by Susan Meier
Still, he hadn’t blamed her for the pregnancy, so she could go back to Plan B, remind him of how much trouble a baby could be and let him bow out gracefully.
“My goal had always been to get a job at a big law firm and buy a nice condo that would go up in value as I paid down the mortgage.”
His earnest blue eyes stayed on her face, as he waited for her to explain why she was rehashing things he already knew.
She cleared her throat. “What I didn’t tell you was, I’d made that plan so that I could get tons of experience and learn from some of the best lawyers in the world before I sold the condo for a profit and returned to Pennsylvania to start my own law firm.”
“Oh.”
She wasn’t surprised that she’d stunned him. Every damned time they’d gone out she’d said or done something that raised his eyebrows or caused him to frown. Their problem wasn’t merely a case of a middle-class woman with an upper-class man. They were opposites in just about every way.
“I didn’t really keep that from you.”
“Like you didn’t really keep the pregnancy from me?”
She sighed. “We dated for three weeks. There’s no law that says I had to tell you my plans for the future.”
“So, you weren’t seriously dating me. What was I? Beefcake?”
The way he said it, with his calm, poised tone, as if he didn’t realize how funny he sounded, made her laugh.
He glared at her. “No. Come on. I’m curious. Did you just go out with me because we were good in bed?”
“You were pretty good.”
He cursed and rose from the teal chair to pace. “Seriously!”
“You do realize another man would be so damned complimented by that he’d probably glow in the dark.”
“I’m not like most men.”
No kidding. “Okay. Why did you continue to ask me out when we both realized on our third date that we weren’t compatible?”
He took a patient breath, but ran the fingers of both hands through his hair. A gesture she’d never seen. She pulled back a bit. The last thing she wanted to do was anger one of the richest men in New York City when she didn’t have a leg to stand on to keep their baby from him. Her moving to Pennsylvania without telling him would have been the easiest thing for both of them. But now that he knew, convincing him he didn’t want to be part of this baby’s life was her best option. She’d never do that if they continued to argue over pointless things.
“Anyway,” Avery said, bringing them back to the real discussion. “My life plan has been altered a bit. With my down payment on this place and the extra I’ve put on the mortgage every month, not to mention the increase in real estate values, I can sell the condo early and still make a profit. Then once I pass the Pennsylvania bar, I can start my own firm there.”
“If you wanted your own law firm or even to jump the ranks of Waters, Waters and Montgomery, all you had to do was say the word.”
She gaped at him. “Really? You think it would be okay for me to jump over the heads of lawyers who know ten times what I know? To be made partner before them because my ex is their biggest client?”
He drew a breath and expelled it quickly. “So, you’re really leaving?”
Another thing he had a habit of doing was not answering her questions, but changing the subject so they wouldn’t argue. This time she appreciated his stopping them from going down another useless road, so she let that slide too.
“Well, I’m not packing up and heading out tomorrow. My doctor is here in New York. I plan to have the baby here. Plus, I have to sell the condo. And I do need the experience I’m getting at Waters, Waters and Montgomery. But eventually I have to go.”
“And you expect me to be okay with that?” When he faced her, his sapphire eyes had gone from serious to furious. “You think I don’t have rights, options?”
Fear raced through her, but she calmed it. This was the most rational man on the planet. If she stayed neutral, he’d stay neutral. If she set out her plan logically, especially highlighting how he benefited from it, he would follow it.
“Okay, let’s start this over again. I am pregnant. The baby is yours. I’ve had the goal since high school to earn a law degree, get some experience in New York City and then return to Pennsylvania to start my own law firm. The baby doesn’t stop that plan. Yes, I have to take the Pennsylvania bar exam and, yes, I will have to get a job at another law firm in Pennsylvania while I study for it. But the goal hasn’t changed. Isn’t going to change. That’s nonnegotiable.”
He paced in front of the fireplace. “And, realistically, Pennsylvania isn’t that far away. I can drive there to visit or send a limo to bring the baby to me.”
She winced. There were a billion things wrong with his idea. Especially considering she didn’t want her child sucked into “McCallanville,” a world of pampered rich people who didn’t understand reality.
She argued the easiest point. “I’m not putting my baby into a limo alone.”
“There will be times he should be with me.”
“With you? Don’t you mean with a nanny? Even when you’re home you’re on the phone or computer.” Just thinking about it filled her with anger. “Why should my baby spend his time with a driver and a nanny when he or she could be with me? I won’t let my child be raised by a nanny, Jake. Not ever.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head, obviously controlling his temper. Finally, he said, “How much?”
“How much what?”
“How much do you want to make you more agreeable?”
She gaped at him. “Are you trying to bribe me?”
“I’m trying to make you more agreeable.”
“And you think if you give me a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars, I’ll give you what you want in a visitation agreement?”
