Why hadn’t I seen it?
You thought Liv was married to Brodey. You thought the child was six. How the fuck could you expect such betrayal? And from Liv?
Stomping forward, I snatched my phone off the ground and strode toward the bakery across the park. Shoving both hands against the glass doors, I spotted Liv behind the counter, taking orders, her face a picture of hard tension.
Her eyes met mine. Casually, I pushed both hands into my jeans pockets.
I stepped into the line, behind five customers. I watched as Liv jumbled up the orders. I saw her drop the purple boxes, her hands shaking as she placed the pastries inside. Her discomfort was so enjoyable that I kept my eyes on her the whole time.
She was doing that thing with her hair, pushing it behind her ear with shaking fingers. Repeating that movement over and over even though her hair didn’t slip out even once. I knew that nervousness. She’d done that before she walked into every exam in school.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy watching her sweat. Liv had played the most ridiculous practical joke of all time on me.
I reached the counter, standing in front of her. I placed my hands on top and leaned close.
“Yeah, I’d like one fucking explanation, please!”
Liv bit her lip, her green eyes a stormy shade of emerald. Her cheeks flushed as she glanced at the line behind me.
“Samantha?” she called, holding my gaze. “Can you take over for a bit?”
I stood right where I was, making Liv walk around the counter, grab my hand, and yank me toward the back.
I realized, in that moment, that Liv might look embarrassed. But that grip on my hand? It told me she was fucking pissed off. Probably as pissed as I was. Wait a minute.
I’m the one everyone lied to!
I followed her through the kitchen and out a swinging door to a narrow pantry lined with dry ingredients. My eyes leveled accusingly on her. The place was ridiculously narrow, so there was barely a foot between us as Liv lifted her chin and stared up at me, her eyes stormy with unspent fury.
The storm was coming.
“How dare you?” she hissed.
I laughed, because that was the most stupid thing she could’ve said to me at that moment.
“Excuse me? Have I asked you for an explanation as to why you’re hiding from me a child that I’m ninety-nine percent sure is mine?” My temper flared by the second. I tried to keep my voice down, but it was taking every bit of my restraint when she didn’t even bother to reply. “You,” I hissed, pointing at her. “Damn you. My dad too. You couldn’t tell me you were pregnant?”
She lifted her hands to her waist, looking at me as if she couldn’t recognize who I was. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
The disgust on her face. She thought nothing of me. After all I’d done with my life and built for myself, she was looking down on me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m trying to understand your exalted sense of entitlement,” she said. “Do you think you’re God?” She laughed as she said the three-letter word. “What makes you think you’re entitled to some ultimate level of impartiality by others? Guess what? Life screws you, Jax. And no one owes you any sort of explanation.”
“I disagree. An exception might be called for when I’m fathering a child. I’d expect to be told. Morality, anyone? Jeez!”
Her mouth fell open. “Morality? Right. Let me wrap my head around this crazy-ass shit that’s falling out of your mouth. Jax Decker, giving me a lecture on morality. Dude, you’re the national playboy. You discard more women in a week than Tiger Woods slept with in years.”
“Oh, for Christ—How’s that got anything to do with it? I’m not cheating on my wife, so that’s a shitty comparison. Moreover, you didn’t get pregnant a year ago. Or two, or three. You got pregnant when I wasn’t the national playboy. It was just you and me. We were together.”
She sighed. “I got pregnant, Jax, what can I say? I didn’t make the baby myself, you know?”
I didn’t enjoy seeing Liv despondent, even though I sort of hated her in that moment. She was clearly drained. Automatically, my anger diffused. “Jesus, Liv. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Did you offer an explanation when you dumped me at the airport?”
“Okay, once again, dumped isn’t the right word in this context. Breaking it off with you was the sensible decision. You knew I was going to college. So were you.”
“Except I wasn’t. And that’s not really your problem. But I needed you, and that definitely was your problem. I’m not saying you should’ve given up on your scholarship and glued yourself to my ass. But my mom had cancer, Jax!”
Her voice broke. A few strings in my chest pulled tight, squeezing. Pain sliced through my ribcage.
“My college fund was swallowed up by hospital bills. I couldn’t go to college. I was an emotional wreck. My mom was dying, and you were leaving. As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, you dumped me. Do you now understand why I didn’t want to speak to you?”
“I couldn’t change anything, Liv. I hated it here. I hated this place. I hated everything.”
“But you loved me, right? That’s what you said a few hours before your flight. You know, when you were fucking me for six hours straight in my bed. Where did that love go the moment you arrived at Departures?”
“I did love you.” I shook my head. I didn’t get how this conversation had ended up here. But I could see where she was coming from. “So this was all vindictive? I hurt you, so you get back at me by keeping your pregnancy a secret?”
“Oh, grow the fuck up. This isn’t a game. I didn’t tell you about Anna because I didn’t want Anna to know you—a person who doesn’t know shit about commitment and loyalty and love. How would this have ended differently if you’d known she existed?”
Good question. I didn’t see myself quitting my dreams to be a parent.
“At least I would’ve known.”
“And then what? You’d play Dad?”
