Playing Dirty (6 page)

“How did you know?” she asked, her voice muffled against his shirt.

He slid his hands from her back to her shoulders and set her from him. “Know what?”

“About Phoebe,” she answered, then sniffled. “How did you know about her?” She stepped away, using the heel of her hand to wipe the tears from her face. Her eyes were puffy, her nose pink. She looked adorable.

“Paul told me about her in Brussels. I’ve seen the pictures you have on the mantle. She’s beautiful. She looks just like you.”

She gave him a weak smile as she sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s where the similarities end,” she said in a dry tone. “Trust me.”

He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. “Tell me about her,” he asked, glad for the change in topic.
 

“She-devil.”

He lifted a brow and grinned. “She can’t be that bad.”

“Ha!” She scooted onto the center of the bed and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around her legs. “Just wait. You’ll be amazed. The things she says, the things she does.” She shook her head as she let out a long stream of breath filled with a combination of exasperation and love for their daughter.
 

“I’m surprised I don’t have a head full of gray hair,” she continued. “She’s fearless. Just when you’re convinced she has a mutated gene that the medical scientists would die to dissect, she does something completely adorable.” Her face softened. “She reminds me a lot of you.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.”

She bit her lip and looked at him with a worried frown. “Ford? How are we going to explain this to her?”

We
. Maybe there was a chance for them. “I’d think the truth would be the easiest.”

She didn’t say anything, but he could tell by her concentrated expression she was attempting to form the words to explain to a five-year-old that the daddy she’d never known, that the daddy she’d been told had died before she was born, was very much alive.

He glanced at the bedside clock. It was nearly seven in the morning. They hadn’t settled anything, but they’d sure managed to get a few truths out in the open. More than he’d ever imagined.

“I know you’re anxious to meet her, but maybe it would be best if I tell her first. I was going to wait, but I’ll drive out to Griffen’s later today. Will you be here when I get back?”

He straightened and gave her a hard look. “This is my home, Mattie. Where else would I be?”
 

Four

MATTIE WOKE WITH a start. Heart pounding, body drenched in sweat, she struggled to regulate her breathing. She’d been dreaming the same dream since Ford’s demise, only this time instead of her sobbing over an empty grave, she clung to him and refused to let go. She took comfort in the sound of his heart beating strong in his chest as he held her to him, smoothing his hands down her back to cup her bottom. In her dream, she’d wiggled closer, pressing her body against his, needing his touch, craving his kiss. But when she looked up to see his face, to seek proof that he was truly alive, he slowly evaporated into the mist as large, strong hands roughly pulled her away from the fading image. She called for Ford, but instead found Trenton staring down at her, his gaze hard and filled with hurt and regret.

She tossed the covers aside and swung her feet to the floor, trying to shake off the dream. A quick glance at the clock revealed she’d managed to catch a little more than six hours of sleep, despite the fact her mind had taken forever to shut down. Still, her eyes felt grainy, and her throat burned as if she’d swallowed ground glass. She may have finally slept, but not before she’d managed to go through dozens of tissues, now all balled up on the nightstand as mocking proof of her distress. Crying was supposed to be cleansing. Cathartic. There weren’t enough tears in the world to cleanse her soul.

She gathered the tissues and headed into the bathroom where she dumped them in the waste can before she turned on the tap to the shower. In those first few moments when she’d seen Ford, there hadn’t been any question about choices, or babies, or resuming their life together. There had only been Ford, and the sweet rush of adrenaline at finding him alive.
Avoiding her reflection in the mirror, she stripped and stepped into the shower, rinsing away the sweat clinging to her skin. And what about Trenton? He loved her. He’d been so patient and caring during their courtship, waiting for her to gather the courage to finally commit to him. She didn’t doubt her feelings for him, but seeing Ford again, she realized that what she and Trenton shared was a different kind of love. Although no less special, what she had with Trenton had grown slowly over time, was more mature. They’d been friends first, her feelings gradually shifting from friendship, to caring, and finally, she fell in love with him.

She’d met him while she’d been attending a week-long teachers’ convention in San Antonio. He’d been at the same hotel for a two-day Continuing Legal Education seminar on evidence and discovery. Exiting the Starbucks next to the hotel one morning, she’d accidentally dumped her coffee on him. She’d barreled right into him again, coming out of an elevator after lunch, which had created a mess when the papers they’d each been carrying went flying. Later that afternoon, he’d tracked her down because she’d inadvertently taken his notes. By the end of the conversation, he’d asked her to dinner.
 

Initially, she’d been drawn to his gentle nature, his quiet strength and his dry sense of humor. At first, she’d wondered why someone like him had become an attorney. In her experience, lawyers were often cutthroat, underhanded bullies. Then one afternoon, she’d witnessed him in court. There, before a jury, cross-examining a witness, she’d seen a different side to Trenton, a fierce, determined, relentless advocate in pursuit of the truth. In that moment, she’d known he was the right guy for her, for one simple reason—she was a sucker for an Alpha male.
 

Just like Ford.

She bit the inside of her lower lip. Maybe he was like Ford, at least in that respect. But what had initially attracted her to Trenton had been in the ways he was different from her supposedly dead husband. For one, Trenton didn’t carry the death wish gene. He didn’t rush off to top secret locations to do things he couldn’t tell her about. With Trenton, she knew where he was every night—when he wasn’t at his high-rise condo in Dallas, or away on business, he was with her and Phoebe in Hart.

