Rachel Bailey - Return of the Secret Heir

She reached for her bag and found a folded piece of note paper. “I’ve been thinking about names.” She’d thumbed through the baby name book they’d used to choose Brianna’s name yesterday while JT was at work. “I made a few notes as a starting point. Some for a boy and some for a girl.”

Within an instant, his face hardened, a sharp contrast to the relaxed charm of only a minute ago. “It’s too soon for names.”

Her heart stuttered and dipped. He’d said he didn’t want to plan too far ahead in case something happened to the baby, but she’d hoped that after today’s clearance from the doctor, he’d be willing to look a little further into the future. To have some optimism about their baby.

“Dr. Crosby said everything looked fine,” she said, finding a smile with effort. “And I’m into the second trimester now.”

The waiter swooped past, depositing two glasses of sparkling water on their table. JT sipped from his, gripping it in a white-knuckled hold. “You were into the second trimester last time.”

“I fell out a window last time,” she pointed out. “I don’t plan on scaling any buildings, falling from any trees or climbing out any windows in the next few months.”

He didn’t even crack a smile at her attempt at humor. “Dr. Crosby said there was a ten-percent chance of a placental abruption reoccurring. I just don’t want us to put the cart before the horse.”

That figure of ten percent had haunted her dreams, but she refused to let the ice-cold fear crawl into her waking hours. Positivity was the only option-this baby would survive and be born healthy. And if JT accepted that too, it would be easier for her to keep the fears at bay.

“We haven’t bought a crib,” she began, speaking slowly, gently, “haven’t decorated a nursery. I understand you want to play it safe and wait before doing big things, but there’s nothing to lose in choosing some options for names.”

The skin across his face pulled taut. “There’s something to lose,” he said and the pain in his eyes tore at her soul.

Opening their hearts to a new baby after such grief wasn’t something covered in the baby books, but they had to find a way through it, for their child’s sake.

Her hand strayed to her belly. “JT, things are going to constantly crop up from here on that will involve thinking about the future. How do you want to handle that?”

“One day at a time,” he said in a tone that ended the discussion.

Their meals arrived and she watched him pick up his cutlery, his body still tense. The restaurant was slowly filling up but there was no one at the tables adjacent to theirs, so they had a modicum of privacy. She picked at her fettuccine-only minutes before she’d been craving this meal but now, instead of tasting the flavors, she could only think about JT’s grief and inability to believe in this baby. They talked about the weather and topics that didn’t hit any buttons-with Pia using a tone of artificial brightness to try and lift the mood-and when they finished, JT ordered them both another drink and finally the atmosphere at the table relaxed again.

“You were right about the food here,” she said. “The pasta was delicious. How did you find this place?”

“I own the building,” he said simply and reached for his glass.

His answer was so unexpected that she couldn’t prevent a short laugh from escaping. “Of course you do.”

He grinned crookedly back at her and more of the tension from earlier dissipated. “I haven’t been here in a year, maybe two, and I was hoping the meals were as good as I remembered.”

She sat back in her chair, wondering at his life. The restaurant wasn’t that far from his office or apartment, and he liked the food. And yet he hadn’t been for a year or two. Curious.

She fingered the edge of the red napkin. “Why don’t you come more often?”

“I don’t know.” Frowning, he glanced from the brightly painted walls to the Italian flag behind the counter, as if he hadn’t considered the question before. Then he shrugged his broad shoulders. “I never seem to get a chance. I work until late and if I don’t want to cook for myself, I order in.”

“You don’t bring dates here?” she asked, then held her breath, wondering if she’d pressed too far into his personal life. But he didn’t seem bothered.

“I don’t date much. And when I do, I prefer something bigger and flashier.” He meant to imply he was a big spender for his dates, it was in the glint in his eyes, but she didn’t believe it. He was avoiding the intimacy a small place like this would bring.

He’d always been something of a lone wolf-which had been part of his appeal to her sixteen-year-old self-and it seemed he was even more so now.

“You don’t let women get close, do you, JT?”

For a split second, his eyes flashed fire, then it was gone. “I prefer to keep women and dates uncomplicated.”

She’d seen into his soul in that split second. The raw pain that still lived there, the blame he held. That she deserved. She swallowed and faced the consequences of her actions. “Uncomplicated, meaning not letting anyone close enough to hurt you the way I did.”

He stared at her with a fervent intensity for a long moment before lifting his glass and looking around the restaurant again.

“I’m sorry, JT,” she whispered.

He flinched but didn’t look back at her, his gaze fixed out the window, on the street’s passing traffic. “Nothing to be sorry for.” His voice was light. Too light. “You ended it early enough to save us both a lot of pain. Much better you did it when we were kids than a few years down the track when our lives were too integrated.”

“I’m still sorry. I was so engulfed in my own grief that I handled everything badly. I should have explained more. Or something.”

“I’ll buy some pasta tomorrow,” he said, blatantly changing the subject. “Now you have a craving for it, I’ll make you some during the week.”

Her heart flipped over in her chest. He was planning to stay? The only reason she’d let her guard down and allowed him to share her bed was they’d understood it was time-limited. A very short time frame. If he stayed longer, she wasn’t sure if her defenses would last, and then she’d be back in the middle of loving him again. Unthinkable. Besides, she’d kept him from his own life for too long while he played nursemaid.

She ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “You were only staying for the first trimester. I’m over the danger now. You’re free to leave.”

“It would be safer if I stay.”

“It would be safer if I admitted myself to hospital and was under constant surveillance from a medical team, but that would be overkill. I’ll be fine on my own. I want to do this on my own.”

His eyes narrowed, their green becoming darker, more intense. “I can’t approve that plan.”

“I promise I’ll let you know if I have any problems, but I think you need to move back to your own place, don’t you? We need to get things working…I don’t know…working the way we’re going to be working in the future.”

He rubbed his hand over his shadowed chin, considering, and she wondered if he’d insist. And how could she possibly counter JT when he insisted?

He sipped his drink and watched her over the rim, his eyes heating. “I’d miss your bed too much to leave just yet.”

Her skin prickled with awareness; her blood heated. She would miss him in her bed, too. The ache of his absence was already beginning to bloom throughout her body. But that was even more reason to make the break now-she couldn’t fall into a false relationship with him, something based on sex and their shared baby. Lines had been too blurred, but going forward, they needed to be as clear as possible to protect everyone.