Page 60 of Bedded by a Playboy

How would she explain to her child that its father didn’t want it, didn’t even believe it was his? That was the price her baby would pay for its mother’s stupidity, its mother’s naïve, romantic, ridiculously optimistic belief that she and Monroe had been meant for one another.

Going to Ali’s bedroom, she located her sister’s address book on the chest of drawers. She would have to talk to Ali soon, but she would not ask her for help with this. It felt as if her sister had spent all her life helping her deal with her mistakes. Well, maybe her affair with Monroe had been a mistake, but this baby wasn’t a mistake and she was going to have to start making her life work for both of them.

She’d started something this summer at the Cranford Art Gallery. Mrs Bennett had told her only this week that she thought Jessie could have a career in the art world. In the haze of love and romance that she’d indulged in with Monroe she hadn’t planned anything out, but now she would have to. She’d spoken to one of Ali’s friends in New York last week who had mentioned a job in an art gallery in SoHo. Jessie had ignored it at the time, she hadn’t thought she’d ever be moving to New York. Jessie took a deep breath. Her whole life had turned upside down in less than twenty-four hours.

She sobbed, quietly, unable to hold back the tears any longer as she jotted down Lizzie’s address and telephone number. When she got to New York she’d contact her, see if the job was still available. Tearing off the page, she slipped the information in her bag then scribbled a note for Ali on the pad and left it on the dresser.

The loud beeping sound from the door buzzer made Jessie jump. Picking up her bag, she left the room and walked downstairs.

As the cab took off up Oceanside Drive, Jessie forced herself not to turn back and take one last look at the garage apartment. That wasn’t where her future was any more. Despite the heavy weight of despair and humiliation, the sick feeling of fear, of devastation churning in her stomach, Jessie kept her eyes on the road ahead. She had a long way to go but she would get there in the end.

Monroe had destroyed her dreams, but he would never be able to crush her spirit.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MONROE slashed the paint onto the canvas—the vivid red reflecting the violence bubbling inside him.

‘Monroe, you in here?’

The shouted enquiry from the

living room had Monroe dumping his brush in the turpentine. No doubt Jessie had gone running to Linc and Ali as soon as she’d left him. They would want him to go now, for sure. The fact that it hurt to know he would have to go only made him angrier. It took a titanic effort to plaster a cocky grin on his face as he walked into the apartment’s living room and closed the bedroom door behind him.

‘Yeah, what’s happening?’

‘I think you know what’s happening.’

The sharp words and the heat in Linc’s eyes made it clear he knew about Jessie. This was it, then, Monroe thought. The moment when his brother would cut him loose.

‘I guess she went crying to you, then, did she?’

‘If you’re talking about Jessie—’ Linc’s voice was tight, brimming with annoyance ‘—no, she didn’t. But she has run off to New York and, since you know why, you’d better tell me—and fast.’

Monroe shrugged. ‘She says she’s pregnant.’

Linc’s brows shot up, before he exploded forward and grabbed Monroe’s T-shirt. ‘You got her pregnant? How the hell did that happen?’

He could see the fury in Linc’s eyes, but it was nothing compared to the raw, bitter anger that was choking Monroe. Damn Jessie for making him have to tell his brother something he’d never wanted to tell anyone.

‘Let go of me,’ he snarled. Pushing Linc’s hands away, he struggled back a step, his own breath heaving. ‘It happened in the usual way, I guess.’

‘You son of a—’ Linc jumped on him again and would have landed the punch but Monroe blocked the blow. They struggled for a moment, before Monroe managed to grab his brother in a headlock.

‘Let me finish,’ he snapped. ‘If she is pregnant, I’m not the one responsible.’

Wrestling free, Linc turned and fisted his hands in Monroe’s shirt again. ‘How do you figure that?’

‘I can’t have kids.’ The words came out on a broken shout as Monroe tried to shove his brother away. ‘When I went to juvie I had to give a sperm sample. The police doctor told me my sperm count is practically zero. I only shoot blanks. Now do you get it?’

Monroe could see his brother had got the message, when his fists released.

Monroe looked away, unable to bear what he thought might be his brother’s pity. He paced across the room, stared out of the glass doors. The tumbling waves in the distance matched his own churning thoughts.

‘Hell.’

Hearing the anguish in his brother’s tone, Monroe turned round. Linc had collapsed onto the sofa. When he lifted his face, Monroe realised it wasn’t pity he saw there but concern and compassion.

‘So when Jessie told you about the pregnancy, you told her it wasn’t yours?’ he said.

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