Secrets of a Shy Socialite

Well that had gone better than expected. Justin felt lighter. Freer. Except now he had to deal with Jena. A girl he’d despised in high school, who, apparently, was the very same girl with whom he’d shared some of the more special boy-girl moments of his teenage years. With Jena, not Jaci.

Jena who used to look down her snobby nose at him.

Jena, who’d enticed him into bed by pretending to be her sister.

“But I made snacks,” Jena called after Ian and Jaci, seeming nervous, her confidence slipping.

“I could sure use one of those beers.” Lined up on the coffee table. His favorite brand.

Jena rushed to open one and held it out to him.

Ian closed the door to Jaci’s bedroom, leaving Justin and Jena alone. He took a swig of brew. Cold. Refreshing.

They stood there in awkward silence.

Justin smiled. “You’re no better than all those girls you criticized back in high school, whose reputations you disparaged for dating me.”

“Dating you?” she asked, looking him straight in the eyes. “Don’t you mean rubbing up against you and sucking face with you in the hallway of our high school or bragging about giving you oral sex in the boys’ locker room and going all the way with you on school grounds?”

Good times.

“I refuse to lump myself in with those girls. But I’m sorry.” She fidgeted with a button on her blouse. “I was wrong to let you to believe I was Jaci. It was dishonest and repugnant and I ran away like a coward afterwards.” She shook her head. “I am mortified by my behavior.”

“And so you should be.” Fancy that, Princess Jena Piermont capable of apologizing and offering a convincing show of remorse. “But I think repugnant is taking it a bit far.” Because he’d enjoyed every minute of their time together, until the dawn of a new day brought with it insight and hindsight. And a hellacious hangover he would not soon forget.

Now for two issues that had been burning his gut for months. First, “Please tell me you were a virgin.” As horrible as it was to think he’d taken her virginity without the care of a knowing, sober bed-partner, the alternative was even worse. That he’d unknowingly been too rough and hurt her. Either way the evidence had stained his sheet.

“I’d rather not—”

“Please,” he took her by the arm, gentle but firm, and turned her to face him. He didn’t like her, hated the upper class lifestyle she embraced and the elitist, unlikable people she called friends, but she didn’t deserve … “The thought that I might have hurt you …” tore him up.

“You didn’t,” she assured him. “A little pinch from it being my first time, that’s all.”

“Was it …?” Good. He cursed himself for not remembering every vivid detail.

“It was fine,” she said quietly. Shyly.

Justin cringed at her bland choice of adjective. Fine, as in acceptable? Adequate? Nothing special?

“Until the next morning.”

When he’d totally lost it. “Yeah, about that. I woke up and noticed the condom from the night before draped over the trashcan beside the bed. With a big slice down the side.” And his heart had stopped. “I don’t know if it happened before, during or after, but on top of thinking I’d ruined my friendships with Jaci and Ian, I realized there was a chance she, well, you, could get pregnant.” He took another swig of beer. “I panicked.” How could he have been so carless? So unaware?

“Especially once you’d found out you may have gotten me pregnant and not Jaci,” Jena said. “If I remember correctly your exact words were, ‘Oh, God. That’s even worse.’”

Had he really said that out loud? From the hurt look in her eyes, yup, he had. Dammit. “Because we have nothing in common. We don’t even like each other. But bottom line,” after years of being treated like an afterthought and an inconvenience by his father, his only parent for as long as he could remember, Justin had decided, “I don’t want kids. With any woman. Or marriage.” He didn’t do relationships. Never could manage to give a woman what she needed outside of the bedroom. Too emotionally detached, according to numerous women who’d expected more than he was capable of giving, too self-centered to share his life with another person. Like father like son, apparently. “I like my life the way it is.” Women around when he wanted them, gone when he didn’t. Doing what he wanted when he wanted, on his own terms, without negotiation, explanation or altercation. “But I handled the possibility that our night together may have had long-term consequences poorly. I’m sorry. You deserved better.”

She looked on the verge of tears.

Some unfamiliar instinct urged him to take her into his arms to comfort her.

He resisted.

“Hey. No tears,” he said, trying to keep things upbeat. “It all worked out. Wherever you took off to has obviously been good for you. You look great. And no consequences.” Now what? He should leave. Except he didn’t want to, was still coming to terms with the fact he and Jena had shared some magical moments back in high school. Jena, not Jaci as he’d originally thought, which explained why, after each encounter, she’d so adamantly insisted it never be repeated or spoken of again.

At the sound of a baby crying in the hallway, Jena glanced at her watch and stiffened. “There’s …”

The baby’s cry grew louder. Someone knocked at the door. “I’d hoped to have a few more minutes to ease into this,” Jena said nervously on her way to open the door.

Mandy, the wife of one of Ian’s army buddies who’d been killed in Iraq, stood there holding a tiny, red-faced, screaming infant while a second tiny, red-faced, infant squalled from a stroller, and her toddler cried in a kid carrier on her back.

“I’m so sorry,” Mandy said. “I know you said seven o’clock, but Abbie’s hysterical and we couldn’t calm her down. Then she set off Annie. And now Maddie.”

Jena reached for the baby in Mandy’s arms and a heavy weight of doom settled on Justin’s shoulders. No.

“This little consequence’s name is Abbie,” Jena said brightly holding up the baby dressed in pink. “That one is named Annie.” She motioned with her elbow to the stroller where Mandy was unstrapping the baby dressed in yellow. “This is why I asked Ian to bring you down tonight. Now that you know, you can go.”

What? Justin opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He stood there idly, unable to move, watching Jena, her expression worried as she paced, patting the baby’s back, trying to calm her.

Girls. Annie named for Jena’s mother. Abbie, for his grandmother? Who’d done her best to impart a mother’s love and wisdom, and fill in the gaps left by a disinterested father too busy for his own son. Maybe if she’d lived past his eighth birthday, Justin wouldn’t have followed in his father’s pleasure seeking footsteps, avoiding attachments and commitments with women.

Twins.

His.

There’d be fathers toasting, high-fiving, and laughing to the point of tears all around the tri-state area when the news got out. “I can’t wait for the day someone like you shows up at your door to take out your daughter. I hope he’s as careless with her heart as you’ve been with …” Justin couldn’t remember the daughter’s name. One of dozens of silly girls who’d hung on his every word, offered themselves to him then got their feelings hurt when he didn’t reciprocate their professed caring and love.

What goes around comes around.

Justin wanted to run, to close himself in the quiet of his condo, alone to think. But he would not be dismissed like one of her servants. “I’ll go when I’m good and ready to go.”

“Right,” she snapped. “Because you only do what you want when you want with a total disregard for what another person might want.”

Maybe so, but she was far from perfect, too. “Unless someone resorts to deceit to get me to do otherwise.” He glared at her.

Unaffected by his retort or his scathing look she fired back, “And you’re so easy to trick because you’re so darn shallow you only see what you want to see, a pretty face and a pair of breasts.”

Jaci ran out of the back bedroom, followed by Ian. “What happened?” Jaci asked, taking the baby in yellow from Mandy while Ian lifted Maddie out of her carrier and handed her to her mom.

“Something’s got Abbie all worked up and she got the other two crying,” Jena explained.

Ian walked over to Justin. “You okay?”

“You knew about the babies and didn’t tell me?” Justin asked, finding it hard to breath. No warning? No chance to adjust or digest? To figure out how to respond? What the hell to do?

“Jena wanted to tell you herself.”

“How long have you known?” The screaming echoed in his ears. Dread knotted in his gut. Life as he knew it was over.