I laugh at her obvious delight over something so small. I can’t resist screwing with Aidan one last time before I end the call. “If that’s all it takes, baby, I’ll keep you supplied with as much meat as you can handle.” Lia starts giggling at the same time as Aidan chokes on his beer. If nothing else, I’ve provided the comic relief for the evening. After Aidan’s startling revelation, it was much needed.
When I end the call, Aidan shakes his head. “I don’t even want to know.”
“No, you really don’t,” I smirk as I wave our waitress over to place Lia’s order. Serious again, I tell Aidan resolutely, “Don’t worry about anything; we’ll get to the bottom of it. I’ll call you when Max knows something.” Walking out the door with Aidan a few minutes later, I shake my head wondering to myself why all roads seem to lead to Cassie. I just hope to God that pattern changes sometime soon because I won’t let her or anything jeopardize my future with Lia. I will keep the woman I love and my child safe this time—no matter what it takes.
Chapter Fourteen
Lia
“Are you nervous?” Rose asks as she helps me pull my graduation gown over my head. I grimace when I look down, seeing what looks like a basketball pushing against the silky material. There’s no hiding it any longer.
“Couldn’t they have picked black gowns?” I grumble as I attempt to smooth the clingy, white fabric down. “I look like a bigger version of Casper the ghost in this thing.” I see Rose bite her lip to keep from laughing as she somehow manages to make the same outfit look chic and stylish. I have little doubt she could wear a trash bag and make it look like something off a runway. She’s wearing mile-high heels that do amazing things for her legs while Lucian had made me promise to wear flats. He was worried about me tripping when going up the steps to accept my diploma. I could have ignored his advice, but I figured he might have a small point about me overbalancing. My stomach was now a force of gravity that made extra safety measures necessary.
Rose throws her arm around my shoulder and hugs me tight. “We did it, chick. Can you believe we’re graduating today?”
I swallow down the sudden lump in my throat as I return her embrace. “I know. It doesn’t seem real. I spent so long just taking it one week at a time, that I never noticed when months began passing. Have you decided what you’re going to do now?” I had asked Rose that before but hadn’t really received a straight answer.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “My dad wants me to work on the campaign for one of his friends who’s up for reelection to the senate. I guess I’ll do that and then go from there. At this point, I just consider it a victory that I’ve managed to avoid moving back home. How about you?”
I can tell by her carefully blank expression that there’s more to it than what she’s saying, but I’ve learned that if Rose doesn’t want to talk about something, then you might as well leave it alone. She’ll continue to change the subject until you let it go. I give her a rueful smile as I pat my stomach. “I guess I’m out of the job hunt until after the baby. It’s not likely that anyone will be interested in hiring me looking like I’m going to go into labor at any moment.” I still have four more months to go until my due date, but my stomach is huge.
“I bet your dad or Lucian would hire you in a minute,” she suggests even though she knows my opinion on both of those options. Lee and I continue to take small steps toward building some kind of relationship, but it still seems weird to hear someone refer to him so casually. “True,” I agree, “but I can just imagine the talk from other employees at Quinn Software if Lucian’s pregnant girlfriend joined the staff. He doesn’t give a damn and has said as much, but I do—enough for both of us. It would be tough to prove myself there while sleeping with the boss under the best of circumstances, but toss in the fact that I’m pregnant and it’d be almost impossible to get any respect. The same thing goes for working at Falco—minus the sleeping with the boss issue, of course.” Lee has brought up the subject of us working together several times, going so far as to say it’s my birthright. I would love to work for a company such as his. It’s what I trained for. But I don’t want him hiring me out of some kind of guilt or responsibility. It’s best we don’t complicate things between us right now. “I’m going to use the time before the baby is born to research some of the companies in the area that might be interested in hiring me in the future. To get my name out there, I could also sign up with one of the recruiters the college recommends.”