“Fine.” Julia swiped the sexy camisole off the chair cushion and grabbed her high heels from under the dining room table. Then she headed into the kitchen and began gathering the baby bottles on the sink.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’ve got to pack our things.”
“Wait.” Cameron grabbed hold of her arm before she could go any farther. “No packing. You’re staying here.”
She looked up at him. “We can’t stay here, Cameron. You’re here.”
“Exactly,” he said decisively. “That’s why you’re staying here, too.”
She gave him that big-eyed incredulous look of hers again. Why he found it so sexy, he couldn’t say. Maybe he enjoyed the challenge she provided.
Shaking her head, she said, “If you think something’s going to happen between us, you’re wrong.”
“Honey,” he drawled. “I think we proved awhile ago that it definitely could happen.”
“Now, look-”
“You’re right, though,” he continued. “It’s not going to happen tonight.” With a casualness he didn’t feel, he let go of her arm and walked into the living room. “But you’re still staying here.”
“Okay,” she said, following him. “I’d rather not disrupt the baby tonight anyway. We’ll move to another room in the morning.”
An irrational shot of annoyance ran through him and he covered it by grabbing another beer from the refrigerator and popping the top off. “You don’t get it, babe. You’re staying here until the paternity test is completed. In fact, you might as well stay through the conference. There won’t be any rooms available anyway.”
She gritted her teeth. “I gave my room away when your mother insisted I stay here. I don’t suppose it’d still be available.”
“It’s not, trust me,” he said. “Besides your conference, we’ve got a golf tournament here this weekend.”
She flashed him a frown of frustration. “But you own this place. You should be able to find another room for me and Jake.”
“I could, but I’m not going to,” he said flatly, then pointed toward the back bedroom. “If that is my son in there, I don’t want him staying anywhere but here. With me. And we’ll know the truth soon enough, won’t we?”
“I think that went well,” Julia muttered to herself as she slipped between the sheets of the twin bed in the guest room. Jake was sleeping soundly, completely unaware of the drama going on around him. She was gratified to hear his innocent baby snores and wished more than anything that he would never have to be touched by unhappiness of any kind. She knew she couldn’t shield him forever, but for now, he didn’t need to know that his mommy and daddy were in such an emotional twist over him.
She tried to concentrate on her son, tried to picture his soft little hands waving in the air and hear his funny belly laugh, but visions of Cameron kept interfering. She winced as she remembered how easily she’d melted in his arms. How could he still wield that kind of power over her? She’d known that one day she would have to confront him with the reality of Jake, and she’d steeled herself for that moment. But he’d caught her unprepared. Now he knew how susceptible she was to his charms. He knew he could wiggle his finger and she would come running.
It was humiliating to know that he was right.
In a matter of hours, she would have to tangle with him once more. Would she come running to him again? Or would she be able to withstand his immense allure? It was almost as if he’d put a spell on her.
Yawning, she fluffed her pillow and tried to settle her active mind by breathing deeply for a count of ten. She knew she would need all the sleep she could get if she expected to put up a good fight tomorrow.
Cameron stretched, then tried to turn over onto his back-and landed on the floor.
“What the-?” he grumbled. Where the hell was he?
His brain slowly engaged and he groaned as he remembered exactly where he’d slept last night. Moving slowly, he pulled himself up off the living room floor, then sat on the couch with his elbows resting on his knees.
After Julia had gone off to bed, he’d finished his beer and tried to watch the football game, but it had lost its appeal. So he went to bed where he tossed and turned, unable to sleep with the knowledge that Julia was sleeping in the room just across the hall. He wanted her in bed with him. Wanted her lush body pressed against his. Wanted to bury himself in her silken warmth.
But you can’t always get what you want, he thought. Not right away, anyway. He was a patient man and he would have her in his bed soon enough.
Last evening, though, that thought had not been conducive to a good night’s sleep. So Cameron had come out to the living room couch, thinking he’d zone out on late-night television. He finally fell asleep and now he regretted it as he stood and tried to stretch out his spine. Damn, his couch looked spacious and luxurious, but spending the night on it had been a tactical error. His back was whimpering like a whiny schoolgirl. He stood and stretched and tried to remember when, exactly, had he turned into such an old man? He was barely into his thirties.
Determined to work out and get rid of the aches and pains, he slipped on a pair of gym shorts and sneakers, then left the suite for a brisk twenty-minute run around the resort grounds.
Forty-five minutes later, after a hot shower and two cups of coffee, he felt a whole lot better. A good thing, because he would need to be in peak condition to deal with the new occupants of his suite.
“Dada!”
Speaking of.
“Good morning,” Julia said as she carried Jake into the room. She had him in some kind of space-age kid carrier and without thinking, Cameron took it from her and placed carrier and baby up on the breakfast bar.
She was dressed in a sleek, navy pinstriped suit with a crisp white blouse and black heels. Her wavy blond hair was tamed back into a simple ponytail. And why he found that look so damn sexy, Cameron couldn’t figure out, but he knew he was on a slippery slope, watching her walk around the kitchen as she grabbed an apple for herself and warmed a bottle for the baby.
