by Joss Wood
“Thank you for sending us copies of the relevant pages of the diary, Piper,” Linc said, his deep voice rumbling through the room. “I’m fully satisfied you are the legitimate owner of the stones. We’ve matched the description of the sapphires with some of the stones mentioned in the book, but we seem to be missing five stones from the original fifteen.”
“I know where they are.” Piper pulled in a deep breath. “May I have your assurance that whatever we discuss here will not leave the confines of this room?”
“You have it,” Linc replied.
Piper nodded her thanks. “Jaeger knows this already, but Michael Shuttle was my father. My mother sold two stones thirty years ago to give him the capital to start his business.”
Linc exchanged a long look with Jaeger, and Piper turned her head to look at Beckett and Sage. Beckett looked surprised and Sage sympathetic.
“Oh, honey. Nobody knows?” Sage asked.
Piper lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Mick never acknowledged me as his daughter.”
Sage frowned. “In a way, I can sort of understand why he wouldn’t want that to be public. You would’ve grown up with a million cameras on you and your life.”
Ah, Sage, you are so far off base.
Piper didn’t give any further explanations; she didn’t need empty platitudes and false sympathy. Beckett’s measured voice pulled her attention back to the business at hand. “Okay, so that’s twelve stones. Where are the missing three?”
“My cousin Maeve has them,” Piper told him and instantly saw the excitement flash in their eyes. Even the rock at the end of the table reacted to her statement. The air crackled with anticipation as long looks were exchanged between the siblings.
Piper made herself concentrate on Jaeger. This was his wheelhouse, after all. “She offered to give them to me, but I refused.” Mick would’ve taken the stones in a flash, but Piper didn’t feel she had any right to them. Cousin or not, she’d only spent a morning with Maeve, and that didn’t entitle her to a couple of million in gems. “I told her about you, Jaeger, and she’ll probably sell you the stones. If I were you, I’d ask to see what else she has. She was sporting a stunning ten-carat-plus diamond when I met her. She doesn’t have any heirs, and she’s going to leave her wealth to various foundations.”
“She won’t leave it to you?” Beckett asked when Jaeger didn’t acknowledge her suggestion.
Piper shook her head. “I met her for the first time yesterday. I don’t feel like I can take the money. I didn’t earn it.”
In this regard, she was not her father’s daughter.
“Piper, that money could pay for Ty’s education, could make your life a lot easier,” Sage said, leaning forward.
“I just need enough to pay for my house. The rest I will earn,” Piper said, hearing the stubborn in her voice. “I will be fine. Speaking of your offer...” Piper hinted. She couldn’t sit here for much longer with Jaeger tossing accusing looks her way.
Linc nodded. “We’re prepared to offer you seven million.”
Seven million? More than she needed and much more than she’d hoped for. Piper felt tears prick her eyes, and she stared down at the table. “Thank you.”
“If our offer is acceptable, I’ll arrange for payment to be made,” Linc said.
“Very acceptable. Thank you very much,” Piper replied, her voice low. Seven million would secure her house, would pay for Ty’s schooling and would give her a lot of financial security.
It was done. All that remained between her and Jaeger was their son.
Sage walked around the table to Piper’s chair. She turned Piper’s chair, bent down and brushed her lips across her cheek. “Let’s get together sometime soon, okay?”
Sadly that would never happen, not now. Linc stood up and held out his hand for her to shake. “Nice doing business with you, Piper. I’ll get your money to you by the end of the day.”
Linc squeezed her shoulder as he followed Beckett out of the room. Jaeger just sat where he was, one ankle on his knee, his face a thundercloud.
When they were alone, she stood up and pulled her bag over her shoulder. She was suddenly exhausted, emotionally and physically wiped out. Wishing Jaeger would say something and then hoping he wouldn’t, she pushed her chair under the table and turned to leave.
“My lawyers will contact you with regard to custody of Ty,” he said.
Piper stiffened. That was too much. He was not going to take her son from her. He wanted custody? Oh, hell, no!
Piper felt white-hot anger flash over her as she went into full, rabid momma-bear mode. She slapped both hands on the conference table, her face burning.
“Know this, Jaeger Ballantyne. No matter how much I love you, how much I want you in my life, if you ever so much as mention taking my son from me again, I will take every cent of those millions and I will vanish! I will go so deep and so dark you will never find him again. No one, not even you, will come between me and my son!”
Jaeger sat up straighter, and a small frown appeared between his eyes. “Whoa, hold on—”
“My mother loved me, but she loved my father more. My father didn’t love me at all. Ty is my only family, my world. I love you, but God, I will fight you with every breath I have if you try to take him from me.”
Piper lifted a shaking finger in the general direction of his face. Tears burned hot passages down her cheeks as she continued, “I should’ve told you about him when I first saw you again. I know that now. I know you hate me, but please, taking Ty from me would be a death sentence for me. Please don’t make me do something drastic to keep him. I’ll share him with you—he deserves to know you—but please don’t try to take it all. Don’t make me do something irreversible.”
