His Ex's Well-Kept Secret(8)

But how could he not remember?

"Seriously? You don't remember anything about Milan?" Piper clarified. "You don't remember us meeting? Going to dinner-"

You don't remember anything about the night we spent in your hotel room?  Me kissing my way down your body, the last time in the shower when we  shook the foundations of the hotel? Your gasps, my screams? The way we  struggled to say goodbye the following morning?

She scratched her forehead. "What happened, Jaeger?"

Jaeger linked his hands behind his head. His big biceps pulled the  cotton fabric tight across his arms. The shirt gaped open and she saw a  hint of tanned, muscled flesh above his belt. And just above his belt  buckle would be a thin strip of hair. Her lips had traced that line of  hair, going lower and...

Jaeger dropped his arms and jammed his hands into the pockets of his  pants. His straight black brows pulled together. "I'll tell you why I  don't remember, but would you mind telling me about us meeting in Milan  first?"

Piper crossed her legs and linked her arms around her knee. How much to say? Keep it simple...

"I had some free time in Milan and I walked into your store, wondering  if someone could tell me about the stones, even though I only had a  photo on my phone. You were there and, because you're you and you work  fast, you invited me to dinner."

"We ate at a trattoria I often go to, the one in Linate?" He saw her  confused expression and explained. "Credit card receipts. I paid. The  date was April the twenty-ninth. Is that right?"

Sure was; she remembered the date she conceived Ty as well as she knew  his birth date. Since it was also the last time she'd had sex in, oh,  about forever, it wasn't a date easy to forget. Piper started to explain  they'd met the day before, but Jaeger interrupted her. "Will you tell  me about that night?"

Should she tell him they slept together? No! If she did then he might do  some math and suspect Ty could be his. He'd see the resemblance between  him and his son and then he'd know. Six hours after meeting him again,  she wasn't ready to go there, to deal with Jaeger's reaction to having a  son he didn't want.

One problem at a time, she decided.

She'd delay-or even avoid-the issue, but she wouldn't lie to Jaeger. If  he asked whether they'd slept together, she'd answer and roll the dice.                       
       
           



       

She might not believe in lying, but she did believe in distraction.  Besides, she was being eaten alive by curiosity. "Jaeger, why don't you  remember?"

Jaeger walked back toward her, picked up his glass, took a sip and  stared at her over the rim, as if he were trying to decide what to tell  her. "I was leaving Milan, on my way to the airport. The police reports  said that a..."

"Police reports?" Piper interjected, her voice rising.

Jaeger frowned at her interruption. "I was in a taxi when a truck slammed into us. I was in its direct path."

Piper just stared at him, not sure whether she was hearing him properly.  Jaeger was in a car accident the morning they'd said goodbye? "But-"

"Do you want to hear this or are you going to keep interrupting?" Jaeger  muttered. "I was in a bad way. I had various injuries, the most serious  of which was swelling and bleeding on the brain."

"God, Jaeger." Piper placed her hand over her mouth, horrified. She  stood up and faced him, wishing she could touch him. It wasn't enough  that he was standing in front of her looking healthy and fit-deliciously  healthy and fit. She needed to examine him to make sure, dammit!

The thought of him being so injured made her world tilt upside down.

"My siblings and a medical team came to Italy and accompanied me back to  the States. I had a couple of surgeries, and then they kept me in an  induced coma for six weeks. When I woke up, the last thing I remembered  was landing in Bangkok a month before the accident. After that,  nothing."

"God, I'm so sorry. I had no idea!"

"Nobody did. We kept it very quiet. My siblings put the word out that I  was hunting for an emerald in a very remote area of Colombia where  communications were dicey. They told anyone who asked that they weren't  sure when I would return."

"Why didn't you just tell the world what really happened?"

Jaeger grimaced. "There were a few reasons. Most important, my siblings  were trying to keep the news of my accident from our uncle Connor. He  raised me and my sibs from the time I was ten, and when the accident  happened, he was in a scary stage of Alzheimer's. The stage when  everything is upsetting and confusing. Knowing I was so injured possibly  would've accelerated his mental deterioration."

