They watched him, then assessed Calista in her casual blue slacks, purple faux wrapped blouse, and sensible two-inch heels. Her ensemble screamed “the help.” Nothing she wasn’t accustomed to, particularly since it was the truth. She was the help.
Past tense. Now, she was the baby mama.
She stifled a snort. Baby mama wasn’t what she planned on being when she listed her goals and aspirations in ninth grade. Hey, most kids weren’t planned, so she was in good company. The time for beating herself up was done. She was having this kid. Her heart stuttered. I’m going to be someone’s mother. Followed by, What if something’s wrong?
She’d deal with that too. By herself, if necessary.
Shoulders squared, the receptionist sat behind a tall frost glass desk. She was all smiles as they approached.
“Julius Morgan to see Dr. Kane.”
Huh? Since when did he get knocked up? Calista inhaled a breath through her mouth and eased it out through her nose all in the attempt to calm down.
“Good morning, Mr. Morgan. I’ll get Olivia, Dr. Kane’s nurse, to escort you to the examination room.” The receptionist picked up the phone and announced their arrival. A few feet away, a door with a keypad opened and a woman stepped out.
“Mr. Morgan. Ms. Coleman. I’m Olivia. Please follow me.” She took them to an exam room and waited until they were inside to say, “I’m sorry to inform you. Dr. Kane was pulled away on an emergency C-section. Dr. Meyers will be your physician today, unless you want to wait for Dr. Kane. I must warn you it could be quite a while.” She directed her comment to Julius. Not Calista.
“You do realize I’m the one who’s pregnant,” Calista snapped. “No matter how much you suck up to him, or how much money he has, he doesn’t have a uterus. That is why we’re here.” Nurse Olivia had the decency to turn beet red. “I’ll see Dr. Meyers. Where is the gown I need to change into?”
“Behind the curtain. Please take everything off. I’ll return to get your vitals in a moment. Mr. Morgan, you can wait inside or outside the room, if you prefer,” Nurse Olivia said quickly regaining her composure.
“I’ll wait in—” Julius started.
“Outside,” Calista finished and ushered him out the door, closing it in his face. Today was not the day to piss her off. She stripped quickly and donned the gown. It wasn’t the first time she was naked in a gown, in a cold room, waiting for a doctor to get a peek at her private parts. It was the first time she had a bun in her oven along with the IUD she had implanted to prevent the bun.
“You better be okay in there,” she whispered and rubbed her lower abdomen. A knock echoed. “Come in.”
Nurse Olivia was back. Height. Weight. Temperature. Heart rate. Blood pressure. Last menstrual period. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Labs were drawn and then she left, and Julius entered.
Nerves showing, he scanned the room as if he were crossing enemy lines. “Is it safe?”
She snickered and nodded once. “No landmines in here.”
“Just making sure.” Hands in his pockets, he leaned against a cabinet, anxious. Most men didn’t plan on being at a GYN appointment. It wasn’t in the guy code handbook. Calista took pity on him and decided to explain.
“The doctor will come in and go over my history and concerns. He or she will do an internal exam.” Did she want him present for that? “You can wait behind the curtain or outside if you’re too uncomfortable.”
“Where do you want me?” he asked pointedly.
“Behind the curtain will be fine.”
He nodded once, though his gaze darted around the room. “Nervous?”
“Me?” Startled by the question, she shook her head. “I’ve had my girlie parts examined before.”
He chuckled dryly. “Not that. About the entire thing. The pregnancy. Being a mother.”
“Oh, well, yeah.” The question caught her off guard, but she decided to answer it truthfully. “That’s why I hesitated. I don’t want to screw this up. Seeing how my mother struggled, being a single parent isn’t some—”
“You’re not a single parent,” he said. “I’m here and not going anywhere. I’ll be here for the good and the bad parts.”
Nice speech. She needed action, not words, then she’d believe it. “The bad parts? Is that why you’re here?”
His brow tightened along with the rest of his body and his head cocked to the side. “That’s what you think?” Aghast, he shook his head. “I’m about to meet my child, hear her heartbeat. There’s nothing bad about that.”
Good comeback. She latched onto one particular word. “Her?”
The corners of his mouth curled. “A hunch.”
“You want a girl? Not a boy?”
“I want a healthy, happy kid who sleeps through the night.” He countered, ever the pragmatic one.
She laughed and before she agreed someone knocked on the door and entered the room. “Ms. Coleman and Mr. Morgan, I’m Dr. Meyers.”
He was young, mid-thirties, younger than she preferred her doctors to be. And attractive. Lean, tall, though shorter than Julius, clean-shaven with brown hair, cropped on the sides and tousled on the top, and brown eyes. Not her type, but not hard on the eyes. Not hard at all.
Julius stepped into the path of the physician, got into his personal space, and towered over him. “You’re the doctor?” His territorial snarl was inappropriate, unwarranted, yet sent goose bumps down her spine.
“Yes.” The doctor hid his nervousness poorly. “I’ve been an OB/GYN for ten years.”
Was the man Doogie Howser? Calista thought. “You seem pretty young to have practiced for ten years.”
