“Then you do the shots for two weeks and then we meet at the doctor for the insemination.”
“Yes.”
He nodded, reaching over to touch my hand. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your doing this. We’ve wanted a baby for a very long time.”
“I’m happy to be a part of it.”
A part of me wanted to touch him, too. It was stupid. I’d spent the last two years meeting athletes, usually in the darkest moments of their lives. Injured athletes who were counting on Dr. Martinez to get them back on the field. Football players. Tennis players. Baseball. Soccer. We even had several track and field stars, a few golfers, and swimmers. Every sport there was, we had at least one participant, usually professionals, Olympic-level athletes. I’d met Troy Aikman, Michael Phelps. Even Roger Federer once. So sitting here with Blake Zimmerman should have been nothing. But I wasn’t about to attempt to have Troy Aikman’s baby.
And Troy Aikman wasn’t looking me in the eye like I’d just given him the best Christmas present ever.
He squeezed my hand and was about to speak again when the tap-tap of high heels sounded on the marble floor out in the hallway. He pulled back as if I were fire and stood, running his hands over his shorn head.
“Annie.”
I turned to find his beautiful wife standing in the doorway. She was a model a few years ago, appearing on the cover of Vogue a few times. She was pale where he was dark, blonde with these blue eyes that were like ice. They were quite a couple. Photographers loved to catch them together at social events, screaming their names and snapping pictures as quickly as they could to catch them before they disappeared. I’d only met her twice. She seemed surprisingly shy, never really speaking. But her eyes were snapping fire at the moment, almost as if she hadn’t known I’d be there.
“Cadence just stopped by so that we could talk about what comes next.”
“Is that right?”
There wasn’t just ice in her eyes. It was dripping from her voice, too.
I stood up, feeling like I’d just gotten caught in a fight that wasn’t my fight.
“I should go.”
“No,” Annie said, putting down the shopping bags she was holding. She came across the room and took my hands in hers. “Forgive me. I’m just really tired.”
“It’s okay.”
She studied my face for a moment, almost like her husband had done. But her expression was much harder to read. And then she leaned into me and kissed my cheek.
“Stay for dinner. The cook has made a wonderful chicken piccata that I think you’ll enjoy.”
She took my hand before I could answer and pulled me toward the dining room, chatting about some shoes she found today that she felt were such a good buy that we should celebrate. She even had a bottle of wine already chilling in the dining room that she snatched out of the ice the moment we walked in, working the electric corkscrew like an expert. Blake’s expression tightened as he watched her, anger flashing in his eyes briefly.
“Do you want some?” she asked me.
“No. the doctor said—”
“Really, Annie,” Blake said, “you shouldn’t drink either.”
“You make all these decisions unilaterally. Why can’t I decide whether or not I drink?”
“Because it’s not good for you.”
Annie glanced at me. “He worries about me. I have this little heart thing and he thinks that means he can boss me around, make all my decisions for me.”
“It’s not just a little heart thing.”
Annie took a long swig of her wine, and then leaned over me where I was sitting at the dining room table.
“My heart has trouble regulating its beat. The doctors have a fancy name for it and they give me all these medications to treat it, but I’ll probably have to have a pacemaker put in some time soon. That’s why I can’t have kids, much to his disappointment.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.” Annie set down the glass and poured more wine into it. “Getting fat and going through the pain of labor is simply something I don’t look forward to doing. I’ll leave that to others.”
She must have caught the slightly offended look on my face because she reached over and touched my arm.
“Don’t let me take away the glory of the whole thing for you. I’m just…disillusioned.” She glanced at Blake. “Isn’t that what you call it?”
He got up and marched around the table, taking her arms and pulled her back toward the doorway. “Why don’t we go upstairs?”
“Not now, darling, we have a guest.”
He whispered something in her ear and practically dragged her out of the room. I didn’t know what to do but sit there and watch. It was humiliating, but I’m not sure if it was more so for her or me.
I was about to sneak out when Blake came back downstairs.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, blocking my exit. “She’s been through a lot these last few years. She’s really very disappointed that she can’t carry a baby.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“I just…I don’t want you to think badly of Annie. She seems like she has it all together, but she has had a very difficult time of it. Her parents sucked, and then her manager took advantage of her. She never really had anyone who cared about her until she met me.”
“I get it, really.”
“I know. I just feel like I need to explain.”
I shook my head. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“We owe you everything. You’re doing this amazing thing for us. I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”
I glanced toward the stairs, then turned and headed to the door. “I’ll call you next week when I start the hormone shots.”
“She’s going to be a really good mom. I promise.”
