“Sage.” Dr. Stannis’s tone was shocked and sharp.
Sage immediately realized her mistake.
They were dependent on TJ. Eli’s life depended on this man’s good graces, this man who had deceived her, lied to her and taken shameless advantage of her teenage naïveté as a prank to amuse his friends.
She hated him. But he was the one person who could save her son’s life.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying desperately to put some sincerity into her tone.
Judging by his expression, she hadn’t pulled it off.
“Please don’t...” Her stomach cramped up. “Please don’t take it out on Eli.”
He looked completely dumbfounded. Then he swore under his breath. “You actually think I’d harm a little boy...my own son—” He seemed to gather himself. “You think I’d let my anger with you impact my decision to donate? What kind of a man do you think I am?”
She didn’t know what kind of a man he was. She knew what kind of a teenager he’d been back then—unscrupulous and self-centered. She had no reason to assume he’d changed.
“I don’t know.” She forced the words out.
“Well, know,” he said. He looked to Dr. Stannis again. “How soon will we be sure I’m a close enough match?”
“A few days,” she said. “But given the genetic connection, I’m even more optimistic.”
“It’s a stroke of luck,” TJ said flatly.
Sage couldn’t begin to guess at the emotion behind those words.
Dr. Stannis moved to look her directly in the eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” For the moment, she was fine.
TJ was going to help them. They’d figure out the rest later. For now, the bone marrow transplant was all that mattered.
The doctor stepped back. “I’ll give the two of you some time to talk.”
With a final assessment of Sage’s expression, she left the lounge.
Sage had no idea what to say next, and the seconds ticked past.
When TJ finally spoke, there was contained fury in his tone. “I’m not going to ask you how you could have done something so horrible.”
“Me?” Sage could barely believe he’d said it. “You were there. You know exactly what happened between us.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “That was a stupid stunt by an ignorant kid. We’ve grown up since then. You’ve known about this for a decade.”
“You were a shallow, self-centered jerk.”
He squared his shoulders and set his square jaw. “I don’t want to fight with you, Sage. This conversation can wait. Right now, I want to meet my son.”
Sage staggered and reached to an armchair for support. “No.”
“What do you mean no? No is no longer an option for you.”
She struggled for the right words. “You can’t tell him, TJ. Not now. Not while he’s so sick.” She stretched her arm expansively toward the door to the rest of the hospital. “There’s no way we can expect him to absorb news like that in the middle of all this.”
TJ seemed to consider her words. His expression lost its hard edge. “I need to meet him, Sage. We don’t have to tell him I’m his father, at least not right away. But I’m going to meet him, and I’m not waiting another minute.”
Sage decided she could live with that. “Okay.”
“His name is Eli?”
“Yes. Eli Thomas Costas.”
TJ didn’t react to the name. He walked over to the lounge door and pulled it open, holding it for her. “Take me to my son.”
* * *
“Whoa, whoa, back up, back up,” Matt said to TJ. “You say he’s nine years old?”
“It was in high school,” TJ responded.
There was an open beer on the wide arm of his wooden deck chair on Matt’s Whiskey Bay Marina sundeck, but TJ had no interest in drinking it.
“So, before you met Lauren,” Caleb said.
The three men were sitting around the gas fire pit, but it was early on a June evening, so they hadn’t bothered lighting it.
“I didn’t cheat on Lauren.” TJ’s tone was hard.
“I’m just getting the time line straight.”
“It was a one-night thing. At prom. We danced.”
TJ didn’t want to own up to participating in the foolish prank that had led him to ask nerdy brainiac Sage Costas to dance with him that night. At least not until he had to. And he hoped that was never.
“And she never told you about the baby?” Matt asked.
“I assume that’s rhetorical,” TJ replied.
If Sage had told him about Eli, TJ would have moved heaven and earth to have a relationship with his son. TJ’s own father had walked out before TJ was born, and there was no way he’d do that to a child of his own.
“What’s he like?” Caleb asked, his tone dropping.
TJ’s mind went back to the sleepy boy in the stark hospital bed. “He’s a great-looking kid.”
Eli had been too tired to do much but say hello.
“Like his dad?” Matt joked.
TJ would be lying if he said he hadn’t seen some of himself in Eli. He didn’t think he was imagining it.
“If he’s got his mother’s brains, the world better watch out.” As he said the words, TJ realized they were entirely true. From a genetic perspective, Eli had a fantastic mother. Back in high school, Sage was voted most likely to save the world or become president.
“When are you going to tell him?” Matt asked.
TJ decided it was time for a shot of alcohol, no matter how weak. He raised his beer and took a drink before answering. “I don’t know. When he’s feeling better, I guess.”
“And the tests?”
“They said the results will take a couple of days. I’ve got three major private placement deals on the table. I have to close them. Then I’m clearing my desk to go back to Seattle. Whatever happens, if I’m a match or not, he’s still my kid, and he’s getting the best medical care money can buy.”
