FOURTEEN
His mother wasn’t speaking to him when Grant arrived. And, considering she’d been trying to set his pregnant non-girlfriend up with one of his oldest friends he could totally live with that.
It wasn’t like he wanted Darcy for himself. He’d spent the past two months making sure everyone who crossed their paths understood he didn’t. But did he want to see her set up with the guy who’d earned the nickname “Homer” in undergrad for all the “home runs” he scored on the female student body and a fair number of the faculty, as well. Sure Grant had grown up since then. Jeff had even set him up with a friend or two over the years.
But Darcy?
The mother of his child?
No.
The guy had been cool about it, too, shooting him a brief nod of understanding before ushering Jeff’s mom out for the evening, and leaving Jeff and Darcy with the house to themselves.
He’d gotten her a pizza, and even made her the cake as they talked about movies and food, the work she’d been doing for his mother. They joked about Vegas and he told her about Connor and the wife he’d met and married all in one night, sharing a few of the more colorful highlights of their romantic journey.
Darcy laughed until she cried listening to his account of moving heaven and earth to keep a monumentally intoxicated Connor from taking the classic “drunk dial” to plane-hopping extremes in his quest to win Megan back after a particularly rough patch. And like always, the sound of her laughter got to him like nothing else. It did something to the space in the center of his chest he wasn’t even aware of when he wasn’t with her. Made him wonder if there was anything he wouldn’t do to ensure he got to keep hearing it.
Darcy snuggled into the corner of the couch, her feet tucked up against the buttery leather as the last of her laughter subsided. “Honestly, Jeff, after all that I hope they name their firstborn after you.”
“Firstborn, hmm?” He stretched back himself, feeling the tension ease from his muscles. “You do that more now, too? Find yourself making reference to babies when you never did before? My V.P. suggested making it a drinking game, everyone taking a shot of espresso each time I drop the B word.”
And there was the little twitch at the corner of her mouth. The telling precursor to the smile she didn’t try to keep from him any longer.
“I guess maybe I do.” She met his eyes. “But it makes me happy to know I’m not the only one with baby brain.”
“I told you. We’re in it together.”
“Glad to hear you’re volunteering to share in the labor and delivery.”
He ran a hand through his hair, watching Darcy as a comfortable silence fell over them. Labor and delivery. It was hard to think that far ahead when she was hardly showing.
That dress she’d had on earlier—hell, it had been so damn sexy. Hugging the curves of her breasts, sliding around her hips and thighs, and there for the first time, he’d seen the barest curve of her belly. He’d wanted to put his hand over the little swell, rub his face against the silky fabric and whisper to the child they were sharing between them.
The possessive impulse stabbing through him had been sharp and deep, and he’d nearly blown a gasket at the thought she looked like that for another man.
But then the craziest thing had happened. She’d given him one of her placid smiles, the kind so bland, it wasn’t supposed to reveal a single thing about the thought process taking place behind it...and he’d seen exactly what she was thinking.
She didn’t want to go. She’d wanted to stay with him, like he wanted to stay with her. Because they were becoming friends, and the lure of this mutual interest that went deeper than any he’d known before, was almost impossible to resist.
Darcy’s eyes closed, her features falling into a gentle expression so soft and beautiful, Jeff couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop the words that came from his mouth next because he hadn’t even realized he was thinking them.
“Why did you go?”
Those gray eyes blinked open at him, so unguarded he knew right then she hadn’t understood what he was asking.
He had the chance to take it back. Pretend at asking something other than the question haunting him for five months already. But he wanted to know. Somehow, he needed to, despite the fact it wouldn’t change anything.
“In Vegas. Why did you leave the way you did?”
Like he knew it would, the soft smile hovering over her lips evaporated into the air along with the ease and comfort that had been between them.
Darcy’s arms crossed over the small swell of her belly. Defensive. Guarded.
“I had to go. I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
Damn it, he didn’t get it. “Why not? We met. We had fun. We had chemistry. What was so horrible about one night of giving in to it? It wasn’t like you made it a biweekly habit.”
The look she gave him held shades of hurt he didn’t understand. “I know for you, one night is no big deal. You meet someone, have some fun, decide you want to take it back to your room for the night...and you go for it. You’re good with a few hours of giving in because you won’t walk away bruised. You won’t get caught up in feelings you don’t want to have. You won’t start building fantasies about a reality that has an expiration date of a couple hours from then. But it’s not like that for me. I’ve spent the past ten years being the only person looking out for me. So I’ve been careful. About my job. My time. My life. But then there you were, offering me a night to do a few of the things I’d never done. Tempting me to break the rules and live up Vegas like it was my last night to do it.”
