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God, when he half smiled, that dimple deepened and her stomach quivered. It was like he just dialed his sexy factor up to lethal and—
Why was she thinking about that? She was supposed to be tearing him a new one! Sexy or not, he was going to get a very big piece of her mind. “You’re an idiot if you can’t see how much Jac looks like you! And even though I am the only one who seems to give a damn about this child, she is not my responsibility.”
“You agreed to change her, you let them go. You could’ve handed her back.”
Could he really be that unfeeling, that cold? This man who created art in buildings with such verve, such emotion in every line. How could he be so devoid of warmth?
“You heartless bastard! Do you know how lucky you are to have a child? Do you know how many people would love to be you?” Darby winced when her voice rose. Then she decided that she didn’t care. Somebody needed to stand up for Jac, to put her first, and it seemed Darby had been nominated. “She’s the innocent party and if you can’t see that, then you are a complete and utter waste of space.”
Darby knew she was panting, knew she was on the edge of tears and knew she had to leave before she lost it. She also had to leave before she walked away with the baby nobody but her seemed to want.
Pulling Judah’s arm from his side, she bundled Jac into his embrace, making sure he had a firm grip before letting the little girl go. Refusing to look at him, Darby dropped a quick kiss on Jac’s smooth forehead.
Darby smacked Jac’s empty bottle into Judah’s other hand and sent him a hard, tight smile. “My friend DJ says that having kids should be heavily regulated and subject to licensing. I’ve never agreed more with that statement than right now.” She stared up into his beautiful face, confusion replacing anger. “I don’t understand how someone so talented, who can put so much emotion into a building, can be so hard. And so cold.”
Judah dipped his head so she could feel his breath on her ear, so she inhaled his unique scent of lemons and detergent and something earthy and sexy that made her want to bury her face in his neck and breathe him in. For a moment—a small infinitesimal moment—she imagined that she and Judah were a couple, that he was standing guard over his family, but the words that left his mouth shattered that image.
“This baby isn’t mine.”
Of course he’d say that.
“No, you just don’t want her to be yours,” Darby muttered. “She should be good for about another half hour or so. After that, I hope she gives you hell. Bye now.”
Judah’s eyes hit hers and Darby felt their punch. All that gorgeous blue, that face and that body, wasted on a self-absorbed cretin.
Good luck, Jacquetta, you’re going to need it, honey.
Three (#u6491bffd-a4ba-5955-80d6-a973f0f7dd05)
Way to make friends and influence people. Judah watched the Duchess step toward the elevator, cursing when the doors closed on a froth of fabric. She was gone, and he should be glad.
Should being the operative word.
She’d just reamed him but instead of getting pissed he’d just been turned on... But, in his defense, she was smokin’.
She was also gone.
Judah shook his head. Well, that was that. Looking down at the little girl he held, he watched as her eyes fluttered closed and her mouth softened. She did look like him, Judah admitted. Then again, he and Jake both took after their dad and no one ever suspected that they were half siblings and not full blood brothers.
Judah thought he’d been the only casualty of Jake and Carla’s illicit weekend spent together in his apartment but no, they always went a step further than necessary. Why light a Roman candle when you could detonate a bomb?
Judah felt the back of his throat burn. A year and a half had passed; how could the double betrayal still hurt so damn much? He ran his knuckle over Jac’s flower-soft cheek. His pain, the fiery anger, he realized, wasn’t only for him but also for Jacquetta. This little human, this doll-faced child, deserved better than two dysfunctional cretins as parents.
Judah used his free hand to pull his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and scroll through his contact list. He hadn’t dialed this number in so long, he hoped it was still operational.
The phone buzzed, beeped and started to ring.
Keep your cool, keep your cool...
“Judah, baby.”
Her growly, sexy voice raised nothing more than red-hot anger. “What the hell, Carla? A baby? Are you insane?”
“I know it’s a bit of a surprise, but I need you to take her for a while so I can finish this project.”
“Let me think about that...” Judah replied, trying his utmost to keep his voice low. “No. A thousand times no! This isn’t happening.”
“It is.” Carla’s voice turned hard. “Either you or your brother have to take her until I decide I want her back.”
“Then call Jake, for God’s sake! He’s her father, not me! And don’t you think one of you should’ve let me know I have a niece?”
“You made it very clear to both of us that you’d washed your hands of us.”
“You talk as if I didn’t find you naked in my bed, in a position I still can’t get out of my head. Then you spilled the ugly details of our breakup to distract the press from finding out you were cheating on me with my much younger brother while I dealt with the mess Jake created.”
