Page 45 of Nothing to This
“Yes, he knows,” she said, doing her best not to sneer.“And I told him your first name.I really don’t think he gives a shit about who I’m seeing.”
“Have you met his girlfriend?”
“He doesn’t have one,” she said, forcing herself to pick up a fry.
Baxter raised his hips to retrieve his phone from his pocket.“Let’s find out.”
Her wrist loosened, dropping the fry.“What are you doing?You don’t have his number,” she said, hoping he hadn’t invaded her phone at some point to copy the “Baby Daddy” number from her contacts.
He turned the phone around to show an online search bar bearing JD’s name.“World of instant information.Don’t tell me you never Googled him.”
“Never,” she said.“Well, yeah, I did, back when I found out I was pregnant, but that was about as useful as an umbrella in a forest fire.Sometimes I see stuff by accident, but I never—”
“Gabriella Wellesley,” he said and flashed the screen at her briefly, just long enough for her to glimpse an image of JD with a svelte blonde.“Billionaire heiress and model.”
“He’s not seeing her.”
He lifted the phone closer to his face and swiped some more.“They look pretty close to me… Oh yeah, check out that one.”
Showing her again, he extended his arm to give her a better look at JD on the beach with the same blonde.In a tiny bikini, little was left to the imagination.The girl had an amazing figure.Amazing enough to make her blanch at the sight of JD standing, holding the woman, his hands resting on her pert, almost-naked butt.
Baxter swung the phone away and kept swiping.“Wow, this guy doesn’t seem to have a type.There’s a redhead, a brunette.One from here, one from there… is he just working his way through the continents?”
“You should know better than to believe everything you read on the internet,” she said.“He’s not seeing anyone.”
“Looks to me like he is… wonder which one he’ll introduce to your kids now that the gag is gone.”
“He wouldn’t introduce any of them to the kids,” she said.“And he isn’t seeing anyone.”
“Think you know better than the internet?”
“Yes,” she said.“Because I heard it from the horse’s mouth.He isn’t seeing anyone.”
Adjusting the angle of the phone, Baxter’s ogling apparently became reading.“Hmm, maybe you’re right.This article here says he and Gabriella broke off their engagement a month ago.Funny, that’s like right before he showed up here… Guess the kids are the flavor of the month.”
“Don’t,” she said, losing her battle with the sneer.“Don’t do that.Don’t imply he’s only here because his relationship broke down.”
“An engagement, that’s a big deal,” he said.“Did she ever meet the kids?”
“What?”
“This woman, the billionaire heiress, did she meet the children?”
“No.”
“Because you asked him that too?”Baxter put his phone on the table.“You don’t really know what he did with the kids on his weekends.Maybe she stayed with him at his mother’s.”
Maybe.She couldn’t refute that.She’d never probed into who the kids met at his mother’s, as her encounter with Anya had proven.If JD was planning to marry this Gabriella woman, and he’d told the kids about it, she couldn’t imagine neither of them would mention it to her.
“I’ll ask him about it.”
“Why?”Baxter asked.“Does it matter?If he’s going to marry her, the kids will have to get to know her.If they’ve broken up, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“It matters if JD is introducing random women to my children.”
In asking, she’d tread carefully, having used her only free pass when it came to accusing JD of prioritizing sex over their offspring.
“A fiancée is hardly random.”
