Quarterback's Secret Baby (Bad Boy Ballers) (36 page)

"Yes...?" I replied, still clueless about what was happening but starting to feel strongly that it wasn't good.

"Perhaps you should send the bairn to her room."

There was a seriousness to the officer's tone that made it clear he wasn't making a request. I tried to put Cameron down but she knew very well that something was up and refused to let go of me.

"Cameron," I tried to reason with her, "why don't you wait for me in your room? I'll come get you in a few minutes and we'll find Mrs. Clyde to get you some breakfast."

"I'll take her."

It was Mr. Clyde - he'd come back and he was trying to take Cameron out of my arms. She refused to let go and the foyer was soon filled with the sound of her wailing my name. When Mr. Clyde finally succeeded in peeling her off me I kept the tears suppressed until she was out of sight - whatever was going on, I had the sudden awful feeling that I wasn't going to see her again.

"Jennifer Robinson, we're here to escort you to the train station."

"What exactly is going on here?!" I demanded as the sinking feeling in my belly intensified.

"If you'll just come with us."

The other officer, the one who wasn't doing the talking, stepped towards me and took me by the arm, pulling me outside. The first one picked up my bags.

"What?" I wrenched my arm free of the policeman's grip. "Just tell me what's happening! Don't touch me!"

"You're lucky the Laird isn't pressing charges, young lady. We're taking you to the train station. If you come back, you'll be arrested. Or we can arrest you right now if you want to cause trouble."

Briefly, it crossed my mind that this was a very badly conceived practical joke. I hadn't done anything. The officers didn't look like they were joking, though, not at all. In fact they looked so serious I actually wondered if maybe I
had
done something.

"Just. OK, I'll go." I said, allowing myself to be walked to the small police car parked halfway up the driveway. "Just tell me what I did. Tell me why you're doing this."

One of the officers actually smirked at my question, as if there was no doubt in his mind.

"Young lady, you know very well what you've done. The Laird took you into his home - he trusted you with his daughter. And you repay him by stealing."

Stealing? It was at that moment that it dawned on me. This had to be Diane's doing. She obviously wasn't happy about my presence at Castle McLanald or in her daughter's life.

"I haven't stolen anything, sir," I said icily as they opened the back door of the car and gestured for me to get inside.

"Of course you haven't. That's why the maids found a number of watches and some jewelry in your room, all packaged up and ready to be sent home, is it? That's why your phone is full of e-mails to your boyfriend telling him exactly what you've stolen so far?"

My boyfriend? Emails on my phone? I didn't have a boyfriend - at least not one back home and, it appeared, not in Scotland either. Robotically, I reached down and took my phone out so I could check it for these "e-mails" the police officer was telling me they found.

"Wait. You - when did you look at my phone?"

The smirking officer reached out and snatched it out of my hand before I could get into my e-mail.

"We'll be needing that. In case you decide to cause more trouble for the Laird and his family."

I was too stunned to think as the police car pulled out into the road and started driving towards the train station. I didn't even cry, I just sat on the strange plastic-covered seat and stared straight ahead. Surely -
surely
- this was a misunderstanding of some kind.

It apparently wasn't a misunderstanding, though. The police stayed with me on the platform, earning me a few hostile stares from passersby, and they made sure I got onto the train, waiting until it actually started to move before they left.

The train journey was hours long and my sense of shock soon began to dissipate into painful, searing betrayal. The police mentioned the Laird repeatedly. He had to have known. He had to have known what I was being accused of. Why hadn't he given me a chance to defend myself? Why hadn't he considered the possibility that the one woman he knew was dedicated to poisoning both his life and his daughter's may have had something to do with it? The tears that ran down my cheeks as the train pulled into King's Cross station in London were hot and angry. Darach knew how close I was to Cameron. How could he let Mr. Clyde rip her out of my arms like that without even a good-bye?

Phoneless, I couldn't even send the outraged e-mail that was brewing in my head as I made my way to Heathrow. I was so enraged at that point that even if Darach had appeared before me apologizing it wouldn't have been good enough. It was too late. You don't treat people like that. You especially don't treat people like that if you've spent a series of nights and stolen afternoons making love to them and telling them how beautiful and wonderful they are.

What a coward. To just assume those things about me.

