by Terra Little
For about the space of a heartbeat, he’d been considering trying for something more than a fling with Olivia, but in hindsight he realized that it would’ve never worked. He’d taken more time off work over the past few months than he had in the entire time that he’d been with the agency, which should’ve been his first clue that he was trying to force something that just didn’t fit. She had obviously figured that out before he had and done the smart thing by ending it the first chance she got.
Deep down, he knew she’d made the right decision.
But that didn’t stop him from wanting her. From rolling over in the middle of the night, looking to bury his straining cock deep inside of her as he drifted off to sleep, and then waking up hours later with his stiff cock in his fist, a satisfied groan on his lips and his sheets damp. It didn’t stop him from thinking about her constantly and kicking himself for not telling her the truth sooner, or from feeling like shit because he’d made her cry.
“Whatever it is can’t be that bad. Penny for your thoughts?”
Cooper looked up from the scotch neat that he was nursing and gazed at the woman standing at the edge of his table. After a few seconds his face instinctively relaxed into a smile. He loved women, all women, and this one was exceptionally pretty, in an athletic, fitness guru sort of way. She ran early in the mornings. He knew because, for the past three mornings, he’d crawled out of bed at the crack of dawn to run with her. And she was a vegetarian, which for just as many evenings now had been a bone of good-natured contention between them during the daily meals that they had gotten into the habit of sharing.
“I’d rather hear yours,” he said, rising from his seat and motioning for her to join him. Her name was Alexandra Mason, and she was also smart and funny and easy to talk to. “How was the movie?”
And tempting as hell, he thought as she slid into the chair across from him and folded her espresso-brown arms on the tabletop in front of her. She’d been promoted to Special Agent in Charge a little over a year ago and had come to the conference in Indiana as part of her on-the-job training, to co-facilitate a series of breakout sessions on cultural diversity in the workplace. They had met one afternoon when he had finished facilitating his own workshop a few minutes early and had sat in on the tail end of one of hers. She had come up to him afterward and struck up a conversation. That was on Monday, the first day of the conference. Today was Friday, the last day of it, and he was running out of excuses to avoid taking her to bed.
You could always just tell her the truth, the little angel on his right shoulder whispered in his ear. That you’re afraid you’ll call out the wrong name.
Shut up, the devil on his left shoulder shot back.
Why? It’s the truth, isn’t it?
“It was even worse than you said it would be,” Alexandra said, laughing. She and a group of other conference attendees had gone to the movies right after dinner, but since he had already seen the cinematic fiasco that they planned to see, he had begged off. “While everyone else was screaming, I was laughing hysterically. You should’ve come,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning across the table toward him. “We could’ve sneaked up to the balcony and made out.”
They had done that once, he recalled, and felt a stab of guilt. Kissed passionately and touched one another with intent, but he had come to his senses and pulled away before things had gone any further. She was attractive and any red-blooded, heterosexual man would be a fool not to take what she was offering, but she wasn’t the woman he craved and he had grown accustomed to being able to look himself in the mirror every day. Taking advantage of women, no matter how much either of them stood to enjoy it, had never been his style. And of course there was also the very likely possibility that he actually would mess around and call out Olivia’s name at the worst possible time.
“Now I’m really sorry I missed out,” he joked. “Why don’t I buy you a drink to make it up to you?”
“You’re on. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
After their impromptu petting session the other day, Cooper had avoided being alone with Alexandra whenever possible. But tonight, as they laughed and talked, and it got later and later, the crowd slowly tapered off and the drinks kept coming, his common sense eventually exited stage left. Somehow he found himself walking her to her hotel room door, even though that was how they had ended up kissing once before, and he found himself doing it at the witching hour, when the hotel corridors were quiet, the lights were dim and his inhibitions were at an all-time low. He knew he was in trouble long before they stepped off the elevator onto her floor and he started walking the green mile.
The devil was back. This is a classic example of a victimless crime. You know that, right?
Tomorrow morning they’d both hop on two different planes, fly off in opposite directions and never see each other again, not anytime soon, anyway. And there was a brand-new, unused condom in his wallet, just waiting to fulfill its purpose. Technically the damn devil was right. Who would know? And really, who would care?
“So, does she know?” Alexandra asked quietly as they strolled. Her arm brushed his, and then their fingers touched and lingered in the skinny space between them. He glanced down at her, found her shrewd brown-eyed gaze waiting for his, and realized that he was hovering somewhere between being alarmingly tipsy and dangerously drunk. Too far gone to feign ignorance.
“What? That I’m drunk and tempted to use that as an excuse to sleep with you?” He slipped his hands in his trouser pockets, where he could keep track of them. “Of course not. When did that become the kind of thing that a man tells a woman?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she leaned in and stage-whispered. She was leaning toward being drunk, too. “I was asking if she knew that you were so miserable without her.”
“Damn, is it that obvious?”
“A little. Have you tried calling her?”
