Piper let out a low, humorless laugh. “Yeah, it is.” Gathering every bit of courage she could find, she looked him in the eye. “Ty is the result.”
Piper watched as her words sank in and the color faded from Jaeger’s face. He spoke through bloodless lips, the words rough. “I always use condoms.”
“You did that night, too,” Piper admitted. “I can’t explain how it happened, but he’s yours.”
“He can’t be!”
“Oh, for God’s sake! He has your eyes, your chin, your face, your build. He has a dimple in his butt, just like you do. He has your body, your hands, your smile. He is a carbon copy of you!” Piper cried.
“He’s not. He can’t be.”
She wasn’t going to try to convince him. “Okay, he’s not. Believe whatever you want to believe, Jaeger.”
Jaeger gripped the back of the couch and looked at her, his eyes bleak. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep this from me?”
“After Milan, I tried to tell you I was pregnant, Jaeger, but I couldn’t reach you! I was kicked out of Ballantyne and Company and put on the kooks and crazies list!” Piper retorted. “We reconnected a week ago. When, exactly, was I supposed to blurt this out? While we were discussing the stones, after sex, before sex?”
“Yes!”
“I started to tell you today, at the park, but you had just told me about your daughter, and then you had a game with your brother, a ball to attend,” Piper said, her voice bitter. “I needed time to explain, but you had better things to do.”
“I would’ve blown off both if you’d said it was important,” Jaeger countered.
“I didn’t want you to reject Ty.” There, she’d said it.
“I freely admit that I have no experience with babies, but I’ve given you no reason to think I would reject him!”
“Jaeger, for years you’ve been telling anyone with a microphone that you’re not cut out to be a husband or a father. I believed that! I believed you!”
“You still should’ve told me,” Jaeger said, his voice hard and stubborn.
“Of course I should’ve, but I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“You rejecting Ty. You rejecting me.” Unaware her face was wet with tears, she forced herself to meet his hard, angry eyes.
Face it, Piper. Demand the truth. Take the hit. You’ll survive it. Maybe.
“Are you going to do that?” she asked.
Jaeger didn’t flinch. His eyes remained steady on her face as he shook his head. “I can’t be with someone I can’t trust. I can’t do that again.”
His words felt like a blow. She managed to nod, and then she forced the next sentence up her constricted throat. “And Ty?”
“I don’t know. I need to think about him.”
Piper lifted her chin and scowled at him. “The fact that you have to think about loving him, accepting him, tells me everything I need to know.” Piper heard her voice break, and she placed one hand over her eyes. She swallowed and blinked back tears. “I really need you to leave.”
“Fine.” Piper heard Jaeger’s footsteps and felt the brush of his coat on her bare legs as he walked past. Then she heard the door close behind him. She dropped to the floor, placed her head between her knees and felt the chopped up pieces of her heart shatter into tiny shards.
* * *
It was Monday morning and Jaeger propped his feet up on the corner of his desk and stared out his rain-streaked office window. Thanksgiving was a week away, and some stores already had their Christmas decorations in place. The creative designer would change the Ballantyne windows at the end of the month, and then the crazy season would start. But all he could think about was...
He had a son.
He had a son with a beautiful, smart, funny woman who’d cheated him out of the first months of his son’s life.
She should’ve tried harder to reach him...
But, as much as this annoyed him to admit, there had been little more she could do. He dimly recalled that he’d been presented with a list of people who’d tried to reach him while he was in hospital but he’d trashed the document, figuring that if the matter was important, they’d reach out to him again.