“My precise thoughts.” Julius folded his arms. She couldn’t see his face but knew he glared. “How old are you?”
“I’m forty-five. I know I look young for my age. Good genes. You should see my mother.” He stepped around Julius and came to her side. “Now, if Ms. Coleman is okay with my age and youthful appearance, I can get started.”
She liked him. “Yes. We can.”
Julius hemmed and hawed.
“Mr. Morgan, you can wait outside until I’m ready to check the baby.” The doctor had regained his equilibrium and wasn’t afraid to put Julius in his place.
“I’ll stay,” he grumbled.
She couldn’t say she wasn’t pleased and silently laughing at his obvious discomfort. “And you’ll be silent.”
“Silent,” he grumbled. “I can do that.” He resumed his spot out of the way, leaning against the cabinets on the opposite wall, brooding and watching everything.
Dr. Meyers went through her medical and family history. When it came time to examine her, again, he offered Julius an out. Again, Julius turned it down and chose to remain behind the curtain while she went through a complete physical and pelvic exam with the nurse present.
“Alright. Things look good,” Dr. Meyers said as he helped her into a seated position.
“What the hell does that mean?” Julius said from behind the curtain. He’d behaved, been perfectly quiet.
“It means I’m not dying, and you can rejoin us.”
The curtain snapped back. He scanned her as if he expected to find her in pieces and crying hysterically. She snickered. Men.
“I’ll be right back with the portable ultrasound machine and we’ll take a peek at your baby.” The doctor left quickly.
Calista waited until they were alone to say, “Next time, you wait in the waiting room until this part.”
“Agreed.” He stroked his warm hand down her bare arm. Tingles erupted everywhere he touched. He captured her hand, threaded their fingers together. Brown woven between white. Stronger together than apart. They had to be for the journey ahead.
“What’s next?” he asked. “After we leave here?”
“Lunch.” She was a bit hungry.
“And after that?”
She wasn’t stupid and had a good idea where he was going with this. “You go home, and I go home.”
He squeezed her
hand and caged her with his body. “For now, I’ll accept that. In the long term, that’s not going to work. You, me and the kid need to be under the same roof.” He studied her from under his lids.
“No.” The word was gut punch automatic.
Anger flared within his burnish gaze. “I want to be there for the 2:00 a.m. feedings.”
“That’s what a nanny is for.” She had zero intention of hiring a stranger to care for her child.
He smirked, his handsomeness inching higher on the stud Richter scale. “There’s no way you can convince me you’d let a stranger take care of our baby.”
Damn it. “You’re right. Look, can we not talk about this today. We have a few months to make a decision.”
“Alright. Topic shelved for now.” He eased closer, his head dropping to brush the side of her neck. Caught between the desire to angle her head, giving him complete access, and the fear of what that would mean, she froze. Firm lips coasted featherlight over her skin. It was so wrong to get turned on while sitting on the examination table in a gown. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Which did not stop her from sighing in agreement when his lips crested her jaw and headed for her lips. She braced, afraid of herself, not him. Afraid she’d never want him to stop.
He paused. The banked heat in his gaze toasted her insides. They promised things. Carnal, erotic things she absolutely wanted him to do to her. Why was she angry at him again?
Oh yeah. Erica. But she wasn’t here right now, and Julius was.
A knock on the door brought back her common sense. She pushed him away before they were caught necking like teenagers in the back seat of a car. Dr. Meyers returned wheeling a machine in front of him. He plugged the machine into an outlet and requested she lay on her back. A nurse entered to assist him, getting a blanket to cover Calista’s lower half and a pillow to prop her up and make her more comfortable. The doctor rolled a stool under his ass and scooted between the bed and the machine. She watched him flick switches and bring the machine to life.
“Keeping the blanket across your pelvis, please raise your gown,” Dr. Meyers asked.
The nurse helped Calista shimmy the gown out of the way, exposing the flat plane of her lower abdomen. He squeezed a dollop of warm gel above her pubis and another dollop on the probe. Calista didn’t watch him. She watched the hazy, grainy, black-white-and-gray image on the monitor attached to the machine. Slowly a blob took shape in a triangular black sea. In the blob, something flickered. Dr. Meyers flicked another button and a sound startled Calista. It sounded like a metronome on speed. It faded in and out as the doctor angled the probe this way and that way, until finally, the unmistakable sound of a rapid heartbeat filled the room. She looked at Julius. Stunned fascination had his eyes wide and his jaw slack.
“That’s your baby’s heartbeat,” Dr. Meyers said.
“It’s so fast,” she whispered, enthralled.
“It is completely normal and supposed to be that fast.” The doctor angled the probe and the image on the screen changed, different shades of black and gray intermingled. She had no idea what she looked at, but it did appear to be something. “Judging by the gestational sack, you are ten weeks and four days. That would put your estimated delivery date at May seventh.”
It didn’t happen in Vegas. The stairs. She got knocked up on the staircase in her house. Well, shit.
She glanced at Julius again, but he stared at the monitor with awe on his face. “Hey. You good?”
His gaze dipped to her and what she saw in his burnish depths had her throat tightening and tears welling in her eyes. Yeah, though the words wouldn’t come, she felt the same way. He cupped her cheek, curled over her body, and kissed her. And she kissed him back. Let herself get lost in him and what they created.
