"So you were already pregnant when you picked me up that night on the plane." There was complete conviction in his voice.
"No," she denied automatically, forgetting her resolve not to explain or plead. "Stephanie was premature. Six weeks premature." But she could see that he didn't believe her.
"Did you plan it all?" he wanted to know. "Did you intend to use me? Or was it just a spur-of-the-moment idea? An opportunity too good to pass up? Hmm?" he said with a curl of his lip. "I'd be curious to know just how you planned to work this out."
"I didn't plan anything," she denied. Her voice was a mere whisper. "You've got to believe me, Jake. I never used you. Stephanie was premature—"
"Just how stupid do you think I am?" he exploded. "My God, Desiree, that's one of the oldest tricks in the book."
"It isn't a trick," she insisted, but she knew it was no use. Jake wasn't listening to anything she had to say. He was too angry to listen. Maybe he would always be too angry to listen.
"Did you really expect me to just take your word for it? Be so overjoyed that you had supplied me with a daughter that I wouldn't ask any unpleasant questions?"
If you only knew what I'd thought, she wanted to say but she didn't.
"You should have done your homework better," he taunted. "That particular little scheme has been tried before, and by more experienced hustlers than you."
Desi covered her ears with her hands. "That's enough, Jake. Enough." She lowered her hands, and her fists clenched tightly at her sides. She could feel the smooth ovals of her nails digging into her palms, but it didn't seem to matter. All that mattered at this moment was making him understand a few important facts.
"Stephanie is your daughter," she said slowly, carefully enunciating each word so that he would be sure to understand. "You can believe that or not. I don't care one way or the other," she lied.
"You can bet I don't believe it," he cut in savagely.
"Fine," she shot back. "As far as I'm concerned, it's your loss. Not ours." She turned away again, trembling now. Her self-control was almost at an end. "I'd appreciate it if you'd leave now, Jake."
"Not until I know what you plan to do."
"I told you what I plan to do. Nothing is what I plan to do." She turned back to face him once more. "Are you listening, Jake? Nothing! My daughter's name is Stephanie Weston. It will stay Weston. We don't need you," she flung at him, struggling with her tears. "We don't want you. Just go. Please!"
"Desiree," he said, a strange note coloring his deep voice. His hand reached out and touched her shoulder.
She shook him off, moving away from his dangerous touch. If he stayed any longer she would break down and do what she had promised herself she wouldn't do. She would start to cry and explain and plead.
"Please go," she repeated. "There's nothing more to say."
He went, closing the door softly behind him. Desi stood where she was in the middle of her comfortable living room, holding herself together by sheer effort of will. She heard his footsteps on the stairs and then the outermost door slammed shut. Something in her broke then. Whatever it was that had been holding her together during this past year finally just gave way. She had held tight through the long lonely months of her pregnancy, through the complicated birth and the early fears for her premature baby, through these last tension-filled months on the set, pretending that Jake was no more to her than an employer. But, suddenly, she just let go.
Desi crumbled into a chair, racked by sobs. Deep wrenching sobs that came up from her stomach, making her gasp for each breath, until there were simply no more tears left to cry.
To have what she had wanted, had dreamed of, for so long. To hear Jake say those three wonderful words, and then to lose him again, all in the space of a day. To see his eyes go from warm and loving to cold and contemptuous. To hear him say those hateful things. Liar, he had called her. Why, oh why, hadn't she told him sooner? Why? But there were no answers in the silent room. None.
She got up from the chair, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and went in to look at Stephanie. She needed to see her baby...her anchor.
"Well, your daddy didn't want us," she said to the sleeping baby. "But don't worry about it, angel. We can get along just fine without him. We have so far, haven't we?"
