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“No wonder I had such a bad reputation,” Jaci said. Amused.
“You had a bad reputation because of your big mouth, your wild spirit and your lack of respect for authority. Not because you deserved it,” Justin clarified.
“And not because of me,” Jena added. “It only happened with Justin.”
For some reason that pleased him.
“And it’s not going to happen again,” Ian asserted himself into the conversation, his eyes focused in on Jena accented with a raised eyebrow. “No more switching places.” He moved his gaze to Jaci. “For any reason,” he emphasized.
“No,” Jena said, shaking her head. Contrite. “Never again. I promise.”
Jaci, however, chose not to commit. “Let’s go.” She took Ian by the hand, again, and tugged him toward the bedroom, again. “They need to talk.”
This time Ian allowed himself to be pulled away.
Well that had gone better than expected. Justin felt lighter. Freer. Except now he had to deal with Jena. A girl he’d despised in high school, who, apparently, was the very same girl with whom he’d shared some of the more special boy-girl moments of his teenage years. With Jena, not Jaci.
Jena who used to look down her snobby nose at him.
Jena, who’d enticed him into bed by pretending to be her sister.
“But I made snacks,” Jena called after Ian and Jaci, seeming nervous, her confidence slipping.
“I could sure use one of those beers.” Lined up on the coffee table. His favorite brand.
Jena rushed to open one and held it out to him.
Ian closed the door to Jaci’s bedroom, leaving Justin and Jena alone. He took a swig of brew. Cold. Refreshing.
They stood there in awkward silence.
Justin smiled. “You’re no better than all those girls you criticized back in high school, whose reputations you disparaged for dating me.”
“Dating you?” she asked, looking him straight in the eyes. “Don’t you mean rubbing up against you and sucking face with you in the hallway of our high school or bragging about giving you oral sex in the boys’ locker room and going all the way with you on school grounds?”
Good times.
“I refuse to lump myself in with those girls. But I’m sorry.” She fidgeted with a button on her blouse. “I was wrong to let you to believe I was Jaci. It was dishonest and repugnant and I ran away like a coward afterwards.” She shook her head. “I am mortified by my behavior.”
“And so you should be.” Fancy that, Princess Jena Piermont capable of apologizing and offering a convincing show of remorse. “But I think repugnant is taking it a bit far.” Because he’d enjoyed every minute of their time together, until the dawn of a new day brought with it insight and hindsight. And a hellacious hangover he would not soon forget.
Now for two issues that had been burning his gut for months. First, “Please tell me you were a virgin.” As horrible as it was to think he’d taken her virginity without the care of a knowing, sober bed-partner, the alternative was even worse. That he’d unknowingly been too rough and hurt her. Either way the evidence had stained his sheet.
“I’d rather not—”
“Please,” he took her by the arm, gentle but firm, and turned her to face him. He didn’t like her, hated the upper class lifestyle she embraced and the elitist, unlikable people she called friends, but she didn’t deserve … “The thought that I might have hurt you …” tore him up.
“You didn’t,” she assured him. “A little pinch from it being my first time, that’s all.”
“Was it …?” Good. He cursed himself for not remembering every vivid detail.
“It was fine,” she said quietly. Shyly.
Justin cringed at her bland choice of adjective. Fine, as in acceptable? Adequate? Nothing special?
“Until the next morning.”
When he’d totally lost it. “Yeah, about that. I woke up and noticed the condom from the night before draped over the trashcan beside the bed. With a big slice down the side.” And his heart had stopped. “I don’t know if it happened before, during or after, but on top of thinking I’d ruined my friendships with Jaci and Ian, I realized there was a chance she, well, you, could get pregnant.” He took another swig of beer. “I panicked.” How could he have been so carless? So unaware?
“Especially once you’d found out you may have gotten me pregnant and not Jaci,” Jena said. “If I remember correctly your exact words were, ‘Oh, God. That’s even worse.’”
Had he really said that out loud? From the hurt look in her eyes, yup, he had. Dammit. “Because we have nothing in common. We don’t even like each other. But bottom line,” after years of being treated like an afterthought and an inconvenience by his father, his only parent for as long as he could remember, Justin had decided, “I don’t want kids. With any woman. Or marriage.” He didn’t do relationships. Never could manage to give a woman what she needed outside of the bedroom. Too emotionally detached, according to numerous women who’d expected more than he was capable of giving, too self-centered to share his life with another person. Like father like son, apparently. “I like my life the way it is.” Women around when he wanted them, gone when he didn’t. Doing what he wanted when he wanted, on his own terms, without negotiation, explanation or altercation. “But I handled the possibility that our night together may have had long-term consequences poorly. I’m sorry. You deserved better.”
