But over the past month, Jewel had slowly been withdrawing from both Lucy and Isabella. Then, late last night—long after Lucy was asleep—she’d dropped sweet baby Isabella on Dex’s doorstep, then hightailed it out of town.
It was morning before Lucy had even realized they were gone. Jewel, apparently in an attempt to reassure Lucy, had left a note saying she was going out of town for a couple of weeks, but that Lucy shouldn’t worry, she’d left Isabella someplace safe.
For the first time in her life, Lucy was thankful for her sister’s laziness. Jewel hadn’t bothered to move Isabella’s car seat from Lucy’s car to her own. Instead she’d borrowed Lucy’s Prius only to exchange it later on her way out of town for her own car. Thank God she had. Jewel had used the car’s GPS system to look up Dex’s address. That was the only way Lucy had known where Jewel had left Isabella.
It had taken Lucy another three hours to design and execute a plan to get Isabella back. A plan that involved raiding her sister’s closet and having her hair cut and dyed to match Jewel’s vibrant red.
In short, Lucy had to convince Dex that she was Isabella’s mom and that she’d made a terrible mistake abandoning her baby. To do that she’d have to first convince him she was the woman he’d had a one-night stand with fourteen months ago.
How exactly she was going to do that was the question that had plagued Lucy since she’d developed this hare-brained plan. She and Jewel didn’t just dress differently.
Lucy was sensible, no-nonsense practicality while Jewel was exotic, seductive sexuality. In short, Jewel had a way of manipulating and controlling men that Lucy had never comprehended, let alone replicated.
If Dex remembered Jewel at all—and men never forgot a woman like Jewel—then Lucy was going to have a hell of time convincing him that she was her twin sister. Her best hope was to get in and out of there as quickly as possible and pray that he wouldn’t look too closely at her.
She didn’t know if she could pull this off. She only knew she had to try. For Isabella’s sake.
The Messinas, for all their wealth and privilege, were known for their ruthlessness. For their cold-hearted pursuit of the all-mighty dollar. No way Lucy was going to let one of those men care for her niece.
No, Isabella needed someone in her life who would always do the right thing for her. Since that person obviously wasn’t going to be Jewel, Lucy was more than happy to step up to the plate.
With that thought spurring her on, Lucy stalked up the winding front path and rang the doorbell. She heard Isabella’s cries from the behind the door and distress clutched her throat. Any lie she told today was well worth it.
She had to remind herself of that when the massive front door swung open to reveal Dex Messina, looking just as attractive as he had the first time she’d seen him, but considerably more rumpled and annoyed.
“Are you the nanny?” he asked.
“No. I’m the mother.”
Two
D ex hadn’t realized a baby could scream so loudly. Or for so long.
The baby had started crying the minute he’d been left alone with her and hadn’t stopped nearly ninety minutes later.Convinced her piercing cries had destroyed his hearing, he thought he’d misheard the woman at the door. “You’re the what?”
“The mother,” she repeated. “I’m Isabella’s mother.”
Isabella chose that instant to stop crying, so this time, Dex had no trouble hearing the woman. Instinctually, he brought up his arm to block the door as he studied her. But maybe Isabella was just catching her breath because, after a moment, she let out another bloodcurdling scream.
The woman rose onto her toes—for all the good it did her—trying to see Isabella over his shoulder. She bobbed first to one side, and then the other. Then, with unexpected speed and grace, she darted under his arm and into the house.
She dashed through the foyer to the living room with what he could only assume were a mother’s instincts, straight to the car seat where he’d deposited the crying Isabella when the doorbell rang.
She scooped up the baby, held her at arm’s length for a moment as if assessing the damage, and then cradled her close. The woman crooned softly to the child, swaying back and forth. Instantly the cries stopped.
In the blessed silence that followed, Dex’s ears continued to ring. Hours of listening to Isabella cry had left his head throbbing and his thoughts muddled. And despite all that, the woman looked familiar.
She was dressed in a denim miniskirt and a pink tank top that barely covered her generous curves. Her pale, heart-shaped face was dusted with freckles. Her garishly red hair cut into a wedged bob.
It was the hair he remembered first. That and her hips. There was something sensuous in the way they shifted from side to side as she swayed. Something deeply erotic that pulled at him on an instinctual level.
