Genna was in a daze. She was sure her heels never touched the floor as Jared led her in on his arm, receiving respectful nods from the staff. She’d have sworn the champagne she drank was liquid stars, the music filling her head from some faraway dream. Until Jared pulled her into his arms on the
dance floor, she didn’t quite believe any of it was real.
“Surprised?” he asked.
“Endlessly,” Genna answered. It seemed she couldn’t resign herself to the fact that she would never know what to expect from this man. She was a person who had always needed control over her life. With Jared she felt as if she were on a galloping horse with no bridle; the ride was exhilarating, but a little frightening.
The gravel-edged rumble of sexy male laughter sounded low in Jared’s throat. “You have to stop trying to pigeonhole me, princess. Just lean back and enjoy the ride.”
“I would if I could just shake this feeling that any minute now the cook is going to come out and tell me I have to go wash the glasses,” she quipped.
“Is that your own version of
Cinderella?”
“Yep.
Gennarella
, I call it.”
“Well, never fear, Gennarella, your devastatingly handsome prince isn’t about to let you out of his arms.”
“Are you sure there’s room for me? That ego of yours takes up a lot of space,” she teased.
She could have danced all night. She could easily have spent the next eon or so in Jared’s arms, his
body swaying smoothly with hers. The man took cheek-to-cheek literally and occasionally allowed his smooth, warm lips to make taste-testing forays down her cheek and along her jawline to her lips as they danced. He held her close, singing the old standards in her ear in his velvet-soft voice.
The only small damper on their evening came with the last song. A red-haired woman with enormous black eyes and a shimmering silver flapper dress took her place at the microphone and began singing a song about a woman whose love is leaving her and who doesn’t know what she’ll do after he’s gone.
The song went straight to Genna’s vulnerable heart. Jared was leaving for training camp in two weeks. Then it would be fall and the football season would start. What would become of their summer love? She burrowed closer to him. She swore to herself she wouldn’t push him for more than they already had. They had a good friendship, and she would content herself with that. Jared had told her he loved her, but she knew from experience how fickle a phrase that was when uttered by a man in the throes of passion.
When the song ended, Jared tipped her head up and kissed her deeply, a kiss that offered a taste of
heaven, one that she drank in to soothe her uncertain heart.
He lifted his mouth a few inches from hers. “If we didn’t have a baby-sitter waiting, I’d take you upstairs and we could make a perfect end to a perfect evening.”
Visions of satin sheets and carved mahogany furnishings drifted through Genna’s head. Visions of the two of them naked on those sheets, with her in Jared’s powerful embrace and Jared telling her over and over how much he loved her and needed her—for all time, not just for the summer. She didn’t even recognize the desperation in her voice when she said, “Another time, maybe?”
He brushed a hand over her bouncy hair, his heart full of love for her as she stood against him and gazed up at him with her bottomless blue eyes so full of longing and something achingly close to sadness. Was she that afraid of a long-term relationship with him? How long was it going to take before he had her complete trust? He traced the outline of her softly parted lips with his forefinger and said, “Another time, definitely.”
NINE
J
UST LIKE IN
Cinderella
, the clock struck, and their fantasy evening was over. And it struck with a vengeance. Simone Harcourt was waiting for them in Jared’s living room.
Genna knew who the woman was before anyone said anything. As soon as they’d stepped in the door Jared had gone utterly still. Genna could feel the tension emanating from him. For one long moment the entire room was held frozen in a terrible sense of suspended animation as Jared and Simone stared at each other with hatred in their eyes.
Finally Otis rose from his chair and came toward them. “Hope you had a nice time,” he said, moving
toward the door. The implication was that if they hadn’t already had a good time, they weren’t going to start now. “Alyssa was a sweetheart, as always. She went to bed at eight-thirty, but I don’t believe she’s sleeping very well now.” He shot a pointed look at Jared’s ex-sister-in-law before giving her a stiff bow. His voice frosted over as he said, “It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Harcourt.”
The woman merely nodded.
