But no, no. Inwardly, she frowned. If Nick had wanted to hurt Savannah, he would have done it three years ago, not three months ago. Besides, Pattie wasn't sure anybody had killed Savannah. The authorities certainly didn't think so. Nothing to suggest foul play, they'd told Pattie after she'd questioned otherwise.
Now as Pattie watched, Nick unfroze. He rose from his seat. Meanwhile Dot finally released her, leaving a residue of lavender perfume.
Pattie's brief suspicion vanished, leaving only disgust as Nick appeared at the opening to his office. It was disgust both for Nick and for herself. Couldn't he have seen what Savannah was after? Hadn't he realized she was using him like a tool? But Pattie was hardly blameless in the affair. If she'd tried, she couldn't have made herself a better target for Savannah's sabotage.
Zane and Tristan, who'd been trailing behind, caught up to her. She was suddenly way too aware of her nephew's overly masculine nanny.
In the doorway, Nick ran a cool gaze over Pattie, hesitated briefly on Zane, then slithered a frigid glance down to her ward. His eyes came back to hers.
"Isn't this a surprise?" he drawled.
Good. If Nick chose to take the offensive it meant he felt threatened. Meanwhile, Pattie realized she needed to get rid of the know-it-all nanny. Smiling tightly, she turned to him. "Mr. Kincaid, perhaps you could help Dot find Tristan something to do while I...talk to Nick."
She was making the situation clear—to all of them. Zane Kincaid was her employee. Not a boyfriend, not even someone she had to introduce to Nick.
Zane simply looked at her. It was a strange time to note the color of his eyes. They were a light sea green. They were also way too curious. He was trying to figure out what was going on here, as if it were any of his business.
Pattie kept her face bland. He wouldn't discover a thing from her expression.
But he kept looking, long enough to let Pattie know, when he did turn aside, that following her order was his decision and not hers.
Taking Tristan's hand, he smiled at Dot. "Whatcha got in that big desk, then? Anything to entertain my friend Tristan here?"
Pattie narrowed her eyes at the nanny. God. She had to figure out a way to avoid actually hiring him.
It was almost a relief to turn back to Nick. "In your office," she said.
Nick could tell she meant business. His lips thinned, but he turned and walked into his office.
Pattie followed. The glass door swung closed behind her, cutting off the sound of Tristan's high voice exclaiming over Dot's collection of Getty coloring books.
Alone with Nick, Pattie felt her self-disgust grow. Remembering this period in her life always made her feel stupid. But at least Zane couldn't hear what was going on now. He couldn't see her sense of vulnerability expand as she faced her ex-lover. She'd never imagined he was the be-all and end-all, but at least she'd thought he was hers.
A stupid idea, and a careless one.
Behind his black laminate desk, Nick sighed. "Knowing you, I suppose this was inevitable."
Pattie held up the envelope with "refused" scrawled in Nick's handwriting. "It was guaranteed."
Nick glanced at the envelope and a touch of pink brushed his high cheekbones. "I don't know why you're sending me certified letters. I'm not Tristan's father. I told you that."
Pattie rubbed the envelope with her fingers. "That's not the story Savannah gave me three years ago."
"I'm not responsible for the sick jokes Savannah chose to play." With a sneer, Nick sank into the chair behind his desk. "God knows, she liked getting your goat."
"She liked trying to," Pattie couldn't help retorting. "But she was telling the truth when she said you'd slept with her."
The muscles around Nick's mouth tightened. "I never denied that happened. But I'm not admitting this. It's not true. I never got her pregnant."
"How can you be sure? The timing is right."
Nick's gaze went past Pattie's shoulder. "The timing was right for other guys, too."
Pattie stopped. "What?"
"I wasn't her only lover back then. She had others. She always did." Nick's smile twisted. "Didn't you know?"
His claim did ring true. Savannah wouldn't have been satisfied with the attention of a single lover. She needed more adulation than that.
Frowning, Pattie said, "Okay. Fine. But Savannah told me that you were Tristan's father. She must've had some reason to think so."
Nick lifted a shoulder. "She certainly had a reason to tell you that."
