Piper wrenched herself from Jaeger's grip and wrapped her arms around her waist, feeling cold and hot at the same time. "You and I met in Milan and yes, we did go out a couple of times. What I didn't tell you is that we slept together."
She risked a peek at Jaeger's face. As she expected, he looked confused. "Okay. Why not tell me? It's not a big deal."
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.
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?