Jaeger gripped her butt in his hands and stood up, holding her. Her legs locked around his waist as he carried her to the bedroom.
She was the perfect one-night stand; she'd let him off the hook with no drama and little fanfare, and he should feel grateful, he thought, lowering her to the bed.
So, then, why didn't he?
One
Eighteen months later
Piper Mills pulled her reading glasses from her face and tossed them onto her desk. Rubbing the bridge of her nose, she pushed her chair back from her Georgian mahogany writing desk and scowled at her laptop screen, where the offer of an exciting consultation sat in her inbox, waiting for her response.
Of course she would like to appraise a recently discovered Daniel Glutz. She'd written her master's thesis on the German painter. But it was impossible. The painting was in Berlin, and since Ty's birth nine months ago, she was restricted to appraising art on the East Coast, to trips she could undertake in a day or less. Although she loved and trusted her nanny, Ceri, and Ceri's twin brother, Rainn, who was also good with Ty, she still didn't feel comfortable leaving her precious child for extended periods. She couldn't leave Ty overnight. Not yet.
Maybe when he was in college.
Piper stood up and went to the curved bow window of her three-story redbrick Victorian. She folded her arms across her chest and looked down onto the street below. Fall was nearly over, winter was rushing in and the seasons seemed to be flying past. She'd conceived Ty in spring, lost Mick in late summer, given birth to Ty in midwinter. This summer, unlike the previous one, passed by uneventfully.
Mick's death last year was a smack rather than a blow, but one she was still wrapping her head around. Even though she and her father rarely spoke, she liked knowing there was somebody she was connected to, some family she could call her own-even if it was only in the quiet depths of her soul, since Mick never publicly acknowledged her as his daughter.
Or acknowledged her at all.
Growing up, she'd never thought she'd be glad he publicly ignored her and her mother, his longtime mistress. But when the most flamboyant and driven personality on the New York social scene, one of the most respected stockbrokers and investment advisors in the world, was arrested for fraud, Piper was very glad not to be linked to him.
Over decades, Mick convinced thousands of people to invest in funds he recommended, promising solid returns. He then used money from new investors to pay off existing investors, all while living the high life. It was no surprise he'd demanded she hand over her sapphires in the months leading up to, and after, his arrest. He'd needed to raise some money to buy a shovel so he could dig himself out of a very big hole.
The press attention over his arrest was intense, and Mick's ex-wife was constantly harassed by reporters. Mick's child bride/trophy wife conveniently left the States for Colombia two days before his arrest, never to return, not even to attend Mick's funeral.
Ah, such a demonstration of true love.
Since neither of Mick's wives knew of Piper's existence, she'd just stayed in Park Slope, Brooklyn, living in the house Mick bought for her mother, watching the Mick-induced craziness from a distance. She was grateful her mother never witnessed the man she loved fall from the very high and gilded pedestal she'd placed him on. His death, from a heart attack two-and-a-half months after first being arrested, would've killed her if cancer had not.
Piper heard a snuffle from the baby monitor on her desk and smiled. Her boy was awake and would be wanting some lunch. Piper walked out of her study and ran up the stairs to the third floor of her building, which served as the second floor of her home. The first floor was an apartment she rented to Ceri and Rainn. She padded into the smaller of two bedrooms and across to the wooden crib she'd slept in as a child. Ty turned to look at her, and love flooded her system.
He was all Jaeger, she thought, picking him up and cuddling him to her chest. He had Jaeger's light blue eyes, his facial structure and his dark sable hair. Ty would also, she was sure, have Jaeger's height and naturally muscular build.
Ty was a Ballantyne, she thought, in everything but name.
"There's my big boy," she crooned, rubbing her chin across the top of his head. Piper carried Ty to his changing mat and deftly undressed him, taking a moment, as she always did, to kiss his foot, to nibble his heel. The actions caused Ty to release a belly laugh which, in turn, made her laugh. God, she'd never thought she could love someone this much...
Piper whipped a disposable diaper from the box on the chest of drawers and slid it under Ty's clean bottom. Under the pile of diapers was the black velvet roll of fabric, and inside the roll were the ten sapphires she'd discussed with Jaeger.
In Milan, he'd promised he'd call her so he could examine the sapphires, but he never did. When six weeks passed without hearing from him, and she'd realized condoms weren't a hundred percent foolproof, she'd tried to contact him. Every call she made to his cell phone went directly to voice mail.
He couldn't be hard to reach, she'd thought, so she'd tried to contact him through Ballantyne and Company. Ha! That was like trying to speak directly with one of the Windsor boys. She'd left countless messages, sent a dozen emails to the group secretary, but nothing. When she'd visited the flagship store, asking to see Jaeger, her requests to speak to someone higher up the food chain were dismissed. When she refused to leave until either Jaeger or one of his three siblings spoke with her, security escorted her off the premises.
She'd been on the internet a few days later and found an in-depth article on him in which he was quoted saying that he had no intention of ever marrying, that he did not want children. The world needed innovators and adventurers and discoverers, not more mouths to feed.
Besides, kids would seriously cramp his style...
By midnight of that awful day, she'd finally received the message that Jaeger wasn't interested in her or her sapphires or hearing she was pregnant.
Ty, she decided, was hers; she wasn't obliged to share his existence with a man who would not be excited or interested in her child. Mick had ignored her, and she'd always wondered why he didn't love her. There was no way she would burden her son with an uninterested, unenthusiastic father.
Piper desperately wished she could forget about Jaeger, but that was impossible when she lived with a miniature version of the man. In Ty she saw Jaeger's gorgeous, fallen-angel face-light eyes a perfect foil for his olive skin and dark, wavy hair-and then she remembered the scrape of his two-day-old beard against her skin, the breadth of his shoulders, the ridges of his corrugated stomach, the peace she felt in his clever assured touch.
Some nights she woke up from a deep sleep, her heart pounding, an orgasm hovering, her thoughts full of him. On occasion she rolled over looking for him, wanting him to take her to that place where only he could-a dizzying, sparkling place where time stood still and magic lived. When reality crashed down-she was a single mother and he wasn't interested in her or her son-the following hours were dark and dismal, long on tears and short on sleep.
Ty gurgled and Piper dropped her head to nuzzle his tummy, feeling his tiny hands in her curls. When she'd first found out she was pregnant with Manhattan's Main Man's baby, she'd cursed God and Fate and wept and wailed. Now she couldn't imagine her life without her little man; he was the beginning and the end of her universe.
"What about some lunch and then a walk in the park? It's cold but sunny." Piper put Ty on her hip and walked downstairs, ignoring her study to head for the kitchen. "You up for that, Ty?"
Ty shoved his fist in his mouth, and Piper took that to be a yes. Handing Ty a sippy cup filled with water, she pulled out a jar of organic baby food and heard her doorbell buzz. Frowning, she looked at the small screen in her kitchen and saw a man in a suit standing by the front door to her building. He looked very...lawyerly, Piper decided.
Piper lifted the receiver to her intercom, and when she heard he represented the law firm in charge of administering her father's estate, she buzzed her visitor into the building.
Five minutes later, Mr. Simms sat at her kitchen table as she fed Ty his lunch.
"I understand that you're a fine arts appraiser, you work from home and you have a steady clientele of both art gallery owners and private collectors."
Accurate enough. Piper nodded as she spooned sweet potato and carrots into Ty's welcoming mouth. Wanting to get outside and into the fresh air, she lifted her eyebrows. "All true. But I doubt you came here to talk about my business, so what can I do for you?"