Baby Bonanza / For Blackmail...or Pleasure: Baby Bonanza

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She blew out a breath, slumped back against the booth and admitted, “It’s the first time I’ve been away from them. It feels…wrong, somehow. And I miss them. A lot.”

His eyes narrowed on her and he picked up his glass for a sip of wine. Watching her over the rim of the glass, he swallowed, then set the flute back onto the table. “Can’t be easy, being a single mother.”

“No, it’s not,” she admitted, thinking now about just how tired she was every night by the time she had the boys in bed. It had been so long since she’d been awake past eight o’clock at night that it was odd to her now, sitting here in a restaurant at nine. This was what it had been like before, though. When she’d only had herself to worry about. When she hadn’t had two little boys depending on her.

God, how had she ever been able to stand the quiet? The emptiness in her little house? She couldn’t even imagine being without her sons now.

“But,” she added when he didn’t say anything else, “along with all the work, a single mom gets all the perks to herself, too. I don’t have to share the little moments. I’m the one to see them smile for the first time. To see them waking up to the world around them.”

“So since you’re not looking to share the good moments, that means you’re not interested in having me involved in the twins’ lives,” he said thoughtfully. “All you really want is child support?”

She stiffened a little. Jenna hadn’t even considered that Nick might want to be drawn into their sons’ lives. He wasn’t the hearth-and-home kind of guy. He was the party man. The guy you dated, but didn’t bring home to mom.

“You and I both know you don’t have any interest in being a father, Nick.”

“Is that right? And how would you know that?”

“Well—”

He inclined his head at her speechlessness. “Exactly. You don’t know me any more than I know you.”

“You’re wrong. I know that you’re not the kind of man to tie himself down in one place. That week we were together you told me yourself you had no plans to ever get married and settle down.”

“Who said anything about getting married?”

Jenna sucked in a breath and told herself to slow down. She was walking through a minefield here. “I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it,” he said.

Another waiter appeared, this time delivering a dinner that Nick had clearly ordered earlier. Surprised, Jenna looked down at the serving of breast of chicken and fettucine in mushroom sauce before lifting her gaze to his in question.

“I remembered you liked it,” he said with a shrug.

What was she supposed to do with that? She wondered. He pretended to not care anything about her, yet he remembered more than a year later what her favorite foods were? Why? Why would he recall something so small?

Once the waiter was gone, Nick started talking again. “So answer me this. When you found out you were pregnant, why’d you go through with it?”

“Excuse me?”

He shrugged. “You were alone. A lot of women in that position wouldn’t have done what you did. Giving birth, deciding to raise the babies on her own.”

“They were mine,” she said, as if that explained everything, and in her mind it did. Never for a moment had she considered ending her pregnancy. She’d tried to reach Nick of course, but when she couldn’t, she’d hunkered down and started building a life for her and her children.

“No regrets?”

“Only the one about coming on this ship,” she muttered.

He smiled faintly, laid his napkin across his lap and, picking up his knife and fork, sliced into his filet mignon. “I heard that.”

“I meant you to.” As Jenna used her fork to slide the fettucine noodles around her plate, she said, “Nick, my sons are the most important things in the world to me. I’ll do whatever I have to to make sure they’re safe.”

“Good for you.”

She took a bite of her dinner and, though she could tell it was cooked to perfection, the delicate sauce and chicken tasted like sawdust in her mouth.

“I’ll want a DNA test.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ve already had the boys’ blood tests done at a local lab. You can send your sample in to them and they’ll do the comparison testing.”

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

“What?” She shook her head, looked at him and said, “Don’t you have to wait until we’re back in San Pedro?”

“No, I’m not going to wait. I want this question settled as quickly as possible.” He continued to eat, as though what they were discussing wasn’t affecting him in the slightest. “We dock at Cabo in the morning. You and I will go ashore, find a lab and have them fax the findings to the lab in San Pedro.”

“We will?” She hadn’t planned on spending a lot of time with Nick, after all. She’d only come on board to tell him about the boys and frankly, she’d thought he wouldn’t want anything more to do with her after that. Instead, he’d moved her into his suite and now was proposing that they spend even more time together.

“Until this is taken care of to my satisfaction,” Nick told her softly, “I’m not letting you out of my sight. The two of us are going to be joined at the hip. So you might as well start getting used to it.”

Five

Once the ship had docked and most of the passengers had disembarked for their day of shopping, sailing and exploring the city of Cabo San Lucas, Nick got busy. He’d already had Teresa make a few calls, and the lab at the local hospital was expecting them.

