A ball of emotion lodged in her throat, and she dabbed at her mouth with her napkin to give herself a moment. “I appreciate that. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about too.” If she were to leave, she wanted to ensure she left things the best that she could for Bonnie. “What do you know about Rebecca’s parents?”
“From my own experience, they’re rude and have a sense of entitlement. Although,” he admitted, “they probably weren’t at their best given their daughter had just died. From the private investigator’s report, they seem like average people who have friends who think highly of them and others who are happy to speak badly. They’ve crossed people in business but also made allies. And the investigators couldn’t find anything dirty going on in their company.”
She wasn’t surprised he’d had a private investigator look into them, or that they’d come out relatively clean. She’d started to wonder if they were as bad as Rebecca had painted them. “What did Rebecca say about them?”
He buttered another chunk of bread. “She often made snarky comments about them, but the only specific thing I remember is that they’re cold and manipulative. She said that when she was growing up, they were emotionally distant.” He frowned. “Is there a reason you’re suddenly so interested in the Clancys?”
“I’ve been wondering,” Jenna said carefully, “if they were awful, why was she living with them?”
“That’s a good question.” He scraped a hand across the day’s growth on his chin. “I guess I hadn’t stopped to consider things from her point of view. In fact, she was apparently going to continue living with them when she left the hospital with Bonnie.”
“And,” she said, “more to the point, if they were such dreadful parents, why would she let them help raise her own daughter?”
* * *
Liam was struck by the comment. “You’re right—that doesn’t make sense.”
“Did she have money of her own?” Jenna asked, gently probing.
“She did.” He nodded, thinking back over Rebecca’s situation. “And a part-time job in fashion. I assume she was on maternity leave, but she was hardly destitute. With her contacts, she should have been able to get another job easily when she was ready.” Which meant there was no reason to believe she was with her parents for financial support.
“And she always had you as an option. Even if you parted on bad terms, surely coming to you for help with your own daughter was better than letting her cold, manipulative parents near her child, right?”
He wasn’t comfortable speaking ill of the dead, but Rebecca had always had a touch of the drama queen about her. Exaggeration wouldn’t be surprising. He’d assumed that part of her need for drama was because her parents had been the way they were, not the other way around.
He frowned. “Now that I think about it, it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that she exaggerated their faults.”
“And if she’s exaggerated about them to you, can you imagine what she’s said about you to them?”
He dropped his spoon to the table with a clatter as things finally made sense. “No wonder they’re determined not to let me have Bonnie. Rebecca could have said anything.”
He thought back over his first meeting with them in the hospital on the day of Rebecca’s death. They’d been angry and scared for their daughter and had probably been told he was something of a monster, so when they saw him with their newborn granddaughter, of course they’d reacted strongly. In their shoes, he’d be suing for custody too.
Jenna tapped a finger to her lips, bringing his attention back from the past to the woman sitting in front of him. The woman he burned to touch again despite everything that had happened. He picked up his spoon and took a mouthful of Katherine’s minestrone.
“You know,” Jenna said, her voice puzzled, “I get that she might have talked badly about you to her parents, but not telling you she was pregnant is more serious. That’s a passive-aggressive way of lashing out. Did your relationship end badly?”
Liam sighed. He’d been over and over this in his mind since he’d found out about Bonnie. “I didn’t think so. I’d made it clear from the start that I don’t do forever, that we’d never be serious. And she was okay with that. Said she preferred it that way.”
“So why did you break up?” she asked gently.
“Nothing dramatic.” He shrugged. “It just ran its natural course.”
Jenna took a last mouthful of soup, then pushed her bowl to the center of the table. “Whose decision was it?”
“Mine.” His chest hollowed out as he put two and two together. “I became uncomfortable when she wanted to spend her nights here. She started to push for more than I was willing to give.”
Jenna laced her fingers on the table in front of her, brow furrowed in concentration. “Would she have known she was pregnant then?”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. I’ve counted back and it must have happened just on the cusp of us breaking up. She was getting clingy, but it wasn’t because she was pregnant.”
“Liam,” she paused till he looked at her, “she fell in love with you.”
“It’s possible,” he said, his gut churning.
“And you broke things off. Broke her heart.” They were harsh words but not said unkindly. He knew Jenna was only trying to help, but it was still a brutal wake-up call. God, what had he done?
She’d loved him and he’d discarded her. He’d been a jerk. No, worse.
He groaned and sat back in his chair. “I never meant to hurt her.”
She gave him a sympathetic glance. “I know. But when she found out she was pregnant, she couldn’t bring herself to tell you. She punished you.”
“I still deserved to know,” he said fiercely.
She held up her hands, palms out. “No argument from me. But we’re discussing it now in a calm, rational manner. People make all sorts of bad decisions when they’re emotional. Especially a woman who’s pregnant with her first baby and panicking.”
Something in her tone made him suddenly alert. “Are we talking about Rebecca or you?”
“Rebecca. Me.” She rubbed her eyelids with her fingers. “I don’t know.”
Suddenly all the anger at her deception that had been bubbling away under the surface dissipated. This was harder for her than it was for him. “What are you going to do?”
She took in a shaky breath. “I shouldn’t have waited this long to go home. Seeing your parents with Bonnie has made me think about my parents missing out on Meg. And Alexander’s parents—they have a link to him that they don’t even know about.”
“The same link to Rebecca that her parents could have through Bonnie,” he said, finally understanding where she was coming from.
Jenna gave him a crooked smile. “Why don’t you hold out an olive branch to them? See if you can work out some arrangement?”
“They’re suing for custody,” he pointed out.
“If they thought they could be part of her life, and if they believed you were the best person to raise their granddaughter, perhaps they wouldn’t feel the need to carry on with that case.”
His father had often told him that if something sounded too good to be true, it usually was. It was a nice idea in theory, but reality was something else altogether. Too much water was under the bridge now. “I can’t see it working.”
“Isn’t it at least worth a try?” Her voice was optimistic and damn difficult to resist.
He blew out a long breath. Anything was worth it for Bonnie. “You’re probably right.”
“You’ll call them?” she asked, practically bouncing in her seat.
“I’ll call them,” he confirmed and just prayed this plan didn’t make things any worse than they already were.
Ten
It had been six days since she’d told Liam her secret. Six days since they’d made love. Six days since her world had changed.
Each night after he arrived home from work, she’d coached Liam through another aspect of Bonnie’s care, and last night he’d bathed his daughter. There wasn’t much left for her to teach him, which was bittersweet. On one hand, everything was just as it should be; on the other, her presence was becoming less necessary by the day.
She’d made a deal with herself that if Liam’s meeting this morning with Rebecca’s parents went well, she’d be free to go home to Larsland.
There would be no more excuses left if Bonnie’s entire family was intact and her father had all the skills to care for her. The last piece to fall into place would be to find another nanny, and if everything went smoothly with the Clancys, she’d talk to Liam about that today. She wanted this sorted out before the Midnight Lily launch event tomorrow night.
The doorbell rang and she heard Liam answer it—he’d asked Katherine to leave it for him. Jenna sat on the sofa in a long white summer dress holding Bonnie, who wore a bright pink dress and purple headband. Beside her was Meg in her best dress of tangerine and lime green checks, happily playing with her favorite plush dog toy.