My mind ran a mile a minute to the extent that I didn't sleep at all before I was halfway across the Atlantic. All sorts of ideas to prove my innocence popped up - only to prove my innocence, mind, not to try and get my job back. That was over. Darach could afford a private investigation if the police weren't interested. I knew I'd never even
seen
any jewelry or pricey watches in Castle McLanald except the vintage Rolex Darach wore - and that was almost certainly on his wrist somewhere in Switzerland. So my fingerprints couldn't possibly be on any of the things I had supposedly 'stolen.' One of my friends at college was studying criminology and she'd talked to me about a class she took on pattern recognition in language - basically studying something someone has written and then being able to tell if they'd written other sentences based on the first sample. The mysterious e-mails I was accused of sending would show I couldn't possibly have written them.

This is how I thought from Scotland to that moment on the airplane when I looked out the window and down at the cold, blue Atlantic and finally let myself feel the truth: I was never going to see Darach or Cameron again. Not only was I never going to see them again, they were going to think of me as a dishonest thief unless I could somehow manage to convince them otherwise and the truth was, that looked doubtful. Darach obviously believed that I'd stolen from him - he wouldn't have had me sent away otherwise - what motivation did he have to hire people to look for fingerprints or study e-mails? Not much. I hunched over in my seat with my face in my hands, defeated and forlorn and wishing my grandmother was still alive to wrap her arms around me and reassure me it was going to be OK.

When the plane landed in New York I went straight to my friend Simone's apartment - there was nowhere else to go. Thankfully, she was home and all it took was one look at me to know something was very wrong.

"Simone. I've been traveling for over twenty four hours. Can I please just borrow your couch for a little while? I promise I'll tell you everything when I wake up."

So I put my bags on the floor and lay down on Simone's lumpy sofa with a hot, humid New York breeze blowing over me and went to sleep for fourteen hours.

Simone agreed to let me stay with her until the fall semester started. I hated asking but there really was no choice - my salary was supposed to be paid at the end of my contract with Darach and I knew there was no way I was getting it now.

I waited a couple of days to login to my Gmail account and change the password. I didn't usually take the time to log out, which is what must have made it so easy for whoever it was to send e-mails from my account, probably to another account they'd created themselves. When I did login, I didn't have the heart to check the 'Sent Mail' folder. I backed everything up, just in case, but I couldn't read it. The depression was starting to descend again, unsurprisingly. I was out a job, a lover, my good reputation with a family I cared about and my salary, which was supposed to go towards next semester's college tuition. As soon as school started I planned to go straight to the student health services and talk to one of the mental health doctors - I was desperate to avoid sinking back into the unhappy grayness I'd been in for two years already - forget toughing it out this time.

Two days after I returned an e-mail from Darach appeared in my inbox. I saw the subject line: "READ THIS" and deleted it, unread. The next day two more arrived. One of them had a phone number in the subject line and another all caps message: "RING ME, PLEASE." They were all quickly deleted.

I wasn't going to call Darach. I wasn't going to do a single thing Darach McLanald wanted me to do. He didn't have the right to ask any favors of me. He was probably regretting what had happened, I knew that much. Probably missing me. I hardened my heart against the fact that I was missing him, too. You can't let people push you around. You can't let people treat you badly and then take their calls or their e-mails when they decide they don't want to be without you.

Simone came home one night a couple of days later with Chinese takeout for both of us. She knew I was ashamed of needing her help and she tried to reassure me.

"Jenny, chill, it's just food. I know you'd do the same for me, it's really not big deal - it's nice to have company!"

I almost started blubbering at her kindness.

"By the way, are you going to be around tomorrow?"

There was something in her tone - something stilted. Simone isn't a good liar.

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm having a package delivered in the morning. I don't know, around eleven? If I'm not around can you sign for it?"

Simone kept her eyes on her Chinese food as she spoke, not looking up. I knew something was going on but I didn't have any idea what it was. I agreed to sign for the package and we went on with dinner and gossiping about the other interns at the office where she was spending the summer.

That night, there was an e-mail from my bank informing me of some wire transfer fees that had been taken out of my account. Maybe Darach had decided to pay me for the work I did? I logged in to my bank account fully prepared to send it right back and felt my eyes widen when I saw the balance. Two days earlier it had been at $123.48 - that night it was at $489,401.00. The wire transfer was from the Bank of Scotland. It had to be Darach. My first instinct was to send it right back but there didn't seem to be a way to do that. My second instinct was to take a moment and ponder the amount of money that was. More than I had ever seen in my life. It was enough to pay off all of my student loans, pay for my final year and still have a lot left over - enough to give myself a head start at the life I'd dreamed of having for so long but never quite allowed myself to believe in. A modest house in the countryside, somewhere cheap and close to where my grandmother raised me. A small yard so I could grow vegetables in the summer and a room with a window that looked out over the yard where I could write in peace. How much was my pride worth?

