"You don't understand-" she began, only to be cut short.
"It might be you who doesn't understand." He steered off the exit toward 42nd Street and she wished she could turn back the clock on this evening to make the outcome different. To give her more time. She took in his tight jaw, his tense shoulders. "I didn't have time to consult you for a plan. You put me on the spot in front of my team, the league, the media and the fans."
"You're right. That part, I do understand." Her breasts ached beneath her dress, the need to return home a sudden, biological need. Thankfully, all the lights on 10th Avenue went green and they surged through one after the other as they headed north.
"Excellent. You are already invited to my brother's wedding." He resumed laying out the calm, controlled plan that she knew would never happen. "We can attend the ceremony together and then you will stay in New Orleans until the Gladiators game against the Hurricanes the week after. I'll have to commute back and forth for practices, but I'll be around enough to ensure we're photographed together. We can put a quick end to the old rumors about our families. And about us."
Only a Reynaud would seriously contemplate "commuting" between New York and New Orleans. She would have laughed if she hadn't been so upset, rapidly bordering on panicked. But she'd certainly learned how to deal with unexpected consequences. Now, Jean-Pierre would have to learn, too.
"Fine," she agreed rather than waste her breath arguing, already knowing whatever plans he made now were about to be blown up anyhow. "You may not want me in New Orleans with you once you hear what I have to say." She gritted her teeth as they hit Central Park West and neared her building. The ache in her chest shifted painfully. "Would you come in with me so we can continue this discussion inside?"
"Of course. We have a lot of plans to make." He pulled in alongside the valet and handed over his keys.
On the elevator, she realized she had effectively put off her important announcement so long that very soon no words would be necessary and she would lose her window to tell Jean-Pierre herself. She wasn't proud of that. But she was tired, aching and uncomfortable. And didn't he bear half the blame for this impossible situation?
Yet, as soon as the elevator stopped on her floor and the doors slid open, she knew she couldn't let him find out this way.
"We do have a lot of plans to make." She spun to face him, the words spilling out fast. "But not the kind you think."
"I don't understand." His jaw flexed, his gaze narrowing.
She drew in a deep breath.
"Remember that night last winter?" She didn't wait for his reply, as she heard a long, high-pitched wail from inside her apartment. "I should have told you sooner, but you walked out the next day and said it was a mistake. Talking was all but impossible after a parting like that and then, well-" She shook her head, impatient with herself and the excuses that didn't matter now, with her baby crying on the other side of her front door. "Come and meet your son, Jean-Pierre."
Two
Son?
Jean-Pierre had taken hits from the toughest, strongest, meanest players in the NFL. Afterward, as he lay in the grass with his ears ringing and his vision blurred, he would struggle to snap out of the slow-motion fog that felt kind of like being underwater.
That was exactly how he felt walking into Tatiana's apartment, her words slowly permeating his consciousness along with the cry of an infant. Dazed, confused and trying to stand up straight despite the floor shifting under his feet, Jean-Pierre stood in her foyer and waited for her to return from wherever she'd disappeared.
"Mr. Reynaud?" An older woman in a simple gray dress stepped into the living area to his right. "Miss Doucet asked if you wouldn't mind joining her in the family room. It's just past the staircase on the left." She pointed the way and then went about her business, picking up a few things in the living room.
A bright blue blanket. A baby bottle.
Seeing that bottle was like the second hit when you were already down.
At the same time, it was enough to make the mental fog evaporate and get his feet moving.
Fast.
He needed answers now. Hell, he needed answers months ago. Tatiana had done a whole lot more than throw his career into a tailspin tonight with her unguarded remark to a member of the press. She'd been hiding the biggest possible secret that was going to bind their lives together forever.
"Tatiana?" Her name was a sharp bark on his lips as he entered the spacious suite overlooking Central Park.
Framed playbills lined the walls along with photos of Tatiana and her family. Tatiana with her father at her graduation from Columbia. The Doucets outside of a downtown skyscraper with the brass name plaque of her prestigious law firm. Every picture was a reminder of the life he might have had with her if her family hadn't turned her against him.
A blaze crackled in a fireplace on the far side of the living area. And beside it, in that warm glow of flickering light, he spotted her on the dark leather love seat, cradling a tiny bundle of blankets to her breast. Tatiana's dark brown curls shielded her body as much as the blanket, the firelight making the skin of one shoulder glow where she'd unfastened her dress to feed the baby.
Her baby.
His...son.
Something shifted inside Jean-Pierre, his whole world tipping on its axis as everything changed irreversibly.
"I am sorry," she said softly, her hand shifting to cover a tiny foot kicking free of the cotton bundle. "I left New York in my sixth month so that no one would find out. I wanted you to be the first to know."
He had moved deeper into the room, drawn to the sight of woman and child, trying like hell to focus on them and what they meant for him. To him. But his brain was scrambling to catch up on nearly a year's worth of living in mere moments.
"What about your family?" Had he been playing games for Jack Doucet's team while the guy kept this news hidden from him? If so, it was going to blow the Doucet-Reynaud feud wide-open again, because Jean-Pierre could not deal with that kind of duplicity. Lowering himself to the chair across from her, he sat with his back to the view of Central Park at night, his eyes on the only thing that mattered. He needed Tatiana to keep talking. To explain why he had no knowledge of this development in their lives.
"They only know I took an extended vacation. I couldn't tell them before I told you."
The tone she used suggested that was the only sensible approach, when in fact, none of this made sense to him. Who kept this kind of news from their family? Jean-Pierre might not be as close to his brothers as he once was, but damn straight they wouldn't keep something like this from each other. He'd told her how much a secret like this had hurt his own family-had hurt his half brother. "I think I'm going to need you to spell this out for me more thoroughly."
"I had so many things to organize," she continued. "I needed a good midwife. And at first I requested a leave from my job. But then I realized I needed to change my role with the law practice so that I'd be doing legal research and writing briefs instead of taking cases to trial." Her eyes were bright and worried as they flashed up to his.
At least she seemed to understand how thin her reasons sounded. But then, she'd always placed a higher priority on appearances than him. The framed photos on the walls around her sure never showed a single misstep in her perfect life. He wouldn't be surprised if the pregnancy had thrown her into a panic trying to find a way to tell her parents.
"Where did you go when you left New York?" He knew he needed to process this fast. To move past the shock of what she was telling him and start being a support to her and this new reality. But the truth of the situation was like waves at high tide, thrashing him over and over.
She'd had months to come to terms with this. He had minutes. And he didn't dare make a mistake.
"The Caribbean. Saint Thomas has a good hospital in case I needed one. I rented a villa on the beach." Her voice wavered. "I was trying to be discreet. To keep this out of the press and away from the old family drama until I spoke to you and we could figure out how to handle the future. But just when I had everything set and was ready to call you, I went into labor three weeks early."
Now that knocked the wind out of his rising anger.
"Is he okay? Are you?" A stab of fear jabbed Jean-Pierre hard, outweighing every other emotion. His brother's wife, Fiona, had lost a baby. He understood the danger.