Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
“ W e need to talk,” Nick announced when she made the mistake of opening her eyes. That, of course, was also the moment her stomach decided to inform her that it was quite angry with her. Actually, the way that it was tightening and twisting let her know that it absolutely hated her.
A look around the room had her taking in the junk food wrappers and empty soda cans, reminding her exactly why her stomach was no longer on speaking terms with her. She pressed a hand against her stomach as she slowly, ever so slowly, climbed off the bed and headed for the bathroom. Nick didn’t argue when she shut the bathroom door in his face so that she could relieve herself, which she truly appreciated at the moment.
The moment that he heard the faucet turn on, he decided that she’d had enough time to herself and walked into the bathroom. Thankfully, the man was a saint and started the tub for her while she brushed her teeth. Once she was done, she made her way to the tub, sending him a small smile of gratitude as he helped her into the tub, sat down and sighed with relief as the hot water pooled around her stomach and eased some of the aches making her wish for a quick death.
She was never going on another junk food binge as long as she lived, Jamie decided as she laid back in the tub. When Nick handed her a bottle of water, she had to stop herself from asking for a Coke since she knew that would probably earn her a glare, so she accepted the water and took a small sip, praying that it didn’t set off her sensitive stomach.
“Jamie, we really need to talk about last night,” Nick said, looking adorably sexy with his hair mussed and five o’clock shadow.
“Okay,” she said, wincing when her stomach sent up a warning not to make any sudden moves. She was done with sweets. From now on, she was sticking to tasteless, bland food that didn’t leave her praying for a quick death.
“We didn’t use a condom last night, Jamie,” Nick started to say, reminding her of the other thing that happened last night.
She had sex!
Really great, fun sex and it hadn’t been pity sex or even sex with a stranger. It had been with Nick and he’d been sweet, gentle and so good that just thinking about it made another part of her ache. She wondered if her stomach would be okay if she had sex because she definitely wanted to do that again.
Her mind chose that exact moment to remind her that she’d broken into sobs as soon as it was over. That memory was pretty mortifying, so she decided that she was going to just go ahead and drown herself now. Nick stopped her with a long-suffering sigh and a hand. He gave her elbow a gentle nudge to help her sit back up and when she did, he shocked her further by lathering his hands with her bar of lemongrass soap and began washing her body.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m clean. I’ve never had sex without a condom before and I always get tested,” he paused mid-wash to meet her gaze and stressed, “Always.”
Jamie nodded slowly, wondering if this was his way of asking her if she was clean. She opened her mouth to reassure him that she was when she remembered that he was well aware of her virginal status last night and probably realized that she was clean as well.
“If it will make you feel better, I’ll go out today and get tested again, but I want you to know that it has been almost a year since I’ve had sex and I’ve been tested since,” he explained.
“Okay,” she said, nodding and not really sure what else there was to say.
When he became quiet, she got a little nervous. “Is there something else?” Jamie asked, trying not to worry. She hoped this wasn’t the moment he chose to let her go or worse, tell her that she was horrible in bed because if that was the case, she was more than happy to keep trying until she got it right.
“Are you on birth control?” Nick asked grimly, looking less than pleased with the idea of having a baby with her.
“Oh,” Jamie said, feeling like an idiot. Of course, they should talk about birth control. Thankfully, it was one of those things that she had covered. “I’ve been on birth control since I was fourteen,” she announced, trying not to laugh when the announcement noticeably startled him.
She decided to take pity on him and explain, “My periods were irregular, so the doctor thought it would help me.”
Nick nodded, looking relieved as he went back to washing her. “I guess that’s one less thing to worry about,” he murmured quietly.
“I guess,” Jamie agreed, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she found herself wondering about a few things.
She wondered if her monthly problem was something that she’d inherited from her birth mother since her mother, well, the woman she thought was her mother, Jamie reminded herself sadly, didn’t have that problem and neither did Caitlyn. It also reminded her that she had about a thousand questions that she wanted to ask her father. She also wondered who her real mother was and where she was.