The sun was hot and bright and the scent of the sea greeted them the moment he and Jenna stepped out on deck. Ordinarily Nick would have been enjoying this. He loved this part of cruising. Docking in a port, exploring the city, revisiting favorite sites, discovering new ones.

But today was different. Today he was on a mission, so he wasn’t going to notice the relaxed, party atmosphere of Cabo. Just as he wasn’t going to notice the way Jenna’s pale green sundress clung to her body or the way her legs looked in those high-heeled sandals. He had no interest in the fact that her dark blond hair looked like spilled honey as it flowed down over her shoulders and he really wasn’t noticing her scent or the way it seemed to waft its way to him on the slightest breeze.

Having her stay in his suite had seemed like a good idea yesterday. But the knowledge that she was so close, that she was just down the hall from him, alone in her bed, had taunted him all night long. Now his eyes felt gritty, his temper was too close to the surface and his body was hard and achy.

Way to go, Falcon, he told himself.

“So where are we going?” she asked as he laid his hand at the small of her back to guide her down the gangplank to shore. Damn, just the tips of his fingers against her spine was enough to make him want to forget all about this appointment and drag her back to his cabin instead.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed that image out of his mind.

“Teresa called the hospital here,” he muttered. “The lab’s expecting us. They’ll take a DNA sample, run it and fax the results to your lab. We should have an answer in a day or two.”

She actually stumbled and he grabbed her arm in an instinctive move. “That fast?”

“Money talks,” he said with a shrug. He’d learned long ago that with enough money, a man could accomplish anything. Way of the world. And for the first time, he was damned glad he was rich enough to demand fast action. Nick wanted this question of paternity settled. Like now. He couldn’t stop thinking about those babies. Couldn’t seem to stop looking at the picture she’d given him of them.

Couldn’t stop wondering how their very existence was going to affect—change—his life. So he needed to know if he was going to be a father or if he was simply going to be suing Jenna Baker for everything she had for lying to him. Again.

Her heels clicked against the gangway and sounded like a frantic heartbeat. He wondered if she was nervous. Wondered if she really was lying and was now worried about being found out. Had she thought he’d simply accept her word that her sons belonged to him? Surely not.

At the bottom of the gangway, a taxi was waiting. Silently blessing Teresa’s efficiency, Nick opened the door for Jenna, and when she was inside, slid in after her. In short, sharp sentences spoken in nearly fluent Spanish, Nick told the driver where to go.

“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” she said as he settled onto the bench seat beside her.

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” he said.

“I guess so.”

Of course, the same could be said about what he knew of her. He remembered clearly their time together more than a year before. But in those stolen moments, he’d been more intent on burying himself inside her than discovering her thoughts, her hopes, her dreams. He’d told himself then that there would be plenty of time for them to discover each other. He couldn’t have guessed that in one short week he’d find her, want her and then lose her.

Yet, even with the passion simmering between them, Nick could recall brief conversations when she’d talked about her home, her family. He’d thought at the time that she was different from the other women he knew. That she was more sincere. That she was more interested in him, the man, than she was in what he was. How much he had.

Of course, that little fantasy had been exploded pretty quickly.

He dropped into silence again as the cab took off. He didn’t want to talk to her. Didn’t want to think about anything but what he was about to do. With a simple check of his DNA, his life could be altered irrevocably forever. His chest was tight and his mind was racing. Cabo was no more than a colorful blur outside his window as they headed for the lab and a date with destiny.

In a few seconds the cab was swallowed by the bustling port city. At the dock and on the main drive that ran along the ocean, Cabo San Lucas was beautiful. The hotels, the restaurants and bars, everything was new and shone to perfection, the better to tempt the tourists who streamed into the city every year.

But just a few short blocks from the port and Cabo was a big city like any other. The streets were crowded with cars, and pedestrians leaped off the sidewalks and ran across the street with complete abandon, trusting that the drivers would somehow keep from running them down. Narrower, cobblestoned side streets spilled off the bigger avenues and from there came the tantalizing scents of frying onions, spices and grilling meat.

Restaurants and bars crowded together, their chipped stucco facades looking a little tattered as tourists milled up and down the sidewalks, cameras clutched in sunburned fists. As the cab driver steered his car through the maze of traffic, Nick idly glanced out the window and noted the open-air markets gathered together under dark green awnings. Under that umbrella were at least thirty booths where you could buy everything from turquoise jewelry to painted ceramic burros.

Cabo was a tourist town and the locals did everything they could to keep those vacation dollars in the city.

“Strange, isn’t it?” she mused, and Nick turned his head to look at her. She was staring out her window at the city and he half wondered if she was speaking to him or to herself. “All of the opulence on the beach and just a few blocks away…”

“It’s a city, like any other,” he said.