I decided against making any rash judgments - it could wait until tomorrow or the next day - at least until it sunk in what kind of money that was - and until I figured out if in fact my pride did have a price.

Simone was gone when I woke up the next morning to another muggy day. I made myself a cup of coffee and went online to browse for jobs - for anything that would allow me to support myself until classes started up again. I still wasn't counting on keeping the money - I was actually starting to lean towards not keeping it. Try as I might to convince myself that my grandmother would have approved of my keeping it I knew she wouldn't. Maybe with an apology.
Maybe.
But I wasn't about to start opening the e-mails from Darach - I was too emotionally vulnerable, just barely managing to hold it together by keeping my mind occupied and refusing to think about the things - and people - I'd lost.

When the doorbell rang at almost noon I remembered what Simone had said about the package and ran to answer it. As soon as I opened the door and saw Darach standing there, towering over me as usual in one of his expensive suits, I tried to close it again. He quickly wedged his foot in between the door and the frame, preventing me from slamming it in his face.

"I have nothing to say to you." I said coldly, fighting the tears that were welling up at the sight of him.

"Jennifer, I didn't know. Listen to me, I didn't know."

Oh how I wanted that to be true. But how could it be? How could he not have known?

"Go away, Darach. Please. Please."

"Jennifer!"

Darach pushed his way into the room, easily overpowering me and taking my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him.

"Listen to me! I didn't know. Do you hear me?"

Of course, I started bawling immediately. Darach bent down, kissing my tears off my cheeks and whispering:

"Jenny, please let me explain."

I caught his eye, desperate for him to be telling the truth but burning with anger at the likelihood that he wasn't.

"How couldn't you know?! The police came! They dragged me out the front door like a criminal, Darach! How couldn't you know?"

I was screaming at him, clutching at his suit jacket and trying to shake him.

"Jenny. Beautiful Jenny. I'm so sorry. Come sit down and I'll explain it all."

"NO! Explain it here, right now!"

Darach still hadn't let go of my face, he was still looking right at me, refusing my attempts to pull away.

"Jenny, Mr. Clyde is in charge when I'm away. That's always been the policy - I trust him to make any and all important decisions."

"Well I guess you fucked that up," I interjected, sucking in a shaky breath that made me sound like a small child and terrified that Darach was lying.

"Yes, I did," he said, quietly. "By the time I found out, you were gone. I tried e-mailing you but you weren't opening them. So I found your friend's number on your phone and told her everything. And now I'm here to tell you I'm sorry and that I think you might be the best thing that's ever happened to me. I refuse to allow Diane to ruin this for us. I haven't been as happy as I was with you since I was a child, Jenny - and you said exactly the same thing to me."

I had said the same thing, lying in the heather with him one day after we'd spent all afternoon in bed together. It was true. It was still true. He felt me stop resisting and go limp in his arms.

"If you're lying, Darach..." I said, my voice muffled against his chest as I breathed in the scent of him.

"I'm not lying, Jenny. I'll tell you everything. Everything you need to know."

I looked up at him. "It was Diane?"

Darach nodded. "Of course it was Diane. She had some help from one of the new staff - one of the gardeners I think it was -  but yes, it was Diane."

I remembered catching the groundsman coming down the stairs from Darach's room. I thought he'd given me a strange look and it made sense now.

The roller-coaster of going from dejection to the euphoria of being in Darach's arms again was disorientating. All I could do was stand there, looking up into his blue eyes, speechless with relief and happiness.

"Come back to Scotland with me, Jenny. I'll make this up to you - I know how awful it must have been for you. I'm not asking you to make any promises, just come back for the rest of the summer - not as a employee. As
mine."

I didn't want to turn Darach down, which was lucky because even if I had I wouldn't have been able to. I stood up on my tiptoes and wrapped my arms around his neck and he lifted me off my feet, holding me so tight I could hardly breathe.

"Now get your things, Jenny. I've got a hotel for tonight and I'm taking you out for dinner. Do you have a cocktail dress?"

I gave him a look. "Do I have a cocktail dress? No, Darach, I do not. I have
a
dress - one dress. It's red and it's cheap. Will that work?"

Darach ran his hand down to my ass and gave it a smack: "I don't know, does it show your arse off?"

"No, it doesn't show my ass off," I replied, emphasizing my pronunciation of the word 'ass,' "you're in America now, you have to say words the right way."

"It doesn't sound like this dress of yours is going to do the trick, Jenny. So get your things, we'll have to go shopping first."