“Dada,” Jake whispered, gazing up at Cameron’s face.
“He says that a lot,” Cameron said, staring at the kid. He realized as he spoke that Jake’s repetition of the word dada didn’t bother him half as much as it had last night.
“It feels good on his tongue,” Julia explained, then blinked and quickly turned toward the coffeemaker.
Cameron laughed as she crisscrossed the kitchen, her cheeks blushed pink after realizing what she’d just said. Obviously, she hadn’t thought about the words before uttering them, and now he could think of a few things, too, that would feel good on his tongue.
“I’ve got a conference panel in forty minutes,” she said briskly, back to business after a few hurried sips of coffee. “I’ve arranged for a babysitter to watch Jake for the day, and she should be here any minute. But if you’d rather not have anyone in the suite while you’re here, I’ll understand. I can check with the concierge for another place to-”
“It’s fine if the babysitter stays here.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Good. Thanks.”
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“Wonderful, thank you,” she said, and rinsed her coffee mug. “You?”
“Like a rock,” he lied.
“That’s great.”
Well, this was awkward. He leaned against the bar, watching as Julia put the mug in the dishwasher. Then he glanced over at Jake, whose eyes were closed. He was already sleeping peacefully, Cameron realized. Must be nice.
The doorbell rang and Jake’s eyes flew open. His mouth quivered in a pout, and Cameron realized he was about to cry.
“Hey, kiddo, it’s okay,” he said softly, and stroked his tummy. “Shh. Don’t worry. Doorbells scare me, too.”
Jake stared up at Cameron as though his words were written on stone tablets. A wave of something powerful swept through him and he felt as if he just might be the most important person in
the world in that moment.
“That must be the sitter,” Julia said, her voice a little hoarse. “I’ll go let her in.”
Ten minutes later, the babysitter and Jake were ensconced in the back bedroom, and Julia was ready to leave. She had her purse strapped over her shoulder and she carried a soft leather briefcase. She looked like a lawyer instead of the best pastry chef on the Central Coast. Cameron walked her to the front door and opened it.
“I showed her where everything is and gave her my card in case she needs to call me,” Julia said nervously. “I won’t turn off my phone.”
“Everything will be okay,” he said, and leaned against the door jamb, blocking her way out. “Look, we haven’t talked about the paternity test yet.”
“Oh,” she said. With a frown, she dropped her briefcase and folded her arms across her chest. “I was hoping you’d changed your mind about that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t think I’m handing you a child support check until I’ve verified that Jake is my son, do you?”
“I don’t need child support, Cameron,” she said testily. “You can keep your money.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
Her lips thinned in anger. “First of all, it’s Jake’s comfort I’m concerned about. Do you have any idea how many immunizations he’s been through in his short nine months? I’ve lost track of the number of needles he’s had to suffer through. But don’t worry, you’ll have your damned paternity test. Second of all-”
“Look, Julia, I-”
She held up her hand. “Just let me finish before you say anything else you’ll regret later about the money thing. Do yourself a favor, go online on Google and look up the Parrish Trust. When I get back, we’ll talk about money.”
“Fine.” He realized he’d pushed her a little too far, but where did she get off thinking he’d just accept her word on everything?
She picked up her briefcase and started to walk out, but stopped again and glared at him. “And as long as you’ve got your computer fired up, you might want to take a look at those emails I sent you a while back. They just might paint a different picture than what you think is going on here.”
“Julia, I’m not-”
“And while you’re at it,” she said, pulling a flowery scrapbook from her briefcase, “I brought this to show some friends, but you might want to take a look at it first.”
He stared at the thick journal, then began to thumb through it casually. There were photographs of the baby affixed to the pages, along with handwritten passages describing the pictures. Frowning, he gazed at her.
“And one more thing,” she continued before he could say anything. “You caught me in a weak moment last night, but it won’t happen again. We’re willing to stay here with you for the next ten days, but there’s no way I’m having sex with you. That’s a deal-breaker.”
With that, she left the suite in a huff.
Three
T hat’s a deal-breaker.
Sex? A deal-breaker? Not in this universe, Cameron thought. He could recall Julia melting in his arms last night and knew it was only a matter of time until he had her in his bed.
After she left for the conference, Cameron pulled his computer out of the second bedroom and set everything up in the dining room. That way, he wouldn’t disturb Jake when it was nap time later.
Cameron couldn’t get Julia’s irate words out of his head so, with great reluctance, he finally did as she suggested and went online to research her family business.
Now, he sat back in his desk chair and stared at the computer screen. A thousand different thoughts ran through his mind, but the first thing he did was pick up the phone and call his company’s tech department.
After putting in a request that they immediately recover the emails from Julia he’d deleted more than eighteen months ago, Cameron hung up the phone and went back to gazing at the online information he’d pulled up on Julia Parrish and her family.
