Baby in the Making

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  “We’re going to have a baby,” he said in the same astonished, ecstatic way she had.

  And then they were laughing and staring at each other in disbelief and both of them were groping for words.

  “Wow, we’re really...”

  “And we’re...”

  “I know, right? It’s just so...”

  “Exactly. How can...?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just so...”

  “Yeah. It really is the most...”

  “And it’s...”

  “Totally unbelievably...”

  “Awesome,” they finally said as one.

  And that word, more than any other Yeager knew, captured everything that needed to be said. At least for now. The rest...

  Well, he’d worry about the rest of it later. Once he had it all figured out. In a million years or so.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time it occurred to Hannah that she should be going home. She and Yeager had spent hours trying to get accustomed to the new life growing inside her and how it was going to change everything. They fixed lunch together in his kitchen and ate it in his dining room, and talked some more about how the baby was going to change everything. Not so much for Yeager, since he would still be living his life the way he always had, arranging his schedule here and there to visit his son or daughter, but for Hannah.

  She had called Gus Fiver at his home—as he’d told her to do, should there be any developments like this outside regular office hours—to tell the attorney the good news and had arranged to meet with him in a few days, after she’d had a chance to see her doctor to confirm what she already knew. She wasn’t sure what kind of legal hurdles still lay ahead or what kind of time frame she was looking at for coming into her inheritance, but she figured it was probably safe at this point to give her two weeks’ notice to Cathcart and Quinn. And then...

  She had no idea. She had to find a bigger place to live, obviously, someplace with a yard that was close to good schools and lots of child-friendly places and activities. But she didn’t want to move too far from where she lived now, since Queens was familiar and she liked it a lot. Maybe she could find a house with a nice yard in Astoria or Jackson Heights. Someplace that had a lot of families and things for families to do and places for families to go. Because once she had this baby, she would be part of a family. A family who could go anywhere and do anything and live any way they wanted.

  Before the realization of that started making her woozy again, she told Yeager, “I should probably head home.”

  They were sitting on his sofa, gazing out the windows that faced the Empire State Building, the city sparkling like fairy lights against the black sky. When night had first fallen, Hannah thought the view breathtaking. Now, though, she marveled at how Yeager could see so much of New York from his place, but knew nothing about the people who were living out there. Maybe her tiny apartment didn’t boast a spectacular view like this one, but she knew most of the people who populated it. That, she hoped, would never change, no matter where the future took her.

  “Go?” Yeager echoed from beside her. He had his arm comfortably draped across the sofa behind her, his feet propped on the antique steamer trunk he used for a coffee table. His posture suggested this was something the two them did all the time instead of this being Hannah’s first visit to his home. “But you just got here.”

  “We’ve been talking for hours,” she said. “And it’s getting late.”

  “Stay here tonight,” he told her.

  His tone of voice was as comfortable as the rest of him, but Hannah was surprised by the invitation. And she had mixed feelings about accepting it. On one hand, she absolutely wanted to spend the night with Yeager. She wanted to spend every night with him. She wanted to spend her life with him. On the other hand, their “business” together really was concluded, at least until after the baby was born. There was no reason for her to prolong her time with him. Especially since she knew that the more time she spent with him, the more difficult that parting was going to be.

  “I can’t,” she said reluctantly. “I have to work tomorrow and I don’t have any of my stuff with me.”

  “You can use my stuff.”

  The intimacy inherent in that statement made her toes curl. He was speaking as if the two of them shared this space all the time. He was probably accustomed to having his girlfriends spend the night on a regular basis—even though, Hannah reminded herself again, she wasn’t his girlfriend. They weren’t intimate, even if they had made love several times and were now expecting a baby. Intimacy was more than the sharing of bodies. It was the sharing of souls. It was the sharing of everything. And everything was the last thing Yeager wanted to share with anyone.

  “I can’t use your stuff,” she told him. “Your clothes won’t fit me.”

  He grinned lasciviously. “Who said anything about wearing clothes?”

  Her heart raced. He still wanted to have sex with her, even without the goal of getting her pregnant. Maybe...

  Maybe nothing, she told herself firmly. He was Yeager Novak. He wanted to have sex with every woman in North America. And South America. And Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Antarctica.

  “I have to work tomorrow,” she told him, hoping she only imagined the husky, sex-starved quality her voice seemed to suddenly have. “And Cathcart and Quinn has a strict dress code.”

  “Then don’t go to work,” he said.

  “I have to go to work.”

  “Why? You’re rich.”

  She started to tell him—again—that she wasn’t rich yet, then remembered that, at this point, that was no longer true. It was merely a formality. She would be rich—her stomach pitched at the reminder. But she wouldn’t breathe easy about that until everything was official. And she couldn’t just quit her job impulsively. Maybe Misters Cathcart and Quinn hadn’t been the most accommodating employers all the time, but they’d done her a solid favor ten years ago, giving her a job while she was still in high school with little work experience. And once she’d explained her situation with her grandfather’s will, they’d granted her all the time off she needed. It would be ungrateful and mean to just walk away without warning.

