Carrying The Billionaire's Baby

Or maybe it wouldn’t.

Maybe his lawyers would twist it the way Paul Barnes had gotten the DA to twist the evidence of her father’s innocence into a story of a coworker who’d only confessed after he was dead to get his friend out of prison.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

She couldn’t deal with this right now. Especially not in front of his sister.

She popped out of her seat, grabbed her purse and turned away from the table. “We’ll talk another time, Jake.”

Her pulse pounding, she raced out the door and into the hot first-day-of-September evening. She couldn’t believe how this situation kept spiraling. Anger poured through her in waves. If she couldn’t trust Jake not to say anything to anyone until they had their situation resolved, how could she trust him with anything?

A hand caught her arm, slowed her down, then stopped her.

It had to be Jake.

She spun to face him. “Now what? Would you like me to sit with a reporter from the New Yorker and give an interview? Maybe we can get ABC to put us on Good Morning America?”

“Will you stop? I didn’t tell her to come here!”

“You expect me to believe it was a coincidence?”

“It was! And you’re being stupid. It was my sister for God’s sake. Not a girlfriend.”

“I would have much rather that she’d been a girlfriend!”

He stepped close. “Really?”

He smelled spicy and male and all her pregnancy hormones popped. She ignored them. “You can date anybody you want.”

“I’m about to be a father. I want to settle one life crisis at a time. I don’t want to date anybody.”

“Well, you might as well, because you and I are oil and water. Our lives clash. Even when we try to get along, we fight. We’ll never get a custody agreement hammered out. We’re going to end up in court.”

“Because you intend to be stubborn?”

“Because I had a plan!” Three plans, actually. And all three had failed. “You don’t believe this about me, but I love plans. I love order. Just because I don’t say it with a calm, rational voice, doesn’t mean I—”

He caught her by the upper arms and hauled her against him, and for twenty seconds they stared into each other’s eyes. Warmth coursed through her. Her breasts met his chest. Their baby bumped against his stomach.

A million emotions flashed through his blue eyes. She was pretty sure his intention had been to stop her tirade by kissing her. Then he’d felt the baby bump and frozen.

Except for those eyes. Every emotion from confusion to fear to happy surprise and anger raced through them.

CHAPTER THREE

JAKE DROPPED HER ARMS then stepped back, away from the temptation of Avery’s mouth.

He couldn’t believe how desperately he wanted to kiss her. He’d caught her arms to shut her up, but staring into her eyes he’d remembered her fire and wanted to taste it again. Then he’d felt the baby—his baby—and his brain had scattered in a million directions.

“Well, that was interesting.”

“Not really.” She shrugged. “You said yourself we both prolonged our relationship because we were so hot in bed. We’re accustomed to touching each other. And when we touch, sparks fly.”

“That’s about the size of it.” He took another step back. Not wanting to talk about the myriad feelings racing through him when he’d felt the baby bump, he said, “It really was a coincidence that we ran into Sabrina.”

She took a breath, then looked away as if thinking it through. Her long red hair shimmered when her head moved, and he struggled not to reach out and touch it. Not to reach out and touch her, if only in amazement that she carried his child. But that was wrong. A weakness he couldn’t afford with her.

When she caught his gaze, the anger was gone from her eyes too.

“We’re both just a little too edgy right now. Not sure of each other or how to handle this situation. We’re going to have to be more careful about where we meet next time.”

“Should we meet in one of our apartments?”

“No. We should meet in mine. We never know who’s lurking in the bushes outside yours. And—” She held his gaze with an intensity that might have scared another man but almost made him laugh. He had no doubt why Pete Waters considered her his top associate. That stare could terrify any witness and probably some judges.

“No more touching on public streets.” She looked around then glanced back at him again. “We don’t know who could have seen that.”

He said, “Sure,” as she turned and walked away. The way she could so easily leave, snatching control out of his hands again, sent a wave of annoyance through him. “I notice you didn’t say anything about touching on private streets. Maybe alleyways. The lobby of your building.”

She didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge anything he’d said, just kept striding up the street.

A laugh escaped. She might not have turned, but she’d heard him. He’d seen the way her spine straightened. God help him, but he’d needed the validation that he still got to her, still had a little bit of control. Even if it was only teasing her.

When he pivoted to return to the coffee shop, he almost plowed into his sister.

“Mom is going to have a cow.”

All the fun of teasing Avery instantly evaporated.

Sabrina’s face fell. “You are going to tell her, aren’t you?”

“Eventually.”

“Eventually? That woman has got to be at least six months pregnant! What are you going to do? Call Mom from the hospital and say, It’s a boy?”

