Tracy Solheim - Foolish Games

The thunder and lightning were winding down the second time they made love, her fingers and mouth torturing his body before he found his release. The third time he took her, the storm had dissipated outside but continued to rage on between them as the electricity he’d felt in the hallway reached a fevered pitch. Will had never felt such an intense connection with any other woman.

Until she called out another man’s name while climaxing. And then the condom broke.

When he woke the next morning, she was gone, the battered beach the only evidence of the previous night’s storm. Will’s psyche was as ravaged as the shoreline. His mystery lover had checked out of the hotel and disappeared without a word. As it turned out, she might have taken a lot more from him than a little piece of his ego.

Will took a deep breath and grabbed at his tie to loosen the stranglehold it had around his neck. He needed air. Roscoe and Hank were standing when Will turned to join them.

“You can’t leave!” Mr. Clem threw his body in front of the double doors. “That boy needs you!”

Will felt his chest constrict. A son. I might have a son.

“Mr. Clem.” Roscoe’s voice sounded miles away as the world spun around Will. “We’re not acknowledging anything without a paternity test.”

“We don’t have time for that!” Mr. Clem slammed his fist against the door as his face turned scarlet.

The senator slapped both hands on the table in frustration. “She doesn’t want you to acknowledge the baby! She doesn’t want a red cent from you. You never even have to see him.”

Rage swarmed through Will as he rocked back on his heels. What the hell was going on? Who was this woman? If the boy was his, there was no way Will wasn’t going to acknowledge him! Much less be a part of his life. A very big part.

Hank stepped in front of the senator, getting right in his face. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, Senator. What kind of game are you playing?”

“It’s not a game. My sister never wanted Will to know about him. Her plan was to raise him herself. In Italy. But things have changed. Julianne needs your help.” The senator’s voice sounded like a plea.

Will barely heard Mr. Clem over the roaring in his ears. “She doesn’t want your money!” The man practically wailed. “She wants your blood!”

The monitors in the neonatal ICU beeped incessantly. Their sound, combined with little sleep and even less food, worked to numb Julianne Marchione into a zombielike state. She tried to refocus her thoughts and concentrate on the words her business manager, Sebastian Flanders, was saying, but her mind kept wandering to the incubator containing her four-week-old son, Owen. Her arms ached to hold him, but the disease poisoning his blood kept her baby confined to the NICU, tubes and wires marring his tiny arms and legs.

“Jules, sweetheart.” Sebastian’s British accent permeated the thick fog that surrounded her brain. “You don’t have to do this right now. You shouldn’t be making such rash decisions in the state you’re in, love.”

She gave her head a little shake and gazed over at the man across from her. The handsome black Englishman with the laughing coffee eyes had put as much blood, sweat, and tears into her career these past ten years as she had. His eyes weren’t laughing today, though. They were fearful and apprehensive. Worst of all, Julianne saw pity reflected there.

They were seated at a round table in one of the private vestibules Children’s Hospital provided for the families of its NICU patients. The small, windowless area was not quite a room; a curtained partition made up the fourth wall. Aside from the table and four chairs, the only other furniture was a sofa, too small and too hard to sleep on, and a television. She found it hard to conceive that anyone could watch TV while their child was so ill.

“I don’t have a choice.” Julianne’s voice was hoarse. Her hand trembled as she picked up a pen and let it hover over the documents spread out on the table. “I don’t have medical insurance. At least not the kind that will cover all of Owen’s expenses. Selling JV Designs ensures me enough cash that”—her voice began to shake—“if Owen doesn’t get a blood transfusion his body will accept, I can afford whatever treatment I need him to have to keep him alive.” She didn’t want to contemplate the alternative.

“Julianne,” Sebastian coaxed. “There’s still time. The father will come, love. And the doctor said there’s a seventy percent chance he’ll be a match. If that’s the case, Owen will beat this and go on to give you gray hairs before you’re forty. You don’t need to sell. It’s going to work out.” He covered one of her hands with his and squeezed.

“I have to do this.” Julianne was resolute. She no longer had the confidence Sebastian possessed. Owen was already being punished enough for the mistakes she’d made and the lies she’d told. It was only fair that she suffer, too.

Sebastian’s voice was anguished. “They’re going to take your designs and mass-market them.”

Julianne smiled grimly as her eyes met Sebastian’s. They both knew she hadn’t sketched a single design in nearly six months. She’d begged off commissions as soon as she’d found out about the baby. Even if her pregnancy hadn’t been difficult from the start, the guilt Julianne suffered had completely drained her creative juices. There was no telling when she’d get them back—if ever.

“Last I checked, Princess Kate bought clothes off the rack,” Julianne quipped.

“Carly, help me out here!” Sebastian pleaded to the woman seated on the sofa behind her.

Julianne didn’t have to turn around to feel the wave of disappointment emanating from her closest friend, Carly March Devlin. The two had met when both were students in boarding school nearly sixteen years ago. Theirs was a friendship deeper than sisterhood, born out of the shared experience of each losing their mother at a young age. But Julianne’s lies and omissions these past several months had damaged their friendship. This morning’s confession just might have pushed the relationship past the stage of irreparable.

She heard Carly rise from the sofa and closed her eyes to hold back the tears as her friend approached.

