It took far longer than she expected to finish her shower, her muscles aching and causing her to move slowly. If this was the flu, she was going to blame Corinne, who had mentioned one of the guys she met up with last week was a little under the weather and had come down with that crap the next day. In fact, she reached for her phone, planning to call her friend and give Corinne a piece of her mind, but the phone rang before she could dial, and she stared at the caller ID, not sure if she wanted to answer it or not.
Unable to keep up the suspense, she hit the button and held the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she rasped, her throat sore now.
“Addy?” John made her name a question. “Are you alright?”
She stole the phrase Corinne had used. “I’m just a little under the weather.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He paused, and Adrianna wondered if she was supposed to say something. “I’m sorry about a lot of things, Addy. I’m sorry I scared you, and I’m sorry I just disappeared. I want to see you. I don’t want to lose our friendship.”
Now wasn’t going to be the best time in the world. She looked and felt like shit. “I’m really not at my best right now, John. I’ve been racing to put things in place, and I took some vacation time to recuperate before I start the new job on Monday.” The nausea crept up her throat just thinking about it. “I’d have to take a rain check.”
He didn’t answer right away. “I won’t take a lot of your time, Addy, I promise. Can I just swing by tonight to check on you? I can bring some soup or something that will make you feel better.”
Her kneejerk reaction was to say no, but something tugged at her. Maybe she was lonely, or maybe she just needed the friend she’d come to count on in John. Hell, maybe her brain wasn’t functioning properly because she was sick. For all she knew, her fever had peaked. No matter what, she reconsidered before turning him down flat. “Maybe some soup would be good,” she responded quietly. Choosing her words carefully, she added, “It might be nice to have someone around who wouldn’t mind taking care of me a little.”
“I’d love to help you out. How does 7:30 sound? I don’t want to stay too late. You need your rest.” She could hear more relief than excitement in his voice, and that made her feel less awkward.
Adrianna smiled back into the receiver. “That sounds perfect. Thank you, John. I’ve missed you,” she added at the last minute, and she almost regretted it, cursing under her breath at showing such vulnerability.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he said, his voice tender, and then hung up.
Adrianna put the phone down and looked longingly at the book she’d been reading, her nausea subsiding finally. She sighed and decided the book would have to wait. She needed to clean up a bit – herself and the apartment – before John got here. She refused to look like a slob.
As she cleaned up trash littering the living room and kitchen, shoved dishes into her dishwasher, and tossed clothes into the hamper, she started to feel a lot more like herself, and she even turned on some background music to hum along. She felt invigorated enough to dust and vacuum, and only then did she stop to wonder if maybe she’d been depressed. That would really get her gall if hearing from John had cured her of her ailment. It didn’t bode well for the future.
She refused to believe it was true, and she sorted through her closet, looking for something comfortable but not pajamas. She came across an old jogging suit she hadn’t worn in a while, and while it was still in great shape and she didn’t remember gaining any weight, it was a little tight around her butt and over her chest. She frowned, realizing it was right about that time of the month, maybe a few days late, and perhaps that was her problem. She was about to start her cycle.
That must be it, she decided as she carried another glass to the sink, but she gasped as she arrived and dropped the glass so it shattered in the deep metal basin. Her hands shook because she couldn’t believe it to be true, but at the same time, all the signs were there – the nausea, achy body, late cycle.
She checked her clock. She had a couple of hours before John was due. Slipping on her shoes, she hurried out of her apartment, running to the drugstore on the corner. This wasn’t something Adrianna could leave to chance. She had to know the truth, and she had to know now.
CHAPTER 18
“You look better than you sounded on the phone,” John greeted as he entered the apartment, moving and speaking hesitantly. Adrianna wasn’t sure how intimate a greeting would be appropriate, either. A hug? A peck on the cheek? A handshake? She didn’t know whether it would be better to try something and be offensive or to back off for fear of being too forward, so she just stepped back and led the way toward the kitchen.
He carried a pot with him, wrapped in a towel. “I’m feeling a little more myself, I guess. But I told you I wasn’t all that bad, just needed some rest. What’s in the pot?” she asked.
“I promised you soup. I made some homemade chicken soup with lots of veggies for vitamin content.” He set it on the stove, turning the burner on low to keep it warm.
Adrianna watched him move, curious as to why he’d gone to so much trouble and, at the same time, glad he had. That soup smelled delicious, and she could eat it for several days, when she wasn’t feeling so good. She pointed to the other pot on the stove. “Well, I thought I’d return the favor, in case you brought something for me, so first, thank you, and second, I hope you like chili.”
The face he made told her she’d hit the spot. “Thank you, Addy.” He sat at the breakfast table, big enough only for two, and watched while she stirred her concoction. “Listen, I wanted to talk about things. I know I pushed too hard, and I don’t want to push you to talk tonight if you don’t want to. I just want to clear the air so I feel that, maybe, we can work together without any regrets.”
