Читать книгу Secrets of a Shy Socialite - Wendy S. Marcus - Страница 5

IF THERE was an easy way to explain why she’d impersonated her identical twin sister, lured a man into bed under semi-false pretenses, then left town without a word to anyone, and not come off sounding like an insincere, inconsiderate, immoral hussy, it required more brain power and finesse than Jena Piermont had at her disposal.

“You’ve been home for two weeks,” Jaci, Jena’s twin, said, leaning back on the sofa and lifting her fuzzy-slippered feet onto the coffee table. “I think I’ve been pretty patient, but it’s time for answers.”

Past time. Where had she been? Why did she leave? How long would she be staying? And the biggie: whose genetic contribution was partly responsible for her adorable six-week-old twin baby girls? Jaci didn’t know enough to ask about the impersonation part of Jena’s explanation dilemma. Soon enough.

“I’m almost done.” Jena arranged the baked brie and slices of crusty French baguette on two large plates and added them to the tray holding the crudité and pâté de foie gras. Never let it be said that Jena Piermont, of the Scarsdale, New York, Piermonts, was not a consummate hostess. Even while hosting her own fall from grace.

Now, to reveal the truth before the other invitees arrived at their little pow-wow. Unfortunately the news she most wanted to share, to discuss with her sister and get her advice on—the real reason she’d returned to town and would be staying for a few weeks—had to remain secret. If everything went as planned, fingers crossed, she could pull it off without Jaci ever finding out.

Jena swallowed then used a napkin to blot the unladylike clamminess from her palms. Grace under pressure. She inhaled a fortifying breath, lifted the tray and carried it to the coffee table. “Move your feet.” She arranged the delectable treats beside the sparkling water and bottled beer.

Justin liked his beer.

“Stop,” Jaci said. “You always do this when you get nervous. Flit around, straightening up, preparing snacks.”

Jena dropped the pillow she’d been in the process of plumping and rearranging on the loveseat.

“Just sit down.” Jaci patted the sofa beside her. “Tell me why you’ve been so quiet lately. What has you so upset? Before the guys get here.”

The guys. Jena considered excusing herself and running to the bathroom to vomit. But that would waste precious time. So she sat. She could do this, would do this. “I love you,” she reminded Jaci.

“I love you, too,” Jaci said, studying her. “Why do you look like you’ve got an olive stuck in your throat?”

Because that’s how she felt. Okay. No sense putting it off any longer. Tonight was the night. “Justin is the father,” Jena blurted out, her gaze fixed on her lap. “Of the twins,” she clarified—as if clarification was needed.

Usually talkative Jaci sat mute.

Jena peered over at her. “Say something,” she prompted.

“I’m … surprised. That’s all.” Jaci shifted on the couch to face her. “I knew you had a crush on him in high school.”

Not really a crush. More like a fascination-attraction-day/night dreamy type thing for the totally wrong type of boy. A silent plea for rescue from a mundane existence cluttered with more responsibilities than any teenager should be burdened with. An illicit mental visit to the dark side where the expectations and judgment of others meant nothing and Jena could indulge in the forbidden. Break the rules. Go wild. Have imaginary sex.

“And I’d thought maybe you were considering him as a husband candidate to meet the terms of our trust,” Jaci went on.

Never. Okay. Maybe once, or a few times during random episodes of pregnancy-induced psychosis when out-of-control hormones caused gross mutations to the brain cells responsible for rational thought. Moments of weakness when Jena had actually entertained the possibility of Justin protecting her from the machinations of her brother, providing a home for her and their daughters, and taking care of the three of them.

But Justin didn’t want her, and Jena refused to be any man’s second best, which didn’t much matter right now, anyway, since getting married no longer occupied the top spot on her list of priorities. Staying alive for her daughters did.

“I had no idea you two were …” Jaci began. “I mean, I haven’t seen you together in years. Neither of you mentioned that you … kept in touch.”

