Rachel Bailey - Return of the Secret Heir

He cleared his throat and handed one of the bags over. “I thought you could use these.”

As she opened the handles, her eyes flicked to his, wide with surprise. “You didn’t have to do this.”

Dragging his gaze from the radiance in her eyes, he shrugged and handed her the other bags. “You’re stuck here all day. I thought it might help.”

Her violet eyes glistened. “That was thoughtful. Thank you.” She peeped into the second bag. “You came home early just for this?”

“Pretty much.” He walked in and slipped his arms from his jacket.

At one end of the dining table Pia had legal documents in piles and at the other end was a pea green creation with a wide brim. Seemingly unable to help herself, she was drawing a roll of snowy white ribbon from the bag he’d brought and was holding it against the hat.

“The woman in the shop said it was a versatile ribbon,” he offered. He’d been unsure how versatile ribbon could be, but he’d taken her word for it.

“It’s double-faced satin. There are a few things I could do with it.” She looped it around a few fingers and it became a flower which she held against the hat again, judging its effect. She’d always been able to do that-transform rudimentary materials into a work of art. Dresses, jewelry, shawls, whatever she tried.

Among her family of hard, dull stones, she’d been a polished ruby, bright and dazzling. And the pull of that luminescence had been stronger than a siren’s call for a hard-edged boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

“Why did you give up dreams of fashion design, Pia?” he asked, moving behind her.

She turned, her startled eyes meeting his, and he glimpsed endless depths of sadness. His chest constricted at being confronted by that bleakness in eyes he’d seen shine with passion and joy.

Then she blinked it away and methodically packed the ribbon into the bag it’d come in. “I grew up.”

Something told him this was too important to her, to them, to brush off. Perhaps it was her repeated use of that phrase. Perhaps it was the stark sadness he’d seen in her eyes. He sat on the edge of his couch bed, resting his loosely linked hands between his knees. “So you’ve said. What does that mean?”

She grew still, then laid the bag he’d given her on the table and sat on the edge of the couch with him. “I guess it’s better you understand,” she said, her voice tentative. “When I fell out that window and our baby…” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed. “I realized I had to stop acting like an indulged child. That included choosing a more sensible career and facing some hard truths about us.”

Hard truths? Every muscle in his body clamped down, as if preparing for a blow. “That’s when you broke up with me,” he said without looking at her.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her flinch. “I had to, JT. Being with you brings out the worst parts of me. Every whim, every reckless impulse. And that’s not a safe way to live. If we’d stayed together we would have self-destructed. It was too much. We were too much together. Surely you can see that now looking back?”

His mouth opened to reply, but words failed him. He’d be damned if he’d lie to make her feel better about her actions. The only self-destruction that would have happened was from her doing a cut and run later rather than sooner. If she’d had the courage to stand with him, to simply stay, they could have achieved anything together. So, no, he couldn’t see that they’d been “too much together” when he looked back.

But what he could finally see was how she’d justified her actions for all these years. He shook his head. “You’ve been with safe men in the intervening years, I gather?”

Her eyes darted to his, then away again. “They were men who brought out the best in me.”

He snorted. “None of them lasted, I see.”

“Neither did we,” she said, raising one eyebrow.

“Because you broke it off.” As soon as the going got tough. He gritted his teeth.

“My recklessness killed our baby, JT. I won’t let anything happen to this baby, and that means us keeping our emotional distance. I’ll be a better mother this way. The mother our baby deserves.”

His veins filled with ice. They might have different perspectives on the past, but on this they could agree-her plan suited him just fine. The last thing he needed was Pia getting thoughts into her head about anything more than co-parenting. When they were young and had dreams of being a family, being together forever, he’d forgotten that nothing is permanent. And that was dangerous. Since then, he’d kept up the pattern from his early childhood of never settling anywhere, moving apartments regularly.

Never getting too comfortable, never thinking he had it made, was important to keep the edge in business. Everything changes-business and personal. It was a lesson the woman beside him reinforced when she abandoned him the day after their first baby died.

But regardless of how things stood between them, one thing was for sure: He was no Warner Bramson. He hoped to God he’d inherited nothing beyond hair color from that poor excuse of a man, especially his idea of being a father, which had included sending his lover for an abortion and then abandoning her.

He would stand by Pia and their child no matter what it took.

Pia watched JT digest her words, praying she hadn’t been too harsh but knowing she needed all her cards on the table. No misunderstandings, no cross-purposes.

Then he looked up. “If the baby survives the second trimester, we’ll get married,” he said through a clenched jaw.

Emotion stung the back of her nose. He might be bad for her, but JT Hartley was a good man. He was doing the right thing, even as it tore him up inside.

“JT, I’m not marrying you,” she said gently but firmly. “I just explained why I can’t.”

“I’m not talking about hearts and flowers and illusions this time.” His eyes were as hard as granite. “I’m talking about our baby having parents who are legally married.”

Imagining that torturous scenario, she stifled a shudder. To be this close to the man who set her body alight, every day and night for the rest of her life, but not having him? “My answer is still no.”

He nodded once, slowly, not meeting her eyes. “Okay, if the baby makes it to term, we’ll discuss it again.”

A shaft of afternoon sunlight fell across his face, glinting in his dark hair, illuminating the green of his eyes. She wanted to smile at the majesty of JT. Then, replaying what he’d said, the word “if” jumped out-he’d used it more than once…and understanding dawned. She might be worried about the baby and terrified she’d hurt the tiny person cradled in her womb, but JT didn’t believe their baby would survive.

She laid a hand on his thigh, over the strong muscle that was as tense as the rest of him. “JT, you know this baby has a very good chance of making it, don’t you? It won’t be like the first time.”

He looked at her with eyes that held a world of pain. He’d taken her to the cross he’d carved to help with her grief, but he’d never had a chance to grieve properly himself. Parents should be able to turn to each other at a time like that, but she’d had to break away for her own sanity.

“What did you do when Brianna died?” she asked softly.

He let out a humorless laugh. “Tried to get in to see you mostly.”

The guilt of the pain she’d caused him stabbed into her chest like a hot knife. She swallowed once, twice, to make her voice work. “After that. After we spoke.”

“Went a little wild, I suppose.” He rubbed his chin and frowned. “When I left your hospital room, I got on my bike and rode till I ran out of gas. Then I filled up and rode some more.”