Читать книгу The Rich Man's Baby - Leah Vale - Страница 12

“You what?” Harrison’s father, George Rivers, roared and jumped to his feet, nearly toppling his chair.

Harrison raised his eyes to the study’s high, coffered ceiling and willed himself to stay calm. “I said, I just discovered I’m the father of an adorable, eighteen-month-old boy,” he repeated, annoyed by the slight tremor of emotion in his voice. He would have to get a handle on that and soon. He had to keep his perspective to make rational decisions.

Unfortunately, he suspected that little boy had already undermined his determination to keep his emotions under control. Nathan was one more person Harrison had to fear losing—one more person with the power to change him like his father had been changed.

His father put his fists on the desk and leaned forward. “The hell you say. Who is she? You haven’t taken the time to see anyone from around here. Is she one of your classmates from Harvard?”

“Her name is Juliet Jones. And no, she didn’t attend Harvard.”

“Juliet? I don’t remember meeting any Juliet.” His father straightened and ran a weary hand over his balding head, massaging it as he went. “I don’t recall hearing you so much as mention a Juliet.”

“That’s because you didn’t meet her and I am certain I never mentioned her.” Harrison walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows lining one wall of the study.

He braced his hands against the frame and gazed out at the expanse of freshly cut lawn and a wall of manicured shrubs. That time with Juliet had been his most private—not to mention distracting—memory. Having to make it known rankled, but he would do what was right.

“How long were you involved with this girl?”

Harrison’s jaw tightened as he faced his father. “One day.” One incredible, fateful day.

His father’s brows rose to where his hair had once been and he flushed vividly. “Are you saying this was a one-night stand? My God, Harrison. You’ve always pushed the envelope, but you’ve never done anything stupid before.”

“George, stop badgering the boy and let him tell us about the baby,” Harrison’s paternal grandmother finally spoke up from her chair in front of the fire-place.

George raised his hands in submission and sat back down behind his desk. “All right, all right.” Gesturing to Harrison, he said with a sarcastic note, “Please. Continue. I’m dying to hear about any and all of your illegitimate offspring.”

“Damn it, Dad—”

“Gentlemen, please.” Dorothy Rivers rose and came toward them. Elegantly diminutive, she looked up at Harrison with warm green eyes. “Darling, do get back to telling us about the baby and this Juliet.”

Harrison blew out a breath. “Yes, of course, Grandmother.” He took her small hand in his and used the excuse of leading her to one of the chairs in front of the great mahogany desk to reclaim his temper.

His father made a rude noise. “Exactly how much do you know about this woman?”

Harrison helped his grandmother get seated then faced his father. “Not much. Her family lives above and in the rooms behind a store they operate up on the McKenzie River.”

His father crimsoned. “Are you telling us you knocked up a storekeeper’s daughter?”

“George, don’t be crude.”

Harrison frowned. “As far as I could tell today, she’s the one who does the keeping.” He wished he had found out more, but Juliet had refused to speak further with him. Her brother, suddenly acquiring a proper brotherly attitude, would only answer the most basic questions about his sister and nephew.

“So why did she wait so long to contact you?” his father asked. “You did say the child was eighteen months old, didn’t you?”

“Yes, he is. And she didn’t contact me. I found out about him when I went back to the store—”

His father sat forward. “You went back? Why? You said it was a one-night stand.”

“Yes, I went back, and why is none of your business. If I hadn’t I never would have known about Nathan.”

His grandmother sat forward, too. “His name is Nathan?”

Harrison smiled into her eyes, only slightly faded by age, and nodded. “Nathan Maxwell Jones. Apparently, she named him after her grandfather.”

“Just like you were. Is he a towhead like you were, too?” Her eyes positively sparkled now.

Harrison’s smile widened. “As blond as can be.” He felt an intense warmth he wasn’t inclined to squelch spread through his chest when he pictured the little boy. His little boy.

George gave him that narrow-eyed look he’d been using at the office. “Is this Juliet aware of how much you’re worth?”

Harrison glared right back. “Seeing as I left my business card with her brother, I don’t think it’d be too hard to figure out.”

His father tented his fingers in front of him, his high forehead creased in displeasure.

Harrison raised his hands in exasperation. “What difference does it make? I’m going to do the right thing in regards to my child.”

