The reminder made her swing her legs to the floor and sit up straight.
“What do you want, Van? To see I’m okay? You’ve seen me. You can leave now.”
“Tell me about the scan,” he demanded, settling into the chair opposite and leaning toward her, his elbows resting on the tops of his thighs and his hands loosely clasped. “What’s it like? What did you see?”
She briefly outlined the procedure and told him about the indistinct image on the screen.
“You really can’t see a lot. It’s still early days,” she finished.
“But the sonographer heard a heartbeat?”
“I did, too.”
He leaned back against the chair and thrust his hands through his hair. “Wow.”
“Like I said, it’s still early days.”
Yes, there had been a heartbeat, but that could still change. There was a long time before the fetus would be considered viable. Right now it didn’t even look like a baby—the scan had just been a collection of light and dark shapes to her—but the audio had confirmed the baby was there. She needed to hold on to that, take joy in that confirmation. It wasn’t like her to be downcast, and she hated it, but she was mourning the missing heartbeat—and with it, mourning her sister all over again.
* * *
Van was unaccustomed, these days, at least, to feeling helpless. He was the kind of man who took action. He served, he protected, he saved. That he had virtually no control over any of this situation with Kayla was enough to drive a man to drink—except he didn’t drink anymore. Ever. Not since he’d learned the truth about his parents. Actually, no, his decision had come earlier than that. It started in the cold gray dawn after that night with Kayla, after her sister’s funeral. A night when they’d had too much to drink and then— He shut down the thought before it could form fully in his mind. No, he did dumb things when he’d been drinking—made dumb choices. No more.
Of course, it looked like the dumbest decision he’d ever made was agreeing to be Sienna’s donor. But then, he’d never expected things to turn out like this. Now he had a kid and another on the way.
It was his worst nightmare come true but he had to take control to make sure their childhoods wouldn’t be the disaster zone his had been. They needed a strong role model, someone who could guide them into being good human beings who made the right choices in life. He had to be that person no matter how many times he’d told himself he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, raise kids of his own.
He had an ethical obligation to see that his children had the best of everything—morally and materially. That meant being the best damn father he could be. His kids would have a solid, safe, reliable upbringing. And no matter what impractical ideas Kayla had about parenting, he’d made himself a promise—he’d be the one making the hard decisions in their lives. He’d be the one keeping them safe, now and in the future. If that meant making sure their birth mother was cared for 24/7 until the new baby was born, then that was what he’d do.
Kayla needed his help right now, and she was going to get it—even though he knew she’d fight him on this. But what she probably hadn’t counted on was that in the last several years he’d become quite used to succeeding—in everything. He wasn’t about to stop now and he wasn’t above using some heavy emotional leverage to achieve his objective, either.
He picked his next words very carefully. “You know, you don’t need to make things so hard on yourself.”
She made a noise that fell somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Really? That’s rather ironic, when you’re the one making things hard on me.”
Kayla leaned forward and gave the legal envelope sitting in front of her on the coffee table a dismissive shove toward him with her fingertips. He ignored it and the quick surge of frustration that threatened to cloud his thinking.
“I mean, you don’t need to do this all on your own,” he rephrased.
“Oh, you think I should just give in to your demands? Hand Sienna over to you without another thought? Forget I carried her in my body, birthed her, nurtured her and raised her on my own these past ten months? Forget that she’s my sister’s baby and that I promised to raise her?”
Her voice wobbled, betraying her vulnerability. Out of nowhere came the urge to wrap her in his arms, to tell her that everything was going to be okay. It was most inconvenient. He didn’t want to feel that way toward her. He didn’t want to feel that way toward anybody. He’d drilled that sap out of himself, taught himself not to feel anything more than he wanted to feel when he wanted to feel it. He compartmentalized and planned; he didn’t wing it. He made decisions based on analysis and structure, not emotion. He did not offer hugs to tearful females, even if they were carrying his kids.
Again, the unwelcome impulse to comfort her fought to rise to the surface. Again, he shoved it straight back down. It was time to bring in the big guns—he might not want to feel emotion but he wasn’t above manipulating it to get what he wanted.
“Sienna wouldn’t have wanted you to do this on your own, Kayla. You know that. You said yourself that she would have wanted me to be a part of this, to help you, to support you.”
“To support me, yes. Not to rip everything I hold dear away from me.”
Her face grew taut, her throat worked—swallowing almost convulsively—and he saw the stricken echo of sorrow reflect from her blue eyes. He averted his gaze. Damn, he couldn’t have felt any worse right now if he’d just kicked a puppy. What was it with these feelings? Was she leaking hormones in the air or something? He had to move, to get out of the line of fire. He shoved up and out of his chair and started to pace, talking all the time—enumerating all the reasons it would be a good idea for her to accept his offer of household help, financial security, comfortable living. You name it, he’d provide it. Help to infinity and beyond. After all, hadn’t that been her objective all along when she’d come to see him last month? Wasn’t he giving her, albeit belatedly, exactly what she’d asked for?