She looked on the verge of tears.
Some unfamiliar instinct urged him to take her into his arms to comfort her.
He resisted.
“Hey. No tears,” he said, trying to keep things upbeat. “It all worked out. Wherever you took off to has obviously been good for you. You look great. And no consequences.” Now what? He should leave. Except he didn’t want to, was still coming to terms with the fact he and Jena had shared some magical moments back in high school. Jena, not Jaci as he’d originally thought, which explained why, after each encounter, she’d so adamantly insisted it never be repeated or spoken of again.
At the sound of a baby crying in the hallway, Jena glanced at her watch and stiffened. “There’s …”
The baby’s cry grew louder. Someone knocked at the door. “I’d hoped to have a few more minutes to ease into this,” Jena said nervously on her way to open the door.
Mandy, the wife of one of Ian’s army buddies who’d been killed in Iraq, stood there holding a tiny, red-faced, screaming infant while a second tiny, red-faced, infant squalled from a stroller, and her toddler cried in a kid carrier on her back.
“I’m so sorry,” Mandy said. “I know you said seven o’clock, but Abbie’s hysterical and we couldn’t calm her down. Then she set off Annie. And now Maddie.”
Jena reached for the baby in Mandy’s arms and a heavy weight of doom settled on Justin’s shoulders. No.
“This little consequence’s name is Abbie,” Jena said brightly holding up the baby dressed in pink. “That one is named Annie.” She motioned with her elbow to the stroller where Mandy was unstrapping the baby dressed in yellow. “This is why I asked Ian to bring you down tonight. Now that you know, you can go.”
What? Justin opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He stood there idly, unable to move, watching Jena, her expression worried as she paced, patting the baby’s back, trying to calm her.
Girls. Annie named for Jena’s mother. Abbie, for his grandmother? Who’d done her best to impart a mother’s love and wisdom, and fill in the gaps left by a disinterested father too busy for his own son. Maybe if she’d lived past his eighth birthday, Justin wouldn’t have followed in his father’s pleasure seeking footsteps, avoiding attachments and commitments with women.
Twins.
His.
There’d be fathers toasting, high-fiving, and laughing to the point of tears all around the tri-state area when the news got out. “I can’t wait for the day someone like you shows up at your door to take out your daughter. I hope he’s as careless with her heart as you’ve been with …” Justin couldn’t remember the daughter’s name. One of dozens of silly girls who’d hung on his every word, offered themselves to him then got their feelings hurt when he didn’t reciprocate their professed caring and love.
What goes around comes around.
Justin wanted to run, to close himself in the quiet of his condo, alone to think. But he would not be dismissed like one of her servants. “I’ll go when I’m good and ready to go.”
“Right,” she snapped. “Because you only do what you want when you want with a total disregard for what another person might want.”
Maybe so, but she was far from perfect, too. “Unless someone resorts to deceit to get me to do otherwise.” He glared at her.
Unaffected by his retort or his scathing look she fired back, “And you’re so easy to trick because you’re so darn shallow you only see what you want to see, a pretty face and a pair of breasts.”
Jaci ran out of the back bedroom, followed by Ian. “What happened?” Jaci asked, taking the baby in yellow from Mandy while Ian lifted Maddie out of her carrier and handed her to her mom.
“Something’s got Abbie all worked up and she got the other two crying,” Jena explained.
Ian walked over to Justin. “You okay?”
“You knew about the babies and didn’t tell me?” Justin asked, finding it hard to breath. No warning? No chance to adjust or digest? To figure out how to respond? What the hell to do?
“Jena wanted to tell you herself.”
“How long have you known?” The screaming echoed in his ears. Dread knotted in his gut. Life as he knew it was over.
“Since the benefit for Jaci’s crisis center.”
Almost two weeks. “Jena was at the benefit?” Justin had run security for the event. How could he have overlooked her?
