She thought about it for a moment. "Ninety-five percent nonexistent."
"Uh huh. Well, if it somehow happens anyhow, don’t even think about getting rid of our baby."
She considered the autocratic order, considered as well her own strong feelings about the rights of a woman's body and men who thought they could dictate what a female could do with it. On the other hand, any potential child would be a result of her own negligence and neither did she believe in abortion as a substitute for birth control.
Not to mention the emotional impact of knowing any potential baby would be Jon-Michael's. She expelled a little sigh of capitulation. "Okay."
He stroked her hair, seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then said, "Hayley?"
"Um hmmm?"
"Why did you let me take your virginity that night by the lake?"
When she stiffened slightly in his arms, she felt him hold his breath as if waiting for her to shove him away.
Instead she relaxed again and released the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. "Because I wanted to."
"Yeah, I figured that part out for myself. Why, though? Why then? I must have tried a dozen other times to get in your pants. You always laughed in my face."
She was quiet for several moments. Then she took another deep breath, expelled it and said quietly, "You were—I don't know—real that night." She shook her head, afraid she was not articulating what she had felt. "You were hurt because your dad hadn't come to your soccer game and for once in your life you were not trying to disguise your feelings with that Mr. Life of the Party facade you're so fond of hiding behind."
"So you thought you would reward me by letting me take your cherry?"
Shoving her head deep into the pillow, she gave him a level-eyed look. "You want to let me tell this my way, Jon-Michael, or would you prefer I play straight man to your sarcastic one-liners?"
"Sorry." A frown pulling his eyebrows together, he stared down at her. "At least tell me it wasn't a mercy fuck."
"Excuse me?"
"Dammit, Hayley, it's bad enough knowing I was drunk and probably careless. And you know perfectly well I'm still ashamed of the way I shot off my mouth afterwards. If you tell me you let me fuck you that night out of pity, I’m going to stick my tongue in the nearest electrical socket."
"Oh, for God's sake, Jon. You got me all hot and bothered. Pity had nothing to do with it."
"Good," he murmured and eased off her and onto the mattress, where he promptly reached to pull her into his arms. She rested her cheek against the swell of his pec and smoothed a hand down his torso, tracing the definition of his abs with her fingertips.
He crushed a fistful of her hair in his hand and she felt him raise his head to inhale its scent. "I remember that game, you know," he murmured. "I don't remember who we played, but I remember playing the best game of my life. I scored two goals."
"Yeah. I think that was what made it so hard for you to dissemble that night. You played one hell of a game and it just wasn't enough that Kurstie and I were there to cheer you on. You wanted your dad to see, too."
"If I ever have kids, I will be different than him,” Jon-Michael said with low-voiced vehemence.
She pressed herself closer. "Yes, you will. I don’t doubt for a minute you’ll be a dedicated, attentive father." And it hurt to think about, because she couldn’t picture who the mother of his children would be. She didn’t visualize it being herself—not unless her fertility this morning hit a homer from the five percent probability base. There was just too much water over that bridge. Yet the idea it might be someone else was surprisingly painful to contemplate.
"So we talked?" he prompted.
"Yes. We talked a lot. Kurstin pointed out a while back you and I used to do that quite a bit, but with all the shit that happened following your share with the team, I’d forgotten. Anyhow, after the game you, your sister and I took a blanket into the woods. We laid there and watched the wind in the trees, and we talked. Both Kurstie and I tried to get you to stop drinking but you had a pint of Black Velvet you were determined to kill off. Eventually Kurstin left to find the kegger going on at the lake, but you and I stayed. We talked some more, then you kissed me, and one thing led to another. The rest, as they say, is history."
"When did I tell you I loved you?"
"After. You were sort of euphoric about what we had done and quite insistent I was not your average, every day roll in the hay."
"See? Even loaded I had extraordinary discernment. I obviously knew a good thing when it bopped me on the head. Did I hurt you? Physically, I mean?"
"Not really. Well, a little." One of her shoulders twitched. "No more than it would have hurt with any one else, I daresay."
He combed his fingers through her hair, holding it off her face. He stared down at her. "Did you tell me you loved me back?"
For the first time she displayed a measure of discomfort. She stirred restlessly, pushing away from him. "I have to get up."
"Why? Where you gonna go? You live here now, remember?"
She said the first thing she figured Jon-Michael could not debate. "I have to pee."
It worked like a champ.
But he was waiting for her when she got back. Standing outside the bathroom door, he handed her a lightweight kimono when she walked out. He had donned his boxer-briefs. "So, did you?"
"Did I what?" She tied the robe and slid her hand along her nape to lift her hair from under the collar.
"Did you tell me you loved me back that night?"
Hayley simply looked at him for a moment. Then she sighed and nodded. "Yes. Yes, I did, all right?"
He reached for her but she circumvented the move by placing her palm flat against his chest. "But, Jon-Michael?" she said with soft-voiced finality. "I was wrong."
What the hell happened? Ty wondered. It was supposed to be so simple. Get in, get next to Kurstin, get the story, get out. Hit and run; it had been his MO his entire life and he had never given a good goddamn who got hurt in the process. Bottom line, he would do whatever was necessary to get the goods to move him that next beckoning rung up the ladder. Because he might have begun his life on the bottom.
But he had every intention of ending up on top.
So why hesitate now?
Ty sat in his deserted living room, staring at the telephone, willing himself to pick it up and make his move. He had what he had come for: he was in sole possession of one of the year's hottest stories. He should be burning up the lines getting it to his editor, because it was not a done deal until it was printed.
Hell, it wasn't a done deal until the paper with his byline hit the streets and went live online. He could be scooped right up to the instant it released. And before this baby was in the readers’ hands, he had places to go, people to interview.
Bridges to burn.
That was the kicker. Because what about Kurstin, left on the other side when he burned that particular bridge to the ground? Ty blew out a gusty breath and shoved his hands through his hair, grinding the heels of his hands against his headache in an attempt to prevent it from pounding right through his forehead. He rested his head against the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling. As if that held the answers.