“Well, maybe I would’ve.” I was growing frustrated. “But now we’ll never know, will we, because my kid is practically a teen.”
“I’ll tell you what you would’ve done. You would’ve reveled in the novelty of having a baby. Then left her. You’d have dumped her. I wasn’t going to let you get away with hurting my child.”
I stopped short. Damn her. Liv looked sixteen again, crying, her nose red, cheeks flushed, lips swollen. I wanted to kiss her so badly, but I knew we’d fucked this up past redemption. I wanted to hug her, but she’d probably shove me away.
Quietly, I opened the door that led back inside the bakery kitchen and was met with the scent of caramelized sugar and the sounds of people talking. I turned to face her.
“Do you want me to drive you home? You can’t go back to the register with that face.”
She rolled her eyes, rubbing both hands over her cheeks in a swift swipe. “My face is fine!”
“Of course.” It’s a pretty one too.
Without thinking, I cupped the sides of her face gently with my fingertips, wiping the moisture off her cheeks with my thumbs. Her thick, soaked eyelashes fluttered up at me, panic blazing bright in her green eyes.
“If you don’t want Anna to know who I am, I get it.”
The panic turned to confusion. “You’d do that? Not tell her?”
“For you, yeah. You clearly don’t want her knowing I’m her dad. And for good reason. I’m not really a good role model, am I?” I began to the wonder if those activists trying to ban me from mentoring teens at my sports academies were right. I was an atrocious excuse for a role model. What would those kids learn from my life? What would Anna? “So she’s really mine?”
“Of course. She’s like you, but tiny.”
A buzz of excitement made me grin. “She play football?”
Liv chuckled thorough her tears. “She couldn’t catch a ball if her life depended on it. She’s all about
glitter and fur and sparkles and unicorns. Very girly.”
“Are you sure she’s mine?”
Liv rolled her eyes.
I sighed. “I wonder why no one said anything to me while I was walking around town?”
“With that case of beer? Wasn’t a good look, to be honest.”
“Yeah, I figured. They asked about you, but they didn’t say anything about Anna.”
Liv shrugged. “No one knows. Your dad does, of course. And my mom did.”
Was she giving me the explanation she didn’t think I deserved?
“You were long gone by the time I found out I was pregnant.”
“But you gave her an obvious middle name.”
“Oh, that. That was a lapse in judgment. My hormones were out of whack when I named her. But no one uses the middle name. Only Anna’s drama teacher. She’s British and has a weird thing for using every name on a child’s birth certificate.”
I chuckled, but I couldn’t deny it was strange being privy to details about Anna’s life.
Liv sighed. “I have to get my bag. I’ll go out the back. I don’t need you to come, though. I need to be alone.”
“Of course.”
I watched her glide through the narrow pantry and enter the kitchen.
“Liv?”
She turned, her brows lifted in question.
I wasn’t sure where I was going with this. But I wanted to know. “So you never even considered telling me? Or asking me to come back to you and Anna?”
Liv smiled, almost. It didn’t reach her eyes. “No. Not at all. Not even once. I wanted to never see your face again.”
9
Liv
Anna was on the trampoline.
I usually joined her on our frequent trips to the trampoline park. But today, I wasn’t in the mood. I was glad Anna had asked to pick up her friend Casey on the way.
I unscrewed the cap on my water bottle, screwed it tight again. Over and over.
I was watching Anna and Casey, but my mind was somewhere else.
For the last two days, I’d tried and failed to stop worrying.
One of the biggest reasons behind not telling Jax about the existence of Anna was that I wouldn’t have to worry. I didn’t want surprise visits, requests and demands on Anna’s time. I wanted me and Anna to be enough for one another.
We were still enough. But Jax loomed on the horizon of my sanity, poking his head in all day.
I sat at one of the tables and took a tiny sip of my water. Two days since Jax knew about Anna. Two days since he’d ambushed me at my bakery. Two days of utter silence from him.
I felt like an explosion was brewing. And the not knowing was really doing me in.
“Hey there.”
I closed my eyes, my skin breaking out in cold goosebumps. A chair scraped on the tiled floor as Jax settled into it.
Without glancing at him, I opened my eyes. I saw Anna, clueless, laughing with Casey. I took the coffee Jax held out to me, but I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t feel guilt. I just felt empty. “Hi there, stalker.”
“What are we doing here?”
His casual tone annoyed me. “We? We are doing nothing. There is no we.” I tried to land the comment as kindly as possible. “Anna is right there with her friend. I am sitting here. And you,” I finally looked at him, “are bothering me.”
It was a mistake to look at him. He grinned, and my breath caught in my throat.
Damn him. I wished he were as flustered as I probably looked. But no. The asshole looked as perfect and composed as always.
Faded blue jeans clung to his muscular thighs. In a plain white T-shirt that still had the telltale creases of a new shirt, he looked like a million bucks. And like he had a million bucks.
He probably has more than just one of those in the bank.
“I got you coffee. What did I do to annoy you?”
What you did is show up with that hunky face and that body that makes me melt between my legs.
The fact that I made a baby with that body hit me like a punch in the gut. Every single time. My knees knocked together every time I looked at him.
