The cashier’s shocked look and quick comments didn’t even register as I unloaded my cart; my mind was too full of what-ifs. What if I really was pregnant this time? Would he believe me? Would he believe it was his? Would he still be angry, and want to call the whole thing off regardless?
What if I wasn’t pregnant? What would it mean? Did I have the flu? Stomach cancer?
I worked myself up into a complete panic-fest before I made it back to the car with my bags, and hyperventilated for the entire drive home. The four flights of stairs up to my apartment just about killed me, leaving me trembling and faint as I dumped out the bags in my bathroom.
“One tonight,” I told myself firmly. “More tomorrow.”
In spite of my direction, I ended up taking four. There were still plenty to take the next day. I didn’t even bother setting a timer or watching the clock this time. Instead, I gripped the countertop and stared at the tests. Slowly, the liquid spread from one side to the other, sweeping pink across some tests, blue across others.
The control lines popped up immediately. One by one, the tests began to sprout an additional line. Plus signs. Double lines. Positives, across the board.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
I glanced at the pile of tests on the floor behind me. Two more couldn’t hurt, right?
I added them to the four on the counter and waited. Both positive. My heart was racing now, but I had nothing left to test with. Fighting tears and hysterical laughter, I drank a pitcher of water and went to bed.
Over the course of the weekend, I took each and every one of them—twenty-eight in all. Each came out positive. I piled the evidence in the center of my table, and by Monday morning, I was finally certain that what I was looking at was real. I was actually and legitimately pregnant with my boss’s child.
Fingers trembling with anxiety, I dialed Jonathan’s number.
“Your call is being redirected”, the calm, automatic voice on the other end informed me.
“What? To where?”
“Good evening, this is Cory Tillman. How may I help you this evening?”
“I need to get in touch with Jonathan,” I blurted out. “Er…Mr. Dane. Please.”
“I’m sorry, miss. I’m afraid Mr. Dane is in a meeting, and won’t be available for several hours. Is there a message you would like to leave for him?”
“Oh God, no!”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, no, thank you,” I said, mortified. “I’ll try to reach him later.”
I hung up and paced the room. I was running out of time. I had to get to work, but I couldn’t leave without telling him. He had a right to know, didn’t he?
Desperate, I resorted to the next-best thing at my disposal: technology. I took a picture of the pile of positives, making sure to get several plus signs and double-lines in focus.
Inhaling sharply, I pressed Send.
Chapter 14
Jonathan
There was no meeting that morning, but it was the only way to get Cory off my back long enough for me to think. The last three weeks had been utterly miserable. For the first time in my two years of running this corporation, I was finding myself frustrated and overwhelmed in the face of my work.
Not that the work itself was any more difficult or arduous than it had ever been; on the contrary, the last three weeks had seen me jetting from China to Australia to France, making deals and solidifying partnerships. At any other time of my life, I would have enjoyed it immensely.
I had never before had a personal struggle so insurmountable or all-consuming before, however, and the matter had cluttered my mind to the point of distraction.
“Betrayed,” I muttered to myself as I walked briskly through the city streets. “That’s what it is. I was betrayed, by her, of all people.”
That didn’t sound right, and I mulled it over some more, turning down another random road. I certainly felt betrayed, but had the betrayal actually taken place? If it had, Kaley had more problems than simple deviousness.
She had been more than willing to show me the result the morning after, had gone to great lengths to make the point, in fact. She had given me four tests when I had only vaguely requested one, and she had done it without hesitation or any sign of malicious intent. She had seemed to be just as shocked at the negative result as I had been, leading me to tentatively believe that she hadn’t been expecting it.
“False positives are rare, aren’t they?” I asked myself.
The truth of it was, I didn’t really know how rare they were. More, I didn’t really think it mattered. Rare did not mean impossible, so no matter the statistical probability, there was a chance that it had happened to her.
I stopped for a breath and rubbed my tired eyes, then ran a hand through my hair. As my head tilted upward, my vision was suddenly filled with her image, a hundred times larger than life, touching her forehead to a baby’s. The baby’s gray eyes reflected hers; his tousled brown curls mingled with hers, and I was suddenly struck by the knowledge that our child could look like that.
If there had been a child, anyway. That loss hit my gut like an iceberg, and I felt my anger at her begin to return. Then, I read the billboard.
Take pride in your family. Take pride in your toys!
There it was, clear as day. Kaley hadn’t broken my heart with the negative test; she had merely wounded my pride. A blow, to be sure, but not one I couldn’t recover from. It would take an apology to her. I wasn’t good at apologies.
A thought, which had been playing in the shadows of my mind for the last three weeks, resurfaced: I could find another. Some other woman to carry my child and make appearances. It wouldn’t have to last forever, just long enough for my fatherhood to win the hearts and minds of my consumer base. As I gazed up at the image of Kaley, though, the thought left me cold.
Somehow, over the last couple of months, my desires had changed.
