Jamie seemed at a loss for words suddenly, staring at him as though something was supposed to be clear to him now.
' 'Is he still your client?'' he asked, more because he was baffled than because he cared if she did the man's taxes.
"No!"
"Okay."
"He wasn't the only one."
"Male clients, you mean?" He was really trying hard here.
Her lower lip started to tremble, but she continued to look him straight in the eye. "Yes."
"Okay." He hadn't figured all her clients were women. Neither could he figure out why they were having this conversation.
"I didn't do their taxes, Kyle."
That surprised him. "You baby-sat for them?" he asked.
"No." She wrapped her arms around herself as if warding off a chill.
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"Did secretarial work?"
"No."
What in hell was going on here? "House-sat? Cleaned?" Was that it? She'd cleaned houses before she'd gotten her degree?
"No."
"Are you going to tell me where we're going with this, or you want me to keep guessing?" he asked. He'd do whatever he could to help her out, just as soon as he understood what they were talking about.
"You're so sweet, you know that?" She was smiling at him. But there was a sheen of tears in her eyes.
"And this is a bad thing?"
"No."
She shook her head, but the tears didn't fall. They just hung there, scaring him.
"It's a wonderful thing. It just makes this so much harder."
"Maybe if you'd tell me what 'this' is, it wouldn't be so hard."
Looking up at the ceiling, she laughed. Sort of. There was nothing light or humorous in the sound. "I'm trying to."
"All right," Kyle said, beginning again. "You were working the night we met—you have male clients—you don't do their taxes, clean their houses, type reports for them or baby-sit."
She shook her head.
"Monroe was one of your clients." Flashing back to the other night, Kyle listened again to Monroe's
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words, trying to find a clue there. And came up empty. The man had had nothing but sex on his mind.
"He wasn't as out of line as you thought," Jamie whispered. She'd opened her eyes very wide, as if she thought that could keep the tears from falling.
Kyle was finding it a little hard to breathe.
"Of course he was out of line, Jamie. It doesn't matter what you did for him, you deserve his respect."
' 'Even if what I did for him was exactly what he was asking for Saturday night?"
Mesmerized, Kyle watched two tears spill out and slide slowly down her cheeks.
The room was a little chilly. He wondered if Jamie was having troubles paying her heating bill. Maybe he should offer to light a fire.
He realized, suddenly, that she was waiting for an answer. "I don't believe you'd ever do what he was asking."
"I'm sorry." The whispered words were accompanied by more tears. "So sorry."
Kyle nodded. He believed she was. Maybe he should just head home. He'd left his thermostat up when he'd gone to work that morning. His house would be warm.
"Say something."
"What would you like me to say?" Seemed to him the conversation had gone on far too long already.
"I don't know, Kyle." She took a couple of fal-
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tering steps towards him. "Yell at me, tell me you hate me, but don't just sit there."
Standing, Kyle put the couch between them. "Okay, I'm not sitting."
She was so beautiful, standing there alone in the middle of the room, her eyes huge, pleading with him. If he wasn't so damn cold he'd pull her against him.
"What are you thinking?" she whispered.
"You expect me to believe you had sex with Nelson Monroe?" He didn't know where the words came from. They weren't the ones he wanted to say.
Hands still wrapped tightly around her middle, Jamie nodded. She must be cold, too, he thought.
"And there were others?"
Jamie nodded again.
"How many?"
He'd finally made her look away. The relief was almost overwhelming.
"I don't know, Kyle. What does it matter?" She was staring at the floor.
He didn't know what it mattered. "Ten, fifty, a hundred?"
"Closer to ten than a hundred."
His teeth clenched so tightly his jaw hurt.
Silence fell in the room. Kyle wondered how to leave.
"Somewhere between ten and fifty?" he asked when he thought neither of them was ever going to say another word.
"Somewhere."
"And they paid you."
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"Yes."
"You took their money?"
"Yes, Kyle, I took their money. I was a prostitute, okay? What do you want, specific places, times, positions?" Tears were pouring down Jamie's face.
Kyle wondered where she kept the tissues. And whether or not she had a blanket or something for him to cover up with. Cold as he was, it might be a long night.
Then something she'd said earlier hit him squarely between the eyes. He felt his stomach cramp and almost threw up. "You were working that night we met."
Falling onto the couch, Jamie crumpled over her knees and nodded.
"That's why you thought my money was for the sex."
"Yes."
He wished she wouldn't cry so hard. It couldn't be good for her.
He wished he was alone. So he could cry, too.
"You were just waiting around for the next guy to offer and that was me?''
"No." She took a deep breath, as though she was trying to get a grip. "No."
He found that hard to believe. Having spent the first sixteen years of his life witnessing the business, he had a little experience with how these things worked.
"I connected with clients by referral only," she told him, surprising him. "And then only after meet-
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ing them myself. I was there that night to meet a friend of the party's host."
"And did you?" Like it mattered.
"How could I?" she asked him. "I was with you."
Oh, yeah. That.
