She sighed with relief. “Thank you, dear. Now, tell me all about my grandbaby. How are you feeling?”
CHAPTER TWO
Noah
It had been five hours since Aubrey left and my office still smelled like her. She hadn't even stepped inside and, yet, her presence lingered, taunting me. I expected her to pop back into my office and call me out for being an asshole. But I'd effectively chased her away. I'd probably never see her again. I reminded myself it was for the best, even as a part of me ached like someone had drilled a hole through me.
I'd never had a problem with her before she'd quit and disappeared from my life, I'd always been able to compartmentalize. Sure I was attracted to her, but she worked for me and she was my friend. I wasn't going to throw that away for a physical attraction when I could never offer her more than a brief fling. But I'd given in. For one night, I'd held her in my arms and kissed her sweet lips and enjoyed her. She'd melted into me, and I'd ignored every rational and sensible part of myself.
In the harsh light of day, I'd realized my mistake and I'd panicked. I couldn't lose her as my friend or as my assistant. So, I pretended I didn't remember what had happened. I pretended we could go on as we'd always done. But she'd left me anyway. I'd given in, I'd taken a moment of pleasure, a moment for myself, and she'd walked away like my friendship meant nothing to her.
I stood and pushed back my chair, furious with myself and frustrated. I'd been close to thinking about her less than every moment of every day and then she'd shown up at my door and again she was all I could think about. I pulled my suit jacket from the back of my chair and shrugged it on.
“Where are you headed?” Jill asked. She stepped into my office, one eye on her phone, the other on me. Jill was my sister and one of my best friends, but I never got her full attention. She was always focused on business.
“I thought I might go over to Mitchell's, see how the plans are coming for the remodel.”
That got her attention. She looked at me, eyebrows high. “The landscape remodel on the Westgate property?”
“Yep.” I knew what was coming, but I also knew I couldn't avoid it.
“Mitchell's been with us for seven years, Noah. I think we can trust him to do a good job.”
“I just want to see what he has in mind, maybe look at some plans with him.”
Jill shoved her phone in the waistband of her pants, since she had no pockets, and stuck her hands on her hips. “What happened?”
This was the problem with family. There was no fooling them, no sliding by without being noticed. I only spent time at Mitchell's when I was in a pissy mood. I'd taken some landscape design classes in college and I liked talking shop with him, solving problems that had to do with land and growing things. I'd spent a solid week at Mitchell's when Aubrey left the first time. “I'm fine, Jill. I just need to get out of the office.”
She continued to stare at me, hands on her hips.
I sighed. “Aubrey stopped by.”
Jill's expression hardened. “What did she want?”
Jill and Aubrey had been friends, not close friends, but they'd gotten along. I wasn't sure Jill would ever forgive Aubrey for leaving me the way she had. “I don't care what she wanted. She left and I've filled her position. We had nothing else to talk about.”
Jill's mouth twisted with concern. “I agree, but you should have at least found out what she wanted. That way, you could have told her no and closed that door permanently.”
“I told her to get out of my office. I told her I never wanted to see her again. I closed the door.” Except that Aubrey had apparently gone behind my back and spoken to my mother. She had no compunction about getting my mother involved and using her against me.
Jill stepped toward me, probably coming in for a hug, but I was in no mood for a hug.
I raised my hands to ward her off. “I'm fine.”
“You know I'd never interfere in your personal life, but you should give her name and description to security and make sure she doesn't show her face here again—”
“I can handle her.”
“Like you handled her disappearing? I thought I was going to have to—”
“She gave me no explanation,” I said. “I thought she'd been hurt or kidnapped or killed. I was worried about her, that's all. Seeing her again just threw me. Quit worrying.”
I hugged her then. I felt better about being the one to comfort her, rather than the other way around. I released her and stepped back. “What were you coming to see me about?”
She frowned. “It's nothing. We can discuss it tomorrow.”
“Just tell me now, Jill, or I'll sit back down behind my desk and figure it out for myself.”
“I've run the numbers until I can't see straight and I can't come up with any other option. We're going to have to sell the Brantley properties.”
“All of them?” The Brantley properties were the first my dad had bought when he'd started the corporation. They were older and in need of extensive remodeling, but they were the heart of the corporation as far as I was concerned.
“I'm sorry, Noah. I don't see any way around it.”
I sighed. We owned fifteen different hotels and resort properties around Georgia, and it had been our father's dream to grow the corporation and make the name first in luxury resorts. Unfortunately, he'd spread our resources too thin and made some poor choices. We weren't on the verge of bankruptcy, but we were going to have to make some hard choices if we wanted to stay afloat. The Brantley properties were three hotels in and around Atlanta on prime real estate. We couldn't afford the upgrades they needed, but we could make a good profit on them if we sold them, enough to fuel the company's needs and keep us from going under. I'd hoped to sell some of the newer acquisitions, the poorer choices my father had made, but they wouldn't sell as quickly or bring in the money the Brantley properties would. “Let's do it.” The words scraped my throat on the way out. This company was my father's dream, and I hated to see it diminished.