“Piper, I—”
She couldn’t withstand any more. Piper felt the last chunk of her heart rip into shreds. She dashed her hands over her wet cheeks and whirled around, seeing the blurred outline of the door. Needing to escape, to run, she bolted from the room, ignoring Jaeger’s command for her to stay.
Earlier, when she’d walked into this room, she didn’t think the situation between her and Jaeger could get worse, but it had.
Be strong, Piper. Be brave. Your love wasn’t enough, not this time, not for this man.
There was no point in thinking about what-could-have-beens. No point in mourning a future she’d wanted but he didn’t. It was over. By threatening to take her son from her, he’d killed the last fragment of hope she’d been clinging to that they could work something out.
What they had, what they could’ve had, was impossible, a shattered dream.
Piper walked out of Ballantyne and Company for the final time and begged her hopes, her dreams and her love for Jaeger not to follow her home.
Twelve
Jaeger pushed his hand under his suit jacket and felt the padded outline of the stones he’d just purchased. There was another fortune in jewelry in his briefcase, but he felt the need to keep the three cabochon-cut sapphires, twenty-five carats of corundum, on his person. With the addition of these stones purchased an hour ago from Piper’s cousin Maeve, the Kashmir Blues collection was as complete as they could hope it to be.
Linc was excited, Beckett quietly thrilled, Sage loudly ecstatic.
Jaeger felt like his head was about to explode.
He pulled his SUV into the fast lane to pass a slow-moving sedan and, through his expensive shades, glared at the asphalt of Route 27. A headache pulsed behind his right eye and his chest felt tight. He instructed the on-board computer to find a radio station playing hard rock, hoping the strident music would distract him from his thoughts. He made it through the first verse before shouting at the computer to turn the music off.
He was losing his temper with technology, a new low.
He eased his foot
off the gas and pushed his free hand through his hair. He wasn’t sleeping, he was mainlining coffee and he couldn’t remember when he last ate. His office felt claustrophobic, his apartment like a sophisticated jail cell. The sun seemed to be dimmer and the air thinner and...
And he missed his son.
Yeah, he missed Ty, but he yearned for Piper.
Yearned? God! Whatever label he gave the emotion—yearning, pining, longing—he was feeling it every miserable second. His head and heart ached. He wanted to go back to Park Slope, to that red Victorian, and beat on her door until she let him inside.
Because he was a man, his fantasy included skipping the talking and taking her straight to bed. After he’d reacquainted himself with every inch of her body, through mental telepathy she’d understand that they belonged together, that she was his, that Ty was his and that they were in it for the long haul.
Yeah, and he had more chance of finding the missing Kashmir Blues.
He loved her.
He loved her because she was funny and smart and had legs that made his mouth water. Because she was an amazing mother, a wild lover and a loyal friend. He loved her because he now understood her better, thanks to the pithy, and direct, lecture he’d endured from her acerbic elderly cousin.
It turned out Mick Shuttle wasn’t only a criminal, he’d also been a crappy father. According to Maeve, Shuttle had been an utter bastard to Piper and her mom, starting with the deal he’d struck with Piper’s mom when she’d told him she was pregnant.
After kicking her out of their apartment in a rage, Mick waited for more than two months before tracking Gail down at Maeve’s house. Mick, the bastard, made a deal with Gail: she could have full custody of the baby if she sold two of her sapphires and gave him the money to set up his business. Mick would keep her on as his mistress, would house and clothe and support her as long as she lived, but he wanted nothing to do with Piper. Ever.
It was a stance he’d never deviated from. Knowing that, and taking into account Jaeger’s own oft-repeated statements about not wanting a wife or children, Jaeger now better understood why Piper had kept Ty from him. She’d wanted to protect Ty from a father who’d openly admitted he wasn’t interested in children. She’d thought he was like Mick—the thought turned his stomach—and she didn’t want Ty to go through what she did. Jaeger wasn’t anything like Mick, but how was she to know that?
She’d been protecting his son; he couldn’t fault her for that.
Piper, Maeve informed him, was a Mills, and Mills women loved hard and loved fast. Their men never, not for a fraction of a second, questioned that love. It was just there, a living, breathing, tangible entity.
He wanted that love, Piper’s love. But he’d been too damn scared or too busy protecting himself to realize he’d been given a second chance at being happy. If he didn’t fix this, he might never know what being loved by Piper would feel like.
He’d lost his daughter, lost Andy and lost his parents. He’d lost Connor and a month of memories. Every loss rocked his world, but the thought of not having Piper and Ty in his life froze the blood in his veins.
He’d crawled through jungles, braved blizzards, talked his way past thieves and bargained with warlords to acquire the gemstones he wanted, but Piper and Ty were his biggest treasures, his ultimate find. He’d do anything to become part of their world, to share their lives. Ty allowed his shoulders to drop, and he stretched his spine to work out some tension.
It might take some swift negotiating, some smooth talking and fast thinking, but they were his biggest quest.
This had all started because Piper wanted to sell her stones to keep her house, and just like that, Jaeger knew what he had to do to win her back.
He smiled.
Oh, yeah, this was going to be fun.