Matt and Caleb exchanged a look.
“What?” TJ asked.
“That’s a good place for your money,” Matt said.
“You bet it’s a good place for my money.”
But money wasn’t the only thing his son needed. TJ didn’t know what he’d do if he wasn’t a bone marrow match. He had to be a match. Nothing else was acceptable.
“You talked to him?” Caleb asked.
“Only a little. He was pretty groggy from all the medication. Sage says he plays baseball, a catcher.”
“Have you talked to a lawyer?” Matt asked.
“I’ve talked to three lawyers.” TJ’s company Tide Rush Investments had a financial lawyer on retainer and his firm had a family law division.
“What do they say?”
“That I’ve got a case.”
“What are you looking to get?” Matt asked.
“What has she offered?” Caleb’s brow shot up.
TJ took another pull on his beer. It was such an incredibly ordinary thing to do—sitting up here with his two friends like he had hundreds of times over the years. But his life had been turned upside down. It would never be the same again.
He’d been considering his position for the past thirty-six hours. “She had custody for the first nine years. I’ll take the next nine.”
Caleb frowned.
“You can’t take that hard a line,” Matt said.
“A teenage boy needs his dad. I’d have given anything to have my old man show up in my life when I was Eli’s age,” TJ said. He had a lot of time to make up for, and he had no intention of letting Sage or anyone else stop him.
“They need their mom too,” Caleb said.
TJ knew that. But he didn’t want to admit it right now. He wanted to ho
ld on to his anger at Sage for a while.
“She can have visitation,” he said. “That’s more than she gave me.”
“Could you move to Seattle?” Matt asked.
“The Whiskey Bay school is top-notch,” TJ countered. “So is the area hospital. And the lifestyle can’t be beat.” He couldn’t imagine a more perfect place to raise a child.
“The neighbors are pretty good,” Caleb said with a half smile.
“It’s not like I don’t have the room.”
His wife, Lauren, had wanted several children. She’d designed a six-bedroom house with a massive recreation area in the basement for rainy days and a nanny suite over the garage. She’d been trying to get pregnant when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I can’t see it being that straightforward.” There was a cautionary note to Matt’s voice.
“Nothing’s that straightforward,” TJ said. “But I’m a determined and resourceful man.”
“She’s the mother of your child.”
“And I’m the father of hers—a fact she seems to have conveniently ignored.”
“Do you know why?” Caleb asked. “Why she kept it from you? I mean, she could easily have come after you for child support.”
“She wouldn’t have had to come after me. I’d have stepped up without a fight.”
“I know. I know. But you’d think she’d have wanted your help.”
TJ knew the whole truth would eventually come out. His friends were too astute, and they cared too much about him to let him get away with a vague explanation. It was both a blessing and a curse.
TJ took the plunge. “She said I didn’t deserve to know about Eli.”
“Why?” Caleb’s question was perfectly predictable.
“Because it was a prank.”
Both of his friends looked at him blankly.
“Prom night.” TJ gritted his teeth at the memory. “A group of us, the seniors on the football team, we each picked a girl’s name out of a hat. I picked Sage.”
“I’m guessing they weren’t the girls on the cheerleading squad,” Matt said. His disappointment in TJ was obvious.
TJ knew he deserved that. “Not the cheerleading squad. They were the nerds, the brains. It was supposed to be a kiss, only a dance and a kiss. That was it. But Sage...”
He remembered the overpowering rush of adolescent hormones. He couldn’t say what it was about her. She had been thin and freckled, with this wild red hair. But when he’d kissed her, she’d kissed him back, and they’d both been left breathless. His car had been far too close to the side door of the gym, and they’d ended up in the back seat.
“We can fill in the rest,” Caleb said.
“I tracked her down the next day to apologize. But she’d already heard about the prank. She was enraged, punched me square in the chest.” TJ’s hand went reflexively to the spot where her small fist had connected. “She told me she never wanted to speak to me again.”
“You can’t blame her,” Matt said.
“It was stupid and cruel, I know. But I only planned to kiss her. The rest of it was on both of us. It was more than just consensual. And she’s kept my son from me for nine years. The two things don’t even compare.”
Two
A week later, mere hours after the transplant procedure, Sage expected to find TJ lounging in his hospital bed. But he was up and halfway dressed, reaching his arms into a crisp white dress shirt.
“Should you be out of bed?” she asked, stepping past the curtain.
“The nurse took the IV out a few minutes ago.”
“But you just had surgery.”
“I’m aware of that.” He adjusted his collar and shifted the lapels across what she’d noted was a magnificently muscular chest.
“You must be sore.” She couldn’t believe he’d bounce back this fast.
“Only my hip. Dr. Stannis says it’ll disappear in a few days. Hanging around here isn’t going to help any.”
“Can you drive?” Sage asked.