His father slowly rose to his feet. “And just what do you consider ‘the right thing’ to be?”

Harrison shrugged at the obviousness of the answer. “To provide for my son and become a part of his life, as any father should.”

His grandmother’s eyes went wide. “You mean through marriage?”

Harrison pulled back his chin, not having thought of his involvement in those terms at all. To say Juliet wasn’t exactly corporate wife material would be putting it mildly. Their differences were too great for that sort of relationship. Besides, he didn’t want any kind of relationship. No matter how much he was attracted to her, he could never let himself have her again.

His father scoffed. “Of course he doesn’t mean through marriage.” He waved the idea off then fixed Harrison with a hard look. “What kind of proof did she give that you are indeed the father? No way will I acknowledge some random child as a member of the Rivers family without proof.”

Not about to give his father ammunition by telling him about Juliet’s claim that someone else fathered Nathan, he said, “She doesn’t need any proof. All you have to do is look at Nat to know he’s mine. I know he’s mine.” That baby was tangible proof of the intangible connection he’d felt with Juliet. A connection the likes of which he had never felt before or since.

“And all she has to do is look at you to know she’s hit the jackpot.”

“Juliet thinks no such thing. She made it quite clear she doesn’t want anything from me.” Just as he’d made it clear he wanted nothing more from her before he’d met Nathan. An image of her in her snug T-shirt, jeans and bare feet came to mind, and his body instantly responded. Too bad it was a lie. Good thing lust could be ignored.

“Well, if she’s not making any claim, you certainly aren’t obligated—”

Harrison fisted his hands at his sides as a cold, suffocating anger surged through him. “It doesn’t matter if she’s making a claim or not. That child is of me. And obligated or not, I plan to be a part of his life and to make his life better for it. End of discussion.”

He turned to leave, but his grandmother’s soft touch on his hand stopped him. She placed an emerald silk-clad elbow on the arm of the chair and leaned toward him, an intense expression in her mossy eyes. “Do you intend to make a claim on the child?”

Harrison raised his brows. “You mean sue for custody?”

Only one of her brows went up in response.

His father put his head in his hands and groaned, “Good God.”

Harrison shook his head. “No. That would be wrong.”

From behind his hands George said, “And you’re the expert on that, aren’t you? Getting a girl you don’t even know pregnant and all.”

Harrison gave his father a narrow-eyed look of his own. “At least I’m prepared to deal with it,” he shot back before he turned and left the room. Taking Nathan away from his mother would definitely be wrong. The notion hadn’t even occurred to him.

Then the image of the store came to mind. The place was falling apart. No one would blame him for wanting to take his baby out of those conditions. He stopped in the foyer and looked around. Nowhere could be more perfect for raising a child than the opulent but extremely livable Rivers estate. He had loved growing up here.

Knowing the importance of family, his grandfather had wanted his son and grandchildren close to him, so he’d had this huge house built, with separate wings providing each part of the family with their own space. And Harrison needed every inch of that space when his father was in one of the moods he had begun to suffer in the past two years. If not for his grandmother and his younger sister, Ashley, Harrison would have bought a condo in town close to work. Were he to ever move, though, he would miss the place, and Harrison knew Nathan would love living here.

But he refused to take a child away from his mother. He remembered the way Juliet hugged Nat’s little body close to hers, tucking his head beneath her chin. Clearly she loved his son. She didn’t deserve to lose Nathan simply because her family lived in near poverty. Besides, he could never willfully annihilate the rightness of their one time together by portraying her as unsuitable.

The answer sprang to mind and sent his pulse racing. No one said he had to take Nathan away from Juliet for him to be raised here. Whether she wanted anything from Harrison or not, he decided to convince Juliet that some very drastic changes needed to be made in her life.

Willing his pulse back to normal, Harrison strode toward the front door and left the house, feeling once more in control.

There might be a tiny pinch of Prince Charming lurking somewhere in his calculating corporate soul after all.

JULIET STUCK HER FINGERS in her ears, squeezed her eyes shut so tight she saw little white lights and hummed the National Anthem, but it didn’t work. It never did. No matter how hard she tried, her family wouldn’t go away. She should have learned by now that wishing them away didn’t work, but it never hurt to try. With a soul-weary sigh she dropped her hands into her lap and opened her eyes.