Adrianna hadn’t wanted to talk about it, but now she had no choice. She’d been going over things in her head for hours, and she’d still believed that love was a bad idea. It would leave her high and dry, eventually, but for now, she had to make the right decision for everyone’s best interest.
That meant weighing the possibility of at least some emotional interest in John breeding a connection between them. She desperately wanted to walk away, but the last three days had been particularly hard on her, and with the new job, she didn’t think she’d be alright if the status quo continued. But how did she tell John that? She couldn’t tell him she didn’t love him but wanted to be with him anyway. And she certainly wasn’t going to lie and tell him she loved him, because at this time, she still believed it was a lie.
That left her with little option, other than friendship and walking away, and she wanted to punch through a wall at the unfairness of it all. “John,” she stated, but didn’t say more. She still stood, stirring the chili, and she owed it to him to at least have a face to face conversation.
Forcing herself to turn around, Adrianna moved to take a seat across from John. She sat there for several minutes, gathering her wits and just staring at him. He was patient, his fists folded together and held in front of his mouth, as if he was nervous and trying to keep from shaking. “John, I have to apologize for going off the deep end so easily. My ex somewhat ruined me to believing in the sanctity of love. But I believe that, when you say it, it comes from a good place, and I should have thought about that before I reacted.”
“I understand,” John told her, reaching out to take one hand in his and caressing her knuckles with his thumb. “The past has a way of shaping us, and that can also mean warping us in ways.”
She shook her head, glad he was offering understanding, but it sounded more like forgiveness, and she didn’t want that right now. She wanted to speak and have an honest reaction, not a desperate attempt to start over. “Let me talk, John. If you interrupt me, I might not say what needs to be said.”
He nodded and kept his mouth shut, waiting for her to speak. Taking a deep breath, she told him, “I worry a lot, John. I worry about being coworkers. I’ve broken one of my b
iggest moral standards with you, and it scares me. On top of that, I wonder if we would even have a friendship left to work with once you move to Europe for your job and I’m traveling here constantly. Add in the fact that a lot of people still don’t approve of interracial relationships, and we have a recipe for disaster in my mind from the start. But John, I’m damaged. My ex left me damaged, and I don’t know how to be vulnerable enough to fall in love anymore.”
She paused, took a sip of the water in front of her, and tried to piece together the right words. “I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love you the way you deserve, John. I don’t want to lose you because I care about you. And in the past few weeks, I’ve really come to depend on your company. But that doesn’t equate to love, and I’m not really sure what does. All I know is, you deserve more than I can give you, and maybe it’s unfair to ask, but I still want a chance.”
John smiled and shook his head. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking for the chance here? I mean, that’s how all of this started and, regardless of how you feel, I’m in love with you. That’s all there is to it.” He reached across the table and took both her hands. “If there’s any part of you that can learn to love, I’ll find it, Addy. It’s important to me. Even if you didn’t fall in love with me, at least you’d be able to love again.” He stood and drew her to her feet, hugging her tightly to him. “I’ll find a way to stay in the States, Addy. It’s not that hard. There are plenty of openings that still afford me a promotion, or I can just turn it down and take another regional role. Either way, you are more important to me than Europe.”
She felt greatly relieved, though her nerves were still on high alert. She sat down with him to eat, giving him chili as she served herself some soup – which she devoured – and they talked for a while. John excused himself early to let her rest, and she said goodnight to him. Heading back to the kitchen, she was ravenous and attacked two more bowls of soup. She didn’t want to be alone, and she’d been too chicken to take the conversation any further with John.
Picking up her book and her phone at the same time, she texted Terra, who said she’d be there in minutes, and distracted herself with another of Stephanie’s epic exploding cars. When Terra arrived, she let herself in, and Adrianna was loathe to move from the couch until Terra drug her into a hug.
Trying not to sob, she just let her best friend hold her, and she didn’t argue when Terra said, “You should have told him you were pregnant.”
She was right, but hindsight was twenty-twenty. She was in way over her head, and right now, she didn’t know how to dig her way out. But at least she had Terra, and the rest of her friends, and she’d figure out what to do with John.
CHAPTER 19
Tapping her pen on the desk distractedly, Adrianna stared into the corner of the office she would no longer occupy after this week. She’d already started cleaning out her personal belongings, taking them home and creating her own home office in her apartment. The project was coming along well, despite her lack of energy and frequent nausea. Somehow, she’d managed to keep all of that from John, as well, probably because he’d been overwhelmed with the task of shifting positions.
He’d managed to secure the division manager position for the eastern seaboard of the United State, convincing the current manager that he wanted the position overseas. He’d been travelling a lot to meet all of his regional managers and visit the hotels, and she’d been doing the same in her own region, along with training her assistant manager to take charge and bringing Scott up to speed as the assistant manager. Between all the work and carrying a child, it was no wonder she had no energy at all.