“Sebastian is right.” Carly gently massaged Julianne’s shoulders. “You’re not thinking clearly right now. You’re exhausted and worried about Owen. Now’s not the time to be thinking about selling your company. Instead, you need to concentrate on taking care of yourself so you can take care of Owen.” Carly hesitated. “Once Will gets here, he’ll help you through this.”

Julianne’s shoulders sagged underneath the enormous weight of shame she carried. Will Connelly. What must it feel like to suddenly find out you have a child? Would he be furious? And what would he think of her?

She didn’t have any answers because she knew so little about her son’s father. Embarrassment washed over her as she thought of the meeting taking place in her half brother’s office. She hoped Stephen wasn’t too hard on him. Will, like Owen, was innocent in all of this. Not that her brother saw it that way. He was more concerned with the ramifications to his political career. The senator wanted Julianne and her illegitimate son out of the country and away from any reporters who’d yet to snoop out the story.

Carly’s words also grated against Julianne’s fragile confidence. She spoke as if Will would arrive on a white horse and snap his fingers, and miracles would happen. As if his blood would be a match. As if the man rumored to be as cold as ice would forgive her for not telling him he had a son. Of course, Carly knew Will better than she did, which made revealing Owen’s paternity all the more difficult.

Julianne had never meant to put her friend in such a position. Mortified by her fling at a client’s wedding with a man she barely knew, she kept it a secret from Carly. After the shock of discovering her pregnancy, she vowed to keep the baby and raise it herself. She had a successful business and the means to support a child comfortably. Avoiding Carly had been easy while her friend was preoccupied forging a relationship with her new husband, Shane, and his young brother, Troy. To make the deception work, Julianne remained in Italy, away from the prying eyes and a multitude of questions.

In the end, though, Julianne couldn’t keep her secret any longer. Her son was born with advanced hemolytic disease, a dangerous blood disorder treatable with a transfusion. In most cases, blood from the standard blood bank was compatible. But Owen wasn’t one of those babies; he needed blood from a parent. Julianne prayed she’d be able to cure her son without having to reveal the father’s identity, but her prayers went unanswered. Owen’s body rejected her blood transfusion. To save his life, she had to admit that her fling wasn’t with a stranger, but with a man who happened to play football with her best friend’s husband.

“And you shouldn’t worry about the money,” Carly said as she slid into the seat next to her. “Will is worth millions. He can certainly pay for whatever treatments Owen needs to get better.”

Something snapped inside Julianne. She didn’t want Will Connelly to pay for her son’s medical care. Owen was her baby . . . her family. After her mother’s sudden death, her father had abandoned her to a boarding school before remarrying and beginning a new life. One that didn’t include any reminders of Julianne’s late mother. Twelve years her senior, Stephen had a family of his own, leaving Julianne in a sort of purgatory between her two remaining family members. But she would always have Owen to love. And to love her back. Sharing him was not an option. Forcing the pen into her hand, she scrawled her signature on the contract.

“Well done, Carly. That was ever so much help.” Sebastian’s sarcasm shattered the awkward silence that followed the scratching of the pen on paper.

Julianne slid the contract across the table to him as Carly sat stunned, gaping at her.

“With that I think I’ll walk across the street and fetch some of that inferior tea they serve at Starbucks.” Anger and disappointment radiated off his body. He shoved the contract into his computer bag. “I’ll need some fortification before I have to call Nigel and tell him we won’t be spending our month in Tuscany this year, because your wedding gowns will now be made in China.”

Sebastian stood abruptly and Julianne could tell it was costing him to hold the rest of his comments in check, but she was grateful he did. Her body and mind felt battle weary, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.

“May I bring you ladies a tea?” Even furious, Sebastian was a well-mannered Brit.

Carly shook her head. She’d closed her mouth, her lips now pursed in an angry line.

“A skim latte for me, please.” Julianne’s voice shook slightly. She was a little leery at being left in the room with Carly, and she figured she’d need the caffeine after whatever was to come.

Sebastian stalked out of the room, and it was a few moments before Carly spoke. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

Julianne leaped from the chair and began to pace the small room. “Well, a lot of things have happened to me lately. Maybe I’ve changed.”

“All these years, you’ve been pretending, then?” Carly had always been the quieter of the two women and less confrontational, but she’d found her voice today. “Since you were fourteen, you’ve been planning your career as a fashion designer. You left art school after one semester to follow that dream. Five years later, you were established as one of the youngest bridal gown designers in the business. Your gowns have been worn by rock stars and princesses. And you just give it all up?”

“I’d do anything to save my son!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Carly charged up from her chair. “This isn’t about saving your son! If the doctors are right, Will Connelly’s blood will save Owen. And he has enough money to pay the bills, too. This is about something else. I only hope it has nothing to do with Nicky.”

“It’s not about Nicky!” Julianne felt as if she’d been punched in the abdomen, her breath was so difficult to catch.

“Then tell me what it is about! Don’t shut me out anymore. Tell me why you kept this all such a secret from everyone. From me.”

Julianne spun around to face her friend. “I can’t tell you!”

“Why not?” Carly cried.

“Because if I tell you everything, you’ll hate me!” The words were out of Julianne’s mouth before she could stop them.