Piper hadn’t. Not once.
Jaeger dropped his feet to the ground and placed his forearms on his knees, staring at the expensive flooring below his feet. If he and Piper hadn’t fought, would she have told him? Ty was his son, a Ballantyne, his flesh and blood. She had no right to keep Jaeger from his child.
He wanted to rewind time. He wanted to recall how it felt making love to Piper that first time, remember the moment Ty was conceived. He wanted to watch Piper grow round and full, see Ty on the sonar screen, be the one to catch him as he entered the world.
Maybe he was being unfair but he didn’t care... Piper had cheated him out of those moments and the following nine months. He’d never forgive her. Forgiveness wasn’t possible.
He’d lost time he could never recover, and not because of amnesia. Piper had made the decision to keep Ty from him, to keep him in the dark—a state he couldn’t stand—and Jaeger’s anger was a living, breathing entity, crawling under his skin.
But he had to find a way to deal with her, because he had every intention of being in his son’s life. He wasn’t interested in an hour here or a weekend there. Feeling a little more clearheaded than he had on Saturday night, he now knew that he wanted to see Ty every damned day.
Jaeger glanced up as his computer beeped, notifying him of a new message. Jaeger rubbed his jaw, acknowledging that being Ty’s dad would impact his career. It would change how he sourced gems from all over the globe. He couldn’t be a full-time parent if he was crisscrossing the world. Would he have to choose between his career and his son? Could he give up the job he loved to spend more time with Ty?
Yeah. If it came to that, he would. He’d had so little time with his own parents before their deaths, but as an adult reflecting on that period, he clearly remembered how much he was loved. They’d adored being with him and his siblings. He wanted to give Ty that kind of family. He wanted his son to know nothing was more important to Jaeger than him.
Jaeger had thought Piper might be as important, but that just showed him how ridiculous he could be when it came to women. He’d started to fall in love with her... Thank God he’d managed to pull himself back from the ledge.
Oh, who was he kidding? He’d tumbled off that cliff the day she’d walked into his office a little less than two weeks back. He’d probably fallen in love with her back in Milan when they first made love. She’d snuck under his skin, climbed into his head and staged a takeover of his heart.
He loved her, but he couldn’t trust her.
First Andy, now Piper. Why couldn’t he find a woman he could love and trust?
Jaeger stood up and jammed his hands into his suit pockets. Piper would be here in ten minutes to finalize the purchase of her stones, and he had to pull himself together.
He couldn’t let her know how much she affected him, how seasick he felt. She’d flipped his heart and his world and his life upside down, and he now had to find a new type of normal.
Normal. Jaeger snorted. As if anything could ever be normal again.
* * *
Piper walked into the imposing conference room at Ballantyne and Company, clutching her uncle’s diary against her chest. She placed the old book and her bag on the sleek conference table and refused the offer of a cup of coffee from Linc. Beckett, Jaeger’s younger brother, shook her hand, and Sage gave her a quick hug. Jaeger, standing across the room at the head of the table, lifted his chin to acknowledge her presence and turned his attention back to the phone in his hand.
So, his feelings hadn’t changed between Saturday night and now. That was the price she had to pay for wanting to protect her son. She’d lied to Jaeger, and he wasn’t going to forgive her.
Piper took a seat at the table and admitted to herself that Jaeger had a right to be angry. Despite trying to contact him, many times, she’d still kept him from his son and that, in his eyes, was reprehensible. He’d tossed her a quick, hot question about her motivations but he hadn’t pushed her for an explanation. If he cared for her, even a little, shouldn’t he have, at the very least, tried to understand her choices?
Piper darted a look at Jaeger’s hard face and sighed. Dressed in solid black—dress shirt, tie and suit pants—he looked as accessible as a black hole. And as cuddly. Suddenly she saw the hard-eyed, edgy businessman who confidently walked into dangerous situations to buy gemstones. No matter his clothing, if she were selling him something and she was faced with that granite face, she wouldn’t mess with him either. Hard, silent, dangerous. But, dammit, still so sexy.