The one thing that she couldn’t help but wonder was what was so wrong with her that her mother gave her away. It was more than obvious, at least to her, that she must have done something bad. According to the paper, she’d been four years old by the time she went to live with her father. She wanted to find her mother and ask her what she did to make her give her away to a father who ignored her and a woman who’d made it obvious that she wasn’t welcome, and she had to do it in person.
It was bad enough that she had to find out about everything along with the rest of the world, but she wasn’t going to wait for this. She didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone. She wanted her father to look her in the eye when he explained why he’d lied to her. She also wanted to know why he’d decided that it was okay for the rest of the world to find out about her mother before she did.
This might very well be the last time she spoke to her father since it was more than obvious that he didn’t want her around. Part of her hoped that he’d break down and apologize for her crappy childhood and promise to make it up to her, but she wasn’t an idiot. She’d always known that her father didn’t love her, and now…
Now, she wanted to know why.
“Nick?”
“Yes?” he asked as he ran his hands over her back.
“I know this is last minute, but I need a few days off to figure some things out,” Jamie said, hoping that he could get her out of the interviews that he’d scheduled for her since she didn’t want to have to put this off for another day.
His hand stilled on her back. “Is this about us?”
“No,” she answered honestly. Whatever was going on between them would have to wait until later. There was no doubt in her mind that he was going to break her heart when he decided to move on. When it happened, she would deal with it, but right now, she had other things to worry about.
“You’re going home to see your family,” Nick murmured as he ran his hand down her back again.
“I don’t want to put it off and I really don’t want to wait until their next interview to find out that they’d been lying to me again,” Jamie explained, not sure that she could handle anything else right now.
“Okay, I’ll go with you,” he said, taking her by surprise.
“Thank you,” Jamie said softly as she stared down at the water, wondering what was going to happen when this was all over.
If he wanted to see where this was going that was fine with her and if he didn’t...
She was going to need a hell of a lot more chocolate and Coke to get over him.
“You really didn’t have to come,” Jamie said again as he pulled into the long driveway of a large, white two-story house with an attached three-car garage. One look at the well-kept home, manicured lawn, and upscale neighborhood let him know that their childhoods had been worlds apart. Why that bothered him, he didn’t know.
“I wasn’t about to let you face them alone,” Nick said as he stepped out of the car. When the words rushed out of his mouth this morning, no one had been more surprised than him, but once he thought about it, he realized that she was going to need him. More importantly, he realized that he’d go crazy waiting for her, terrified out of his fucking mind that they did something else to hurt her again to focus on anything else right now. He needed to keep her safe, Nick decided as he walked around the car to open Jamie’s door. That’s when he noticed the cameras.
Paparazzi.
Fucking perfect, Nick thought as he took Jamie’s hand and walked her to the door. She’d barely finished pressing the doorbell when the door was practically ripped open and an older woman in her fifties with dark brown hair, a tad too much makeup, and designer clothes grabbed Jamie and pulled her into her arms.
Nick looked back in time to see dozens of cameras go off while several more men and women ran to the sidewalk to join in the feeding frenzy. When he turned around, he noted that the woman was still holding Jamie even though Jamie had gone stiff in her arms. He also noted the smug smile on the woman’s face as she watched the paparazzi go nuts.
Having had enough drama for one day, thanks to this woman, Nick smoothly pulled Jamie away and waited for her to invite them in. With a fake smile, she did just that. As soon as the door was closed behind them, the smile was gone and a look of utter disdain took over her features as she gestured for them to follow her.
He gave Jamie’s hand a small squeeze as they followed her through the foyer to a room with double doors. When the doors opened, he spotted an older man with graying red hair sitting on a small sofa, sipping a glass of what appeared to be whiskey as he spoke with a younger man and woman, who was obviously this woman’s daughter judging by her coloring and the pinched expression when she spotted Jamie. When her eyes shifted to him, they widened in surprise before they turned calculating.
