Game, Set, Match (A Humorous Contemporary Romance) (Love Match) (41 page)

Jason stared at him and frowned. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Aaron shrugged. “I’m just saying. She loves the kid is all. From what I can see anyway.” He shrugged. “Look man, you dropped a bombshell on her a week ago. You were always better at telling chicks what they wanted to hear, not what they needed to hear. It’s better for the kid if you guys work this shit out away from the limelight.”

“I can’t believe you, of all people, are saying keep it out of the press.” Jason wasn’t sure what he was going to do. But the last thing on earth he wanted to do was deal with this.

“Yeah, never let it be said I don’t have a heart. Even if it is made out of a gin and tonic cocktail.”

Aaron had a point, though. It was in Nick’s best interest that he
work something out with Izzy. But what arrangement did he want to work out with her? It wasn’t like he wanted a kid.

Did he?

No matter what, he’d meant what he told her. Nick would find out from the both of them. No matter what.

****

“Mom? Is something wrong?”

Izzy looked from Nick’s concerned expression to Jason’s stoic one and wished there was an easier way to have this conversation. “Yeah, I—” She shook her head before she started again, this time trying for a united front. “We wanted to talk to you about something. Both of us together since this
involves all of us.”

“You know your mom will always love you no matter what. Nothing will ever change that.” Jason tried to help, but only made it worse if Nick’s expression was any indication.

Izzy’s stomach rolled as Nick’s expression turned from giddy excitement, to mild worry, back to excitement again. Shit. They needed to just spit it out already. “So you know how I’ve been looking for your birth father?”

He nodded encouragingly as if to urge her on. “Yeah, so you can adopt me.”

“After talking to Sabrina, we need to discuss a few things with you.”

He stood abruptly. “Damn, Mom, just tell me.
Whatever it is. Do I have to go live with her? Are they taking me away from you? Does my birth father want custody? What? Just freaking tell me.”

From the corner of her eyes, she saw the muscle in Jason’s jaw tick as he gnashed his teeth.

His voice was low and controlled. “Nick, have a seat, what your mother has to tell you is hard enough without you getting upset.”

Both she and Nick snapped him looks that said shut up. She sent a small prayer to whoever might listen and gave Nick the truth. “According to Sabrina, there’s a chance Jason might be your birth father.”

Nick stared at her with his head cocked for several moments before he turned his attention to Jason. “Is it true?”

For the first time she could recall, she heard poignant grief in Jason’s voice. Unable to turn to face him, she wondered what he’d look like through her lens.

“She never told me, Nick. I had no idea it was even possible.”

Regardless of Jason’s words, Nick wasn’t interested in reason. “Is that why you’ve been so nice to me?
To get close to me?”

Anguish in his eyes, Jason looked at his son. “No. I promise I didn’t know. If I had, I would never have abandoned you like that. I would have been there.”

Mutinous, Nick stood and stared at Jason. “Yeah well, I didn’t need you. I had my mom.”

Jason stood to face him. “I know Izzy did the best she could, but that doesn’t substitute you having your father around. I’m sorry I haven’t been there. But I hope to be there for you now.”

“Bullshit. I don’t need you.” Then as if realization dawned, wide eyes stared at Izzy. “I won’t live with him.”

Her heart broke at the pleading look he gave her.
“No of course not.”

She spoke just as Jason said, “Well, nothing’s been discussed yet.”

Nick crossed his arms. “Well, I won’t. If you try and make me, I’ll run away.”

Izzy stepped between the two of them. “Nick, you will do no such thing. Nothing has been decided yet, mostly because we need to have a paternity test done. If it comes back positive, we need to have some conversations about where to go next. Until then, there’s no need to get upset.”

Jason shrugged. “No one’s upset. Nick and I are having a conversation.”

Nick’s eyes didn’t waver from Jason’s. “I’m not leaving you, Mom. I don’t care what those stupid tests say.”

Jason folded his arms around his broad expanse of chest. “We’ll see what the Judge says.”

She stood between the two of them, as they geared for battle.
 
So much for a united front.

Chapter
Thirty-Six

Jason hadn’t paid attention when the taxi passed the security gate. After his chat with Nick, he didn’t have the energy. When he saw Sabrina’s compact form exit the taxi, he ground his teeth. “What the hell are you doing here?” Jason stood with his arms crossed, legs braced apart. His lips thinned as she drew nearer.

“I have a few things to say. You can hate me all you want, but you’ll hear me out.”

“I think I’ve heard you out enough.”

“I know. I wish I could say I’m sorry and mean it, but I’m not, so I won’t. I just needed to see you before I left town.”

He turned his back on her and stalked into the house. “Why does that not surprise me? So what’s the deal? She’s sending you to rehab in exchange for what?”

“I, ah, I get to go to rehab if I promise to leave Nick alone until he’s ready to see me.” She fiddled with the clutch purse in her hand. “I know as far as you’re concerned, I’m an evil bitch.”

He leaned up against the dining room table, light streamed in through the sliding glass doors behind him and lit her face in shadow. “You’re right about that. You’re an evil bitch, but then not much has changed since we were kids.”

“I never should have kept you from Izzy when you came back. I never should have kept Nick a secret from you. I never should have blackmailed you. Just about the only good thing I’ve done in my life is
leave Nick with Izzy. I couldn’t take care of him, and let’s face it, Jason, you would have been a useless father.”

“I never got the chance to make that choice for myself. You stole that from me.” Jason could have sworn he saw remorse flit across her pretty features.

“You can moan about it all you want. The truth is we all made mistakes. Maybe I should have told you about Nick, maybe not. But you tried to keep our past secret from her, and that’s on you. Not me, not her, but you.” She swiped at her nose. “I needed the money, so I got it from the logical source.”