“I was thinking more like a few million.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re insane! I have a plan. I don’t need your money! I don’t want your money. I want to do what’s best for the baby. So should you.”
He studied her. She could all but see the wheels turning in his head as he came to terms with the fact that this situation wasn’t about money. In his world, everything came down to money. She couldn’t even fault him for trying to find her price—though she did want to deck him. The truth was, she didn’t even want child support. But she figured it was a little too early in the game to tell him that. His brain would have to work so hard to process it that he’d probably have a stroke.
“We’re going to need a written agreement.”
For ten seconds, she wished he hadn’t seen her that morning at the law office. But while her dad had been in prison for something he hadn’t done, she learned wishing for things to be different didn’t change them. Plus, she hadn’t given up on Plan B, convincing him he didn’t want a crying, pooping, spitting-up baby destroying the peace of his life. And that would take more tact and diplomacy than she could muster tonight.
“Okay. But we should have a few more conversations to see what we both want before we even try to get anything on paper.”
He considered that. “Agreed.”
He headed for the door. Though Avery gave him a pleasant smile as she saw him out and said goodbye, another alternative jumped into her brain.
If she couldn’t make him see a baby didn’t fit into his life, there was a risky Plan C. She could tell him that her dad had been in prison and remind him of the can of worms that would be opened once the press started digging into the life of the woman pregnant with his child. They both knew he wouldn’t want that kind of media attention any more than she did. If anything would send him scurrying away from her, it would be the horror of that much negative attention from the press.
There was just one little problem with Plan C—
When she told him about her dad, she’d also be handing him the ammun
ition to take her child, or to at least keep her and her little one in New York City. All he would have to do would be tell the court he wanted to keep his child away from Avery’s ex-con dad.
Then even if she kept custody, she’d be stuck in New York, away from the people she wanted to help.
Away from the dream she had nurtured and worked for since she was fifteen.
If Plan C went south, it could ruin her life.
CHAPTER TWO
THE NEXT MORNING, a quick knock on Jake’s office door brought his gaze up from the documents on his ornate mahogany desk, the desk that had once belonged to his dad. Because the list of people his secretary would let down the corridor to his office was slim, mostly family, he automatically said, “Come in.”
His brother Seth opened the door and poked his head inside. As tall as Jake and with the same dark hair, Seth hadn’t gotten their mom’s blue eyes, and had irises so brown they were almost black. Especially when he got angry.
“I won’t ask you if you’re busy. I know you are, but can I have five minutes?”
Jake sat back on his soft leather office chair. “Sure. What’s up?”
Seth walked to the seat in front of the desk. “Just curious if you’re really going to offer Mom a job. I mean, it would be kind of fun to watch, but there are twelve people on the board who don’t want us giving an office and a paycheck to family members who aren’t actually coming into work.”
“Since when did you start caring about what the directors think?”
Seth winced. “Since they began calling me because they don’t want to insult you by questioning your judgment.”
“The way they used to call me when they wanted to complain about Dad—”
He left the sentence open, giving Seth the opportunity to mention if the directors had told him anything about their father, a man whose business practices had been so sketchy they’d teetered on the edge of illegal. Ten years had given Jake a chance to fix most of their dad’s messes, to argue him into working fairly or to quietly go behind the scenes and make amends with contractors their dad had threatened to ruin. But Jake didn’t want his brother, his sister and especially not their mother to know what a cheat and a thief Tom McCallan had been. Not to preserve their dad’s reputation, but to finally shake it off. He didn’t want to remember that his dad had emotionally abused him and Seth until his brother had all but dropped out of their family. He didn’t want to remember the times his father had publicly humiliated him. He just wanted to get on with his life.
Seth didn’t say anything, and his facial expression remained casual.
Jake breathed a silent sigh of relief. Obviously, with Tom McCallan gone the directors believed as he did: the past was the past. It was time to move on.
He caught Seth’s gaze. “Pete Waters doesn’t like the idea of me hiring Mom either. He thinks she’ll be underfoot and that she doesn’t have any real skills. But I had a talk with her this morning. I told her there might be a possibility of a job, but she really had to work.”
Seth winced. “How did she take that?”
“I think she felt becoming chairman of the board was her due, and a job, though interesting, is a step down.” He shook his head. “I’m hoping that going to Paris will make her see she doesn’t want any of it. That she’s useful enough working with her charities.”
“That’ll make the board and Pete happy.”
Jake sighed and sat forward on his chair again. “Speaking of Pete, there’s something else I have to tell you.”
“About Pete?”
“No. About the lawyer I was dating from his office.”
Seth grinned. “The hot redhead.”
Jake grimaced. It was typical of Seth to judge a woman by looks alone. Though he had to admit Seth had hit the nail on the head with his description of Avery. She was hot, and talking to her the night before had made his head spin. Especially, looking at her stomach and knowing that baby was his. Feelings he’d never before felt had grabbed his chest and squeezed until he couldn’t ask the things he should have asked. Like for a DNA test and a good explanation about why she’d kept her pregnancy from him.