She turned her head to meet his gaze. “It’s just a little disappointing to see the real world beneath the glitz.”

“There’s always a hidden side. To everything. And everyone,” he said, staring into her eyes, wondering what she was feeling. Wondering why he even cared.

“What’s hidden beneath your facade, then?” she asked.

Nick forced a smile. “I’m the exception to the rule,” he told her. “What you see is what you get with me. There are no hidden depths. No mysteries to be solved. No secrets. No lies.”

Her features tightened slightly. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “You’re not as shallow as you pretend to be, Nick. I remember too much to buy into that.”

“Then your memory is wrong. Don’t look for something that isn’t there, Jenna,” he said softly, just in case their driver spoke English. “I’m not a lonely rich boy looking for love.” He leaned in toward her, keeping his gaze locked with hers, and added, “I’m doing this DNA test for my own sake. If those babies are mine, then I need to know. But I’m not the white-picket-fence kind of guy. So don’t go building castles in the air. You’ll get trapped in the rubble when they collapse.”

Jenna felt a chill as she looked into those icy blue eyes of his. All night she’d lain in her bed, thinking about him, wondering if she’d done the right thing by coming to Nick. By telling him about their sons. Now she was faced with the very real possibility that she’d made a huge mistake.

Once he was convinced that the boys were his, then what? Would he really be satisfied with writing out a child support check every month? Or would he demand time with his children? And if he did, how would she fit him into their lives?

Picturing Nick spending time in her tiny house in Seal Beach was almost impossible. His lifestyle was so far removed from hers they might as well be from different planets.

“Nick,” she said, “I know there’s a part of you that thinks I’m lying about all of this. But I’m not.” She paused, watched his reaction and didn’t see a thing that made her feel any better, so she continued. “So, before you take this DNA test, I want you to promise me something.”

He laughed shortly, but there wasn’t a single spark of humor lighting his eyes. “Why would I do that?”

“No reason I can think of, but I’m still asking.”

“What?” he asked, sitting back, dropping one hand to rest on his knee. “What’s this promise?”

She tried again to read his expression, but his features were shuttered, closing her out so completely it was as if she were alone in the cab. But he was listening and that was something, she supposed.

“I want you to promise me that whatever happens, you won’t take out what you feel for me on our sons.”

He tipped his head to one side, studied her for a long moment or two, then as she held her breath, waiting for his response, he finally nodded. “All right. I give you my word. What’s between you and me won’t affect how I treat your sons.”

Jenna gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

“But if they are my sons,” he added quietly, “you and I have a lot of talking to do.”

The DNA test was done quickly, and before she knew it, Jenna and Nick were back in the cab, heading for the docks again. Her stomach was churning as her mind raced, and being locked inside a car hurtling down a crowded street wasn’t helping. She needed to walk. Needed to breathe. Needed to escape the trapped feeling that held her in a tight grip.

Turning to Nick, she blurted suddenly, “Can we get out? Walk the rest of the way to the dock?”

He glanced at her, and whatever he saw in her face must have convinced him because he nodded, then spoke to the driver in Spanish. A moment later the cab pulled to the curb. Jenna jumped out of the car as if she were on springs and took a deep breath of cool, ocean air while Nick paid their fare.

Tourists and locals alike crowded the sidewalk and streamed past her as if she were a statue. She tucked her purse under her left arm and turned her face into the breeze sliding down the street from the sea.

“It’s still several blocks to the ship,” Nick said as he joined her on the sidewalk. “You going to be able to make it in those shoes?”

Jenna glanced down at the heeled sandals she wore then lifted her gaze back to his. “I’ll make it. I just—needed to get out of that cab and move around a little.”

“I don’t remember you being so anxious,” he said.

She laughed a little and sounded nervous even to herself. “Not anxious, really. It’s just that since the boys were born, I’m not used to being still. They keep me running all day long, and sitting in the back of that cab, I felt like I was in a cage or something and it didn’t help that neither one of us was talking and we’d just come from the lab, so my brain was in overdrive and—”

He interrupted the frantic flow of words by holding up one hand. “I get it. And I could use some air, too. So why don’t we start walking?”

“Good. That’d be good.” God, she hadn’t meant to go on a stream of consciousness there. If he hadn’t stopped her, heaven only knew what would have come out of her mouth. As it was, he was looking at her like she was a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse.

He took her arm to turn her around, and the sizzle of heat that sprang up from his touch was enough to boil her blood and make her gasp for air. So not a good sign.