The Misconception (15 page)

Jax still towered over her, although by about four fewer inches, which wasn’t ideal, but better than before. He cut his eyes at Tracy’s shoes, shrugged and continued surveying her home. She followed his gaze as it ran over her gleaming hardwood floors, decorative fireplace and Federal Period reproduction furniture.

“This is a lot bigger than it looks from outside,” he said.

“That’s the way it’s designed,” she said, frustrated that he hadn’t complimented the home she so loved. “The rooms are situated north-south instead of east-west. It’s a form of architecture that was used in the British colonies.”

He nodded.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well what?”

He was going to make her ask, darn it. “Well, do you like it?”

That grin appeared again, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look even sexier. “Does it matter if I do?”

“Of course not,” Marietta snapped. “I was just curious.”

“Do you know why a woman is so much more curious than a man?”

Marietta’s annoyance fled, replaced by quick dread. “This isn’t a joke, is it?”

“Shh,” he warned. “You’ll ruin the punch line.”

“I thought you were going to do that.”

“Come on, be a sport and answer the question. Do you know why a woman is so much more curious than a man?”

“No,” she said, figuring that arguing with him would just prolong the agony.

“Me, neither. I’ve never been curious enough to ask.” He grinned. “Get it? I’m a man, so of course I wouldn’t have asked.”

The joke was so mind-boggingly bad and his expression so amused that she felt as though she’d been transported into another universe. Come to think of it, she had been. Jax was trying to change his status from sperm supplier to husband and father, wasn’t he?

“For the record, I do like your place.” He moved past her with a bravado and confidence her evolutionary foremothers had once found hard to resist in their male counterparts. “Some clutter here and there would make it more homey, but other than that, it’s very charming. Is the kitchen this way?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, so she didn’t have any choice but to try to walk in Tracy’s heels. Feeling as though she were wearing cement overshoes, she clomped after him through the narrow house to her kitchen, where her microwave was thawing a frozen meal. He peered inside the appliance and turned it off.

Marietta gaped at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I told you. I brought dinner.” He put his bag down on the counter and extracted the containers, holding each one up as though it were a carnival prize. “The lady at the health store said you can’t beat soy pasta for protein enrichment. Or bean curds. Or wheat germ.”

Marietta made a face as her appetite fled and the contents of her stomach boiled. She didn’t know which was worse. Having him invade her house or having him bring her bean curds.

“You know what? Why don’t we hold off on dinner and talk?” Marietta pulled out a kitchen chair and gratefully sat down on it. Her feet were killing her. Feet weren’t designed to lift ten-pound weights. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Looking surprised that she had capitulated so easily, he nodded and sat down catty-corner from her. She immediately edged her chair away from his, but he closed the distance by putting his elbows on the table. She leaned back in her chair. “Yeah, actually, it is. I wanted to talk about—”

“Me first,” she interrupted, determined to ask the questions that had haunted her all afternoon. “What’s your IQ?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m sure it falls into the average range.”

She closed her eyes. It was just as she feared. She’d gone to great lengths to enlist a sperm supplier of superior intelligence, and instead she’d gotten one who proclaimed himself average.

“Don’t worry,” Jax continued, “compared to the rest of my family, I’m actually pretty bright. My sister’s so dumb she thinks blood vessels are some kind of ship. She can’t even count to twenty without taking off her shoes first.”

Marietta’s head pounded, but she forced herself to ask the next question for the good of her baby. “Do any diseases or health problems run in your family?”

“We’re a pretty hardy bunch,” he said slowly, regarding her through narrowed eyes. “Physically, that is. Mentally, all bets are off. My Aunt Martha thinks the reason she’s always bumping into things is because her children’s toys come to life when she’s asleep and rearrange the furniture. And Great Uncle Wilbur collects his nail clippings and tries to sell them at the corner store as slivers of ivory.”

“Really?” Marietta asked as horror dawned.

“Oh, yeah. So many Jacksons have been committed to insane asylums that, in some parts of Chicago, they no longer refer to them as mental patients. They just call them Jackson patients.”

“You can’t be serious,” Marietta wailed.

“Of course I’m not serious.” Jax emitted a short, unamused laugh. He removed his elbows from the table and sat back in the kitchen chair. “Not only don’t I have a sister, but I don’t have an Aunt Martha or Uncle Wilbur either.”

Marietta thumped the table with the palm of her hand. “How could you tease me like that?”

“What do you expect when you ask those kinds of questions?”

“I was merely trying to get a handle on my unborn child’s genetic makeup.”

“
Our
unborn child, Marietta.
Our child
. Creating a child isn’t like custom building a home. All of it’s chance. You take what you get.”

Marietta already loved the baby growing inside her no matter what, but she didn’t feel like sharing that information with Jax. They had more important things to discuss.

“I am going to take what I get,” she said firmly. “I’m taking the baby. It’s you I don’t want any part of.”

“Tough,” he said, sitting up straighter, “because I’m part of the package.”

“You can’t still be under the delusion that I’ll marry you.” Marietta would have laughed if her throat weren’t so tight. “I’m not going to marry anybody. Ever. Least of all you.”