“You really need to work on telling the two of them apart,” Ian said. “It’s not all that difficult.” After a moment Ian added, “Time to man up and help Jena with your daughters.”
Daughters.
Justin didn’t want daughters. Didn’t want to be a father. Did not want his life to be contorted into something unrecognizable.
CHAPTER TWO
JENA missed Marta something fierce. She bounced Abbie gently while patting her tiny back. Knowing her old nanny had been a few doors down the hall had eased many of Jena’s new mother insecurities and fears. Of course the girls had been perfect angels then. Textbook infants.
Nothing like this. Abbie arched her back and let out an unusually shrill cry.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetie girl,” she whispered against the baby’s cheek, hoping hearing the words would make her believe them. It didn’t work. Jena’s heart pounded. Don’t panic. You’re a nurse. You can handle this.
“When did she last eat?” Jena asked Mandy, starting with the most basic reason the twins cried.
“Mrs. Calvin and I fed them about an hour and a half ago.”
Moving on to diaper, Jena walked down the hall and set Abbie on the changing table where she writhed and kicked her tiny legs making it difficult to unsnap her outfit.
Diaper dry. Shoot.
Jena stripped off Abbie’s clothes and examined her naked body for signs of irritation or anything out of the ordinary. Aside from a red face, the only unusual thing identified during her careful head to toe assessment was a firm, maybe a bit distended, belly.
Please be gas.
“Jaci told me to give you this.” Justin walked into the room and handed her a bottle. He stared down at Abbie, still looking a bit shell-shocked.
“I’m sorry you found out like this,” Jena said, fastening a new diaper. “I’d planned to give you some warning before—”
A milky-looking fountain spurted from Abbie’s mouth. Jena flipped her onto her side and rubbed her back. “Hand me a cloth.”
Justin did. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.” Worry seeped into her voice. But maybe after spewing out the contents of her tiny tummy Abbie would feel better.
Wishful thinking, because she sucked in a breath and started to cough and sputter.
“She’s choking,” Justin so helpfully pointed out, pushing Jena closer to all out panic.
No. Think like a nurse. She sat Abbie on the changing table, and, supporting her chin leaned her forward and patted her back.
Airway clear, Abbie’s screams turned even more intense, desperate for her mommy to do something to help her. But what?
Helpless tears filled Jena’s eyes as she struggled to dress her squirming infant in a soft cotton sleeper. She picked her up and tried to give her the bottle while she hurried back into the living room. Abbie clamped her lips closed and turned her head, refusing the nipple. “How long has she been like this?” Jena asked Mandy.
“A good forty-five minutes before I brought her back. Mrs. Calvin and I tried everything we could think of to calm her.”
If Mrs. Calvin, Jaci’s upstairs neighbor who’d raised five children and had been helping out with the twins since Jena’s return, couldn’t solve the problem, Jena had little confidence she’d be able to.
“She said sometimes babies just need to cry,” Mandy said.
But not like this. For close to an hour. And what if Jena weren’t here to see to the needs of her daughter? Would Abbie’s unknown caregiver allow her to cry, alone in her room, for hours and hours, totally unconcerned with her discomfort and distress, thinking ‘sometimes babies just need to cry’? Jena’s heart twisted uncomfortably. As soon as this was over she’d make a note regarding how she’d like this situation handled in the future, should she not be around to deal with it, knowing there was no guarantee her wishes would be followed. She swallowed a lump of despair.
“We need to get her to a doctor,” Justin said in his police voice, taking charge.
“I’ll watch Annie,” Jaci offered.
“It’s probably just gas,” Jena said, hoping that was true.
“But you don’t know for sure,” Justin pointed out.
“No.” Jena fought for composure. “I’ve never quite mastered the ability to read minds,” she said, maintaining an even tone. “Even if I had, I imagine reading an infant’s mind must be pretty darn difficult considering they haven’t yet acquired the skills necessary to communicate.”
Justin raised an eyebrow. “So quiet Jena has some bite, and sarcasm is your weapon of choice.”
Yup. But she didn’t usually speak it out loud. “I don’t have a pediatrician in the area yet, which doesn’t matter since the office would most likely be closed now, anyway. And Abbie hasn’t had all her vaccinations,” Jena said. “I can’t take her into an emergency room crowded with sick people.”
