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Sixteen
“So that’s it?” Eric Jenner stared at the private investigator’s report in his hand. The baby wasn’t his. Somehow, he’d known this would be the answer.
Funny how it still hurt like hell.
“That’s it.” The investigator stood. “Unless there was something else you needed?”
Eric almost laughed. What did he need? He needed a happy ending to this whole mess. But it was clear he wasn’t going to get one. Not today. Maybe not ever.
He gritted his teeth. Bad enough that he’d been stood up at the altar—literally. Six months later, the press was still having a field day with the photos of Eric looking stunned next to the priest. In front of six hundred wedding guests. In the Holy Name Cathedral.
But this? He knew he couldn’t keep it quiet forever. Prudence had married less than two weeks after she’d left Eric at the altar. Apparently, it was true love. How else to explain Prudence running away with an accountant from her father’s company? Who’d fathered Prudence’s son and was, according to the PI’s account, making her the happiest woman in the world.
Eric was thrilled for them. Really.
He breathed in slowly and exhaled even slower. “If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know,” he said to the investigator. The man nodded and left.
Eric read the report again. Oddly, he didn’t miss Prudence. He didn’t lie awake in bed at night, missing her touch. He didn’t regret putting the condo he’d bought for her back on the market.
He’d clearly dodged a bullet. Except for one small detail.
That detail had been born at seven pounds, six ounces. He stared at the picture the investigator had included. The baby was bundled up in Prudence’s arms, his eyes closed and a little smile on his face. She’d named him Aaron.
Something tightened in Eric’s chest. No, Eric didn’t miss Prudence at all. But...
Everywhere he went, people had babies. Suddenly, he couldn’t avoid them. Even his oldest friend, Marcus Warren, had recently adopted a baby boy. After he’d married his assistant, of all people.
Eric and Marcus had always competed with each other—who had made the first million (Eric), the first billion (Marcus), who had the finest cars (it changed all the time) or the biggest boat. Eric always won that one, hands down.
It wasn’t like the contest was over. But the rules had changed and Eric wasn’t ready for this new game. He wasn’t ready to stand by as his best friend cooed over his son while his wife looked at them both with love in her eyes.
It should have been nauseating.
Eric and Marcus’s entire friendship was built on one-upmanship. But a loving wife and an adorable child?
And now this news from Prudence was the final blow.
One thing was clear. Eric had never lost this badly.
To hell with this.
He was Eric Jenner. He owned a quarter of the Chicago skyline, some of the most expensive properties in the world. He’d officially joined the exclusive ranks of billionaires. He was, he had been told, good-looking and good in bed. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t buy.
What he needed now was distraction. The kind he’d find in the arms of someone new who’d drive thoughts of happy families far from his mind. He hadn’t lost anything. He was glad Prudence was gone—that marriage would have been a disaster. He’d gotten lucky. He wasn’t tied down. He could do whatever he wanted—and what he wanted was everything.
The world was his for the taking. All he had to do was snap his fingers and whatever he wanted was his.
Abruptly, he slammed the report shut and jammed it in the bottom drawer of his desk.
Well.
Almost anything.
It turned out there were some things money couldn’t buy.
Ten months later...
The elevator door dinged. Sofia Bingham waited for the rest of the crowd to exit first, nerves swirling in her stomach. She was really doing this—interviewing for the job of office manager at Jenner Properties.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stepped into the foyer of Eric Jenner’s real estate empire. In her mind, this office had looked exactly the same as Eric’s father’s real estate office. Jenner and Associates had been a regal office located on the ground floor of a four-story building. John and Elise Jenner had run their exclusive agency on the Gold Coast of Chicago, catering to the rich and the ultrarich.
Her father, Emilio, had started as a janitor before moving up to staging houses for the Jenners and then starting his own company as a bilingual real estate agent. Sofia’s mother, Rosa, had been the Jenners’ housekeeper and Elise Jenner had had a soft spot for Sofia. Elise had showered Sofia with dresses and toys.
When Sofia had been growing up, the Jenners had seemed like the richest people in the world.
None of that had prepared her for this.
Jenner Properties took up the whole of the fortieth floor of the skyscraper at 310 South Wacker Drive. She could see Lake Michigan from here, the sun glittering off the water like a mirage come to life.
She smiled. It had been years since she had seen Eric Jenner, but she wasn’t surprised he had a good view of the lake. He’d always loved the water. Not only had he taught her to swim in his family’s pool but he’d even taught her how to sail his toy sailboats so they could race.
Around her, more elevators opened and more people poured out. Jenner and Associates had been run primarily by John and Elise Jenner and two other agents. But Jenner Properties was staffed by a small army of very serious-looking people, all of whom wore good suits and better shoes. Sofia looked down at her skirt and jacket combo, the nicest outfit she owned that didn’t have baby food stains on it. It was cute—a black-and-white polka-dotted skirt with a white jacket over a black blouse with a bow at the neck—but it wasn’t
