Secret Baby Scandal. Joanne Rock

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СКАЧАТЬ generous of you.” He downshifted as traffic slowed in a sea of brake lights. “And probably accurate given our stats in backyard games. But back to the interview. I not only told the reporter you were joking, I also assured him you were going to be my guest for the bye week and that you couldn’t wait to return to Louisiana for a visit.”

      He said it so tonelessly that she hoped she’d misheard. Surely he wouldn’t have done that. He didn’t even like her anymore. He’d made sure she knew as much when he’d walked out of her home the last time.

      “No. You. Didn’t.” The words were a soft scrape of air, her voice vanishing as they entered the tunnel, the regular intervals of fluorescent light flashing through the car and making her dizzy.

      “Oh, yes, I most certainly did. What would you have suggested I say, Tatiana?” His grip on the wheel tightened for a moment before he loosened his hold again. He removed one hand from the wheel altogether and flexed his knuckles, as if forcing himself to relax. Or maybe he was nursing an injury.

      And, oh, God, how could he have just told the whole world they were going to be spending a week together?

      “I just—” She swallowed hard. Tried to channel her inner lawyer and come up with a quietly reasoned argument. But all the arguments that came to mind were conversational dynamite. “That can’t happen,” she said lamely.

      “And yet, we’ll have to make a good show of it since your comment could cause the kind of media uproar that steals focus away from a team. I can’t afford that distraction right now.” He lifted a hand to his tie and loosened the knot, looking for all the world like a dissolute playboy with his unshaven jaw in his sexy car.

      But looks were deceiving, and nothing about this man was dissolute or inclined to play. It didn’t matter that his weekly contests were labeled “games,” Jean-Pierre Reynaud was one of the most serious and hardworking men she’d ever met. He was relentless in achieving what he wanted, in fact. So she understood immediately that he wouldn’t back down on the good show for the media now that he’d promised it.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