FIFTEEN
Within the walls of his modern L.A. apartment, Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and tried not to crush the phone at his ear with the other. Only Jim Huang wasn’t doing anything more than delivering the news that the two weeks Jeff had just spent in Melbourne nailing down a new deal with Lexington Construction had been a success. The contracts were in hand and everything was a go. But after fourteen fifteen-hour days, a seventeen-hour international flight, customs, a trip home only to shower and change, then a four-hour meeting at the L.A. office, Jeff was shot. And this verbal confirmation of what he’d already ascertained through email was his limit.
“Jim, that’s fantastic news. Get in touch if anything critical comes up. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you guys Monday. Round of drinks on me tonight.”
Disconnecting, he looked at the clean lines and open space of his apartment and let the silence settle over him. A half-eaten microwave dinner sat in front of him. The beer he’d cracked, down a single swallow. It was only seven, but for the number of hours he’d been running, it was definitely late enough to go to bed.
Only he kept thinking about Darcy.
He’d talked to her a handful of times while he’d been gone, and texted daily. But after having gotten in the habit of heading over to the house a couple of times a week, going this long without seeing her was making him itch.
He’d checked in with her earlier. Said he’d drive out tomorrow after he’d gotten some sleep and might make company worth having. But now...
Hell. He ought to just go to bed. In fact, forget the bed.
He flopped back on the couch and stretched completely out for the first time in he couldn’t remember. Felt the ache and creak of a body running on fumes.
And didn’t go to sleep.
Because he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
His arm slung out from the couch, fumbling across the coffee table until he found his phone.
He’d just check in. And then he’d be able to sleep.
Punching in a few numbers, he waited for the line to pick up. “I need a car.”
* * *
The house was mostly dark by the time Jeff arrived, the downstairs deserted, no sounds of activity filtering through from the floors above. Maybe he should have called ahead, but he hadn’t wanted to risk Darcy telling him to stay put and get some sleep...because he hadn’t wanted to explain he didn’t think he’d be able to until he saw her. Only, yeah, looked like that’s how it was going to have to go.
At least he’d see her first thing tomorrow.
On leaden legs he took the first flight of stairs, his brain zeroing in on the bed a few yards away. Except then he heard it. A noise from Darcy’s end of the hall.
She was awake. Shaking off his fatigue he strode toward her room, his heart starting to pound at the sliver of light leaking out from beneath her door. Raising a hand to knock, he stopped short at the sound of a muffled sniff from within.
Then another, followed by some kind of low growl.
What the hell?
He rapped twice. “Darcy?”
A thud.
Then a squeaked, “Jeff?”
“Yeah, you okay?”
Some shuffling sounded and he waited for the door to open. Then more shuffling, this time farther from the door. And finally she answered.
“I’m really tired tonight. How about we talk in the morning, okay?”
He stared at the door, his hand already on the knob. Because, no, it wasn’t okay. He could hear in her voice something was wrong.
“I’m coming in,” he said giving her a second’s warning to cover up if she needed to before turning the knob and stepping into the room.
“Aww hell, Darce,” he said, crossing to the little heap of a woman crumpled at the edge of her bed, like the hundred or so tissues littering the end table and spilling onto the floor. “What happened?”
“It’s hormones,” she sniffed, trying to pull herself together as she waved him off with one hand. “I’ll be fine tomorrow. Go to bed. Please.”
Right. Not happening. Instead he gathered her up against him, so her head rested at his chest and his arms closed around her.
“Talk to me, honey. Tell me what’s going on.”
For a moment he thought she wouldn’t answer. But he waited her out, stroking a palm over that soft spill of blond down her back, giving in to the impulse to let his fingers play at the ends. And then it was as if the fight and resistance simply drained away as a ragged sob escaped her.
“I’m so tired,” she admitted in a defeated, broken voice. “I’m t-tired of getting sick. I’m tired of f-feeling like every minute my body becomes a little less m-my own. I’m tired of being d-disgusting and weepy and wiped out and confused. I keep telling myself to hang in there, that things will turn around and I’m going to feel better, but I don’t. I feel worse. I’m still sick. Instead of my body getting round, i-it’s lumpy. And—and—I don’t have anything to wear.”
That last one she finished on a sob so tragic it was like a knife to Jeff’s gut. “Wait, what? Anything to wear where?”
“Anywhere. Nothing fits me. Everything is—” she broke off with another wretched sob.
Okay, he was tired. Really tired. But something didn’t compute.
“Honey, why didn’t you get some new clothes?”
She had a credit card and an account his mother had finally gotten her to let him fund. There was plenty of money.
* * *
“These fit fine two days ago! And today I didn’t feel well, and I didn’t want to ask your mom because I figured I’d just go tomorrow.... Only now, everything I put on is all bunchy and rough and tight and scratching and—” the face she made was utter, tortured frustration “—I can’t stand the feel of it touching my stomach. Not. For. One. More. Second.”
Her last words were punctuated by her hands fumbling around at the closures, jerking at the offending garments as she—holy hell—started stripping them off.
Jeff looked behind him at the door, then back at the woman in front of him who was huffing and puffing with outraged indignation over the way her clothes were touching her.
Hormones.
That’s what she’d said.
He’d heard tales about the havoc they wreaked. The kind of lows they’d brought men to when trying to appease the women caught in their violent, unpredictable sway.
Hell one of his buddies’ wives had actually called a divorce lawyer at his suggestion they stop for something healthier than fast food when she was in her eighth month of pregnancy. The guy had laughed when his wife told the story, but there’d been a haunted look in his eyes that said the fear never truly went away.
Which meant the decisions he made in the next critical moments could be the difference between his simply knowing to fear and respect the hormones and being left with that haunted look himself.
Darcy already had the skirt she’d been wearing unzipped and halfway down her hips, a blue streak he wouldn’t have credited her with flying from her lips.
Tread carefully.
He backed to the door and, catching the handle, swung it shut and locked it without ever taking his eyes off Darcy.
Yeah. The gentlemanly thing to do might have been to look away. But instinct was telling him hormones were like the sea. Something he didn’t want to turn his back on.
The skirt was balled up in her hands now, only to be thrown on the floor in spectacular tantrum fashion.
He shouldn’t be registering anything beyond compassion, he knew. But that his being there wasn’t incentive enough for her to shut it down, made him want to puff out his chest like he had something to crow about. Like after all the polite, and nice and thoughtful they had going on for the sake of the little life growing inside her...there was trust between them, too. Enough that she was willing to let him see what she was really feeling.
Which was enraged.
The buttons down the front of her blouse, which were definitely straining under each ragged breath, went next.
“I can’t stand it!” She cried her temper boiling over to next level proportions.
And yeah, he was ready for her.
His hands went to his tie, loosening the knot with a couple tugs. Then the buttons and links at his wrists.