by Leslie North
“How are you today?”
“Good,” she said. “Mostly good.”
“Mostly good?” He guided her into the elevator and back out again on the first floor. “Why mostly? Still tired?” Archer was always doing that—guiding her places. He really liked to be in charge, and normally Claire wouldn’t be into that, but the last few weeks had been...comforting. In a fantasy sort of way. Not something she could get used to, especially now. The pressure built in her chest. I’m pregnant, she wanted to shout, but held it in.
They climbed into the back of the black SUV. The driver had the privacy panel up already. Sweet relief. “Mostly good, because I got sick this morning. I’ve been tired lately, and this morning my stomach was upset, and—”
“I’ll rearrange our plans.” Archer had his phone out without a moment’s hesitation. “We’ll go to the doctor. This is something you should have checked out, in case it’s—”
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
The silence in the SUV was so complete she could hear a hint of the road noise as the driver guided them across the city. It wasn’t easy, in a car this nice, to be aware of the road, but Claire might as well have been in her beat-up Honda.
“Pregnant?” Archer echoed. She took out the test from her purse and handed it to him. He stared down at it like the letters didn’t make sense. “You’re pregnant.”
The words in her mind had already built up too much steam for her to keep them inside. “I always thought I might like to be a mom in the future.” There. That felt better. “The far future. But now that parenthood is happening for me, I can roll with it.” She could roll with it. “But what I’m not going to do is...become dependent.”
He looked at her, the test still cradled in his big palms. “Dependent on what?”
“Dependent on you. If you...want to help, if you want to be involved, then I’ll accept that.” Saying it out loud gave her thoughts the clarity she’d been wanting since she woke up. “But I’m still going to pursue my certification and my career so that I can support myself and my child on my own.”
He searched her eyes with his own, mouth half open. The silence lengthened, then doubled, and the driver made a righthand turn toward the pub they’d planned to visit—an upscale place, like everywhere else Archer took her.
“Archer?”
He snapped out of it, then pressed a button below the privacy panel that let him talk to the driver. “Tom, take us to the hotel. Gin tasting isn’t going to happen tonight.”
In the hotel suite, Archer paced to the fully stocked bar, took down a bottle of whiskey, and poured himself a shot. The burn of the alcohol cleared some of the buzzing from his mind. “Something to drink?” he said over his shoulder, and Claire stepped up beside him. “No. You can’t have anything to drink.”
“No.” Claire wore a half smile on her face, a little shellshock in her eyes. “I can’t.”
“Can you fly? You’re going to need to be able to fly, if all of this holds together.”
“If all of what holds together?” She wrinkled her nose. “The pregnancy?”
“The partnership with Guangzhou Fabai.” His mind raced ahead to the inevitability of how this partnership would progress. The Lis had come to the United States, and he would need to go to China to meet with them once things were set up here. It would make the most sense to travel with Claire. She’d know the partnership inside and out by then. “Does it make a difference if we take my private jet to China?”
“Are we going to China?” How was she so calm? “I don’t know if I can fly yet. I haven’t been to the doctor.”
“Okay.” He took another gulp of whiskey and tried to get a grip. “You’re pregnant.”
“With your baby,” she said carefully. “There hasn’t been anyone else.”
Archer heard the nervousness barely concealed in her voice, and a rush of emotion almost took him out at the knees. It was a storm of surprise and joy and fear, and something deeper, wilder.
He had to step up. He was going to be a father.
He set the whiskey glass on the bar with a solid thunk and took Claire in his arms. She melted into him with a little sigh that stirred something behind his breastbone—something more solid than the infatuated lust he’d been living on for weeks now.
He couldn’t entertain that feeling. And even as he held her close, her chest rising and falling against his ribs, he steeled himself not to let that kind of emotion in.
He couldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
His father had sacrificed everything for his family. He had given up his dreams to make sure everyone else was happy, and his life had passed him by. Archer wasn’t going to make the same mistake. He was still going to make one of his father’s dreams come true—a thriving international business. And he was going to travel. He’d see the world in the way his father never got to. It would be a balancing act, swinging between the duties of fatherhood and keeping the business going. He couldn’t afford a false move.
“I’m not proposing,” he said.
Claire laughed, stepping back with her hands still at his waist. “How romantic.”
He laughed, too, feeling a knot at the base of his gut unclench. “What I mean is that...of course I want to be involved in my child’s life. Of course I’ll help you raise the child. I want both of you to have everything you need. But I think it’s best if we draw a line around this.”
“What kind of line? A no proposal line?”
“Exactly that kind of line. I won’t give up on you. My father didn’t raise me to be the kind of man who walks away from his obligations.” He saw a flicker of something in Claire’s eyes, gone too fast for him to put a name to it. “My brothers are better family men than I am, but I won’t let you down. I’ll hire all the nannies you want. But I won’t give up my career or my travels.”
“I’m glad you said that.” Claire looked him in the eye, but he didn’t quite know if he believed her. “Like I said, I’m not giving up my job, either. We can do this without any...romantic entanglement.” She let go of his waist and stuck out her hand for him to shake. “Deal?”
