SEVEN
“You got the waitress pregnant?” Connor shook his head, rocking back on his bar stool as though the news had physically blown him over. “You’re sure? I mean, all the question marks...?”
Jeff nodded. “Had a DNA test pushed through, but even if I hadn’t—I’m sure.”
“A baby. How in the hell?”
At Jeff’s raised brow, the other man held up a staying hand.
“Don’t. I know how. Your dad did a bang-up job with the ‘talk’ back in high school. I just can’t believe—you—like this—now.” Then shooting him a concerned look, he asked, “Someone mentioned you were seeing Olivia Deveraux. That you two might be serious.”
“Before Darcy showed up at my office, I would have put money on a future with Olivia. But now.” Now, even two weeks later, he wasn’t any closer to knowing what their future held. Olivia hadn’t changed. “She wants it to work. Offered to marry me and adopt the baby.”
“Generous.”
“If Darcy were considering giving it up. But not for even a single second.”
He thought about her busting him looking at her narrow waist, and accusing him of trying to option her baby. Once again giving in to the reoccurring grin that stomped all over his face every time he thought about her outraged, accusing look, he held up his hands. “She’s going to be an amazing mother. You can see it.”
“Olivia?”
Jeff caught Connor’s stare and the subtle, unspoken question behind it. “Darcy. But, yeah, I’m sure Olivia would, too.”
Connor pushed his drink around in a neat square on the bar. “But you don’t see it with her?”
Worse, he wasn’t even sure he’d looked. Olivia had asked him to give them a chance and so far he hadn’t made the time to actually do it.
“I’ve been so focused on Darcy, there hasn’t been a lot of time for anyone or anything else. She’s living in San Francisco and I’ve been trying to talk her into moving down here. But she’s...stubborn. I think she intends to move, but not until the baby comes. She’s got a job and—” He shook his head. “And the job thing is a really big deal to her. But I’m not giving up. I want her here, like yesterday.”
“Am I missing something about the waiting tables thing? What the hell kind of job does she have that you can’t compete with it?”
Jeff rocked back in his chair and expelled a frustrated breath. “One she got for herself.”
Understanding lit Connor’s eyes. “She does know who you are, right?”
“She doesn’t care who I am.” He raked a hand through his hair. “She won’t take any money until the baby comes. And, damn it, she’s just very independent...and stubborn.”
Connor’s brows pulled together and his jaw cocked to one side.
Jeff scowled at him. “It’s not like that. Even if Olivia weren’t in the picture. We’ve already agreed, in no uncertain terms, neither of us is interested in picking things up from where we left them. What Darcy is to me is the most important person in the life of the most important person in mine. Our relationship is going to be about this kid and it’s got to work forever. Which means there’s too much at stake to risk any potential friction over some affair gone bad.”
And he knew from experience what the fallout from a failed relationship could cost.
Connor took a swallow of his drink. “Right. Definitely not worth the risk for an affair.”
Jeff stared at him. “I’m serious.”
A nod. “Okay.”
Oh, that burned. “Bite me.”
Connor grinned and flagged the bartender for the tab. “Sorry, my friend. Megan doesn’t share.”
* * *
The elevator doors opened at the eleventh floor and Jeff followed Olivia down the hall toward her apartment.
She cast a bright smile over her shoulder at him, her efficient steps eating up the distance to her door. “Thank you for dinner tonight. I know how busy you’ve been.”
That was Olivia. Not raking him over the coals. Sensitive to the situation he was in while letting him know she still enjoyed seeing him when the opportunity arose. He hadn’t meant for their relationship to fall by the wayside, but he’d been neglecting her for weeks. Working long hours and even through the couple of times he’d taken her out, he’d been distracted. There, but not really there. Because being with Olivia wasn’t enough to keep his mind from visiting all the places he didn’t want it to go. To Darcy.
To the space he was trying to give her, and how hard he was trying not to hate the space she already had. To wondering what she’d do if he pushed too hard.
It wasn’t fair. But Olivia had been so accommodating. Assuring him she understood. He shouldn’t put her off. He shouldn’t be able to.
And yet, as he walked behind her his mind kept drifting to another woman. How she was feeling? If anyone was making her laugh? If her belly was starting to show?
“You’re coming in?” Olivia asked at her door, putting the breaks on a train of thought threatening to go off the rails and pulling him back to the woman who ought to be holding his attention for the few hours they had together.
She was watching him expectantly. As if she knew, mentally he’d already dropped her at her door and was halfway back to the office. Where he’d have a fighting chance of losing himself in work.
“Olivia,” he started, catching her chin in the crook of his finger. “I’ve got a call scheduled with Hong Kong in three hours.”
She leaned a shoulder against the frame of the door and looked him over assessingly.
“Then you’ve got two and a half to spend with me.” Her fingers wrapped around his tie to tug him closer. “I know you’ve been waiting, not pushing the physical element of our relationship out of respect for me, but it’s time. You need a distraction, Jeff. Let me help you forget for a while.”
Respect. Maybe that was part of what had been holding him back. But to really respect her meant acknowledging that not taking the next physical step in their relationship had been far too easy. She deserved better than to be used as a distraction. And far, far better than a distraction he already knew wouldn’t work.
He’d tried to tell himself this was the woman for him. The perfect fit he’d imagined her to be when they first started seeing each other. Because she’d been so different from the one who’d walked away... But once Darcy stepped back into the picture he’d started making comparisons.
