by Heidi Betts
He had absolutely no reason to feel the least bit generous toward her, however. He could have stripped the guest room of every creature comfort and left her to wear the same clothes she’d arrived in for the entire stay, and she would have considered it fair punishment for her deceptions.
But he was a bigger man—a kinder, more considerate man—than she could have anticipated. She only wondered how long it would last once he had the confirmation that Henry really was his son. Would he shower her with roses or take back everything and send her packing?
Hitching Henry higher in her arms, she strolled down the carpeted hallway and wide set of stairs, taking a right on her way to the kitchen. It was early yet, with the sun just beginning to cast purplish light through the windows as she passed.
But Henry was an early riser, especially when he was hungry. So she’d get him some cereal and juice, and make sure he was happy before looking for Alex and finding out what was on the agenda for the day. Likely more nanny interviews and questions from his long list of continued demands.
Half an hour later, she was sitting in the breakfast nook with Henry in his baby seat, his face and bib covered in splots of sticky and drying cereal. Mrs. Sheppard bustled around the center island, readying items for the meal she was about to prepare while Henry kicked his feet and sent the plastic seat rocking on the tabletop with every bite.
Jessica couldn’t help grinning at her child’s antics. He was so darn cute when he was happy and his belly was full. He was also extra adorable in the little choo-choo train overalls Alex had provided. He probably hadn’t picked them out specifically, but whoever he’d put in charge of buying baby clothes had done an excellent job.
Raising a tightly closed fist into the air, Henry suddenly let out a squeal and jerked so hard, his seat scooted a good inch across the table. Jessica jumped, dropping the tiny Elmo spoon full of cereal and grabbing the seat before it could move any closer to the edge. Then she turned her head slightly to see what had gotten Henry so excited.
Alex stood only inches away, dressed in a charcoal suit and electric-blue tie that made his eyes pop like sapphires. He looked as though he’d just stepped off the pages of a men’s fashion magazine. Or was maybe on the way to a photo shoot for one.
“Jeez, you scared me,” she told him. Then she turned back to Henry, picking up the fallen spoon and wiping up the spilled cereal with a damp cloth she had nearby.
When he didn’t respond, and the awkward silence stretched from seconds into minutes, she craned her neck in his direction again. That’s when she noticed the hard glint in his narrowed eyes and the still line of his mouth.
She swallowed and took a breath. “What’s wrong?”
She’d never seen an expression like that on the face of anyone who wasn’t there either to chew her out or tell her somebody had died. And with Alex she was betting on getting chewed out. What was it this time? she wondered.
“We need to talk,” he told her simply, his voice sharp as a razor blade.
Uh-oh.
She looked back at Henry, her hand still on his carrier. His food-smeared smile was wide, his feet continuing to dance.
“Mrs. Sheppard,” Alex intoned. “Can you please watch the baby while I have a word with Jessica?”
The housekeeper didn’t seem thrilled with the prospect of babysitting duty, but dried her hands on a dish towel and crossed to the table, plucking the small plastic spoon from Jessica’s fingers. Taking that as a sign that she didn’t have much choice in the matter, Jessica relinquished the spoon and her seat, reluctantly following Alex from the kitchen.
Wordlessly, they walked to his office, where he waited for her to enter ahead of him, then shut the door behind them with a solid click of finality.
Much like the day before, she expected him to move behind his desk, and for both of them to sit down before he said whatever it was he had to say. Instead, he remained near the closed door, legs apart and arms crossing his chest in what could only be described as an aggressive stance.
“You’re a Taylor,” he blurted without preamble.
Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Excuse me?”
His eyes went to slits, a muscle ticking on one side of his jaw.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” he bit out. “Your name isn’t Jessica Madison. It’s Jessica Madison Taylor.”
Eleven
The blood drained from Jessica’s face. She felt it flush down her neck and through her body all the way to her toes, leaving her dizzy and light-headed.
Afraid she might actually faint, she took a step back, relieved when she bumped into one of the armchairs standing in front of his wide desk. She leaned her weight against it, reaching behind to dig her nails into the supple leather to help hold her upright and in place.
Licking her lips, she swallowed past the overwhelming drumbeat of her heart. Barely above a whisper, her voice grated out the only thought spiraling through her mind. “How did you find out?”
A flash of anger filled his expression. “DNA isn’t the only thing I had tested. A friend on the police force ran your fingerprints for me, and they came back as Jessica Madison Taylor. No criminal record, I’m pleased to say, but it turns out you aren’t at all who you claim to be. Your prints showed up as a former employee of both Mountain View and Bajoran Designs.”
Well, not Bajoran Designs so much as Taylor Fine Jewels, when it existed. Still, she didn’t know what to say. Shock that he’d found her out reverberated through every bone and nerve ending.
She certainly hadn’t expected to be called out quite so soon. She’d actually been hoping she could find a time and place and way to tell him on her own. Eventually, when she couldn’t keep it under wraps any longer.
