The Misconception (12 page)

“It’s my baby, too.”

Tracy gasped. “
You’re
the sperm whore.”

“Sperm supplier,” Marietta corrected.

“I’m neither of those things.” Jax turned to Tracy, and Marietta could imagine the plea for understanding he was putting into his expressive eyes. “It was all a big mix-up, Tracy. I never contracted with your sister to supply sperm.”

“But you did have sex with her?”

“The last I checked, that’s how babies were made,” he said with a smile in his voice.

“I told you, Marietta.” Tracy, always one to say I told you so, did just that. “I told you not to do this.”

Marietta took the glasses Tracy was still holding and perched them on her nose. She could immediately see better, but nothing was clear. Least of all what she was going to do about the six feet plus of delicious man in the ladies’ restroom, especially since her improved vision crystallized his biological perfection.

“I can’t take this anymore,” she muttered.

“Then I’ll drive you home,” Jax offered. “Just tell me the way.”

“Didn’t your private investigator do that already?”

“You hired a P.I.?” Tracy interjected, looking at Jax. If she were like Vicky, the traitorous feminist, she wouldn’t be able to stop looking at him.

“Your sister didn’t leave a number where she could be reached, and I’m a resourceful man.” He returned his attention to Marietta. “I’ve got your address, but not directions on how to get there.”

“I’ll tell you,” Tracy offered.

“Don’t you dare.” Marietta shook her finger. “Not that it matters anyway. I wouldn’t go anywhere with him even if I didn’t have classes for the rest of the afternoon.”

“You can’t teach class. You’re not feeling well,” Jax protested.

“I’m pregnant. Not sick. There’s a difference.”

He looked thoughtful. “Okay. I’ll accept that. It’s probably better for the baby if you’re active during the pregnancy anyway. How about this? I’ll meet you when you get off work, and we can hash out the details of the wedding then.”

“Weren’t you listening? There’s not going to be a wedding.”

“I think you should consider it, Mari,” Tracy, the traitor, said. “Jax is the father or your child, after all. It says something about a man’s character when he’s willing to own up to his responsibilities. I like him.”

“Thank you,” Jax said.

“You’re welcome.” Tracy smiled at him.

Marietta pinned her sister with a stare. Was Tracy, too, becoming a victim of impeccable symmetry? “Whose side are you on, Tracy?”

“This isn’t a war, Marietta,” Jax said. “We’re discussing the future of our child.”

“I’m not discussing anything with you,” Marietta said, knowing she was being unreasonable. The ability to think logically and analytically was what separated man from animal, but right now she preferred to act like a rabbit and make a run for it. Everyone expected pregnant women to act irrationally anyway. She pushed through the door, intent on escape.

Jax started after her, but Tracy laid a hand on his arm and took a step sideways until she blocked his path. His muscles were tense and his jaw clenched, as though nothing were more important than chasing down the mother of his unborn child and making her see reason. Tracy nearly sighed at the romanticism of it all.

Unfortunately for Jax, he didn’t know Marietta very well. Her sister was so opinionated that what she considered to be perfectly reasonable was often what others thought was just plain wacko.

“I think it would be best,” Tracy said as gently as she could, “if you gave her some time to cool off.”

“But she’s pregnant, and she’s upset. I don’t want her to be upset.”

Tracy reached up and patted his cheek. He seemed genuinely concerned about Marietta, and that made her like him even more. From the tension that had sizzled between Jax and Marietta, she’d wager he’d changed her sister’s low opinion of sex, too. “I’ll go after her. It’s a pretty safe bet that having you chase her isn’t going to calm her down.”

He ran a hand through his thick-brown hair. He was outrageously good-looking, this man of Marietta’s, with his high cheekbones, broad shoulders and doe-brown eyes. He was well-dressed, too. Tracy knew clothes, and the suit, she’d venture, was Armani. The shoes were made of expensive leather, Italian, she’d bet. But his looks weren’t all he had going for him. Tracy saw intelligence in his eyes, goodness in his soul.

“You’re right,” he said finally. “I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. I’ll give her time to cool off and then talk to her.”

“She usually gets home around six. You might pick up some points if you bring dinner. Our townhouse is in Old Town Alexandria a few blocks from the Potomac. If you have a street address, it shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“I’ll find it. You can count on that.”

She smiled at him, because she didn’t doubt it was true. Jax had the air of a man who could be counted on. Giving a little wave, Tracy exited the restroom and headed in the direction of the classrooms.

As she walked, she thought about her sister’s predicament. Sure, it must have been a shock to discover her sperm supplier wanted to be a family man, but Marietta would be a fool to refuse a man that fine. Why, he was nearly as appealing as Ryan.

Tracy frowned, as she reluctantly admitted that wasn’t quite true. Since leaving her soon-to-be-ex-husband nine months ago, Tracy had compared every man she met to him, hoping one would measure up.

Not one of them had.

It was starting to seem as though nobody on God’s green earth was as appealing as Ryan Caminetti.

Tracy put her feet down harder as she walked, trying to stamp out thoughts of Ryan. It didn’t do any good. Since this morning, when she’d called the salon to check on her appointments, she’d been thinking of him even more than usual. Every slot but one was filled by regulars. The exception had been claimed by a man named Ryan who wanted a cut and blow dry.