She looked from her mother, with a bad perm sticking out every which way from her head, to her brother, whose filthy red baseball hat was turned backward, as always.

As they sat around the kitchen table, Mom and Willie were talking over each other. They both had an opinion about what she should do now that the father of her child had suddenly reappeared. And neither one of them had asked her opinion.

Well, she had one.

“Will you please listen to me for a minute?” she pleaded, but failed to draw their attention. “Excuse me!” she said loud enough to cut through the noise about a father’s responsibilities and child-support settlements.

They looked at her for the first time since the discussion began. “Weren’t you listening when I told you this…” She had to take a deep, steadying breath before she could say the name of the man she had once foolishly thought to be her soul mate. “…Harrison Rivers is not Nathan’s father?”

“Oh, get off it, Julie,” Willie said. “Any idiot can see the kid’s his.”

Frustration getting the better of her, she retorted, “And that qualifies you, doesn’t it?”

“Stop it, you two,” her mother snapped.

“He knew about the bike, didn’t he?” Willie gave a curt nod of his head. “That’s proof enough for me.”

Her mom shifted toward her, the plastic seat cover beneath her squeaking. “Men don’t go around claiming to be babies’ fathers without cause, Julie.” She reached across the yellowed, gold-speckled Formica table and put a hand on Juliet’s forearm. “Why do you keep denying he’s the father? From what your brother says, he seems decent enough.”

“And stinkin’ rich,” Willie added. “He’s got serious bucks. I talked to that friend of mine, Dave, who used to work on the loading dock at Two Rivers Industries, which was the name of the company on the business card he left, and Dave said that if Julie’s guy is—”

“He’s not my guy,” Juliet grumbled. How could she lay claim to a man like that? And since no fairy godmother was going to bibbidi-bop into her life and change her into someone he would want, she had no choice but to deny he was the one. She couldn’t lose Nathan.

“He sure was your guy for…what, fifteen minutes?” Willie laughed then winked crudely at her.

She smacked him on the arm and made him squawk.

“Stop it, you two.”

“Anyway,” Willie continued, “if this guy is the same Harrison Rivers who’s taking over the company so his dad can retire, he’s worth millions.” Willie said it like he was imparting the secret of life, then got up and went to the fridge.

The implications of his words hit Juliet full on. Her stomach rolled, and she had to swallow fast to keep from being sick all over the kitchen table.

Then she started to shake. The tremors were small at first, deep in her chest. But as Willie’s words echoed in her head and both pairs of eyes in the cramped kitchen fastened on her, the reverberations spread throughout her like oil in a mud puddle.

Millions. Harrison Rivers had millions.

Her mother’s normally dour face lit up with excitement as a thought occurred to her. “Maybe you could pick up with him where you left off!”

Juliet could barely speak. “He’s already said he doesn’t want me.”

Tsking, her mother shook her head, then heaved a dramatic sigh. “You realize, don’t you, that takes this thing to a whole new level?”

“Oh, yeah,” Willie concurred as he brought a beer back to the table.

Of course it took things to a whole new level. The level with high-priced lawyers and bought-off caseworkers. The level where someone like her could never stand a chance against someone like him. The level where all her tears and pleas would carry about as much weight as a foam anchor.

Why couldn’t he have been some average guy who might have decided he wanted her for more than one afternoon of fun? A regular Joe-shmoe she could have had a future with.

Before the tremors building inside of her reached a crescendo and she shattered right there in front of them, Juliet shoved back her metal-legged chair, its legs screeching along the floor, and bolted to her feet. “It doesn’t take this thing anywhere,” she choked out. “Because there’s nothing there in the first place. Nat’s mine. Nobody else’s. Mine!” She slammed her open hand down on the tabletop and glowered at her mom and Willie, huddled around the table like a couple of witches around their pot.

“If you’re going to act like that you surely won’t have a say in what we decide to do,” her mother reprimanded.

Willie offered, “I think we should be talking maternity suit.”

Juliet ground her teeth. “That’s what you wear when you’re pregnant and have to go to work.”

He nodded. “Right, right. What we should be discussing here is a maternity settlement.”

