Secret Baby Scandal(20)

Perhaps it was a conflict of interest for him to work out in a  competing team's training facility before he faced them. But he wouldn't  be anywhere near the players' areas. And hell, he was one of the  family.

Twenty minutes later, when he parked in the owner's spot with the  assurance that Gervais wouldn't show up for work for at least six more  hours, Jean-Pierre took the private elevator to the gym for the front  office personnel. He was a Reynaud, dammit. He had a key. He'd invested  personally in building the facility, as well as the Zephyr Dome  downtown. And he'd never needed a workout as much as he did now.

Helping himself to Dempsey's locker-helpfully labeled with a brass  nameplate-he found workout clothes and changed into black mesh shorts  and a T-shirt. He ran the track. Ran the bleachers, ran the treadmill.  And when that didn't manage to pound the thoughts out of his head, he  hit the weights. He dragged a set of heavy chains from the wall and  draped them around his waist while he did pull-ups. He did waist-high  box jumps from a standing position with an eighty-pound-weight vest. If  it hadn't been a bye week, he wouldn't have been able to trash his body  so thoroughly, but he had time to recover before the game against the  Hurricanes.                       
       
           



       

And sweating out the sound of Tatiana's damning words had become a critical mission.

I didn't tell you because I couldn't bear to hear that having César was a mistake.

Drenched with sweat and so exhausted he feared the next jump would  sprain an ankle, he unhooked the chains and finally slogged to the  showers. Only then did it occur to him what he needed to do to move  forward with Tatiana.

She didn't trust him now any more than she had when she first found out  she was expecting their child. He had to change that. Luckily, no  matter what she said about the effects of postpartum hormones, she was a  lawyer and a deeply rational woman. She would appreciate a  well-thought-out campaign to win her over. Well-reasoned arguments for  why they should stay together.

He would dismantle her defenses as thoroughly as he deconstructed his  opponents on the field. While he couldn't study game film of Tatiana, he  had past encounters to teach him. He could use that to understand her  better. To draw on what she liked and didn't like to become the man she  couldn't refuse.

And then? Game over.

He would be announcing their marriage at the same time he introduced  César to the media and then they could both put this chapter of their  lives behind them. It was the perfect game plan.

Provided he could persuade her to agree.





Eight

Even when angry, Tatiana dreamed about him.

Perversely, that made her even madder, distracting her all morning when  she'd had errands to run outside the house. How could she go to bed so  upset with Jean-Pierre and yet dream about his touch all night long?

She'd awoken on edge and cranky even though César had slept through the  night for the first time ever. She'd almost missed her morning doctor's  appointment, a checkup she'd scheduled with a local obstetrician to be  sure she was healing. An appointment that had given her clearance for  intimacy at a time when she knew that was highly unlikely to happen  since Jean-Pierre hadn't even wanted to sleep in the same house as her  the night before.

Now, changing into fresh clothes after the morning's outing, she wished  she'd had the option to hop in a luxury sports car the night before and  disappear the way Jean-Pierre had.

From the patio outside her suite, she'd watched him roar off, the  tension evident in his every movement. She hadn't heard him come home,  but he'd texted her, asking to join him at Gervais's house today to help  with some kind of wedding crisis. She couldn't begin to guess what that  meant, but once she'd eaten a light meal and fed and snuggled with  César, she put on a crochet knit minidress with bright stripes around  the skirt and headed outside to see what was happening. The temperature  had dropped overnight so that the air was milder this afternoon, but  still comfortable enough that she didn't need a sweater.

Her phone rang before she reached Gervais's house. Checking the display, she spotted her father's cell phone number.

She took a deep breath before she answered. "Hello, Dad," she said as  she wound through the manicured gardens of a side yard between the  Reynaud homes.

She kept her tone light, praying he would reciprocate. She couldn't handle any more tension right now.

"Are you reading the headlines?" he barked, not bothering to ask her how she'd been.

Which reminded her of why she couldn't bind herself to Jean-Pierre,  another man who focused on himself and to hell with her needs. Sure,  he'd caught her off guard with his careful treatment of her and the  thoughtful massage, but how much of that kindness was to serve his own  ends? She needed to be wary.

"I've been fairly consumed with motherhood," she reminded her father,  wondering why she'd struggled for so long to win approval from a man who  cared more about how his family appeared to the rest of the world than  how they felt.

"Well, you've done a good job keeping that under wraps," he admitted.  The sounds of the city were amplified in the background-squealing air  brakes and honking horns. He must be in the car between meetings. "And  the photos of your boat outing are a nice touch, much as it still galls  me to see you with a Reynaud."                       
       
           



       

"You liked this family well enough once." She lowered her voice even  though there was no one around as she sidled around a low brick dividing  wall laden with thick green vines. "And you raised me to like them,  too."

"A little too damn well," he snapped. "But that could work to my  advantage. Maybe you can tell me the location of this big royal wedding.  Because if you can give me something I can sell to the press and one-up  Leon, you could be forgiven for hobnobbing with the Reynauds."

She gasped, hoping he wasn't serious, not even remotely. "I'm appalled. You've got to be kidding. For pity's sake, Dad-"

"Oh, stop it. I really am only kidding. Mostly." In the background of  the call, she could hear the running commentary of a football game  announcer. No doubt her father was watching game film while his driver  navigated traffic. "I'm checking in to see if you can make an  announcement to the press that will shut them up about the Marcus  Caruthers case. That angle of your relationship with Jean-Pierre is  getting a lot of coverage and it's not good for an NFL coach to have his  daughter trying cases against players."

Her blood boiled as she paused beside a rose-covered arbor. She tipped  her head against the painted wood frame and hoped the scent of roses  would calm her. Her father had been even more furious with her than  Jean-Pierre had been over that case, insisting that he'd lose his  coaching position for allowing his daughter to argue a harassment suit  against a player. She'd called BS on that one. Since Marcus didn't play  for the Gladiators, there was no conflict of interest. Tatiana had  become all the more adamant to take the case as her father became more  insistent that she didn't. And after growing up in a house where  superstar athletes had always been more important than his daughter,  she'd been determined to win the judgment.

Perhaps she'd resisted Jean-Pierre's protests of Marcus's innocence  because of that. But bottom line, it had been her job to argue for her  client. Yanking a rose off the vine-covered arbor, she charged up the  flagstone path toward the house.

"We've had this argument. At length." She stopped in Gervais's driveway  to finish her call since she couldn't enter the house while discussing a  hot-button topic. "The case is over."

"Not in the eyes of the press, it's not," her father growled at her,  his voice forcing her to turn down the volume on her phone. "This is a  story all over again, Tatiana, and you can't just bury your head in the  sand and pretend it doesn't exist. You stirred the pot by baiting  Jean-Pierre with that comment to a reporter. Now you've got to deal with  the fallout, and you need to do it before you introduce my grandson to  the world."

He was right about that much.

And possibly the part about burying her head in the sand, too. She  closed her eyes, willing her heart rate to slow down. She inhaled the  scent of the rose she still held crushed in one palm.

"I'll read the headlines and look into a plan of action," she assured him. "I'll do what I can to take care of this. But, Dad?"

"I'm listening."

"If you do anything to detract from this wedding, or in any way upset  the Reynauds, you will be alienating me and your grandson, too." Her  voice vibrated as she said the words. It was a sign of nervousness but  she hoped it came across as an indication of how thoroughly she meant  it.