It could be a coincidence. Lots of men were named Ryan, after all, but her assistant said the man requested her by name. Tracy pressed, and the girl remembered his voice was deep and sexy.

Ryan Caminetti’s voice was deep and sexy, though not as sexy as the rest of him. His hair was silky and black, his body lean and muscular, his eyes so dark she felt like she was falling into them whenever they made love.

Marietta had pointed out that everything about him made Tracy go as weak in the brain as she did in the knees. When she discovered how he wronged her, however, Tracy had immediately packed up and left him.

He’d wanted to explain, but she wouldn’t let him. She’d hung up on him when he called, slammed the door in his face when he showed up at Marietta’s looking for her and insisted they communicate only through divorce lawyers.

After about a month, he’d given up trying. He hadn’t attempted to get in touch with her until yesterday. When she’d seen that name scribbled in her appointment book.

She reached the door to one of the classrooms and peeked inside. Marietta was sitting behind the desk in the front of the room, her head in her hands. The irony of the situation struck Tracy. She would have come to Kennedy College seeking out Marietta’s opinion even if she hadn’t been asked to deliver the glasses. But now it was Marietta who was more in need of counsel.

Since all the desks were empty, it was obviously too early for class to begin. Tracy dragged a chair across the room and sat down catty-corner from her sister.

“Want to talk about it?” Tracy asked.

Marietta raised her head and shook it. “I don’t even want to think about it.” She pasted on a smile Tracy knew was fake. “I’d much rather talk about you.”

“Me? But, Mari, it’s not every day the father of your unborn child proposes in a toilet stall. Isn’t that a more interesting topic than little old me?”

“You haven’t even given me an update lately on your anthropology classes,” Marietta said. “Has Professor Bingham given his lecture on biological-physical anthropology yet? He has the most fascinating theories about Java Man.”

“Java Man?”

“Aren’t you paying attention in class, Tracy? Java Man is an early form of human whose fossils were found in the 1980s. Anthropologists believe he lived between eight hundred thousand and two million years ago. What’s fascinating is—”

“Actually,” Tracy interrupted, “I’ve been doing a lot more thinking about a real, live man instead of a fossilized one.”

Marietta’s regard sharpened. “Did you meet somebody new? You didn’t tell me you met somebody new.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then is it somebody you already know? Take a piece of advice from me, Tracy, you better go into it with your eyes wide open this time. As long as you keep in mind that you can’t trust anybody with a Y chromosome, you’ll be in a position of strength. You can’t be naive the way you were with Ryan. Now who is this man?”

“Actually,” Tracy said, taking a breath. “I was talking about Ryan.”

“I thought you were all through with Ryan.” Her sister said the name as though it were a dirty word. “Your divorce will be final in another three months.”

“Actually,” Tracy said, clearing her throat. “It’s another seventy-one days.”

“So? What’s the problem?” Marietta’s face fell. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me he’s tried to contact you.”

“No, but—”

“Because if he does, you just tell him you aren’t going to talk to him. Do you hear me, Tracy? This is serious. You got everything you wanted in the divorce settlement, and you can’t put that in jeopardy. You absolutely cannot talk to him.”

“But what if he wants to explain what he was doing in a hotel with that woman.” Even referring to the incident that had wrecked her marriage sent a shard of pain through Tracy. “I was so angry at him, Mari, that I never let him explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain. I was there that day, remember? You should thank Providence I invited you to lunch or you never would have seen him with that blonde at the elevator. They were all over each other.”

“But maybe. . .” Tracy’s voice got small, because she knew how ridiculous this would sound, even though more and more she wanted to believe it. “. . . maybe it was her who was all over him.”

“And that’s your explanation as to why Ryan registered for a room? Remember, Tracy, I got the desk clerk to show us the registration book.”

“I know, but—”

“There are no buts in this. I know it hurts, but you have to face facts. Ryan Caminetti is just as predisposed to mate switching as every other man on this planet. Sure, you could have stayed in the marriage, knowing he’d keep on cheating, but then you’d be just as miserable as our father made our mother.”

Their parents. Even though Dad had died four years ago and Mom a short time afterward, Marietta regularly resurrected them in conversations about the interplay between the sexes. She seemed to regard their father as a template for members of the male sex.

“Just because Dad cheated,” Tracy said, uttering an oft-repeated refrain, “doesn’t mean every man cheats.”

“Ryan cheated. And remember the way I found Bobby Lancer with Betty Jo Kowalski?”

“That was in high school.”

“Let’s skip ahead to college then. Jeff Granger cheated on me, too. Hours after he told me he loved me. To think how stupid I was back then.”

“You know, Marietta,” Tracy said softly, “none of that means this new man in your life would do the same thing.”

“Not only isn’t he the new man in my life, but you’re completely wrong. Men are predestined to stray. It’s a biological fact. Stay away from Ryan, Tracy. I couldn’t bear it if he kept on hurting you.”

Tracy nodded. She doubted she’d get a chance to heed the warning anyway. She’d overreacted when her assistant told her a man named Ryan with a very sexy voice had specifically made an appointment to have her cut his hair.

This Ryan was probably seventeen with pimples or seventy with sagging skin.

He probably wasn’t anything like the man she had once loved with every particle of her heart.