Jill swallowed. “The sale would give us the cash we need to survive, but it would also give us some extra. Maybe we could add some character to the hopeless properties?”
The hopeless properties were my dad's poorer choices, properties that were bleeding money. He'd dreamed big, but he hadn't always been realistic. They were all in rural, rarely visited parts of Georgia, lovely areas, but too low traffic to bring in guests without some sort of draw. The kind of draw that would cost us a ton of money. Jill, the marketing team, and the design team had been working on ideas to draw people to those resorts without breaking the bank. The ideas were out of the box, to put it mildly. “We're going to have to do something. Do you want me to stay and work on it with you?”
She waved me off. “Go to your happy place. We'll talk more tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THREE
Aubrey
I stared up at my bedroom ceiling. I pulled in slow, deep breaths. My stomach rolled and I felt like I was going to throw up even though I hadn't had any nausea since the first trimester. I put a hand to my forehead. I didn't feel hot, but maybe I was coming down with some sort of stomach bug. I pushed myself upright and took my time getting out of bed. The nausea didn't get worse, but it didn't get better either.
I never took a sick day from work and I didn't feel too terrible, but I didn't want to take a chance with the baby. I could use a day curled up on the couch. It had been three weeks since I'd barged into Noah's office, three weeks of Nora calling every two days to try and convince me to move to Virginia, three weeks of her finding no way to get Noah to listen to anything she tried to tell him about me. I suspected she'd given up on trying to tell him for a while, since she hadn't mentioned it lately, but I didn't ask.
I hadn't slept well the night before, hadn't been sleeping well since about about month five of the pregnancy. I called in to work and left a message for Alex. He'd give me shit, but I didn't care. I gathered my laptop, a pen, my day planner, and a notebook and I camped out on th
e couch to do some research. I'd started making plans for this baby the day I'd found out I was pregnant, but with every parenting book I read, the plans changed a bit. I looked over my expected costs, typed neatly on a spreadsheet that included necessary items and alternatives. I picked up the notebook and made notes about possible changes and new sources of income. I had a healthy savings account and a steady income, but I liked to be as prepared as humanly possible and I'd feel safest if my income didn't change too much.
I researched and budgeted and planned for about an hour until my stomach rumbled with hunger. I got up and fixed myself a bowl of cereal. I'd never learned to cook and cereal was full of nutrients, so it was safer than the charred toast and runny scrambled eggs I'd make. I was putting the bowl in the sink when a pain in my belly nearly bowled me over. Was that a contraction? Fear slammed into me. I wasn't ready. I couldn't be going into labor. The baby wasn't ready. It was too early.
I sat on the couch and pulled in slow, deep breaths. It was okay, the baby was probably just laying on some part of my anatomy that was causing me pain. It was going to be okay. My heart slowed, and I felt calmer. Whew, it was just—
Another wave of pain rolled over me and I stopped breathing. I was going into labor. I was going into labor six weeks too early.
I sucked down some more air and grabbed my phone. I tried Mimi, but her phone went immediately to voice mail. She was probably in court. I was going to have to drive myself to the hospital. I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders. I could do this. I was as prepared as I could be. I would be fine. I took another few deep breaths while another contraction rolled through me. I could do this and I was going to meet my daughter very, very soon. I smiled at the thought, some of my fear replaced with excitement.
I slipped on shoes, grabbed my purse and the overnight bag I'd packed for the delivery, and waddled to the elevator. Once inside, another contraction made me tense and press myself against the wall. A tear rolled down my cheek. What the hell was I doing? How was I going to do this alone?
The doors to the elevator opened on the parking garage and I waddled to my car, walking gingerly in case too much movement could trigger another contraction. I had almost reached my car, when another contraction hit and I bent double in pain. Shit. I was not going to give birth in a parking lot all alone. I waddle-trotted the last few feet to my car and wedged myself in behind the steering wheel. I started the ignition and then remembered my doctor. She needed to know I was in labor.
I called her, left a message with a nurse, gritted my teeth through another contraction and drove out of the parking garage, hoping to get to the hospital before I had another contraction.
Another contraction hit while I was idling at a red light and I smiled. I could do this. Even the baby was working with me and waiting for the red lights. Unfortunately, to get to the hospital, I had to get on the interstate where there were no red lights. I took my time, staying in the right lane and driving slow enough that a contraction wouldn't send me veering off the asphalt. I needed to get to the hospital quickly, but I also needed to stay alive, so I tried not to panic as cars sped past me, making me feel like I was standing still. When the next contraction hit, my little two-door was between two hulking tractor-trailers that were blocking the sun, one on the ramp to get onto the highway, the other in the lane next to me. I hunched over the steering wheel, focused every bit of my energy on staying between those tractor-trailers and increased my speed to give the truck trying to enter the highway enough room to do so. Somehow, I managed to keep the car straight and I got off the highway at the next exit.
I only experienced two more contractions between my exit from the interstate and my arrival at the hospital. I waddled across the huge parking lot and inside. I was already exhausted and I hadn't even pushed out a baby, yet. I gave my information to the nurse and took my seat in the waiting room. I tried Mimi again, but again she didn't answer. She was busy, she'd have no reason to think I'd need her a full six weeks before my due date.