My hands were shaking when I got into the car. I felt like I’d just gotten caught in the middle of something that was beyond my understanding. I didn’t grow up with parents, so I had no experience with parents fighting. I grew up with just my grandma. And the two of us rarely fought.
It took me a minute before I could start the car. I pulled out of the driveway slowly, not wanting to give them the wrong impression any more than they wanted to do the same with me. When I turned out into the street, there were a couple of cars parked there, people with cameras glued to their faces, trying to get candid shots of the star athlete turned businessman and his model wife. They were pretty disappointed that it was only me, some nobody they probably thought was the maid or something.
I was three blocks away before I realized that one of them had followed me down the hill.
I merged onto the highway, trying to get lost in the heavy, rush-hour traffic. But the car stuck with me, three or four cars back. I’d never been followed before, but ever since I came out of that lawyer’s office, it was like everyone wanted to know who I was and why I was meeting with Blake and his lawyer. I wondered what the headlines would be. Blake meets with mistress and attorney? Blake divorces Annie for frumpy nurse?
I could already see it. Wouldn’t they all be shocked when I started showing up in familiar places, my belly swollen with Blake’s baby?
It was a surreal thought, really. I was going to have a baby. I knew I wanted to have children someday, but it had never crossed my mind that my first child would belong to someone else. I’d have to hand it over the moment it was born. Could I do that? I thought I could when I first jumped at the opportunity, but now I was wondering if I really could.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe I should back out before things got too serious.
But then I thought about the gratefulness in Blake’s eyes, and I couldn’t bear the idea of seeing disappointment there.
I was doing a good thing. They wanted a child so badly; I couldn’t take that away from them.
I called my friend Lettie just as I headed off the highway, merging onto the side streets near my apartment.
“You want to
meet for dinner? I could use a little friendly companionship.”
“No problem.”
“You weren’t busy, were you?”
“Only trying to meet Mr. Right.”
I smiled. That meant she was at a bar. This should be an interesting night.
We met at the local Chili’s, nachos and fajitas sizzling on the pan. I sipped the cold beer the waitress set in front of me, sighing as the cold liquid flowed down my throat.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be drinking.”
“Next week when I start the hormone treatments. Not now.”
She studied my face. “I can’t believe you’re willing to put your life on hold for nine months for some people you hardly know.”
“Put what on hold? It’s not like I’ve had a decent date in more than six months.”
“What about Peter Mitchell?”
“Peter was a self-absorbed asshole who didn’t want to talk about anything other than himself.”
“What about Jack?”
“Jack Nichols? He was more interested in a good time than a relationship.”
Lettie lifted her drink even as she wagged a finger at me. “You know what your problem is? You’re too picky.”
I shook my head. “No. I just want a guy who wants me. Not some self-centered prick who’d just as soon stare in the mirror than in my eyes, or some guy who looks at me long enough to get into my bed.”
She laughed, her eyes moving around the room. “In the meantime, you should have some fun. What about that one?” She pointed to a waiter coming into the room with his hands loaded with heavy trays of food.
“Too young.”
She studied him. “College age. Not too bad. We’re not that far out of school.”
“Speak for yourself.”
She groaned, but she kept looking. “What about that one?” She gestured toward a middle- aged man sitting alone in a booth. He was good looking, a little white at his temples that made him look distinguished. But as I was looking, a woman came and joined him.
“Too married.”
Lettie looked around for a longer moment, her eyes flitting over this face and that. Finally, she gestured with a little nod of her head. “What about him?”
He was sitting at the bar, an untouched drink in front of him. He was a little hunched over, half turned toward us, half turned toward the television over the bar that was showing an old Dallas Cowboys game. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a black t-shirt that was tucked in. His hair was a dark blond, the kind of hair that looked like brown butter in a frying pan. His jaw was wide, flared out a little at the corners, his nose straight as an arrow. He had intense blue eyes, the color of cobalt, which seemed to look through me when our eyes met.
He looked as though he’d just left the military, the way he was tucked in and his hair was clearly growing out a buzz cut. The tattoo peeking out from under his shirtsleeve seemed to back that up, the bottom edge of the Marine emblem clearly visible against his deeply tanned skin.
“Hot!” Lettie mumbled.
“Yeah, but he looks like trouble.”
“You get that just from the way he’s sitting there?”
I shook my head, turning back to my own drink. “I’ve seen a lot of broken people in my time, Lettie. He looks like one.”
“What are you talking about? He’s fucking gorgeous!”
“Shh!” I glanced at him and for a second, our yes met again. Then he turned away, lifting his drink to his full lips. “He probably heard you.”
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t know why I go out with you. You’re always embarrassing me.”
“I do it on purpose. Don’t you know?”
