by Joss Wood
The Den, as everyone who read the society pages knew, was Connor’s huge brownstone on Eighty-Fifth Street. Sage Ballantyne and Linc Taylor-Ballantyne—Connor, Piper remembered, adopted the Ballantyne siblings and Linc in their teens—shared the townhome with Linc’s mother, Jo, and his son, Shaw.
“Tomorrow is good. Ty will be there, obviously.”
Piper saw the muscle in Jaeger’s jaw tense, noticed his grip on the drawer tighten. Well, tough. Ty was a part of her life, and it wasn’t her problem if Jaeger didn’t like being around kids. He’d simply have to suck it up.
“Tell me something,” Jaeger said, releasing the handle to the drawer and leaning his shoulder into the collector’s cupboard. Piper looked at him, knowing an opening like that usually meant an awkward question was about to follow.
“You were desperate to contact me last year,” he said, “presumably because you wanted to sell the stones. Then your calls and messages stopped—”
“I was threatened with a restraining order if I didn’t leave you alone,” Piper interjected, her voice dry.
Jaeger winced. “Is that what happened? Damn, I’m sorry.”
“I’m over it.”
“Yet you didn’t sell the stones. You could’ve sold them to Moreau’s or to another high-end jewelry store, but you didn’t. Now you want to sell them again, but this time you seem to have a very real deadline. Why?”
Piper stared at the Manet painting—her eyes immediately assessing the brush strokes and his masterful use of light.
“My circumstances are different. Can we leave it at that?” Without waiting for his answer, she changed the subject. “Tell me what you know about Manet.”
“Are you avoiding the subject?” Jaeger asked.
“Sure,” she answered truthfully, obviously surprising him. “We spent a short time together in Milan and we reconnected yesterday, Jaeger. There are things I don’t feel comfortable sharing.”
“Fair point.”
Piper noticed his sensual mouth had turned grim. His tone was equally hard when he spoke again. “Okay, just tell me the sapphires weren’t illegally acquired by either you or one of your ancestors.”
That was a question she could answer. “The gems are not stolen.”
Jaeger stood up straight, removed his jacket and rolled the cuffs of his shirt up to reveal strong wrists and corded forearms. “Okay, that’s a relief. I can deal with the rest. Let’s get to work.”
Happy they were off the land mine subject, Piper gestured to the Manet. “So, about Manet?”
Jaeger’s eyes darted from the painting to her face and back again. “I know absolutely nothing about art except what I like. Why?”
“Because it’s a fake.”
Jaeger winced before shrugging. “Not my problem.”
Piper rubbed her hands together and approached the collector’s cupboard containing what seemed like a hundred drawers.
“So, you’re going to buy me pizza if I find you a green diamond ring?” Piper clarified as she pulled out a drawer filled with rings nestled in foam rows.
She chuckled, reached for a ring and lifted the green gorgeousness up to the light. “Anchovies, capers and olives on mine, please.”
Five
Jaeger, sitting on the Persian carpet in Piper’s den, grabbed a cold slice of pizza and placed another file back in the box, frustrated at not finding anything so far pertaining to the sapphires or Piper’s great-uncle.
Shoeless, he crossed his feet at the ankles as he munched his way through the slice. He’d arrived at Piper’s place midafternoon and she’d immediately sent him to the attic.
He should’ve agreed to let Rainn do the work, he thought. The space was dusty, overfull and dark, and he now had a backache from bending his too-long frame trying to shift boxes. Yet despite hauling boxes, Piper’s dishwater-tasting coffee—how could anyone mess up coffee?—and there being a baby in the house, he felt relaxed, at ease. The moment he’d stepped through her front door and into her slightly chaotic home, he’d felt his shoulders drop and the knots in his muscles loosen. He hadn’t felt this way about a house, a space, since he’d left the family brownstone to go off to college.
He liked being here, and he didn’t like it that he liked it. Dammit.
He’d ordered pizza while Piper fed and bathed Ty, trying his best to stay out of their way. Ty was, as Piper informed him, not fully well and unusually fussy, which meant Piper had him on her hip for much of the afternoon. It had taken her ages to get Ty to settle, and when she returned, she’d eaten one slice of pizza and curled up on the couch. She’d fallen asleep about an hour ago. Jaeger glanced at his watch; it was a little past seven and he needed to leave for dinner at the Den. His family was expecting him.