“Only about a million times,” he admitted sheepishly. “She’s not speaking to me. What else would you suggest trying?”
“I guess you could try standing under her bedroom window and serenading her.”
“Yeah, I’m not doing that,” he said and she laughed. “Anything else?”
“The only other thing I could suggest—” she said as they approached the door to her room and she slipped her key card into the palm of his hand, “—is allowing me to help you forget her for the next little while.”
“Ah, there’s that temptation again.” Taking the card from her, Cooper slid it into the slot in the door and turned the knob when the light flashed green. The door swung open and the scent of her perfume rushed out of the room at him, stroking his needy senses intimately. “You’re a very sexy woman, Miss Mason. Do you know that?”
“But?”
“But,” he said, passing her the key card and stepping back from the threshold. “I’d never be able to forgive myself if I did the wrong thing just because no one was looking and I thought I could get away with it. So I think I’d better go back to my own room and sleep it off.”
Clearly disappointed, Alexandra leaned against the doorjamb and pouted prettily. “Mmm, that’s too bad, Dr. Talbot. Something tells me that you’re a great fuck.” Her candor rocked Cooper’s head back on his neck and flooded his face with burning heat. Speechless, he looked down at the floor and cleared his throat. One wrong word, one wrong move and things would go south really fast.
“Uh... I think I’d better go,” he murmured and took the most difficult step of them all—the first one.
Just as all the others had, the call that he tried to place to Olivia a few minutes later went straight to voice mail. But he was drunk and not exactly thinking straight or with the right head, so it occurred to him that he was likely dodging a proverbial bullet. What would he have said anyway, if she had chosen this call, out of all of the others that he’d made to her with no success, as the
one that she would finally answer? That he was weak and getting weaker by the day? That he missed her taste, her touch and her scent, so much that he’d almost let himself sink to new lows just so he could pretend for a little while? That he was on the verge of becoming that guy, the one who conjured up images of a woman he couldn’t have while he was making love to a woman that he didn’t want? Or even better, that he had turned down a very attractive woman’s advances because he was pining away for someone who’d made it very clear that she couldn’t care less what the hell he did either way?
Thinking of you, he texted Olivia as he stumbled through his dark hotel suite and collapsed on the neatly made bed. He was an idiot. If tonight didn’t prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt, then nothing would.
* * *
Olivia was sick. She’d caught a cold or the flu or eaten something that her stomach didn’t agree with. It was impossible to know which, because her symptoms were a mash-up of all of them and she was experiencing all of them at once. One minute she was hot and sweaty, and the next cold and shivering. Her sinuses were congested, she had a low-grade fever and she couldn’t seem to keep anything solid down. It occurred to her that she should get up and drag herself to the nearest urgent-care center for a medical checkup, but the farthest she made it when she did finally manage to climb out of bed was to the adjoining bathroom.
Two seconds after she brushed her teeth, flossed and then gargled with mouthwash, her roiling stomach led her over to the toilet, where she promptly threw up the chicken noodle soup that she’d risked eating for dinner. Back at the sink, she rinsed her mouth, brushed her teeth again and then splashed her face with cold water. Then she padded, barefoot and miserable, back to her bed and collapsed onto the mattress.
Two and a half days, she thought as she tucked her freezing feet underneath the covers and flipped her pillow over to the cold side. She’d been sick and completely alone in the house for two and a half days now, and none of the cold remedies that she’d tried so far seemed to be working. The only good thing to come out of the whole nightmarish ordeal was the fact that, while her condition hadn’t improved much, at least it hadn’t gotten any worse.
Not that that was saying much, she conceded and sneezed hard enough to temporarily clear her congested sinuses. But all she had to do was hold on until eight o’clock tomorrow morning, when Harriet arrived for work. Eventually Harriet would notice that Olivia was missing and come looking for her. The trail of snotty, used tissues scattered around the house would lead her here, to Olivia’s war-torn bedroom, and then Harriet would rescue her.
A smile curved Olivia’s lips as she drifted off to sleep again. Harriet would know just what to do to make her all better. She always did.
* * *
Two days later Olivia had just dropped a clean nightgown over her head and gotten in bed when Harriet knocked softly at her bedroom door and then threw it open.
“Well, look who’s starting to look like a human being again,” she said, smiling from ear to ear as she carried a covered lap tray into the room and brought it over to the bed. “Didn’t I tell you that a hot bubble bath would make you feel better?” She set the tray down at the foot of the bed and moved to the head to help Olivia sit up against the tufted leather headboard. “Let me see if you’re still running a temperature.” She smoothed Olivia’s still-damp hair back from her forehead and pressed her lips to the center of it. “Your fever’s gone,” she announced a few seconds later. “I came in and changed your bed linens while you were in the tub and I also set up the humidifier.”
Frowning, Olivia looked around the room curiously. “Is that why I smell peppermint?”
“Yep, it’s peppermint oil. I put a few drops in the humidifier. It’s calming.”
“It makes me want a giant bowl of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream.”