"Can I ask you something?" He must not have sounded as calm as he felt, because she actually had compassion in her eyes as she turned and looked up at him. He would've thought they were full of love, except that now, of course, he knew they couldn't be.
"Yes," she said, "anything."
"Were you working when you spread your legs for me?"
He'd have given anything to take the words back, hadn't meant to be crude. Hadn't meant to hurt her. At least, he didn't think he had.
Only the back of the couch was between them, but he couldn't comfort her. Didn't know how.
"Would you believe me if I said no?"
Oddly enough, he would. Which didn't make any more sense than the rest of this horrendous conversation.
"Were you working?" he asked again. More insistently.
She sat up straight, still turned to face him, meeting his gaze head-on. "No, Kyle, I wasn't working. I never, ever, reciprocated when I worked."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Others took pleasure, / never did."
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He needed it spelled out. "Surely a woman with that much experience knows how to enjoy sex."
"I knew how to make a man enjoy it. I knew how to pretend I was enjoying it." She shook her head. "But the first time I truly enjoyed sex, the only time I ever did, was that night with you."
This shouldn't mean so much. It shouldn't mean anything at all. "That wasn't the first time you…" He couldn't finish. Couldn't think about what they'd done that night. Not now. Not like this.
"It was my first climax, yes." She apparently wasn't as shy as he. But then, she wouldn't be. She'd had a bit more experience.
"After that you learned to enjoy it with others, right?" he asked, morbidly curious.
"No, Kyle." She looked him straight in the eye again, making him uncomfortable. "There's been no one else since then."
Ah. That hurt. Pain squeezed his insides until he thought he'd never breathe again. He loved her so damn much. And their night together had been so special to her there'd never been another.
Her career would have been so much easier to take if that night had meant nothing to her. Because then he could start convincing himself it meant nothing to him, either. How could it have mattered if he was the only one who'd felt the incredible bond between them?
Why couldn't those memories have been nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination? A particularly good fantasy?
"What are you thinking?" she asked softly.
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Clutching the back of the couch, staring down at her, he told her the truth. "You don't want to know." His whole body ached with the effort it was costing him to stay calm. Unaffected.
"Yes, I do."
She was so cool. Even with cheeks still wet with tears, her composure was evident. He'd always liked that about her. Her self-control.
"I was wondering if Ashley's really mine."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She was right back where she'd started. Disgraced. As if the last five years had never been. From her stepfather to Tom to the wealthy, older men of her college years to the father of her child doubting his paternity. But this time, as she came face-to-face with the kind of woman she was, there wasn't any shock, outrage, confusion. There was something much worse. Resignation.
Oh, and the pain. It never stopped. Jamie knew that now. The kind of hurt she'd inflicted on herself was eternal.
"She's yours," she said. Not for her sake. What he thought of her didn't matter anymore. But Ashley needed her father. She deserved him. They deserved each other—this good decent man and the innocent child he'd created.
' 'How can you be sure?'' Kyle asked, still standing behind the couch. ' 'Obviously there were many others."
Breathing sporadically, she held back tears, promising herself that she wouldn't let them fall. She needed to be able to rely on herself for strength.
"I never had unprotected sex before that night."
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But that wasn't why she knew. Biology wasn't even why she knew. She knew in her heart.
"Accidents happen." He turned around, moved away from her, ending up over by the fireplace. He took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Do you know the names of all the men you were with in that last month? Would it even be possible to track them down, to narrow the child's parentage down to one man?"
She held up her head against the onslaught and faced the man she still loved. "Ashley needs you, Kyle. Please don't punish her for what I've done."
He blinked. "I'm not trying to punish her. I love her. Whether she's mine or not."
"Then don't punish yourself, either. Don't doubt what you know to be true."
Staring at her hard, he didn't move for several minutes. Solid and strong, he filled up her living room, her life, her heart.
Eventually, he reached the truth he'd had to reach. "She's mine," he admitted.
Jamie had known all along that he'd accept his fatherhood in every sense, biological as well as emotional. The special bond between them had brought them together in spite of what she'd been, and it still existed even now that he knew. It allowed him some kind of strange access to what she was really feeling; it denied the possibility of lying to each other. He could feel that the child she'd borne him belonged to him.
He just couldn't love her anymore. And she'd known that, too.
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"I'd been under a lot of pressure for about six weeks before that party, studying for exams." She heard herself giving him the evidence she could have given him at the beginning. "I hadn't… worked…at all."
He was watching her.
"For more than a month."
"You'd had a period."
Jamie nodded.
"What about…afterwards?"
"I told you, I've never been with anyone since."
For the first time in more than an hour, his eyes softened. She caught a glimpse of the man he really was, the man she'd recognized as good, compassionate, a soul mate. "You meant that," he said, speaking almost to himself. "You've been celibate since that night…"
She'd had to be. After what she'd done with Kyle, what she'd allowed herself to experience, to feel, she couldn't sleep with anyone else. It would have destroyed her. She'd lost her indifference, her impartiality.