Standing up, he stretched before shutting the pizza box and picking up the papers below Piper’s hand. He placed them back in the folder and put it on the coffee table, staring down at the sleeping beauty below him.
She wasn’t classically beautiful, he thought. Her chin was a bit too stubborn and her cheekbones a little too pronounced, but she was fascinating. Strong, charismatic, interesting.
Interesting was far more dangerous than beautiful, he thought, and a lot harder to resist.
Brain injury or not, how could he have forgotten meeting her before? They’d had dinner—he knew that—but what else? Had he kissed her? Did he try to take her to bed? Was this a new attraction, or had he felt the same in Milan? Jaeger cursed, frustrated. He needed to remember her.
God, she was hot...
Two fiery kisses were nowhere near enough. He wanted to kneel on the wide couch and wake her up with kisses along the cords of her throat. He would suck her plump lower lip into his mouth, giving it a light nip, followed by a soothing swipe of his tongue. He wanted to know how her breasts filled his hands, whether her nipples were as succulent as he suspected. He wanted to taste her, stroke her, slide into her. Thoughts of doing all three constantly snuck up on him, and at night, his fantasies took flight. When he did sleep, it was to dream of her.
She’d told him she hadn’t slept much last night, but he knew Ty had kept her up, not thoughts of him. She had blue stripes under her eyes, and her skin looked a shade or two paler than her normal creamy complexion. Interesting be damned—she was beautiful. She was his type of beautiful.
Jaeger turned as he heard a low cry coming from the baby monitor on the coffee table. He quickly scooped it up, hoping to muffle the noise. Leaving Piper to sleep, and asking himself what the hell he was doing, he carried the monitor with him and ran up the stairs to the second floor of her home. He passed a larger bedroom—obviously Piper’s, judging by the hot-pink bra on the floor by her door—and stopped at the door to Ty’s room.
You can do this. You have to do this. Beckett and Sage will have kids one day, and you can’t keep avoiding Shaw forever. Go inside. It’s a baby, not a bomb. Piper’s baby...
That Ty was hers didn’t matter, shouldn’t matter. He had to conquer this fear at some point and it might as well be now. And if you have a panic attack and start dry heaving, Ty won’t tell anyone.
Just try, dammit.
Jaeger pushed open the door. In the glow from the night-light next to the crib, he saw Ty sitting up, rubbing his eyes. Hoping Ty wouldn’t yell, and ignoring his hummingbird heart, Jaeger lifted the baby and held him under his arms, his chubby legs dangling. “Hey, you. Why aren’t you asleep?”
Ty blinked at him, his eyes wide. He spat out his pacifier and grinned at Jaeger. So far, so good. Shaking hands and a tight chest, but he wasn’t about to have a heart attack.
Jaeger returned Ty’s smile. “Yeah, you’re cute. So, why aren’t you asleep?”
Jaeger caught a whiff of something very unpleasant and grimaced. “Aw, c’mon, you’re kidding me!”
Ty kick
ed his legs, gurgled and waved his hands in the air as if to say, Let’s see how tough you are, big guy.
He wasn’t that tough.
He should take Ty downstairs, wake Piper up and ask her to deal with her son’s full diaper. That would be the most efficient and least disgusting way to handle the situation. But Piper was exhausted and she really needed to sleep...
But Ty wouldn’t go back to sleep until he was clean and changed. Dammit. Jaeger didn’t change diapers; he hadn’t even changed any of Jess’s diapers. Andrea had insisted on doing everything for Jess, and being young and thinking he was dodging a bullet, he’d let her. Now he had no idea where to start...
Piper—he’d wake her up. He made the decision and then shook his head. If he could negotiate, fight and scheme his way out of various dicey situations in third world countries, he could change a baby’s diaper. Billions of people did it every day; it couldn’t be rocket science. All he needed was instructions, and he knew someone who could give him some.
Tucking Ty against his hip as he’d seen Piper and Ceri do, he dug into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his phone. He placed it on the table next to the changing pad and used his voice app to instruct the phone to call Linc. His brother answered within two rings.