Why had he even mentioned the past? Carla didn’t care then, and she didn’t care now.
“Call Rossi back or get Jake to come get his daughter,” he said. “She. Is. Not. My. Problem.”
“Do you think it would be wise of me to leave Jac with Jake? He’s an addict with a felony record, thanks to you. He’s not daddy material.”
“Carla, you can’t just dump a baby on me like she’s a UPS parcel!” Okay, he’d borrowed that from the Duchess, but it applied. God, what had he seen in Carla? Oh, yeah, the sex had been phenomenal but like Turkish delight, she was best taken in small doses. “Come and get her, Carla.”
“No,” Carla replied. “I need some time. Just hear me out, please?”
He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but his silence gave her room to speak.
“I have a new job, Bertolli is composing an opera and I am the lead character.”
“Yeah, I heard. You are being cast against type.”
“You are not the first to notice that. There have been a lot of insinuations already, about my past, you, my relationship with Bertolli.”
“Which is?”
Carla didn’t answer, which meant there was a very good chance she was sleeping with Bertolli. She was playing with fire. If word got out that she was sleeping with one of Italy’s most conservative, outwardly faithful men, the country’s favorite composer—a national treasure!—she would be labeled a sinful temptress and the press would eat her alive.
Judah walked to the end of the hallway and placed his hand on the floor-to-ceiling window. He looked down at the bustling streets of downtown Boston below, resting his forehead on the cool glass.
“There was a story recently, suggesting you are not her father. I cannot take the chance of the world finding out that Jake is Jacquetta’s father and not you. It was enough of a scandal that I had a baby out of wedlock but if they find out about my liaison with Jake—”
“Affair.”
“If they find out about Jake, that he is your brother and a heroin addict, that I had his baby not yours, the story will be on the front page of every tabloid from here to China. It will be a scandal and my contract with the new production says I have to remain scandal-free.”
His heart bled. None of this had anything to do with him. Jake and Carla had had sex in Judah’s bed and now they had to deal with the consequences of their actions. He was in no way responsible for them or the fruit of their loins.
Judah glanced down at the little girl and ignored the tiny lump in his throat.
She could’ve been his...
No, he didn’t want kids; he never had. He remembered having to change Jake’s diapers, night after night rocking him to sleep because their parents were out on the town or simply out of town. For six years, he’d been Jake’s primary caregiver, the adult in the house. He’d bought Jake clothes, made him meals, packed his school lunches. As a twelve-year-old child himself, Judah had stepped up to the plate and taken on responsibility for another human being—because his father and stepmother were useless—and Judah had promised himself that he would never again put himself in that position.
After a pregnancy scare in his early twenties, he’d wanted a vasectomy, to take the issue off the table permanently. But the doctor refused, telling Judah he was too young, he might still change his mind. Furious, Judah had vowed to find another doctor, but then his career took off and he’d never found the time to go back.
But he would. When he stopped being a monk, he’d find another doctor. He was thirty-five, he hadn’t changed his mind in ten years and he wouldn’t be refused again. As a child, he’d raised his baby brother and he didn’t want to raise another child.
A scholarship to college had been his exit out of that life and he still felt guilty for leaving six-year-old Jake behind. Despite Judah’s attempts to keep tabs on his brother from afar, Jake was smoking weed by thirteen, fully addicted and boosting cars to feed his habit by sixteen. By eighteen, he was in juvie.
Never again would Judah put himself in the position of having to choose between his future and his obligations. So, no kids. And after a few relationships that went nowhere and Car Crash Carla, no commitment.
To anyone.
Ever.
Judah sucked in a calming breath. “I’m at the Sheraton, downtown Boston. Presidential suite. Get Rossi back here.”
Carla pulled in a deep, ragged breath. “I tried to call him just before you called but his phone is off.”
Judah gripped the bridge of his nose and cursed. “Make a plan, Carla.”
Carla thought for a minute. “I’ll call an agency, hire a nanny. They can send someone.”
God, she was going to ask a stranger to pick up Jac? Now that was exactly the type of dick move his father and stepmother would’ve pulled. Judah felt the burn of intense anger. “No, Carla. You will come and get her. Yourself. Personally.”
“I can’t. It’s just not possible.” Carla spluttered her reply, making it sound like he’d asked her to become a nun.
“Jacquetta is your daughter, so you come and get her. It’s not up for negotiation”
Carla finally ran out of expletives. “I’ll come but I need some time.”
“You’ve got a day. Be here in twenty-four hours or I’m going to be the one calling the tabloids, Carla.”
