He stood up slowly and stood there completely naked, looking at her. Jewel avoided looking at him but even though she was not looking at him directly, she could see the bronze hair on his chest that spread down to his genitals and his muscular build. He was magnificent and he made her weak.
“What happened to you?” he asked her softly. “Why are you so angry with me? You were the one who did not want me. You were the one who said that you had only been experimenting with a white guy, and now you are placing everything on me.” He started putting on his clothes while she looked at him, puzzled. “I am going Jewel, but if you think this is over then you are a fool.” He took one look at her before he left: at her spiked hair, her swollen lips and her breasts that had fed him so hungrily outlined against the shirt. He knew he could never stop loving her, and if possible it had grown to epic proportions. He left and closed the door quietly behind him.
Jewel locked the door and rested her head against the door. She was in deep trouble, she thought, feeling the tears starting!
*****
“We need to talk!” he said grimly as he pushed the door open and stepped inside the store. She had not seen him since the night they made love almost a week ago. She had spent the nights and most of the days reliving the incredible experience of being with him and had hid it from her friends in the process.
She had been on the verge of closing the store when he came in. He looked so handsome and so angry that she felt a shiver run up and down her spine. “No, we don’t.” she told him.
He locked the door and turned the sign from open to close.
“Who do you think you are?” Jewel asked him, her eyes flashing.
“The man who got you pregnant four years ago,” he said trying to contain his anger and his hurt. He watched as she stepped back, her eyes wide. “Your friend Jaclyn gave me quite an earful and called me all sorts of names for not standing up to my responsibilities. Why wasn’t I told that you were carrying my child Jewel? How could you keep something like that from me?”
“You left me!” she blazed at him, the anger bursting from her. “You left me without a contact number and with only your parents who told me you wanted nothing to do with me. I went through two months of pregnancy and a horrible miscarriage and you weren’t there. You were jet setting your way through Europe.”
Jewel saw the look of pain and disbelief on his face as he stood there looking at her.
“You thought I knew and ignored it?” he asked her quietly, his shoulders slumping in acute weariness. “You know me better than that. How could you think that of me?”
“Because I gave your mother a letter to send to you, and she said you told her that you wanted nothing to do with me and a baby you are not even sure is yours.” She told him angrily.
“My mother said that?” He was past being angry now. When Jaclyn had bumped into him in the restaurant a few nights ago she had lit into him like a flame that had been set off. He had been out with a friend of his because he had been trying to get a break from thinking about her. He sat there staring at her as she spilled the information about Jewel being pregnant.
“Just leave me alone Jordan. It’s in the past and we have both moved on.” She told him wearily, rubbing a hand at the back of her neck.
“You think this is over between us?” he gave a short bark of laughter, which had her looking up at him. “We are never going to be over. Stop lying to yourself, and to me!” He had come over and gripped her arms, forcing her up against him. “I can’t stay away from you and I am tired of trying. I am so tired.” He whispered resting his head against her forehead. “You were carrying my child inside you and I would have done anything to be with you. How could you not know that?” His breath fanned her face and she felt the desire starting. She wanted to hold him and tell him how much she had called his name and how she had cried for him. “What was it?”
“It was too early to tell,” she murmured.
“I want another chance.” He told her suddenly, putting her a little way from him. “I want us to have another child together.”
Jewel felt the pounding of her heart and she almost said yes, until she came to her senses. “Are you out of your mind?” She tried to pull away from him, the whole awful experience flooding into her mind! The pain and despair of losing both him and their child almost at the same time! The amount of time it took to pick up the pieces of her life together. “I went through hell and back!” She practically screamed at him. “I was sick for the entire time I was carrying our child and if it was not for my mom and my friends, I would not have made it. I cried myself to sleep at nights wanting you, needing you to be there with me, and when I slipped and fell on those stairs at the library I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die when the doctor told me that I had lost my baby. I could not function for years...so don’t come and ask me to do it again. I am not a fool for you anymore.”
Every word she had said to him felt as if she had been driving a nail inside his heart and he wanted to go somewhere and die. She was right! He had no business telling her that he wanted a child from her after what she had been through. He was not there, and it did not matter that he had not known about it; it did not negate the fact that he had been missing in action!
“You are right,” his tone was quiet and defeated. “I was not there for you and even though I had no idea of what was going on, the fact is I was not around and you will never know how much I regret that and how much I am suffering because of it.” He bent his head and before she knew what he was about, he captured her lips with his, the movement tender and slow and searching. Jewel sagged against him, curling her hands into his cashmere sweater as his tongue touched hers. He released her mouth slowly and stepped back, his breathing irregular, his hands clenched at his sides as he fought for control. “I can’t stay away Jewel. Whatever I have to do to make it up to you, I will do so.” He turned to walk away. “How do you know you are not pregnant now?” the question was left up in the air as he opened the door and left.