He shook. “Deal.” But then he pulled her close again, overcome by the need to have her pressed up against him. “We can still have sexual entanglements, right?”
Claire snorted. “You think I’d give up my spot in your bed just to prove a point?”
“I think you might.”
“Fine. But do you think I’d give it up tonight? I’m pregnant. Isn’t that something to celebrate?”
The hope in her eyes burned a powerful trail of passion straight through him. “Yes. But if we can’t do a real toast, what should we do?”
Claire stretched her arms over her head and leaned into him, giving him an intoxicating view of her breasts in the ballet-cut neckline of her dress. “I don’t know. I think I could use a lie down.”
He ran his hands down the sides of her body, feeling her shiver and quake underneath him. She was pregnant with his child, and it was unbearably sexy. Archer pressed a kiss to her collarbone, then worked his way back up to her soft lips. She opened her mouth with a groan and let him explore her.
By the time they were at the bed, he’d done away with her dress. It didn’t take much longer to rid her of her bra and panty set. And then she was stretched naked beneath him on the covers. Archer stripped off his own clothes and climbed up next to her, propping himself on one arm so he could trace the paths of her body with his other hand. Claire lay with her eyes closed, arms above her head, breathing fast.
He circled one nipple with the tip of his finger, then the other, watching them rise to tight peaks. Then he dipped down to her belly button and circled that, too. Claire spread her legs a few inches, and he took the invitation, brushing his fingers along the inside of her thighs until she opened wider for him.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered into her ear.
She smiled, a lazy, brilliant thing. “You’re teasing me.”
“What, by doing this?” He dipped his fingers into her folds and found her wet already. He coaxed more wetness from her with a few deft strokes of his fingers, and with a few more he had her moaning.
“Yes,” she gasped. “By doing that.”
“What about this?” He teased at her entrance with two fingers. “Is this...okay?” He paused, holding his hand still, though he badly wanted to keep playing with her. The way her hips moved back and forth when he did this...oh, it was heaven to see. And feel.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I’m sure it is.”
“Good. We’ll get there.”
Her eyes flew open. “What are we going to do first?”
He raised her legs and ducked under them, positioning himself to devour her. “You’ll see.”
Claire’s answering gasp was music to his ears and he had to admit that he could become addicted to the pleasure noises she made as he worked to draw them out of her. Once he’d given her, her first orgasm, he rose up to his knees and looked down upon her. She positively glowed and he wasn’t sure if it was from her orgasm or the pregnancy. Whichever it was, it suited her.
He must have taken too long because she opened her eyes to look up at him. “Is something wrong?” She started to sit up to reach for him, but he took her hand and kissed her palm.
“I was enjoying the view.”
At her answering chuckle, he stretched out above her, resting on his left forearm, his own smile meetings her. Then he kissed her again. She reached up to grip his shoulders as he shifted until he was over her. Guiding himself in, she gasped into the kiss before shifting to wrap her legs around his hips.
Archer wanted to go slow. At least he had every intention of doing so, but as soon as he was sheathed inside Claire and he could feel her quiver around him, she gripped his shoulders tighter, urging him to go faster and he lost himself to her as their pleasure grew.
He had every intention of waiting until she came again, but she shifted her pelvis causing him to bottom out. “I’m not sure I can wait,” he warned her.
Opening her eyes, she lifted her head to kiss him, but before she did, she told him, “Don’t wait, I’m ready.”
Adjusting his speed, his thrusts became more sporadic and before he knew it, she was coming apart around him and he was joining her.
4
Claire lay on the exam table under a white sheet that was surprisingly soft, a wand pressed inside her by Dr. Rachel Lindstrom, the OB-GYN she’d chosen with Archer back during that first week. He’d hinted that he might want to come to appointments with her, but she’d had to beg the receptionist to get in on short notice this morning, desperate to get relief from the unrelenting morning sickness that had been getting progressively worse the last couple weeks to where she wasn’t sure she could work. He could come to all the others. Now that she’d discovered what an internal ultrasound was, she was glad that he wasn’t in the room. Which made no sense. But there it was.
“Well, Claire.” She snapped her attention back to the appointment. “You can see your babies up there on the screen.”
Claire tipped her head to look, and the words registered in her mind like the boom of a cannon. “What—” She said it so forcefully she almost threw up again. “What did you say?” she whispered.
Dr. Lindstrom smiled at her in the softly lit exam room. “We don’t always see hyperemesis gravidarum with twins, but it is more common. And you’re having twins.” She pointed a finger at the screen, and the image gained a clarity it hadn’t had before. “There’s Twin A, and there’s Twin B.”
Claire stared, her mouth hanging open, as Dr. Lindstrom took some more measurements, the machine whirring gently in the background.
After what seemed like forever and no time at all, she pulled the wand away and helped Claire sit up. “I’ll print out some pictures,” she said. “Is there someone you’d like to call?”
“I—” Claire shook her head. “There’s someone I need to see, but no. I don’t need to call anyone.”