They didn’t, not technically, unless stalking him on social networking sites counted. Some childhood habits—like an unhealthy interest in all things Justin—were hard to break. Jena picked at a chipped fingernail she kept forgetting to file down, preoccupied with caring for the twins and worrying about the future and Jaci being attacked … “It was one night.” She couldn’t look at her sister. “We met up at Oliver’s.” A favorite restaurant/bar where Justin and Jaci often hung out. And now for the worst of it. “He thought I was you.”

“What?” Jaci screeched. “You did not just say Justin took you to bed thinking you were me.”

She couldn’t change what’d happened or the outcome. All she could do was own up to it. She looked Jaci in the eye. “It was the anniversary of Mom’s death. I’d had a horrible fight with Jerald.” Their pompous, older half-brother who’d been aggressively trying to manipulate them into marrying any one of a dozen of his equally pompous business associates. “I had to get out of the house.” A.k.a. the Piermont Estate where she and Jerald each had a wing. “We’d spoken earlier and you were still so depressed over Ian returning to Iraq. I decided to surprise you with dinner.” And that’s how it’d started, with a kind gesture to cheer her sister.

“I ordered a glass of wine while I waited for the takeout and noticed Justin sitting across the bar. Alone. With a couple of empty, upside down shot glasses lined up in front of him.” Normally she would have simply blended into the crowd and stared at him from afar, attraction battling better judgment. But, “One of the bartenders noticed me and called out, ‘Jaci, take him home before I toss him out of here.’” Boy had Justin perked up at the mention of Jaci’s name. “At the time, it didn’t seem to matter who he thought I was, as long as I got him home safely.”

“You mean to tell me,” Jaci crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Jena, “during the ride in the Piermont limo, the walk from the parking lot up to the fifth floor, and while you were stripping off each other’s clothes it never crossed your mind that maybe you should clue him in to your real identity?”

Of course it had. But close proximity to Justin had caused an arousal spike that forced it away and relegated it to the spot where she stored all the unwelcome thoughts and memories she’d accumulated through the years, corralled deep in the recesses of her brain. Instead she’d allowed herself to enjoy his company and the freedom that came with pretending to be Jaci who balked at the rules and did and said what she wanted, when she wanted. Just like Justin.

For the first time in her life, Jena didn’t overanalyze, didn’t weigh the pros and cons or think about what a person of good moral character would do. Instead she’d focused on what she’d wanted, what she’d needed more than anything at that specific moment in time—comfort, a caring touch, a brief sojourn from real life—without a care for the consequences. And look where it’d gotten her. “I’m sorry.”

“It makes no sense.” Jaci said, pulling a pillow onto her lap and playing with the fringe. “Justin and I don’t have that kind of relationship. We’re friends. We’ve never …” She grimaced. “I have to admit I’m a little weirded out by the whole thing.”

“If it helps, I made the first move.” An orchestrated meeting of their lips. Jena leaned forward to try to catch Jaci’s attention. “He tried to stop me.” A half-hearted, ‘We shouldn’t,’ milliseconds before he’d yanked her close and kissed her with the unbridled passion of a man releasing years of pent up attraction and lust.

Jaci smiled. “You little tigress. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

It’d been a quite a shocker to Jena, too.

Someone knocked on the door. Jena jumped.

“Quick,” Jaci said. “Why did you take off?”

“The next morning Justin went nuts, carrying on about what a mistake it’d been. Angry at himself for letting it happen, for ruining your friendship. Guilty because you were Ian’s girl and he didn’t poach.” Jena shivered at the memory of Justin in a rage, which was why she’d chosen to tell him about the twins with Jaci close by. “I knew I had to tell him. And I did.”

Him sitting on the side of the bed elbows on his thighs, his head in his hands, completely comfortable with his nakedness. Her standing in the doorway to the bedroom, fully dressed. “I said, ‘You didn’t have sex with Jaci, you had it with me. Jena.’ Rather than a whew or a yippee, he’d tilted his miserable face up, oh so slowly, and simply said, ‘Oh, God. That’s even worse.’”

“Oh, honey. I’m sorry.” Jaci reached for her hand and squeezed.

