His Baby Deal
The Diamond Club Series
By Elizabeth Lennox
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Copyright 2018
ISBN13: 9781950451029
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any duplication of this material, either electronic or any other format, either currently in use or a future invention, is strictly prohibited, unless you have the direct consent of the author.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Excerpt from “Forbidden Lover” – Carly’s Story
Chapter 1
Something was wrong.
It wasn’t so much a gesture that told Jayce that his beautiful neighbor was upset about something. It was more just…a feeling or perhaps her body language. Maybe it was the way she held the wine glass up to the sunlight? Perhaps it was because the glass was filled almost to the rim. Or maybe it was the tension in her shoulders or the odd way she held the glass tonight. Nothing overt. Just…slightly off.
For a moment, Jayce Cole watched her, drinking in the sight of her dark brown hair and smooth, tempting skin.
But just for a moment. If something was wrong, he wanted to know what it was. He moved through his house, although he continued to watch her. Whipping his tie off and tossing it, along with his jacket, over one of the chairs, he grabbed a beer from the fridge and pulled open the back door, stepping out on to the stone steps of his patio.
His house was about the same size as the one his brother Oz had built and was now busy furnishing with his sweet wife, Charlotte. But Oz preferred the isolation of the woods. Jayce wanted to be near the water and he loved this old Victorian. He loved the traditional lines as well as the connection to the past.
Jayce was slowly restoring the old house to its former glory. Room by room, he sanded, painted, and repaired. Everything good that had happened to him in his life had happened on the water, so when it had come time to settle down, he’d found this old Victorian on the lake and decided on restoration instead of building something new.
Hell, since leaving the Navy and his SEAL team a few years ago and starting up The Solutions Group with his older brother, Oz, and best friend, Riker Thune, he could afford just about anything he wanted. His bank account was embarrassingly large and growing. Even better, he was doing something that he believed in, helping others and doing things that the various governments around the globe couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accomplish. As long as the mission was legal, moral, and ethical. He was good at his job and he loved the danger, the excitement of it all.
But he also loved coming home to this. Jessa was a beautiful brunette with mile-long legs and a smile that could light up the sky better than the sun. She was also a brilliant mystery writer with an incredible imagination. He’d read every one of her books, thoroughly enjoying the sex scenes in particular. And the plots! But yeah, those sex scenes had given even him some fabulous ideas! There were things in those books that he hadn’t even tried, and he’d thought that he’d done it all.
Looking at Jessa, he wouldn’t have thought that she was that creative in the bedroom. His initial impression of her had been that she was shy, introverted, and quiet. It had taken several months to get her to just speak to him. But now, whenever he was home, they would sit out on the stone patios of one of their houses, or on the dock on the edge of the lake, and talk well into the night.
Moving down the steps of his stone patio, that feeling of unease, the sensation that something was wrong with Jessa’s world, intensified.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded as he walked through the grass, moving closer to her. He’d built this deck specifically for nights like this, wanting a place to come home to, a retreat. A place to sit down and relax in between missions or after work. He loved his sister Carly, but she was a demanding manager, organizing everyone on the staff, and ordering him around. He’d fought her initially, but slowly, he’d learned that she was usually right. She was extremely good at her job, knowing what needed to happen before anyone else did. She was the anchor that kept him and his brother centered. They hadn’t known about each other growing up, their bastard of a father had spread his seed wide and far, then beaten whatever child had been so unfortunate to live with him. Oz had been the man’s first victim, but Oz had grown up and, by the time he was fifteen, he’d gotten out. Fortunately, Oz had gotten one good punch in before leaving that night.
Several years later, Oz had learned that another woman had given birth to the man’s offspring. The woman had passed away from cancer and social workers had dumped five year old Carly into the monster’s household. If it weren’t for Oz learning of their half-sister, then swooping in to rescue her, she would probably be dead by now.
It was a freakish occurrence that Jayce knew about either of them. He’d been a Navy SEAL on a mission in Malaysia. Oz had been a member of the Army’s elite Delta Force team, there to rescue Ryker Thune, another Delta Force member, from a rebel prison. Jayce and Oz had started talking, realized there were too many similarities in their past and their facial features, then discovered they were half-brothers. They’d been best friends ever since.
The four of them, Oz, Jayce, Ryker, and Carly, had built up The Solutions Group, a black ops organization that specialized in getting the tough jobs done neatly and quietly, completely under the radar. They’d also branched into personal security, training, and hostage resolution, which was a nice way of saying The Solutions Group would find the hostages and rescue them, especially in situations in which the victims’ government or a foreign government…or a corporation…couldn’t resolve the situation through normal channels. Everyone employed by The Solutions Group had special skills that couldn’t easily be put onto a regular resume.
