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.
CHAPTER TWO
JENA missed Marta something fierce. She bounced Abbie gently while patting her tiny back. Knowing her old nanny had been a few doors down the hall had eased many of Jena’s new mother insecurities and fears. Of course the girls had been perfect angels then. Textbook infants.
Nothing like this. Abbie arched her back and let out an unusually shrill cry.
