Susan Meier - Carrying The Billionaire's Baby

That could be his baby. His child.

He glanced at Avery again. Her figure hadn’t changed much except for the baby bump, yet she’d looked more womanly, more attractive. He remembered her soapy and sexy in the shower, added the baby bump to the naked body he knew so well, and something raw and emotional ripped through him. Stronger than lust, more profound than awe that they’d created a child, the feeling rendered him speechless. The reality that that “bump” could be his child slammed into him like an eighteen-wheeler, mostly because his father had been a terrible parent. He had no idea how a good dad behaved. What a good dad did—

But, no. It couldn’t be his child. Avery would have told him. Wouldn’t she?

He and Pete finally walked past the file room. Pete still chatted on about Jake’s mother. “I understand that she’s on shaky emotional ground. But you really have to hold the line with her coming into the business and trying to do things.”

“Actually, I’m thinking of giving her a job.”

“What?” Pete stopped walking.

Jake stopped too. “She lost her husband.” A movement from the file room caught his eye and he glanced up in time to see Avery racing away. His throat constricted. His gut clenched. Why run away from him if that wasn’t his child?

Embarrassment?

Maybe.

Had to be.

She was probably embarrassed she’d found another man and gotten pregnant so soon after him. Because it couldn’t be his baby...

Otherwise she would have told him.

He faced Pete. “Mom’s grieving. She’s searching for meaning in her life. Trying to be chairman of the board proves she wants something to do. Why not give her something?”

“Because she’s been a socialite for forty years and doesn’t have any skills?” Pete sighed. “Jake, giving her a job is only going to make your life difficult. There are better ways to handle her grief than having her underfoot.”

“I’m not sure I agree. Maybe she has skills we don’t know about? Or maybe she won’t even want a job? At least if I ask, she’ll feel wanted.”

“I think you’ll be sorry.”

“Perhaps. But I think I should ask. She’s leaving today for a week in Paris. I thought if I offered her something, it would perk her up enough that her friends could snap her out of her depression.”

“You’re sure she’s going?”

“She and her girlfriends have been spending the first week of September in Paris for decades.” He took a brief glance up the hall, but Avery was gone. “She’ll recognize she needs to be with her friends and go. Besides, there’s a charity ball over the weekend that I’m attending this year. She won’t miss my first time there and a chance to introduce me to her friends.”

“What if she jumps on your job offer and doesn’t care about going to the event?”

“A condition of her coming to work for us will be that she takes the week in Paris first.”

Pete shrugged as if grudgingly agreeing with Jake’s decision.

They reached Pete’s office and Jake took one final glance up the hall. He didn’t see Avery, but his chest tightened anyway.

As Pete droned on about fulfilling the bequests in his dad’s will, Jake realized three things. First, Avery was independent enough that she could consider it her right not to tell him about his own child. Second, if that baby really was his, he was in trouble. He had no idea how to be a parent and he would need all the time he could get to figure it out before the baby was born. Which meant, number three, he was going to have to confront her.

Today.

* * *

Avery didn’t get home until after nine that night. Law firm associates did all the paperwork and the bulk of the legwork on most cases. Before she’d gotten pregnant, she’d fought for the extra work. She sat in on every meeting they’d permit her to attend, and campaigned to be a part of every important case. She had a plan, with big goals, and had only allowed herself five years to get the experience she would need to start her own law firm back home in Pennsylvania. She’d had to cram in everything she could.

Then she’d started hooking up with Jake. It was wrong. From day one, she’d known it was wrong. Her dad had gone to jail for something he hadn’t done because a rich employer had used his money and influence to ride roughshod over the system, and her dad couldn’t afford high-priced counsel to fight him. That was why she’d become a lawyer—to be a voice for people who couldn’t pay five-hundred dollars an hour to defend themselves from something they hadn’t done. She couldn’t date someone just like the guy who’d sent her dad to prison.

No matter how sexy Jake was, an undercurrent of privilege ran through his life. Riding in his limos, taking his helicopter to Maine for lobster, sleeping in a penthouse monitored by security guards only reminded her that people like Jake didn’t know a damned thing about real life, about suffering and struggle...about being normal.

She didn’t want her baby getting lost in the shuffle of drivers, maids and nannies, any more than she wanted her little girl or boy growing up thinking money somehow made her better, even as he or she stayed behind a wall of bodyguards, rode in bulletproof limos and lived with the threat of being kidnapped.

She also didn’t want to risk the consequences if Jake found out her dad was an ex-con. He could demand that she stay in New York—away from her dad—or even try to take the baby. Then she’d have no way of shielding her child from the craziness of the McCallan life.

So, she’d made the decision not to tell Jake she was pregnant to protect her child. Immediately, relief had coursed through her. Joy at becoming a mom had blossomed. With Jake out of the picture, she was ready to become a parent. Sure, it changed her plans a bit. She’d be returning to Pennsylvania two years sooner than she’d thought, and without sufficient experience, but she’d adapt. She wanted this baby enough that she’d change her life any way necessary.

She kicked off her subway shoes, tossed her briefcase on a chair and headed to her bedroom, but her doorbell rang.

Closing her eyes in misery, she muttered, “Damn it.”

She could ignore the bell, but she had a sneaking suspicion Jake McCallan had been sitting in a limo somewhere down the street from her building, waiting for her to come home. He’d seen her that morning. Seen the baby bump. Stickler for detail that he was, he’d undoubtedly done the math.

The bell rang again.

She headed for the door, shaking off her fears. Lawyers planned for all contingencies. Her first choice might have been not to tell him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a backup plan, a Plan B. He was a super-stuffy aristocrat, who wouldn’t want a crying child in his world. All she had to do was remind him that a baby didn’t fit into his well-ordered life and he’d back off.

Wondering how such a serious, stuffy guy could be so good in bed, she walked to the door and opened it.

“Jake. How nice to see you.”

It was nice to see him. He had black hair cut short to be neat, but strands poked out, making him look sexy and interesting. His solemn blue eyes always made her want to tell him a joke. But his body was a work of art. He could be an advertisement for the gym. Going three days a week had virtually turned him into a god. And the sex? Amazing. Just thinking about it made her weak-kneed and breathless.

He pointed at her stomach. “That’s my baby, isn’t it?”

She opened the door a little wider, urging him inside. “Nothing like a little small talk to warm up a room.”

He stayed right where he stood. “There’s no point to small talk. We have nothing to say to each other, except to discuss whether you’re keeping my child from me.”