Jena paced and rocked and patted. Abbie screamed. What to do? What to do? A pressure behind her forehead made her eyeballs feel on the verge bulging out of their sockets. An emergency room visit. The absolute worst case scenario. No insurance. Maxed out credit cards. They couldn’t turn her away for inability to pay, could they? The humiliation. But this wasn’t about her and her stupid choices. This was about Abbie.
“I know a pediatric urgent care center,” Justin said. “Twenty minutes away.” Perfect. Maybe the car ride would put Abbie to sleep and they wouldn’t need to go inside. “I’ll need a ride.” Jena threw it out there to no one in particular. Pathetic rich girl chauffeured from place to place all her life, she’d never bothered to learn to drive. And at age twenty-four she couldn’t even drive her daughter to seek medical treatment.
“I’ll take you,” Justin said. Before she could tell him she’d rather go with Jaci, or Ian, or Mandy, or anyone but him, he added, “Come on,” and headed for the door.
Like a mother of twins could simply run out of the condo on a moment’s notice.
Men.
“I have to—”
“Here’s a car seat.” Ian walked out of the second bedroom she temporarily shared with the girls. Not all men were as clueless as Justin.
“Diaper bag restocked and ready,” Jaci said, holding it out to Justin, who, rather than reaching for it so they could get underway, stared at it like Jaci was trying to pass him a severed limb.
So sorry she hadn’t purchased a diaper bag worthy of a macho cop. “I like pink,” Jena said, snatching the bag and slinging the strap over her shoulder. “Does the car seat meet with your approval or should I carry that, too?” She shifted Abbie and wrapped her in a baby blanket. Jaci slipped a little pink hat on Abbie’s head and gave her a kiss.
“Lord help me,” Justin said, taking the car seat from Ian. “I’ve never seen this side of her. She’s got a mouth like Jaci.”
Not quite. But Jena smiled, welcomed the comparison, because Jaci stood up for herself. Jaci didn’t let people take advantage of her. Jaci could handle anything.
Justin made the twenty minute trip to the pediatric urgent care center in less than fifteen minutes. Apparently speeding, passing on double yellow lines, and ignoring red lights were perks of the police profession. If not for the seatbelt that kept her lower body anchored on the back seat of his SUV, Jena had no doubt she would have been tossed around like a forgotten soccer ball. During the harrowing ordeal she held on to Abbie’s car seat which was strapped in beside her, her attempts to sooth her daughter and ignore Justin’s aggressiveness behind the wheel both futile.
Abbie’s unrelenting crying filled the car, echoed in her head, vibrated through her body.
Justin slowed down—thank you—and turned into the parking lot of a darkened, somewhat rundown strip mall in a not-so-nice part of town. “Why are you pulling in here?” He parked in front of the one lit storefront. The Pediatric Urgent Care Center. “It doesn’t look …” Professional. Clean. Safe.
While Jena pondered a way to nicely say, “There is no way I am taking my daughter into that dump,” Justin hopped out of the SUV, opened her door, and stuck his head inside. “Now there’s the Jena I know. Do you want to take her out of the carrier or bring in the whole thing?”
The Jena he knew? She unstrapped Abbie, removed her from the car seat and cuddled her close as she climbed out. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked. But she knew. The kids at school mistook quiet, smart and wealthy for snobby, snobby and snobby.
But this had nothing to do with being a snob and everything to do with being a concerned mother who wanted her daughter examined by a qualified practitioner in a well-equipped, high quality medical setting.
Justin set his large hand on her low back and applied a gentle pressure to get her moving toward the glass door. “You don’t know me at all,” Jena said. Not exactly his fault. No one did. Because in living life to avoid conflict and cater to the needs, wants, and expectations of others, Jena tended to smother her true personality, thoughts and desires beneath her need to keep everyone who mattered to her happy. Well, no more.
“You’re right,” Justin responded as he opened the door. “I don’t know you. But whose fault is that?”
Touché.
The inside of the facility had a much nicer, more professional feel than the outside. In fact it looked and smelled like a real hospital. Jena’s stress level eased a bit. Abbie’s screams caught everyone’s attention and the ten or so people in the waiting room to the right and the older woman at the registration desk straight ahead all stared at them.
“Hey, handsome,” the woman behind the desk said, looking past Jena to Justin with a warm smile. “What are you bringing us tonight? Out of uniform?”
