The creep at the front of the stage was pissing him off.
Beck had noticed him every night this week. Had that guy been around before? How could Beck have missed how many groupies Jaycee had? Somehow, this week, they all seemed to have shown up just to rile him.
It didn’t help that it was kicking-out time and Brik had tried to get rid of the little bastard, only for Jaycee to jump off the stage and whisper something to their colleague. Brik left the groupie alone and Jaycee had been talking to him ever since as she gathered up her tips from the jars attached to the stage.
“You gonna do some work tonight, or you just gonna prop up the bar?” Pete asked.
Beck didn’t take his eyes away from the woman and her worshipper. “Got any good rum?”
“Got the bike tonight?” Pete asked. That teasing judgment was enough to make Beck draw his eyes around to the bartender. “You talked to her?”
“Since when?” Beck asked, turning his back on the bartender to hook his elbows on the bar. “Since last Sunday when she stormed out of my place at three in the morning?”
“Yeah, since then.”
“Nope,” Beck said. “She snuck back into the warehouse and got her stuff when I was out with Pine. When I got back, she was gone, not a trace of her.”
“That’s what you get with women like Jaycee Kirk,” Pete said. “They’re all-in kinda girls, you should know that. She ran straight into that contract and once she was in, she didn’t waver.”
“Yeah, with everything but the sex part,” he said. Beck’s hackles began to rise when the groupie slid his finger under the strap of her dress. Jaycee closed both hands over her breasts as she said something and they both laughed. “How many times does he have to touch her before I get to put my fist through his face?”
“Depends,” Pete said, his intonation changing as he wiped down the bar. “If you’re doing it as her ex roommate? You’ve gotta wait until she asks for help. If you’re doing it under the terms of the contract then… you can’t do shit ‘cause you backed out. But…”
“But what?” he muttered, hissing through his teeth, watching the pair get closer.
“If you’re doing it to stake a claim, then you’re good to go whenever.” Like that was a possibility. Settling against the bar again, Beck told himself to look somewhere else, but he couldn’t. “Guess we’re not doing that then.”
Worry was with him every day and every time he thought about Jaycee it reached fever pitch. She was out there in the world alone, taking on the burdens that had once threatened to crush her. “Do you know where she’s sleeping?”
“Couple of places,” Pete said. “Heard she’s stayed on a few couches, don’t think she’s hooking up with him… not yet anyway…”
The groupie touched Jaycee’s face and Beck was on his feet again. Damn. This was hard. Why was this so hard? “He’s standing too close to her.”
“Too close to her for what?” Pete asked. “You said it was over, right? She’s free.”
Yeah, he had, but the boulder of anger in his belly needed a target and that fuckwit standing in front of Jaycee, admiring her cleavage when he thought she wasn’t looking, was a good start. “Not that free,” Beck grumbled.
“You’d have to check with Pine, but I guess there’s an argument to be made that if you’re still paying for her grandmother’s care, that she’s still bound by the terms of the contract. So…”
“That means no sex for eighteen months,” Beck said and felt a bit better.
Yeah, he should tell her they were enforcing that part of the contract. Except, why should he? He’d made it clear to her that he didn’t want a relationship and if it was this tough to watch her near another guy after they’d lived together for a month, how hard was it going to be to let her go after eighteen of them?
No, he had to get over it.
Had to leave her alone.
Forget about her.
Making himself turn on one elbow he slumped over the bar. “Just one drink, Petey,” he said, but appealing to his oldest friend wasn’t likely to move the man.
“How’s the piece coming?” Pete asked, taking glasses from the washer and wiping off the drips to return them to their shelves.
Picking at a beer mat, Beck couldn’t seem to find any glimmer of hope these days. “Haven’t touched it this week… I’ve been sketching.”
His buddy was shocked. “No kidding,” Pete said. “Sketching what?”
Beck raised his eyes. “You don’t want to know,” he muttered.
“Pete!”
Jaycee’s voice coming up behind him was startling. Beck was pissed that Pete hadn’t warned him she was approaching. “What can I do for you, Jaycee, honey?” Pete asked. Beck turned to face her, leaving an elbow on the bar, but she didn’t acknowledge his existence, he was completely invisible. “You need a ride home?”