Chapter 13
Desi struggled up from the depths of sleep, her one thought to stop the noise, quickly, before it woke Stephanie. She reached out groggily to shut off the alarm, and her hand hit against the tray of cold coffee and uneaten sandwiches. For a minute she was disoriented, and then she remembered. She was on the sofa, curled up under Stephanie's quilt. The noise wasn't her alarm, it was the doorbell. It sounded again, louder this time it seemed, and she jumped up, wrapping the quilt around her shoulders, and stumbled toward the door.
"Hold it down, will you. The baby's asleep," she rasped as she pulled open the door. She pushed the hair out of her eyes with one hand, peering out into the dim hall with tear-swollen eyes. Jake stared back at her.
"Go away," she said, trying to close the door on him.
His foot stopped her. "Desiree, we have to talk."
"We've talked." She pushed against the door. "Now go away."
Please go away, she pleaded silently. Let me start getting over you again.
"We've got to talk," he repeated.
Desi remained silent, leaning her full weight against the door but he didn't budge.
"I'll stand here all night if I have to."
Wearily she heaved herself away from the door, swinging it open, and stared up at him. "So talk," she said rudely.
"Can I come in?"
"You're in, aren't you?" Quickly she turned away, hunching herself farther into the pastel baby quilt, before her hands could disobey her and reach out to touch him.
He looked tired—as tired as she felt—and there was a shadow of stubble on his lean jaw. His beautiful dark eyes held an expression she couldn't read. Good, she didn't want to read it.
I don't care, she told herself. I don't care.
But she did, and God help her, she probably always would.
"What do you want?" she said, throwing the words over her shoulder as she moved across the room, away from him, to stand staring sightlessly out the window at the moonlit San Francisco night.
"To talk to you."
"About what?" She knew she sounded rude and nasty, but that seemed to be her only defense against him. She turned from the window and found him standing right behind her.
He reached out one hand and gently touched her tear-streaked face. "You've been crying," he said softly. His thumb caressed her cheek.
For just a second, the space of a heartbeat only, she allowed herself the tenderness of his touch, and then she jerked out of his reach as if he had burned her. In a way, she thought, he had.
"My tears surprise you?" she said.
She glared defiantly up into his face for an instant and then quickly looked away. It was a mistake to look too closely into his eyes. There were questions there and a strange expression that bordered on pain. She didn't want to know about his pain. Not now. She had enough pain of her own.
"What did you expect?" she said then, moving to the safety of the cane rocker. She sat down, wrapping the quilt around her bent knees. "It's not every day that someone calls me a hustler—" her voice began to shake "—and a liar." She flung the words at him bitterly.
Jake made a sound like a groan, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry for that, Desiree. I'd give anything to have those words unsaid."
There was a long silence as she stared down at her pink-tipped toes, where they peeked out from under the edge of the enveloping quilt. "Is that what you came to say?" she said finally. "That you're sorry?"
"Among other things."
"What other things?"
"Desiree, we've got to talk. I've been driving around the city for hours. Thinking. Going over everything over and over again. We've got to talk this out. Reasonably. Calmly—"
"Talk what out?" she said, deliberately misunderstanding him.
"You. Me. Stephanie."
"No." She jumped to her feet, leaving the chair rocking wildly behind her. The quilt fell unheeded to the floor. "No. I've said all I'm going to say about that. Stephanie is your daughter. I'm not going to beg you to believe me. I'm not going—"
Suddenly his hands were on her shoulders, shaking her into silence. She stared up at him, her eyes wide and tear-filled again.
I won't cry, she told herself fiercely, closing her eyes against him. I won't cry!
"Desiree, look at me."
She opened her eyes slowly, willing the tears not to fall. He was staring down into her face, devouring her, feature by feature, with agonizing thoroughness. She could see the questions in his eyes again. See him doubting her.
"Why didn't you meet me at the fountain?" he said, as if that question was more important to him than anything else.
"The fountain...?"
"I waited for you in Ghirardelli Square, Desiree. And I came back the next day in case we'd gotten our wires crossed. But you never showed up."
"You waited?"