Chapter 4
“Darling, you are still here? I thought you would have been at the office by now.” Caroline pulled her silk robe closer to her body as she made her way downstairs from her suite of her rooms. It was a little after nine and she had been at a dinner party until late last night.
“I am here because I need to talk to you.” Jordan was barely holding on to his anger. “Have a seat, mother.”
“This sounds serious,” she said trying to keep her tone light.
“It is,” He was already dressed for the office in a dark blue business suit and a light blue shirt and red tie but he had called his secretary and told her that he was running a bit late. “You and dad did not tell me that Jewel was carrying my child.” It was not posed as a question. Caroline felt the increase in her heartbeat.
“We were trying to protect you, darling,” she said swiftly trying to climb out of the pit she had dug herself into. “We were not sure the child would have been yours.”
“Stop!” he gritted out, pacing in front of where she was sitting. “I was the only man for her and I have a feeling that I have been the only man for her. She was carrying my child, your grandchild and you did not think you could look past the ridiculous bias you have against her and let me know that I was going to be a father! What else did you lie about, mother? The two million dollars you claimed that she accepted; it was not true was it?”
She remained quiet for so long that Jordan realized with horror that all she and his father had told him about Jewel were all lies. The letter, the money everything! No wonder she could not bear to even look at him and he had made it worse by blaming her for something she had not done. How could she ever forgive him?
“You are going to fix it, mother,” his voice had gone dangerously calm. “I don’t care how you do it but you are going to fix it with her so that I will somehow be worthy of her love again. If you don’t,” he paused and raked her with his green gaze causing the fear to rise inside her. “If
you don’t, you will have lost a son and any future grandchildren. I love her and always will and that is never going to change, because if it’s not her, then it’s no one.” With that he spun on his heels and left her sitting there, shivering in her thin silk robe in the large opulent living room.
*****
Jordan sat inside his car with the engine running. He had driven to the end of the driveway because he could not bear to be in the same vicinity as his mother. He had wanted to strangle her! She and his father had manipulated his life for so many years. He should have known her better than to think she would take money from them. She had never been impressed by his wealth and had always cut him down to size whenever he behaved as if he was better than anyone else. “Money does not make a person, Jordan.” She had told him quietly one day, while they were sitting under their favorite tree. “It’s what’s inside that person that defines who they really are.”
He had failed her and he did not deserve her back He rested his head against the steering wheel and felt the weight of despair on his shoulders. Their son or daughter would have been almost four years old now, he thought bleakly. How was he going to make her see past all the hurt and pain his parents, and inadvertently, he had caused her? How did he begin to tell her how sorry he was for not believing in her?
He gunned the engine and made his way to the office building of McIntyre and Company, staring up at the towering glass structure with his name in big white letters. So much wealth and so little happiness! He had been born into it and had never known what it felt like to want for anything in his life, except now, when he wanted the only thing he desired and ever had!
*****
Jewel smiled and gave the girl the book to continue reading to the children as she went to tend to several customers. It was Friday and it was usually busy, but this morning it was as if she had not even found the time to take a coffee break. She had her usual meeting with her friends later and was looking forward to just sitting down and unwinding.
She was in the middle of helping a customer choose an appropriate book for a child’s birthday when the bell tingled. She looked up to see Jordan’s mother standing just inside the doorway, staring around uncertainly.
With a supreme effort of being friendly, she excused herself from the customer and came over to her. “I do not have time to trade words with you today,” she told the woman forcing herself to be polite. She did not look like her usual immaculate self but looked as if she had just left the house in a hurry and forgotten to put on make-up.
“I need to talk to you urgently.” She said quietly, her expression looking like one on the brink of crying.
With a brief hesitation, Jewel beckoned to one of the high school girls to help her out and indicated that Caroline come with her to her little office. She waited on her to begin.
“Jordan is mad at me,” she said with a short laugh. Still Jewel remained silent. The woman was twisting the straps of her designer bag in her hands as if the movement somehow made her feel better. “I did some very foolish things and now he is threatening never to speak to me again.”
“I am sure he will come around, after all you are his mother,” Jewel said politely.
“It has to do with you!” she said looking at the cool and beautiful girl in front of her and hated that she was in this position. “I did it all because I wanted to protect him,”
“From big bad me?” Jewel asked raising a tapered dark brow.
“I come from a very poor background and I thought –“
“You thought he should do better than me.” Jewel finished the sentence. “Mrs. McIntyre, you should know better than anyone else that it matters not where you come from but where you end up and I am not talking about having lots of money. As long as you are happy with yourself and where you are, it does not matter if you have a cent. You and your husband thought you could choose for your son, and ended up destroying something wonderful. Jordan and I loved each other very much. The difference in our backgrounds did not matter because when we were with each other, everything faded away. I am so sorry you felt you had to change that.”
The woman stared at the cool confident girl in front of her and realized that she was not the same person she had been before. She had grown up.
“He wants your forgiveness, and so do I.” Caroline said stiffly.
