by Joanne Rock
Hurrying inside the house, she rushed through the beautifully appointed spaces, passing a server on the way who told her where to find a powder room.
“Tatiana?” She heard Jean-Pierre’s voice and quick footsteps behind her, and slowed down before she could reach her destination.
She ducked into a nearby doorway, a den she had noticed vaguely when she’d first arrived tonight. The powder-room visit would wait since she didn’t want to have this conversation over the sink. Here, leather club chairs and a small bar flanked a darkened fireplace, while books and football memorabilia lined the walls. A banker’s desk lamp glowed softly over a masculine expanse of polished oak.
“Are you all right?” He followed her into the den, taking her hands in both of his. “We don’t need to stay for dinner if you don’t feel up to it. Everyone will understand you’re tired from the travel and still recovering from having a baby.”
Had she felt a warm connection to him earlier today on the boat? It was difficult to remember now with her stomach in knots.
“I will not let your family think even worse of me than they already do. I don’t want them to assume I’m ignoring them.” She allowed him to draw her down to a buttery soft leather settee, but then withdrew her hands from his. “I am staying for dinner.”
“No one thinks poorly of you.” Tipping his head to one side, he considered her. “And I guarantee everyone out there is sympathetic to the fact that you gave birth less than six weeks ago.”
“Are they?” She folded her arms across breasts that felt more functional than attractive lately. She ached to hold her child already. Sharing him with this large, charismatic family was tougher than she’d expected.
Not that she should care about that right now. But this man had always called to her on the most fundamental level; not even her anger with him could diminish that. As they’d discovered last winter.
“Of course they are.” Seated beside her, he stared at her as if she’d lost her grip on reality. “In case you haven’t noticed, Erika is very pregnant with twins. Gervais can’t be there for her enough, doing everything in his power to make her life easier so her strength goes toward nurturing their children. Do you honestly think anyone would begrudge you recovery time after delivering my child?”
“Our. Our child.” She did feel exhausted suddenly, but she didn’t know if it had to do with postpartum tiredness or the stress of negotiating her role in parenting with this man. “I am not here to hand him over to you, Jean-Pierre, or to your family, so don’t get in the habit of claiming him as yours alone.”
“Of course. My God, of course I know that. I would never deny our child his mother.” Even in the darkened room, his gaze burned with a tangle of emotions she couldn’t interpret. “Tatiana, I understand this isn’t easy on you, but I thought it best to come straight to the point with my family.”
Unlike the way she’d done in telling him about their child? She couldn’t help but note how differently they’d shared the news.
“But we both wanted to tell our families and now those closest to us know the truth,” he continued. “Next, we can focus on carefully unveiling the story we want to share with the media.”
“You know what?” She smoothed nervous hands over the short silk skirt of her dress. The brush of the fabric against her skin was the most sensual touch she’d felt on her legs in months. “I disagree that our families learned the whole truth. All your brothers have found out is that I kept your son a secret from you.”
“I never said that.” His jaw flexed, the shadows falling across his face in the dim room.
She sprang up from her seat, unwilling to sit so close to him with this restless anger churning in her blood.
“Maybe. But by not saying anything to explain our belated revelation, you allow them to think the worst of me and that starts us out badly when our families already have issues.”
“And what would you have me say?” He rose from the settee as well, but he moved in the opposite direction from her. They faced off on either side of the study, backs to the walls of books. “Because I’m fairly unclear on why I got scratched from your contact list while you gave birth to our child by yourself.”
“Then let me be very clear.” Frustration simmered and her patience snapped. “The last words you said to me before I found out I was pregnant was that you would never repeat the mistake of being with me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You asked. And while it might not feel fair to you, it didn’t feel fair to me that you could hold me in contempt for doing my job in the courtroom.” She braced her back against the bookshelves, needing the support of something—anything—in her life right now. “After we...had sex that night, I foolishly assumed you realized that you were wrong to find fault with me for winning my case. I woke up happy. Did you even know I was making you breakfast when you stormed out of that room? I had the concierge find me fresh eggs and a pan so I could make them myself in that tiny kitchen.”
She hadn’t meant to share all that, dammit. It was far too revealing.
For a moment, he didn’t speak. When he did, he cursed softly.
“I didn’t hold the verdict against you.” He pounded his fist gently against the bookshelf closest to him. “I just thought you might want to know what I’d seen as Marcus’s friend. His assistant was—is—an untrustworthy woman.”
“I can’t choose the clients my firm takes on, and I won’t argue that with you again.” She’d heard as much as she wanted to hear of his side during the case. “When I thought we’d put that behind us, I was all the more hurt to discover you regretted being with me.”
“So you didn’t tell me about César to punish me?” The gaze he leveled at her made her wonder how they’d ever find common ground to raise their son.
Some of the fight leaked out of her and she raked a hand through her hair.
“I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t bear to hear that having César was a mistake.”
* * *
Two hours later, Jean-Pierre walked out of the most uncomfortable meal of his life. Knowing what Tatiana thought of him—that he’d been denied the early weeks of his son’s life because she assumed he was the worst sort of human being—had made it damn near impossible to choke down food and pretend everything was all right in his world.