“So what was your plan, exactly?” Alex asked, bitterness seeping into every syllable. “Seduce me for company secrets so you could sell them to the highest bidder? Or was the goal all along to get pregnant so you could blackmail me later with an heir?”
What little blood had worked its way back to her brain seeped out just as quickly. Her breath came in tiny, shallow gasps as her chest tightened and she swayed on her feet.
“What are you talking about?” she said, her jaw clenched. Partly because she was angry and partly because she was literally shaking. Her arms, her legs, her teeth. Every inch of her was quaking with the effort to hold back the maelstrom of emotions raging through her like a tidal wave. “I didn’t get pregnant on purpose. And I didn’t sell anything to anyone.”
Alex didn’t look as though he believed her.
“But I didn’t get lucky with just a single, uninhibited chambermaid, did I? You’re the daughter of Donald Taylor, granddaughter of Henry Taylor, both of whom used to be in partnership with Bajoran Designs. Aren’t you?”
A beat passed before she answered. “Yes.”
“And you just happened to be at the resort, cleaning my room.”
She raised a brow, her grip on the chair at her back loosening as she began to regain some of her equilibrium.
“Actually, yes.”
Doubt filled his stony features and was evident in his snort of derision.
“Call Mountain View. Give them my real name, and they’ll tell you I was employed there long before you checked in. And the suite where you stayed was part of my regular rounds.”
“Lucky for you that I landed there, then, wasn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t use the word lucky, no.”
The day Alex had checked in to the resort was the beginning of her life’s downward spiral. Except for Henry. He may have been unexpected, tossing her headfirst in a direction she wasn’t ready to travel, but he was also the single greatest gift she’d ever been given.
“It was the perfect opportunity for you to take part in a bit of corporate espionage, though, hmm?”
Her pulse skipped in her veins. Wasn’t that the exact term she’d used when Erin had first concocted her appalling plan? Of that, at least, she was guilty.
“I suppose yo
u could say that, yes,” she admitted. She wasn’t proud of it, but the jig was obviously up, and she didn’t intend to lie or deny any of it any longer.
“I recognized you the minute I saw you,” she told him. “My family was devastated when you cut them off from Bajoran Designs and drove them out of business. I was okay with it, believe it or not. I might have ended up as merely a hotel maid, but I was happy and making enough of an income to live on. Unfortunately, the rest of my family didn’t handle things quite as well.”
Taking a deep breath, she released the rest of her hold on the armchair and moved on stiff legs to perch at the very edge of its overstuffed cushion. She was no longer facing Alex, cowering beneath his withering glare, but she didn’t need to. His angry judgment filled the room like poison gas.
“When I mentioned to my cousin that you were staying at the resort, she convinced me to poke around your room. No excuses,” she put in quickly, putting up a hand to hold off whatever his next verbal assault might be. “It was a stupid idea and I was wrong to ever agree to it, but I did. She wanted me to look for something that would hurt you—or rather, hurt Bajoran Designs. Something that could be used against you or put Taylor Fine Jewels back in operation.”
“The design specs for the Princess Line,” he said, his voice sharp as tacks.
Her head snapped up. So he knew she’d taken them. She’d kind of hoped she wouldn’t have to confess that. But…
“Yes. I’m sorry about that.”
“You seduced me to get them, and then sold the proposed designs to our competition.”
The accusation struck her like a two-by-four. Her brows knit and she shook her head.
“No. No,” she insisted. “I took them, but I didn’t sell them. I never did anything with them.”
“But you don’t deny seducing me to get your hands on them,” he tossed back with heavy sarcasm.
Spine straight, she lifted her chin and held his icy gaze. “Of course I do. I’m not a prostitute. I don’t use my body to obtain information or anything else.”
In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought before forging ahead. “I slept with you because I wanted to, and for no other reason. I’m also pretty sure you seduced me, not the other way around.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” he muttered.
Stalking across the room, he rounded his desk and took a seat in front of the laptop set up there for his regular use. He tapped a few keys, waited a moment then turned the computer a hundred and eighty degrees so she could see the screen.
“Seduction aside, how do you explain this?” he asked.
She studied the images in front of her, growing colder by the second.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured.
Sliding forward, she looked even closer, narrowing her eyes, trying to figure out what was going on, how this had happened.
It had been months since she’d seen the original designs for the Princess Line, but she remembered them in acute detail. She’d even redesigned portions of them mentally and sketched changes in the margins of numerous pieces of paper that had passed through her hands since she’d taken them from his briefcase.
Nearly the exact designs from that folder were on the screen in front of her now, though, in rich, eye-popping color.
“What is this?” Swinging her gaze to Alex, she frowned. “Did Ignacio Jewelers buy the line concept from you? They needed work, but you shouldn’t have given them up. They were perfect for Bajoran Designs.”