She didn’t know where he was staying, but she wanted to be sure he got safely back to his hotel. It was the least she could do—the very least she could do for the man who may have saved her son’s life.
“They didn’t serve liquor in the operating room.”
“You know what I mean. You must be woozy.”
“It’s not too bad.” He finished doing up his buttons. “I’m not crazy about anesthetic. I like my brain cells too much.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” She struggled to keep her emotions at bay. “Thank you, TJ.”
He sent her a sharp gaze, trapping hers for a long second. “You don’t have to thank me. He’s my son. You don’t ever have to thank me for helping my son.”
It would be a struggle for her to get used to that. She’d had Eli to herself for such a long time, she couldn’t imagine letting anyone else into their circle.
“I need you to understand that, Sage.”
“You’re going to have to give me some time.”
“I’ve already wasted nine years.” TJ took a pewter-gray blazer from a hanger on the wall and put it on over his designer outfit.
She was terrified to ask him what he had in mind. She didn’t want to have that conversation. “They’re watching Eli for signs of rejection,” she said instead.
“Anything yet?” TJ asked.
“It’s too soon to tell. Are you staying in Seattle overnight?”
Again, he pasted her with the sharp look. “I’m staying here as long as it takes.”
“Takes to what?”
He turned his back to her, punching a code into a small safe on the wall and retrieving his wallet and keys. Then he faced her and deposited the wallet into his inside jacket pocket. He kept the keys in his hand.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
She worriedly searched his expression for a clue. “About...”
“I’d like to move Eli to Highside Hospital.”
The words blindsided her. “What? Where?”
“It’s near Whiskey Bay. It’s state-of-the-art—”
“No.”
“Hear me out.”
Protective instincts rose inside her, along with a healthy dose of fear. “You’re not taking Eli out of Seattle.”
“It’s the best place for him. I’ve donated to Highside for years, and they have the best doctors, the best technology, he’d be—”
“St. Bea’s is a fantastic hospital.”
“It’s a public hospital.”
Her tone went up in defense. “So what?”
“So, they’re busy, overworked, stretched for resources.”
“They’ve given Eli everything he needs. They diagnosed him. They found you.” She stopped, realizing TJ’s unique role in Eli’s recovery might not be her strongest argument.
“I was in the registry. Any hospital would have found me.”
“I don’t want him moved.” She needed to be close to her son while he recovered.
Whiskey Bay was three hours away. She’d missed so much time at work these past weeks, she couldn’t take much more off. She’d planned to work as many hours as she could while Eli was recovering.
“It’ll free up a bed for someone who desperately needs it,” TJ said.
“What part of no don’t you understand?”
“What part of father don’t you understand?”
“He can’t be moved yet.” She realized her best argument was the medical one.
“I’m not talking about today, or even tomorrow. But as soon as he’s strong enough, we can hire a medical helicopter. It’ll take thirty minutes, tops.”
“Just like that?” She resisted an urge to snap her fingers.
“Just like what?”
“You’ll hire a helic
opter.”
“It’s fast. It’ll be comfortable. The onboard medics are equipped for anything.”
“It’ll cost a fortune.”
His expression was a study in incomprehension. “It’s my son’s health we’re talking about.”
She was back in high school again. “You’re still the big man, aren’t you?”
His nostrils flared, but he didn’t answer.
“The star athlete, the guy who got anything he wanted, grants, scholarships, the best parties, all the girls.”
TJ opened his mouth, but she didn’t let him interrupt.
“The wide receiver with the magic hands, who was going all-state, who could write his own ticket.”
“I’m not going to apologize for getting a college degree.”
Sage felt like a knife had been shoved into her heart. She’d given up countless scholarship offers to raise Eli.
“I earned my money,” TJ continued. “I’m spending it on my son.”
She stepped forward. “Your son doesn’t need it.”
“You want to fight me on this?”
Sage was about to say yes, when the curtain was whisked open.
Dr. Stannis appeared. She looked TJ up and down and smiled. “Nice bounce-back.”
“I’ve been through worse,” he said. “How’s Eli?”
“He’s still in recovery. We’re going to keep him there for a few more hours. Do you feel ready for discharge?”
“Absolutely. When can we see him?”
“Later tonight.” Dr. Stannis glanced at her watch. “Nine-ish? But he’ll still be pretty groggy until morning.”
“We’ll come back at nine.”
Sage was about to protest that she wasn’t leaving.
“Make sure you get plenty of fluids,” Dr. Stannis said to TJ.
“Is there a good restaurant nearby?”
It took Sage a second to realize the question was for her. “I’m, uh, not sure.”
He looked puzzled.
She wasn’t about to explain to Mr. Moneybags Helicopter Charter that she normally brought snacks from home to save money over eating in the hospital cafeteria. Forget restaurants. They weren’t even on her radar.
“The Red Grill is just down the road,” Dr. Stannis said. “It gets good reviews from families of our patients.”
His Temptation, Her Secret Page 2