Genna thought Simone was as lovely and cold as an ice sculpture. She sat on a beige wing chair with her back as straight as a post and her elegant hands folded on her lap. She was in her late thirties, Genna guessed, with neat short black hair and flawless makeup on patrician features. Her tailored tan business suit suggested an angular, slender body. The legs crossed beneath her pencil-thin skirt were long and graceful.
As soon as Boo Boo was out the door, Jared broke their staredown. “Simone,” he said in a voice so cold it gave Genna the shivers. With a hand on the small of her back, Jared brought her farther into the room with him.
“I should have known you wouldn’t be here when I arrived,” the woman said accusingly.
Jared’s eyes burned her with a baleful glare.
“I’m supposed to feel guilty when you didn’t have the common courtesy to call and warn me you were coming?”
She looked away, knowing she was being unreasonable. It was to her advantage to put him on the defensive. “I see you’ve been out partying as usual. What cheap dives are you frequenting these days, Jared?”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Genna and I have been at Copper Beeches. It’s the first time I’ve gone anywhere in two months. Not that it’s any of your business.”
He was dangerously close to losing his temper, Genna thought, biting her lip. It wouldn’t do for him to lose his cool when the woman was in perfect control and obviously baiting him. Genna put her hand on Jared’s forearm. It was like iron beneath his dinner jacket.
“Jared,” she murmured. “Introduce me.”
He looked at her as though she’d just materialized from out of nowhere. Realization dawned slowly, softening the fierceness of his features.
“Genna, Simone Harcourt. I’ve told you
all
about her.” He shot a meaningful look at the composed Ms. Harcourt. “Simone, this is Genna Hastings, my neighbor—”
“How convenient for you.” Simone smiled unpleasantly.
“And friend,” he bit off, his face turning to granite, his eyes twin blue flames. He was about to say something more—or perhaps go for the woman’s throat—but Genna cut him off at the pass.
“So,” she said, stepping forward with a saccharine smile. “You’re the poor lonely woman trying to steal Jared’s daughter from him. How incredibly rude of you to drop by. I was under the mistaken impression that Elaine’s family was well bred. Well, no matter. I’ll go make us some coffee, though I seriously doubt Jared will invite you to stay.”
She turned from Simone, smiled and winked at Jared. A suspicious twitch tugged at the corner of his mouth. He watched Genna sweep from the room like a queen. She had rescued him from making a major tactical error and reminded him he wasn’t in this dogfight alone. They were a team.
Sliding his hands casually into his pants pockets, Jared turned back to Simone, who looked considerably less composed than she had a moment ago.
“Genna will be Alyssa’s kindergarten teacher this fall. She’s been a tremendous help in getting Alyssa to cope with her mother’s death. She minored in
psychology and graduated summa cum laude from Vassar.”
Simone swallowed. Things were not going the way she had expected. She hadn’t been expecting Jared’s neat, tastefully decorated home or quiet, colonial Tory Hills, with its treelined streets. She hadn’t been expecting a baby-sitter who looked as if he could crush beer cans by scowling at them but instead spent the evening regaling her with the details of his master’s thesis: The Importance of Paternal Involvement in Child Rearing. She hadn’t expected the station wagon in the garage or the swing set in the fenced backyard.
A headache began to throb between her neatly plucked brows. Jared was nothing like she’d remembered. Her sister had married an overgrown teenager with long hair and an I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude. The man standing before her appeared to be mature. He was composed, sardonic, and handsomely turned out. The diamond stud in his ear gave him the dangerous aura of a gentleman pirate from a bygone era.
And then there was Genna Hastings. Summa cum laude from Vassar? That blasted private investigator had told her Genna Hastings was unemployed. She should have known better than to hire
a man who looked like a bargain-basement Mike Hammer. From the pictures he’d taken, she had come to the erroneous conclusion that Genna Hastings was a topless dancer, or worse.
“What are you doing here, Simone?” Jared asked in a bored tone as he leaned indolently back against his cluttered desk.
With a deep breath she calmed her features and her mind. She had to keep her objective in clear view. “I came here to give you a chance to settle this business out of court. I think we both know what will be best for Alyssa in the long run. There’s really no need to drag your personal dirty laundry into public; your reputation is bad enough already. Turn Alyssa over to my care, and I’ll be very generous with your visitation privileges.”
