trust Nic.
But lying about it just to hurt him wasn’t right, either. And so she nodded, reluctantly. “Yes, it’s a boy.”
His eyes glazed over at the confirmation and, for long seconds, he seemed dazed. A little out of it.
“Wow. It just got real, you know? We’re having a boy.”
She really didn’t like the sound of that. “I’m having a boy.”
“Are we back to that? Seriously?” He looked so disappointed that it struck a chord deep inside her. Made her squirm a little uncomfortably under his scrutiny—and under the realization that here was a man who seemed to take his responsibilities seriously. A man who wouldn’t just run away from his child at the first sign of trouble.
But how did she know that, really? He’d just found out she was pregnant, so of course he was interested. Of course he wanted to be involved. But that didn’t mean he’d thought it through, didn’t mean he wasn’t going to balk once the truth settled in.
Just the thought had her backing up and cupping a protective hand over the soft swell of her baby. “Back to it? I don’t think we ever left it,” she told him. “This is my son.”
“Our son.”
“My son. He—”
“God.” Nic ran a frustrated hand through his hair in a motion that was becoming familiar to her, even in the short time they’d spent together. “Why are you being so obstinate about this?” he exploded. “I don’t get you. I really don’t. First you don’t answer me when I try to get in touch with you after our night together. Then you write that assassination article and try to ruin my family’s company based on a bunch of lies. And now? Now you’re trying to cut me out of our kid’s life before he’s even born. I don’t get it. What did I ever do to you to make you hate me this much?”
“I don’t hate you,” she told him as guilt spread through her. She tried to cut it out, to nip it in the bud, but it wasn’t so easy to do when he was looking at her as if she’d just ruined Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy all at the same time.
“Really? Because it sure seems like you do from where I’m sitting.” He shook his head, then turned his back on her and started to walk away.
Her heart dropped. He was leaving already, giving up. Which was fine, she told herself. Better now than after the baby was born. Or after she’d come to depend on him.
But it turned out, he wasn’t going far. Just to the fence a few yards away. She watched as he stood there for long seconds, head bowed and hands shoved in his pockets. The guilt burning inside her got a little harder to ignore.
“Look,” she said, taking a few tentative steps in his direction. “Me writing that article has nothing to do with you.”
He looked at her as if she was crazy. “You wrote an exposé about my family. You all but crucified my brother with the vicious lies of a source you won’t stop protecting. It doesn’t get any more ‘about me’ than that.”
“They weren’t lies.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Keep telling yourself that. For a journalist, you sure don’t seem to give a shit about truth.”
Anger flashed through her, replacing the guilt. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“Because you won’t talk to me. Jesus, you’re halfway done with your pregnancy and you didn’t even tell me about it.”
“I told you—”
“In a voice mail? In one lousy voice mail? Who does that?” He turned on her then, stalking toward her like the predator she was sure he was.
“I was pregnant with a stranger’s baby! What else was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to answer my texts!” he roared. “You were supposed to talk to me about that bastard’s accusations against Bijoux. You were supposed to get in my face about this pregnancy and make me hear you.”
“That’s not how I do things.” She didn’t beg for attention, not now, not anymore. And certainly not from a man who meant nothing to her.
“How? Reasonably? Honestly? Like an adult? Yeah, believe me, I’m getting that’s not your way.”
“Screw you!” Her own anger roared back to life. “You exploit children and consumers. You get rich off blood diamonds. You lie every day of your life. Who the hell are you to judge me?” She’d been so disappointed when the allegations had proved to be true, had been so hurt even though she’d known it was a ridiculous response. But he’d seemed like such a good guy that night at his house. Had seemed so perfect. To find out that he actually dealt with monsters just to turn a profit, just to go from a billionaire to a bigger billionaire…it had wounded her way more than it should have.
“You don’t listen to anybody, do you?” he demanded incredulously. “You believe what you want and do your own thing and to hell with the consequences. To hell with the truth. How do you plan on being a news reporter with an attitude like that?”
His words were a slap across the face, a hit at the deepest, most sensitive part of her soul. “I am a news reporter.”
