One Night with a Star (Second Chances Book 2) (5 page)

For someone who had only found out that he had a child a handful of hours ago, he sure had said that phrase a lot. He meant it like he’d never meant anything before, though. It didn’t take hours to figure that out.

“You’ll just walk out on him,” Jenny said. It took effort on her part, he could see it in her eyes.

There was no way he was going to get through this without being perfectly honest with her.

“I get it. You’re angry with me for walking out on you after one night,” he said, standing straight and letting his arms drop to his sides. “From your point of view, I was just some bloke who reeled you in and got what I want then tossed you aside.”

“Weren’t you?” She rested her weight and her hand on one hip, crackling with spite.

“No, I wasn’t,” he answered honestly. He took a step toward her. “I had a lot of shit going on in my life when I met you, Jenny. I was in a bad pattern, a downward spiral. There were things that I had done, that I was on the verge of doing….”

He stopped and ran a hand over his face, looking out over the black ocean. The sounds of the reception had died down, and once again the rush and retreat of waves breaking on the beach was the loudest noise around them.

“I’ve read all about your exploits in the tabloids,” Jenny said at last, though some of the anger had gone out of her voice.

“I’m sure,” he replied, turning from the sea and meeting her eyes. “What have you read about me in the last year?”

She hesitated. “Nothing.”

“Right,” he answered. “Because there’s been nothing to read.”

She stared at him for a moment, then started to walk past him to the other side of the porch. “Is that supposed to be secret code for something in your world?”

She headed past the screen door and around to the other side of the porch. The catering staff was busy cleaning up the table where some of the refreshments had been. Jenny started organizing nearly empty plates of hors d'oeuvres.

“You don’t have to do that,” one of the catering girls told her with an exhausted smile. “We’ve got it.”

“Okay.” Jenny backed away, but couldn’t stand still. She marched past Simon again to the side of the porch where they’d started, rubbing her forehead.

“I can’t deal with this, Simon,” she said at last. “I’m not ready to deal with this.”

“What are we dealing with?” he asked with a shrug. “All I said is that I want to be a part of my son’s life.”

She let out an exasperated breath. “That’s what I can’t deal with. I never thought you’d be interested.”

“I am,” he said.

“It’s not as easy as that,” she shot back.

She was clearly exhausted, physically and mentally. Simon wanted to take it easy on her. He wanted to take her up to his room and make love to her to let her know everything would be all right, but common sense said anything like that was a long way off.

“I get it,” he said. “This is hard for you. It’s a shock for me too. Finding out you’re a father isn’t something that happens every day.”

“Neither is finding out you’re pregnant after a one-night stand,” Jenny snapped.

“It wasn’t a—” He let out a breath. He could tell her and tell her that he hadn’t thought of their night together as a one-night stand, but she wasn’t going to believe him. He would have to prove it. “What can we do that will enable me to be a part of Daniel’s life?” he asked instead.

Jenny hugged herself, bit her lip, glanced down. The vulnerability of her stance made her look ten years younger. “I don’t know,” she said.

It was better than a flat-out rejection.

“Right, let’s look at it this way. Second Chances got picked up for second season, twenty-some-odd episodes. That means I’ll be in the area a lot for the foreseeable future. I’m not going anywhere, because my job is here. So there’s that worry taken care of. I’m not going to pull another disappearing act.”

Just saying that filled him with a sense of accomplishment. Jenny peeked up at him, as if she too were coming around.

“So that’s out of the way. I’m here. So what about spending time with you and Daniel?”

Jenny’s head snapped up all the way. “You said you wanted to be a part of Daniel’s life. That has nothing to do with me.”

“Jenny, that has everything to do with you. You’re his mother.”

She shook her head. “No. You can be a part of Daniel’s life, but you can’t be a part of mine. I don’t want you.”

Simon frowned. “How do you suppose that will work?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I don’t have the energy to deal with it tonight.”

“All right,” he said. “I can accept that.”

She drew in a breath and nodded. “Fine. So for now we’ll just say that you can be a part of Daniel’s life. We’ll find a way. Now I need to go home and see if he got to bed okay. He’ll be up for a feeding again soon anyhow.”

“Then by all means, go take care of him,” Simon said. He smiled. They were getting somewhere. “I’ll call you on Monday.”

