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Nodding again, Radleigh ran his hands through his hair. “I can tell you everything I know, but I need you to understand something first, because I know you and I know what you’re thinking. If you’re asking me to be completely honest here, I will be.” He leaned forward and reached for my hand again. “But you also need to remember that I love you and I’m sorry for everything that’s happened this week. Especially tonight.” His fingers slipped up to my bruised wrist and he gently ran his fingers over the marks, as if he could heal them. “I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t tell him it was okay, because it wasn’t, but I nodded, offering him a small smile, then waited for him to continue.
“Jen kind of came at me out of nowhere on Tuesday,” he said, letting go of me and leaning back again. “I really don’t know how nobody else spotted her. She’s anything but subtle.”
Ha. That much was clear from her low cut tops and her overly made up face.
“I’ve never been so surprised to see anyone, Leah. As far as I knew, she was in New York, but there she was, right in front of me.” Radleigh stiffened again, like the mere thought of her made him angry. “She’s just the same as she always was. Trying to play innocent when everything she does has a reason. I saw right through her act. She tried to tell me how hard her life had been, and how she’d only cheated on Gary because she felt like he’d stopped appreciating her. The same shit she tried to pull on me when she left. I told her I don’t care about her divorce, or her, and warned her to keep away from me.” He looked up at me. “From us. Because she was quick to tell me she knew you and I are getting married, and that we have a baby.”
“Everyone who knows who you are knows that.” I gave him another soft smile, but it was forced because I knew something was coming that was going to hit me right in the gut. Hadn’t that been what his warning was about? The vow of honesty?
“That was when she told me. About Jayden.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I told you pretty much everything she said about him. The stuff about wanting to make things work out with Gary. But now things are over with him, she thought I should know the truth. She’s already told Jayden.”
“Wow.” A barrage of thoughts rushed into my head at once, the most prominent being that she’d better be telling the truth or that kid would be more screwed up than ever. A rush of panic quickly followed, because the last thing I wanted was for us to have ties with Jen forever. And also, at five years old, how much of this would he fully understand? He’d just had the whole of his normal life taken from him because his mother couldn’t keep her knickers on, and now the confusion of a new father? If Gary’s lawyers were smart, they’d do everything they could to get those kids away from her.
“She wants me to see him, Leah. She wants me to meet him. She thinks we should… she wants me to meet him at the weekend.”
“But… you don’t think he’s yours.”
“I don’t. I don’t know what she’s trying to pull, but he can’t be mine. He can’t.”
Well, technically, he could.
“What if he is?” I asked, quietly. “Have you thought about that?”
“Of course I have. I haven’t stopped thinking about it.” He looked up at me again. “This is the part I think you
’ll hate. If he is mine, Leah, I want him in my life. In our lives.”
I let his words sink in for a moment or two then stood up, pacing around the room as I tried to gather my thoughts. Was he trying to say he thought I wouldn’t want Jayden? That he thought I’d try to stop him seeing his own son? Or that I wouldn’t want Jessica around his “other” kid, one that wasn’t mine, but came from a time before I even knew who he was?
“I understand that,” I told him. “In fact, I’d be pretty unimpressed if you didn’t want to see him. I just… it’s her, Radleigh. I don’t want her in our lives, and that’s going to be impossible for a hell of a long time if Jayden is yours.”
Radleigh shook his head. “Just because she’s his mother, doesn’t mean I have to spend time with her.”
“No? What about decisions that have to be made for him? What school he goes to, and parent/teacher evenings? School plays? Any other activities he gets involved with. You’ll want to be there, and she’ll be there too.”
“So would you.” Radleigh stood up too, and slid his hands around my waist, tethering me to him so I stopped wandering around the living room. “Leah, if he is mine, I can’t handle this without you. I don’t want to have to spend time with Jen. But if I do, I don’t want to do that without you.”
“Why?” I asked, pushing him away. “Because you can’t trust yourself around her?”
I knew the question was bitchy and unfair as soon as it left my lips, but it was a genuine concern. I’d seen her, for Christ’s sake. She was perfection. I didn’t know who the hell her personal trainer was, but it wasn’t obvious that she’d had two kids. She was so well put together, when most days I could barely pull on my jeans. I wasn’t a slob by any means, but since having Jessica, I was more about dressing to be comfortable than dressing to impress. I didn’t care to spend an hour putting on make-up because I wanted to be with my girl. I didn’t want to put on my best clothes during the days I was at home because I’d only end up with baby food/vomit/general crap all over me. And my hair? Messy buns or pony tails all the way. In short, no matter how much I played at being part of the LA elite, when it came down to it, I was still an English village girl at heart. The glamour was fun, but I’d always opt for comfort.
Radleigh reached for me and pulled me back to him. “Don’t do that. Don’t make this about her.”
“It is about her.” I pushed him away again and put some distance between us until I’d finished what I wanted to say. “You loved her, Radleigh. And now she’s back here bringing you what you’ve always wanted. A son. You can’t tell me there isn’t a small part of you that never wondered if he was yours, or thought about what things might be like if you were still together.”
“I used to wonder if he was mine,” Radleigh said. “When she first left. When I found out she was pregnant. But like I said, I thought that if she believed he was mine, she would have played on that to make my life difficult. She’d have fleeced me for every cent she could get. But she never looked back. Never tried to reach me. And I didn’t want to know because I didn’t want her in my life. Just like I don’t want her in my life now.” He raised his hand as if to reach out for me again, but then dropped it to his side again. “Everything I want, I have with you.”
“That’s not true. You told me just the other day. You want a baby boy.” I gave a bitter laugh at the stupidity if it all. It was as if he’d rubbed a magic lamp and made a wish, and then, bam, the son he wanted dropped out of the sky and right into his lap.
“I want you. You and Jessica. And if we end up with a house full of girls, so what?” When I raised a sceptical eyebrow, he continued. “I would love to have a son, but it’s not the most important thing. Us. Our family. That’s what matters.”
I threw my head back with a sigh. He was saying all the right things. Everything I needed to hear. And I believed him. But I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that it wasn’t going to be as easy as he made it sound. If Jayden wasn’t Radleigh’s, Jen was still intending to move back to L.A. And sure, it’s a big place, but I wasn’t sure it was big enough for all of us. And if Jayden was Radleigh’s? Life would never be the same.
Chapter Eight – You Need Me More Than He Does
The initial aftermath of Jen’s little revelation wasn’t as dramatic as expected. In fact, Radleigh and I settled in to normal-ish life again. Neither of us saw Jen, and the only contact we had with her was when Radleigh called her to agree to a paternity test.