“No, thanks, Pascal’s promised me a ride,” she said. Beck’s brows rose as he glanced toward the groupie who was now loitering by the curtain to the stairway, holding Jaycee’s purse. What kind of stupid name was that? How did she say it with a straight face? “Do we have those little tiny onion things? You put them in drinks sometimes, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Pete said and went away to retrieve the jar.
Beck couldn’t be this close to her and not say anything. “No way Pascal’s his real name,” he muttered and although her expression tightened enough that he knew she’d heard him, Jaycee didn’t respond. “What do you think Pascal wants for driving you home?”
“Probably less than procreation,” she said, putting her hands on the bar to lean over and look for Pete. “But I didn’t say he was driving me home, I said he promised me a ride… the alley out back’s real quiet and I like celebrating my freedom.”
Pursing his lips, Beck didn’t curse, but he couldn’t hold in his sinister unimpressed laugh. “Won’t be quiet tonight, girl. Petey’s got plenty of paint back there. Bet I could fill the alley in ten minutes if I go out there with some brushes after a quick call to Reuters.”
“Still nothing wrong with your ego,” she said, grinning when Pete brought over the jar.
He gave it to her. “Do you have one of those little cocktail sticks?” Pete bent to get one and Jaycee struggled to open the jar, so she thrust it at him.
Oh, he was good enough for opening jars, but not good enough to look at? Beck opened the jar and gave it back to her and Pete put the cocktail sticks on the counter.
“Now can I have that drink?” Beck asked, folding his arms on the bar. If Jaycee was going to ignore him then he’d ignore her right back.
Pete scooped some ice cubes into a glass and Beck thought he was in luck, but instead of filling it with liquor, Pete gave him a shot of draught soda.
“Oh, thanks,” Beck said and reached for the glass.
When Pete didn’t let it go, Beck looked up to see that his bartender friend was looking past him wearing a look of shock. The expression became a sneer until pure disgust contorted his features.
Beck turned to see what was so vile and found his own emotions following a similar course. Jaycee was standing there with a couple of onions speared on a cocktail stick in the one hand and the jar in the other. Except the jar was currently tipped to her lips as she drank the pickle juice straight from it.
That was probably the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen a woman do, but at least it pretty much guaranteed Pascal would think twice about taking Jaycee hard and fast in the alley. He’d think twice, might not put him off completely.
Beck wouldn’t let it slow him down if he was in the alley with her. Damn… he shouldn’t be thinking like that.
When the juice was about half gone, she lowered the jar and smiled. Even when she clocked the pair of sickened men, she didn’t relent. “Vinegar,” she said and shrugged as she pulled the onions from the stick with her teeth. Putting the lid on the jar, she returned it to the bar. “Who knew?”
Stepping forward, she hooked a finger into the soda glass still between him and Pete to pull out an ice cube. She popped the frozen water on her tongue and turned around, offering a wave over her shoulder as she headed toward Pascal.
“Well, someone’s not getting laid tonight,” Beck said when the couple vanished through the curtain.
Pete didn’t laugh at the joke; his friend didn’t look happy at all. “That’s what you just saw? Jaycee making herself less attractive?”
“I didn’t say that,” Beck said. “Why what did you—”
“Did you two actually do a test?” Pete asked, getting serious as he spread his hands on the bar.
“A test…” Beck said. His attention shot to the pickle juice in the jar. “Shit!”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “If that woman’s not pregnant, I’ll tell the world I’m Beckett Trent.”
When he got over the shock, Beck leaped to his feet. “Why the hell wouldn’t she tell me? Why would she say…”
“I don’t know,” Pete said. “But I’d guess she doesn’t know either because if she was keeping it a secret, doing that…” He sneered when he looked at the jar again, “would be a damn big clue to wave in front of us, don’t you think? You have to get her to take a test.”
“She won’t take my calls,” Beck said.
“Come up with something,” Pete said. “I don’t know what the hell you’re going to do if she is, but she needs to know before it’s too late.”
Too late for what? Options? He’d asked her to get pregnant, he couldn’t now ask her to abort his child.
His child.
Rubbing a hand over his mouth, Beck turned to look at the curtain. How could he get her to listen to him? If Pete was right, Jaycee would find out eventually. Beck wanted to be there when she did. But how the hell was he going to swing that?
“There’s really no need,” Jaycee said to Doctor Nicks.
Typical that the day after she got near Beckett for the first time since she’d moved out, Doctor Nicks had called her. What game was Beck playing? She couldn’t figure him out. He’d told her it was over, and she hadn’t given him any grief about it. She’d accepted his change of heart and walked away. But she couldn’t believe the doctor’s call was just happenstance.