Her eyes flashed with sudden intensity. “How are you going to call me? You don’t have my number.”

“I have your card, remember?” he said. “You gave it to me.”

All of the frustration in her expression melted to aching hope. “You still have it?”

“Of course I still have it, love. It’s been in my wallet since the second you gave it to me.” And his wallet had been within reach at every moment in the last year. She had never been more than a few inches away from him in all that time.

“Then why didn’t you call me?” Her whisper was hoarse with longing.

“I couldn’t,” he said.

There was so much more that he could have said, so much more that he needed to say, but it was becoming more and more obvious that neither of them were up to the emotional intensity that that conversation would bring with it. He needed to sleep, and she needed to go take care of Daniel.

“Are you okay getting home?” he said to prompt her in that direction.

She hesitated, swallowed, then said, “Yeah, I’m fine. My car is out front.”

“Then why don’t you go to Daniel. Everything else can wait. He’s what matters now.”

She stared at him as though she didn’t quite believe he was real. Every bit of him wanted to fall at her feet or take her in his arms and beg her to start over with him right then, but it wouldn’t work. He needed to do this, but he needed to do it slowly.

“Goodnight, love,” he said softly, nodding for her to go.

Her face hardened for a second, but she gave up whatever frustration went with the expression. “Goodnight,” she said, then turned and walked away.

Simon let out a breath and rubbed a hand over his face. He had no way of judging whether that had gone well or not. All he knew was that everything he did from there on out had to be done perfectly or he would lose more than he’d ever dreamed he could have.

Chapter Five

Jenny pulled into her parking space at Coastal Realty on Monday morning, cursing under her breath. The clock in her car said 9:47. She swore again and cut the engine. What was it about having a baby at home that made the clock speed up at the absolute most inconvenient times? She’d been late to work more times in the last few months than she wanted to count, and every one of those times had been a hit to the image she’d worked so hard to craft for herself.

She opened the door and went to grab her purse off of the front passenger seat. A handful of Cheerios was stuck to the bottom from where it had come to rest in a pile of snacks, toys, and a pacifier when she’d tossed it into the car. She really needed to take an hour or so to clean her car, but when? The back seat probably held enough soft toys for an entire day care, and snacks to see her through the winter if she ever got caught in a snowbank. All this in a car she’d once kept spotless to impress men and clients.

There wasn’t time to think about it. She hopped out of the car and slammed the door, brushed a hand back along her hair—caught up in her trademark ponytail—and charged toward the door.

“Hey, Jenny,” the receptionist, Laurel, greeted her in a loud, high pitched voice as Jenny tried to sneak past to her desk. “How was the wedding this weekend?”

Laurel might as well have sounded an air horn. All around, Jenny’s coworkers popped their heads up over their cubes and around the corners of offices.

“How many movie stars were there?” Ivy asked as Jenny swished past her to her own cube.

“A couple,” Jenny said. Including one she absolutely did not want to talk about.

Her cube was as bad as her car in far too many ways. A year ago, she’d kept it spotless and organized. Now it was cluttered with printouts of listings, pamphlets and other papers that she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do with, pictures of Daniel that made her smile in spite of herself, and still more toys and a bottle half filled with liquid that looked congealed enough to make her wince.

“I saw some pics that were leaked online first thing this morning,” Ivy said, leaning against the side of Jenny’s cube. “You looked amazing, girl. And was that Simon Mercer standing next to you?”

“He was the best man,” Jenny replied without looking at her. She didn’t want to talk about this, now or ever. With any luck, Simon would get tired of whatever games he was playing by telling her he wanted to be in Daniel’s life, and he would go away.

She pressed her eyes shut. What a pointless thought. It was the exact opposite of what she wanted. Wasn’t it?

No, stupid though it made her, that was what she feared. For Daniel’s sake.

Or so she told herself.

She rebooted her computer and tried to organize all of the paperwork on her desk while it went through its Monday morning routine. Nothing on her desk looked particularly important, but that was more of the problem than the solution. Once she’d gone around calling herself the Closer of the Kennebunks. Now she was just bunk.

“Spencer Ellis looked so hot in his tux,” a third coworker, Gladys, who was as old as Jenny’s mom, came over to drool. “Your friend is the luckiest girl in the world.”

