Inheriting His Secret Christmas Baby (2 page)

Haylie really shouldn’t have taken so much pleasure in Trevor Jarrod’s shocked reaction to her pronouncement, but she did. His eyes flashed wide, his mouth dropped open like a guppy’s and his hands on either side of Bradley’s pudgy little body made him look as if he were juggling a ticking time bomb instead of a four-month-old infant.

She had to give Trevor credit, though. The minute she’d plopped Bradley on his lap and stepped away, Trevor’s arms had come up to balance the child on his lap and keep the baby from toppling over.

After a few seconds of dead silence, Trevor seemed to regain a bit of his equilibrium. Snapping his mouth shut, he licked his lips and pushed to his feet, holding Bradley out in front of him. Apparently sensing Trevor’s discomfort and nerves, the baby’s legs started to kick and his face started to scrunch up and turn red.

Haylie stepped forward immediately and took the baby back, her pseudo-maternal instincts kicking in at the first sign of Bradley’s distress. Cradling him against her chest, she patted his back and bounced gently up and down. In seconds, he was once again calm and content.

Trevor, however, looked anything but. His face had fallen into a hard, angry mask, his mouth thinning into a tight, flat line.

“I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing,” he told her, his tone as cold as his coffee-brown eyes, “but I’m not amused. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave before I’m forced to call security.”

He was already moving around his desk and toward the double oak doors, so he didn’t see her roll her eyes at his overly dramatic he-man speech.

He certainly wasn’t going to need security to get rid of her. She would be more than happy to leave under her own steam.

In fact, if she didn’t feel so strongly that a man deserved to know he was a father, and that a child deserved to know his only remaining parent, she wouldn’t be in Aspen at all. She would be back home in Denver, minding her own business and doing her best to raise her nephew.

Not for the first time, Haylie cursed her sister’s carefree, irresponsible nature. It had been Heather’s place to find Trevor after their one-night stand and tell him she was pregnant. Her place to inform him that he had a son after Bradley had been born.

But, of course, her sister hadn’t done either of those things. Oh, no, that would have been responsible and mature and right, a sign that she was finally growing up and might actually be ready to raise a child.

Haylie honestly didn’t know what had been going through her sister’s head those long months of her pregnancy. Most of the time, Haylie had gotten the impression that the fact that she was a soon-to-be mother hadn’t really sunken in for Heather. She’d gone about her business almost as though nothing in her life had changed except her belt size.

To the best of Haylie’s knowledge, Heather had stopped drinking and smoking, and she’d cut down on her penchant for partying once her growing belly had put a bit of a damper on the fun of that, but otherwise, Heather had gone through those nine months with her head in the clouds.

Boy, talk about the cold slap of reality. Haylie didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone so surprised as her sister when she’d gone into labor. And for the first couple of weeks after Bradley’s birth, Haylie had actually thought Heather was growing up. Was going to step up to the plate and be a good, loving, reliable parent.

As usual when it came to her younger sister, however, the show of sensibility had been as fleeting as a summer storm. Before Bradley was a month old, Heather had started falling into her predictable, selfish habits. Staying out all night and sleeping well into the afternoon…not paying her bills…and worst of all, ignoring Bradley.

Despite her many shortcomings, Haylie loved her sister, but as far as Haylie was concerned, the last had been nearly unforgivable.

Bradley wasn’t Haylie’s child, but from the moment he’d come into the world, she’d loved him with an intensity that made her understand a mama bear’s fierce instinct to protect her young. It was inconceivable to her that her sister—Bradley’s biological mother—didn’t share the same deep, powerful feelings for her own son.

But the point was moot, Haylie supposed. It was her job now to protect and care for Bradley, and if she didn’t love the little boy so much, if she didn’t think he deserved the very best of everything and believe to the depth of her soul that he had the right to know his father—and that his father had the right to know him—she wouldn’t be at Jarrod Ridge right now, in Trevor Jarrod’s office, facing down a man who could not only have her thrown out of his family’s resort, but possibly barred from the entire state of Colorado.

“You can call anyone you like,” she told him, her tone much more cool, calm and collected than she felt, “but it won’t change my reason for being here.”

Carrying Bradley to one of the guest chairs in front of the desk, she started rooting in her purse with her free hand, then straightened, holding a small sheaf of papers. She crossed to Trevor, who was clutching the curved gold door handle in his long, bronzed fingers, but hadn’t yet opened the door. She offered him a photo from the top of the stack.

“This is my sister, Heather,” she murmured, then had to swallow when her voice grew thick and tears threatened.

At least Trevor was looking at the photograph, actually studying her sister’s features rather than dismissing her out of hand. But as he lifted his head and their eyes met, Haylie knew he had no recollection whatsoever of meeting and sleeping with Heather.

With a mental sigh, she swallowed again and licked her lips before continuing. “You apparently met her while in Denver on business, at one of the clubs downtown. Heather was a beautiful young woman, but she liked to party. And she didn’t like to go home alone.”

Something flickered in the depths of his dark sable eyes, and he said, “Was?”

Haylie’s chest hitched as she gave a shaky nod and handed him the newspaper clipping she’d brought along with Heather’s picture. “She was killed in a car accident two months ago.”

Her chest tightened even more when a look of genuine sympathy passed over his features. He might not remember Heather, and he might suspect Haylie was up to no good with her it’s a boy! announcement, but he didn’t appear to be completely cold and heartless.

“I know you probably think I’m trying to work some elaborate scam on you. Or that I’m hoping to snag a bit of the Jarrod fortune for myself. But I assure you, that isn’t the case.”

