Her Secret, His Child: A Little Secret by Tara Quinn (rosie project .txt) 📕

strange access to what she was really feeling; it denied the possibility of lying to each other. He could feel that the child she'd borne him belonged to him.

He just couldn't love her anymore. And she'd known that, too.

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

"I'd been under a lot of pressure for about six weeks before that party, studying for exams." She heard herself giving him the evidence she could have given him at the beginning. "I hadn't… worked…at all."

He was watching her.

"For more than a month."

"You'd had a period."

Jamie nodded.

"What about…afterwards?"

"I told you, I've never been with anyone since."

For the first time in more than an hour, his eyes softened. She caught a glimpse of the man he really was, the man she'd recognized as good, compassionate, a soul mate. "You meant that," he said, speaking almost to himself. "You've been celibate since that night…"

She'd had to be. After what she'd done with Kyle, what she'd allowed herself to experience, to feel, she couldn't sleep with anyone else. It would have destroyed her. She'd lost her indifference, her impartiality.

' 'When I worked, I went off to a little room inside me. A room I'd found when I was just a child." Why she was bothering with this, she didn't know, but she wanted him to understand how different their night together had been. Maybe it was for Ashley's sake. He needed to know that she was a special child, the consequence of an incredible night, a night out of time.

He was silent, so she figured he was waiting for more and eventually continued. "I'd occupy myself

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

there for as long as it took." Jamie stopped, remembering, knowing she had to get through the next few minutes, just make it until Kyle left and then she could retreat to her invisible little room.

"Sometimes I'd make out lists of things I needed to do, make plans. I'd have conversations with a female friend, tell myself stories. I'd even sing songs that made me feel good."

Kyle's jaw clenched, the muscles in his face working. The rest of him was frozen, motionless, as he watched her.

"Sounds crazy, huh?"

The strong emotions flaring in Kyle's gaze threatened Jamie's composure. She wanted so desperately to run to him, to bury herself in the safety of his embrace.

"It sounds like a way of coping," he said.

In his voice, she heard the warmth she'd come to associate with him during their many long phone conversations.

"I never experienced anything with the men I was with, have no memory of what a single one of them felt like." She hadn't even realized that until now. "I just remember places I've lain and the things I did in my room while I was lying there. I could even tell you who I was conversing with in my head or what song I was singing."

"The mind's a pretty powerful thing." He was still her friend. Caring. "It takes care of itself."

"I didn't go to my room the night Ashley was conceived," she whispered, losing her battle with the emotions thundering through her.

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

She could tell her confession moved him. Sitting beside her on the couch he took her hand, touching her for the first time since he'd learned her shameful secret. He didn't say anything for a long time. Just leaned back against the couch, staring down at their clasped hands.

"Why?" His question was tortured.

"Why didn't I go there? Or why didn't I tell you what I was?"

' 'Why any of it? Why you? Why me? Why was that night so different? Why, as much as I hate all this, do I still care so damn much?"

' 'Maybe you were drawn to me that night because of who I was." She'd been wondering that ever since he'd told her about his mother.

"I had no idea you were working."

"Maybe not consciously." She focused on their clasped hands. "But men have a way of knowing. Maybe you sensed it. Maybe, with all your doubts, your self-recriminations, you needed me."

"But why you? Why not any of a hundred girls I could have found—girls more obvious about what they were?"

Jamie had no answer. Except one. "Maybe because / needed you.''

For the first time, Jamie put into words something she'd always instinctively known. "You saved me that night, Kyle. You tapped into the good that was still left inside me. The integrity that desperately needed to break free, to live and breathe. That night with you gave me the strength to be the woman I'd always believed I was meant to be."

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

Kyle let go of her hand and raked his fingers through his hair. "So why'd you do it in the first place?"

She couldn't share that with him yet. Not while he was still so full of disgust. Not when his question came more from curiosity than concern. She needed him to accept her as she was. To care for her regardless. Or they could never have a future.

"I never sat down one day and made a conscious choice to become a highly paid escort, Kyle." She wanted to stand up. To get away from him. But she wasn't going to run anymore. "One thing just led to another, each little step leading me down that road. One little step at a time didn't seem so bad."

"Right, and next you're going to be telling me there was nothing bad about a woman who'd entertain two men at a time on her son's bed."

"No, Kyle, I can't tell you that. Because it isn't true." She tried to be strong. "The life of a kept woman—of any kind—can't be anything but bad."

"Well, this certainly explains your reaction the night I told you about her." His tone was cold again, distant. "You could relate."

"I'm not your mother, Kyle."

She didn't have to defend herself. Didn't need him sitting in judgment of her. She did that just fine all by herself. But neither could she leave him hurting this way, thinking he'd bedded a woman just like the mother who'd