“Hi, Gayle,” Justin said. “This is my …” Justin stopped. “Uh … my …”
Gayle lowered her head and peered up at him over the top rim of her eyeglasses.
Jena wanted to help him out but found herself at a loss regarding how to best describe their relationship. Was she his friend? Not really. In truth they barely knew each other. His lover? Did one drunken sexual encounter make them lovers? A woman he hardly knew who just happened to be the mother of the children he didn’t know about and doesn’t want? Bingo!
Jena decided to go with friend. “I’m a friend of Justin’s.” She reached out her hand to shake Gayle’s and sat down in the chair facing her desk. “This is my daughter, Abbie.” She removed the hat. “She’s six weeks old and has been screaming like this for going on an hour and a half. She doesn’t feel like she has a fever but her abdomen is mildly distended and firm. She’s refusing her bottle and,” she glanced up at Justin, “we felt it best she be examined by a doctor to make sure nothing serious is going on.”
Gayle typed on her computer keyboard. “Insurance card.”
“I … don’t have insurance,” Jena admitted, leaning in to whisper. “But if you’d agree to a payment plan I promise to pay off the entire bill.”
Gayle’s expression all but branded Jena a liar. Then she shifted her disapproving gaze up to Justin no longer happy to see him.
“She’s my daughter,” he said boldly. “I’ll make sure the bill is paid.”
Gayle couldn’t have looked more shocked if someone had slapped her across the face with a fish. But she regrouped and handed Jena a clipboard with papers to be filled out and a pen. If only a pitying look hadn’t accompanied them.
Jena lowered her eyes and let out a breath. Her face burned with the heat of embarrassment. She hated being in this position. “Thank you,” she said quietly. Then balancing Abbie against her chest with her left hand, she completed the necessary paperwork with her right.
After reviewing the forms Gayle studied Jena’s face. “You’re one of the Piermont twins?” she asked, with reverse snobbery.
Why, because Jena hadn’t had time to put herself together for public viewing? Because a Piermont shouldn’t need a payment plan? Because she didn’t belong in their little urgent care center? Or with Justin?
“Not a word,” Justin cautioned Gayle.
Like a man who didn’t want people knowing he was in any way associated with her. Or that he’d fathered a baby. Two babies. Well, who needed him? “You found me out,” Jena said with a forced laugh. She sat up a bit straighter and lifted her chin. She could do regal better than just about anyone when she needed to. “See. No worries you won’t get paid. I’m a millionairess.” With no currently available millions.
“Shshsh,” she whispered to Abbie, hugging her close. “You’re going to be fine.” She and her sister and their mother would all be fine. After Abbie stopped crying, after Jena’s surgery and after she found a way to meet the terms of her trust fund.
A payment plan. Justin followed Jena down the long hallway to one of the exam rooms reserved specifically for infants. It absolutely defied logic that Jena Piermont, whose family made The Forbes 400, a listing of the richest people in America, year after year, requested a payment plan for a bill that, at the most, might reach two hundred dollars. And she had no insurance? Doctor and hospital bills for her treatment during pregnancy and the delivery of two babies must have been considerable. But enough to drain her multi-million-dollar bank account?
No. More likely she’d squandered it on fancy clothes, fancy food, and a fancy lifestyle she obviously couldn’t afford.
“Thanks, Mary,” he said to the nurse manager who’d walked them to the room.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” she whispered as he walked past her through the doorway.
“Tell Gayle not to expect any more specialty coffee deliveries while I’m out on patrol.”
Mary smiled.
“If you wanted to keep Abbie and me your dirty little secret,” Jena snapped, “why did you bring us someplace where you obviously know people?” She laid Abbie down on the paper-lined exam table and began to undress her.
Because he’d been thinking of his daughter, of getting her the best and quickest medical care available. Since he visited the urgent care center regularly in the course of his work and provided their evening security guards through his side business, he knew they’d take him in immediately. And despite Gayle’s big mouth among the staff, he trusted their discretion when it came to outsiders.
Mary placed a disposable liner on the baby scale and Jena picked up Abbie and placed her on the scale like a pro. Justin took the first opportunity to really examine the baby he’d helped to create. Ten tiny fingers opening then closing into fists. Ten tiny toes attached to the most adorable little feet. A round head with baby-fine wisps of blonde hair. An innie belly button. A cutie pie.