Pattie sucked in her lips. Nick's statement was more accurate than he knew. Savannah had had an excellent reason to hurt Pattie. Or at least, Savannah'd thought she did. Pattie had made her feel small. Pattie felt small, herself, now, remembering the moment, remembering the upwelling of outrage and fury that had prompted her rash outburst three-and-a-half years ago.
It all seemed so useless now. But at the time...? They'd been pushing dirt onto her father's casket when Savannah'd come up to Pattie at the graveside, her face blotched with tears.
The tears had surprised Pattie. Her older sister had had precious little to do with either parent while they were both declining in health. Pattie had been the one to hire aides and to visit every day, to pay the bills and to take care of their needs. But Savannah was the sister all broken up at the funerals.
This second funeral had Savannah as tear-streaked as the last one. Her latest paramour—a young movie director—helped her with an arm around the waist of her black Chanel dress.
For a moment, very brief, Pattie had felt a glimmer of—what? Hope? Maybe Savannah had a heart, after all.
But then Savannah had looked at Pattie with pure hatred in her eyes. "It's your fault," she'd croaked. The claim was outrageous—based on nothing—but she went on. "You could have kept them alive, given them better care, but you killed them."
After all the years—most of her life—dismissing Savannah's barbs, Pattie had lost it. It was her fault? She'd quit her job up north to move into an apartment down the street from her parents. She'd been in and out of doctor's offices and hospitals for over a year with both her mother and her father. It was her fault?
Any brief hope she'd harbored blinked out in an instant. "You sad excuse for a human being," Pattie had shot back. "You barely even came to visit." And they'd lapped up such rare visits, had adored seeing their favorite pet. "They would have died a year ago if you'd been in charge. You couldn't take care of them, you couldn't take care of yourself. You couldn't take care of a flea. For God's sake, Savannah, you've always been a friggin' mess."
She'd seen the shock in her sister's eyes. Savannah probably hadn't expected her to answer, much less retort. Pattie hadn't responded to her goads in years.
Pattie knew she'd lost control, but she wasn't sorry about it as she turned and walked away. She had no paramour supporting her. At least not then. She'd met Nick a mere two weeks later.
Savannah had bided her time, but she'd gotten back at Pattie. That had always been her way. It probably hadn't been too difficult for her to discover there was a man in Pattie's life. Somehow she'd figured out this one had stuck and so might be important. Consequently, she'd designed a way to meet him. After that, she must have turned on the charm. She was an actress; she knew how.
If Pattie'd tried to set up her own betrayal, she couldn't have done better.
Now Nick looked puzzled. "I don't get why you're so hot to identify Tristan's father anyway. It's not like Savannah didn't leave him sitting pretty, financially speaking."
Pattie blinked. "She did?"
"Sure. There's the newspaper Savannah owned, the gossip rag—I'll bet that's quite profitable—not to mention the big house in the Palisades. You can't be hurting."
Sucking in her lips, Pattie refrained from correcting Nick's view of Savannah's financial situation. "This isn't about money," she said instead. "It's about responsibility. Tristan deserves to have a father."
"Then you should go find the guy."
Pattie half
lowered her lashes. "I intend to." She reached into her bag and pulled out the paternity testing kit. "Here you go."
As Nick's gaze went to the kit, he laughed. "You must be kidding."
"You keep telling me you're not Tristan's father." Pattie tossed the kit onto Nick's desk. "Prove it."
Nick looked at the box, then glared up at Pattie. His cheekbones were pink again. "Forget it."
His total lack of shame provoked Pattie. "I could make you."
Instead of jumping to do what she wanted, Nick started to smile. "You wouldn't."
"You don't think so?"
"That would get you mixed up with Child Protective Services."
Even as heat rushed into her face, Pattie lifted a shoulder. "So?" Clearly, Nick had looked into the whole business more than he'd been letting on. "I don't mind CPS." Except that she did. CPS were scary dudes. They had the power to do just about anything to Tristan, including take him away from Pattie. She was only a temporary guardian after all. To Nick, she claimed, "I'm game."
