And, with that, Sally was finally completely satisfied with her decision. She would not compromise. She would not marry without a reciprocated love. Despite their chemistry, she and Kirk both deserved more out of a relationship than that. They would successfully coparent, the way countless others had before them. And even if seeing him every day—being mentored by him—would likely be absolute physical and emotional torture, she would do it rather than compromise on her values.
You couldn’t make someone love you—Marilyn was proof of that. All the wishing, hoping or pushing couldn’t do it. And living with unrequited love was equivalent to a lifelong sentence of unhappiness.
If she was certain of anything, it was that she deserved so much more than that.
* * *
Kirk kept his distance from Sally even though it killed him. Orson had cut his hours back to two and a half days a week, which put a great deal more responsibility on Kirk’s plate. Thankfully, he’d been able to hire a new PA, and the woman was a marvel at organization. She also had the uncanny ability to anticipate his needs, which made his life roll a great deal more smoothly.
Without being obvious, Kirk kept a close eye on Sally. She’d quickly settled into a pattern, attending the leadership program mentoring sessions with regularity. Judging by the standard of work she was returning to him, she was spending a lot of hours outside the office on the tasks assigned to her. He was surprised at her tenacity, but then again, didn’t her résumé reflect that she’d been tenacious all her life?
She was doing excellent work with the sustainability rollout. It was also being implemented in the other branches of HTT, which meant some travel time for her, both by air and road. He’d heard she was slowly overcoming her speaking issues, too. Granted, the groups she was dealing with were all smaller than here at the head office, but Nick had reported back regularly that she was doing better with each presentation.
He hated it when she was away and had recruited Nick to ensure that she ate regularly and well. The other man had been surprised but had taken it in stride. It meant that when Kirk made his nightly calls to her while Sally traveled, he didn’t have to come across like a drill sergeant checking she was taking her vitamins and supplements and getting enough sleep.
Christmas had come and gone. Sally was sixteen weeks pregnant now and had the cutest baby bump. Kirk had bookmarked a website on his laptop that showed him the stages of pregnancy, and he marveled every day at the changes that were happening in Sally’s body. The realization that it was his child growing inside her still took his breath away. Their latest prenatal appointment, where they’d heard the baby’s heartbeat, had made the pregnancy overwhelmingly and incredibly real and had left him feeling oddly emotional.
He looked at his watch. She should be back home from her New York presentation by now. Her flight had been due in about ninety minutes ago. Would she object to him making a check-in call? Too bad if she did. Suddenly he had the overwhelming urge to hear her voice.
Except when he dialed her apartment, there was no reply. That was odd. He called her cell phone and got an automated message saying her phone was off or out of range. A sick feeling crept through him. He wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, but something didn’t feel right.
Kirk was just about to call Nick’s cell phone when his screen lit up with an incoming call. It was Orson.
“Kirk, it’s Sally. She’s been taken to the hospital.”
A shaft of dread sliced through him, stealing his breath and making his heart hammer in his chest.
“What is it, what’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“I’m not sure, and she’s not answering her phone. I just got out of a meeting to find that she’d left me a message saying she’d landed but that her leg was sore and swollen and that Benton was taking her to the hospital to be checked out. A swollen leg after flying, that’s not good, is it?”
It wasn’t good, not under any circumstances. Along with learning about the growth of the baby, Kirk had been driving himself crazy reading about risks in pregnancy, and he knew that a swollen leg could be indicative of a blood clot.
“Where do they have her?”
“She didn’t say. She told me not to worry, but it’s kind of difficult not to when you love someone, right?”
Orson’s question reverberated through Kirk’s mind. Was that what this sudden abject fear was? Love?
“Leave it with me, Orson. I’ll see what I can find out and let you know the minute I hear anything.”
“Good, thanks. And if she calls me, I’ll be sure to tell you.”
Kirk called Nick’s phone and finally got hold of him, except the man could offer him no help. Sally had apparently been fine when he’d left her at the airport with Benton. Kirk hung up as quickly as he could and called the bodyguard, who was in the ER waiting room at the hospital. The moment Kirk had the details and had shared them with Orson, he was in his car and on his way to the hospital.
He released Benton to go home as soon as he arrived, promising to let the man know Sally’s prognosis the moment he heard anything. Then began the struggle to get some information on Sally’s condition. But it appeared that no amount of coercion, charm or outright badgering would budge the staff. And so began the longest two hours of his life.
This was far worse than when his mother had died. By the time her cancer had been diagnosed, it had been too late for treatment and they’d had a few months to come to terms with things—as much as anyone came to terms with impending death. But he’d known and understood every step of her journey. Had made it his business to. This, though—it was out of his control, and he found he didn’t like it one bit.
Fear for the baby was one thing, but a possible blood clot was a serious business and could potentially put Sally’s life at risk. The very idea of losing her terrified him. He’d agreed to abide by her wish not to marry, as much as he’d hated it, but right now he wished he had pushed her harder to accept him. Then he’d have the right to know what was happening, how she was.