“Wait, it gets better,” Jena said. “Then he’d slapped his hand over his mouth and with a muffled, ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ he ran past me and threw up in the bathroom.” Intimacy with Jena had nauseated him to the point of regurgitation.

Another knock. Louder.

“Be right there,” Jaci yelled.

“So I left.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

Jena looked away. “I was humiliated and disgusted with myself. How could I face you? I’m so ashamed.”

“Hey,” Jaci said. “Look at me.” When Jena did she asked, “Where did you go?”

Jena saw understanding in Jaci’s eyes and felt hope that they’d get past this. “Home.” Where she’d given the guard at the gate strict instructions not to let anyone up the drive. As if Justin would have wasted his time coming after her. Within three hours she’d made the necessary arrangements, packed and was being chauffeured to the airport. “South Carolina. Marta’s there.” Their old nanny. “When Jerald sent her away she’d said she’d always be there for us.” And boy had Jena appreciated Marta’s calm reassurance when faced with an unexpected pregnancy complicated by yet another painful lump in her right breast, her caring support while dealing with the fear of diagnostic testing adversely affecting her unborn babies through the results of yet another needle biopsy, and her knowledgeable guidance leading up to the birth of the twins through surviving those first few sleep-deprived weeks.

“I’m so glad,” Jaci stood, pulled Jena up to her feet and hugged her. “But why didn’t you tell me? All this time I’d been so worried you were alone and struggling.”

Jena shrugged. “If you knew, there’d have been no keeping you away. You have so many people depending on you. The residents of the Women’s Crisis Center.” Which Jaci had founded. “Your patients.” Through the community health agency where she worked. “I couldn’t take you away from all the good you do simply because of the mess I’d made of my life.”

“I love you, Jena. And while I’d prefer it if you have sex as yourself and not me, I will always love you.” She stepped back and looked into Jena’s eyes. “There’s nothing you could ever do to change that.”

“Thank you.” Jena held back tears. Barely.

Another knock and an, “Open the door, Jaci,” Ian demanded. “Are you okay?”

Jaci wiped the corner of her eye with a knuckle. “He’s such a worrywart.” But she smiled when she said it.

“Justin’s with him,” Jena reminded her. “He doesn’t know I’m back.” And since she was staying with Jaci, who lived in the same luxury high-rise, she’d rarely left the condo in order to keep it that way. The one time interaction had been unavoidable, at the benefit for the Women’s Crisis Center, she’d pretended to be Jaci and he hadn’t given her a second look.

Jaci raised her eyebrows and sucked in a breath between her teeth. “Oh, boy.”

“You got that right.” Girding herself to face the men, well, one of the men, waiting in the hallway, Jena walked to open the door.

And there he stood. Justin Rangore. Magnificent.

Tall. Dark-haired. Broad-shouldered. Muscled in all the right places. The perfectly maintained goatee he’d had since the eleventh grade. She fought off a tremble of delight at the tingly memory of him rubbing it against her neck and nipples and … lower. God help her.

“He made it sound like you were a mess,” Justin said, sliding a roughened finger from her temple, down her cheek to her chin. “But you look beautiful as always.”

No. Jaci was the beautiful one, the perfect one. Even though they were identical to the point only a handful of people could tell them apart—two of them, their parents, dead—whenever Jena looked in the mirror imperfections and inadequacies overshadowed pretty.

The same old ache in her chest flared anew. He didn’t recognize her, never recognized her. Once again he’d failed to look deep enough to see the unique individual, separate from her popular, outgoing, life-of-the-party look alike. More than a privileged Piermont, a member of the social elite in a town fixated on status. More than the quiet, studious, rule-follower and people-pleaser others saw her to be. Jena. A woman, who deserved to be loved and respected and noticed for who she was. Not as philanthropic or wonderful as Jaci, but kind and caring and loyal in her own right.

Ian, Jaci’s fiancé of twenty-four hours, who had no problem telling the two of them apart, stood beside Justin, shaking his head in disappointment. “She looks beautiful because she’s not the one exposed to pepper spray in an elevator yesterday, you ignoramus.” Ian walked toward her, placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed in support. “Hey there, future sister-in-law,” he said and slid past her into Jaci’s condo.