  “I have to give my two weeks’ notice,” she said. “I can’t leave Cathcart and Quinn hanging without a seamstress. That would be irresponsible. Not to mention just a crappy thing to do.”

  She hesitated a moment, then made herself say the rest of what she had to say. Especially since she and Yeager both seemed to need to hear it spelled out. “Besides, you and I aren’t... We won’t be... It’s not necessary for us to...” She sighed in frustration and tried again. “We don’t...need each other anymore, Yeager.”

  Which, she told herself, was the truth. Although she needed him—although she loved him—he didn’t need or love her. So the each other part of that statement kept it from being a lie.

  His gaze locked with hers but he said nothing. Unable to tolerate the intensity of his blue, blue eyes, Hannah looked out at the city and said the rest. “I appreciate everything you’ve done. Oh, God, that was a terrible platitude.” She hurried on when she realized what she was saying. “I just mean...” She muttered a ripe oath under her breath. “I’m honestly not sure what I can say that won’t sound like a platitude, but I’ll give it a shot.”

  She made herself look at him again. And wished she hadn’t. Because there was something in his eyes she’d never seen before, something she couldn’t identify, except to say that it wasn’t good. In spite of that, she pressed on.

  “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me over the last six months, Yeager. Not just in providing the biological essentials I needed to make a baby, but in showing me the world, too. I’m a different person, a better person now than I was five months ago, thanks to you. And not just because of the new life growing insid
e me. But because of other things inside me now, too.”

  Probably best not to dwell on those other things, since they included being in love for the first time in her life and the knowledge that she would never love anyone like this again.

  “I know this...this venture...was time-consuming for you and I know it kept you tethered in one place for a lot longer than you’re used to being confined. I understand you need to get back to business as usual. I need to get back to business as usual, too. Even if things are going to be a lot different for me now. So you don’t have to invite me to spend the night because it’s getting late. I’ll be okay on my own. I promise. I’ve been okay on my own for a long time.”

  She deliberately used singular pronouns when she spoke, because she knew she and Yeager weren’t a collective anymore. This baby was her baby, and it was his baby, but it wasn’t their baby. In the agreement they’d signed, Hannah alone would be responsible for her pregnancy, without any obligation on Yeager’s part. She would contact him after her baby was born to see when he wanted to start visiting his son or daughter and work from there.

  That was how they’d both wanted it five-and-a-half months ago. It was doubtless how Yeager still wanted it. Just because Hannah had begun to wish he would be there for her now...that he would be there for her forever... It was irrelevant. Their time was at an end. From here on out, Hannah would have her time, and Yeager would have his time, and they would only interact whenever he could fit a visit to his child into his schedule.

  “So...thanks,” she said again. “But I’ve got this.”

  Yeager studied her in silence for a long time. Then he said, “And what if I want it, too?”

  Heat suffused her, but not for the same reason it usually did when Yeager looked at her the way he sometimes did. This look was certainly heated. But it was heated in a way she’d never seen before.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  He hesitated again then he said, “I mean, what if I want to be a part of your pregnancy? What if I want to be there when our baby is born?”

  “I...” she began.

  Then she halted. She really did want to get on with her life without Yeager as quickly and cleanly as possible. It was going to become more and more difficult to do that the longer he stayed a part of it. But her baby was his baby, too. If he wanted to be there for its birth, could she really deny him that?

  “All right,” she said reluctantly. “If you don’t mind sticking close to New York when the due date approaches, then I’ll call you when I leave for the hospital and you can be there when the baby is born.”

  “I can definitely stay close to New York,” he said. And there was something in his voice when he said it that made it seem like he was talking about more than just for the baby’s due date. “And what if I want to be... What do you call it? Like a pregnancy coach or something? What if I want to be there for your pregnancy, too?”

  “I don’t think there’s such a thing as a pregnancy coach.” Hannah hedged, avoiding an answer. “But the person who coaches you through labor is a doula.”

  “Okay, so what if I want to be a doula?” he asked.

  His request surprised her. “I don’t know if a man can be a doula.”

  “It’s the twenty-first century, Hannah. Gender roles are fluid.”

  Still stalling, she replied, “Oh, sure. Tell that to all the women making seventy-nine cents for every man’s dollar.”

  He smiled at that. She felt a little better. Though she still felt plenty weird. Just what was Yeager asking, really?

  “Then maybe I can be a dude-la,” he said. “Be there for you during your pregnancy, whenever you need me. What would you think about that?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I think it would be tough for you to do that from places like Kyrgyzstan and Djibouti.”

  He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Like I said, I can stay close to New York.”

