Sweet Trouble. Susan Mallery

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СКАЧАТЬ her and walked into his study. After shutting the door, he crossed to his desk, where he sat down. He spread the pictures out and studied them one by one.

      Electra pounded on the door, but didn’t open it. He heard something about her threatening to leave. He didn’t bother to respond.

      He had a son. He’d had one for more than four years and he’d never known. Technically Jesse had tried to tell him the kid was his before she’d left Seattle, but she’d known he wouldn’t believe her. Not after what had happened. She’d done this on purpose.

      He reached for his phone and dialed a number from memory. “Heath, it’s Matt. Do you have a minute?”

      “Of course. We’re heading out on the boat, but I have time. What’s up?”

      “I have a problem.”

      He quickly explained that an old girlfriend had shown up unexpectedly with a four-year-old she claimed was his.

      “The first thing we’ll need to do is establish paternity,” his lawyer told him. “What are the odds you’ll come back as the father?”

      “He’s mine.” Matt stared at the pictures, hating Jesse more by the minute. How could she have kept this from him?

      “So what do you want to do?” Heath asked.

      “Hurt her in every way possible.”

      CHAPTER TWO

       Five years ago …

      JESSE SIPPED HER LATTE as she read the want ads in the Seattle Times. Technically she wasn’t looking for a job. She wasn’t qualified for anything she wanted to do and nothing she was qualified for was better than her crummy shift at the bakery. So what was the point in changing?

      “Someone needs to work on her attitude,” she murmured to herself, knowing feeling like a failure wasn’t going to help her situation. Nor was feeling trapped. But both seemed to loom large in her life.

      It was her most recent fight with Nicole, she thought, even though fights with her sister were nothing new. Maybe it was her entire lack of direction. She was twenty-two. Shouldn’t she have goals? Plans? As it was, she just sort of drifted through her days, as if waiting for something to happen. If she’d stayed in college, she would have graduated by now. Instead, she’d lasted two weeks before dropping out.

      She folded the paper, straightened in her seat and tried to inspire herself to some kind of action. She couldn’t keep drifting. It wasn’t healthy and it made her crabby.

      She sipped on her latte and considered possibilities. Before she could decide on one, a guy walked into the Starbucks.

      Jesse was a semi-regular and knew she hadn’t seen him before. He was tall and could have been kind of cute, but everything about him was off. The haircut was a disaster, his thick glasses screamed computer nerd. His short-sleeved plaid shirt was too big and—she nearly choked on her coffee—he had an honest-to-God pocket protector. Worse, his jeans were too short and he was wearing geeky tennis shoes with white socks. Poor guy—he looked like he’d been dressed by a mother who didn’t like him very much.

      She was about to return to her paper when she saw him square his shoulders in a gesture that spoke of determination. Ordering coffee wasn’t that hard.

      She turned in her seat and saw two women at a table against the far wall. They were young and beautiful—the kind of women who looked like models and probably dated rock stars. He couldn’t, she thought frantically. Not them. They weren’t just out of his league, they were on another plane of reality.

      She’d never lived through the phrase “train wreck” before, but she did now. He walked toward them, his hands twitching slightly. His gaze seemed to zero in on the brunette on the left. Jesse knew it was going to be a catastrophe. She should probably leave and let him crash in private. But she couldn’t seem to get up and walk away, so she slumped down in her seat and braced herself for disaster.

      “Uh, Angie? Hi. I’m, um, ah, Matthew. Matt. I saw you last week at the photo shoot on campus. I kinda ran into you.”

      His voice was low and had the potential to be sexy, Jesse thought. If only he weren’t mumbling. He sounded so tentative.

      Angie looked at him politely as he spoke but her friend grimaced in annoyance.

      “At Microsoft, you mean?” Angie asked. “That was fun.”

      “You were beautiful,” Matt muttered, “in the light and stuff and I was wondering if maybe you’d like to get coffee or something and it doesn’t have to be coffee even because we could, ah, go for a walk or ah, I don’t know—”

      Breathe! Jesse willed him to pause and break his conversation into sentences. Amazingly enough, Angie actually smiled. Could the geek possibly get the girl?

      But Matt didn’t notice because he kept on talking.

      “Or do something else. If you have a hobby or you know, something with a pet, a dog, I guess, because I like dogs. Did you know that there are more cats as pets than dogs, which doesn’t make sense because who likes cats, right? I’m allergic and they don’t do anything but shed.”

      Jesse winced as Angie’s expression hardened and her friend’s face began to crumple.

      “What’s wrong with you?” Angie asked, standing and glaring at poor, quivering Matt. “My friend had to put her cat to sleep yesterday. How could you say something like that? I think you should leave us alone. Now!”

      Matt stared at her, wide-eyed and totally confused. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he walked out of the Starbucks.

      Jesse watched him go. He’d been close to getting the girl, she thought sadly. If he hadn’t gone on about cats. Not that it was really his fault. What were the odds?

      She looked out the front window and saw him standing just outside the door. He looked stunned, as if he didn’t know what had gone wrong. Points to Angie—she’d been willing to look past the sad exterior to the guy within. If only he’d stopped talking sooner. And dressed better. Basically, the guy needed a major overhaul.

      As she watched, he slowly shook his head as if accepting defeat. She knew what he was thinking—that his life would never be different, that he would never get the girl. He was trapped—just like her. Only his problem was more easily solved.

      Without having any idea what she was doing, Jesse jumped up, tossed her empty coffee container in the trash and went outside. She could see Matt walking up the street.

      “Wait,” she called.

      He didn’t turn around. Probably because it never occurred to him that she was talking to him.

      “Matt, wait.”

      He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, then frowned. She hurried toward him.

      “Hi,” she said, still without a plan. “How are you?”

      “Do I know you?”

      “Not really. СКАЧАТЬ