Читать книгу Committed to the Baby онлайн | страница 43

The thought of getting outside was a blessing. Outside. Into the air, where her perfume would get lost in the wind rather than clinging to every breath he took. “Fine.”

He pushed up from his black leather chair, and as he stepped around the edge of the desk, Maggie approached and held out his cane. He took it, his fingers brushing against hers just enough to kindle a brand-new fire in his gut. He pulled back, tightened his grip on the head of the blasted cane and started for the door.

“You’re walking easier,” she noted.

Irritation spiked inside him. He remembered a time when she had watched his ass for a different reason. “Yeah,” he admitted. “It still hurts like a bitch, but maybe it’s a little better.”

“Wow. Quite the compliment to my skills.”

He stopped and turned to look at her. “Maybe I’m doing well enough to just cut the therapy short.”

“Ooh, good effort,” she said and walked past him toward the front door.

Now it was his turn to watch her ass, and he for damn sure wasn’t doing it to check out her ability to walk. Then something struck him: the fact that she didn’t have her son on her hip. “Uh, don’t you have to watch…”

“Jonas?” she provided.

“Yeah.”

“Mrs. Carey has him. She loves watching him,” Maggie said, striding down the hall to the front door. Her boots, which clacked against the wood floor, sounded like a quickening heartbeat. “Says he reminds her so much of you it’s almost eerie.”

Justice scowled at her back. She managed to get one or two of those pointed digs in every day. Trying to make him see something that wasn’t there. A connection between her son and him.

He should just tell her, he thought, snatching his battered gray felt hat off the hook by the door. Tell her that he was sterile and be done with it. Then she could stop playing whatever game she was playing and he wouldn’t have to put up with any of this anymore.

But if he did that, she’d know. Know everything. Why he’d let her go. Why he’d lied. Why he felt less than a man because he hadn’t been able to give her the one thing she’d wanted. And, damn it, once he told her the truth, she’d feel sorry for him—and he couldn’t stand that. Better for him if she thought him a bastard.