It was disturbing to read that Julia’s parents had died in a small plane crash when she was ten years old. There were pages and pages devoted to her parents’ philanthropy, but almost nothing on young Julia Parrish until she opened her popular bakery shop in Old Town Dunsmuir Bay four years ago.
Did she have other family in the area? Who had been responsible for raising her? Cameron found more questions than answers and knew they would have to talk about these and other issues tonight.
Aside from the news of her parents’ death, the most shocking fact about Julia Parrish was that the woman was almost as wealthy as Cameron was. So why was she slaving away making cupcakes for other people?
It turned out that the Parrish Trust was one of the biggest and most influential charitable organizations in the state. The trust funded or underwrote everything from children’s television to scientific research to humanitarian efforts on behalf of children everywhere. Cameron had heard of the Parrish Trust, of course. Who hadn’t? But he’d never connected the dots from the trust to Julia, never had any reason to. Now, though, he had a reason.
No wonder Julia didn’t care about Cameron’s money. No wonder she’d given up on trying to contact him. She didn’t need Cameron Duke’s support. The mother of his son was worth millions.
He didn’t know how he felt about that. He supposed it wasn’t a bad thing that little Jake would never want for anything in his life. In fact, that was definitely a good thing. But Cameron wanted to be the one to provide those things for his son. And he would. As soon as Julia got back to the suite, they would talk. He would tell her she didn’t have to worry anymore about being the sole provider. Cameron was ready and willing to step in and take care of things from now on.
“Oh, that’ll fly like a lead balloon,” he uttered, then shrugged. Didn’t matter what she thought. Cameron was Jake’s father and he would be responsible for him. Besides, why shouldn’t Julia take a break and let Cameron shoulder some of the burden for a while? It’s not like he was forcing her into a marriage. God forbid. Neither of them wanted that.
Although, now that he thought about it, a marriage between Cameron and Julia would be the best thing for Jake.
“But that’s never going to happen.” He shoved his chair back from the table. If Cameron didn’t do relationships, he sure as hell wouldn’t ever do marriage. And that was okay. Jake would thrive with two parents who cared about him. They didn’t need to be living together in order for the kid to have a good life.
Cameron hadn’t exactly grown up with great role models. Quite the contrary, his dad had been a lousy excuse for a parent and a miserable marriage partner to his mom. Cameron had always said that if his parents were what marriage was all about, he wasn’t interested.
And if his unhappy parents weren’t enough of a reminder that marriage was out of the question for him, there was also the sacred pact he’d made with his brothers. He would never break that pact, ever.
Cameron could still picture the day, shortly after his eighth birthday, when he arrived at Sally Duke’s big house on the cliffs of Dunsmuir Bay. At first, it was unsettling to learn that Sally had rescued two other boys from foster care along with Cameron, and that she expected all of them to become a family.
Those early weeks he spent getting to know Adam and Brandon were bumpy, to say the least. A pecking order needed to be established, so the three boys fought for supremacy over everything: toys, food, television shows, Sally’s attention. They bickered and clashed just like eight-year-old boys were supposed to. At the same time, they worried that Sally might dump them back on the state coffers. It wouldn’t be the first time for any of them. But they didn’t know Sally Duke.
One day when she’d heard enough arguing, Sally banished the boys to the custom-designed tree house she’d had built for them. She told them they could come down when they’d learned to behave like friends and brothers.
Cameron, Adam and Brandon spent hours in that tree house, and eventually their worst secrets were unraveled and shared. Bra
ndon’s drug-addict mom ran off and his dad used to beat him until the man was killed in a bar fight. Adam’s parents abandoned him when he was barely two years old. He was raised in an orphanage before being thrown into the foster care system.
Cameron finally confessed that his own father was a violent man and his mother bore the brunt of it. Not that she was all that loving, given her appetite for alcohol and drugs. Cameron knew she had lied and stolen and worse to support her habit, but he blamed his father for turning her into an addict. He still had nightmares of his mother screaming from the beatings his father inflicted. Even worse, Cameron could never forget hearing his old man hit his mom while yelling that he was doing it because he loved her. And he would never forget waking up and finding them both dead. He was seven years old.
When Adam and Brandon heard that Cameron’s dad thought he was showing love by beating the crap out of his mother, they both were disgusted. That led to the pact.
First, the three eight-year-olds swore loyalty to each other. Next, they made a sacred vow that they would never get married and have kids, because it was clear that marriage turned people mean and stupid. Married people hurt each other and their kids.
Finally, they vowed to make Sally Duke proud that she’d chosen them.
From that day forward, Sally let them know in a hundred different ways that they’d fulfilled their third vow-and then some. They’d all grown up to be honorable, successful men and she couldn’t be more proud. Of course, now Sally had come up with some cockamamie plan to marry the brothers off so they could give her a bunch of grandkids. And despite all of his diatribes, Cameron had just given her exactly what she wanted.
“Oh, man,” he said aloud. The realization had him rubbing his knuckles against his chin. “Wait’ll Mom gets a look at little Jake.” He chuckled in anticipation of the scene that awaited him when Sally heard the news.
Sweet Surrender, Baby Surprise Page 3