“I don’t know,” he finally said.
Seth hesitated. “You know she’ll, uh, find someone else if you don’t.”
“I had considered that.” At least a million times in the past six days. “But she might not.”
“I don’t think anything but an act of God is going to keep Susan from having her baby.”
Neither did Michael. Dammit. And damn Seth for saying so. “There’s always artificial insemination.”
“I really doubt she’d consider it.”
So did Michael.
“She’d want to know the man who’s going to be, biologically speaking, the other half of her child,” Michael said before he had to hear it from Seth.
“She’d insist on having the inside scoop on the littlest things, like how soon he’d learned to tie his shoes, how close his family was, whether or not he liked to go to the movies.” Seth twisted the knife a little deeper.
“She’d ask for a complete genealogical workup going as far back as possible.” Michael rubbed more salt into his wound.
After all, Susan was a lawyer. A damn good one. She wanted all the answers.
“Of course, all that extra effort, getting to know someone that well, tracking down someone’s heritage—it might be a little off-putting, might make her reconsider....” Seth was obviously trying his best to help.
“Not Susan.” Michael voiced what both men knew. Turning, he picked up the pencil and added some finishing touches to the cartoon. “Because she’d underestimate the work involved, the difficulties. Just like she always does.” Just like she had that night she’d tried to talk him out of the divorce. She’d made it all sound so simple. Him living in one state, her in another. But he’d known a marriage could never survive under those circumstances. Marriage meant commitment, expectations. Sharing one life. Not two.
“So, you going to do it?” Seth asked painfully, as though he were suffering right along with Michael. And, in a sense, he probably was. Seth obviously felt pretty strongly that Susan was making a big mistake.
Michael tossed the pencil. “The last thing in the world I want is to be a father.”
“I don’t think Susan’s looking for a father,” Seth said. “I had the impression she just wants the...you know. The genes.” He could tell Seth didn’t approve of that, either.
“Yeah,” Michael said. “That’s the way I took it.” She wanted his sperm. Not him.
And that rankled, too.
THE OFFER FROM Coppel Industries came through on Friday morning. Coppel stockholders wanted to make Michael a vice president of finance. If he accepted, he’d be on the road, traveling around the country, analyzing current holdings, but mostly seeking out new ones. Diversification was the key to success. And Coppel felt that Michael could pick winners.
He’d have an office, too, a posh one, at Coppel headquarters in Atlanta.
The offer exceeded his expectations; it was a culmination of everything he’d worked for his entire life. More than a dream come true, it was a mountain successfully scaled, a goal reached, years of endless toil rewarded. Of course, it also came with Coppel’s words of warning still ringing in Michael’s ear. No entanglements. No dependents.
Michael took the job.
“OKAY.”
“Okay?” Susan sat down. She’d been waiting for his call all week.
“I can’t pretend I’m happy about this.”
Sitting on the floor of her bedroom, wearing nothing but the slip and panty hose she’d been in the process of taking off, Susan couldn’t stop grinning. “I know.” She couldn’t believe it! He was really going to do it.
“You don’t have a child on a whim, Susan.”
“I don’t do anything on a whim, Michael.”
“Single-parenting is tough.”
Susan glanced at her watch. Seven o’clock on Friday night. She wondered if he was still at the office.
“I can handle it.”
“And you think it’s fair to the kid, bringing him into the world without a father?”
“I have five brothers, Michael, all of whom live within twenty miles of my home. I don’t think he—or she—will be lacking male attention.”
“This is nuts.”
“I don’t think so.” It felt right. To be having a baby. To be having Michael’s baby. Of course she’d prefer to be doing it the traditional way. To be sharing more than just the conception with Michael. But she’d be happy.
A baby!
“What about your job?”
“What about it?”
“You’re still planning to work?”
Susan frowned. “Of course.” And then, “Who do you think’s going to support this child?”
“And you honestly think you can work fourteen hours a day and still be a good parent?”
Her arms about her empty stomach, Susan leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “The only reason I still work fourteen-hour days is because I have nothing to come home for.” It was the first time she’d admitted the truth, even to herself. “I’m not climbing up anymore, Michael. I’m at the top.”
“There are always higher mountains to climb.”
“I like the one I’m on.” She used to, anyway. And she would again. In spite of Tricia Halliday.
“I can’t be a father, Susan.”
“I’m not asking you to be.”
Ice clinked in a glass and she heard him swallow. “Hell,” he swore softly. “I don’t even live in the same state.”
“Which has nothing to do with anything.” She wished he’d just relax about it. “Michael, we’re divorced. All I want from you is biology.”
He swallowed again. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it doesn’t have to be complicated.” Opening her eyes, Susan stood, finished undressing. “I’m a single woman who’s made the decision to have a baby,” she told him. “It’s happening more and more. Single women are even adopting babies. But I really want the full experience, carrying the child, giving birth. All I’m asking from you is the missing ingredient I need to get started.”