The older woman patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back with those pictures, and then we can go over the approach to hyperemesis. We’ll get you through it,” she said, and went out.
Fifteen minutes later, Claire stood outside the OB’s office, staring down at the grainy ultrasound pictures. There they were. Twin A and Twin B. She had instructions tucked into her purse—take it easy, try to get fluids, if it gets bad, call the office and go to the ER.
Twins.
She had to tell Archer.
“I’m here to see Archer—Mr. Preston,” she said, smiling as casually as she could at Crystal, Archer’s secretary.
The woman gave her a once-over. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m feeling great.” She swallowed down another wave of nausea. The Sea-Bands she’d gotten at the drugstore on the way over had helped a little, but maybe that was just the placebo effect. It was hard to tell, what with her nerves. Neither of them had planned on twins. How was she supposed to handle motherhood if she couldn’t even handle pregnancy? Was she supposed to walk around with Sea-Bands on her wrists for the next seven months? What if she wasn’t cut out for any of this? “If he has a couple minutes, I’d be so grateful if you could—”
“Claire?” Archer stood in the doorway to his main office, thunder in his eyes. Her stomach did a slow spiral to the floor. “There aren’t any meetings scheduled today.”
His tone cut her to the quick, and hot shame gave a sick overlay to the nausea that bubbled in her gut. “I know that. I just need to talk to you.” She could feel Crystal’s eyes on her skin like a sunburn. “If you don’t have time, I can call you later—”
“Come in.” He jerked his head over his shoulder. “I’m free for the next few minutes.” She followed him inside as fast as her body would allow, and Archer shut the door behind them. “We don’t have this kind of relationship, Claire,” he said, irritation bristling in his tone. “You can’t just come here on your off days and—”
“I’m not trying to take advantage of the situation,” she shot back, a flare of anger lighting up the inside of her chest. “I’m really sick.” As the words hit the air she felt her knees go weak. Archer leaped forward and caught her just in time, guiding her to a chair. “I’ve been begging off plans for the last few weeks because I can’t stop throwing up.”
“Oh, jeez.” He grabbed a plastic waste bin from next to his desk. “Right now?”
“All day, all night—I just left the doctor.” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. The nausea let up enough for her to keep talking. “I have hyperemesis gravidarum.”
“What’s that?” Archer said.
“Morning sickness on steroids,” said Claire, and she swallowed hard. “It’s more common in pregnancies where...where there are multiples.”
“Multiples?”
Claire opened her eyes. “Twins. I’m pregnant with twins.”
Archer’s eyes went wide. “Twins?”
“Yes. Two babies,” she said wryly. “Maybe I should have called you, but...I was scared.” She looked down at her lap, tears burning at the corners of her eyes. She hated those tears. The last thing Claire wanted was to look like a chin-quivering child in front of Archer. “Anyway, I thought I’d come share the news.”
He knelt next to her and took her hand, all the tension in the air changing shape around her. It was wrapped around both of them now, and she felt it binding them together instead of forcing them apart. Or maybe that was just the nausea.
“I’m freaked out, too,” Archer said softly. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “I wasn’t sure I could be a dad to one kid, and now there’s two? I—” He blew out a breath. “It’s a lot.”
“It’s a lot. Of babies,” Claire said, a nervous laugh bubbling up from her chest. “And I feel terrible. Not that I’m pregnant—I actually just feel terrible. I’m exhausted, and I can’t stop being sick. Right now is a rare exception. I don’t know how I’m going to do it all.” It didn�
�t seem quite as daunting with Archer holding her hand. She knew she shouldn’t let herself get lost in that feeling—it was nothing, not a guarantee of anything. But for the moment, it was making her feel better.
Emotions flashed across Archer’s face—a serious look, then contemplation, a second of fear, and then…he seemed to come to a decision. He nodded to himself, like he needed the encouragement.
“You’ll have to move,” Archer said.
“Wow.” She would have shaken her head, but that kind of thing made her sicker than a dog these days. “You’re giving me whiplash. One minute, you’re all in new-dad mode, and the next, you’re all business.”
The smile on his face dimmed, then brightened. “This is business, in a way. If you consider our arrangement more like a business partnership.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Then as my co-parent, it only makes sense that you move into my house.”
Claire turned her head slowly, carefully, to face him. “What?”
“You can’t live at your place anymore. Somebody needs to take care of you while you’re sick. I can do some of the heavy lifting, and I have a housekeeper, but we can hire out if necessary.”
“Hire out who?”
“A nurse? I don’t know. What’s the treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum?”
“IV fluids, if I get dehydrated enough. I’m supposed to go to the ER if that happens. And I’m going to have more appointments than the average pregnancy. Twins.”
“Twins,” he echoed. “You won’t have to worry about driving to the appointments—my driver can take you. And if you want a nurse to come to the apartment to give...preventative IV fluids, we can do that too. I’ll coordinate it with your doctor.”
Claire laughed and regretted it instantly. “You can’t do that.”
“I can, if you give me permission.”