I fortified my hard shell of restraint against any effect Jax had on me.
“I spent two days trapped all alone inside Dad’s house.”
I made a face. “On a self-imposed sentence that I have nothing to do with. And I’m under no obligation to fix.”
“Liv, I’m not trying to piss you off. Come on, can’t we just sit together and chat?”
I turned toward him, ignoring the coffee in my hand. “What is it that Your Highness would like to talk about this fine afternoon?”
His gaze wandered over my hair, which I’d tied up in a high, messy ponytail. The blazing golden gaze trailed over my neck before pausing briefly on my lips.
I drew back in my chair instinctively.
“For starters, do you enjoy working at the bakery?”
I grimaced and laughed. “You want to talk about me?”
“Of course.”
A bit too late to give a fuck, Jax. “I’m not buying your sudden interest.”
“Sudden interest? I’m always interested. We’re friends.”
“The we component is once again missing the mark. Your evaluation is flawed. I’m not your friend.”
“You’re right. You’re not.” His tone lost its cordiality. There was a bite of annoyance in his voice when he spoke again. “You’re just the mother of my preteen daughter.”
Daughter.
Hearing him say the word grated on my nerves.
“She’s not your daughter, technically. You’re nothing more than a sperm donor.”
“A donor that doesn’t remember consenting to this donation.”
I glared at him. “You put it inside me. A direct deposit. Your sperm.”
His lips twitched, and the tension on his forehead evaporated as his laughter rang out. The deep, throaty sound made me clench my thighs.
“What are we even arguing about?”
I gritted my teeth and looked away. Anna was in the middle of an animated discussion with Casey. “I hope you didn’t come here thinking I’d be okay with you becoming a constant figure in Anna’s life.”
“To tell you the truth, I never planned on having kids. I don’t think I’d know what to do with a child that’s fully my responsibility. Probably screw her up the same way my parents screwed me up. But I know about Anna now. I’m here, and I know. We can’t change that. Do you think we could agree to be cordial? While I’m here?”
A mirthless chuckle escaped my lips. “Of course. While you’re here. Point noted. I appreciate that you’ll be out of my hair soon.” I grew more upset with every word I spoke. “I’m counting on you to leave soon.”
He shoved a hand through his hair. His jaw was clenched, and I noticed that he seemed to be putting considerable effort into pacifying me and not arguing back and forth.
I felt like a monster.
“What was the birth like?”
Now that was a topic of conversation I didn’t expect.
I was reluctantly touched that he was concerned about me. Me and my well-being during the birth. So I found myself offering personal information that I suddenly believed he deserved.
“I was fine. It was a quick delivery. I’ve been told I was incredibly lucky.”
“Who was there with you?”
My eyes snapped to his. “Who would be there with me? Mom was home recovering from chemo. I went into labor. Drove to the hospital. Anna came out and I drove her home.”
Jax was speechless. A glimmer of awe mixed with shocked horror as his jaw dropped. He was quick to hide it, though. A hint of remorse flashed in his golden eyes, and I turned away quickly.
I didn’t want his pity. “I was fine. It was a liberating experience. It taught me a great many things.”
“Such as?”
I wasn’t upset anymore. It was calming as I told him. “I learned that I can deal with whatever life throws a
t me. That I can manage fine with just me for support. That belief has been invaluable in the whole process of raising Anna.”
“She’s a lucky kid. She’s got a good role model.”
I snickered at the unexpected compliment. “Thanks.”
My eyes flickered to his as he scanned the trampoline for Anna and found her. “So Anna’s not into sports at all? Any particular reason?”
“Well, she’s kind of clumsy. We tried tennis for a while, and swimming. She’s just not into it.”
“If she didn’t look like a miniature replica of me, I’d ask again if she’s really mine.” He grinned, his eyes still on Anna. “What does she like to do?”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the tender expression on his face. I thought he’d be shocked if he saw himself. It were almost as if he was melting in tenderness at the sight of my daughter.
I tried to keep my tone nice and cordial. Whatever my own problems with Jax, I really didn’t want to make an enemy of him. The man I knew was tenacious and stubborn. He had a tendency to become unendingly rigid when he put his mind to something. I did not want to make Anna a challenge for him.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to fight him. I didn’t have the resources to fight a man of his power and wealth.
I had to make sure I kept him at a distance. I couldn’t risk warming up to him and leading him to believe he had any chance of fostering a real relationship with Anna. Or me. That, I would not allow.
“Anna loves unicorns, glitter, and sparkles. She’s very girly. When she was younger, I’d buy her trucks, cars, and the action figures because there’s such a big fuss over not having ‘girl’ toys and ‘boy’ toys. Anna wouldn’t touch any of those. She wanted the dolls and the color-changing mermaids. She hasn’t outgrown them.”
He seemed genuinely interested in random details about my child. I couldn’t help but feel a connection to him. “Most of the other ten-year-olds are obsessed with boys. Not Anna.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
My eyes shot to his. Him sounding like an overprotective dad was thrilling yet terrifying at the same time. Was he falling into the role of dad without realizing it? Was I encouraging him?
Baby's Daddy: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 6
