“Then leave the boy with me. You’ve had four months with him, I’ve had barely a day. And I have plenty of room, as well as the money to hire a round-the-clock nanny.”
Haylie’s eyes went wide. She’d never considered herself a violent person, but right that second she was extremely tempted to reach out and slap the man sitting beside her. There were so many things wrong with what he’d just said, she didn’t know where to begin.
The boy? A nanny?
Leave Bradley with Trevor?
“Absolutely not.”
This time, it was her voice that came out strained, but not due to nerves. Oh, no, hers was all temper. She was skating past mere anger, headed deep into furious territory.
“I may not be Bradley’s biological mother, but I’m the only mother he’s known for the past two months—and quite a bit before that, if the truth be known. There is no way I would leave him anywhere, with anyone.”
The waterproof material of her jacket made a slick scratching sound as she crossed her arms. “I don’t care if you are his father,” she muttered with no small amount of aversion to the word.
What was that saying about no good deed going unpunished? Boy, was she being smacked in the face with its meaning now.
All she’d wanted was to do the right thing. To let a man know he’d fathered a child with a woman who never would have told him on her own, and whom he never would have run into again otherwise.
She’d wanted to do the right thing by Bradley. He was a Jarrod, after all. And even though she didn’t need the family’s millions, didn’t believe a child needed that kind of money to grow up happy and healthy and well-loved, he still deserved to know where he came from, who his ancestors were.
But no good deed… And here she was, only a handful of hours past her “good deed,” and it was already biting her in the butt.
For several seconds, Trevor didn’t reply. Then his low voice carried over the short distance separating them, his words stopping her heart and freezing her blood.
“I could take him from you, you know.”
Okay, so that hadn’t been Argument Number One in Trevor’s big plan to convince Haylie to move in with him for the next couple of weeks. But something about the way she’d gotten up on her hind legs about not leaving Bradley with him put him on the defensive.
On the one hand, he liked how protective she was of the infant. If the kid really did turn out to be his, he suspected he was going to have a lot of moments of feeling very grateful toward her for caring for his son the way she had.
Sure, Bradley was her nephew, so he knew there had to be a strong bond there. But from the sounds of it, Bradley’s mother—this now-deceased Heather he had no recollection of ever meeting—had been a bit of a troublemaker. Or rather, gotten into her fair share of trouble.
It would have been easy, even understandable, for Haylie to cut her sister off and say no more. No more cleaning up her messes, no more coming to her rescue.
But Haylie hadn’t done that, had she? No, she had not only stuck by her sister through all of her screwups, but had taken over the role of mother to her infant son after Heather’s unexpected death.
For that, Haylie deserved a whole row of gold stars. And if he turned out to be Bradley’s father, she would also have Trevor’s undying gratitude.
“I’ll fight you for him,” she said through gritted teeth, breaking into his thoughts.
She sounded completely outraged, on the verge of doing him bodily damage, and his opinion of her ratcheted up another dozen notches.
Of course, she wouldn’t have a chance in hell. She could fight him from now until doomsday, but if he wanted to take primary physical custody of the little boy in the backseat, he had both the lawyers and the resources to see that it was done. Even before the DNA results came in, the argument could be made that she had come to him with claims of his paternity and, given that the child’s mother had kept both her pregnancy and the infant a secret from him…well, he imagined the courts would be only too happy to rectify the circumstances in his favor. That wasn’t the route he wanted to take, however, and was already regretting bringing it up. Instead, he preferred to finesse the situation. Something he was normally much better at.
Considering the baby bomb that had been dropped on him only hours ago, Trevor decided to cut himself some slack. He was still reeling from the first moment the words “here’s your son” had slipped from Haylie’s mouth, let alone everything that had been spinning through his head since.
And the fact was, he needed Haylie on his side. It wasn’t easy for him to admit that, even to himself, but he knew nothing about kids. Little ones, big ones; they might as well have been tiny green creatures from the planet Krypton.
If Bradley turned out to be his flesh and blood, then no matter what Trevor had said about hiring a nanny, he was going to need her to teach him everything he needed to know about his own son. A nanny could change diapers and heat up bottles, but she wouldn’t know Bradley’s favorite brand of baby food, or whether he was ticklish or what made him laugh and cry.
Haylie knew those things. She’d spent the last four months learning all there was to know about his son.
Maybe his son.
His possible son.
No sense getting ahead of himself—or the paternity tests.
Still, the Jarrods were big on family, which meant that if he ended up with the right to lay claim to the baby, he would never dream of shutting Haylie out of Bradley’s life. Bradley would need an aunt on his mother’s side, as much as a father and aunts and uncles on Trevor’s side.