Pick up the beat a little and add in the heavy throbbing bass from the bar and he’d think he was having a flashback to…when was that? A year ago? Longer?
His father had just died. There’d been the funeral followed by endless meetings and conferences divvying up the estate and business. Within a week, he’d been sick to death of death. Ready to lose himself in a bottle of Scotch and a warm, willing body.
He vaguely remembered that night. Had she been that body he’d lost himself in?
It was exactly the kind of relationship at which he excelled. No emotion. No future. No commitment.
But apparently something had gone terribly wrong.
Lucy kept waiting for Dex to say something. Anything.Instead, he just watched her. His face inscrutable, but the tension evident in every line of his body.
With every minute that passed, her own apprehension grew. Finally, in a burst of defiant anxiety, she blurted out, “I made a mistake.”
He lifted one eyebrow in silent, sardonic question.
“Okay, a big mistake. Huge really.”
“You abandoned your baby on my doorstep. That’s more than a mistake.”
“But—” she held up her index finger to emphasize her point “—I realized it was a mistake, and I came back for her.” Her heart was pounding and her nerves loosened her tongue. “So no harm done, right? And since you obviously don’t want her, I’ll just pack her up and we’ll be on our way. You’ll never hear from us again.”
Holding her breath, she clutched Isabella tightly in one arm, swooped up the car seat in the other, and dashed for the door. For an instant, she even hoped it would be that simple.
But of course, it wasn’t.
He grabbed her arm as she strode past, pulling her to a stop. His grip on her arm was almost painfully firm.
“Is she mine?”
Damn it. Why couldn’t she be the kind of woman who would lie about this sort of thing? But, for better or worse, she wasn’t.
When she hesitated, he continued. “In two weeks I’ll have the results from the paternity test. I’ll know for sure then.”
“Two weeks?” she asked, her heart constricting at the thought of what might happen at the end of those weeks.
“Yes. Two weeks. That’s how long the results will take since Derek and I both sent in samples to be considered. Apparently it takes that long when the possible fathers are brothers.”
“I wasn’t surprised at how long it would take. I was surprised you’d already done the test. Didn’t take you long. Eager to dodge the bullet of fatherhood, aren’t you?”
“Is she mine or isn’t she?”
“She’s yours.”
“Then why did you hesitate?”
“I thought if you didn’t know she was yours, you might just let us go.”
“Even if she wasn’t mine, you abandoned her.”
Lucy hadn’t counted on this.
In fact, she’d been so sure Dex would be so eager to get rid of Isabella, that he wouldn’t think twice about handing her over.
Anger and frustration welled up inside her as she clutched Isabella even tighter. She blinked back tears, held Isabella even more tightly and made the only argument that had even a chance of winning him over.
“You can’t possibly want to keep her yourself. Even if she is yours.”
“Whether or not I want her is irrelevant. There’s a reason abandoning a child is illegal. You’re obviously not a fit parent.”
And yet he hadn’t called the police. That was something, wasn’t it?
Knowing she couldn’t possibly win an argument about whether or not she was a fit parent, she turned the tables on him. “No offense, but by the sound of things when I got here, it didn’t seem like you were doing much better.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re right, I don’t want a baby. But if she really is mine, then I don’t have a choice. To be honest, I don’t have the faintest idea what to do with her. But you obviously do.”
“I’m her mother,” she insisted. “Of course I know what to do.” And for a moment, she imagined she still might get out of this. But first she’d have to convince him he really could trust her with Isabella. But how could she do that when every cell of her body abhorred what Jewel had done?
As inconceivable as Jewel’s actions were, Lucy tried to imagine what could possibly have been going through her sister’s mind last night. Still swaying with Isabella in her arms, she gazed up at him, letting all her love for Isabella show in her eyes.
“The truth is, being a single mother is harder than I thought. But I’ve been doing this for five months now. After all that time, I had one night—just one night—when I got freaked out and felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. Leaving her on your doorstep was stupid, but surely every parent is allowed one mistake. Even if it’s a big one.”
She held her breath, waiting for his response. If he didn’t let her leave with Isabella now, she didn’t know what she would do.
Finally, he responded. “You’re right. I’m clearly not equipped to take care of an infant. But there’s no way I’m handing her over to you, either. However, since the nanny service I called this morning appears incapable of sending someone over in a timely manner, you can stay here with the baby until I find someone suitable to watch her.”