Pregnant by Mr. Wrong

by Rachael Johns

  He shrugged sheepishly. “I think in America we call it a kiss, but the French say un baiser and the Italians bacio.”

  She blinked, obviously flummoxed by his response. He resisted the urge to step forward and kiss her again. “I meant...why were you doing it to me?”

  He thought carefully about his answer. There were a number of possible responses, but not all would elicit the reaction he wanted. “I think it’s fair to say that although I made the first move, you were very much a willing participant.”

  She shook her head. “You took me by surprise, that’s all.”

  He raised his eyebrows and took a tentative step toward her. “Methinks the lady protests too much. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t enjoy that kiss, that you didn’t want it as much as I did.”

  She hesitated a moment and victory danced in his heart.

  “What my body wants,” she said eventually, “is irrelevant. I think we’ve established there’s a certain chemistry between us, but I want more than just chemistry with someone. I want love and commitment.”

  “Who says I don’t?”

  She rolled her eyes, made a scoffing noise and wrapped her arms around herself as if she didn’t trust them to be free. “What was that you said that night we slept together? And again later when I tried to talk to you about it? Something about just sex. Meant nothing. Yadda, yadda, yadda.”

  He swallowed. He had said that. And that was his mantra: one hundred percent no-strings-attached red-hot fun. He had his reasons, but a baby shifted his goalposts. Finding out he was going to be a dad had flicked some internal switch inside him. He’d never felt this passionately about anything before. And luckily his baby-momma was really, really hot.

  “Maybe that was how I used to think, but maybe that’s just because I hadn’t found a woman who made me question that.”

  She blinked again and then whispered, “What? And now you have? You never looked twice at me until...well, you know.”

  Hell, yeah, he knew, but that wasn’t strictly true. He’d noticed her in high school, but he’d also respected her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were engaged to my brother. I wasn’t supposed to notice you. But try as I have, I can’t get you out of my head.” Truth—he’d been harboring illicit fantasies about her prior to the baby discovery, but since then he’d found it impossible to think about anything or anyone else.

  Bailey’s hand rushed to her head and she rubbed at a spot on her forehead. “Was the party a ruse, then?”

  “Yes and no.” He paused. “I do think Mom deserves a celebration, but I also thought maybe if we spent a little time together, you might forgive me for acting like such a jerk. Maybe we could get to know each other better and explore this thing that isn’t going away between us.”

  His heart froze waiting for her to say something. Her body hadn’t been able to hide her reaction to his kiss, but how would her head react to his confession? Would she finally give him hers?

  Chapter Five

  The evening was not progressing at all how Bailey had imagined. They were supposed to be surrounded by paper and glue, and instead she was in the confined space of her bathroom with all six feet of Quinn in such close proximity she could barely breathe. And with her lips still tingling from his kiss, she couldn’t think straight, either.

  He wanted her? He wanted her. He wanted her!

  It was almost too good to believe, because her heart definitely wanted him, and in an ideal world there was nothing better for a baby than two parents who loved each other. But wasn’t that jumping the gun a little bit? He hadn’t mentioned love, and even if he wanted to give commitment a shot, did she really want to be his guinea pig? The stakes were higher now. If a relationship didn’t work out, then things would be even more awkward between them than they were now, making things even worse for their baby.

  “You’re right. I do have feelings for you,” she admitted. “Physical and emotional ones, but it’s all so complicated.”

  His expression, which had been serious for all of five seconds, lightened again, and like a predator, he closed the gap between them and took hold of her hand with his good one. He brought it up between them, gently kissed her knuckles and whispered, “It doesn’t have to be.”

  Oh, Lord. Her toes curled in her shoes. How much did she want to believe that? But the truth was, he couldn’t make that call when he didn’t have all the facts. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, but once again, something held her back. Right now, with him touching her, she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to make such a massive decision.

  “It hasn’t even been three months since I broke up with your brother,” she said instead.

  Quinn raised one of his lovely thick eyebrows—she’d never thought of eyebrows as sexy before, but there wasn’t one bit of him that didn’t ooze appeal. “And he’s moved on already. Why shouldn’t you?”

  Oh, I’ve well and truly moved on.

  “Please, Quinn.” She swallowed and extracted her hand from his. “I need some time. To think. Could we finish the invitations another time?”

  “Okay.” He heaved a sigh and stepped back. She could see the hurt, the disappointment, in his eyes. Quinn McKinnel wasn’t used to hearing the word no or even wait when it came to women, but if, because of her delay, he lost interest, at least she’d know he hadn’t been serious about her in the first place.

  He turned and strode out of the bathroom. As his boots echoed on her tiled floor, she realized she hadn’t tended properly to his hand, but he seemed to have forgotten about that. Part of her wanted to run after him, go all cavewoman and drag him to her bed.

  Just one more night of magic before the baby news changed everything, but she summoned every ounce of self-control she possessed and waited in the bathroom until she heard her front door click behind him. When she finally ventured out, his unique scent still lingered in the air. What would it be like to come home to that alluring aroma everyday? To have it permeate her living space and all her possessions on a permanent basis. Could she dare to believe that a possibility? Or would Quinn—the epitome of footloose and fancy-free—tire of her once the novelty had worn off, like her father had tired of her mother?