“I’d like a boy.” He really would. Someone to teach everything he knew. Someone to inherit everything he’d worked for. Now that he was adjusting to being a dad, the thought filled him with a pleasure that was almost indescribable. If he and Avery weren’t the worst possible match, he might think this was fate. Destiny. A sign they were meant to be together.

Of course, though it might not be romantic fate, it still could be fate. Not a way to bring him and Avery together, but a way for him to have an heir.

“Are you even listening to anything I said!”

Forcing himself back to reality, he sighed. “Yes. I heard you. You think I should tell Mom.”

“Soon.”

“All right. Soon.”

But the more he thought about fate and heirs, the more he realized that he’d have to see Pete Waters again—at the corporate headquarters. Not Pete’s office. Avery Novak wasn’t just smart. She was sexy and unpredictable. And he’d already slipped and almost kissed her. He had to get the facts about his parental rights before he tangled with her again.

But he didn’t get the chance to summon Pete to his office. The first thing the next morning, his phone blew up with calls from his lawyer. There were thirteen messages that started at five, while Jake was in the shower, and kept going until Jake finally walked into his room and saw his phone blinking hysterically, as if Pete had continually hit Redial.

When the phone rang again, he answered. Pete didn’t even bother with hello. “Are you crazy?”

“I think we both know I’m not.”

“Then why is there a picture of you with Avery Novak in the society pages?” Pete’s voice rose. “Are you the father of Avery’s baby?”

Jake squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes.”

“Hell. When she told me she was pregnant, she said she had no intention of marrying her baby’s father. And she’s returning to Pennsylvania after the baby’s born.”

“Her leaving New York doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

“It will be to your mother!”

He knew that. But right now, he was more concerned with the picture of himself and pregnant Avery in the newspaper. He didn’t want his mom to see it and have a meltdown, especially when this was an easy fix.

“Okay. I’ll fly to Paris today instead of tomorrow and tell her.” He paused for a second to consider, but only a second. Avery was responsible for most of this mess. He wasn’t flying to Paris alone. “And consider this Avery’s official call that she’s taking the rest of the week off.”

“She can take the next month off because there’s no way in hell I can let her touch anything that even remotely relates to any of your cases. You do realize at some point you’ll be on opposite ends of a custody battle? The conflict of interest is off the charts if she even touches a file that relates to you or your family or your company.”

“I know that. But you have to give me a minute to catch my breath, Pete. She only told me on Monday. I’m just starting to wrap my head around the ramifications of all this. What I need from you right now is a summary of my rights and choices.”

“This is something I’d usually hand off to Avery.” He sighed deeply. “This is a mess.”

“It doesn’t have to be. We all just have to keep our heads and handle it.”

Pete sighed again. “I’ll assign someone to write your summary.”

“Good.”

“It’ll be waiting when you get back.”

“Email it to me.”

Jake hung up and phoned his driver then dressed quickly, but not in a suit. He pulled on casual pants and a sports shirt and covered them with a navy blue blazer. When he reached the street, the limo awaited him. Twenty minutes later, he was knocking on Avery’s door.

Wearing black slacks and a pretty peach-colored blouse that highlighted her long red hair, she opened the door.

When she saw him, she groaned. “If whatever you want takes more than two minutes, I’m going to be late for work.”

As she stepped back, he walked into her condo. “You don’t have to go to work today. Remember how you worried someone would see us yesterday?”

She crossed her arms on her chest.

“You were right. A reporter for the Gazette took a picture. We made the society pages. Baby bump and all.”

“Oh, no.” She sank onto one of her club chairs.

“My mother’s in Paris and I had planned on flying there for the weekend, but I told Pete we’d go today and tell my mom before she sees it online.”

She gaped at him. “You told my boss my baby is yours?”

“No. My lawyer saw the picture in the paper. He figured it out and called me.”

“And he’s sending me to Paris with you?”

“No. Having you go was my idea.”

She bounced out of the chair and grabbed her briefcase. “Then I’m not going! I have a job.”

He winced. “Well, you do but you’re off anything that has to do with McCallan, Inc.”

Her face fell. The briefcase slid to the floor.

“Pete says it’s conflict of interest since we could be on opposing sides of a custody battle.”

“There are still plenty of other things for me to work on. The firm has defense cases that don’t even nip the edge of any of your corporate work. Those are the ones I want anyway.”

“That’s for you and Pete to settle when we get back. Right now, we have to tell my mother about the baby. And before you argue, I’m not doing this alone. You kept this from me for six months. I’m sure you had your reasons. But the bottom line is, we are both this baby’s parents. If we want to make fair, equitable decisions for our child, that starts with us presenting a unified front right from the beginning.”

* * *

Avery stared at him for a few seconds. Though she wanted to argue, she saw his point. They did need to start being parents to their child. And she suddenly saw what her mom was talking about when she said they needed a step to begin trusting each other. If she did this for him now, that could begin a trend of cooperation.

