Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
His question didn’t leave much room for anything other than bluntness. “I have no idea.”
“Fair enough. I’m just trying to get things straight in my head. I mean a baby isn’t going to wait around for the two of us to figure our stuff out, and I do better when I have time to plan,” he admitted.
She fidgeted a bit before she realized what she was doing. She needed to stop letting him rattle her, but the truth was she wasn’t herself. She hadn’t been for a really long time...since Tara’s death. But she’d been faking it pretty well until now.
Was it Alejandro who was responsible for the change or was it the baby?
Or both?
She had no idea. She didn’t like to do too much introspection because frankly most days she didn’t like herself.
.. That was it, wasn’t it? The truth of who she’d become: someone who put on a fake show for the media and then played that part until she fell into an exhausted sleep, haunted by her dead sister.
Damn.
She was a bigger mess than she thought.
“I don’t know that we’re ever going to come up with a plan that will make sense,” she admitted.
“Me neither,” he said. “I keep trying to wrap my head around having a baby... I’m not going to lie. It’s scaring the shit out of me. I mean, I have a nephew but honestly, I don’t really spend that much time with kids. Hell, I don’t really spend much time with adults who I’m not working with.”
She had to laugh at the way he said it. She heard the panic in his voice and it made her feel a little better that he wasn’t all cool with everything, either.
“Don’t worry, that part I’m good at...not kids but adults,” she said, shifting in the large seat and stretching her legs. Lulu was still sleeping in her crate and would probably be content until they landed.
“We should make a list of pros and cons of us becoming parents,” he said, pulling his tablet toward him.
She reached over and took it from him, then tucked it behind her on the seat.
“No. We’re not doing that. We have the rest of this week to spend with each other and we’ll learn enough then to figure out what we should do next.
Honestly, I thought I’d tell you—I mean, Mauricio—about the baby and then because you, or rather, he was Humanitarian of the Year I’d hand the baby over and he’d raise it.
That way it would have a happy, well-adjusted life. ”
He shook his head. “I really screwed up this time.”
“Hey, we both were there that night. You know I wish you’d been honest but no use rehashing that. We’ll figure this out.”
“I hope so. I don’t want to be the reason a kid is messed up,” he said.
“Me neither. As I mentioned, my family isn’t the greatest when it comes to providing a happy, nurturing home but I still don’t want to give up the baby unless we can’t figure out a way to raise it.”
“You’d give it up?”
“If it meant making sure the child didn’t end up like my father or sister, then yes.”
She realized that sounded harsh. It was the first time she’d actually said it out loud but in her heart she’d felt that way for a long time.
She’d loved Tara more than she’d ever loved anyone on the planet but she’d been so broken, so flawed and it had been so heartbreaking to not be able to help her.
She wouldn’t go through that again. She wanted her child to grow up safe and secure...whole. She’d failed Tara and had wanted to save her. Losing Tara had shattered something in her and she was afraid of doing the same thing with her baby.
“We’re going to figure this out,” he said, the conviction he’d had since the moment he’d found out about her pregnancy...well, after he’d determined that he must be the father.
“That’s all I want,” she admitted. “I want to get this sorted out before I have to return to New York and start filming my show again.”
“When is that?” he asked.
“About three months’ time,” she said. “I can put them off for a few weeks, but everything hinges on my show. I see increased sales in merchandise when it airs. My company employs about twenty-five people so I can’t flake on them.”
“No problem. I’m hoping this week will give us both the answers we want. I know I want to get to know you better and I hope you’ll see that I’m not as craven as I might have seemed at first when I lied about who I was.”
“I’m already seeing it,” she said. No use hiding the truth from him.
Billie always said she had no filter, which also meant she had no walls up to protect herself.
But honestly she couldn’t stand fake emotion in her real life.
She spent so much time projecting an image to the world via her media channels that when she had downtime she had to be real.
“Good,” he said. “I am, too. I had no idea how honest you would be about everything. I sort of expected you to think about how it would affect your follows and stuff like that.”
She shook her head and shifted away from him. “I’m not like that. I mean I do have to be aware of how I look and the image I present but I’m not shallow.”