Susan stopped, pulled on a pair of sweatpants. The line was silent. “I could ask a total stranger to provide the sperm,” she said, exasperated. “Would you rather I do that?”
“Hell, no!”
“You’re my friend, Michael.” Throwing herself down on the bed she’d once shared with him, Susan gazed, still topless, at the picture of Michael laughing up at her from the bedside table. “My best friend.” She had to stop for a second. Catch her breath. Swallow the tears that had suddenly appeared. “Who else would I go to when I need a favor?” she finished.
“No one.” He sighed. “You were right to come to me.”
She couldn’t believe how good it felt to hear him say so.
“So when do you want to do it?” His voice dropped, low and gravelly, sexy.
Covering her naked breasts with her arms, Susan wanted to tell him that this weekend was perfect timing, as far as her cycle was concerned. “Whenever it’s...convenient...for you,” she said instead. It felt odd to be discussing it. She and Michael just kind of fell into sex—mostly because they couldn’t help themselves.
They’d certainly never planned it before. It was slightly embarrassing. And she was freezing. Scrambling into her sweatshirt, she barely caught his words.
“...this weekend...off for the Super Bowl.”
“Good!” She pulled the phone back to her face. “This weekend’s good.” She’d already decided to take both days off. While that would mean two full weekends in a row, she needed a little extra distance right now. Needed time to think objectively about the McArthur case. “Probably too late to fly in tonight, huh?”
Michael laughed and her toes curled. There just wasn’t another man like him. She knew. She’d searched frantically during those first few years after the divorce.
“I’d like to think it’s my body you’re so eager for.”
It was. “That old thing? Had it las
t weekend.”
“Keep it up, woman.”
“So you’ll come in the morning?”
“First flight out.” His voice sounded muffled, as though he were already on to the next item on his evening’s agenda.
“Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
SEX. He wasn’t going to think about anything but the sex. And sex with Susan was always incredible. He had to admit, as far as favors went, this one was relatively painless.
As long as all he thought about was the sex.
He occupied himself with business during the short flight from Chicago to Cincinnati, mentally reviewing possible candidates for his replacement at Smythe and Westbourne, making a list of the projects and problems his replacement would need to know about.
He still hadn’t told Susan about the promotion. He had some irrational feeling that if he was going to get through this episode intact, he had to keep his private life, his own personal self, out of it. Susan’s request had erected a wall between them that he was afraid to scale. Somehow, he knew that for his own self-preservation he had to keep his distance. Sharing this, the greatest success of his life, with her, the realization of all his goals, made him too vulnerable at a time when he couldn’t afford to be vulnerable at all.
Besides, there was a small part of him that was afraid she’d be hurt because he’d accepted a job that required no familial obligations, even though he’d agreed to father her child. And the fear wasn’t just born from an aversion to hurting Susan. If she was hurt, that would mean she’d been harboring some desire for him to share more than just the conception of her child.
And he couldn’t do this for her if he thought, for one second, that she’d be asking for more than he had to give.
Staring out the window at the expanse of anonymous farmland passing beneath him, Michael forced his mind back to the loyal staff he’d built over the years. He’d pretty much decided on the person he was going to promote, and he looked forward to breaking the news. That thought gave him the balance he’d been seeking.
Business was the only thing he felt sure about. The only way he knew how to cope. To shut off the fears and concerns that were nagging at him, the uneasiness he couldn’t seem to dissipate with logic.
A man could only think so much about sex without embarrassing himself.
SETH’S DARK-BLUE Bronco was parked in front of the condo when Michael pulled up in his rental. Fond as he was of Susan’s brother, Seth sure as hell could have picked a better time to come visiting.
“I heard you were going to be in town,” the big blond man greeted him as Michael let himself in. “Thought I’d stop by and see if you two wanted to take in a movie or something.”
Susan, curled up on the couch, raised her brows and grimaced behind her brother’s back.
Michael shrugged out of his overcoat and hung it on the brass tree by the front door. “Don’t think so, buddy,” he said. There was no way in hell he’d be able to sit through a movie right now.
“The new Star Trek movie’s playing downtown,” Seth coaxed.
Exchanging glances with Susan, Michael shook his head. Trekkies though they were, a movie was still a two-hour wait in the dark. “It was just released,” he told Seth, pulling his keys out his jeans pocket to drop them on the hall table. “And it’s Saturday. The theater’ ll be full of kids.”
Dressed in beige khaki slacks and a black longsleeved fleece shirt that hugged her waist, Susan looked great. And eager. Her eyes were glowing as she shared an intimate glance with him.
“How about a game of basketball, then? I can call for a court.” Seth picked up the phone and dialed.
“I didn’t bring gym clothes,” Michael said, disconnecting the call. He met and held his friend’s gaze. “Seth, go home.”
“There’s a new restaurant on the other side of the river I’ve been meaning to try,” Seth said, still clutching the phone. “We could have lunch....”
Turning his ex-brother-in-law toward the door, Michael grabbed Seth’s coat off the rack and handed it to him. “Go home.”