“He did look pretty amazing,” Ivy agreed as Laurel hopped up from her desk and came to join the cluster around Jenny’s. “But I thought Simon Mercer looked even better.”

“Did you get to talk to him at all?” Laurel asked. “Is he dating anyone right now?”

“No,” Jenny answered, focusing on her work, wishing they would go away.

That one word made the three of her nosy coworkers hum. “So was there any bridesmaid action going on then?” Ivy asked.

“You know what they say about the maid of honor and the best man at weddings,” Gladys added.

“No,” Jenny said, louder. “There was nothing.” She huffed and turned to them. “Guys, I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now I’ve got a lot of stuff to catch up on.”

“Yes, but was Spencer—”

“Jenny.” The page on Jenny’s phone blared to life with her boss’s voice.

“Yes, Carol?” Jenny answered, a rock sinking to the pit of her stomach.

“Can I see you in my office?”

“Sure, I’ll be right there.”

“Uh-oh,” Laurel murmured. All three of her coworkers backed off so fast you would have thought Jenny had the plague.

Jenny took a deep breath and pushed herself out of her chair. There was no doubt that she was in trouble. Carol only paged people to her office if she wanted to rain down holy terror. It sucked, but Jenny couldn’t blame the woman. That didn’t mean this little visit would be fun.

“Close the door, please,” Carol said as soon as Jenny crossed the threshold.

Well crap. Jenny shut the door, then turned back to Carol with as bright a smile as she could manage.

“I’m so sorry for being late,” she said before Carol could get started, taking a seat in the Chair of Doom in front of Carol’s desk. “Daniel was fussy this morning. We had a rough day yesterday after the wedding on Saturday. I spent most of my time over at my friend’s house, helping to clean up.” And avoiding Simon with everything she had. Thank God his and Spence’s agent Yvonne hadn’t left for New York yet and had kept him busy with the business of their TV show.

Carol folded her hands on her desk and stared at Jenny with the coolest poker-face imaginable. “You can’t keep coming in late, Jenny,” she said in the same tone a school principal would use after the fifth time a student had been sent to her office.

“I know,” Jenny said. “I’ll do better.”

Carol nodded, but said, “If it was only being late, I could work around that. But you and I both know there has been a serious decline in your performance these last few months since you returned from maternity leave.”

“I’ll get the hang of it,” Jenny insisted. “Daniel is six months now, and he’s figuring out how to do things like sleep through the night and get on a schedule.” If by ‘sleeping through the night’ she meant from nine until two in the morning, and wailing for mommy every few hours, on the dot.

“I know how hard babies can be,” Carol said. “I had three of my own, and now I’ve got a grandbaby at home. That’s not what this is about.”

Jenny’s heart sank further. “I can do this,” she said, bolstering herself as much as reassuring Carol.

Carol let out a breath. “Jenny, how many clients do you have right now?”

She flushed hot at the question, feeling sick. “I’m working on getting out there,” she said.

“You don’t have any,” Carol answered her own question. “The last deal you closed was more than a month ago. You’ve had a hard time building your client list back up again after maternity leave, even though we’ve tried to help you.”

“And I appreciate that, Carol, I really do.”

“But you lost two of those clients because you weren’t able to show them the houses they were interested in on their time.”

“I remember,” Jenny said, scrambling for a way to defend herself. “Daniel had a fever that one day. I had to take him to the emergency pediatrician.”

“And I felt sorry for that,” Carol went on, “but it meant you lost the client. We would have lost them to another agency if Ivy hadn’t been able to step in and pick up the slack.”

All desire to defend and prove herself drained out of Jenny, replaced by a gnawing despair. She was about to get fired. Any second now, Carol would drop the bomb on her.

“What would you like me to do?” she asked, as weak as she’d ever been.

Carol stared at her for a long, hard moment. It was coming. Any second now.

“I’d like you to pull yourself together, Jenny,” she said.

Jenny let out a breath. She wasn’t fired. Not yet.

“I’d like you to build up your client base again,” Carol went on. At last, her mask of boss-ness melted to something almost human. “I’d like for you to get up to the level where you were last year, not for our sake, but for your own. I don’t think you like the state of things any more than I do.”