Bradley started to fuss, and she jiggled him slightly, transferring him to her other hip. “I’m only here because Heather told me you’re Bradley’s father, and since she never got around to contacting you herself, I felt it was my place to let you know she’d passed away, and that you have a child. More importantly, I think he—” she lifted Bradley, making it clear to whom she was referring “—deserves to know his father and where he comes from on his father’s side.”

When Trevor didn’t respond, she slipped the photograph and obituary out of his loose grasp. “So check me out if you need to. Draw up whatever legal documents you feel are fair and will protect your assets. But don’t punish your son for his mother’s mistakes.”

Trevor’s grip tightened on the door handle while he studied the woman standing before him. He’d met his fair share of young ladies with dollar signs in their eyes and their sights set on the Jarrod millions, and had become adept at brushing them off.

But none of his usual gold digger alarm bells were going off with Haylie Smith. Something about her told him she was sincere. Even if she was wrong about the baby’s paternity, it was clear she believed what she was saying—or at least what her sister had apparently told her before her death.

Glancing down at the photograph clutched in Haylie’s white-knuckled fingers, he once again racked his brain for any memory of the woman he’d supposedly spent a less-than-memorable night with. He remembered the trip to Denver, and even stopping in at one of the city’s more popular nightclubs for a drink after a day filled with disappointing meetings and a potentially lucrative business venture that had fallen through. He’d been frustrated and annoyed, and had needed to blow off some steam.

The earsplitting techno music had rattled his brain, but he’d stuck around long enough to down a few drinks. And he remembered women…lots of women in short skirts and ice-pick stilettos, both out on the dance floor and crowded into booths the color of Hpnotiq vodka. Several had hit on him, but he hadn’t been in the mood.

Or maybe, after a few more drinks, he had.

There was no recollection there, though. The only thing he found familiar about the woman in the picture came from her resemblance to the woman standing in front of him now. They had the same blue eyes and honey-blond hair, the same bow-tie mouth and long, thick lashes. But that’s where the similarities ended.

Where Heather’s hair was styled in a bold, spikey do, with a streak of magenta running down one side, Haylie’s fell soft and naturally around her face and looked infinitely touchable.

Where Heather’s lips were painted a bright, shocking shade of pink, Haylie wore nothing but a layer of clear gloss.

And where Heather’s eyes appeared hard and jaded, Haylie’s were deep pools of warmth and earnestness.

How could two women—sisters—with so many of the same features look so very different? he wondered.

He also wondered how one sister could go nine-plus months without making a single effort to inform a man he was allegedly going to be a father, while the other had spent two months trying to track him down by phone and felt so strongly about her duty to inform him of his parenthood—again, alleged parenthood—that she’d driven nearly four hours from Denver to Aspen with a baby in tow and wheedled her way into his office just to confront him.

For that reason alone, he found himself wanting to know if her allegations were true. And if they were… Well, he wanted to know for himself if she was right about the child in her arms being his.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about the possibility of being a father. The very thought made his stomach clench and his chest grow tight. But not with any innate paternal sentiments. No, what he was feeling was much more along the lines of dread and panic.

At only twenty-seven, the notion of getting married and starting a family had never crossed his mind. And the idea of having a child dropped in his lap out of the blue had been even further behind.

He was too busy enjoying his life, sowing wild oats and working to build his marketing company. Add to that the more recent turn of events that had made him the president of marketing at Jarrod Ridge, and he barely had time to hike, to ski, to breathe, let alone raise a child.

There was no point worrying about that or projecting into the future, though, until he knew for certain.

Releasing the door handle, he returned to his desk. Much more of this stalking back and forth and the carpet would need to be replaced.

As he lowered himself into his chair and reached for the phone, he gestured for Haylie to take a seat.

“Diana,” he said the minute his secretary picked up. “Get Dr. Lazlo on the line for me, please.”

Once she’d answered in the affirmative, he hung up and leaned his arms on the desk. He looked at the baby on Haylie’s lap, searching for signs that this was, indeed, his child, but all he saw was…a baby.

He didn’t see his eyes or his hair or his smile, didn’t see Jarrod bloodlines stamped on every inch of that pale, pudgy baby skin.

Did that mean the child…Bradley, his name was Bradley. Did that mean Bradley wasn’t his…or simply that a four-month-old’s parentage couldn’t be determined just by looking?

Lifting his gaze, Trevor pinned Haylie with a hard stare. “We’ll have a paternity test run immediately. And God help you if your story is a lie.”

He wasn’t sure what he would do, exactly, but the very thought that she was trying to get one over on him made his jaw lock and his temperature rise. On the desk in front of him, his fists clenched until his knuckles cracked.

If this whole thing turned out to be some crazy fabrication in a bid to get money or besmirch his good name—his family’s good name—he was not going to be happy. The Jarrods had Erica’s fiancé and longtime family attorney Christian, as well as a bevy of other legal eagles on retainer, who would have no problem racking up billable hours devising new and creative ways to make Haylie Smith sorry she had ever come to Jarrod Ridge.

At his veiled threat, he’d half expected her to blink. To decide that maybe this charade wasn’t the wisest plan of action, after all.

But once again, he’d underestimated her. Not only didn’t she blink—figuratively or literally—but her expression remained just as firm and determined.

“If he’s not your baby,” she said softly, “it won’t be my lie, it will be my sister’s.”

As the minutes crawled by, with Trevor Jarrod staring her down like an opponent in a boxing ring, the silence in the luxurious office was thick enough to carve with a knife. There was no fire crackling in the hearth behind him, and no office noises filtering in from the other side of the wide double doors. Only the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the far wall and Bradley’s occasional contented gurgle and sucking on his tiny fist kept her from hearing her own heart pounding beneath her ribs.

She could certainly understand Trevor’s anger and suspicions. In his shoes, she would be thinking and feeling the exact same way.