She closed her eyes. While Jake had been gone, she'd found the words she needed to tell him. She'd have to sacrifice her pride, but Peter was more important than pride.
Jake returned and sat on a chair facing her. He braced his elbows on his knees and leaned toward her. She took a deep breath.
"Jake, I—"
"Larissa, I—"
She laughed. In the old days when they'd been friends, often they'd both started talking at the same time.
"You first," Jake said.
Knowing that Jake had never been anything but good to her, she sorted out the pieces of her troubled past and took a deep breath. "The reason why I didn't tell you about Peter is that I wanted to manage parenthood on my own."
"You always were pretty stubborn about that. Why don't you save the rest of the tale for a time when we are alone? Let's talk about what we do now."
She appreciated the reprieve, but she was curious. "What made you change your mind?"
He shrugged massive shoulders. "Something about you looking at me like I was an ogre."
"I didn't."
"Sweetheart, you have the biggest, most innocent eyes I've ever looked into, and it only takes one instant for you to make me feel like a bully."
His words made her feel special. "I didn't mean to."
"I know. Let's fix this reporter problem and then we'll talk. We'll find a sitter for Peter and we can learn each other's secrets."
"I don't have any secrets."
"Peter's it?"
"Yes, just Peter. I felt so … panicked when Jasmine Carmody called and said she knew you were Peter's father. There's nothing I can do to protect him from anything she writes for her newspaper. At least he can't read."
"How did she find out about Peter? Am I listed on the birth certificate?"
"No. She said she'd talked to Marti Freehold. Do you remember her?"
"She's the biggest gossip I've ever met."
"Yes, she is. Marti mentioned she'd seen us leaving the reunion together. And that we'd looked, well, like we needed to find a private room and quick."
"Sounds like Marti," Jake said.
"Jasmine Carmody has Peter's birth certificate and she knows you're not listed on there, but she also has a picture of you when you were the same age as Peter. They're practically identical."
Jake leaned back in the chair and Larissa tried not to stare at him. She knew that he was trying to solve a very sticky problem. And she shouldn't be lusting over him at a time like this.
Finally he cleared his throat. "I think I may have come up with a solution that will take the sting out of any article Jasmine Carmody writes."
"What?"
"We'll live together as a family."
"Will that work?"
"Sure it will. What she's doing is just a step above blackmail. If we acknowledge it and move on, then she can't hurt us with whatever she writes. I think it's the perfect solution."
"But living together? I don't think that's necessary."
"I do. I want to get to know my son. We'll be a family unit and once she knows I've acknowledged Peter is mine, she won't be able to hurt us."
"Jake, we hardly know each other."
He raised his eyebrow at her. "I'd say we know each other pretty well."
"That was just one night."
"Rissa, I was talking about all those late-night conversations in the library."
She flushed, knowing good and well what he'd been referring to. She wasn't sure what had changed while Jake had been gone, but his workout had brought back the man she knew. The man she was comfortable with. The man who wasn't so angry at being left in the dark where his son was concerned.
"Still, we've never lived together. I mean, where would we live?"
"I don't have every detail planned. I'd like to live here because I'm close to D&D's and I go into the office every day when I'm not traveling."
"Well, your place isn't much farther than mine from the library. But I don't know that I'd feel comfortable in your house."
"We'll hire a decorator to do the place over."
"I don't know. That seems like a big expense for…"
"For what?"
"For camouflage."
"Camouflage?" he asked.
"We aren't in a relationship. Are you sure about this?"
"One-hundred percent certain."
"Would we be like roommates?"
"What did you have in mind?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows at her.
She didn't know if she could live with Jake and not give in to the lust surging through her. This was probably the dumbest idea ever but deep in her heart it felt right.
"Not what you're thinking. I mean we're both adults. We can keep our hands to ourselves. We're living together for Peter's sake, not for ours."