“Jena?” Justin asked, baffled, searching her face for some identifier for confirmation.

How she’d longed to hear him utter her name that night, in the dark, in the heat of passion. Instead he’d tortured her with each, “Damn, Jaci, you feel so good.” Punished her with, “You are so special, Jaci. Do you have any idea how special you are?”

“Hi, Justin,” she said. “Come on in.” She turned to the side to make room for him. “Let’s get this over with.”

He took one long-legged step forward and stared down at her. “We need to talk,” he said quietly, stating the obvious.

He stood too close, his deep brown eyes serious, his expression solemn, his scent making her weak, making her crave … “That’s why you’re here.” She backed into the condo, needed space, air. “To talk.” To have the conversation she should have initiated during her first week back in town. But appointments with doctors, hospitals and attorneys, taking care of the twins, and ensuring their futures had taken precedence.

He leaned in close. “Alone.”

So he could berate her for what she’d done? He couldn’t make her feel worse than she already did. To ask her to keep the circumstances of what’d happened between them a secret? Too late. “Jaci knows,” Jena said.

Justin stared down at Jena’s deceptively beautiful face. If only she had the personality to match. Shoulder length blonde curls, her complexion flawless, her eyes a striking blue. So much like Jaci’s but different. Softer, yet guarded. Funny, he couldn’t remember ever getting close enough to notice the difference before. Jena usually hung in the background. Quiet. Boring. A goodie-goodie, judgmental, rich-bitch snob. Not at all his type.

But something had changed in the ten or so months she’d been gone. She stood taller, more confident. Attractive. Alluring.

The words ‘Jaci knows’ brought him back to the conversation.

Crap. If Jaci knew that meant Ian knew, or would know soon. Ian would pound him senseless for sure. Justin wouldn’t fight back because he deserved it and, under the circumstances, would do the exact same thing if a friend he trusted took a woman he cared about to bed. Strangely, rather than apprehension at what was sure to escalate into a full blown physical altercation with one of his best—and strongest—friends, he felt relief.

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to deter Ian with an explanation. “It’s not what you think.” Justin walked into Jaci’s condo. Jena closed the door behind him.

Jaci gave him a wary, perplexed look. He’d avoided revealing the truth for that exact reason. She was his best female friend. Hell, his only female friend. And they’d been getting into trouble together and looking out for one another since junior high school. He loved her. Like a sister. “I can explain.”

Ian went on guard. “Explain what?” he asked.

“Come on.” Jaci took Ian by the hand and tugged him toward the bedroom.

“Wait.” Justin stood firm. It was time to come clean. “I slept with Jena.”

Uninterested, Ian turned to follow Jaci.

“At the time I’d thought she was Jaci,” Justin admitted.

Ian jerked to a stop.

“And there’s no way you would have slept with plain, boring, inexperienced Jena otherwise,” Jena snapped. “Am I right?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

He’d deal with her in a minute. “Jaci was so upset when you ran out on her,” he spoke to Ian who turned around to face him. “Moping around. She didn’t want to do anything, go anywhere. I hadn’t seen her that depressed since right after her dad died and her mom was injured. That was your fault, not mine.” He pointed at Ian.

“So you thought you’d cheer her up with some naked fun while I was off fighting a war?” To someone who didn’t know Ian, he’d seem eerily calm. But Justin could tell when he was about to blow.

How to explain … “I’d come off a lousy shift. A woman and her seven-year-old daughter, missing for thirty-six hours. Found dead. Brutalized.” Tossed in a Dumpster like yesterday’s trash. Three years on the police force, patrolling the most dangerous crime ridden area in Westchester County, and that day had made him question his decision to forgo a cushy job in his father’s investment company to attend the police academy.

“Oh, Justin.” Jena set her palm on the bare skin of his arm. “I had no idea.”