“Like I said, calming,” Harriet said, picking up the tray and setting it down across Olivia’s lap. “I brought you some breakfast.”
“But it’s lunchtime!” Olivia protested. She sounded like a petulant child even to her own ears. “And I wanted pizza today.”
“You eat what’s on that tray without giving me any lip or hiding any of it in a balled-up napkin, and we’ll talk about ordering pizza.”
Momentarily pacified, Olivia turned her attention to the covered dish on the tray, lifting the top warily and then groaning disgustedly when she discovered what was underneath it. “Oh, no, not fruit salad and whole wheat toast again! This is all you’ve fed me since Monday, which was two days ago. What in the hell is happening downstairs in the kitchen, Harriet? Are we poor?”
“First of all, you don’t pay me to cook gourmet meals around here, young lady. And second of all, don’t shoot the messenger, okay? I’m just following doctor’s orders. Now eat.”
“What kind of quack doctor prescribes meals like this?” Olivia wondered as she scanned the contents of her tray disdainfully. For the third day in a row, she was being force-fed mixed-fruit salad, with giant hunks of seedless watermelon—which she could barely tolerate the taste of—four whole-wheat-toast triangles, each with its own pat of real butter, and a mug of ginger-honey tea. She hadn’t had a slice of bacon in so long that she’d forgotten what it tasted like.
“Your ob-gyn,” Harriet informed her. “Three days ago, when I called her and told her that you’d caught a cold.”
“You called my ob-gyn?” Olivia was incredulous.
“Yes and stop fidgeting, will you? All I could get out of her was to give you plenty of fresh fruit and lots of liquids. And that she wants to see you in her office in another day or so, if you’re not feeling better by then. Now, I have to run out for a while, so stay in bed, eat everything on that plate and behave yourself while I’m gone.”
Olivia watched her retreating back with mounting alarm. “Wait!” she cried around a mouthful of watermelon. “You can’t just leave me here like this, Harriet! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the supermarket for more fruit and then I’m going to the drugstore to pick up a home pregnancy test. Don’t get out of bed unless the house catches fire,” she said and walked out of the room, closing the door soundly behind her.
Chapter 16
Pregnant?
Pregnant?
Oh, hell no. She couldn’t be.
Suddenly more energized than she’d been in days, Olivia set the tray aside and scrambled out of bed, hurrying over to her dressing table, where she’d left her cell phone earlier. She snatched it up, navigated to the calendar app and began counting backwards from the day’s date. When she realized that over thirty days had passed since her last period, her eyes slid closed and something like a prayer tumbled out of her mouth before she went back to her starting point and began counting all over again.
“Oh no,” she whispered to the empty room. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” Breathless and dizzy with fear, Olivia tiptoed back over to the bed, sank down onto the side of the mattress heavily and dropped her face into her hands. A baby? What in the world would she, Olivia Carrington, do with a baby?
She was still sitting there, mentally pondering the question, when Harriet returned from her errands and sent her into the bathroom to pee on a stick. “This may take a while,” Olivia warned Harriet as she shuffled into the adjoining bathroom and reached for the doorknob to close the door in the woman’s face. “I think I may have to puke first.”
“Well, in that case, you’d better take this in there with you.” She slipped a thin sheaf of folded papers out of her pocket and handed them to Olivia.
“What is this?”
“A Discovery Summons. The Marshal Service just dropped it off.” Harriet stepped back as the door closed in her face. “The prosecuting attorney and that crazy girl’s public defender want to talk to you. Downtown. Next week!” she called through the door. “Should I call Sean?” Sean Poindexter was Carrington Consulting’s attorney of record and
a close family friend. “You know she has a fit when you two don’t keep her in the loop.”
Unfolding the bundle, Olivia scanned the papers quickly. “No, don’t call Sean.”
“Well, then I’m calling your parents, because—”
Olivia snatched the door open and stuck her head out, putting her face in Harriet’s. “Harriet! Don’t you dare call my parents! Why would you do that? Shannon’s attorney wants to use me as a character witness for the defense—that’s all. This is no big deal, certainly no reason to interrupt my parents while they’re on a Caribbean cruise.”
Harriet didn’t look convinced. “Well, what about Elise? Can I at least call Elise?”
“I just spoke to Elise last night, Harriet. Everything is fine.”
“Are you going to tell her that you’re pregnant?”
“I have the flu. I’m not pregnant. Get your facts straight.”
“Hmph,” Harriet grunted, sucking her teeth. “I suppose you want me to keep my mouth shut about that, too.”
“If you could, that would be great. When the time is right, I’ll tell Elise—”
Harriet folded her arms across her chest and peered at Olivia over the rim of her glasses. “And your parents,” she cut in.
Olivia sucked in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “And my parents, myself,” she finished tightly. Her father was going to kill her, right after her mother fainted. “Assuming that there’s anything to tell. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to put all of this Shannon business behind me first.”
“It’s not looking good for that poor, crazy girl, is it?”