"Like a fool, for hours. I kept telling myself that you'd be there. That you were special. We were special. That it hadn't been just another one-night stand." He shook her again. "Why didn't you come?"
"I wanted to," she replied softly, gazing up into his eyes as if her life depended on it, willing him to believe her. Her life did depend on it. "I wanted to. I even got dressed, but..."
"But what?" he prodded her, his voice raw.
"I was more than six months' pregnant and as big as a house," she blurted out. "I had toxemia by then and I'd swelled up like a balloon. I didn't know what I could say to you. How you'd react. I didn't know if you'd even be there." She paused, gulping for air, and the tears spilled over, coursing unheeded down her cheeks. "I was fat and ugly and I thought you'd hate me for getting pregnant."
His arms went around her shoulders, pulling her close, one big hand pressing her wet face into his chest. "Women!" he said softly, incredulously. She could feel the tension drain out of him as easily as if someone had pulled a plug, and she felt his chest heave under her cheek as if he was stifling a laugh—or a sob.
"I could never hate you, Desiree. Don't you know that?" he said into her hair. "I can only love you."
She stood stock-still against him for a minute, doubting what she had heard. She wanted, so very badly, to believe those words that she feared her ears were playing tricks on her. Hearing what they wanted to hear. But he was still holding her, she realized, so it must be true. Somehow. His hand at her head was tenderly stroking her hair. His other hand was biting, almost painfully, into the soft flesh of her hip, as if he feared she would try to move away from him. She felt his lips against her ear.
"You could never be ugly to me, no matter how pregnant you got."
He was laughing now, she was sure of it. She didn't know why—whether it was relief or real amusement, or both. But that was okay. As long as he held her like this he could laugh till doomsday and she wouldn't object.
"I'd have loved to see you pregnant," he said then, the laughter suddenly gone out of his voice. There was a pause. "With my daughter," he finished softly.
Desi twisted her head to look up at him. His daughter, he'd said. "Oh, Jake, are you sure? You believe me?"
"I believe you." He was smiling down at her. A look of tenderness was on his face, and his beautiful brown eyes were unclouded by uncertainty or doubt, though unshed tears shimmered in their depths. "Deep down I've always wanted to believe you. From the minute you told me, I wanted to believe that Stephanie was mine because not believing was tearing the heart out of me. And because I knew, deep down inside of me, that you weren't the sort of woman to lie about a thing like that. I knew it but..." He shook his head and the next words came out haltingly, as if he hated to say them, "But there were those two other times. Those women who said that their babies were mine, and I guess I went sort of crazy for a little while, remembering."
"Oh, Jake." Her arms went up around his neck, pulling his head down to hers so that she could plant tiny kisses all over his face. "Oh, Jake, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have told you. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I should have told you."
"Yes, you should have," he agreed. "It would have saved us both a lot of needless grief, and a lot of wasted months when we could have been together."
"I wanted to tell you. I did. But I was scared."
"Of me?" His hands captured her face, holding her still.
"No, not exactly, but of... Oh, I don't know how to say it. It was just that I had loved you for so long. Ever since December Fire, I think, and—"
"Since December Fire? But you couldn't have been more than a teenager then. You didn't even know me."
"Yes, I did. In a way. I worked on December Fire as a gofer. Zek got it for me as a summer job. And I guess I just fell in love with you then. I know it sounds stupid, but—"
"I don't remember you at all,'' he said incredulously, shaking his head.
"There's no reason you should. We never even spoke to each other," she admitted. "I told myself that it was just a crush. That I'd get over it, but I never did and then suddenly, there you were on the plane and... later, when you'd gone, I was afraid that it was just a one-night stand for you even though it meant so much to me. I knew you'd think I was just some dumb groupie."
He winced. "Can't you ever forgive me for that?"
"There's nothing to forgive," she insisted. "What else could you have thought? I picked you up on that plane. I went to your hotel and, well, you know." She looked down, embarrassed, as the fiery color stained her cheeks. "There was nothing else you could think."