Her touch, soft, gentle and feminine, moved him in a way Jaci’s never had. But there’d been a few times … “Jaci is my friend,” Justin said. “Your girlfriend.”

“My fiancée.”

“Right.” Justin snapped. “Still getting used to that.” And wondering how it would affect his friendship with Jaci, if they still had one after tonight. “Anyway. My point is. I don’t lust after Jaci. Hell, she’s like a sister to me.” Their relationship platonic … ninety-nine percent of the time. “But there were a few times back in high school …” When something had shifted, when physical attraction flared between them for a few minutes and they’d given in to its demands. After each encounter Jaci had insisted they never speak of it again, that they pick up the next day as if nothing had happened or risk the ruin of a friendship they both valued.

At the narrowing of Ian’s eyes and the clenching of his fists, Justin thought better of continuing on in that vein. “In my crap state of mind I let alcohol skew my thinking. I needed a distraction. She needed comfort. Or so I’d thought.” He glanced at Jena.

“I did.” Jena looked up at him. “That night would have been my mom’s fifty-third birthday.” She paused. “What do you mean there were a few times during high school? Times when you were physically attracted to Jaci? Like when?”

“I’d rather not—”

“I’d sure like to know,” Jaci said, staring at him.

“Me, too,” Ian added, straightening up to his full height.

Of course Justin’s cell phone didn’t ring. No emergency to run off to. No reason he could think of to turn and leave and never address this topic again.

“Like sophomore year?” Jena asked. “Under the bleachers at the Mt. Vernon Scarsdale men’s varsity basketball home game?”

Jaci had dropped her purse. It’d been hot in the gym. Stuffy. Her tee had molded to her full breasts. Her scent had affected him. It’d been the first time being in close proximity to Jaci had elicited a physical response. The first time she’d looked up at him with longing. The first time he’d kissed her.

“I wasn’t at that game,” Jaci said, looking back and forth between him and Jena.

“It was me,” Jena said quietly, not looking at him.

Jaci’s holier than thou, prude of a sister? Impossible. “Junior year. The gazebo at the Parks’s Fourth of July barbeque,” Justin said, remembering a friendly hug after a win at horseshoes that had morphed into a frantic, heated groping session where he’d touched her bare breasts for the first time. And though he’d touched dozens of breasts before them, the smooth, rounded, silkiness of Jaci’s, capped off by the hardest, most aroused nipples he’d ever felt, left a lasting impression.

“Me,” Jena said, looking at the ground.

That’d been ice-water-in-her-veins Jena hot and breathless and begging for more in response to his touch? No way. “Down by the lake,” he went on. “The bonfire after senior skip day.” Where they’d paired off out of sight and explored each other’s partially clothed bodies to the point of orgasm.

Jena inhaled a deep breath then exhaled and looked up at him apologetically. “Me.”

Holy crap.

“Jena Piermont. You little slut,” Jaci teased with a smile.

“You used to ask me to pretend to be you an awful lot back then and I got pretty good at it,” Jena said to Jaci.

She’d managed to fool him, that’s for sure.

“To take a trigonometry test or give an oral presentation,” Jena said. “To make an appearance at a party while you went off I don’t know where with I don’t know who.” Jena looked up at him. “I used to fake migraines and lock myself in my room, then climb down the trellis outside my window.”

“No wonder I had such a bad reputation,” Jaci said. Amused.

“You had a bad reputation because of your big mouth, your wild spirit and your lack of respect for authority. Not because you deserved it,” Justin clarified.

“And not because of me,” Jena added. “It only happened with Justin.”

For some reason that pleased him.

“And it’s not going to happen again,” Ian asserted himself into the conversation, his eyes focused in on Jena accented with a raised eyebrow. “No more switching places.” He moved his gaze to Jaci. “For any reason,” he emphasized.

“No,” Jena said, shaking her head. Contrite. “Never again. I promise.”

Jaci, however, chose not to commit. “Let’s go.” She took Ian by the hand, again, and tugged him toward the bedroom, again. “They need to talk.”

This time Ian allowed himself to be pulled away.