His eyes turned to chips of blue glass, his fingers curling until the knuckles went white. “What kind of game are you playing, Jessica? I already know who you really are. I know what you were doing in my suite that night. You can stop with the lies.”
“I’m not lying about anything,” she said, growing more confused by the moment. “What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “You know damn well you stole those designs from my briefcase that night after we slept together and sold them to Ignacio. I assume as part of your plot for revenge. Though why the hell you would have it in for me or my family’s company, I’ll never know.”
Closing her eyes, Jessica shook her head and rubbed a spot near her temple where a headache was forming at record speed.
“No. This is…this is insane.”
Opening her eyes again, she met his gaze head-on. “I told you I made a mistake in taking those designs. But I never did anything with them. I tried to return them the very next day, but you were already gone. Do you really think that if I’d sold them, I would be here now? That line of jewelry was worth millions. Even with a baby to care for, I couldn’t have gone through that kind of money in under a year.”
“I don’t think you did,” Alex told her. “I think you decided that showing up with a baby and telling me he’s mine is all part of your plan to get even more money out of the Bajorans.”
Tears prickled behind Jessica’s lashes. “I’m sorry that I lied to you and betrayed your trust by taking those sketches,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even and unwavering. “But no matter what you think of me, Henry is your son. I’m here because of him, not because I want anything from you. And I don’t know what happened with that line,” she rushed to add. “I don’t know how Ignacio Jewelers got hold of it, but…I’ll find out. Or at least I’ll try.”
* * *
Alex watched the myriad emotions playing over Jessica’s delicate features. She looked truly distraught. Guilty and confused and hurt by his rapid-fire accusations.
It was no less than she deserved, of course, he thought to himself, clenching his jaw and refusing to be swayed by the moisture gathering in her eyes.
He wasn’t sure what angered him most—the fact that she’d stolen the plans for one of his company’s million-dollar ventures, or that she’d slept with him to get them.
That night might have been a one-night stand, but it sure as hell hadn’t been meaningless. Not to him. Now he felt like a first class fool for ever thinking there was more between them than simply sex.
Crossing his arms in an attempt to rein in his temper, he arched a brow. “How, exactly, do you intend to do that?”
He could see the wheels in her head turning, desperately searching for a solution, a way out of the fix she was in.
Finally, she took a deep breath, her expression filling with resolve. “I left the proposal with the rest of my things when I stored them at my parents’ house before leaving town. It should still be there.”
“And who’s to say you didn’t simply make a copy before selling it out from under me?”
“I—” She screeched to a halt, blinking in confusion. “Why would I do that? I’d have no reason to keep a copy once I sold it for millions and millions of dollars to keep me in the wonderful lifestyle to which I’ve become so accustomed.”
For having started out on a stammer, she ended with more than a fair note of snark. He had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing aloud at her spunk.
Not for the first time, he was impressed by her resilience. She was in trouble, here. With his power and money, he could squash her like a bug if he so desired. Yet she was standing in front of him with her chin out and her “dare me” attitude wrapped around her like a shawl.
It also got him thinking. She was challenging him, and no one in their right mind would do that—not in this manner, about something so vital—unless they could back it up. Would they?
“So your assertion is that if the file is still there, hidden amongst your other belongings, then you couldn’t have betrayed me and my family’s company by selling it, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“How do you intend to prove that?”
She took a deep breath, causing her breasts to rise beneath the lightweight material of her daffodil-yellow top. He wondered if it was one he’d had delivered for her, or if she’d brought it stuffed in that ridiculously small knapsack she’d been carrying when she’d arrived.
Another challenge. Damned if he didn’t like that about her. Not enough to give her a free pass, but the benefit of a doubt was a possibility.
“I’d consider it,” he said carefully, not ready to promise anything he wouldn’t later be willing to deliver.
“Well, that’s encouraging,” she mumbled half under her breath. Shaking her head, she straightened and looked him in the eye. “Tell me what you want me to do. Should I go to Portland and look for the file, or would you prefer to continue hating me for wrongs you think I committed?”
“Oh, you’ve committed plenty of wrongs, with or without the sale of that design line to our competitors,” he reminded her even as he battled a grin.
She was guilty of so much, but she didn’t let that hold her back one bit when it came to sticking up for herself. Arguing business with his contemporaries was definitely never this exhilarating.
Then again, no one at Bajoran Designs was as attractive or compelling as Jessica, and he’d never had quite as much to lose —or gain—if he suffered a defeat at their hands.
“We’ll go together,” he told her. “We can take the corporate jet. Be down there and back in a matter of hours.”
Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she worried it for a moment, her face reflecting sudden alarm.
“What?” he asked. “Change your mind already? Decide to confess and put an end to the charade before we waste any more time or a load of jet fuel on a wild-goose chase?”
“You’re an arrogant ass, do you know that?”
His brows rose. So much for the effectiveness of his harsh features and intimidating demeanor.