* * *
Piper, convinced that she was about to burst a blood vessel in her brain, kept one hand on the handle of Ty’s stroller and slapped her other hand on the expensive counter between her and a robot wearing a black suit. She peered at the robot’s badge. Johnson, Chief of Security, Ballantyne and Co. “Mr. Johnson—”
“Just Johnson, ma’am.”
“I’m sure if you just call Jaeger and tell him I am here, why I am here—”
“Why are you here, ma’am?”
Because Simms told me to come!
Because the lawyer representing Mick’s estate now, for some odd reason, wouldn’t take her money, wouldn’t allow her to buy her house. Simms had told her to talk to Jaeger Ballantyne and to get back to him when she had.
Why did she care so much, anyway? Two weeks ago the house was her refuge, her link to her childhood and her mom, a place of safety. Now it felt empty without Jaeger, just rooms and walls and stuff. Her home was in Jaeger’s arms; she felt grounded when she looked into his eyes, energized when he kissed her, connected to the universe when he loved her.
Wherever he was, that was where she wanted to be.
He didn’t feel the same.
Piper pushed her fist into her sternum and breathed through her mouth, physically pushing the painful emotions back. She would not cry, not now, but she acknowledged that she couldn’t live like this for much longer. She was falling apart. Worry was eating her from the inside out. It wasn’t good for her or for Ty.
She’d spent the last four nights not sleeping, trying to act normal around Ty, Ceri and Rainn, but falling apart when she was alone. She didn’t think she was fooling anyone. Ty had picked up on her stress. He was clingier than usual and a lot crankier. She’d wanted to leave him with Ceri earlier, but he’d refused to let Piper go, and she didn’t have the heart to leave him. It was as if he was also suffering from a bad case of missing Jaeger.
“Ma’am, I asked you a question. What is the nature of your business with Mr. Ballantyne?”
I love him but he doesn’t love me or our son? The words hovered on her lips, but she pulled them back. “It’s personal business.”
Johnson did not look convinced.
“It really is. I am—” God, what was she? His ex-lover, the mother of his child, his casual fling?
He was the only man she wanted in her life. He was the only man she could imagine in her life. Piper pushed her hands through her tangled curls and blew air over her bottom lip. Even if she told Johnson that, she doubted he’d believe her.
She looked like what she was—a frazzled single mother barely keeping her life together. A young woman wearing faded jeans, battered sneakers and a cinnamon knee-length trench coat. No makeup, eyes red from too many tears and minimal sleep.
“Ma’am. Can I see some identification?” Johnson asked, his voice low and patient.
“For the love of God,” Piper whimpered. Piper let go of the stroller and yanked her wallet out of her bag, slamming it onto the counter. Sending the implacable Johnson a narrow-eyed, you’re-high-on-my-hit-list look, she handed over her driver’s license and tapped her fingers as he typed her name into his database.
Johnson looked at the screen, frowned and looked at the screen again.
“Problem?” she asked, her tone sarcastic.
Johnson rubbed the back of his neck as he passed her license back to her.
“What?” Piper demanded. “Am I still on the kooks and crazies list?”
Déjà vu, Piper thought, feeling the walls of the lobby closing in on her. She’d been here before. Jaeger had, once again, restricted access to himself. She’d backed away once before, turned tail and run—a habit she’d carried over from her childhood. Instead of fighting her father, making him notice her, she’d retreated and allowed him to control the situation.
She wasn’t a child anymore.
She was done with running, slinking off, hiding out, trying not to rock the boat. She wanted a definitive answer about what Jaeger was planning, whether he inte
nded to sue for custody or not. She wanted to know why he’d spoken to Simms, the lawyer dealing with Mick’s estate. What business did Jaeger have discussing her house? And why the hell hadn’t he taken her off the kooks and crazies list?
She was done with playing nice. Piper looked around and noticed the cameras in the corners of the lobby. Two, three, another over the door, all of them recording her interaction with Johnson. She’d bet a Kashmir Blue that there was a microphone picking up every word she uttered. “I want to leave a message for Jaeger, Johnson.”
Johnson reached for a message pad, but she shook her head. “I’m not an idiot. I know every move I make is being recorded.” Slapping her hands on her hips, Piper looked directly up into the camera above the desk, opening her mouth to blast him.
“I heard you are looking for me.”
* * *
“Hey, bud.” Jaeger dropped to his haunches in front of Ty, and a look of love crossed his face that liquefied Piper’s knees.
Breathe, Mills, dammit. Ty, immediately leaned forward, dropping his duck and shouting his approval. His favorite person, Piper thought, was back and all was right with his world.
Jaeger pushed the button to release Ty from his safety belts and lifted the baby into his arms, placing his mouth on Ty’s temple and inhaling his special baby smell. Then Jaeger grimaced and held Ty away from him, shaking his head at his son.
“Is that your way of punishing me for staying away? By greeting me with a loaded diaper?” Jaeger asked, smiling. “That’s a highly effective reprimand. Respect, dude.”
Jaeger tucked Ty against his side, grabbed the stroller and finally, finally looked at her, his eyes guarded. “Hi.”
Piper lifted her hand to hold her throat, wishing she could get more air into her lungs. He was dressed in navy pants, a brown leather belt that matched his shoes and a plain white shirt. He looked insanely hot. Situation normal, then.