I looked around the waiting room. It was relatively quiet, but there were three other women there. They looked as worried as I felt, but they weren't alone. One of them was with a man who was clearly her boyfriend or husband, another was with an older woman who was probably her mother, and the third was with a woman who looked to be her wife. All of them were leaning on the person with them, holding their hand or talking quietly with them. The wife was running her fingers through her wife's hair and pressing gentle kisses to her forehead. I remembered very little about my parents, but I remembered my mother running her fingers through my hair, I remembered how comforting it was.
Another contraction hit and I gripped the armrest of my chair so tight my knuckles whitened. I knew it was silly to want to someone else. In the end, I'd deliver this baby on my own. No other person could do it for me, but I longed to have a warm hand in mine instead of the hard wood of the armrest, a warm arm around my shoulders, someone to get me a cup of water. I'd never minded being alone, not really. I was capable of taking care of myself and I enjoyed the quiet evenings and weekends alone in my apartment, free to do what I wanted, to have full control of the remote, to just eat a bowl of cereal for dinner if that's what I wanted, but I couldn't deny I was lonely. Not only did I want someone, but I needed someone. Someone to hold my hand, but also someone to hold my daughter after she was born, to share my love and excitement. I'd missed Noah since the day I'd walked away from him, but in that moment I ached for his presence with a longing that hollowed me out and made my eyes prick with tears.
I'd written up so many plans for my delivery. I thought I'd covered every eventuality, but I hadn't been prepared for this overwhelming loneliness and fear. What if something went wrong and I couldn't speak for myself and my baby? Why hadn't I hired a doula? What had I been thinking when I decided I could handle this alone? This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I wasn't ready. Another contraction hit, this one more painful than the last and I knew I had to calm down, that my fear and anxiety were probably making it worse. It would be okay. I'd done hard things on my own pretty much all my life. I could do this, too.
I pulled in several deep breaths and made a mental to-do list of how I wanted the delivery to go, of what I needed and of what I'd do after the baby arrived. I calmed down and, when I finally got called back, I realized I hadn't had a contraction in over ten minutes.
I didn't even see my doctor. The nurses checked me out and told me I'd been experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions, a type of false labor. “But it was so intense,” I said. “It didn't feel fake.”
The nurse's kind eyes crinkled at the corners and she gave me a sympathetic smile. “They can be strong like that, but don't you worry too much unless they're less than two minutes apart and continue like that for a long while.” Her smile widened. “Unless of course your water breaks.”
I went home. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep, but my mind was whirring. I needed a plan. I needed a strategy for the birth and delivery of my baby in case I had to do it on my own, in case I couldn't reach Mimi. I'd hire a doula and I'd make sure my doctor knew my birth plan and was willing to stick to it. I'd be okay.
I researched and I planned, but it didn't feel right. I didn't want to do this alone. I fixed a light dinner, ate while I watched T.V., and went to bed. I tossed and turned, trying and failing to accept I'd made the best possible plan. Trying and failing to believe that I could handle this on my own.
At six the next morning, I gave up. I made a phone call and, when Nora answered, I told her I accepted her job offer. I'd never been good at asking for help, but it wasn't just about me anymore, it was about my baby. We both needed to be near family who could be there when we needed them.
***
I parked in front of a gorgeous, three-story home with a wrap-around porch and columns. The house looked like it needed a coat of paint, but there was something charming about it not being perfect, of the rustic look of it in the early morning light. Beh
ind the house there were fields, a newly-renovated barn, and mountains.
I'd spent the last two weeks working for Alex. He'd been in complete disbelief when I gave him my notice and he'd offered me a raise and all kinds of perks to stay, but I'd refused him. I don't think many people refused Alex Owings anything. The look on his face had absolutely been the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time, and leaving had felt right.
Staring at that big, old house, doubt crept in for the five hundredth time. What the hell was I actually doing? I adored Nora, but I'd never lived with her, never seen her on a daily basis. I was leaving behind everything I knew, every bit of independence and safety I'd built for myself and…What if it wasn't the right choice?
I opened an app on my phone and looked over my bank statement for the tenth time that day. Besides working hard for Noah and then Alex Owings, I invested in the stock market, quite successfully, owned several lucrative rental properties, and had lately invested in a start-up that was doing well. If living with Nora proved to be the wrong choice, I had the capital to get out, to start over, to take time to find a new job. I wouldn't be stuck in a situation where I wasn't wanted and I didn't want to be. I'd made damn sure that would never happen to me again.
I pushed my door open, squeezed myself out of the car, and wobbled to my feet. I hadn't told Nora exactly when I'd arrive, but I wasn't worried she'd toss me out on the street. I climbed the steps to the front door, knocked, and waited, only to have the door pulled open by Cody's girlfriend, Carrie.
Carrie, her dark hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, was wearing a cute cardigan and slacks, neatly ironed even on a Sunday. She smiled warmly, her eyes lighting with pleasure. “Aubrey,” she said. “It's so good to see you.”
The Workaholic Down the Hall Page 3