She left the shower and dried off. As she dressed in a pair of denim capris and a loose fitting, ruffled-front, sleeveless top, she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if she and Trenton had managed to create a child together during their honeymoon. They had planned to start a family right away so she’d gone off birth control two months before the wedding. Once she’d accepted that Ford was never coming back, she’d deeply regretted they hadn’t started having babies sooner. No way was she brave enough to tempt fate a second time, so she and Trenton had decided not to wait. She could tough it out for a week to see if she missed her period, or she could slip away to the drug store and purchase an early detection pregnancy test.
 

And when she knew the outcome, then what?
 

She dragged a brush through her hair, snagging on a tangle. If she was pregnant, would Ford even consider helping her raise another man’s child? On the other hand, would he allow Trenton to raise Phoebe? A big ol’ Hell-to-the-No instantly sprang to mind.
 

If she was pregnant, she doubted Trenton would want Ford raising his child. The possibilities and complications were endless and made her head throb. The one thing she didn’t question was Trenton’s willingness to be a step-father to her daughter. The two of them adored each other.
 

She pulled her hair into a ponytail, slipped into a pair of turquoise-studded flip-flops, then went back into the bedroom and straightened the covers on the bed. The midday sun coming through the window warmed her skin. The shudder and groan from the pipes to the bathroom down the hall rattled. She couldn’t be certain if it was Ford or Trenton in the shower, but she needed a minute alone to talk with Trenton. The last thing she wanted was Ford interrupting them.

She hurried down the hall and stood outside the bathroom door. Once she heard the shower door slide closed, she headed for the study. Without bothering to knock, she entered. The black-out curtains were drawn against the sunlight, and she peered into the semi-darkness of the room to find the day bed empty.
 

“Trenton?” she called out quietly.

“Over here.”

She followed the sound of his voice and found him behind the desk in the far corner of the room, seated in the antique chair her sister had found for her at an estate sale a few years ago. “Did you sleep?”

“A little,” he said.

She quietly closed the door and crossed the room. Crouching in front of him, she settled her hand on his thigh. He looked terrible. His hair was mussed and tight lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. She hated that she was the one responsible for the stress lining his handsome face.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

He covered her hand with his, and she took comfort in his touch. Trenton was steady, dependable. Strong.

“None of this is your fault,” he said. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“What are we going to do?”

He made a sound, somewhere between a grunt of disgust and a half-hearted chuckle. “I know what I want, and I have a pretty good idea what Grayson wants.”

They both wanted the other to disappear.

He turned her hand in his and laced their fingers together. “I love you and I don’t want to lose you. But I can’t tell you what to do, Mattie.”

She’d been convinced she had no tears left to shed, but her eyes filled with moisture, anyway. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Give it some time,” he said. “You’ve had a shock.”

“Time,” she muttered. Time would tell her a lot of things. Like whether or not she was carrying Trenton’s baby. Or whether her future was with Ford, or the man looking at her with so much love in his eyes, her heart ached.

She stood and turned away, unable to bear the pain she’d caused either of these men. Men, who were so different, but had one thing in common—their love for her. “I told him there was a chance I could be pregnant.”

He stood and moved in behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest. “I heard. These walls aren’t as thick as you might think.”

She let her head fall back against him, and he rested his chin atop her head. “I know that hurt him,” she said. “But I thought he needed to know.”
 

He swept his hand down to her abdomen. “If you are pregnant,” he said, “it’s going to change everything.”

She moved her head to the side and looked at him. “You think I don’t know that?”

His eyes always reminded her of melted chocolate, warm, gentle, until now. There was a hard cast to his expression that had her wishing she could call back the words.
 

“I don’t want to win by default, Mattie.”

She stepped away from him. “Win? I’m not some pet cow at the state fair in the 4H competition.” Like it or not, that’s exactly how she was feeling, as if she were caught in the middle of an emotional tug-of-war and she was the prize.
 

“You have to make a decision. Me or Grayson,” he said. “He could walk if you’re pregnant. I didn’t hear him saying he’d raise a kid who wasn’t his, and I sure as hell don’t want you staying with me out of a sense of obligation.”

She stared at Trenton. During their courtship, he’d never made harsh demands on her. He’d waited patiently for her to return his feelings. Or had she mistaken patience for tenacity? “How can you even say that?”

His gaze narrowed. “There are going to be a lot of things said that you don’t want to hear over the next few days.”
 

Frustration made her edgy. She started pacing. “Why are both of you so willing to let me make this decision? This affects all of us.”

“Because you’re the only one who can,” he returned. “I’m not willing to let you go simply because Grayson has miraculously risen from the dead. And I know damned well he won’t voluntarily disappear anytime soon.”

She stopped and looked at him. “Unless I’m pregnant,” she said, hating that they were arguing.

“You won’t know that until you ask him if he’d be willing to raise my kid.”

“Would you let him?” She held her breath, waiting. Would he demand she divorce Ford? Or would he quietly slip out of their lives and allow her to resume her marriage? He could sue her for custody of the child, and she suspected he might. She knew he loved her, but would he fight her for their child?
 

“I don’t know,” he said.

She didn’t know, either, and maybe that was part of the problem. She released a short puff of breath and dropped into the chair. “I hate this.” She hated the tension between her and Trenton, and the mistrust between her and Ford. She hated being torn in two. She hated being the one they were both looking to for answers she wasn’t prepared to give.

He crouched in front of her. “Do you still love him?”
 

She wanted to scream with frustration. “I’ve always been honest with you about my feelings for Ford. That hasn’t changed.”