The Pint-Sized Secret

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“This was just a business occasion, Emma, not a real date,” Brianna said, ignoring the fact that for a few minutes, out on the terrace, it had felt very much like a date. In fact, it had felt like the start of something important.

Then he’d started in with those questions again, and the mood had been lost.

“Oh,” Emma said, clearly disappointed.

Brianna decided it was time to change the subject. “Want to try to stand up for me? Gretchen says you’re getting better at it every day.”

Emma shook her head. “Not now.”

“It’s important to keep trying.”

Emma’s expression set stubbornly. “No,” she said as emphatically as she had when it had been the primary word in her vocabulary.

“Please,” Brianna coaxed.

“I don’t feel like it.”

Brianna sighed. She’d had to learn not to push, though it went against her nature. But she knew Emma had to be allowed her rebellions. There were so few things she had control over in her life. The therapists were demanding taskmasters. The doctors poked and prodded. Occasionally Emma had to be permitted to make her own decisions about what she was ready to try.

“Maybe next time, then,” Brianna said cheerfully, and gave Emma a kiss. “I love you, baby. I’ll be back first thing in the morning. If the weather’s nice, I’ll bring a picnic and we can eat lunch outside. Would you like that?”

Emma shrugged, then turned away to face the TV, even though Brianna doubted she really cared what was on. It was just a way to show her displeasure with her mother.

Once again filled with the sensation that she had let her daughter down, Brianna left. She’d known there would be days like this, days when she would feel utterly and totally defeated. The doctors, the counselors and Gretchen had repeatedly told her it was perfectly normal, but she wanted so badly to be a positive influence in Emma’s life. She wanted her little girl to be motivated, to feel loved. She wanted her to fight her injuries, not her mother.

Brianna was dragging by the time she got home, lost in waves of self-pity and regrets. Though her pulse took an unwanted leap at the sight of Jeb waiting on her doorstep, she was in no mood to welcome him.

Even so, for a fleeting moment she found herself regretting that she hadn’t dressed in something other than jeans and a faded teal T-shirt when she’d run out of the house to pay a quick visit to Emma. She looked decidedly frumpy, while he managed to make his own jeans and dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up look like something out of a men’s fashion spread in GQ.

Why was it that she constantly felt at a total disadvantage with this man? She worked in a man’s world. She had never been easily intimidated, but there was no denying that Jeb rattled her. He could shake her composure without even opening his mouth. Possibly it had something to do with the fact that he deliberately kept her off balance. She couldn’t get a fix on his real intentions.

And so she approached him with wariness.

“Where have you been this early on a beautiful Saturday morning?” he asked as she neared. “Not the office, I know, because I called there.”

Even though his tone was curious rather than accusatory, Brianna instinctively bristled. “Checking up on me, Mr. Delacourt?”

“Now that I’ve held you in my arms, I think you can stick to calling me Jeb,” he chided. “No, I wasn’t checking up on you, just looking for you. I thought you might want to do something today. It’s a little late now, but we could go out for breakfast.”

“Sorry. I’ve already eaten.”

“So that’s where you were. Having breakfast with a friend?”

Brianna grasped the explanation eagerly. “Yes. If I’d known you were thinking of coming by, I could have told you I had a prior engagement. Some people actually call ahead.”

He shook his head. “Too easy to get turned down. It’s harder for you to say no to my face.”

Despite her dark mood, her lips twitched with amusement at his feigned vulnerability. “Is that so? Well, I’m sorry, but the answer is still no.”

“How about lunch then? Or dinner?”

“I thought you had another ball to attend tonight.”

“I’ll skip it.”

“Won’t that upset your date?”

“I was planning on going solo. They have my money. No one will miss me.”

Brianna doubted that.

He gave her one of those winning, megawatt smiles. “So, how about it?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Another date?”

“No.”

“Too much to do?”

“Yes.”

“You work too hard,” he scolded. “It’s not good for you. You need to relax, have some fun.”

“I thought that’s what I did last night. Now I have to catch up.”

“On?”

“Housework. Paperwork. I have an important business trip at the end of next week.”

Clearly undaunted, he suggested, “Tell me about it.”

“You’d be bored to tears.”

“It’s my family’s business. Why would I be bored?”

Put in her place, Brianna searched for an explanation that would ring true. She couldn’t very well tell him that he made her uneasy, that she simply wanted him to go, that she didn’t want to get too comfortable with having someone—especially him—around.

“Rumor has it that you don’t care all that much about oil, that you’re working at the company because your father expects it,” she said eventually. “Naturally I assumed hearing about dirt samples and rocks would bore you.”

He surveyed her with one of those knowing, penetrating looks that he obviously knew rattled her. “I’ll bet you could make it interesting.”

“I don’t have time to try,” she said flatly. Then because her first tactic had clearly backfired, she tried another one. “Before I get down to work, I have to do my chores around here. With my schedule, I have to stick to a routine.”

“In other words, you’re in a rut.”

“I prefer to think of it as living a structured life,” she said testily.

“Okay, then, I’ll help,” he volunteered.

Taken aback by the unexpected offer, she stared at him. “You’ll help?” she repeated, as if his offer hadn’t been entirely clear. When he nodded, she asked, “Why?”

“Why not? I can run a vacuum or dust as well as the next person, though I’m a little curious why a woman with so much on her plate and making your salary wouldn’t have a maid.”

“Because I have better uses for my money,” she said tersely, brushing past him and going inside, hoping to put an end to this absurd discussion. If she could have, she would have slammed the door in his face, but there were a whole lot of reasons for not doing that, starting with his ability to make trouble for her at the office. Naturally, he didn’t take the hint. He followed.

The minute he crossed the threshold, she very nearly panicked. Had she left the door to Emma’s room closed, as she usually did? Though the townhouse was a recent acquisition, purchased in the aftermath of the divorce because she no longer had the funds or the time to cope with the upkeep on the house she and her ex had shared, she had decorated a room for her daughter. It was filled with dolls and stuffed animals, the overflow from a collection too big for Emma’s room at the rehab center.

The bed was a little girl’s dream, a white four-poster with a pink eyelet canopy and matching comforter. Emma had picked it out just before the accident, but she had never slept in it. It had been delivered during those awful days when they hadn’t known if she would live or die. When Larry would have sent it back, Brianna had insisted on keeping it, clinging to it as a talisman that her daughter would get well and come home again.

“Excuse me a minute,” she said, and dashed upstairs to check the door. If she couldn’t talk Jeb into leaving, she had to be sure he wouldn’t spot any evidence that she had a daughter.