"Are you?" Nick raised an eyebrow.
Pattie returned his gaze...or tried to. Her glance went, despite herself, out the window wall. There on the carpet, Tristan lay on his stomach with a Getty coloring book in front of him and a bright orange crayon in his hands. The tip of his tongue poked out the corner of his mouth.
A weight sank in her stomach. They could take him away.
For one crazy moment, she forgot he was a demon child who climbed into tall bookcases. For one awful second, she saw Tristan as a human being, an incredibly vulnerable human being. With CPS, he could end up in foster care. If she pushed Nick too far, this little human being could get dragged off to strangers, and end up shunted around like unwanted baggage. At best, he'd be neglected. At worst...?
Taking in a deep breath, she looked back at Nick. What this little human being needed was a real parent. What he should get was—justice.
But Nick only shook his head at her. "You can't make me."
Pattie glared at him. He was right about that. And unfortunately, 'shame' didn't appear to be a word in Nick's vocabulary. Damn it all— She'd dragged the kid here for nothing.
In that moment a sensation Pattie was becoming all too familiar with suffused her.
Helplessness.
She wasn't allowed to be helpless. She always had a plan—for everything. To have matters otherwise was contemptible.
And yet, here she was. She couldn't make Nick take responsibility. She couldn't even make him take the blasted paternity test. She couldn't get Tristan a real parent, his father.
Unwilling to let Nick see her defeat, Pattie turned her head. Her gaze went out the window wall again, and caught a stir of movement beside the child.
It was Zane Kincaid.
Pattie stilled. The nanny's sea-green eyes pierced the window wall and stared right at her. He stared at her with way too much perception.
In horror, she watched Tristan's nanny shift to his feet. What did he think—? Surely he wouldn't—
But he did. That damn-all nanny started for Nick's office door.
~~~
What the hell was he doing?
Zane stood at the door he'd just thrown open and met the inhospitable stares of the two people inside the office.
He had no idea what he was doing.
All he knew was that his instincts had gone jumping ever since they'd walked off the elevator. Those instincts had leaped off the charts when the man in the glass-walled office had come out to greet Pattie.
Zane had suppressed his instincts, and the curiosity Pattie had teased when she'd ordered him to keep Tristan out in the reception area. Why had she insisted on dragging the kid along, then?
It was none of his business, he'd reminded himself, not his problem.
But as he'd settled himself on the floor next to Tristan, Zane hadn't been able to focus Van Gogh's irises, over which Tristan scribbled with an orange crayon. His eyes had been drawn to the glass wall of the office Pattie had entered. Those damn walls allowed a person to see everything. It was impossible not to peek.
It hadn't taken more than one peek to see there was some bad romantic history involved here. With his own bad romantic history still fresh in his mind, Zane could easily recognize the vibes. Visible between these two were all the raw pain, anger, and bitterness that he knew so well himself.
He couldn't help wondering: why had Pattie felt she needed to bring Tristan to a blowout fight with her ex?
Sitting there on the carpet beside Tristan, Zane hadn't been able to figure it out. Worse, he hadn't been able to identify with the male party in the altercation, the man Pattie had called Nick. Seated so casually behind his desk, Nick looked far too smug for Zane to like him. He also appeared to be baiting Pattie—hardly a sporting pastime.
All this had been bad enough. Then Pattie had looked out the window wall with the same expression Zane had seen on her face earlier. It was an involuntary expression, one she quickly masked. But he saw it, and guessed what lay beneath it.
Need.
The next thing he knew, he was on his feet. Now here he stood, in too far and raging with curiosity.
Zane gnashed his teeth. Curiosity. Yeah. That's all this was, an overblown case of curiosity. He wasn't here to help Pattie.
Focusing on Tristan, then, Zane rotated a hand in the air. "How about wrapping this up, huh? It's getting kinda late." Zane wasn't extricating Pattie from a possibly sticky situation. He was arranging outdoor time for Tristan.
"Getting late?" Pattie, who'd looked so defeated a moment ago, now opened her eyes wide in disbelief. "Late for what?"