He’d quietly walked back to his home with Tatiana, making sure she was safely inside before he left again. After their exchange in the den, she’d had little to say to him anyhow, and their quick stroll back to his house had been devoid of conversation save an agreement to speak again tomorrow when cooler heads prevailed.
Before then, he needed a plan for how to proceed with her, something he wasn’t going to accomplish until he could blow off some steam.
He headed to the three-bay garage on one side of the house and hit the button for the closest door. The reinforced steel retracted silently to reveal the BMW M6 he kept registered in Louisiana. The silver Gran Coupé wasn’t as flashy as the Aston Martin he used in Manhattan, but it would get him to the Hurricanes’ training complex in a hurry. Slipping into the driver’s seat, he nailed the accelerator and left the family compound behind.
Perhaps it was a conflict of interest for him to work out in a competing team’s training facility before he faced them. But he wouldn’t be anywhere near the players’ areas. And hell, he was one of the family.
Twenty minutes later, when he parked in the owner’s spot with the assurance that Gervais wouldn’t show up for work for at least six more hours, Jean-Pierre took the private elevator to the gym for the front office personnel. He was a Reynaud, dammit. He had a key. He’d invested personally in building the facility, as well as the Zephyr Dome downtown. And he’d never needed a workout as much as he did now.
Helping himself to Dempsey’s locker—helpfully labeled with a brass namepla
te—he found workout clothes and changed into black mesh shorts and a T-shirt. He ran the track. Ran the bleachers, ran the treadmill. And when that didn’t manage to pound the thoughts out of his head, he hit the weights. He dragged a set of heavy chains from the wall and draped them around his waist while he did pull-ups. He did waist-high box jumps from a standing position with an eighty-pound-weight vest. If it hadn’t been a bye week, he wouldn’t have been able to trash his body so thoroughly, but he had time to recover before the game against the Hurricanes.
And sweating out the sound of Tatiana’s damning words had become a critical mission.
I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t bear to hear that having César was a mistake.
Drenched with sweat and so exhausted he feared the next jump would sprain an ankle, he unhooked the chains and finally slogged to the showers. Only then did it occur to him what he needed to do to move forward with Tatiana.
She didn’t trust him now any more than she had when she first found out she was expecting their child. He had to change that. Luckily, no matter what she said about the effects of postpartum hormones, she was a lawyer and a deeply rational woman. She would appreciate a well-thought-out campaign to win her over. Well-reasoned arguments for why they should stay together.
He would dismantle her defenses as thoroughly as he deconstructed his opponents on the field. While he couldn’t study game film of Tatiana, he had past encounters to teach him. He could use that to understand her better. To draw on what she liked and didn’t like to become the man she couldn’t refuse.
And then? Game over.
He would be announcing their marriage at the same time he introduced César to the media and then they could both put this chapter of their lives behind them. It was the perfect game plan.
Provided he could persuade her to agree.
Eight
Even when angry, Tatiana dreamed about him.
Perversely, that made her even madder, distracting her all morning when she’d had errands to run outside the house. How could she go to bed so upset with Jean-Pierre and yet dream about his touch all night long?
She’d awoken on edge and cranky even though César had slept through the night for the first time ever. She’d almost missed her morning doctor’s appointment, a checkup she’d scheduled with a local obstetrician to be sure she was healing. An appointment that had given her clearance for intimacy at a time when she knew that was highly unlikely to happen since Jean-Pierre hadn’t even wanted to sleep in the same house as her the night before.
Now, changing into fresh clothes after the morning’s outing, she wished she’d had the option to hop in a luxury sports car the night before and disappear the way Jean-Pierre had.
From the patio outside her suite, she’d watched him roar off, the tension evident in his every movement. She hadn’t heard him come home, but he’d texted her, asking to join him at Gervais’s house today to help with some kind of wedding crisis. She couldn’t begin to guess what that meant, but once she’d eaten a light meal and fed and snuggled with César, she put on a crochet knit minidress with bright stripes around the skirt and headed outside to see what was happening. The temperature had dropped overnight so that the air was milder this afternoon, but still comfortable enough that she didn’t need a sweater.
Her phone rang before she reached Gervais’s house. Checking the display, she spotted her father’s cell phone number.
She took a deep breath before she answered. “Hello, Dad,” she said as she wound through the manicured gardens of a side yard between the Reynaud homes.
She kept her tone light, praying he would reciprocate. She couldn’t handle any more tension right now.
“Are you reading the headlines?” he barked, not bothering to ask her how she’d been.
Which reminded her of why she couldn’t bind herself to Jean-Pierre, another man who focused on himself and to hell with her needs. Sure, he’d caught her off guard with his careful treatment of her and the thoughtful massage, but how much of that kindness was to serve his own ends? She needed to be wary.
“I’ve been fairly consumed with motherhood,” she reminded her father, wondering why she’d struggled for so long to win approval from a man who cared more about how his family appeared to the rest of the world than how they felt.
