Jake stared up at Cameron as though his words were written on stone tablets. A wave of something powerful swept through him and he felt as if he just might be the most important person in the world in that moment.
“That must be the sitter,” Julia said, her voice a little hoarse. “I’ll go let her in.”
Ten minutes later, the babysitter and Jake were ensconced in the back bedroom, and Julia was ready to leave. She had her purse strapped over her shoulder and she carried a soft leather briefcase. She looked like a lawyer instead of the best pastry chef on the Central Coast. Cameron walked her to the front door and opened it.
“I showed her where everything is and gave her my card in case she needs to call me,” Julia said nervously. “I won’t turn off my phone.”
“Everything will be okay,” he said, and leaned against the door jamb, blocking her way out. “Look, we haven’t talked about the paternity test yet.”
“Oh,” she said. With a frown, she dropped her briefcase and folded her arms across her chest. “I was hoping you’d changed your mind about that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t think I’m handing you a child support check until I’ve verified that Jake is my son, do you?”
“I don’t need child support, Cameron,” she said testily. “You can keep your money.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
Her lips thinned in anger. “First of all, it’s Jake’s comfort I’m concerned about. Do you have any idea how many immunizations he’s been through in his short nine months? I’ve lost track of the number of needles he’s had to suffer through. But don’t worry, you’ll have your damned paternity test. Second of all—”
“Look, Julia, I—”
She held up her hand. “Just let me finish before you say anything else you’ll regret later about the money thing. Do yourself a favor, go online on Google and look up the Parrish Trust. When I get back, we’ll talk about money.”
“Fine.” He realized he’d pushed her a little too far, but where did she get off thinking he’d just accept her word on everything?
She picked up her briefcase and started to walk out, but stopped again and glared at him. “And as long as you’ve got your computer fired up, you might want to take a look at those emails I sent you a while back. They just might paint a different picture than what you think is going on here.”
“Julia, I’m not—”
“And while you’re at it,” she said, pulling a flowery scrapbook from her briefcase, “I brought this to show some friends, but you might want to take a look at it first.”
He stared at the thick journal, then began to thumb through it casually. There were photographs of the baby affixed to the pages, along with handwritten passages describing the pictures. Frowning, he gazed at her.
“And one more thing,” she continued before he could say anything. “You caught me in a weak moment last night, but it won’t happen again. We’re willing to stay here with you for the next ten days, but there’s no way I’m having sex with you. That’s a deal-breaker.”
With that, she left the suite in a huff.
Three
That’s a deal-breaker.
Sex? A deal-breaker? Not in this universe, Cameron thought. He could recall Julia melting in his arms last night and knew it was only a matter of time until he had her in his bed.
After she left for the conference, Cameron pulled his computer out of the second bedroom and set everything up in the dining room. That way, he wouldn’t disturb Jake when it was nap time later.
Cameron couldn’t get Julia’s irate words out of his head so, with great reluctance, he finally did as she suggested and went online to research her family business.
Now, he sat back in his desk chair and stared at the computer screen. A thousand different thoughts ran through his mind, but the first thing he did was pick up the phone and call his company’s tech department.
After putting in a request that they immediately recover the emails from Julia he’d deleted more than eighteen months ago, Cameron hung up the phone and went back to gazing at the online information he’d pulled up on Julia Parrish and her family.
It was disturbing to read that Julia’s parents had died in a small plane crash when she was ten years old. There were pages and pages devoted to her parents’ philanthropy, but almost nothing on young Julia Parrish until she opened her popular bakery shop in Old Town Dunsmuir Bay four years ago.
Did she have other family in the area? Who had been responsible for raising her? Cameron found more questions than answers and knew they would have to talk about these and other issues tonight.
Aside from the news of her parents’ death, the most shocking fact about Julia Parrish was that the woman was almost as wealthy as Cameron was. So why was she slaving away making cupcakes for other people?
It turned out that the Parrish Trust was one of the biggest and most influential charitable organizations in the state. The trust funded or underwrote everything from children’s television to scientific research to humanitarian efforts on behalf of children everywhere. Cameron had heard of the Parrish Trust, of course. Who hadn’t? But he’d never connected the dots from the trust to Julia, never had any reason to. Now, though, he had a reason.
No wonder Julia didn’t care about Cameron’s money. No wonder she’d given up on trying to contact him. She didn’t need Cameron Duke’s support. The mother of his son was worth millions.
He didn’t know how he felt about that. He supposed it wasn’t a bad thing that little Jake would never want for anything in his life. In fact, that was definitely a good thing. But Cameron wanted to be the one to provide those things for his son. And he would. As soon as Julia got back to the suite, they would talk. He would tell her she didn’t have to worry anymore about being the sole provider. Cameron was ready and willing to step in and take care of things from now on.
“Oh, that’ll fly like a lead balloon,” he uttered, then shrugged. Didn’t matter what she thought. Cameron was Jake’s father and he would be responsible for him. Besides, why shouldn’t Julia take a break and let Cameron shoulder some of the burden for a while? It’s not like he was forcing her into a marriage. God forbid. Neither of them wanted that.
Although, now that he thought about it, a marriage between Cameron and Julia would be the best thing for Jake.
“But that’s never going to happen.” He shoved his chair back from the table. If Cameron didn’t do relationships, he sure as hell wouldn’t ever do marriage. And that was okay. Jake would thrive with two parents who cared about him. They didn’t need to be living together in order for the kid to have a good life.
Cameron hadn’t exactly grown up with great role models. Quite the contrary, his dad had been a lousy excuse for a parent and a miserable marriage partner to his mom. Cameron had always said that if his parents were what marriage was all about, he wasn’t interested.
And if his unhappy parents weren’t enough of a reminder that marriage was out of the question for him, there was also the sacred pact he’d made with his brothers. He would never break that pact, ever.
Cameron could still picture the day, shortly after his eighth birthday, when he arrived at Sally Duke’s big house on the cliffs of Dunsmuir Bay. At first, it was unsettling to learn that Sally had rescued two other boys from foster care along with Cameron, and that she expected all of them to become a family.
Those early weeks he spent getting to know Adam and Brandon were bumpy, to say the least. A pecking order needed to be established, so the three boys fought