Or maybe this could be the first step of their negotiations?

“I want to strike a deal.”

His eyes narrowed. “A deal?”

“I’ll go to Paris with you, if you agree not to use something in my dad’s past against me when we start talking custody.”

“Something your father did?”

“Do we have a deal or not?”

“Was he a serial killer?”

“Actually, he didn’t do anything wrong.” She winced. “That’s kind of the point.”

“He didn’t do anything wrong, but people thought he did.”

“Yes.”

“So, he was unjustly accused of something.”

“He was actually tried and convicted. He spent six years in prison. Then one of his coworkers confessed that he’d framed my dad. He also produced sufficient evidence that my father was innocent and eventually he was released.”

“Oh.”

She pointed at her watch. “Time is ticking away. If you don’t want the deal I need to go to work. My father is as innocent as a newborn baby. One of the nicest guys you would ever meet. It wouldn’t be fair for you to dredge it all up again. Worse, if you did, it would reflect poorly on you.”

“Yes. It would.” His head tilted. An odd expression flitted across his face. “So, the deal is you’ll go to Paris with me if I don’t bring up what happened to your dad.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Relief washed through her. It wasn’t exactly the culmination of any of her plans, but she’d won a significant victory.

“Good. Let me pack a few things and we can be on our way.”

She tossed a dress and enough jeans and T-shirts, undies and toiletries for a day or two into her scuffed-up duffel bag. As she slid the wide strap to her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of her reflection and grimaced. The thing looked as if it had gone through a war. Just like most of her personal possessions. She might live in a beautiful home in a great part of the city, but only because her condo had been an investment. When she returned to Pennsylvania, she would live in a small house in a small town. Most of her money would go toward her practice.

She’d always have enough to take good care of her child but he or she certainly wouldn’t live in the lap of luxury. Her condo and nice work clothes might have fooled Jake into thinking she had more than she did, but she wouldn’t be able to hide the truth forever. She was squarely in the middle class.

Her relief at her deal with Jake faded into nothing. Getting him to agree not to use her dad was a victory, but there were so many other things he could use. So many other ways he could keep her in New York, destroying the goal she’d been working toward since she was a teenager. Especially since she’d planned on her child going to public school, taking a bag lunch and riding the bus. None of this would sit well with the clan McCallan.

Jake had tons of things he could use about her life, about what she wanted to do with her life, to give him leverage.

She and Jake took the elevator to the lobby and walked onto the street. At six thirty, the city was beginning to show signs of life. Car tires made soft swishing noises as they drove through puddles left behind by the storm the night before. Streetlights flickered as the sky shifted to whitish gray.

Jake directed her to a black limo. The driver opened the door and she slid inside onto white leather seats. Jake slid in behind her.

The driver closed the door and Avery heard another door open and shut. The engine started. The limo began to move.

Jake smiled ruefully. “I rushed you so much. I’m not even sure you’ve had coffee yet.”

“Can’t have coffee, remember?” She glanced around, her tension mounting. A family accustomed to limos would not let their first grandchild ride a big yellow school bus.

He winced. “Sorry. I’ve got some juice stocked if you’d like that.”

She nodded. “Yes. Apple if you have it.”

He opened the door of what looked like a console table exposing three bottles of juice. All of them orange.

“You sure you don’t want orange juice?”

“It gives me heartburn.”

“Sorry. We can stop somewhere.”

“No. I’m fine. Let’s just get to the airport.”

Pulling his phone from his pants pocket, he said, “We’re not going to the airport. We use a private airstrip.” He hit a speed dial number. “And everything you need will be on the plane.”

The person he’d called must have answered because he said, “Andre? I need you to make sure there’s apple juice on the plane. And...” He caught her gaze. “Eggs for breakfast? Oatmeal? Box cereal? Bacon?”

Bacon? Her stomach growled. There was no sense in pretending she wasn’t hungry. “Bacon and eggs and rye toast would be great.”

“With apple juice?”

“With apple juice.”

They reached the airstrip in just a bit over an hour, and climbed onto the McCallan family’s private jet. She’d expected something compact and simple. Instead, she entered luxury so intense it magnified all her fears. The setup of the front space was more like a den than an airplane cabin.

Jake pointed to a door in the back of that section. “The kitchen is behind the first door and behind that are two small bedrooms.” He pressed a button and the cabinet doors eased apart to reveal a large-screen TV. “And that’s the TV.”

She swallowed. They hadn’t dated long enough for her to meet his mother or fly in his jet. His apartment and assortment of limos and drivers had been enough to scare her. Seeing the rest of his lifestyle sent another shock wave of reality through her.

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