When he finally wound down, her expression was more normal again. Granted, she was still pale and her eyes still red rimmed, but there was a light of battle in them again. A light that reminded him of old Kayla. The one who got a harebrained idea in that head of hers and went off, damning the consequences without a second thought—just like she had with this pregnancy.
“So you’re saying I should give up the lease on this apartment, give up a job I love, move south to your no doubt obscenely luxurious home on the hills outside Monterey, hand over Sienna to some faceless nanny and spend my time growing your next child like some uninvolved incubator until it’s born, whereupon you plan to take it and my daughter and show me the door? I don’t think so.”
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. “Look, sure, when you present it like that, it doesn’t sound appealing, I agree. But ask yourself this—what’s your other option? How are you going to cope, pregnant and working without any help? Your friend Susan, she told me how sick you were with Sienna. What did she call it? Hyper-something-or-other.”
“Hyperemesis gravidarum,” Kayla supplied.
“Yeah, that. What if you get that again?”
“I’d already started by now with Sienna. Maybe I won’t get sick this time. Maybe everything will go textbook perfect.”
She was grasping at straws. “My research shows that if you’ve had it before, you have an 86 percent chance of developing it again in a subsequent pregnancy.”
“Your research.” She shook her head and huffed that snort-laugh again. “You did what? Googled it?” She gave him a slow clap. “Well done, Van. Well done.”
He felt hot color rise in his cheeks. “Even if it only lasts through your first trimester, how do you expect to work during that? And Sienna, let’s not forget her needs—not to mention bodily functions. Can you really see yourself coping with all that on your own?”
“Of
course I can. I’ll do whatever I have to.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You need help. My help.”
“On your terms,” she said bitterly.
“My kids, my terms.”
“You forget—I have custody, legally and figuratively, of your supposed kids.”
He bent down and pushed the legal envelope back toward her across the table.
“But for how much longer, Kayla?”
He stared at her, secretly surprised that she was fighting him this hard. She’d never wanted children before. Her life had always been one adventure after another. Backpacking in Kathmandu. Hiking in Papua New Guinea. Digging for opals in Australia. The antithesis of her sister, she’d never wanted to be tied down to anything or anyone. The only permanent tie in her life had been to Sienna—and he knew that was what was driving this stubbornness now. She’d made a promise to her sister. But surely she knew that Sienna would have wanted her children to have a safe and stable home. He could provide that. Kayla couldn’t. He doubted she truly wanted to. She’d always been such a free spirit—surely she couldn’t have changed that much. He tried another tack.
“Look, it doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t have to keep fighting me. I’ll pay you for the surrogacy—for Sienna and for this child. Then you can go forth and do whatever it is that you do.”
“No. These are my children. I’m not abandoning them and especially not to you. You’ve already discarded them once, when you tried to stop me from undergoing the procedure. You’re just as likely to forsake them again when the going gets rough or when you start to feel too much. It’s what you always do.”
Her words hurt, but he pushed back the pain like he always did. “Things have changed. I’ve changed.”
“And what about your fiancée? Does she welcome this opportunity to have a ready-made family? One where she doesn’t have to be involved in any of the messy stuff like nausea, stretch marks or giving birth?”
“Dani and I are no longer engaged,” he said bluntly.
Dani had fought hard that night to change his mind about their engagement but he’d been adamant. They continued to work together because neither of them were about to let a broken engagement get in the way of a perfectly good business merger, but he knew she thought he was crazy to want to take on his children.
“Why?” Kayla demanded. “Did she want too much from you, Van? Make you feel too much, perhaps?”
“We had our reasons,” he answered. There was no way he was going into the details with Kayla.
“And I have mine now,” she was quick to retort.
“So, we’re at an impasse.”
She crossed her arms and looked up at him. “We certainly are.”
Van shoved his hand through his hair again and took a couple of steps away before wheeling around.
“We both know I’ll win custody. What if I’m prepared to discuss some kind of visitation after the children are born?”
“Visitation?” She gave him a scornful look. “Please don’t insult me like that. You know that’s not enough. These are my children—in every way.”
“In every way except biologically.”
Their eyes locked in a silent duel, but he was a master at this and he’d stared down far more determined enemies before today. She was the first to look away.
“Okay, fine,” she said bitterly. “I’ll consider your offer.”
“Seriously consider it?” he pressed.
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
He studied her face, checked her hands to make sure she hadn’t crossed her fingers, as she used to when she was a kid. She appeared to be telling the truth. He’d have to take it.
“I’ll be back at the end of the week for your answer.”
His words caused a fissure in her carefully composed facade.
“The end of the week? But that’s only a couple of days!” she objected.
“It’s all I’m prepared to concede. If I don’t have your answer by then, I’ll be instructing my lawyers to fast-track my petition for custody of Sienna.”
He stalked to the door.
“You can’t do that to me. It’s not right,” she protested.