I stuck my finger in my drink and flicked it at her, splashing her cheek. She laughed, lifting a napkin to wipe it away.
“Okay. But tell me why you think he’s broken.”
“Because he’s clearly just out of the military. He’s growing his hair out but it’s at that awkward stage. And he’s in a bar in the middle of a family restaurant all by himself. He clearly has no family or friends he cares to hang out with. And there’s no girl. A guy that hot? They always have a girl hanging around somewhere nearby.”
“Maybe he’s just waiting to find the right woman.”
“Or maybe he’s just gotten back from Afghanistan and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
Lettie shook her head. “I think you’re just looking for excuses to avoid a relationship.”
“I can’t have a relationship right now. I’m about to be inseminated with a couple’s baby. A relationship would just complicate that.”
“That’s just an excuse, too.”
I changed the subject and we ended up talking about her last two boyfriends. Not a big change in subject, but at least the focus moved from me. The guy at the bar was gone when we got up. I ducked into the bathroom, and then followed Lettie out to our cars. She hugged me, and then ducked into her little Prius, leaving me with my gas-guzzling Ford. I was about to get in when the back window suddenly imploded.
I spun around just in time to see a car—the same car that’d been following me earlier—speed through the parking lot, the muzzle of a pistol sticking out of the driver’s side window. I managed to throw myself into the car just as he fired again, the window beside me exploding into a shower of glass.
Pain flashed through my thigh and there was blood on the front of my skirt.
Chapter 3
Megan
I pushed my ass back against Dante, wiggling it slightly. He groaned, tugging me closer to him, his mouth sliding over my shoulder.
“You feel like silk, taste like sugar.”
“You’re tasting my lotion.”
“No, I’m tasting you.”
He nuzzled closer, wrapping his arms around me, his fingers wandering down the length of my belly. I moaned as his fingers brushed my clit.
“We can’t keep doing this.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because you work for me.”
He nibbled my throat. “So?”
“It’s not ethical.”
“So?”
“What if someone found out? They’d all think I was showing you favoritism.”
“Aren’t you?”
“And if it ended, would you accuse me of sexual harassment?”
“Do I look like that kind of guy?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know you that well.”
He slid past my clit, spreading my lips with just the width of his long finger. I closed my eyes, moving my hips back against him as he pressed forward against me, his cock sliding between my thighs. I groaned, reaching down to push his hand tighter against me, grinding my clit against the base of his hand. He kissed my jaw, his lips sliding slowly up to the bottom edge of my ear.
“I want you.” He nibbled at my earlobe a little. “I know you want me. Nothing else really matters.”
“Why do you want me?”
He made a sound that was something between a chuckle and a moan. “Have you ever looked in a mirror? You’re a fucking sexy woman.”
“I don’t love you. You know that, right? This won’t ever become more than this.”
His movements stopped, his hand stilling between my legs. I felt tension in his body, but then he relaxed, molding his body around mine again.
“Maybe this is all I want.”
“Is it? Can you be satisfied with just this?”
He was quiet for a long minute. “I know about Luke,” he said, his voice doing something funny when he said the name of my former fiancé. “I’d have to have my head in the sand to not know about him. I know you still love him, and that you still hope he’ll return. I get that.”
“Yeah?”
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, this man, this new lover, giving voice to Luke’s name. It didn’t seem right that he would know it, let alone speak it. But he was right. Everyone at Dragon knew about Luke and how he left me the morning of ou
r wedding. They also knew about Peter, who helped me begin my business, the brother who died in a car accident nearly two years ago. They knew these things because most of them helped me investigate the accident. They tried to help me prove it was murder due to the terrorist cell Peter tripped over while following a lead on someone who was selling some software Peter had developed at our family company, Bradford Telecommunications, without a license.
We’d recently discovered more on Peter’s investigation. Dominic, another of my assets, had a friend in the CIA who was murdered just a couple of weeks ago. She had done research on the same terrorist cell and she uncovered the identities of several prominent people involved with the terrorists. There was more, but a computer virus corrupted the files before we could review them. It was frustrating. These things seemed to happen a lot while we were investigating this case.
“I get you, Megan,” Dante said against my ear. “I’m here as long as you need me. And I’ll be gone the moment you ask.”
I rolled into him, ran my hand up the length of his bare chest. There were tattoos on his chest, odd tattoos, in the same place Luke once had a very prominent tattoo that was a quote from Dante’s Inferno, something that we shared a passion for. It said, ‘Remember tonight…for it is the beginning of always.’ He whispered it to me one night as we walked along the water’s edge in Galveston, after promising that I was the only woman he’d ever want.
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