Foolish Games(12)

“I don’t need you to take care of me.” She was being churlish, she knew, but it irked her that he thought he could control her life now that he knew he was Owen’s father.

“What you need, Princess, is a keeper!”

Before Julianne could open her mouth to protest, Carly and Shane Devlin stepped in front of the partition.

“Connelly.” Shane’s hand wrapped around Will’s bicep, pulling him back from Julianne. “Keep it down unless you want to read about this on TMZ tomorrow.”

Will jerked out of Shane’s grasp, shooting him a malicious glare.

“Don’t get all pissy with me.” Shane went nose to nose with Will. “I didn’t know anything about this until a couple of hours ago.”

Will looked over at Carly, who just gave him an empathetic shrug, which irritated not only Julianne, but Shane as well. “My wife didn’t know you were the father, either. Not until this morning. So watch yourself with her or you’ll answer to me.”

When Will’s eyes met Julianne’s, she held his stare for a moment. Something flashed in them that she couldn’t make out—anguish, she thought—before they were hard emeralds again.

“Make sure she gets some rest, will you, Carly?” Then he disappeared through the curtain, his long stride echoing down the corridor.

Julianne wanted to chase him down. She wanted to rail at him, to scratch his eyes out. Anything to wipe that smug look off his face.

But most of all, she yearned for him to hold her, just as he’d held her that night at the wedding. The past several months of pregnancy and duplicity, coupled with Owen’s brush with death, had exhausted her. Guilt was weighing her down and she wanted someone to help carry her burden. Not since her mother died in that awful accident on the sea had anyone been able to provide Julianne with comfort the way Will Connelly had the night they’d spent together.

And now he hated her.

Julianne shook herself. Thinking about Will would only make her crazy. She’d deal with him and whatever plans he had tomorrow. Right now she needed to concentrate on Owen. Her baby was going to live! Joy and relief surged through her body as she collapsed onto the sofa. Carly gathered Julianne in her arms as she sat down beside her.

“Owen is going to live,” Julianne said through her tears. “My baby is going to be okay.”

“I know.” Carly rubbed Julianne’s back. “Will’s blood was all Owen needed.”

Julianne felt the now-familiar hitch of anguish and anger at the mention of Will saving Owen. But she pushed it deep down. The fact remained that despite the way she’d duped the man, he’d stepped in and saved Owen with only her word that he was the father. She owed him much more than just her gratitude.

Julianne wiped her face with her hands. “I know. And I’m going to make it right with him, Carly. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.” She got up to get a drink of water, completely missing the troubled look that passed between Shane and Carly.





Five





Sleep eluded Will that night. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Julianne, dressed like a temptress in that skintight red dress, her hair flowing behind her as she laughed at him while she pushed Owen in a stroller across the turf in the Blaze stadium. No matter how hard he tried to catch them, they kept getting farther and farther away. The senator’s voice blared across the PA system repeating over and over again: “She never wanted you to know about the baby. She’s going to raise him by herself in Italy. You’ll never have to see him.” Will’s cleats sank like cement into the grass at the fifty-yard line as he helplessly watched her flounce out of the stadium, Owen in tow.

He woke up drenched in sweat and in need of a cold shower, for multiple reasons. It was hard to separate the erotic fantasy Julianne presented from the duplicitous woman she was. The fact that his body still reacted to her made him madder than hell. He would never be able to trust her. She had every intention of denying him the right to raise his son. The sooner he got Owen’s paternity sorted out legally, the better. Especially if it meant less contact with his son’s mother.

Thirty minutes later, Will made his way downstairs to his kitchen for some much-needed coffee. As he peered over the metal railing leading down from his bedroom to the high-ceilinged living area of his loft apartment, he spied a pair of yellow running shoes hanging off the side of the sectional sofa. Unfortunately, they were still attached to the muscular legs of Blaze tight end Brody Janik. Will swore as he stomped down the stairs.

The Today Show blared from the sixty-inch plasma TV hanging above a gas fireplace. Will maneuvered through a storm of dust motes floating across the oak plank floor in front of the large industrial windows. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with the ineffectiveness of his cleaning service, much less the six-foot-three, two-hundred-ten-pound pretty boy sprawled out on his sofa.