Seth took his coat, put it on, and turned back, looking from Susan to Michael. “I think we should talk about this.”
“I think—” Susan began.
“Go home,” Michael interrupted her, giving Seth a little shove.
“You’re sure?” Seth asked quietly.
Hell no, he wasn’t sure. But Susan was. And he’d never be able to live with himself if he forced her to ask another man to do this.
“Go home.” he said one last time.
Swearing, Seth let himself out, slamming the door.
Michael locked it behind him.
SUSAN STARED at Michael’s back. He was still staring at the door he’d just locked, almost as though he were thinking about heading out himself.
“You want something to eat?”
He turned, walking slowly back into the living room, not meeting her eyes. “Nah, I had breakfast at the airport.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets, stretching the denim of his jeans taut across his fly. Susan couldn’t help noticing how attractive he was. She’d never been able to look at Michael without thinking about sex. But today there was more. Today she saw the man who was going to give her his baby.
The thought scared her just a little. What if this changed things? Not her life; of course that was going to change. But what if things between her and Michael weren’t the same afterward?
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she blurted suddenly.
His gaze swung to hers, intent, hopeful. “You’ve changed your mind.”
“No.” Susan shook her head. She needed to be a mother. “But it doesn’t have to be now, today,” she said even as she realized that putting it off wasn’t going to make any real difference. “It doesn’t have to be you.”
But she wanted it to be. She couldn’t imagine carrying anybody’s baby but Michael’s.
“Are you having doubts?”
Looking down, Susan studied the pattern in the tweed fabric of her overstuffed couch. “Not about the baby.”
“You’re having doubts about me?”
She’d hurt him. Damn, it was getting messy already and they hadn’t even done anything yet.
“Could you sit down or something?” she asked as he continued to hover over her, the hands in his pockets distracting her. “Please?”
Michael sat. On the very edge of the couch, knees spread, his elbows on his knees.
Susan couldn’t look at him. She hadn’t felt this tongue-tied with Michael since before the first time they’d made love. She’d been crazy with wanting him. And a little frightened because of her virginity. Her inexperience. A little frightened that she wouldn’t be able to satisfy him. After all, he’d had the prettiest girls in college chasing after him.
She’d been a boring little tomboy bookworm.
Not knowing what else to do, she’d been honest about her feelings then. And been honest with Michael every day since.
“I can’t imagine anybody but you as the father of my child.” The words, though softly uttered, were filled with the emotions tumbling through her.
She wasn’t looking at him, but she felt him flinch.
“I’m not asking you to be a father, Michael. I’d never do that to you. Any more than you’d ask me never to be a mother.”
Chancing a peek at him, she quickly looked back down at her hands. He was staring straight ahead, the muscles in his jaw working fiercely.
“I’m fully prepared to raise this child myself. In fact, I’m intent on doing so,” she assured him. Just as she’d been assuring herself for months.
“I just want it to be your baby growing inside me.” She wasn’t doing this very well. “I want my son or daughter to be a part of you.”
The more she talked to her silent ex-husband, the more her needs became clear to her. She didn’t just want a baby by the year 2000. She didn’t just want a baby, per
iod. She wanted Michael’s baby. Even though she knew that having Michael’s baby meant raising the child herself.
“What I—” she said, stopping and then trying again. “What I don’t—” She reached across to lace her fingers with his, willing him to meet her eyes, waiting until he did. “What I don’t want...is to lose you in the process.”
He seemed about to say something but didn’t.
“You’re my best friend, Michael. I don’t want that to change.”
Slowly, tenderly, he brought his lips to hers. Kissing her softly. “In seven years I haven’t learned to stop caring about you,” he said, his lips still brushing hers. “I don’t think I ever will.”
Susan tried to block her mind as she gave herself up to his kiss, but for the first time, she wasn’t in a hurry to make love with Michael.
And that frightened her most of all. Things were changing already.
SETH TOOK the corner so hard he felt his outside tires leave the road. How could they be so stupid? The sister who’d never made a mistake in her life, as far as Seth was concerned. And his friend, who was exactly like Seth himself. It was as if he didn’t know either one of them anymore.
By what right could they bring a new life into the world without the means to nurture it? Children needed parents. Two of them. Full-time.
Rounding another curve, he heard a grinding in his steering column and lightened up on the vehicle. His Bronco didn’t deserve this abuse. It was faithful to him. Loyal. There when he needed it. And it never asked more from him than he could give.
Some gas. A wash every month. An occasional new tire. Tune-ups. All stuff that could wait until he happened to be in town.
Seth drove until he calmed. down enough to stay within the speed limit, then slowed even more. He wanted a drink. And he’d have one. Maybe, considering that it was Saturday, and the day before the Super Bowl to boot, he’d have two. Or three.
Keeping the Bronco out of sight of the field, he slid in behind the big weeping willow across the street and to the west, and put the truck in park. But he didn’t turn it off. He wasn’t staying. Couldn’t. He couldn’t risk being seen.
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