But that world was far away at the moment. When he was there, working in the corporate office, he was a boss, a manager, and a trainer. He trained and worked with the teams, ensuring that they were ready for whatever might be asked of them. And if the asking wasn’t up to the standards of The Solution Group, they passed. Ryker, Jayce and Oz were firm that they weren’t unethical mercenaries that could be hired to do anything anywhere. Nope! After getting out of their military positions, they now had the freedom to pick and choose their missions.
Right now, he was less concerned with world affairs and more focused on what was worrying his lovely neighbor.
Sitting down in the plush patio chair, he watched and waited. Yep, Jessa was upset. He could see it in the pressure of her lips. And she wasn’t smiling. Normally when he joined her out here, she smiled up at him. They were friends. Good friends. If he sometimes wondered what it would be like to peel away her clothes and discover what made her gasp with pleasure, well, that was just an aberration.
An aberration that see
med to be happening more and more often lately, he thought, then pushed that issue out of his mind. Jessa was upset about something and he didn’t like that. In his world, he fixed things. That was his job and he was damn good at it. So whatever was wrong in Jessa’s world, he’d fix it. Period.
“Jessa?” he prompted when she continued to stare blankly into the wine glass.
When she lifted her eyes, his gut clenched at the pain he saw there. “He was cheating on me.”
“Brian?” he confirmed, referring to the ass that Jessa had been dating for the past six months. He’d never met the guy, but from what Jessa had told him, Jayce hadn’t liked him. Jayce ignored the fact that he probably wouldn’t like any guy who got to touch Jessa’s beautiful, soft skin. But that was an issue for another day, he reminded himself.
“Yep. He got sick of me waiting to be sure about starting a physical relationship and…” she shrugged, “started having sex with someone else.”
Jayce absorbed that information, coming up with ten different ways to make the ass disappear forever. No one would know, he thought. He was that good.
“How did you find out?” He didn’t bother to ask if she was sure. Jessa was sweet and smart and not a fool. If she said the ass was cheating, then she knew that for sure.
“I called his office and was told that he was out sick for the day. So I made some soup and brought it over to him.” She looked over at Jayce, her lips twisted with self-derision. “We’d been fighting a lot lately.”
“You mentioned that.”
She sighed and lowered the glass of wine, staring out into the deepening darkness. “So I went over to his house, wanting to do something nice for him.”
Something tightened in his shoulders as he waited.
“I have the key to his house, but I didn’t need it. The door was already partially open. I walked in, calling his name. But I only heard moaning coming from the bedroom.” She chuckled, shaking her head. “I walked into his room, worried he was really sick and that I might need to call an ambulance.” She turned and looked at him. “Imagine my surprise when I found him bent over a blond bimbo.”
Immediately, Jayce thought up a few ways to get rid of the guy, but these methods were a bit more painful. They would take longer too.
“What did you do?” he asked. Knowing Jessa the way he did, he was positive that she hadn’t simply walked away with her tail between her legs. He liked her tail, a lot, and it was always proud and perfect! Never tucked away.
The slow smile that formed eased some of the tension in his shoulders. “I ‘accidentally’ spilled the chicken soup all over his bed and his carpet.”
Jayce threw back his head and laughed. “Perfect!”
She laughed a bit as well. “I thought so.”
“I hope you had a lot of vegetables in the soup.”
She grinned. “Well, I’m a very good cook. And yes, I put a lot of vegetables in the soup but, because I thought he was sick, I amped up the broth as well.”
“So you soaked his mattress, huh?” he finished with another chuckle. “Good thinking.”
“I thought it was rather ingenious under the circumstances.” She sighed and looked out across the water. “Unfortunately, I don’t think they knew I was there. They were pretty into the moment. And it took them a few minutes to figure out what had happened. By then, I was already out of the house. All I heard was a muttered, ‘What in the world?!’ and I was gone.”
“Even more impressive,” he praised.
Another sigh, her laughter gone. “Yeah. Well…”
“What are you really upset about?” he asked, sensing there was a whole lot more to this story than her boyfriend cheating on her, which, granted, was bad enough. But there was more. He could feel it in the tension surrounding her.
She smiled slightly as she looked at him. The sun had sunk behind the tree line now, so it was almost completely dark. But he’d looked at her features often enough to have them memorized. Perhaps he even watched them in his dreams. When she was…uh…doing things that friends shouldn’t be doing to each other.
“I want a baby!” she announced with an urgency that startled him.
In that instant, memories of his dreams evaporated and he stiffened with horror. “A baby?”
She laughed and patted his shoulder. He liked the touch, but not the conversation. Babies were good…for someone else! And not for Jessa! Hell, his brother Oz was about to be a father, his wife Charlotte was hugely pregnant and glowing. Those two were thrilled but…nope. Not for him!