Kaley was smart and fun and kind. She was nurturing and compassionate—not just with children, but with everyone. With me. She offered me the safe haven in another’s arms that I had not felt since my mother died so long ago. I didn’t want to start over with some gold-digging actress; I wanted her. Not just as the mother of my children, but as the partner of my life.
I don’t know how long I stood staring up at her like that, and I couldn’t claim to care, but eventually my neck grew stiff and I was forced to look away. As I did, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
“It’s nothing important,” I muttered to myself as I moved to sit on a sidewalk bench. “Cory’s got it handled.”
I sighed as I sat, sorting through my feelings. When had I developed feelings for Kaley? I couldn’t pinpoint a day, but I had the sneaking suspicion that they had been growing for a while, now. If I hadn’t been such a jackass about the false positive, we could have been well on our way to a true positive by now.
As I pondered, a different corner of my mind was wondering who had texted me. My mind cycled through the possibilities until it discovered the most likely candidate, then quieted in satisfaction.
“Hold on a second,” I said to myself, halting off the wheels of intense thought. “Kaley?”
I pulled my phone out, and sure enough, Kaley had sent me a message. A picture message.
What on earth would she be sending me pictures of?
Chapter 15
Kaley
“All day,” I muttered under my breath as I tossed my purse on the chair by the door. “He’s had the pictures all damn day. Not a word. I know he’s seen them. He has to have seen them, hasn’t he?”
I kicked my shoes off, not caring where they landed. One slammed into a table leg, collapsing the pyramid of pregnancy tests, sending them cascading to the floor. With a sigh, I snatched a trash bag out of the kitchen drawer and began scooping them up.
“He has seen them,” I repeated fiercely. “So why wouldn’t he say anything?”
I froze as ice gripped my chest, and I sat back on my heels in horr
or.
“Oh, God. Oh, God, he has seen them. He’s seen them, but he’s changed his mind. He doesn’t want the baby anymore, or me, or any of it. Oh…”
I let the bag slip from my fingers, and I curled up into a ball against the back of the kitchen cupboards. As I gazed around the room, I was reminded of that first day that I had considered his offer. Every dangerous, dirty object in my apartment leapt out at me, as if highlighted by my anxiety.
“Follow your passion. Don’t get caught up in the details.” I repeated my mother’s advice in a flat monotone. “That worked out well, didn’t it?”
I needed a plan. I had eight months, maybe less, to figure out how to raise a child on my salary. Maternity leave wouldn’t be a problem; AllGood had a great maternity plan. Daycare would be handled as well; as long as employees signed a release stating that their child could be observed playing with toys in the last stages of research and development, AllGood would take care of them over the course of the parents’ shifts.
But I couldn’t raise a child in this place. I needed to get out, and quickly, before I was too big to move things. I had the bonus check, I remembered. It wasn’t small. It could easily cover a down payment on some small house outside the city limits. It would be a longer commute, but it would be worth it for a safer environment.
“I can do it,” I told myself firmly. “And I will, with or without that…”
A knock at the door interrupted my unfriendly characterization, and I raced to peer through the peephole. The fishbowl view offered an enlarged designer tie clip beneath a throat I knew intimately.
My heart raced as I opened the door.
“Jonathan,” I said, as neutrally as I could manage. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“After those pictures you sent, you didn’t expect to see me?” he asked incredulously.
I realized I was still standing in the doorway, and I moved aside awkwardly, letting him in.
“Well, you didn’t respond all day,” I explained. “I thought…why are you here?”
He was staring at the mess of tests scattered over the table and floor, his hands in his pockets, his back to me.
“I wanted to see them in person,” he said softly.
I couldn’t read his tone, which frustrated me to the point of anger. I had just opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind when he turned to me with a beaming smile and glistening eyes.
“This is wonderful, Kaley! We’ll get you to the doctor first thing in the morning, just to check on everything, make sure you’re okay and the baby’s okay. I have a doctor in mind, unless you are particularly attached to yours?”
“No…I’m not,” I said slowly, my mind racing to keep up.
My doctor was the one I could afford, and he had a gruff manner and cold hands. If I wasn’t so astonished, I’d have been thrilled at the chance to switch.
“I am…terribly sorry about how I reacted last time,” he offered, stumbling over the words. “It was an emotional response, and an unfair one at that. I care so much about this pregnancy that having success within our grasp only to be snatched away again was…difficult for me to process. Do you understand?”
He cast his shining silver eyes at me, looking honestly apologetic. That made sense, I told myself, though his words rubbed my raw emotions like sandpaper.
“Yes, I understand,” I said, unconvincing even to myself.
I swallowed hard and cleared my throat, then walked to the kitchen for water. If he was going to hang around, I was going to need to bury this fresh sorrow quickly. He hadn’t been heartbroken. He’d been frustrated. He was only back now for the baby; it had nothing to do with me. I was, as I had always been, just a womb attached to a PR campaign.
I swallowed one glass of water, then another, wishing it was whiskey. He joined me in the kitchen a moment later, still beaming.
“I can call in a favor and get us seen as soon as they open tomorrow. Can I pick you up at nine?”