“I’m better than good,” he whispered against her lips, then turned his attention to the doctor. “Is the baby okay, Doc?”
“What about the IUD?” Calista propped herself up on her elbows.
“I’m going to schedule an official ultrasound. That will determine where the IUD is in relation to the embryo. So far, the pregnancy seems viable.” She’d never been so relieved. “Also, I’m giving you a prescription for neonatal vitamins and anti-nausea medication. Once you have the ultrasound, you can schedule a follow-up appointment with Dr. Kane.”
“No. I like you. I’m sticking with you.” She cleaned the gel off her stomach and allowed Julius to help her into a seated position.
“That will be fine as long as you both agree.”
“We agree.” She cut Julius off before he could say something too stupid to retract. “You’re my doctor.”
“I’m happy to help you bring a new life into the world. Excuse me. I’ll let you get dressed while the nurse gets your paperwork.”
Calista scooted off the exam table. She headed for the curtain and her clothes.
“Should we shellac your staircase in honor of the event?” Julius laughed.
She snorted, pleased he did the math. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“What now, Calista?”
“I thought we agreed on lunch,” she said, slipping into her underwear.
Exasperated, he sighed. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She slipped her shirt over her head and shook her hair free.
“You go to Queens. I go to Manhattan. We meet once a month for your appointments. Is that what you want?”
She pulled on her pants. Not exactly but that’s what they had. Two separate households. “I want what’s best for this child.” Seemed like a safe answer. She slipped on her shoes, then glanced at the mirror on the wall. She looked the same as when she left the house that morning.
“What’s best for our child is not two households,” he said on the other side of the curtain.
The child wasn’t here yet and already he tried to tell her what to do, where to live. Soon, he’d tell her what to eat, how to dress, what to think, feel. That would never be her. She yanked back the curtain. He was right there in front of her, looming. Her hormones conspired with her libido, liking the aggressive glint in his eyes and the possessive tension in his body.
“I thought we agreed to shelve this for longer than five minutes.”
He glared at her and she wasn’t unaffected. Her nipples tightened and her core heated. She couldn’t tell him to suck it up, my way or the highway, because today, having him with her was nice. Really nice. Addictive even. So, no. She wouldn’t tell him to fuck off, but she wanted him at every appointment, holding her hand and worrying over every little thing, big and small as their baby grew.
“We have thirty weeks to figure everything out, and I won’t be rushed.” She grabbed her purse. “I’m hungry. Are you coming?”
Chapter Fifteen
“H ey, Pops! How’re they hangin’?” Joshua barged into Julius’ office and plunked his ass on the leather couch against the paneled wall. Navy suit with baby blue button-down, and a silver-and-blue-striped tie. He needed a haircut.
Fuck! He’d channeled his father and that shit wouldn’t do.
“Between my legs the last time I checked.” He gave his brother his full attention. He could spare a few minutes, though today wasn’t a day for distraction. He had a lot of shit on his plate.
“How’s the future mama doing?”
Now at twelve weeks pregnant, the morning sickness had abated but the mornings were the worst. Coffee remained a consistent culprit. Bacon and cleaning products with bleach and anything with mint had Calista bent over, purging the contents of her stomach.
And he was there for all of it. Holding her hair back, carrying her to bed. Bringing her tea and crackers to settle her stomach until she was ready to eat a lightly buttered bagel or, on occasion, pancakes with no syrup. It hadn’t been easy going back and forth between his penthouse in Manhattan and her house in Queens, particularly the last two days when he had to fly to California, but he refuse
d to miss any of it.
“Good.” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.
“Spending all that time together is working. Getting back in her good graces and her bed. That more flies with sugar than vinegar works. Gotta remember that next time I’m in the doghouse.”
“You don’t have a pet, never mind a girlfriend.”
Joshua shrugged. “I will eventually. No rush. Don’t want to end up like you.”
Julius took exception to that. “What’s wrong with ending up like me?”
“You’re pussywhipped.” Joshua waved at him with ill-disguised disgust. “Don’t try denying it. That’s all everyone around here is talking about, especially on the days she shows up to work with you. Learning the job.”
“What?” Normally, he didn’t care if his staff gossiped about him. He did care if they gossiped about Calista.
“Don’t get twisted. Most of the women think it’s romantic how she fainted and you went all alpha hero and swept in to save her. The men wish they had your money.”
“You read minds now?”
“Nope. I’m one of the people. That happens when you’re liked,” he said, hinting that Julius wasn’t liked, as if Julius gave a damn. “How’s she doing at Bryn Co.?”
“Fine.” His people there were guiding her through the ropes, answering her questions.
“Can I ask a question? It’s personal.” Joshua hedged.
That was unusual. Usually his brother blurted whatever nonsense his brain generated without a filter. Curious, Julius nodded.
“Why her? Why Calista? And I’m not talking about the interracial relationship part, ’cause in the end, that’s just a facet of the relationship to work out. What I want to know is… What was it about her that made you…”
Plain and the Billionaire's Seduction (Plain Jane Series Book 3) Page 11