“You’re a child playing at being a grown-up.” He shook his head, shoved his hands deep in his pockets as he took a steadying breath. “You know what? We’re not getting anywhere with this. Why don’t you go upstairs, read the file I gave you and talk to your managing editor, who’s got a copy of it by now. Then figure out what you want to do and call me. We’ll talk then.”
“Yeah, right, I’ll be sure to do that. Maybe I’ll even leave a voice mail.”
His face darkened and for a second it looked as if he was going to tell her off, once and for all. But in the end, he swallowed whatever obnoxious thing he’d thought of saying and simply told her, “Call me when you want to talk.”
“I’m never going to want to talk to you.”
“Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it? Because that’s my baby you’re carrying and I will be a part of his life. In fact, the only question from where I’m standing is, will you?”
The words were his parting shot and then he turned, walking away from her. Leaving her staring after him with her mouth open and fear clawing at her throat. She’d been around the block enough times to recognize a threat when she heard one.
For a second, she couldn’t quite figure out how she’d gotten to this point. That morning, she’d woken up a soon-to-be single mother and she’d been okay with that. No, she’d been more than okay. She’d been happy with it. Fast-forward six hours, and the man who had fathered her child, a man she didn’t even know, had just threatened to take that baby from her. And he was rich enough to do it.
“Hey!” she called, but he didn’t turn around. Didn’t so much as flinch to acknowledge that he heard her. “Nic!” She started after him, but before she could take more than two steps, her phone buzzed with a text. She glanced down at it, then froze when she saw Malcolm’s words. “Bijoux article canceled. Source a hoax. See me ASAP.”
Nine
Nic climbed into his car and roared out of the parking lot with no intention of stopping until he was several miles away from Desi Maddox and the Los Angeles Times. Running might be a juvenile reaction, but if he’d stood there arguing with her for much longer he would have said something he regretted. And since she was the mother of his child—his child—that didn’t seem like the best course of action. For any of their sakes.
For once, LA traffic cooperated with him and as he sped through the streets he tried to calm down, tried to wrap his head around the fact that not only had he found Desi after all these months, but that he was also about to become a father. A father. The word reverberated in his head, the weight of it pressing in on him from all sides.
In a little less than five months, he would be a father. To a bouncing baby boy. And then what? He didn’t know the first thing about parenting. How could he, when his own father had set such a shiningly bad example?
Then
again, maybe Nic knew more than he thought. If he just did the opposite of everything his own father had done, he could probably win a father-of-the-year award.
He kept driving, sliding his Porsche in and out of traffic as he tried not to panic. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to parent his son, wasn’t that he was afraid of the responsibility of it. Because he wasn’t—no matter what Desi had concocted in her head about him being a soulless monster with a Peter Pan complex. That wasn’t the case. He was more than willing to step up to the plate here, more than willing to take care of his child.
He was just terrified of screwing it up. Of making mistakes that hurt his kid the way his father had hurt him and Marc. He didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want to be the guy who let his family down over and over and over again.
Lost in thought, he cruised through a yellow light as it turned red. Horns blared at him from both sides of the cross-traffic, and he waved a hand in silent apology even as he decided he should probably pull over before he caused an accident.
Griffith Park and Observatory was only a couple of blocks ahead of him, so he angled his way through traffic, moving to the right lane so he could make the turn into the parking lot. But once there, he couldn’t just sit. His thoughts were too momentous, too overwhelming. He needed to be doing something or he would be crushed under the weight of them.
He climbed out of the car and headed for the park. If nothing else, he could walk. Nothing like a shot of nature in the middle of a crowded city to help a guy clear his head.
But as he walked, things only got more muddled. Oh, not the fact that he was going to be a father to this baby. That part he was crystal clear about. His kid, his responsibility.
But the rest of it…yeah, the rest of it was a hell of a lot murkier.
What kind of father would he be?
How would he avoid hurting his own child the way his dad had hurt him?
How would he get past the wall Desi had built around herself and get her to talk to him—and listen to him?