Why the devil wouldn’t he say something?
“Must you just stand there staring at me as if I’ve grown two heads?”
He inhaled sharply. “It’s a lot to take in.”
“Oh, aye,” she agreed. “What to do about Maura? Must be bloody difficult to think of the right thing to say.”
He ignored that. “So, the reason the film crew’s having so much trouble…the reason I couldn’t get a room at the inn or a beer in the pub…” His voice trailed off, but Maura could see him thinking and knew from the expression on his face he didn’t much care for what was in his mind.
“They’re angry on my behalf,” she told him, her voice soft, her words sharp. “Everyone in the village knows I’m pregnant and that you’ve done nothing about it.”
“I—” He took a step toward her and stopped again. “How in the hell could I have done anything about it when you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“I’ve already explained that I bloody well tried to tell you, didn’t I?”
Maura stormed out of the hall into the main room. Through the bank of windows, she saw the gray skies, the green field where lambs played and the wide, pewter stretch of the lake. She didn’t turn around to know he’d followed her into the room. She didn’t have to. She would have sensed him even if she hadn’t heard his footsteps.
“How hard did you try, Maura?” He grabbed her upper arm and turned her around to face him. “A man’s got a right to know when he’s going to be a father.”
“Aye, he does. And along with that right,” she countered, refusing to be cowed by the flash of indignation in his eyes, “comes a responsibility to return calls left so that he might discover what a body’s trying to tell him.”
“I never got any messages.”
“So you say, though I left dozens. Maybe hundreds.” Doubt crept in and battered at the anger she’d been carrying for weeks.
“With whom?”
“With anyone I could get on the phone, blast you!” She yanked free of his grasp and whipped her hair back behind her shoulders. “Mostly I called your office and never got past your secretary. Oh, she was polite and all and told me how nice it was that I wanted to stay in touch, but that you’re a busy man and so I was to be sure and let her know if I had any problems in the future.”
“Joan. Did you tell her about the baby?”
“I did. She congratulated me as nice as you please and said she was sure Mr. King would be happy for me. Happy for me.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I assumed you wanted nothing to do with me or my child.”
“Our child.”
She nodded. “As you say. So when I heard nothing from you for weeks, I put you out of my mind entirely.”
Liar, her brain screamed silently. He’d never been out of her thoughts. Or her dreams. Even with the hurt and disappointment and anger, she’d thought of him, remembered that night with him and torn herself up with regrets for what had been lost.
Blast if she’d let him know that, though.
“So it seems, Jefferson, that once your contract is signed, you’ve no need to be polite to those you’ve already won over.”
“I can’t believe Joan knew and didn’t say anything.”
“Get a lot of those messages, does she?” Stung, she snapped, “Believe me or not, it’s your business to be sure.”
“I don’t mean I didn’t believe you. I meant—” His voice trailed off. Shoving both hands into his pockets, he shook his head and said, “I’ve had people call after the contract was signed, trying to up the amount of money they agreed to. Or to get more out of me in other ways. Joan—my assistant—knows that and weeds out people she thinks might be causing trouble.”
“Well, I might see how she could think that when, after the first few tries I made, I might have lost my temper with her…”
“Might have?” he asked, one corner of his mouth lifting.
“All right, did, but I had my reasons, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did. She should have told me you called.”
Jefferson blew out an unsteady breath. This was all happening so fast he could hardly think. He’d never even considered the possibility of leaving Maura pregnant. Which made him a complete ass. He hadn’t worried about contraception—had just given himself over to the heat of the moment. Something he had never been careless about. But damn it, he couldn’t be faulted for not acting on something he hadn’t even known about.
The important thing to focus on was the fact that he was going to be a father.
Everything in him trembled. Not the kind of news a man got every day. Not hard to understand why his brain was having a tough time computing it all. He hadn’t known. For four months, she’d been alone with this knowledge, thinking that he didn’t care. Thinking he wanted nothing to do with her. No wonder she was spitting fire at him. Guilt roared up, took a bite of him, then Jefferson shoved it back down. Damned if he’d take the blame for something he hadn’t even known about.
“I’ll have a talk with Joan when I get back. Make it clear that I want to see all of my messages, not just the few she decides are worth my time.” It infuriated him that Maura had been trying to get hold of him for months unsuccessfully. Still in his own defense, he said, “A lot of people call me, Maura.”
“Women, I suppose,” she said with a sneer. Yes, women, he thought, though there hadn’t been any since he’d last been here. Hell, he hadn’t been able to look at another woman without seeing dark blue eyes and a wide, luscious mouth. His thoughts had been with Maura even when he hadn’t wanted it that way.
“I saw a picture of you in one of those celebrity magazines a month or so back. You looked very handsome in your splendid tuxedo with an empty-headed blond on your arm. Yes, you were very busy.”
He enjoyed the scorn in her voice. “Jealous?”
She snorted. “Indeed not. Just observant.”
That might be what she was telling herself, but he was glad to know she’d been keeping tabs on him anyway. “That was the lead actress in our latest movie. I escorted her to the premiere.”
“Aye, she looked the ‘escort’ type.”
He laughed shortly. “It’s my job, Maura.”
“And you do it so well,” she told him, dropping into a chair that looked worn and comfortable.