“Judah, no! I am in Como, it will take more time than that.”
“You should’ve thought about that when you played pass-the-parcel with your daughter,” Judah said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Hurry up, Carla. The clock is ticking.”
Judah disconnected the call and banged the face of his phone against his forehead. He released his own series of curses and looked down to see Jac sending him a wide-eyed look. “Your mom is something else, kid.”
Jac blinked once, then again and then she smiled, revealing a gorgeous dimple and pink gums. Man, she was cute. And despite being passed from person to person, remarkably sanguine.
“So, I guess it’s you and me for the next twenty-four hours.”
Jac waved her pudgy arms in the air and kicked her legs.
“Glad you are on board with that program. It’s been a while since I made bottles or changed diapers so if you can try not to be hungry or need a change in the next day or so, I’d be grateful.”
Jac sent him what he was sure was a get-real look.
Judah walked her back to where the stroller stood, dropped her bag into the storage compartment and strapped her in. It had been years and years since he’d been in charge of anyone under two feet tall but he still instinctively knew what he was doing.
He could look after this child for a day. A day wasn’t so long. Not when he compared it to looking after his brother day in and day out for six or so years.
This time around he was an adult and he had a voice. And he’d damn well use it.
After work the next afternoon, Darby sat down on the deep purple sofa in the showroom of Winston and Brogan and tucked a bright yellow cushion behind her back. While she loved color, and frequently approved of Jules’s interior design choices, she simply did not like the industry’s current obsession with eggplant. But Winston and Brogan were cutting-edge designers and they always reflected what was hot.
DJ squeezed Darby’s shoulder before sitting down next to her, the diamond on the ring finger of her left hand so big Darby was sure she could see it from space. Jules’s emerald was just as large, as valuable, as impressive. Darby’s future brothers-in-law—one by law and both by love—were crazy about Jules and DJ respectively. Darby was happy they’d found their soul mates.
Hers was probably stuck up a tree or had been run over by an out-of-control bus. Or maybe there wasn’t a man who would put up with a determined, driven, stubborn, type-A personality with fertility issues.
Jules placed a cup of tea on the white coffee table between them before taking the seat to DJ’s left. DJ squeezed Darby’s hand. “Sorry you didn’t get the Grantham-Ford project, Darbs.”
Darby forced a shrug. She hated to lose, even if it was to a Pritzker Prize winner. “It wasn’t a surprise that Huntley got it. They’d be fools to pass up his design. It was magnificent.”
So was Huntley, for a cold, hard jerk bucket.
Jules linked her hands around her knee. “And have they announced who will be his liaison between Huntley and Associates and the Grantham-Ford Foundation?”
Every architect in the city wanted a shot to work with Huntley, to be at his beck and call. Everybody but Darby. She’d seen the measure of the man last night and she was less than impressed.
“Don’t care. It’s an intern position and I’m not interested.” She took the stack of paper DJ handed her and smiled. Financials. A discussion, then her dividend check. Yay.
DJ tapped the end of her pen against the stack of papers in her lap and cleared her throat. “Let’s go through the financials first. Let’s ignore page one and two and go straight to page three.”
Darby flipped to the right page and saw the column detailing income and expenses. Compared to Jules’s interior design income for the past six months, the architectural side of the business—Darby’s side of the business—was trailing Jules’s contribution by half. Up until this year, they’d been equal contributors, with DJ running the finances. It had been the perfect triangle, but now it looked like Darby’s side was collapsing.
She took the check DJ handed her and looked at the total. Then she looked at DJ, wondering if she’d left off a zero.
“This is it?”
“Yes.”
Well, hell.
DJ leaned forward, her eyes sober. “It wasn’t a great quarter, it’s tough out there. The interior design had a boost in income thanks to Noah employing Jules to do yacht interiors, and you had small jobs but nothing that brought in big money.”
Darby stared at her check, her mind spinning. This check didn’t come close to what she needed to pay for IVF. She’d have to put her buildings up for sale immediately, take what she could get for them. She might not even clear her costs, but it would free up the money. Any way she looked at it, she was moving backward, not forward. Dammit.
“There are other factors that contributed to a less than stellar year, Darby.”
“Like?” Darby demanded.
“The rent on this building went up significantly—”
“We agreed we needed to be here, that this was the best place for us to be,” Darby countered. “And that was only a ten percent increase.” She skimmed the lines, looking for other anomalies. “The real reason we aren’t growing is because I didn’t bring in enough income.”
The proof was there, in black and white. She hadn’t been an equal contributor. She’d failed.