“Yes. She’s pregnant.”
Seth’s mouth fell open. “Holy hell. And the baby’s yours?”
“She says it is.”
“No DNA test?”
He wasn’t about to tell his brother he’d turned into a ball of confusion the night before just looking at Avery’s belly. He wasn’t that kind of guy. He might have had a moment of pure emotion but that was only because he’d been surprised. He was back to his usual controlled self now.
“We ran into each other at a coffee shop on Valentine’s Day because neither one of us had a date. She works eighty hours a week. Most of our time together started after nine. It’s very clear she doesn’t go out with many men. Besides, I trust this woman. She wouldn’t lie about something like this.”
And that was the bottom line. He did trust her. Not because she was honest, but because the last thing she’d want was more involvement with him or his life. She’d made that abundantly clear. If this baby wasn’t his, it would have been her joy to tell him that.
“What are you going to do?”
“First, we need a halfway decent custody agreement.”
“What do you think that’s going to cost?”
“She doesn’t want money.”
Seth burst out laughing. “Seriously?”
“She’s a lawyer. She can earn her own. Plus, she made a smart choice when she bought her condo. Her plan is to move back to Pennsylvania where the cost of living is a lot lower than what we have here.” He shrugged. “There’s no price for her. She doesn’t need our money.”
“Mom’s going to have a fit.”
“No kidding. Especially since Avery’s got to be six months along.” He remembered her swollen with his child, and suddenly imagined a little boy that was his. Not just an heir, but someone to teach everything from throwing a spiral to getting what you want in a negotiation. He never thought he’d have a child. Never thought he wanted a child. But he needed an heir, and he wanted to be a dad. If nothing else, he wanted to do better than his father had done with him and Seth. And come hell or high water he intended to be part of this baby’s life.
Seth laughed. “Six months and she only told you now? This just keeps getting better. You should rent an arena and sell tickets for when you tell Mom.”
“Very funny.”
Seth sat back. “I’m going to be an uncle.”
Jake met his brother’s gaze. “I’m going to be a dad.” Confusion swam through him again, tightening his chest with a combination of elation and fear. For as much as he longed to right things with this child, he also realized he could screw up worse than their dad had.
Seth sighed. “It’s official. We’re adults. I got word today on Clark Hargrave buying my share of the investment firm we started. He’s pulled the money together. Once it comes through, I’m out of the investment business.”
“Really?” Jake sat back. “Does that mean you can permanently take over the CEO position I left to become chairman of the board?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You’ve been doing the job since Dad died, but if you want to leave I could appoint Sabrina.” Both Seth and their baby sister Sabrina had MBAs, but while Seth had started his own company, refusing to work for their dad, Sabrina currently ran a consulting firm for start-ups.
“And ruin her life too?” Seth rose. “I’ll do it, but I’m hiring two assistants and a vice president, so I’m not chained to my desk the way you are.”
“It’s a deal.” Jake rose too, extending his hand to his brother.
Seth shook it. “I think we’re both crazy.”
Considering workload alone, Jake would have agreed with him, except he liked who he was. He had been grateful for
the chance to fix the reputation of McCallan, Inc. Now that he had a baby on the way, getting it right was a thousand times more important. He would make his child a part of everything he had—
Unless Avery Novak disappeared. And she just might. They hadn’t gotten anywhere close to agreement the night before, and she was just offbeat enough to think running was the answer.
He couldn’t bribe her.
He didn’t think he could outwit her. They were an even match.
The only thing left was sweet-talking her.
Almost at the door, Seth turned. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll run this pregnancy by George Green.”
Jake’s brow furrowed. “The private investigator?”
“You dated Avery Novak for only three weeks, but you don’t think you need a DNA test. You don’t seem to care that she’s moving to Pennsylvania. Either you’re still half in love with her—”
“I’m not.”
“Or you’re so happy to be having a child you’re not thinking clearly.”
He sighed. “I’m thinking perfectly fine.”
“Let me call George anyway, have him do a bit of research into her past to make sure everything’s okay.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s just a precaution. Plus, you never know what he’ll find. Maybe there’s something in her past that could help you.”
Jake ran his hand across his mouth. Calling a private investigator to make sure Avery was on the up-and-up was one thing. But digging up dirt, ruining someone’s life to extort them into compliance sounded so much like something his father would do after one of his fits of rage that he hesitated.
“Look, Jake, Mom’s already at odds. If this blows up in your face, she’s going to go over the edge. You know it. I know it. This isn’t just about you.”
Jake tossed his pencil to his desk. “All right. Call George. But I want to be the one to talk to him.”
“Great. I’ll set a meeting for this afternoon.”