Juliet threw her hands in the air. “Paternity. Paternity settlement. Don’t be such an idiot.”

“You’re the idiot,” he jeered.

“Stop it, you two.”

Willie grumbled, “At least you were smart enough to get knocked up by a millionaire.”

Juliet went to the sink and leaned her weight on her hands on the rim. The distorted view of the sunset silhouetting the back shed out the small, cracked window above the sink began to swim as tears filled her eyes once again. She hadn’t been smart at all, letting herself believe in a dream on a bike.

“I’m not sure a paternity settlement is the way to go, Julie,” her mom answered as if Juliet had thrown those words out as an option she would consider. “I think, personally, that child support payments are—”

“No, no,” Willie interrupted. “I think the guy should hand over a huge chunk of change up front now, while he’s still all doe-eyed over finding his kid.”

The image of Harrison crouched before her son with a sticky length of red licorice in his hand and an enraptured smile on his handsome face made Juliet groan softly. Then that image shifted and became Harrison hovering above her, his river-green eyes murky with passion.

She remembered how she’d buried her hands in his lush, golden hair and pulled him down for a kiss. He’d kissed her soft and slow, like he’d known kissing wasn’t something she’d done a lot of, like he’d been coaxing a smoldering ember to flame. And, oh, how she’d flamed.

His mouth had felt like chocolate just starting to melt. His hard, flat stomach had been so hot upon hers she’d thought he’d cook her to the marrow. They had been so good together, so right. Like they would never part.

But they had, and now that she knew who and what he really was, they were so, so far apart. There was no way they would ever be together again like she’d dreamed. He was rich. And he’d already made it plain he didn’t want her. Juliet squeezed her eyes shut and forced the memories away before turning to face her family.

Her mom shook her head, making her fuzzy curls quiver. “No, I think monthly child support payments would be the most profitable—”

The tension that had brought Juliet’s shoulders up around her ears snapped her like a dried birch twig.

“Profitable!” She stared slack-jawed at her family. “I can’t believe you actually said it! Is that all Nat is to you now? Something you can make an easy buck off? Can’t you see that Harrison isn’t going to hand you a wad of money and let me keep Nathan?”

She pointed a trembling finger at her brother. “Willie, you saw how he looked at Nat. He’s going to want him.” Her lip trembling uncontrollably, she looked between the two of them. “Don’t you care that he’s my baby? My world? Don’t you care about either one of us?”

“Mom cares enough to give you a roof over your heads and food in your bellies so you don’t have to go to work or school or anything,” Willie shot back.

“So I don’t have to work? Who do you think tends that store out there? When was the last time you stood behind the counter?”

“Hey, I’m scheduled to start on the green chain at Dover Creek,” Willie protested.

Juliet ignored him. “And as far as going to school, you know I can’t afford to go anywhere yet.”

“How do you know, when you’ve never even applied to any schools or tried to get financial aid?” He found an old wound of hers and poked it.

Juliet clamped her teeth together and fought the tears blinding her and the raging swell of helplessness that threatened to strangle her.

“You don’t know a thing about me,” she choked out, then left the kitchen.

The frustration exploded within her, and she started running—through the living room, through the empty store, and out into the dusk-shadowed gravel parking lot. She mentally winced when the busted screen door hit the wall after she blasted through the door. She prayed the bang didn’t wake her baby. But she didn’t stop running. She knew if Nat cried out her mother or Willie would go to him. At least she could count on them for that.

With barely a glance in either direction at the lights of oncoming traffic, Juliet darted across the two-lane highway and plunged down the embankment. She followed the well-worn trail until it ended at the stone-strewn edge of the McKenzie River.

Taking her usual seat on a smooth boulder, she tried to focus on the dark water slipping by, to let the steadiness of the river seep into her soul and smooth the rough edges of her pain like it had smoothed the rocks around her, but her tears made it impossible. Juliet buried her face in her hands and let loose the body-racking sobs she’d been doing such a lousy job of containing.

She was being pitiful and feeling sorry for herself, but she didn’t care. At this precise moment she didn’t have the strength to care. She’d think of a way to keep her baby out of everyone’s clutches later. Right now she just wanted to cry and curse the day she’d fallen for Harrison Rivers and taken the one and only chance of her miserable life.