"I never, not for one minute, thought that," he denied. "Not that weekend, anyway. That weekend all I could think of was how good it was. How right it felt to hold you and love you. And for six long months, in the wilds of Alaska, it was the thought of you that kept me from freezing to death. All I could think about was getting that movie over with and getting back to you." He smiled down into her wide shimmering eyes, his own brimming with love and tenderness. "You were too shy to be a groupie. Too uncertain about what you were doing. I couldn't even get you to tell me your name!" he teased.
"But later?" she prompted, remembering what he had said to her in Dorothea's second-best guest room.
"Later what?" he said absently, watching the delicate color come and go in her cheeks.
"That first day on the set and—" she shrugged "—you know. Later."
"You surprised me," he answered quietly. His lips touched her cheek, feeling the warmth of the blush that seemed to so intrigue him. "By that time I had convinced myself that I would never see you again. That you didn't mean anything to me. And then, there you were. With Eldin, I thought. Cool as a cucumber and looking just as sweet and beautiful as I remembered." His hands made lazy circles against her back as he talked and Desi leaned into him, only half listening to his words. "I was angry and hurt," he went on, his lips against her ear, "and so jealous I couldn't see straight. I just said the first thing that came into my head."
Desi arched away from him a little to look up into his face. "Were you really jealous?" she asked him, a delighted little half smile curving her lips.
"Damn right I was," he said and then added, "You like that idea, don't you?"
Desi nodded, rubbing her cheek against his chest. "Only because I was so jealous, too. It's nice to know I wasn't alone in my misery."
"Jealous of whom?" He seemed genuinely puzzled.
"Of Audrey," she admitted.
"Audrey?"
"Yes, Audrey. She's so beautiful and sophisticated. More your type than I am, and every time you kissed her on the set I just—" Desi blushed, lowering her eyes "—just wanted to tear her hair out."
"But that's just part of my job—"
"That's what I told myself but—"
"Hell, I don't even li
ke her much." He slanted a glance down at Desi's face. "You'd have been more on the mark to be jealous of Dorothea."
Desi giggled. "Oh, she'd love to hear that. It would make her day. I'll have to..." Her voice trailed off as she caught the look in his eyes. Her eyes closed of their own accord, her head fell back, waiting.
He kissed her then. Sweetly, at first, teasing her lips with his tongue even after they had opened to him.
"Oh, Jake," she breathed, straining upward to bring her mouth closer to his. "Jake, I love you. I'll never hide anything from you again. Never. No matter what it is. I—"
"Be quiet, woman," he growled, molding his mouth more firmly over hers. His tongue invaded her mouth, hungrily, demandingly, and she felt his hand move up her body to close possessively over her breast, kneading the soft flesh gently through her shirt. Desi melted against him helplessly, her body gone pliant in his arms.
He lifted his mouth from hers for a brief instant. "You will marry me, won't you?" he whispered against her lips. "Give Stephanie a father?"
Marry him! Desi felt joy surge through her and, then, his last words echoed through her head. Give Stephanie a father, he had said. Was that what this was all about? He wanted to marry her because of Stephanie?
"Desiree?" He pulled back slightly to look into her eyes. "Will you marry me?"
"Oh, Jake. I—" her voice trembled piteously "—I don't know."
"You don't know. What do you mean, you don't know?"
She looked up into his face, a stubborn look in her blue eyes, despite the shimmer of tears. "I won't marry you just to give Stephanie a legal father. It wouldn't be good for her, or me. Or you, either. You'd just end up hating us both and—"
Jake's left hand came up to cover her mouth. "Be quiet," he ordered.
"But I—"
"Quiet, I said. Now, I'm only going to explain this once, so you'd better listen." He took his hand away when she nodded her head. It slid around her back and he pulled her to him. Hard. His beautiful brown eyes bore steadily into hers.
One Night With You (The Heart of the City Series, Book 1) Page 18