“And because it actually was your last night, you agreed.”
“After all the years of saying no and doing the right thing, I couldn’t resist. I thought I had it all figured out. I was done with work. I wasn’t going to be around for any unwanted attention. You seemed safe enough—plus you seemed smart enough not to dump me in a ditch after six hundred video cameras captured us leaving the casino together.”
The way her brain worked. He both loved and hated it.
“So I figured, what was the harm? It seemed safe. No risk. Just a night of fun.”
Her mouth pulled to the side and her eyes went to some faraway place it made him feel good to think he might be with her in.
“It was fun. It was great,” he said, appreciative for what she was sharing, but still not any closer to understanding why she’d taken off without so much as a goodbye.
“When I fell into bed with you, I thought I could handle it. We were both adults. You made me feel things I never feel. And I wanted more of it.”
The next breath she took was unsteady.
“I wanted more of your eyes on me, looking like you couldn’t look away.” She peered back at him and lifted one shoulder. “I know that wasn’t really the way it was. What we were doing was about a physical release. It was about sex. And I was okay with it. It’s just—I don’t know, it had been so long since I’d been intimate with someone—I wasn’t prepared for how it would make me feel. And I knew the kinds of things running through my head didn’t belong there.”
He shouldn’t ask. But, hell, he wanted to know. “What things?”
Darcy turned to the window, hiding her eyes from his, but not the pink stain infusing her cheeks.
“That being in your arms made me feel like I never wanted to leave. It was something I could get used to too fast. Something I might hope for more of.”
“Then why the hell did you leave?”
This time the laughter that passed her lips had a bitter sound to it. A sharp edge to warn him from getting too close.
“Because that’s not what either of us had been looking for. You didn’t pick me up looking for a new girlfriend or someone to settle down with. You picked me up looking for the kind of good time that happens in Vegas and stays in Vegas. A few hours of fun, remember? No broken hearts in the street. But the time we shared meant something to me, and I wasn’t willing to risk tainting the memory of it with some awkward dismissal where you handed me my panties and thanked me for the great time.”
“You didn’t know it was going to go that way.”
“I didn’t. But that’s the point, Jeff. I couldn’t stand the idea of waiting around to find out. I didn’t want to be the cocktail waitress tucked into your bed hoping you weren’t going to kick her out before morning.”
So she’d bolted. Taken the drastic, undoable action before he’d even had a chance to give her another alternative. It wasn’t the same as what happened with Margo. Not even close to the betrayal he’d never seen coming. And yet that sense of somehow being cheated lingered in the back of his mind, prompting him to come back with the different ways it could have gone.
“You could have gotten dressed and waited for me to come back. You could have been the one to say goodbye.”
“Except then I’d still have been standing there hoping.” The vulnerability in her eyes was like a blow to the chest, momentarily knocking the wind from his lungs.
What kind of life had she had that a little hope was such a bad thing?
He caught her chin in the crook of his finger. “I wanted to see you again. I wanted—” He broke off and shook his head. “Before I realized our protection failed, I was going to tell you I wanted to see you again.”
But then the moment he saw what had happened everything changed. If Darcy had been there when he’d come out of the bathroom, yes, he’d have been able to explain about the protection. They’d have exchanged information. He’d have promised to get in touch within a few weeks. But he wouldn’t have asked her to stay. He wouldn’t have tried to convince her to give him the next day or night or anything else. Because he’d have been too worried about the rest of his life.
Only now the worst-case scenario that had eaten at his gut for months was a reality and it didn’t feel like the worst of anything. It was just...not what he’d expected. Yes, it had turned his life upside down. Disrupted plans for the both of them. But he wouldn’t take it back. He was going to be a father. With months yet before he would be able to lay eyes on his child, the connection was already there.
“I know I shouldn’t have left, Jeff. And I’m sorry. But I was out of my depth. And the truth is, even if everything had been different, if you’d asked me for more than a single night, I still wouldn’t have been able to take you up on it. I was moving. That day.”
“I have a helicopter, cars, money. I could have met you. Anywhere.”
What was he doing, trying to convince her of the possibility of a scenario he knew wouldn’t have come to fruition? Unless, what he wanted was for her to start believing in the potential of what might have been—because he wanted her to believe in what still could be.
Her head tipped back, and Jeff found his eyes drifting over the slender extended column of her neck, the soft spill of blond down her back and the small smile playing across her lips. Hell, was that what he was doing there? Had he started to believe?