The woman was beautiful, classically so with a look and it wasn’t too difficult to see that she’d been pampered every day of her life. Remembering how his little recluse used to look, it also wasn’t that difficult to figure out that Jamie hadn’t been given the same treatment and the reason behind it. Her mother wanted her real daughter to have all the attention and she’d made damn sure that Jamie had been neglected.
He looked at the man by her side just in time to see his eyes light up when he spotted Jamie and Nick didn’t appreciate the way the man ran his eyes over his little recluse. The smile he sent Jamie’s way also didn’t please him.
“Jamie,” he said, getting to his feet and walking over to greet her, “you look great.” When he pulled Jamie into a hug, Nick barely stopped himself from shoving the asshole aside and telling him to keep his hands to himself. Something in his expression must have given away his thoughts because when he looked at Nick, he noticeably blanched and stepped away from Jamie.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, reaching over to shake Nick’s hand. “I’m David, Caitlyn’s husband.”
“Nick, Jamie’s boyfriend,” Nick said before he realized what he was saying, but once it was out, he decided that he rather liked it, especially if it let this asshole know that Jamie was his.
David noticeably started as he looked between them as though he couldn’t quite believe it. The looks the other women were sending their way pretty much said it all. They didn’t think very highly of Jamie. The fact that her father and sister didn’t greet Jamie also said it all.
Nick took Jamie’s hand in his and entwined their fingers. It was then that he realized that she was trembling and that her hand was ice-cold. Without waiting for an invitation, he walked Jamie over to the loveseat across from her sister and sat down, pulling Jamie against his side. He put his arm around her as he tried his best to give her the support that she needed, but he wasn’t sure what to do.
This was the first time he’d ever tried to be there for a woman and he didn’t want to mess this up. Jamie needed him and normally that would have scared the hell out of him, but he had to admit that he liked knowing that he could keep her safe.
“I suppose you’re here because of the story,” her father said instead of acknowledging his youngest daughter.
“Yes,” Jamie said firmly. “As much as I would like to know why you leaked the story to the press instead of talking to me about it, I’m more interested in my mother.”
He noticed the older woman didn’t protest when she referred to another woman as her mother. Then again, it was more than obvious that Jamie was just a means to get attention at the moment. He didn’t need to be psychic to know that it had been her stepmother’s idea to leak the story. She probably felt the attention was owed to her for raising her husband’s unwanted bastard.
“We really don’t know much about her,” Jamie’s father said, taking a sip of his drink before he reached into his jacket and pulled out an aged envelope and handed it to Jamie. “She left when she was only a few months pregnant with you. Then, when you were four, she left you on our doorstep with a copy of your birth certificate.”
“She didn’t leave a reason why she left me?” Jamie asked, sounding hurt.
“I’m afraid that’s all we know,” her father said, sighing heavily.
“Henry, you should tell her,” Mrs. Harris said, earning a glare from her husband.
“Tell me what?” Jamie asked, shifting nervously in her seat.
“Barbara,” Henry said tightly in warning.
“She has a right to know,” Barbara said, carefully smoothing her hands down her skirt as she turned her attention to Jamie. “I’m afraid when we searched for her, we discovered that she’d passed away.”
He felt Jamie’s reaction like a physical blow. “Did she have any family?” Jamie asked in a hoarse whisper.
“No,” her father said with a firm shake of his head. “I’m afraid that she was all alone in this world.”
Like Jamie.
Like him.
No, he realized a moment later. That wasn’t true. He had a great job and good friends that more than made up for what he lacked in family and Jamie had him. At least for now. But he’d make sure that she was taken care of even after this hold that she had on him faded away. She deserved better than this.
“Is there anything else I should know?” Jamie asked after a slight hesitation.
Her father didn’t even hesitate when he said, “No,” causing Nick’s bullshit meter to go off the charts.