“Where are you, Jay?” he demanded. “We’re starving!”
Jaeger lowered Ty onto the changing table and flipped on the lamp next to his phone. Ty rolled, and Jaeger slapped his hand on his rump to keep him from falling off. “Hold still, dammit.”
“Um...what are you doing?” Linc asked in his what-are-you-up-to voice.
“Trying to change a diaper on a wriggling baby,” Jaeger replied. “I need you to talk me through it.”
Linc didn’t reply, and Jaeger wondered if he’d lost the connection. Then he heard Linc’s voice and knew that he was on speaker. “He said he is changing a baby’s diaper.”
Beck’s voice rose from the mobile. “Tell him that’s he’s drunk and to catch a cab home.” Beneath their laughter, Jaeger heard amazement and concern. Yeah, well, he was concerned, too. He’d intended to avoid babies and kids for the rest of his life.
Okay, yes, Piper needed to sleep, but his decision to deal with Ty went deeper than that. There was something about this warm house in Brooklyn, and Piper, and being here with her, that made him feel stronger, better, able to face his past. Or at least, feel that it was time to try. “I’m being serious, and take me off speaker!”
“Not a chance in hell,” Linc said. “First, why are you changing a diaper and second, who does the baby belong to? Third, are you sure you are not drunk?”
“Long story. Come on, I’m dying here. It’s not...pleasant,” Jaeger said.
“Tell us what we want to know and I’ll guide you through it,” Linc drawled.
Bastard! “It’s Piper Mills’s kid and she’s downstairs asleep. The kid has had an ear infection and she’s had no rest two nights running. I heard the kid and came up here and was rewarded with this mess in its pants.”
“You could just wake her up,” Beck suggested.
He’d covered that ground several times. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Only if you agree to watch Shaw this week so Beck and I can go watch the Knicks kick ass.”
Jaeger glared at his phone. He also had a ticket to that game, the asshat.
“I don’t babysit, Linc. You know that,” Jaeger said, his hand on Ty’s thigh. Ty was looking past him to the ceiling. Jaeger glanced up, too, and noticed the glow-in-the-dark stickers of cartoon characters on the ceiling. Pretty cool, Piper.
“You’re changing a diaper on a baby belonging to a woman you barely know, but you won’t babysit your own nephew?” Linc asked.
Crap! But he was changing a freakin’ diaper, so he’d might as well go all-in and babysit too. Essentially, Linc had him between a rock and a dirty diaper, so he reluctantly agreed. Linc walked him through the process. Because Piper was organized, he found everything he needed quickly. Within five minutes, Ty was clean, creamed and powdered. After listening to his brothers’ sarcastic congratulations, he disconnected the call.
He’d survived.
Jaeger felt like he needed a strong drink. To normal people, changing a diaper was an oft-repeated action. To Jaeger it felt like he’d negotiated a mental Mount Everest. He’d been hiding from kids, from babies, scared to deal with the memories of Jess he thought would drop him to his knees.
He hadn’t realized how much pain he’d buried until, four years ago, he’d seen Linc rock a tiny Shaw to sleep, unaware that Jaeger was standing in the doorway. When Linc rested his lips against his son’s head, Jaeger felt the burn of hot, unwelcome and acidic tears on his skin.
He’d had this; he’d lost this. And he’d known that although he loved Linc, he couldn’t watch Linc raise Shaw. It would hurt too damn much.
He’d had to leave, to run. Before dawn he was on a plane to Colombia, trying to outpace his past.
He now accepted that, while he could face down warlords and hardened criminals, he’d lacked the courage to push past his own loss and be there for his brother in raising Shaw. It was one of his deepest regrets. He loved his sibs and enjoyed spending time with them. Someday there would be more Ballantyne children, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake with Beckett and Sage. He wouldn’t distance himself from his family to avoid their babies. Or hide from his past.
Ty was a good way to become reacquainted with the smaller species. With Ty, he could take it as fast or as slow as he liked.
Best of all, when he felt overwhelmed, he could hand the baby back to Piper and walk away. Jaeger placed his hands on either side of Ty’s body and looked down into his happy face. The little guy was seriously cute.