Well that had gone better than expected. Justin felt lighter. Freer. Except now he had to deal with Jena. A girl he’d despised in high school, who, apparently, was the very same girl with whom he’d shared some of the more special boy-girl moments of his teenage years. With Jena, not Jaci.

Jena who used to look down her snobby nose at him.

Jena, who’d enticed him into bed by pretending to be her sister.

“But I made snacks,” Jena called after Ian and Jaci, seeming nervous, her confidence slipping.

“I could sure use one of those beers.” Lined up on the coffee table. His favorite brand.

Jena rushed to open one and held it out to him.

Ian closed the door to Jaci’s bedroom, leaving Justin and Jena alone. He took a swig of brew. Cold. Refreshing.

They stood there in awkward silence.

Justin smiled. “You’re no better than all those girls you criticized back in high school, whose reputations you disparaged for dating me.”

“Dating you?” she asked, looking him straight in the eyes. “Don’t you mean rubbing up against you and sucking face with you in the hallway of our high school or bragging about giving you oral sex in the boys’ locker room and going all the way with you on school grounds?”

Good times.

“I refuse to lump myself in with those girls. But I’m sorry.” She fidgeted with a button on her blouse. “I was wrong to let you to believe I was Jaci. It was dishonest and repugnant and I ran away like a coward afterwards.” She shook her head. “I am mortified by my behavior.”

“And so you should be.” Fancy that, Princess Jena Piermont capable of apologizing and offering a convincing show of remorse. “But I think repugnant is taking it a bit far.” Because he’d enjoyed every minute of their time together, until the dawn of a new day brought with it insight and hindsight. And a hellacious hangover he would not soon forget.

Now for two issues that had been burning his gut for months. First, “Please tell me you were a virgin.” As horrible as it was to think he’d taken her virginity without the care of a knowing, sober bed-partner, the alternative was even worse. That he’d unknowingly been too rough and hurt her. Either way the evidence had stained his sheet.

“I’d rather not—”

“Please,” he took her by the arm, gentle but firm, and turned her to face him. He didn’t like her, hated the upper class lifestyle she embraced and the elitist, unlikable people she called friends, but she didn’t deserve … “The thought that I might have hurt you …” tore him up.

“You didn’t,” she assured him. “A little pinch from it being my first time, that’s all.”

“Was it …?” Good. He cursed himself for not remembering every vivid detail.

“It was fine,” she said quietly. Shyly.

Justin cringed at her bland choice of adjective. Fine, as in acceptable? Adequate? Nothing special?

“Until the next morning.”

When he’d totally lost it. “Yeah, about that. I woke up and noticed the condom from the night before draped over the trashcan beside the bed. With a big slice down the side.” And his heart had stopped. “I don’t know if it happened before, during or after, but on top of thinking I’d ruined my friendships with Jaci and Ian, I realized there was a chance she, well, you, could get pregnant.” He took another swig of beer. “I panicked.” How could he have been so carless? So unaware?

“Especially once you’d found out you may have gotten me pregnant and not Jaci,” Jena said. “If I remember correctly your exact words were, ‘Oh, God. That’s even worse.’”

Had he really said that out loud? From the hurt look in her eyes, yup, he had. Dammit. “Because we have nothing in common. We don’t even like each other. But bottom line,” after years of being treated like an afterthought and an inconvenience by his father, his only parent for as long as he could remember, Justin had decided, “I don’t want kids. With any woman. Or marriage.” He didn’t do relationships. Never could manage to give a woman what she needed outside of the bedroom. Too emotionally detached, according to numerous women who’d expected more than he was capable of giving, too self-centered to share his life with another person. Like father like son, apparently. “I like my life the way it is.” Women around when he wanted them, gone when he didn’t. Doing what he wanted when he wanted, on his own terms, without negotiation, explanation or altercation. “But I handled the possibility that our night together may have had long-term consequences poorly. I’m sorry. You deserved better.”

She looked on the verge of tears.

Some unfamiliar instinct urged him to take her into his arms to comfort her.