When Nicks had called, she hadn’t recognized the number and had answered it without realizing what she was going to have to deal with. Jaycee had been too polite to just hang up on the doctor who hadn’t done anything wrong… the doctor who’d seen her vagina up close.
He’d been adamant that she should come into the office and she’d thought about placating him by saying she would and then standing him up. But damn, she was too polite for that too.
With people she was pissed at, she could be as rude as she liked. But she had to be nice to innocent strangers who were just doing their jobs.
“You said that you had a period,” Doctor Nicks said. “How long was it and how heavy?”
Sinking back in the chair, she gripped the arms, if she just answered the questions, he’d let her go. “I had bleeding for two days, but… it was light, I… I’ve never had one like it.”
“And cramping?”
She shrugged. “A little.”
“And since then?” he asked. She shook her head. “It would be useful to do a pregnancy test, some women do have light bleeding or cramping early in their pregnancy.”
“They… they do?”
“Yes,” he said.
Jaycee wasn’t sure what he was so happy about; this didn’t seem like a very happy day. She’d just assumed when she saw blood that her period was starting. She’d been shocked when there was so little but thought maybe with the stress of life and people poking around at her that her system had gone through a reboot.
“Oh.”
“Either way, we should know, don’t you think?” Doctor Nicks asked. He picked up a test and a sample pot from his desk. “You can use the bathroom to provide a sample and I can test it right here.”
Test it right here.
Jaycee should’ve been smarter; she should’ve bought a test and confirmed it for herself. But she was back in money-saving mode. Yeah, Beck was still covering everything now, but that wouldn’t last, and she needed as much money behind her as she could get for when he cut her off. Jaycee had her pride and wanted to tell Beck to stick his money, but Mavis was relying on that care home, now more than ever.
“Give me the cup,” she said.
This time she was meant to bring the pee back out to the doctor, which was mortifying, but at least she didn’t have to look at Beck while she did it.
That’s what she’d thought, until she opened the bathroom door and saw him sitting there at Doctor Nicks’ desk.
“What is he doing here?” she said, pointing her sample at Beck.
“Don’t be mad,” Beck said. “I just want to know.”
“Want to know what?” she asked, going to the desk. She wanted to slam the sample down, but that was pee and if it spilled, yeah, ew. Jaycee also didn’t really want to draw attention to it by using it to make a dramatic gesture. So, she put it on the desk and turned to Beck. “This was you, wasn’t it? You got the doctor to call me. You set this up.”
“Yes,” Beck said, standing up and damn, she wished he hadn’t done that. He was so much bigger than her that he got an instant advantage. “You wouldn’t take my calls. I’ve tried to call, and you’ve blanked me… I deserve to know!”
Oh, he did not just shout at her, did he? “Know? I told you I’m not pregnant! I don’t know what kind of game this is. I don’t know why you think it’s ok to treat me like this, but you can’t pick me up and drop me as it suits you!”
He scoffed at her. “You’re here because of me, yeah, but we’re here because of last night… Do you always drink pickle juice like that? Do you? How many times did you do that before we did this procedure? ‘Cause I’ve never seen you do it and we lived together for a month!”
“The pickle juice?” she asked. “That’s what this is about? Oh, you crazy… I liked the juice in the onions, that was it, who cares if I drank some? It’s not poison! People are allowed to drink it! That’s why it’s there!”
“No, it’s there to pickle the goddamn onion! No one, no sane, non-pregnant person would drink that shit even on a bet.”
“Really? Bring me a jar, right now, I’ll down all of it. I’m sane and not pregnant!”
“Actually, you are.” Both she and Beck turned their rage to the doctor who held up the pregnancy test. “You are pregnant, Miss Kirk… congratulations.”
Beck sank into his seat and his face dropped into his hands. “She’s nuts too,” Beck mumbled.
Jaycee was… gob smacked. “Pregnant?” she asked. “I’m… no, that’s not possible. I bled! I—”
“As I said, it’s not uncommon for some women to have light bleeding as the embryo attaches to the lining of your womb… You are pregnant… Five weeks.”
“Five?” she asked. “We only did the implant thingy three weeks ago.”