“That was a hell of a way to get to know you, dude,” he murmured. Ty gave him a gummy smile, and Jaeger couldn’t help smiling in return. “You don’t have much of your pretty mom in you, Ty. Now, Jess, she looked just like her mom. Same pointed chin, triangular face, black hair. Deep brown eyes. Pretty, you know.”
He was talking to a baby about his baby, Jaeger thought. Talking about Jess wasn’t something he did. But he figured he was safe since Ty wasn’t going to blab. “She had a birthmark on the inside of her thigh.” Jaeger pressed a spot on Ty’s pudgy thigh and the kid laughed. “Just here, and it was shaped like a butterfly.”
Jaeger squeezed Ty’s thigh and he laughed again. Ah, so he was ticklish. Jaeger allowed his fingers to dance his way up the sides of Ty’s ribs, and Ty’s belly laugh rumbled over his skin. “Would she have laughed like this? Would she be ticklish?”
Ty shoved his hand into his mouth and stared at Jaeger with his owl-like eyes.
“She would be a teenager now. Probably wearing a bra and talking about boys. God!”
How could he miss her so much when he’d hardly known her? He’d spent his days at work, a lot of time traveling, and he’d had an hour or two with her on weekdays, slightly more on weekends. Yet her death created a hole in both his and Andrea’s hearts, a hole that widened until it became so big they fell into it and were lost. As individuals and as a couple.
“Hey, sorry. I didn’t hear him.”
Keeping his hand on Ty so he remained on the table, Jaeger looked around. Piper’s hair was a mess of curls, her mascara was smudged and she had a pillow crease on her cheek. She looked tired but, hell, still hot. She walked into the room and saw the dirty diaper, the pile of baby wipes on the counter.
“You changed him? Why didn’t you call me?” she asked, picking Ty up and dropping a kiss on his head.
Jaeger shrugged. “I thought you needed to sleep,” Jaeger replied, his voice rough. Oh, God, he prayed she hadn’t heard him talking about Jess. It was one thing facing your past; it was another confessing it.
Ty leaned away from Piper as if silently asking
Jaeger to hold him. Jaeger stepped back and lifted up his hands. “Sorry, I don’t do babies.”
Piper looked at the dirty diaper, the open jar of cream and the powder and lifted her eyebrows. “You changed his diaper but you don’t do babies? Do you know how nuts that sounds?”
Of course he did. But it wasn’t like he could tell her the truth. Jaeger shrugged and made a production of looking at his watch. “I have to go. I’m late for dinner.”
Piper nodded and cocked her head. “Nobody is keeping you here, Jaeger,” she murmured, her voice soft and nonaccusatory.
Yeah, fair point. Yet it still took everything Jaeger had to get his feet to move.
Six
On the following Thursday, the flight from Washington was delayed and Piper, in a taxi heading into the city from JFK, looked at her watch and sighed. Ceri would’ve bathed and put Ty to bed by now, and he’d be asleep. She hated the days when she didn’t see Ty. She’d left before he woke this morning, and her appraisal of a private collection of Cuban art had taken longer than she’d anticipated, which necessitated her taking a later flight back to New York.
She wanted to go home, have a glass of wine and chill out. Actually, what she really wanted was to go home, kiss her baby and climb into bed with a ripped man with amazing blue eyes and a quirky smile. She hadn’t seen or heard from Jaeger since Sunday—how could four days feel like a decade?—and the time apart only seemed to heat her fantasies from hot to scorching.
She had so much to lose. This was the worst time ever to fall back in lust with her one time ex-lover—the provider of all her son’s boy genes! Despite this, she desperately wanted a repeat of eighteen months ago. She wanted Jaeger’s clever mouth trailing kisses over her body, his hands exploring every inch of her, his voice rumbling across her skin, whispering hot, naughty, sexy words in her ear.
“You’re so hot.”
“God, you turn me on”
“You feel so damn good.”
Piper wanted those words; she needed those words. For just one evening she wanted to forget she was a single mother, that she was in danger of losing her house, that she was the daughter Michael Shuttle had never acknowledged. That her life was insanely complicated. She wanted to be anyone other than a frazzled, stressed, almost thirty-year-old who hadn’t had sex for eighteen months. She wanted wine. She wanted heat. She wanted...