  That thought killed her desire and she pressed a hand against her belly. Why couldn’t things be different? She’d always wanted to be a mother, but her fantasy had been light-years from her reality. In her fantasy she’d had a loving partner to share in the excitement.

  A yawn overcame her and she glanced over at the mess on the table. Tidying up could wait until the morning. With sloth-like speed, she checked that the front door had locked behind Quinn and then went through the routine of getting herself ready for bed.

  Over the last month or so, her bed had become her refuge and the place she spent pretty much every moment of her spare time. But tonight when she fell into bed, she tossed and turned, and sleep evaded her. She watched the digital alarm clock on the bedside table tick through the hours, and when it buzzed at 7:00 a.m., she leaped out of bed, joyous at the prospect of something that would take her outside of her own head.

  After a breakfast of dry crackers and club soda—she was very much looking forward to the second trimester when she might be able to stomach something else in the morning—she showered and dressed for work. She was halfway to Bend when she pulled her car over to the side of the road. She barely noticed the horn of the car behind, angered by her sudden braking.

  Her head fell against the steering wheel and her own horn honked its disapproval.

  What the heck was she waiting for? A visual sign from the heavens? A letter from Aunt Bossy telling her what she already knew? That whatever her feelings were toward Quinn, however awkward things might be with his family, whether she worried about his fathering capabilities or not, it wasn’t her call to make. He was her baby’s father and he deserved to kn
ow. He deserved to be involved in whatever capacity he wanted to be. It wasn’t her right to stop him.

  On speakerphone she dialed her boss, claiming a family emergency that meant she’d be late to work. This was a family emergency, and in her current state she wouldn’t be much use at the hotel, anyway.

  * * *

  Unable to sleep, Quinn had come into the warehouse early, put some music on loud and started working. He was glad he didn’t have a job that confined him to a desk, because he needed some hard manual labor to help release the tension building up inside him. Moving barrels should do the trick; even though the distillery’s forklift did the heavy part of the lifting, this task was still more physical than taking inventory of already bottled stock. There was also a strange kind of satisfaction in seeing barrels finally leave their position on the storage rack and be taken to their bottling facility. McKinnel’s was one of the few boutique distilleries that bottled their own alcohol—something all of them were proud of.

  Years ago, when his dad and uncle had first started the distillery, they’d rotated the barrels during the aging process, which took up to two years. Their warehouse was configured with rows of storage, four barrels high. The temperature on each level varied throughout the year, with the top level always being warmer than the bottom.

  Along with the type of wood the barrels were made of, the temperature surrounding them greatly affected the flavor of the final product, so traditionally rotation occurred to give each barrel equal time on each level. These days, instead of rotating, they mixed the contents of barrels from different levels together before they bottled the whiskey, and this had the same result as rotation with a lot less labor.

  As he climbed up into the forklift, he was glad that this task didn’t require a great deal of thought because he had a one-track mind right now. All roads led to Bailey. Walking away from her last night had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. It had taken a hell of a lot of willpower not to give in to the urge to tell her he knew about the baby and that they were doing this parenting gig together.

  If she’d objected, he’d have kissed some sense into her.

  But the vulnerability in her eyes had rivaled the desire and he’d summoned two things he didn’t have much of—restraint and patience. Had that been a mistake? His hands gripping the controls tightly, he maneuvered the forklift around a corner faster than he normally would and watched as the barrel he was shifting tumbled onto the hard cement floor. The noise was deafening but nothing compared to the mess of broken wood and spilled bourbon. Barrels didn’t always bounce when dropped from a height. Dammit.

  Of course, Dale, a junior who worked across all distillery areas, chose that moment to whistle into the warehouse. He stopped as he came upon Quinn climbing down from the forklift. Dale glanced at the mess, then offered him a wry grin. “I’d say bad day, but it’s barely started.”

  “And your first job can be cleaning up this mess,” Quinn growled as he stalked off in the direction of his office. He was usually a fair and honest guy, and making Dale do his dirty work wasn’t fair at all. It wasn’t too long ago, when his dad was still alive, that he’d been treated by his brothers as not much more than a junior, himself. He’d apologize to Dale later, but first he needed to get something off his chest.

  He sat down at his computer and opened a blank document. He’d never written an Aunt Bossy letter at the distillery before, but this one couldn’t wait a moment longer. He needed to get it off his chest.

  Dear Pregnant with Mr. Wrong

  What next? This letter should be easy to write. What advice could he possibly offer except to tell the writer that she should give Mr. Wrong the chance to step up. To prove his worth. That she owed this not only to the father, but also to the unborn child. His thoughts snapped to the words in her letter—the words he’d read so many times in the last few days that he could recite them like a memory verse. I’m worried about him being an unsettling influence in my baby’s life.

  He thought of how his father’s actions had shaped him into the man he was today. He never wanted to be like him, so until now, he’d avoided the possibility of ever getting close enough to a person to hurt them. Or to be hurt. But what if he was too damaged to be a good dad?