“And in time I will be able to forgive both of you,” Jewel told her coolly. “I lost my child Mrs. McIntyre, and you still have yours, consider yourself fortunate.” She stood up, indicating that the meeting was at an end. Caroline felt the fear clutching her heart again.
“What should I tell Jordan?” her voice sounded desperate.
Jewel looked at her in surprise. “Tell him you spoke to me, or you can tell him whatever you want to. I am sure you are smart enough to come up with something.”
The woman stood there staring at her and realized that the girl had more class in her little finger than she had in her whole body. She had spent the number of years she had been married to Jordan’s father trying to learn how to be classy and had the feeling that she had failed drastically. Now standing in front of this cool and extremely beautiful girl, she definitely knew that she had.
“Thank you for hearing me out.” She said quietly.
Jewel nodded briefly and followed her out.
She watched her closed the door behind her and it was only then that she let out a sigh. She was no longer the screwed up, bewildered girl she had been before!
*****
She was pregnant! Jewel stared at the stick, aghast. It had been three weeks since she had been with Jordan, and a week since his mother had come to see her. He had not called her or been back to see her. She had told herself she was happy, but she was aching to see him. She wanted to be with him and it was causing her sleepless nights. She had started feeling that something was wrong when she realized that her period had not come at the allotted time. She had chalked it down to the stress of Jordan coming back and her reaction to seeing him. She had been queasy in the mornings, even when she brushed her teeth.
Apart from the initial reaction of dismay, she realized that she wanted the child. When she had found out that she was pregnant the first time, even though he had left, she had been over the moon, thinking that at least she would have a part of him inside her and with her at all times. When she had had the miscarriage she had felt as if a huge part of her life had gone.
She hugged herself around the waist and sat down on the bathroom floor. She would have to tell her friends and her mother, and she knew what they were going to say. She had not told them that she had been with Jordan but had kept it to herself. It was too special for her to have them raking him over the coals for what they had done that night. But first she would have to tell Jordan, because even though she had no intention of starting back up where they had left off, he had a right to know. She had seen what not knowing about the first pregnancy had done to him. He never knew.
It was Sunday morning and she had decided to stay in bed and rest a little bit; she was feeling especially drained. She dialed his number and he answered on the second ring.
“I wanted to call you but I did not know what to say to you.” He paused and she could hear the humility in his voice. “I can’t believe I doubted you Jewel, and for that I cannot face you right now.”
“I am afraid you will have to,” she told him wryly. “I think I am pregnant.”
The silence on the other end was profound. “I am coming over,” he told her briefly hanging up the phone.
He was there in twenty minutes, giving Jewel just enough time to straighten up and take a shower, putting on a pair of old sweat pants and a black T-shirt.
The wind had tousled his hair and the gold in it shone in the dim light of the apartment. He had on a green sweater that rivaled the color of his eyes and was wearing faded denims. She had left the door open and he came straight in, his eyes going over her face.
He did not touch her and for that she was grateful.
He sat beside her on the sofa and looked at her enquiringly. “Are you sure?” he asked her quietly. Ever since she had told him, he had been trying to restrain himself from flying high.
“I peed on two sticks and all the signs point to it, so I am sure.” She said with a nod.
“You want me to make an appointment for the doctor?” he asked her. He wanted to take her into his arms and cried out in joy.
“I already did. Tomorrow at two o’clock. I just have to get someone to mind the store.”
“I’ll pick you up.” He said immediately.
“Thanks,” she told him.
He sat there looking at his hands clasped between his legs. “I don’t expect you to forgive me or my parents for what happened. My mother told me that she spoke to you and what you said and I don’t blame you.” He stared in front of him, a bleak expression on his face. “I cannot forgive her, not right now, but I am hoping that one day we can go back to where we were before all this.”
“We cannot go back Jordan, and going through all of that killed something inside me.” He felt as if his heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces. “When I look at you I am always reminded that you were not there when I most needed you, and I cannot get past that, not right now. I loved you so much and when you left I wanted to die. I don’t want to lose control over myself like that again. I am sorry.”
“For what?” he asked her bitterly. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I screwed up and I cannot even blame my parents too much. I knew you, they didn’t. I let them influence me into thinking the worse of you.” He took a deep breath and then stood up. “I will be there tomorrow to pick you up, and thanks for including me in this Jewel. I promise I will not let you go through this by yourself.”
She followed him to the door. He stopped just as she was about to close the door and hauled her into his arms, taking her lips in a kiss so hungry and desperate that Jewel felt herself responding in kind. He held her against his shuddering body as he thrust his tongue inside her mouth. With a hoarse cry he pushed her back inside and closed the door. He braced her back against it and fumbled for his erection, before pulling down her loose pants. He entered her forcefully, his control disappearing as he thrust inside her, his hands gripping her hips.
Hold Me Close: BWWM Romance (Brothers From Money Book 6) Page 18