So it would be smart to make Haylie his ally rather than his enemy. And better to start down that path sooner rather than later.
“Let’s try to avoid the threats and talk of a custody battle altogether, shall we? At least for the time being. I think if you consider what I’m suggesting, you’ll realize it’s best for everyone involved.”
When he cast a quick glance in Haylie’s direction, he found her staring at him, one brow raised.
“Really?” she asked, sarcasm heavy in her tone. “How do you figure that?”
With a shrug, he returned his attention to the road. “Like I said, it’s only for a few weeks, and it will give Bradley and me a chance to get to know each other.” No, that didn’t sound quite right. What was a better word for getting acquainted with your possible progeny? “To bond.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her lips thin in what he thought was reluctant approval. He’d gotten one right, then…and annoyed Haylie in the process.
“What about me?” she asked, her gaze focused straight ahead through the windshield, just like his.
He frowned. “What about you? I already said that you and Bradley can move into my home together. I’ve got plenty of space, if that’s what you’re worried about. The two of you can have your own room and have the run of the place during the day while I’m at the resort.”
“And what about my life back home? I do have a job, you know. A business to run, employees to oversee, a schedule to keep.”
He shook his head and readjusted his hands on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What is it that you do?”
He couldn’t believe he hadn’t wondered about that before now. Chalk it up to yet another sign of his complete and utter shock at having a four-month-old child dropped in his lap. Literally.
Now that the topic had been brought up, however, he realized a background check wouldn’t be out of the question. As soon as he returned to the office, he would make some phone calls and find the best person to do a bit of very quiet digging into Haylie’s life, both the professional and private sides.
As long as they were at it, he’d see what they could learn about the sister, too. She might be deceased, but a good investigator should at least be able to determine whether Heather had actually been in Denver at the same time as Trevor’s visit. If she truly had frequented the club where Haylie claimed he and Heather had met, and if there were any other candidates for fatherhood lurking in the shadows.
And even before Dr. Lazlo called with the paternity results, a background check would give him an idea of Haylie’s financial situation. Whether it was more or less likely that she was using her dead sister’s child to wring a few of the Jarrod family’s millions from him.
“I’m an event planner,” Haylie supplied, oblivious to the thoughts and plans spiraling silently through his head.
“And you own your own company?” he encouraged.
She nodded. “A small one. I only have a handful of helpers, but the holidays are a busy time for us. I can barely afford to be away overnight, let alone for a week or two.”
Ignoring the last part of her statement—temporarily, at least—Trevor asked, “What’s the business called?”
Apparently, he was being too nice all of a sudden, because she cast him a suspicious glance before answering.
“It’s Your Party.”
“Cute,” he murmured, an idea springing to mind and starting to take shape.
“Thank you.”
“Do you specialize in anything in particular?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “Or not yet. It’s only been three years since we opened our doors, so we’re still finding our footing and working to build a reputation as Denver’s go-to event-planning company.”
“Bet you’re dealing with a lot of upcoming Christmas party preparations, huh?”
“Definitely. November and December are very good months for us, thank goodness.”
She smiled a little then, and something warm began to unfurl in his chest.
No doubt about it, Haylie Smith was a damned attractive woman. If she were anyone else, and they’d met any other way, he was pretty sure he’d have put the moves on her already. Offered to buy her a drink. Flashed his famed Trevor Jarrod playboy grin…the one that came complete with dimples and teeth so white and sparkly he could pose for a toothpaste ad.
But Haylie was off-limits, wasn’t she? Not only because of the big, bad paternity issue she’d tossed on his doorstep with all the grace of a heavyweight fighter going down for the count, but because he got the distinct feeling she wasn’t a woman who could be easily seduced.
Unlike her sister. Which brought him right back around again to the brick wall of the paternity thing.
“Ever planned a wedding?” he asked, returning to the kernel of an idea that had sprung up earlier.
Her brows knit a bit at that, but she answered readily enough. “A few. Small ones on my own, especially when I was first starting out. A couple of bigger ones once I’d hired staff to help out.”
He hit the blinker, making a left turn that would take them farther from Jarrod Ridge, not closer, and hoped she was distracted enough not to notice. “They’re a lot of work, I take it.”
She chuckled. “Oh, yeah. Especially if you’re dealing with a high-strung bride or family members who turn the entire event into a ‘too many cooks’ situation.”
“But you enjoy them?” he pressed. “Wouldn’t mind doing another?”