But she was also losing focus, as evidenced by the fact that she had a pile of paperwork in front of her that she was ignoring in favor of staring at a tiny spot on her wall that needed to be scrubbed. She was waiting to hear from John, who was due back in town today. They’d arranged to meet for dinner, somewhere away from the hotel. Adrianna had noticed a couple of stares coming their way when they were together, and she didn’t want to give ammunition to any rumors, especially since the promotions would be acknowledged in the next couple of days.
But John hadn’t called or texted to say he was back at LaGuardia yet, and Adrianna’s anxiety soared. Her plan for the evening included telling him about the baby, and that practically made her quake in her boots. She could barely face the facts herself, and laying this kind of news on someone else, even if he claimed to be in love with her. Lots of men who professed their love turned tail and ran at the idea of starting a family, and from Adrianna’s perspective, she was just as scared of that commitment as any of those men.
She cursed herself for her fears, and while a part of her cared about John and was excited about having a child, she still wished she’d never gotten into this mess. But now that she was here, she had to take up the reins and run with it.
Her phone buzzed, and it jerked her out of her spacey reverie. She jumped and looked at the caller ID, relieved and also scared when she saw John’s name. She answered, trying not to tremble. “Hello?”
“Hey, gorgeous. I’m not supposed to be on the phone yet because we’re still taxiing in, but I had to hear your voice. We were delayed because some other plane with mechanical issues had to land at our airport. I’ve missed you so much.”
She smiled, glad to know he was safe. “I’ve missed you, too. Are we still on for dinner tonight?”
“Yes, we are, and I can’t wait to see you.” He sounded so enthusiastic, and Adrianna couldn’t help but wonder if that would change tonight. Either way, with her determination to live in the moment, she decided she would enjoy his reaction now.
“Me, too,” she told him. “We’re on a short leash here. I’ve got a flight out to Virginia Beach on Friday to start my new job.”
“Well, then, we’ll squeeze everything we can out of the next three days.” He sounded so confident, so sure, and it invigorated Adrianna so she felt more alive than she had in the last two weeks, especially thinking about how potent her sexual appetite had become. She was literally starving for his affectionate touch, and if everything went well tonight, she would take him home and take him to bed.
“That sounds like a good idea to me.” She said goodbye and hung up, deciding to make her rounds and finish packing up her office. She was going to call in sick tomorrow so she would have time to spend with John. At least, if tonight went as planned. She took a deep breath and told herself everything would be okay, and then she got up to go check in at the front desk.
“Stop fussing,” Angela called from the kitchen as Adrianna stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom, tugging at her dress and pulling at her eyelashes. “Everything is perfect, and all you’re going to do is screw it up. And I swear, if you mess up that hairdo, you’re going to owe me for all the appointments I didn’t book so I could come do it for you.”
Adrianna tried to smile, but she was too nervous. The Valentino dress felt too short and too tight around her waist, and she thought it exposed too much of her chest. Being pregnant had already changed her body, and if she was counting right, she was only a few weeks along.
She could admit, though, that Angela had done a stellar job on her hair and makeup, her hair pulled up into a sophisticated and sexy twist with curled tendrils on either side of her face and her makeup in tones of green to match the emerald colored dress. If she hadn’t felt so fat, she would’ve appreciated the way she looked.
She didn’t even realize she was clicking her nails against each other until Angela came over and slapped her hand. “That’s a nervous tick. Make it stop.”
Adrianna scowled at her friend. “I am nervous, Angela. I told you what’s going on. What do I do if he walks away from me?”
“He’s not going to. That man is head over heels in love with you, and he’s going to be thrilled that you’re having a child together. He’s more likely to propose.”
That didn’t help calm her at all. “Great, and how do I hand
le that situation?”
Angela made a frustrated noise. “Look, you are one of my very best friends, but I have to get real with you right now. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Not forever. You’ve had some fun, but I see the way you look when you talk about John now. If you aren’t in love with him yet, you aren’t far away from it. Seriously, the two of you are having a baby, and he’s a great man who makes you happy. And if he’s that good in bed, you won’t find anything better than that. I know Tyrese scared you about men, but he wasn’t a man. He was a little boy playing games. Take this man and latch onto him.”
It was probably good advice, but the idea of settling down and never having something new to look forward to again was almost unfathomable. At the same time, she didn’t want to lose John or deny her child a father. She had never been this confused. Life had been so much easier when she’d kept her love life limited to the stories in her books.
Grabbing her purse, she was stopped on her way to the door as Angela put a hand on her arm, and she turned wide eyes on her friend. But the girl just spritzed her with a musky perfume and kissed her cheek. “You look gorgeous. It’s going to be a great night, and I promise, I’m out of here in a few minutes so you’ll have the place back to yourself.”
The Boss's Baby (Interracial with Baby) (BWWM) Page 8