“You’re a piece of work.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“You used Nick’s safety, and my feelings for Izzy against me.”

She shrugged. “I don’t deny it.”

His voice chilled by degrees. “Then what the fuck do you want from me,
‘cause I get the impression you’re not feeling all that sorry.”

“You don’t have to listen to me, but I’m here to ask you to go easy on Izzy and the kid. They need each other. If you want custody of him, fine you have a right to him, but you’ve got to share it with Izzy.”

“Why would you give that to her? From what I can see you’ve never even liked her.”

“I don’t, but she’s done right by me when she didn’t have to. She’s the best parent for Nick. Always has been. None of this was her fault. Not like she knew he was yours.” The muscles in her lips trembled into a semblance of a smile. “If she’d known, she would have fought all the more to adopt him sooner. She’s always loved you.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Izzy retched into the studio’s corner wastebasket. All she’d been able to think about was Nick’s paternity test. The lab had called that morning. Nick was for sure Jason’s son.

She’d asked the doctor if he was sure, and he’d assured her without a doubt that the results were accurate. Damn them with their 99.86% probabilities.

Her entire world was falling apart, and her body knew it. Spitting out the bile, she straightened. Maybe it was a bug. Between the gallery opening, and Nick, and the whole Sabrina-Jason thing, her schedule was erratic and hectic.

“When were you going to tell me?”

She whipped around to face Jessica. “Tell you what? That I’m sick?” She shrugged and added, “It’s no big deal. I hope it passes soon though, I can’t afford to be run down now, between paternity tests and press people, and my editor and additional clie—”

Jessica shook her head, interrupting. “Honey, even you can’t be that distracted.” Moving forward, she handed Izzy a cup of water. “How late are you?”

“Late?”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “You know
preggers?”

Izzy
’s stomach rolled. Too nauseous to process the question, she hugged the wastebasket to her chest.

Jessica continued. “With child, lack of Aunt Flo, about to be
Shamu the whale?”

Izzy swallowed around the nausea. “I’m not pregnant, Jessica.” She waved a hand. “It’s got to be the flu. Simon had it last week. I’m not pregnant,” she stated more adamantly.

Jessica kneeled in front of her. “Is it at least possible?”

“No, of course it’s not
po—” Izzy halted, suddenly remembering making love on the rug in Jason’s living room. She remembered the smooth moist tip of his erec—
Shit
. She’d forgotten her pills when she and Nick stayed at Jason’s. She’d made up the pack, so she hadn’t given it much thought. She cleared her throat, cast a guilty look at Jessica and nodded. “Yeah, it’s possible.”

There was a time for lectures and a time for support. Jess knew her well enough to know now wasn’t a lecture time.
“Right. So first things first. You need to pee on a stick.”

In a flurry of activity, she made notes, grabbed calendars and rushed into the reception area. “I’ll call your doctor for a confirmation sometime in the next couple of days, but you’ll probably feel better after you know for sure,” she shouted from the reception desk.

She strode into the studio, oversized hobo bag in hand, and rummaged through it. When she procured a pregnancy home kit from the bag, Izzy stared, agog.

“You carry around pregnancy tests in your bag?”

“You never know when they’re going to come in handy.” She shrugged.

Izzy grabbed her hand. Voice shaking, she whispered the one fear she’d been unable to admit to herself until now. “Jess, what am I going to do? You see how Jason is about Nick? I don’t know if I can do this.”

Jess squeezed back. “Right now, you don’t have to do anything except pee on that stick. You’re a strong woman. You can do this. And anything you can’t do, I’ll do. And your mom and Nick. So what if Prince Charming is full of warts?”

Izzy felt the weak smile tug at her lips. “He’s a particularly resistant species of toad. No amount of kissing turned him into a prince.”

Jessica smiled back. “Maybe you didn’t kiss him hard enough?”

Izzy’s smile widened hand pointing at her belly. “Well, I did more than kiss him—several times. If that didn’t aid the transformation, I don’t know what will.”

Jessica choked on a laugh. “That’s the Izzy I know. You’re Izzy Connors, and you’ve got people who love you. You can move mountains.” Jessica paused. “Including deal with the horde of paparazzi on the lawn outside.”

Izzy felt the blast of a migraine coming on. “You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not. Looks like the story leaked about the paternity test.”

“Shit.” She took a deep breath. “Shit, shit, and more shit.”

“Look, I’m already on it. I called the cops to remove them. You’ll probably want to talk to the toad before anything else leaks to the press. You don’t want that.”

No, Izzy didn’t want to talk to the toad, but she was fresh out of options. She didn’t know if she was strong enough for two custody battles with Jason.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Was she really too cute for jail? Would the DA prosecute if she shot a member of the paparazzi and buried him in the desert? Wiping her hands down her jeans after she placed a casserole in the oven, Izzy went to pull the drapes in the family room. Thanks to the security Jason had sent over, the paps stayed on the street, not her lawn. But when the sun went down, they’d have a clear view into the house. Her neighbors had already complained as had she, but there was little the police could do.

She walked down the hallway to her room with every intention of lying down for a few minutes. She’d had a headache going on a week solid now, and it showed no signs of going away.

“Nick? Have you finished your homework. Jessica can take it in the morning if you have.”

He didn’t answer her. She sighed. He’d been impossible since she and Jason had sat him down.
Rude, staying up late, talking back—all uncharacteristic. He was going through a lot, but she’d only put up with so much before she started slapping on the consequences.

She stood outside his door and knocked. “Nick, did you hear me about your homework?”

Tempted to open the door, something she would have done before the age of twelve with no qualms, she knew better than to open unannounced now. “Nicholas, if you don’t open the door in three, I’m coming in.”