He straightened from the table in a ploy she recognized. He was using his height to speak to her from a position of strength. If her feet hadn’t protested at the thought of standing in the four-inch heels again, she would have gotten up, too.

“Why’s that exactly?” He crossed his arms over his chest, calling attention to how broad it was, to what a fine physical specimen he was. If Marietta had been born a couple of millenniums ago, she would have snapped him up, spurred by the knowledge that he would protect her from enemies. But she hadn’t been born in the Stone Age, and in this time period
he
was the enemy.

“For starters, you’re a stranger. I don’t even know where you’re from or what you do for a living.”

His body twitched slightly in what Marietta thought was a wince, but she must have imagined it because he answered easily enough. “I’m a businessman from Chicago. But I wasn’t asking why you’re opposed to marrying me. I’m asking why you’re opposed to marriage.”

“Because it’s an unworkable institution.”

“Lots of people make it work.”

“Wrong.” She raised her finger in a professorial gesture. “Nearly half of all marriages in this country end in divorce. Of the couples who stay married, are you really so naive to think that most of them are happy? Haven’t you read the statistics on how many men cheat on their wives?”

“How about wives cheating on their husbands?”

“That happens too, but not nearly as often. A man is predisposed to stick around only until his drive for variety and sexual excitement get the better of him. Then, driven by his urge to spread his genetic material as widely as possible, off he goes, his penis leading the way.”

Jax’s face reddened. If Marietta hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was embarrassed. But this was a man so expert at lovemaking he’d caused a professor versed in the biological undercurrents of sex to never want to leave his bed.

“You don’t mince words,” he said. “But none of them matter. You’re pregnant with my child so you’re marrying me.”

“That’s ridiculous! Even from you. You’re the one who claims to believe in love. You can’t possibly think you’re in love with me.”

“Of course I’m not.” He didn’t hesitate before he answered, which was nothing less than Marietta expected but as piercing as a lance. If he had to be in love with somebody, what was wrong with her?

“Then what is it?” she forced herself to ask. “Do you want to do right by me because I’m pregnant?”

“It has nothing to do with you,” Jax said, and it was like he’d just thrown a handful of salt in her lance wound. “This is all about our child. Our baby has a right to be born into a house with married parents. He, or she, isn’t going to start life at a disadvantage if I can help it.”

She rapped the table in frustration. “Being raised by a single parent doesn’t make a baby disadvantaged!”

The phone rang, but Marietta was so agitated she let her answering machine pick up. She heard the machine click on, her voice instructing the caller to leave a message.

“It damn well does.” He brought his face, with all its maddening symmetry, close to hers. “You’re marrying me, Marietta, so you better get used to the idea.”

“Of all the arrogant, overbearing, egotistical—”

“I’m calling for Dr. Marietta Dalrymple on behalf of the television show ‘Meet the Scientists.’” The professional voice on the answering machine stopped Marietta’s tirade. “A guest we had scheduled for Thursday’s program on evolutionary biology canceled. Because of your views on sex and evolution, you’ve been recommended as a replacement. Since it’s already Tuesday, the catch is you’d have to fly into New York tomorrow so we can prep you for Thursday’s program. Please call me as—”

Marietta leapt out of her chair, hitting the top of her head on the bottom of Jax’s chin in the process. She rubbed her head, bumped her leg on the kitchen table and hurried to the phone.

She snatched it up before the representative of the most well-regarded talk show — okay, the only talk show — about science in America, could hang up. Breathlessly, she listened as he outlined a plan that involved her flying to New York the next day, spending the night in a hotel and taking a limo to the studio for the taping of Thursday morning’s show.

“Does that sound workable?” the rep asked.

“Yes.” Marietta barely refrained from shouting the word. She’d have to get permission from Kennedy College’s dean of biology first, but the plan was eminently workable. She’d gladly crawl to New York for the opportunity to air her views nationally even if the viewing audience on public television was small. “Yes, it sounds very workable.”

When she hung up the phone, she was giddy with excitement.

“I take it that was good news.” Jax grinned at her.

“Stupendous news. Marvelous news.” In her excitement, she forgot she was angry at him and hurried across the room to where he stood. She looked up at him, beaming, her enthusiasm unspoiled by the realization that he towered over her because she’d left the clunky shoes under the table. “Douglas Donaldson saw the article about me in the
Washington Post
and had his assistant phone to invite me to be on Thursday’s show of ‘Meet the Scientists.’”

“Forgive me for asking, but what exactly is that?”

“It’s a public-television show. It’s sort of like ‘Meet the Press,’ only with scientists. Guest scientists discuss a different topic each week. They want me to talk about sex.” She clapped her hands. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“It is wonderful.” He opened his arms, and she went into them. Picking her up, he whirled her around until she, Marietta Dalrymple, actually giggled. “It’s incredibly wonderful,” he added.

“It is, isn’t it?” she asked when she stopped revolving. At least, she was pretty sure she wasn’t spinning anymore. Since he was holding her so her mouth was level with his, she couldn’t tell much except that he was smiling. The thought that he would take joy in her pleasure warmed her almost as much as the contact of his body against hers. She moved her lips forward just a fraction, but it was far enough to make contact with his mouth.