Piper tipped her head to the side, thinking back. "But...didn't he pass on around that time?"

Jaeger nodded, his expression grim. "He died ten days before they pulled  me out of the coma. God, the weeks following were hell."

"I'm glad you're okay, and I'm sorry about your uncle."

Jaeger ran a hand over the back of his head, obviously uncomfortable. "Yeah, thanks."

Piper pulled her bottom lip with her finger and thumb. "Well, that  explains a hell of a lot. What it doesn't explain is how you linked me  to Milan," she said, curious.

"This morning, I knew there was something you weren't telling me. It made me curious."

Oh, there was quite a bit she still wasn't telling him...

"I did a Google search on you, but I didn't realize I was also searching  my own computer and the Ballantyne server. I had the usual Google hits,  but it was what was on my computer that I found interesting."

Piper bit the inside of her lip. "Pray tell."

"I hired a PI after the accident. He dug deep into that month I spent  overseas, and he mentioned in his report that you and I had dinner."  Piper opened her mouth to speak, but Jaeger beat her to it. "No, I don't  know how he found out who you were and how we met."

"And how did you find out about the calls and messages I sent to you?"

Amusement sparked in Jaeger's eyes. "My family is fairly high-profile,  and we work in a high-risk business. Security logs all calls, messages  and emails coming in. If we don't respond to the calls and emails, and  if they are ongoing, the person making contact is put on a special  list."

Piper narrowed her eyes at him. "A special list?"

"The kooks and crazies list." Jaeger grinned, and Piper felt like she was standing in a beam of pure sunlight.                       
       
           



       

Oh, God, not good. When he smiled, her hands itched to undo the buttons  on his shirt, to spread the fabric apart and rediscover his hard chest,  the ridges of his stomach. She wanted to unbuckle his belt, unzip his  fly, take his...

Whoa! Alrighty, that's enough now.

Piper tapped the tip of her finger against her bottom lip. He should  have been the last man in the world to rev her engine; he was a  commitment-phobic playboy who would never change. But from the moment  she'd met him, Jaeger had the ability to short-circuit her brain.

She wasn't the carefree woman she'd been a year and a half back, though.  She had responsibilities now. This wasn't about her and what she  wanted-hot, curl-her-toes and burn-her-sheets sex.

So stop imagining him naked and think!

He had an ironclad good excuse for not contacting her after Milan, and  his explanation went some way toward erasing the anger and hurt she'd  lived with for so long. But did it fundamentally change anything?

Piper couldn't see that it did.

She still needed to sell her sapphires to save her house and provide the  stable, calm environment she needed to raise Ty. Her life before  Simms's visit was good for a single mom juggling a career. She loved  living in this house; she paid the bills; she had people she trusted  with Ty.

She needed to keep doing that.

Should she tell Jaeger about Ty?

Not now, was her gut instinct. She needed to tackle one problem at a  time. Securing her house was her priority, and she didn't want the  negotiations around her stones clouded by any emotions-panic, guilt,  responsibility-that Jaeger might experience after hearing she was the  mother of his son.

Unlike her own mother, she would not spend her life waiting for the  father of her child to discover his daddy-and-husband instincts.

"I'm sorry about your hassles with security, but they had no way of knowing you were trying to sell me some stunning sapphires."

Piper forced her attention back to their conversation and slowly nodded.  Sure, that. Let's go with the sapphire excuse and pretend I wasn't also  trying to find the courage to tell you I was carrying your baby.

"Wonderful."

Jaeger's hand pushing a curl behind her ear jerked her attention back to  reality. Oh, God, he was now standing a couple of inches from her, and  with every breath she took, she inhaled his soap and cologne smell, his  Jaeger-ness. So close she could see the flecks of silver in his eyes,  the tiny scar bisecting his right eyebrow, another on his top lip...