“I can’t? Just watch me.”
Five
Kayla went about her treatment room, making sure everything was ready for her next appointment. She was exhausted, the tiredness of early pregnancy and caring for Sienna taking a toll she hadn’t expected, and the severe nausea she’d experienced with Sienna’s pregnancy had asserted itself over the weekend with a vengeance.
But she’d work things out. She just had to. One of her girlfriends had flippantly suggested crowdfunding to help her get through this—even if it was only to raise the funds to fight Van through family court. She had to admit, the idea had briefly held appeal, but wouldn’t that just be grasping at straws? And how would it look to a judge? She had no doubt that Van would use such a thing as yet another example of why she wasn’t a fit parent.
She put her hands at the base of her spine and leaned backward, stretching out her lower back before straightening her shoulders and heading to Reception to welcome her next client. She heard voices as she approached—a male murmur followed by an almost flirtatious giggle from Susan. Then the male voice again, this time sounding so familiar that a ripple of nausea lurched from the pit of her stomach, making her falter in her tracks.
She rested a hand on her diaphragm and swallowed, closing her eyes just a moment. Opening them again, she reoriented herself. No, she couldn’t possibly have just heard Van’s voice. Not here. The clinic was primarily frequented by convalescent patients needing massage therapy, and Van was most definitely not convalescent. Kayla drew in a steadying breath and completed the short distance down the corridor.
“Ah, here she is,” Susan said brightly as Kayla entered the reception area.
Van gave Kayla an assessing look. “Here she is indeed,” he said in a voice that told her he was here for answers.
She swallowed again, but it did nothing to ease the unsettled feeling that racked her. His deadline had come and gone, and to avoid speaking to him, she’d studiously ignored her phone and had gone so far as to go and visit with a friend up the coast over the weekend just in case he came to her apartment. She might have known he’d track her down at work when he didn’t get the answer he sought.
“Mr. Murphy,” she said, acknowledging his presence with a short nod. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so. I have this pain in my neck.” He made no attempt to gesture to any strained muscles, just keeping his eyes trained on her like a rifle scope and leaving her in no doubt as to what the source of his apparent pain was.
“We specialize in convalescent therapy here. I can’t help you.”
Kayla heard Susan’s sharply indrawn breath. She’d never been rude to a client before.
“Mr. Murphy, please excuse us a moment,” Susan said smoothly.
She cast Van a smile and took Kayla by the arm into a small side office.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “I know you’ve told me about your problems with him but if the man wants his neck massaged, then you massage his neck.”
“That’s not what he’s here for,” Kayla protested.
“This is your place of work,” Susan reminded her emphatically. “Not your personal battlefield. Now, I suggest you take him through to your treatment room and get to work.”
Without waiting for her response, Susan left the office and returned to Reception.
“Thanks for your support,” Kayla muttered under her breath before following her. She forced herself to smile at Van. “Please, come with me.”
He smiled back at her, satisfied that he’d won this round. In her room, she directed him to remove his tie and shirt and to lie facedown
on the table. Once he was in position, she moved to the head of the bed and, with oil-slicked hands, began to stroke the muscles of his shoulders and neck. She tried to ignore how his body felt beneath her palms and any thoughts of the last time she’d touched his bare skin.
He was still strong but perhaps not as heavily muscled as he’d been back then, before he’d mustered out of the army. But stroking his skin now brought back memories she’d rather forget. Memories of how well they’d fit together, of the pleasure they’d wrought from one another’s bodies. Of the glimmer of hope that maybe things had changed between them, that they could forge a new relationship together—one as adults who could be good for one another instead of the children and teenagers who’d so often butted heads. But then she reminded herself of the devastation she’d felt when she’d realized, come morning, that he’d gone without another word.
She applied more pressure—working her fingertips into the stiffness of his shoulders. Working out some of the frustration and helplessness she felt from right now as well as from back then. He needed it, anyway—while the appointment might have been a ruse to force her to talk to him, the knots in his muscles were crying out for attention.
Under normal circumstances she would have spent more time warming up the muscles of her clients, who were generally weaker and older. But Van got no such consideration. For this moment, she could kid herself she had the upper hand on this man. She hated being manipulated, and he knew it.
“Could you enjoy this a little less,” he grunted from the table.
“You came here for a therapeutic massage, didn’t you?” she reminded him, putting extra pressure on a particularly hard knot of muscle. “You carry a lot of tension here. You should try relaxing a bit more.”
“I’ll relax when you give me your answer. Why have you been avoiding me?”
She started to speak, to lie and say she needed more time, but she knew that would be a waste of breath. He’d made it clear when they’d last seen each other that she had only a couple of days to make up her mind, and while she hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, she had already made her decision before he even pulled away from the curb outside her apartment. She just didn’t like that she’d had to make it, or that it favored him. The crowdfunding idea had been fun to bat around with her friend but she’d known all along that it wouldn’t work. Without her savings she had only one option left.
One Heir...or Two? Page 5