Zane ignored her bluster. Indeed, her jump in feistiness made him feel tons better. "Tristan's lunch," he answered.
"Tristan's lunch?"
It was only ten-thirty in the morning, but Zane merely shot Pattie his patented 'nanny-in-charge' look and strode into the room. He was going to put an end to whatever dispute this was, move Tristan outside, and take himself away from temptation. He was not getting involved.
To that end, he strolled up to the guy's desk, despite Pattie's aim for the very same location.
What did he intend to do? Zane had no idea. He only knew he wasn't staking territory here, nor was he trying to intimidate the guy. Why would he do that? He only wanted to look at him. It was in the course of that look that Zane noticed the box sitting on top of the desk.
Paternity Testing Kit.
Zane blinked, but the words were still there on the side of the box, discreet but unmistakable. What—? How—? Even as he sensed Pattie moving in, Zane reached for the box. She was no lightweight, but he blocked her attempt to snatch it with an easy shift of his shoulder.
"What are you—? God," Pattie growled.
Calmly, Zane lifted the box for a closer look, his fingers tightening on the cardboard.
A paternity test? Regarding Tristan? But Zane had been sure the fellow sitting with such bravado behind his desk had a romantic history with Pattie. And Pattie was not Tristan's mother.
"What the...?" Zane's brain spun, unable to make sense of this information, even as his instincts insisted that something stank. He lowered his gaze to the guy sitting behind the desk.
Nick looked back with his mouth tight. Stubborn and defiant. He'd slept with Tristan's mother. Pattie's sister. Now Zane understood. He got all of it, including Pattie's earlier unguarded expression.
Nick was possibly a father—and definitely an asshole. Indeed, the argument Zane had witnessed suggested Pattie's ex wouldn't even take the paternity test.
Though he was roiling inside, Zane kept his voice cool and quiet. "I'm confused." He hefted the box while training his eyes on Nick. "What are you afraid of?"
The room went as quiet as a church at midnight. Yes, even Pattie, obviously bristling, stayed silent.
Zane knew his meaning was clear. Either Nick wasn't the father, and it couldn't hurt him to prove it, or he was the father, and was acting like a bum.
As Zane
watched, the guy's pretty face turned rosy. He had enough male pride he didn't want Zane to think he was a bum.
"Okay." Nick shot to his feet. "I'll take it." With his dark eyes flashing, he snatched the box from Zane. "You'll see. You'll both see. I'm not Tristan's father."
"Whatever you say," Zane murmured.
The guy sneered past Zane's shoulder. "What do I have to do with this thing?"
Pattie seemed flabbergasted. "What, you're really going to—?" She cleared her throat. "Uh, there's a cotton swab inside. All you have to do is swipe it against the inside of your cheek."
"All right. Fine." Nick's gaze shifted out the window wall. Dot was leaning over her reception desk, talking to Tristan who was still happily mangling Van Gogh. "But not here. I'll do it in the men's room."
"All three of us will," Zane put in. "You, me, and Tristan."
Nick's gaze spun back to him.
Zane smiled. "So there'll be no...misunderstandings."
Nick's face went pink again. His expression said he'd happily murder Zane. "There will be no misunderstandings."
"All the same..." Zane lifted a shoulder. "We'll all do it together, make it an 'us-men' kind of thing so Tristan won't get freaked out by the swab and stuff." Zane paused, letting his smile fade. "You wouldn't want the child scared, now, would you?"
Nick's lashes lowered. "Oh, dear me. I wouldn't want that."
Smiling again, Zane turned to Pattie.
She was staring at him in shock. Clearly, she had not expected to obtain Nick's cooperation. Particularly not, Zane suspected, by the hand of her new nanny.
In fact, Zane was pretty sure Pattie would just as soon not have obtained her ex's cooperation, if it had to have been at the hand of her new nanny.
"Sounds like this will only take a few minutes," Zane told her. "And then we're outta here. Tristan needs some outdoor play time before lunch."
She opened her mouth. For a second he thought she was going to protest. But her desire to get a result from the paternity test must have prevailed after all. She closed her mouth and nodded.
If I Loved You Page 3