He resisted.

“Hey. No tears,” he said, trying to keep things upbeat. “It all worked out. Wherever you took off to has obviously been good for you. You look great. And no consequences.” Now what? He should leave. Except he didn’t want to, was still coming to terms with the fact he and Jena had shared some magical moments back in high school. Jena, not Jaci as he’d originally thought, which explained why, after each encounter, she’d so adamantly insisted it never be repeated or spoken of again.

At the sound of a baby crying in the hallway, Jena glanced at her watch and stiffened. “There’s …”

The baby’s cry grew louder. Someone knocked at the door. “I’d hoped to have a few more minutes to ease into this,” Jena said nervously on her way to open the door.

Mandy, the wife of one of Ian’s army buddies who’d been killed in Iraq, stood there holding a tiny, red-faced, screaming infant while a second tiny, red-faced, infant squalled from a stroller, and her toddler cried in a kid carrier on her back.

“I’m so sorry,” Mandy said. “I know you said seven o’clock, but Abbie’s hysterical and we couldn’t calm her down. Then she set off Annie. And now Maddie.”

Jena reached for the baby in Mandy’s arms and a heavy weight of doom settled on Justin’s shoulders. No.

“This little consequence’s name is Abbie,” Jena said brightly holding up the baby dressed in pink. “That one is named Annie.” She motioned with her elbow to the stroller where Mandy was unstrapping the baby dressed in yellow. “This is why I asked Ian to bring you down tonight. Now that you know, you can go.”

What? Justin opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He stood there idly, unable to move, watching Jena, her expression worried as she paced, patting the baby’s back, trying to calm her.

Girls. Annie named for Jena’s mother. Abbie, for his grandmother? Who’d done her best to impart a mother’s love and wisdom, and fill in the gaps left by a disinterested father too busy for his own son. Maybe if she’d lived past his eighth birthday, Justin wouldn’t have followed in his father’s pleasure seeking footsteps, avoiding attachments and commitments with women.

Twins.

His.

There’d be fathers toasting, high-fiving, and laughing to the point of tears all around the tri-state area when the news got out. “I can’t wait for the day someone like you shows up at your door to take out your daughter. I hope he’s as careless with her heart as you’ve been with …” Justin couldn’t remember the daughter’s name. One of dozens of silly girls who’d hung on his every word, offered themselves to him then got their feelings hurt when he didn’t reciprocate their professed caring and love.

What goes around comes around.

Justin wanted to run, to close himself in the quiet of his condo, alone to think. But he would not be dismissed like one of her servants. “I’ll go when I’m good and ready to go.”

“Right,” she snapped. “Because you only do what you want when you want with a total disregard for what another person might want.”

Maybe so, but she was far from perfect, too. “Unless someone resorts to deceit to get me to do otherwise.” He glared at her.

Unaffected by his retort or his scathing look she fired back, “And you’re so easy to trick because you’re so darn shallow you only see what you want to see, a pretty face and a pair of breasts.”

Jaci ran out of the back bedroom, followed by Ian. “What happened?” Jaci asked, taking the baby in yellow from Mandy while Ian lifted Maddie out of her carrier and handed her to her mom.

“Something’s got Abbie all worked up and she got the other two crying,” Jena explained.

Ian walked over to Justin. “You okay?”

“You knew about the babies and didn’t tell me?” Justin asked, finding it hard to breath. No warning? No chance to adjust or digest? To figure out how to respond? What the hell to do?

“Jena wanted to tell you herself.”

“How long have you known?” The screaming echoed in his ears. Dread knotted in his gut. Life as he knew it was over.

“Since the benefit for Jaci’s crisis center.”

Almost two weeks. “Jena was at the benefit?” Justin had run security for the event. How could he have overlooked her?

“You really need to work on telling the two of them apart,” Ian said. “It’s not all that difficult.” After a moment Ian added, “Time to man up and help Jena with your daughters.”

Daughters.

Justin didn’t want daughters. Didn’t want to be a father. Did not want his life to be contorted into something unrecognizable.