‘No. He was born here in Sydney. At a private hospital in Mona Vale.’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t go to LA, Nick. My mother doesn’t need me for anything. I am truly superfluous to Livvy’s life. I was superfluous to yours, too. So I used the LA location to put enough distance between us to be…out of sight, out of mind.’
He hated that self-effacing statement. He could hear the hurt of rejection behind it—the rejection he had unwittingly hit her with. ‘You’ve owned a piece of my mind ever since we met, Tess,’ he strongly asserted. ‘And the longer we’ve known each other, the more space you’ve claimed there.’
He felt the sharp dart of her eyes, sensed the turmoil of vulnerability driving the silent query—whether he could be believed or not.
‘I did not enjoy dealing with your PA these past six months,’ he ran on, determined on correcting her view of him. ‘I missed you, Tess. I missed your personal take on what I was doing. I missed the zing I always get in your company. I missed…’
‘The zing?’
He flashed her a quick grin. ‘The sexual battle that laced every word we spoke to each other.’
‘We talked business,’ she hotly argued, looking apalled at his interpretation of their meetings.
‘Oh, come on,’ he scoffed. ‘We were always screwing with each other’s heads. It was the sex we had while not having sex—thrust, parry, attacking every which way, going for whatever hit we could get, the exhilaration of matching and marking each other…’
Her hands lifted from her lap in agitation, gesturing a protest. ‘It was a platonic relationship…’
‘No such thing between a woman and a man when the chemistry is crackling.’
Her voice gathered more heat as she recalled, ‘It was what you insisted we had after…’
‘After we drove it too far and made it unmanageable between us?’
‘Unmanageable?’
‘It wasn’t going to be fun any more, was it, Tess? Not after that night. It went too far too fast and felt too damned serious.’
‘Does sex have to be fun to you?’ she flung at him irritably.
‘Fun doesn’t end up clawing at you,’ he argued. ‘It’s froth and bubble. The high, without any of the lows. The minute sex gets serious, all the negative stuff starts happening…possessiveness, jealousy, slavish obsession, manic arguments. People make fools of themselves, victims of their own raging hormones. I didn’t think that was a good place for us to progress to.’
‘Because the sex felt…too serious?’
He could hear her thinking her way around what he was saying, beginning to feel less sexually diminished by his retreat from physical intimacy with her.
‘I valued what we had too much to risk it on passion running wild, getting out of control in a big way,’ he pressed on. ‘I wanted to keep you in my life without the aggravation of feeling owned by you.’
A hysterical little laugh gurgled from her throat. ‘Better get used to the sense of being owned, Nick…if you have the heart of a father.’
Another shafting challenge.
The sexual stand-off was still in place, as far as Tess was concerned. Tonight was not about fun and games between a man and a woman. Tonight was about how he responded to their son.
And the mind-crawling truth was…he was being judged.
The sense of King Rat’s integrity being on the chopping block was strong from the moment he entered the old colonial-styled mansion Tess used as both her business premises and home.
The nurse who greeted them at the front door was instantly told, ‘This is Nick Ramirez, Zack’s father.’
The father who had been conspicuous by his absence since the birth of his son.
That knowledge was certainly in the nurse’s measuring eyes as she escorted them to the nursery upstairs, answering Tess’s questions about Zack’s evening—no problems—hadn’t woken for his night feed yet. She left them at the nursery door, retreating from what had to be huge private business. The judgement axe was sharpening up in Tess’s eyes as she ushered him into a room lit by a soft night lamp and dominated by a white cane bassinette which stood under a host of mobile objects strung from the ceiling.
Nick’s entire body was gripped with electric tension as he faced the piece of furniture holding the child he’d made with Tess. Suddenly he was racked with uncertainty over whether he was capable of passing the fatherhood test. Was he prepared to cede power over his life to another human being…to be owned?
He forced his feet forward, fiercely telling himself it was too late to be carrying out any self-examination. Besides, there was no decision to be made here. The baby in the bassinette was his flesh and blood, irrevocably linked to him. They owned each other—had owned each other from the moment Zack had been conceived, and would own each other for as long as life went on. It was the quality of the ownership that was on the line.
The turbulence churning through Nick miraculously calmed once he’d reached the bassinette and his gaze finally rested on the living breathing object of all his angst.
‘So tiny…’ The incredulous comment whispered from his lips on a wave of awe.
‘Zack is actually big for his age,’ Tess dryly informed him.
Big?
Nick shook his head.
This baby was shockingly tiny and all swaddled up like a miniature Egyptian mummy in a blue and white checked cloth. Only his face was on show—a fine little face with properly proportioned features, nothing too big or too small, ears nestled tightly to the side of his head—important for a boy.
He had lots of black hair in corkscrew ringlets which could be embarrassing—very girly—as were the crescents of long, thick eyelashes fanned out across his cheeks, but attitude was the key to stopping any teasing on that score. Nick figured he could teach his son attitude. A pretty boy tag wouldn’t last long.
The slight dimple in the centre of his chin was like a magnet, drawing Nick’s finger into touching the genetic blueprint that belonged to both of them. Unbelievably soft skin. Nick couldn’t resist feeling more of it, finger-feathering the delicately drawn jawline from ear to ear, smiling as his son emitted a snuffling little sigh. Nick sent him a mental message—Hi, Zack. This is your father standing by.
It was like a trigger for action. The swathed bundle started squirming, feet kicking out for freedom, hands punching at the constricting cloth. The finely arched baby brows dipped into a surprisingly adult frown and the rosebud mouth gulped for air a couple of times, then poured forth a full-blooded scream, proving his lungs were working at top capacity.