  Well, this was certainly news to Hannah. She could count on all her fingers and toes and then some the times he’d told her he could never stay in one place for too long. “Since when?” she asked.

  This time Yeager didn’t hesitate at all when he replied. “Since the minute you told me you’re pregnant.”

  “You’ve always said you’d suffocate if you had to stay in one place for any length of time,” she reminded him.

  “That’s what I used to think,” he agreed. “Back when I was an idiot. But now...”

  “Now what?”

  He sat forward, removing his feet from the steamer trunk to place them firmly on the floor. As if he were trying to anchor himself here.

  “Look, I won’t lie,” he said. “There’s still a lot I need to figure out about this whole fatherhood thing. But that’s just the point, Hannah. I want to figure it out. I don’t just want a legacy. I’m beginning to wonder if that was what I really wanted in the first place. I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things. But there’s one thing I do know. I want more than to be a long-distance parent.”

  He turned to face her fully, then lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “And I know one other thing, too,” he said softly. “I want us to be more than long-distance parents. I want us to be more than parents, period. I don’t want us to be you and me. I want us to be...us.”

  Hannah covered his hand with hers, worried he might take it back. Worried he might take it all back. But she had no idea what to say.

  Yeager didn’t seem to be finished, though, because he continued. “I’ve spent my adult life circling the globe, trying to find the thing that will make my pulse pound hardest, my heart hammer fastest and my soul sing loudest. I’ve done things no normal human being has ever done, and I’ve had one adrenaline buzz after another. But today, when you told me you’re pregnant... Hannah, I’ve never felt anything like that in my life. And I’m still reeling from it. It’s intoxicating, this feeling of...of...”

  “Joy,” she finished for him. Because she’d had more time than he to identify it for what it was.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Joy. And, yes, it’s partly because of the baby, but even more, it’s because of you. Even before this baby happened, I knew I wanted more with you. Since I started spending time with you, Hannah, everything in my life has been different. No matter where I’ve been, as long as I’ve been with you, I’ve been...happy. Since my parents died, I was beginning to think I’d never feel that way again. Maybe that’s why I keep circling the globe—I’m looking for that. But I don’t need to keep running all over the world. I only need to be where you are. Where you and our baby are. Because starting a family with the woman I love? That’s the ultimate adventure. One I want to live over and over again.”

  Now Hannah was the one experiencing the heart-hammering, pulse-pounding, soul-singing adrenaline rush. And all because of three little words. Very softly, she asked, “You love me?”

  Yeager nodded. “It may have taken me a while to figure that out, too, but I finally did. I do love you. I’ve probably loved you since that first trip we took together. And I will love you for the rest of my days, no matter where I spend them.”

  “Just for the sake of clarification,” she said, not sure why she was belaboring this, “you love me for more than being able to stitch up your clothes and clean out the walrus stains, right?”

  He smiled. “Yeah. For more than that. A lot more.”

  He waited for Hannah’s response and, when it didn’t come—mostly because she was too stunned to say anything—he sobered some. And he said, “Please tell me this isn’t a one-sided thing. I mean, I know you were doing your best to keep us separated with all the ‘I’ and ‘you’ talk a minute ago, but I can’t help feeling maybe you at least like me more than you did when we first went into this thing.”

  “No, I don’t like you more,” she told him. “I love you. Always.”

 
His smile turned dazzling. “So what do you say then? You want to hitch our stars together? See where it takes us?”

  She thought about that for a moment. And after another moment, she smiled back. “I’ll agree on two conditions,” she told him.

  “Conditions?” he asked, smiling at the echo of their conversation six months ago.

  She smiled back, obviously remembering. “Number one, we have to have a home base here in New York where we can put down roots. A place where we can take hand-holding strolls and have Sunday-morning snuggles and enjoy firefly-spattered evenings on the patio after the kids go to bed.”

  “Kids,” he repeated. “As in plural?”

  She nodded. “That’s the second condition. We have to keep traveling and having adventures in exotic places to get pregnant again. I want to have lots of kids, Yeager, which means we have to have lots of epic sex.”

  He eyed her speculatively. “Well, okay. If we have to.”

  They smiled as one and wove their hands together. Then they leaned back on the sofa and gazed at the lights of Manhattan, marveling at what their lives ahead held. Maybe Hannah could spend the night here tonight. And maybe she could call out from work tomorrow. It would only be one day. And, hey, she and Yeager were celebrating.

  “Happy New Year, Yeager,” she said softly.

  “Happy New Life, Hannah,” he replied.

  And she knew in that moment, it would be. Because no matter where life took them, no matter what adventures awaited, they were a family. And they always would be.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story of sudden fortune and true love, pick up these other ACCIDENTAL HEIRS novels from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Bevarly.

  ONLY ON HIS TERMS

  A CEO IN HER STOCKING

  THE PREGNANCY AFFAIR

  A BEAUTY FOR THE BILLIONAIRE