  He’d watched how much time and dedication Lachlan put into his kids, and while he wanted to do that, he was scared that somehow he’d stuff it up. He wanted to be a father like Lachlan, but what if he messed up? Maybe Bailey was right and their kid would be better off without him in its life.

  Fear coiled like a poisonous snake in his gut, but then another emotion overruled it. The absolute desire to be a better man than his father, to be a better man than he had been before now.

  “I’m sorry, Bailey,” he muttered to himself as he stared down at the weathered piece of paper he’d been carrying around in his pocket since last Friday night. “But you don’t get to make that choice.”

  To hell with it if she found out about Aunt Bossy—there were more important things than his anonymity, and it was time to confront her with what he knew. He stuffed the paper back in his jacket pocket and closed the document without saving it. As he shoved back his office chair to stand, he sensed someone in his doorway. He looked up and felt his heart crash against his chest cavity.

  Bailey.

  Had she heard him talking to himself? He couldn’t speak. He simply stared as she took a step into the office and closed the door behind her.

  “Dale said I could find you in your office.” She glanced around, taking in her surroundings. “I didn’t even know you had an office.”

  Annoyance flared inside him. No one had any clue how big a role he played here at McKinnel’s. Simply because he wasn’t in charge of the distilling process like Blair, his name wasn’t on a gold plaque in the main building like Callum’s and he wasn’t the smiley front of the tasting room like Sophie, everyone thought his job a joke. He pushed the anger aside, because his job description wasn’t important right now.

  He gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk. “Would you like to sit?”

  Bailey bit her lip, then nodded. She removed her pale pink winter coat, hung it over the back of the seat and lowered herself down. But she didn’t relax. She perched on the edge of the chair as if ready to make a run for it at any moment. He waited in anticipation, because what other reason could she have for seeking him out at work first thing in the morning?

  When time dragged and she still didn’t speak, he said, “Normally we offer visitors whiskey, but as it’s a bit early for that, I could make you a coffee.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m okay and I couldn’t drink whiskey anyway, because...well...the truth is...” She drew in a deep breath and he thought maybe the whole world had stopped as he waited for her to continue. “I’m pregnant. I panicked when you kissed me last night because I’ve been trying to work out how to tell you.”

  He felt a physical jolt to hear the truth tumble from her lips. Until she’d told him, there was always the slight possibility that he’d been wrong about the writer of the letter. Bizarrely, emotion caught in his throat and his eyes watered.

  “It’s mine?” He had to ask, just to be sure. Part of him hoped she’d tell him no and let him off the hook, but of course, she wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.

  She nodded and laughed, but it wasn’t a funny ha-ha kind of laugh. “You must have really good swimmers.”

  “But we used a condom,” he said, not because it mattered, but more because it was something he thought he would have mentioned if this was the first he’d heard of the pregnancy.

  Bailey shrugged one shoulder. “Apparently they are only ninety-eight percent effective. Look, I know this is a shock, a surprise and the last thing we planned, so I want you to know that if you don’t want to be involved, I’ll understand. We can—”

  He cut her off. “How lon
g have you known?”

  The way she couldn’t meet his eyes told him what he already knew.

  “Why did you take so long to tell me?”

  She rubbed her lips together and glanced down at the desk, refusing to meet his gaze. “I was scared. And worried—about what everyone would think. As you pointed out when I went to talk to you after Thanksgiving, there’s bound to be backlash from our families, even if Callum and I are no longer together. I needed to get my head around it before that.”

  And he also knew the truth—she didn’t know if she could rely on him to be what she and the baby needed. That cut deeper than anything else, and he found he wanted more than anything to prove to her that she was wrong. That she and their baby could depend on him.

  Quinn pushed back his chair again, and this time he did stand. He walked around his desk and dropped to his knees in front of Bailey. He reached up, cupped her cheek in his hand and turned her head so he could look right into her gorgeous green eyes. For a second, he lost himself in their beauty and forgot what he was going to say. But he pulled himself together.

  “This isn’t a time to be scared or unhappy or worried about what anyone but you and I think. This is a time to celebrate, to enjoy, and from now on, we’re in this together. Okay?”

  When she didn’t reply, he sliced open his heart. “I know what everyone thinks of me—that the only thing I’m good at is partying and having fun, but I promise you, they don’t know the real me. I meant what I said last night about wanting to be with you, and a baby doesn’t change that.”

  Instead, a baby justified their combustible sexual attraction.

  A tear slid down Bailey’s cheek and Quinn brushed it away with his thumb, then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She fit perfectly and a sense of rightness came over him. He could have played this differently—when she’d confessed, he could have told her that he already knew, but what good would that do? It would be as useless as holding on to the anger he’d felt when he first read her letter. She’d told him now, and for the first time in his life, he felt like there was meaning and purpose to his existence. Being a father, trying to make a go of things with Bailey, still scared the hell out of him, but he also wanted to succeed at both more than he’d ever wanted to succeed at anything before.