“Why the hell do you want a baby?”
She didn’t bother to look at him when she explained, “Because I’m thirty years old and my biological clock is ticking away and getting louder by the day.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and took a long draw from his beer. “But…”
Another soft laugh. “Don’t worry, Jayce. You’re not daddy material. I’m not a threat to your bachelor lifestyle.”
Her reassurance was both comforting and insulting. For a long moment, he was silent. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop the question that popped into his mind. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be daddy material?” he asked sharply.
Finally, she pulled her gaze away from that damn glass of wine, shooting him a look as if the answer should be obvious. “Because I know you don’t want to have kids. And because we’re friends.” She grinned and shrugged one shoulder slightly. “But not that type of friends,” she clarified, looking out at the water.
That sounded even worse for some reason. “What type of friend am I then?”
Once again, he felt her hand on his shoulder. He knew she was trying to soothe him, but the touch wasn’t soothing. Just the opposite, in fact.
“Jayce, you are a sweet, wonderful guy, and we are just friends.” There was a pause and he felt her eyes on him. “Right?” Another long pause.
He lifted his beer bottle, thinking about that, trying to figure out what was wrong with what she’d just said. “Right,” he finally agreed, but…it didn’t feel right.
They were friends. Why did it bother him that she’d so completely dismissed him from her list of solutions?
Jessa pulled her hand back and his shoulder felt cold. He wanted her hand back, touching him, warming him.
But Jessa was looking out over the water, her eyes a million miles away. “I’m just so sick of dating. The men in my past,” she groaned, letting her head fall back against the back of the chair as she looked up at the stars. “I have horrible judgement when it comes to men. They are either liars and cheats, or something is wrong with them. I’m like a stupid-man magnet.” She lifted her head to look at him. “How am I supposed to have a baby when I can’t even find a guy I want to have sex with?”
He’d heard a lot about her dates. Every night after one of her dates, she’d come here to their place and she’d tell him all about the evening. They’d laugh and talk and she’d sip wine and sigh about how she wanted a man who stirred something inside of her other than amusement. Brian had been the only man she’d dated more than once over the past year. “You didn’t want to have sex with Brian?”
She groaned. “No. Now that he’s out of my life, I can admit that. He was nice enough.” She thought about that for a moment. “Correction. Now that I know he was cheating on me, he wasn’t nice enough. He was just a jerk who wanted to get laid. I can see that now.”
“Hindsight.”
“Exactly.” She took a sip of her wine. “I need to find a guy who is strong and steady.”
Jayce grunted, thinking that he was strong enough, but physical strength probably wasn’t what she meant. “Sounds boring.”
She laughed. “Not boring. It means I want someone who likes me for who I am, quirks and all. Someone who is good to talk with, that I can have great conversations with.”
Jayce thought of himself. But the shock of that thought was so surprising that he shifted in his chair.
Jenna continued on as if she hadn’t noticed
his discomfort. “Someone who is employed would be nice,” she added. “And a guy I can depend on in a crisis.”
“You’ve dated men who were unemployed?” he asked, surprised. Why the hell would Jessa, beautiful, brilliant, and wonderful Jessa date an ass who couldn’t even find work?!
Another laugh. “Oh yeah. I’ve had a pathetic dating life.” They sat there for a long moment.
“I’m going to go to a sperm bank,” she announced.
Jayce had just taken a sip of beer but, with her words, he spewed it all over the stone patio in front of him. When he’d recovered enough, he glanced at her, still not sure he’d heard her correctly. “I’m sorry, but…what the hell did you just say?”
She patted his back and he wanted to pull her hand around so that she was touching his chest instead of his back.
“I want to have a baby. It just occurred to me that I don’t need a man to make that happen.” Jessa beamed, a stunned and increasingly happy look coming over her lovely features. “I can just get it done in the nice, clean environment of a sperm bank.” The longer she talked, the stronger her voice became. It was almost as if she were working this issue through in her mind and it was making more sense to her as she thought about it. “Yeah, from what I’ve heard, I can even pick out the characteristics of the father.”
Huh? “What?”
She sat back, and he watched with increasing frustration as she wiggled her cute butt, settling into the chair. Damn it, she was really getting into this idea!
“Yeah! I can choose sperm donated by someone tall and interesting, smart and from whatever career I like.”
Was she serious? From the excited glow in her pretty, brown eyes, she was! Damn it!
“What do you want the father to look like?” he asked.
“Tall. Dark haired. Strong. Capable.” He noticed her head tilt slightly, but couldn’t see her eyes now that the sun had set. “He has to be educated. He has to be intelligent and capable. Someone with integrity, but I’m not exactly sure how to determine that from a description on a piece of paper.”
His Baby Deal (The Diamond Club Book 6) Page 1