“Yes,” Doctor Nicks said. “But we count from the last day of your last period.” So, she was pregnant before she’d ever ovulated or had sperm inside her? How did that work? “We can take blood and confirm it further. I can also offer a transvaginal ultrasound—”
Beck’s hands fell. “Yes, let’s do that, an ultrasound. Let’s do an ultrasound.”
“No!” she exclaimed wrapping her arms around her belly. “No ultrasound, not like that! I’m not…”
“What?” Beck asked, he was growling at her again. “You don’t want to see it with your own eyes?”
“It’s very early,” the doctor said. “There would likely be no baby to see, but we would be able to see the gestational sack if we do the internal procedure.”
“Wait, internal?” Beck asked.
Hmm. Maybe the bastard should listen before volunteering her for procedures. “Yeah,” she snapped. “And I am not sitting half-naked in a room with you while this stranger puts something inside me!”
“Then I’ll put it inside you,” Beck said. “Can’t be that tough to slide something up there with all the solo-fiddling you do—”
“We have lubri—”
“No, doctor, he thinks he’s funny. It’s sad,” she sneered, reciting Beck’s words to him before the doctor could speak. “You can go to hell, Guy.” Bending down, Jaycee snatched her purse from the floor and offered Nicks a fake smile. “It’s been a pleasure.”
Getting around the desk, she went to the door and didn’t slow down as she crossed the waiting room and burst into the stairwell. Pregnant. Fucking pregnant! Just what she needed.
Beckett Trent! She’d heard the name and just assumed he’d be a stand-up guy. Learning who he was had been the beginning of the end for her, she was ready to sign herself over to the guy who she was sure was a creative genius.
Maybe he was, but that just meant he was good at the long con too.
“Jayc!”
Oh, another perfect moment, now Beck was chasing her down. It didn’t matter that he was stronger and fitter than her or that she knew he’d catch up, Jaycee just kept on walking, swinging her purse at her side.
“Jaycee! Wait,” Beck called and grabbed her to haul her back. “Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
“Talk about what?” she asked. “The fact that you got me pregnant and dumped my ass on the street? No, thanks, I think I’d rather not talk about that.”
“Move back in,” he said, getting in her way when she tried to walk past him.
“No,” she said. “No way. I trusted you once and that was stupid.”
“Nothing’s changed,” he said. Was he serious? Her blank look must have asked that exact question. “Yeah, ok, so things between us are…”
“A mess?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said and managed to smile, well at least one of them could. “They are a mess. But you said it yourself, we’re both adults… and now we know you’re carrying my baby.”
“I thought it was over,” she said. “That the contract is void.”
“I never did any paperwork,” he said. “We didn’t sign anything to say it was void… There’s no reason we can’t stick to the original terms… I’ll pay everything, you give me the baby.”
“And in the meantime?” she asked. “The contract says I have to live with you… I can’t trust you not to turn on me and then what do I do?”
“I won’t,” he said and tried to touch her face, but she backed off. Holding up both hands, he nodded. “You’re right, we should keep this as just business, that’s it. Business.”
“Nothing personal?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“You’re strong, Jaycee, you can handle this. My head got screwed up by it all, not yours. And I didn’t toss you out, you chose to leave, and even though you did, you bounced back. Baby, you always bounce.”
She didn’t like that ‘baby’ had become part of his vocabulary when talking to her, but if she made a big deal of it he’d know it affected her to hear affection in his voice when he referred to her. Jaycee could always find somewhere to live and now she knew it was a possibility he might flip out, she’d make sure to save every nickel just in case. Anything that could buy her some time was useful.
Jaycee was thinking about this like there was some question mark over it. But she was pregnant. Actually pregnant. This wasn’t just talking about something or agreeing to give something a shot, she was actually…
“Oh God,” she breathed out and backed up to the wall.
“What?” Beck asked, all concern as he took her wrist. But she was spreading her hands on her belly.
“I’m pregnant, Beckett,” she whispered. A kind of terror welled up inside her that wasn’t alleviated when he grinned.
“Yes, you are.”
He bent as if he was going to offer her a hug, but she slid away and started walking again. “I have a client.”
If this was business, then she’d treat it as one. Let his head get screwed up by it all, she wouldn’t; couldn’t. It wouldn’t be smart to fall for the man who’d impregnated her, not when she’d have to hand the child to him and walk away from both of them.
Jaycee didn’t let her step falter, but her anxious heart skipped a few beats. Oh God, how the hell had she got herself into this mess?