“I know. That’s what I was trying to say. I’m really good at putting my foot in it and saying the wrong things, but believe me, my intent is never to be an ass.”
She had to smile at that. She noticed he used self-deprecation a lot to divert tension. She wasn’t sure if it was sincere or if that was his way of pushing any blame away from himself. For now, she was going to take it at face value but it was something for her to watch.
“Fair enough,” she said. “So what do you usually do during the flight?”
“Work,” he said.
“Work?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Or work out. I have a treadmill in the bedroom.”
She shook her head. He was surprising. She hadn’t pegged him for a workaholic but as she looked around the aircraft she could see it was set up as an office. She also noticed a client entertainment area.
“Well... What are we going to do?”
“Whatever you want,” he said.
Whatever she wanted... Now that was dangerous invitation.
He hadn’t expected to find himself sitting across his conference table from her with a deck of cards between them. But then everything about Scarlet was unexpected so maybe he should stop trying to anticipate what she’d do.
He, his brothers and their friends had a monthly poker game in Cole’s Hill and he was pretty good at reading them.
They’d played together since high school when they’d thought they were cooler than they actually had been.
But Scarlet was completely different. It was harder for him to find her tells.
And not just because she had a pretty good poker face, but because she distracted him.
She’d braided her long blond hair, but tendrils had escaped, with one of them brushing against the side of her face.
She kept reaching up and tucking the strand behind her ear, which fascinated him.
He’d seen his sister, Bianca, do the same thing, but it had never seemed as interesting as when Scarlet did it.
“I’ll raise you a protein bar and two Hershey’s Kisses,” she said, pushing the snacks toward the middle of the table.
He arched one eyebrow at her. “That’s a pretty steep bet.”
“It is... Though I have heard that you should never wager anything you don’t want to lose, so if you really want to keep your protein bar you should fold.”
He shook his head. “No way. I’m sort of an all-in kind of guy.”
“Are you?” she asked. “You seem like an I-don’t-place-a-bet-unless-I’m-going-to-win kind of guy.”
“Possibly,” he said with a shrug. “In life, definitely, but when it comes to cards I have a different set of rules.”
She nodded. “You’re all about the rules, aren’t you?”
He didn’t think she meant that as a good thing and thought maybe he should hedge his answer.
But when she’d been brutally honest about her family, he’d decided to do the same with her.
Keep it real instead of trying to protect himself from letting her see too much of who he was.
“I know it makes me sound like an old fart, but I am about the rules. Life is just so much easier when we all know what to expect.”
“Why break them the night of the gala, then? And who called you an old fart?” she asked, laughing. “I mean I haven’t exactly seen that side of you. At the gala you were definitely not acting like a stick-in-the-mud.”
“My brothers and Bianca call me that. But that’s just because they usually don’t follow the rules and end up in trouble.
The night of the gala... I don’t know, I guess I just felt like I could let go because no one knew it was me.
It gave me a chance to just let my guard down.
And I imitated Alec the night of the gala because he needed me. I can’t turn down family.”
“That’s sweet. I liked you at the gala,” she said.
“You did?” he asked, leaning across the table.
He wanted her so badly that every inhalation was almost painful.
He could smell her perfume. His senses were overwhelmed with everything that was Scarlet.
He struggled to keep his eyes off the curves of her body and that damned strand of hair she kept tucking behind her ear.
He knew if he shifted his legs under the table he’d brush against her; he had done it twice already and had the feeling she’d catch on to what he was doing if he did it again.
He was trying but it was hard. He was hard, and he wanted nothing more than to forget all the rules that he applied to his life to keep it orderly, sweep her into his arms and carry her into the bedroom at the back of the plane.
“I did,” she said.
He groaned.
“What?”
“You’re not making this easy.”
“Making what easy?”
“Just sticking to my own tips for not screwing things up with you any further than I already have,” he said.
She laughed again and it made him smile. The sound was so genuine and full of joy that he couldn’t help himself. Which only underscored how important it was for him to stick to his own regulations where she was concerned.
“I have to admit I like that,” she said.
“You do?”