Jared gave an unamused bark of laughter. “That’s big of you, considering you don’t have squat to take to court.”
“Don’t I?” She arched an elegant brow at Jared, then gave Genna, who had just returned to the room, an insulting once-over. She rose gracefully from the chair with a large manila envelope in her hand and came toward them, taking her time. She had the moment and she was making the most of it. She stroked the envelope lovingly, her confidence returning. “I
think the court will find these extremely interesting. Proof positive in black and white that you aren’t fit to have Alyssa in your custody. Really, they only substantiate the less than desirable reputation you’ve built for yourself over the years.”
She handed the envelope to Jared and stood back to watch.
A feeling of foreboding crawled over Genna as she watched Jared’s hands open the flap and extract Simone’s “proof.” Then the world abruptly dropped out from under her.
The envelope was full of grainy eight-by-ten black and white blowups of Jared and herself. Several had been shot from outside the back screen door of Genna’s own house. Those were of Jared holding her on his lap on the kitchen floor. There was one of them nose to nose in the department store on the day they’d run into Allan Corrigan.
The great majority of the photos had been taken from outside Jared’s bedroom window. The horizontal slashes of venetian blinds cutting across the pictures, only added to the feeling of voyeurism. And though the quality of the photographs was poor, the subject matter was quite easily defined: she and Jared undressing each other, naked, embracing, making love.
Genna felt sick. Bile rose in her throat. What kind of monster could do this? Someone she didn’t even know had taken her cherished memories and reduced them to pornography. Tears blurred her vision. She felt her knees sag as if the bones were suddenly disintegrating. Jared’s arm came around her bare back as strong as an oak limb. He held her against a solid body that trembled with rage.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered, kissing her hair. He turned his eyes on Simone then, and she stepped back at the pure, violent hatred in them. “Want to take a picture of this too, Simone?”
She flinched at the acid in his voice. Her veneer of confidence had cracked the moment Genna had laid eyes on the pictures. She had looked so hurt, so betrayed. That wasn’t at all what Simone had expected. Anger, yes, and embarrassment, but Genna had reacted as if something beautiful had just been senselessly destroyed.
Jared eased Genna down onto his desk chair, where she sat in numb, shocked silence. Everything had taken on a sense of unreality for her. She felt stupid and helpless in her fancy party dress.
Jared wished he could do something to ease Genna’s pain, but the only thing he could think of was to wrap his hands around Simone Harcourt’s
throat and choke the life out of her. He could take what Simone dished out to him personally, but she had hurt Genna, who was an innocent bystander in all this. That was unforgivable.
He rounded on Simone, feeling sick and disgusted, swinging at her with the envelope and photographs clutched in his hand. “You bitch! You pay someone to take pictures like this and you think
I’m
not fit to be a parent?”
Simone swallowed convulsively, raking a badly shaking hand through her dark hair. “The court needs evidence—”
“Evidence!” he shouted. “What the hell kind of evidence is this? Evidence that Genna and I are two healthy adults who care very much for each other? You don’t see Alyssa in these pictures, do you?
Do you?”
“N-no—but—” she stammered.
“She wasn’t even in the damn house!”
Trembling, Simone grabbed the back of a chair for support as she watched Jared pace the room like a caged panther. Never in her life had she seen such blind fury. It terrified her to know she was the one guilty of unleashing it, terrified that it might turn full tide on her.
Jared stopped his pacing, his chest heaving beneath
his elegant evening wear. Hands shaking with rage, he shoved the photographs back into the envelope and resealed it. For a long moment he stood there, the air around him vibrating with the same anticipation that thickens the air before a violent storm.
Suddenly he swore viciously and flung the envelope to his desktop, sending papers flying. His hands ravaged his short raven hair, and he cradled his head in them as he struggled to rein in his emotions. When he spoke, a fault line of possessive desperation cracked through his rough voice. “What kind of evidence am I supposed to find that shows how much I love my daughter?”