Taylor had cried like this only once before in her life: the day Karen had died.
Then, Nick Ballantine had been there to hold her.
Tonight, she was all alone.
Chapter 30
“Would you please stop being so freaking nice when I’m in the midst of the most embarrassing moment of my life?” Taylor muttered, grabbing angrily at the offered tissue and dabbing her eyes.
Hunter Cross only smiled at her.
She was sitting in the guest chair in his office. He was leaning across the desk as he passed her tissue after tissue from the box on his desk.
“Don’t think a thing of it,” he said. “I’ve got three sisters and four nieces, and my best friend is a woman. I’m fluent in the language of lady tears.”
“That sounds gross,” she said in a wobbly voice. “And anyway, none of those people are your employee, sitting in your office, sobbing in front of her boss.”
“I’m also your friend, Taylor.”
She nodded, her eyes watering all over again. “Damn hormones.”
This had started out as a perfectly professional meeting scheduled by Taylor to tell her boss that she’d be needing to take maternity leave later this year. She was still in her first trimester, so it was a bit premature. But when she’d realized that her leave would overlap with the launch of the new website, she’d wanted to be up front with Hunter and give him a chance to find someone to cover for her.
And somehow in the process of calmly telling him about her pregnancy, she’d turned the whole thing into a hideous cryfest, sobbing out the whole story.
The woman who’d once never cried suddenly couldn’t stop.
No wonder Brit called Hunter her best friend. The man was a damn good listener.
“You need me to do anything?” Hunter asked. “As a boss or as a friend? Ballantine’s not my employee, so I can beat him up.”
“You have no idea how tempted I am by that,” she muttered.
He laughed. “I love that you sound like you mean it.”
“I do mean it.”
She hadn’t seen Nick in the week since he’d walked out of their apartment. Wasn’t even sure that she wanted to.
Taylor was heartbroken, yes. So shattered she felt like a zombie just trying to get through daily life.
But she was also freaking pissed. Men weren’t supposed to treat women this way. Men certainly weren’t going to treat Taylor Carr this way.
“You want a couple of days off?” he asked kindly.
Did she?
No. It sounded like far too much free time to think about stuff. But then throwing herself into work hadn’t been much help either. Not with Nick’s desk sitting empty, visible out of the corner of her eye.
Where was he? Holed up on a writing binge?
Don’t care. You don’t care what he’s doing. He’s dead to you.
Except he wasn’t. She still loved the stupid bastard. Still loved his baby growing inside her. Their baby.
I’m going to be a mom.
She straightened her shoulders. She would figure this out. No way was she letting her son or daughter be born to a weepy, lovesick mess of a woman.
“I’m good,” she told Hunter, smoothing her skirt and standing. “I’m sorry again about the breakdown.”
He waved a hand. “Stop. I’m here anytime.”
She smiled in thanks. Her boss was a good guy. Good-looking, smart, charming…he also wore glasses when he worked on the computer, which was sort of adorable.
And none of it did a damn thing for her. Even if she hadn’t already learned her lesson about getting involved with someone in the office, she couldn’t see any guy around the image of Nick that seemed to be always in her peripheral vision, even when he wasn’t around. And he definitely wasn’t around.
“Go home for the day,” Hunter ordered, walking her toward the door. “Pedicure, retail therapy, whatever. Just try not to think about Ballantine.”
Yeah, right.
“Thanks, Hunter,” she said, forcing a smile.
Already she knew she was going to take him up on the offer to leave early, and the retail therapy suggestion had given her an idea.
She was going shopping for baby crap. Crib, play-thingy, the whole works.
The best way to get Nick Ballantine off her mind? Get his stuff out of her house.
She was going to turn his room into a nursery.
Chapter 31
He knew he shouldn’t go. He went anyway.
Nick knocked on the door of the Brooklyn walk-up apartment, hands shoved in his pockets.
She didn’t make him wait long.
“Hey,” Kelsey said, stepping aside so he could enter the apartment.
“Shawn around?” he asked, taking in the small but clean apartment.
She shook her head. “At work.”
Nick nodded. “Hannah?”
“Asleep. I didn’t know you were coming by or I would have delayed her nap for a bit—”
“It’s probably better,” he interrupted. “I was the one who said we needed to not see each other anymore. For her sake.”
Kelsey nodded. “I admit I was surprised to hear from you. You seemed pretty cozy with your supermodel, last I saw you.”
Her voice was just the slightest bit snide. He gave her a pointed look, and she flinched guiltily. “Right. I don’t get to play that card.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Can I get you a drink? I’m no longer dating a bartender, so I think I only have beer….”
“Why’d you do it?” he asked.
She exhaled. “I always wondered when you’d ask that.”
“I’m asking now.”
She wiped her hands on the front of her jeans. “Why’d I do what? Cheat on you, or not tell you there was a chance the baby wasn’t yours?”
“The latter.”
He didn’t care why she’d cheated on him. He’d quit caring about Kelsey a long time ago. Hannah, though…that had been hard to take.
Kelsey’s eyes watered. “I don’t know. I regret it so much. It’s just…” She swallowed. “I wanted it to be you so badly. I knew you’d be a great dad, and then you were a great dad. And I guess I thought if I pretended hard enough, it would be true.”
“How’d Shawn find out about the baby in the first place? Did you tell him?”
She shook her head, and that made him dislike her more. But he wasn’t here to make peace with Kelsey; he just wanted answers. To understand.
“I quit seeing him after I started showing, but he was my personal trainer,” Kelsey said, nibbling her lip. “He told me later that he’d noticed the changes in my body and wondered about them.”
They fell silent, a soft murmuring noise from the baby monitor the only sound for a moment. It ate at his heart.
He wanted that again.
It was Kelsey who spoke next. “Had Shawn not wanted to be a part of her life—had he not wanted to be her father, and insisted that we marry—would you have stayed? Raised her?”
Nick clenched his teeth. It was a question he’d asked himself a million times. Would he have stayed, knowing Hannah wasn’t his?