He runs a hand behind his neck and nods.
“He is mine, by the way. Jake is. If he’s yours, then he’s mine too.”
“Okay,” he agrees softly, wrapping his arm over my shoulders.
“Where did he come from, Sawyer?” I tilt my head back to look at him, hoping I’m not overstepping my bounds.
“Well, Everly, when two adults take their clothing off, and the male adult sticks a part of his body into the female adult, sometimes—”
“Stop!” I punch him, laughing. “You know what I meant.”
“Rebecca used to work for me,” he says, stepping back and pinching the bridge of his nose briefly. “We dated. It was…” He pauses, thinking. “It wasn’t serious. She was convenient for me, if I’m being brutally honest. And I was an opportunity for her.”
“An opportunity how?” I ask, not liking the word.
“She embezzled five million dollars from me and disappeared about a week before Gabe caught onto the missing funds.” He shakes his head. “I can only assume she had no idea she was pregnant when she left, because Jake would have been a much bigger payout for her. Hell, I’d have given her everything for him.” He grips the divider in front of us, circling the carousel, his knuckles white.
“But instead she disappeared and changed her name. I have no idea what her end game was, if she was going to come back at some point looking to exchange him for the charges against her being dropped. I don’t know and she’s not cooperating.”
“But she’s in prison?” I clarify.
He nods, smiling. But it’s a sad smile, rueful. “Federal charges. She got caught on identity theft and tax evasion. They haven’t even added her sentence for the embezzlement yet. Embezzlements, I should say. I wasn’t the only one.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I am. The betrayal is so severe, there’s nothing I can say to lessen it.
“The worst part is, I don’t think she even wanted him. From what I can piece together, she only ever spent a few weeks at a time with him before leaving again. Looking for her next mark, I suppose.”
I nod, even though I can’t understand any of that.
“I didn’t want him either.” He says it softly, and I look up, surprised. “At first, when we realized there was this kid, and the timing was lining up to indicate that he was mine…” He shakes his head. “I wanted that DNA test to be negative more than anything.” His lips twist ruefully. “And then I met him, and within a minute I couldn’t imagine how I’d lived even a day without him.”
The carousel stops and we walk hand in hand to the exit, Jake flying out with a smile on his face.
“He’s exactly where he should be, Sawyer.”
Fifty
The following weekend we take him to a paint-your-own-pottery place. When I arrive at Sawyer’s I find a much older woman has replaced the young blonde nanny I spotted with him the week before. I ask Sawyer about it and he explains that Vanessa was one of several nannies and only agreed to come to Philadelphia for a couple of weeks while Alice made arrangements to move from Washington.
“Thank fuck.” I sigh in relief.
Sawyer raises his eyebrow so I elaborate. “Look, I’ve been more than understanding about your young, attractive assistant. But a beautiful young woman living under the same roof as you? It was testing the limits of my incredibly mature and generous nature.”
“You were jealous of Vanessa?” His mouth twitches.
“Um, lemme think,” I say, tapping my lip in pretend concentration. “Yes.”