* * *
Darcy, closed her eyes. “Hmm. You would have buzzed over to San Francisco for a night out on the Wharf with your Vegas cocktail waitress?”
“Probably would have skipped the Wharf unless it was where the woman I met in Vegas wanted to go.” There was no missing the emphasis on his clarification or the hard look he gave her when he made it. But then the amusement was back as he leaned in conspiratorially closer.
“I would have booked the first trip around business. Made it look like I was playing it cool. Like meeting up just happened to work out.”
What if? was a dangerous game to play. One Darcy had made it a life habit to avoid. But as with so many things, all Jeff had to do was flash a dimple and there she was, playing along. Flirting around a road not taken.
If things had gone like this...which they didn’t...it could have been like that.
And why not? It wouldn’t lead anywhere.
“Just look that way?” she teased.
But then Jeff was looking into her eyes, the small concentrated furrow between his brows giving her pause, drawing her attention to the way that invisible thing she could feel but couldn’t see shifted in the air between them.
To a slow spreading warmth skimming the surface of her skin.
To one beat of time blending into another, until Jeff answered, “Yes.”
With Jeff’s eyes locked on hers and his make-believe admission still hovering in the air between them, suddenly giving in to this flirtation once removed seemed far from harmless. Like it had become a dangerous thing with the potential to destroy something important to her.
And Darcy wasn’t going to let that happen.
So clearing her throat, she made a show of screwing up her face and pushing a wry note into her voice. “Hmm, sounds nice. But if you really want to know, I have an aversion to Pretty Woman fantasies.” Then quickly added, “Not that I see myself as a prostitute.”
Jeff laughed. “Geez, Darcy, what kind of childhood did you have? Cinderella ring a bell? Hardworking-maiden, working her fingers to the bone serving the wealthy-but-cruel stepsisters, sneaks off to meet a hot prince who doesn’t want to let her go and then moves heaven and earth to find her.”
The slender arch of her brow pushed high. “Truth?”
“Always.”
Well he’d asked for it. “I’ve never seen Cinderella. Of course, I know the gist of the story. It’s the one with the shoe where the prince sends some lackey out to do his dirty work because he can’t be bothered and doesn’t even remember the face of the woman he’s decided he wants to spend his life with. I’m way more familiar with Julia Roberts being pulled out of her low income life by the wealthy, romantic Richard Gere. It was my mom’s favorite. We had it on VHS and at the end, it was so worn the thing would barely play anymore.”
For a moment she could feel the oppressive heat and stale air within the old trailer coating her skin. “I used to hate seeing my mother’s rapt expression as she stared at the screen, that same infuriating combination of hope and hopelessness in her eyes.
“The thing is, Jeff, I was never really into the idea of some Charming sweeping in to rescue me from my life. My fantasy, from as far back as I can remember, has always been to take care of myself. To be dependent on no one.” She sighed, giving him one of those lopsided little grins that did things to him he wasn’t used to. “So much for fantasies, huh?”
“What’s wrong with letting someone with the means and desire take care of you? I know your independence is important to you...but, Darcy, we made this baby together. You’re giving it your body, your very lifeblood. At this stage the only thing I have to give is support to you in whatever form you need. Emotional. Financial.”
Darcy looked at the man who had been nothing but generous with her from the start and wondered if she’d ever trust him enough to explain. If she could make herself vulnerable enough to share why she was the way she was. If coming from this life of love and privilege, he could even begin to comprehend what it had been like to feel hungry, trapped, afraid. Hopeless. To have such a keen awareness of how precarious the only existence you knew was. To watch the man between you and a fate too terrifying to contemplate, count out one bill after another with his grimy hands, wondering if, when he was done with the sick game he played, he would give up a bill to her mother to buy food, or if he’d make them wait another day. Or more.
She could still hear her mother’s nervous pleading. “Earl, don’t make me beg.”
And the answering sneer, “Why not? Why the hell should I give you anything? Or that brat of yours.”
Then those yellowed eyes searching her out across the cramped space, and her mother’s sudden desperate agreement. The sight of her mother on her knees, laughing like it was all a game, but the humiliation and desperation evident in every forced breath.
“Hey,” Jeff asked, his brows drawn together. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she answered quickly. “Nothing’s wrong. I know how lucky I am in all this. And I’m very grateful for your support.”
Jeff stared at her a moment more, but whatever he was thinking she couldn’t quite tell. And then, “I don’t want your gratitude, Darcy. I want you to feel secure.”