“I don’t,” Jenny admitted, and dammit if she didn’t want to cry after saying that.

Carol must have seen it. She broke into a sympathetic smile. “Get focused and get back on track. We need you back on track.” She let out a breath and sat back in her chair, and just as Jenny was beginning to feel like things might work out, she said, “Because if you aren’t able to get back to where you were last year, we’re going to have to consider measures.”

Boom. Just like that. ‘Consider measures’ was Carol’s personal code for ‘fire your ass.’

“I understand,” Jenny said and stood. “I’ll do better. I swear.”

“I’m sure you will,” Carol said.

That was the end of that. Jenny smiled and left the office. As soon as she was around the corner and out of Carol’s sight, she closed her eyes and let out a breath, pressing a hand to her stomach. This just sucked all over. She needed to work. She needed a job that would pay her enough to survive if she was ever going to get herself and Daniel out of her parent’s house and on their own again. There was nothing for it but to put on her big-girl panties and make this work.

“What did she say?” Ivy whispered as Jenny got back to her desk.

“I’m not fired,” Jenny told her, knowing full well what she wanted to know.

“That’s good, that’s good,” Ivy said. There was a twist of disappointment in Ivy’s eyes. She couldn’t actually
want
Jenny to be fired, could she?

“I just have to pick up my game,” she told Ivy with a smile.

And she would, too. She sat and rolled her chair closer to her desk, clicking around on her computer and looking at listings and tools. If she could just focus, just put her energy into something other than Daniel.

Except that in no way did she want to put her efforts into anything but Daniel. Her son was her world. Ambition, success, money. They had all seemed so important before Daniel. Now, she just couldn’t get excited about any of it.

Her cell phone buzzed, snapping her out of the cycle of dread that was pulling at her from inside her stomach. She was relieved for the distraction, until she noticed Simon’s name on the caller ID.

She cursed, then picked up the phone, tapped to accept the call, and barked, “What?”

“Got a case of the Mondays?” Simon answered from the other end. He was entirely too cheery for everything she’d just been through.

“I don’t have time to be cute with you this morning, Simon,” she snapped. “I was late to work, I just got chewed out by my boss, and I’ve got stuff to do.”

She winced as soon as it all came out, especially when Simon replied with a heart-wrenchingly sympathetic, “I’m sorry for that. Are you okay?”

No. She was not okay. She was not okay with the last person on earth that she wanted her heart to speed up over saying exactly what she needed someone to say right then.

“What can I do for you?” she asked the same way she would ask any client.

Simon surprised her by saying, “I want to buy a house.”

Her brow flew up. He had to be joking. “Then hire a real estate agent,” she said.

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

He was serious.

“No,” she said. “I’m not taking the bait. I told you that you could be part of Daniel’s life, but not mine. This counts as a major conflict of interest.”

“But I thought you were the Closer of the Kennebunks,” he said.

A lump caught in her throat. She’d liked being the Closer of the Kennebunks. She’d liked the way it made her feel. “Not anymore,” she said and hung up on him.

She put the phone down and pressed her hands to her face, willing herself not to cry. Crying was stupid. It was for wimps. Why the hell had she become such a crier since Daniel was born? Since he was conceived. It must have been the hormones.

She let out a breath and cleared her throat, focusing on her computer. Nothing. There was nothing there in her tracking queue. Not a single line or entry. She had exactly nothing going on. Well, nothing but a great big threat of being fired hanging over her head if she didn’t get something going.

It was utterly unfair. Simon was serious about buying a house. The pieces clicked in place. Second Chances had been picked up for a second season. He would need to live in the area for several months each year for filming. Simon was a star. He had money. The commission from the kind of house that he could afford could not only set her back on track with Carol, it could get her out of her parent’s house. And if word got out that Jenny was a realtor to the stars, who knew what other clients would come running at her.

Clenching her jaw, she swiped her phone off the desk and hit redial for Simon.

“Feeling better yet?” he answered instead of hello.

“Do you really want to buy a house?” she asked. More like growled in her current frame of mine.

“Yes, I do,” he answered. She could hear the smile of victory in his voice.

Dammit, she was going to have to do this. “What are you looking for?” she asked. “What do you want to spend?”

“Something in this area, and whatever it takes,” he answered.