' 'When I worked, I went off to a little room inside me. A room I'd found when I was just a child." Why she was bothering with this, she didn't know, but she wanted him to understand how different their night together had been. Maybe it was for Ashley's sake. He needed to know that she was a special child, the consequence of an incredible night, a night out of time.
He was silent, so she figured he was waiting for more and eventually continued. "I'd occupy myself
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there for as long as it took." Jamie stopped, remembering, knowing she had to get through the next few minutes, just make it until Kyle left and then she could retreat to her invisible little room.
"Sometimes I'd make out lists of things I needed to do, make plans. I'd have conversations with a female friend, tell myself stories. I'd even sing songs that made me feel good."
Kyle's jaw clenched, the muscles in his face working. The rest of him was frozen, motionless, as he watched her.
"Sounds crazy, huh?"
The strong emotions flaring in Kyle's gaze threatened Jamie's composure. She wanted so desperately to run to him, to bury herself in the safety of his embrace.
"It sounds like a way of coping," he said.
In his voice, she heard the warmth she'd come to associate with him during their many long phone conversations.
"I never experienced anything with the men I was with, have no memory of what a single one of them felt like." She hadn't even realized that until now. "I just remember places I've lain and the things I did in my room while I was lying there. I could even tell you who I was conversing with in my head or what song I was singing."
"The mind's a pretty powerful thing." He was still her friend. Caring. "It takes care of itself."
"I didn't go to my room the night Ashley was conceived," she whispered, losing her battle with the emotions thundering through her.
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She could tell her confession moved him. Sitting beside her on the couch he took her hand, touching her for the first time since he'd learned her shameful secret. He didn't say anything for a long time. Just leaned back against the couch, staring down at their clasped hands.
"Why?" His question was tortured.
"Why didn't I go there? Or why didn't I tell you what I was?"
' 'Why any of it? Why you? Why me? Why was that night so different? Why, as much as I hate all this, do I still care so damn much?"
' 'Maybe you were drawn to me that night because of who I was." She'd been wondering that ever since he'd told her about his mother.
"I had no idea you were working."
"Maybe not consciously." She focused on their clasped hands. "But men have a way of knowing. Maybe you sensed it. Maybe, with all your doubts, your self-recriminations, you needed me."
"But why you? Why not any of a hundred girls I could have found—girls more obvious about what they were?"
Jamie had no answer. Except one. "Maybe because / needed you.''
For the first time, Jamie put into words something she'd always instinctively known. "You saved me that night, Kyle. You tapped into the good that was still left inside me. The integrity that desperately needed to break free, to live and breathe. That night with you gave me the strength to be the woman I'd always believed I was meant to be."
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Kyle let go of her hand and raked his fingers through his hair. "So why'd you do it in the first place?"
She couldn't share that with him yet. Not while he was still so full of disgust. Not when his question came more from curiosity than concern. She needed him to accept her as she was. To care for her regardless. Or they could never have a future.
"I never sat down one day and made a conscious choice to become a highly paid escort, Kyle." She wanted to stand up. To get away from him. But she wasn't going to run anymore. "One thing just led to another, each little step leading me down that road. One little step at a time didn't seem so bad."
"Right, and next you're going to be telling me there was nothing bad about a woman who'd entertain two men at a time on her son's bed."
"No, Kyle, I can't tell you that. Because it isn't true." She tried to be strong. "The life of a kept woman—of any kind—can't be anything but bad."
"Well, this certainly explains your reaction the night I told you about her." His tone was cold again, distant. "You could relate."
"I'm not your mother, Kyle."
She didn't have to defend herself. Didn't need him sitting in judgment of her. She did that just fine all by herself. But neither could she leave him hurting this way, thinking he'd bedded a woman just like the mother who'd let him down so cruelly. So…
' 'I dated each of my clients—exclusively—until that particular liaison ended. If he was in town a week, it lasted a week. If he came back to Las Vegas
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later and I wasn't seeing anyone else, he'd have another week. If he lived in town, sometimes it lasted longer. I didn't pick up strangers. I never had one-night stands. I never once took a man to my home. I didn't allow kissing. And I never, ever, did anything you'd think of as…kinky."
And then she remembered something. The champagne. The hot bubble bath. "Until that night with you."
Later, lying in his bed, Kyle tried to sleep. He coaxed himself with the promise of eggs, fried potatoes and bacon for breakfast if he'd just drift off for a while. He got angry and demanded that he get his mind off it and go to sleep instantly. He lay quietly, eyes closed, trying not to move at all in the hope that he'd fall asleep in spite of himself. He counted old T-Birds.
Finally, he got up. Padding around the house in his underwear, he searched for something to do. He didn't feel like working or unpacking or reading. TV held no interest. It was too late to listen to music. Eventually, he ended up back in his bedroom, at the open window, leaning on the sill. As if the night held answers. The power to make his world right again.
Her Secret, His Child: A Little Secret Page 17