“Jeff, you said you’d give us a try. Can’t you please, come in and let me show you how it could be between us, if you let it?”
He hated the pleading in her eyes, hated knowing it was about to turn to hurt. But it was, because his hands had already moved to her shoulders, gently putting the space back between them. “I’m sorry, Olivia.”
* * *
Oh, no, not again.
Darcy sat at the folding table in the suddenly too warm back room of the party coordinating business where she’d been hired to inventory catering supplies, stuff envelopes, assemble favors, scoop birdseed satchels and anything else the overbooked business needed assistance with during their seasonal rush.
The pay wasn’t great, but she’d been lucky the manager of the restaurant where she’d been working had put in a good word with the owner to get her the temporary position. And at least she was maintaining an income, if somewhat reduced.
A few more weeks and the nausea would ease because it couldn’t get any worse. And once her stomach was back under control—
As if on cue, her belly lurched again.
“You okay?” her boss asked from the open doorway.
Darcy pushed to her feet, lifting a hand to let the older woman know she was fine. Except the shrinking edges of the room hazing into sepia tones warned she wasn’t.
She tried to get a hand back to the table, but too quickly everything went loose and dark and down until there was only one thought left in her head...and that was the silent plea that her baby be okay.
* * *
Darcy woke slowly, her senses coming back online one at a time as she registered the hard mattress of the hospital bed beneath her, the dimmed overhead light and the deep rumble of a voice she hadn’t been expecting. One which shouldn’t have been coming from anywhere near her.
Jeff.
“...Dehydration, fatigue, low blood pressure, weight loss... No, they say both she and the baby will be all right, but there’s no way in hell I’m leaving without—”
She shifted in the bed, remembering too late about the needle threaded into her vein and letting out a short gasp when she put weight on it.
Whatever Jeff had been about to say, she missed and now the conversation was over. Jeff was suddenly in her room, filling up the small space with his enormous presence. Dropping his phone into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he crossed to her bed like he was going to slide into the open chair beside her. But instead, he reached for the call button and signaled the nurse before taking a step back. Fixing her with a serious look. “Do you need anything? How are you feeling?”
“Tired still, but, Jeff, you didn’t need to come. I told Charlie, they just wanted me to get some fluids and an antinaus—”
“You told me you were fine.” It wasn’t exactly accusation she was getting off him, but the intensity was like a palpable thing. “I spoke to your doctor already and hyperemesis gravidarum can be dangerous and severe. You are not fine, Darcy.”
Guilt washed over her in a wave. She’d thought it was just morning sickness in an all-day, extended package, which she’d heard was normal, too. Though she’d planned to speak to her doctor at her next checkup about the extremity of it, she’d had no idea her body had begun turning against her, threatening what she’d been struggling to protect.
“I didn’t know it had gotten so bad. I don’t own a scale so I didn’t know how much weight I’d lost. My clothes fit a little differently, loose, but I’d heard lots of people lose weight early on.” She felt a burning pressure at the backs of her eyes and blinked to defend against the emotions trying to slip free.
She was supposed to be the one who took her responsibilities seriously and made the right decisions. She was supposed to be able to count on herself. Her child’s life depended on it.
She swallowed and looked up at Jeff.
The man who was all laughter and easy good times hadn’t shown up at her bedside. This Jeff was serious. No-nonsense. And he was here because the woman responsible for protecting his child hadn’t even realized she was at risk of failing.
This Jeff had every reason for making an appearance. If the tables were turned, she’d be looking at him the same way.
“Jeff, I’m sorry.”
He nodded, but the look in his eyes was hard. “Here’s the deal, Darcy. I know you’re tough and I know you’re independent. But I’m uncomfortable with you alone like this. From what I understand, it was a fluke your boss happened to be walking by when you passed out. You work in isolation for hours at a stretch. Take public transportation home alone to the apartment you don’t share with anyone else. You don’t have anyone here looking out for you, so what I’m asking, is does it really make sense for you to still be up here?”
She looked down at her hands, at the plastic tube snaking its way up her arm, feeling more alone in that moment than she could ever remember feeling before.
“I’ve got a job here, Jeff.”
He stepped closer to the bed, and after a pause, dropped into the chair beside her. His hand moved to her belly and rested there for a beat. “You’ve got our baby in here. And he’s kicking your butt. Come back with me and I’ll take care of you. We’ll get through this together. You don’t have to be on your own.”
Darcy couldn’t take her eyes off the sight of his hand against her stomach, couldn’t think about anything but the heat radiating from his touch and how good it felt, when nothing had felt good, since the last time—the first time—he’d put his hands on her.
Which she couldn’t think about. Not like this. Not with him touching her in a way that was so totally not about her at all, but about the child they shared together. About his concern.
Jeff cleared his throat. “We could get married.”
Darcy stiffened. “We don’t even know each other.”
“I don’t mean permanently. Just until the baby is born, so he’d be legitimate.”
The breath leaked from her lungs, as she shook her head, trying to ignore that pinch of disappointment there was no justification for. “Legitimacy isn’t any reason to get married, Jeff.”
“I know. Forget it.” Jeff let out an impatient growl, pulled his hand away and then ran it through the mess of his hair going on as if he hadn’t dropped that bomb. “You’re determined to work?”
He couldn’t understand, but he needed to accept it. “Yes.”
“Fine.” He stood, stared down at the spot where his hand had been and nodded.
Then heading for the door, he looked back with a frown. “I actually know of a position that might be the perfect fit.”