“I have work,” I told him lamely.
“Call in! It’s a doctor’s appointment, for crying out loud, Chase will be understanding. He has to be; it’s in the rulebook. So, nine o’clock?”
“Um…yes, of course,” I said weakly.
He smiled happily, an irritating expression that made me want to crush his lips with my mouth.
That is not the appropriate response to irritation, my mind whispered in confusion. I didn’t care. It was the impulse, and I was darn ready to run with it. To hug him until his head popped off. To kiss him until he suffocated.
He was so close, so infuriatingly close, and so out of reach. His baby grew in my belly, the scent of his skin filled my nostrils, and still, he was utterly untouchable. How could he remain so cold, so detached, with what we were doing? His only pleasure and joy was the baby. That much was clear. Was I so difficult to fall in love with, or was he simply incapable of falling in love?
He left with a whistle on his lips and a spring in his step, narrowly escaping a confused outburst from me.
“What am I even doing, anymore?” I asked my reflection in the mirror.
She didn’t have an answer for me.
Sighing, I finished cleaning up the mess, then left a message on Chase’s machine, informing him I’d be late to work the next day. As I crawled into bed, I somehow felt more alone than I had when Jonathan wasn’t speaking to me.
Chapter 16
Jonathan
As I’d expected, the doctor was able to see Kaley first thing in the morning. The OB/GYN was a good friend of my own doctor, and they tended toward the same habits; specifically, an aversion to scheduling appointments before ten. My family had donated a significant amount of money to the medical complex in which he practiced, and he was more than happy to see us on short notice once he heard my name.
“Do you mind if I come in with you?” I asked Kaley when the nurse called her name.
“Um…no,” she said hesitantly.
It struck me that she had been timid and quiet since the night before, the way she had been when I’d first approached her. As she followed the nurse’s instructions for weight, vitals, and other tests, I wondered if the three weeks we’d been apart had somehow drawn our relationship back in time.
Relationship…the word startled me even as I thought it. We certainly had one, but the nature of it was still uncertain. Kaley had made it clear that romance was not her first priority; if it had been, she never would have agreed to this. Perhaps she had met someone in my absence who was making her regret that decision. I wanted to know, but I couldn’t think of a way to ask which wouldn’t sound like an accusation.
“Get undressed from the waist down and get on the table, please. The doctor will be in shortly,” the nurse said with a smile.
She left the room, and Kaley glanced awkwardly at me.
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” I pointed out.
“I know,” she said, her cheeks blushing crimson. “It’s just…just turn around, please.”
I did as she asked, not wanting to press her boundaries. If this was going to work…and it had to, now, with another life on the line…I was going to have to manage my pride with an iron will.
She was in a rough mood this morning, I thought, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. She had what she wanted, and so did I, for the most part. It didn’t make sense for her eyes to be dull and overcast, or for her quick smile to be hidden away behind a firm, grim line.
I heard the paper rustling behind me, but waited for her cue.
“All right, you can turn around now,” she sighed.
I did so, and couldn’t help but smile. The soft, round curves of her body draped in teddy bear-printed paper, her brown curls cascading over the powder blue medical pillow, and her small, pretty hands nervously twisting in her lap made her look every bit the expectant mother. The urge to kiss her was overwhelming, but the doctor knocked on the door before I could act on it.
“Good morning Miss Marshall, Mr.
Dane. I’m Dr. Hooley; it’s lovely to meet you. How are we feeling this morning?”
“A touch nauseated,” Kaley answered, chewing her lip. “And a little nervous.”
“Both completely natural,” Dr. Hooley told her with a paternal smile. His bald head reflected the bright white lights above, and his small, circular wire-rimmed glasses reminded me of a fairy-tale dwarf.
“Now, Miss Marshall, I have a pretty good idea of how far along you are based on the HGC levels in your sample, but I would prefer to do an ultrasound to be certain. When was the last time you had your annual exam?”
“Six months ago,” she told him unabashedly. “All clear.”
“Very good,” Hooley said warmly. “Then we won’t bother with that uncomfortable mess today.”
He pushed a few buttons on a complex-looking machine beside him, then applied a generous amount of blue jelly to her stomach. Kaley didn’t seem surprised in the slightest, so I relaxed. After a moment, the doctor pulled a wand from the side of the machine and began rolling it over my lover’s belly.
“Shouldn’t there be a heartbeat?” Kaley asked after a moment.
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect to see one this early,” Hooley said comfortingly. “All we can expect to see today is…there we are. The gestational sac. Yes, my dear, you are most certainly pregnant. No more than three weeks, from my estimation.”
“Three weeks?” she repeated weakly.
“Maybe a few days more,” he murmured as he measured various shadows on the screen. “But right around three weeks. Any less, and I wouldn’t see anything; a week or two more, and I would probably find the heartbeat. Yes, three weeks sounds right to me.”
I smiled over at Kaley, who looked pale and drawn all of a sudden.
Baby, ASAP - A Billionaire Buys a Baby Romance (Babies for the Billionaire Book 3) Page 10