“Well, you’ve done a good job keeping that under wraps,” he admitted. The sounds of the city were amplified in the background—squealing air brakes and honking horns. He must be in the car between meetings. “And the photos of your boat outing are a nice touch, much as it still galls me to see you with a Reynaud.”
“You liked this family well enough once.” She lowered her voice even though there was no one around as she sidled around a low brick dividing wall laden with thick green vines. “And you raised me to like them, too.”
“A little too damn well,” he snapped. “But that could work to my advantage. Maybe you can tell me the location of this big royal wedding. Because if you can give me something I can sell to the press and one-up Leon, you could be forgiven for hobnobbing with the Reynauds.”
She gasped, hoping he wasn’t serious, not even remotely. “I’m appalled. You’ve got to be kidding. For pity’s sake, Dad—”
“Oh, stop it. I really am only kidding. Mostly.” In the background of the call, she could hear the running commentary of a football game announcer. No doubt her father was watching game film while his driver navigated traffic. “I’m checking in to see if you can make an announcement to the press that will shut them up about the Marcus Caruthers case. That angle of your relationship with Jean-Pierre is getting a lot of coverage and it’s not good for an NFL coach to have his daughter trying cases against players.”
Her blood boiled as she paused beside a rose-covered arbor. She tipped her head against the painted wood frame and hoped the scent of roses would calm her. Her father had been even more furious with her than Jean-Pierre had been over that case, insisting that he’d lose his coaching position for allowing his daughter to argue a harassment suit against a player. She’d called BS on that one. Since Marcus didn’t play for the Gladiators, there was no conflict of interest. Tatiana had become all the more adamant to take the case as her father became more insistent that she didn’t. And after growing up in a house where superstar athletes had always been more important than his daughter, she’d been determined to win the judgment.
Perhaps she’d resisted Jean-Pierre’s protests of Marcus’s innocence because of that. But bottom line, it had been her job to argue for her client. Yanking a rose off the vine-covered arbor, she charged up the flagstone path toward the house.
“We’ve had this argument. At length.” She stopped in Gervais’s driveway to finish her call since she couldn’t enter the house while discussing a hot-button topic. “The case is over.”
“Not in the eyes of the press, it’s not,” her father growled at her, his voice forcing her to turn down the volume on her phone. “This is a story all over again, Tatiana, and you can’t just bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist. You stirred the pot by baiting Jean-Pierre with that comment to a reporter. Now you’ve got to deal with the fallout, and you need to do it before you introduce my grandson to the world.”
He was right about that much.
And possibly the part about burying her head in the sand, too. She closed her eyes, willing her heart rate to slow down. She inhaled the scent of the rose she still held crushed in one palm.
“I’ll read the headlines and look into a plan of action,” she assured him. “I’ll do what I can to take care of this. But, Dad?”
“I’m listening.”
“If you do anything to detract from this wedding, or in any way upset the Reynauds, you will be alienating me and your grandson, too.” Her voice vibrated as she said the words. It was a sign of nervousness but she hoped it came acro
ss as an indication of how thoroughly she meant it.
She’d tried to please an impossible taskmaster for too long. Somehow, being a mother gave her fresh perspective on that relationship. And maybe gave her a bit more backbone as well.
“Dammit, honey, I told you I was teasing,” he grumbled while a siren wailed on his end of the phone. “Call your mother soon, won’t you?”
A deep sigh escaped her as she thought of how easily her mother had always let Dad steamroller them both, never taking Tatiana’s side when they disagreed. She loved her mother, but she had vowed to be stronger than that for César. “Of course.”
Disconnecting the call, she felt relieved to have drawn a line in the sand with her father. But the news he’d delivered still sucked some of the life out of her on a day that had already started out badly. Reminding herself Marcus Caruthers had been tried in front of a jury of his peers, she shoved the thoughts out of her head to focus on whatever wedding crisis Gervais and Erika were facing. If she’d met the couple under different circumstances, she would have truly enjoyed her evening with them the night before.
Pressing the doorbell, Tatiana barely had time to toss aside the crushed rose before the door swung open. A different maid greeted her in the entryway today. But she was no less efficient. With a smile and gesture, the woman guided Tatiana inside. Tatiana followed her across the marble floors in the opposite direction from the night before.
Her high heels echoed in the wide-open corridors as they passed a library and a feminine-looking office space in the front of the house. Reaching a closed door at the far end, Tatiana could hear music from within—a '70s disco tune. Two female voices were harmonizing the chorus. So far, it didn’t sound like a crisis.
The maid knocked briefly on the door and then opened it to admit her to a dimly lit home theater room with deep blue walls and rich, burgundy trim. Wide leather seats faced a screen showing Hurricanes game film, though the sound was turned off. And instead of Gervais and the rest of the family sitting in the chairs, she found all seven of them—including Jean-Pierre—seated on the floor in the open space between the seats and the screen, surrounded by boxes of small wine bottles, stacks of labels and pots of brightly colored paints on a drop cloth.