He got up and began to pace, but the ER was a busy place and there was hardly enough room for anything, so he found a spot against the wall and stared at the double doors leading to the treatment area and waited. And, as the hands on the clock on the wall ticked interminably by, he couldn’t help remembering what Orson had said. She told me not to worry, but it’s kind of difficult not to when you love someone, right?
Love. He’d never imagined he’d ever know what true, romantic love was. He’d seen what love had done for his mother and how her affection for his father had slowly been crushed out of her until all that was left was sadness and despair. When he’d created his life plan, he’d known he was prepared to settle for respect and affection in marriage without the soaring highs or devastating lows that so many people experienced on the road to happily-ever-after. He didn’t have time for that, didn’t need it, didn’t want it.
And yet, he wanted Sally. Wanted everything to do with her—to be by her side, to guide her and see her reach her career goals, to watch her become a mother and to traverse the minefields of parenthood together. But most of all, he finally realized, he wanted to love her. He wanted the right to be the one she turned to in times of trouble or in times of joy. He wanted to be the one to fill her heart with happiness, to take her problems and make them go away. He wanted to laugh with her, live with her and love her forever.
Kirk realized he was shaking. The yearning inside him had grown so strong, so overwhelming that
tears now pricked at the back of his eyes. He hadn’t cried since his mother passed, and then only in the privacy of his own home. But this—it was raw, it was real and he’d never felt so damned helpless in his entire life.
A movement behind the doors caught his attention and he saw Sally being wheeled out by an orderly—a fistful of papers in her hand and a tired smile on her face. A smile that faded away in surprise when she saw him striding toward her.
“Kirk? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you, Sally,” he said, and he’d never meant anything more seriously in his life.
Unfortunately the ER waiting room was not the place for the discussion they desperately needed to have.
She looked a little disconcerted but then nodded. “I’m fine—honestly. I’ve been cleared to go home.”
“Everything’s okay?”
“Yes. It was just an overreaction on Benton’s part. I mentioned my leg was a bit achy and swollen when he met me at SeaTac, and he insisted on bringing me straight here.”
“I’m giving him a bonus. That’s exactly what he should have done. You didn’t give him grief about that, did you?” he asked as they walked toward the exit.
“I was going to, but then I thought about the traveling I’ve been doing lately and, to be totally honest, I got scared about what it could have been and was only too happy for someone else to make the decisions for me. But why are you here?”
“Orson called me. He got your message, which was pretty scant on details and left us both worried.”
“I should call him,” she answered, reaching in her bag for her phone, which she turned on. “Oh, I’ve got missed calls. Dad—” she scrolled through the list “—and you.”
“We were concerned.”
Those three words didn’t even go halfway to explaining how worried he’d been. They reached the parking area and Kirk helped her into the car and waited, not bothering to start the car yet, as she called her dad to reassure him that everything was okay.
“No, no, I’m fine. I don’t need to come to your place. Everything checked out normal—just a bit of fluid retention. No, Dad, it’s really nothing to worry about. They did scans and everything.”
Eventually she hung up and sighed heavily.
“Tired?” Kirk asked.
“Worn-out.”
“Let me take you home. You’re sure you don’t want to go to your father’s? Or my place?”
“What part of ‘I’m fine’ don’t you men seem to understand? Look—” she yanked her discharge papers from her bag and shook them at him “—everything is normal.”
But there was a wobble to her voice that struck Kirk straight to his heart. She’d been afraid and alone. He didn’t stop to think twice. He simply reached out his arms and closed them around her, pulling her toward him. In the confines of the car it was a challenge to offer her the comfort he knew she needed, but he did his best.
At first she stiffened and began to pull away, but then she sagged into him and he felt her arms reach around his waist.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, Sally. Quite frankly, I was terrified for you. I never want to feel that afraid again.”
She sniffed, and he loosened his hold so he could grab a bunch of tissues from the glove box. She took them from him and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“Thanks. Can we go home now?”
“Sure.”
He waited for her to buckle her seat belt before doing the same, and then he drove to her apartment. Once there, he followed her inside.
“Sit down,” he instructed. “I’ll make you a hot drink.”
It was a measure of how tired she was that she didn’t protest, just merely offered her thanks. Kirk quickly brewed a cup of chamomile tea and brought it to her. The china cup and saucer felt incongruously delicate in his large hand, a simile for the delicacy of their relationship and how he could all too easily damage it if he didn’t use care, he realized.
He sat down with her as she sipped her tea, and when she was finished he put an arm around her, encouraging her to snuggle against him and relax. She felt so right in his arms. Sexual attraction aside, there was something incredibly satisfying about just being with her. And that was a crucial part of getting to know one another that they’d skipped. Maybe if he’d been more restrained, had shown more of his interest in getting to know all of her and not just her body, they’d have stood a better chance.
But now he had something to fight for. He knew, without any doubt, that he’d fallen crazy in love with this incredible, strong woman. He just hadn’t let himself see that his feelings went deeper than physical appeal. Hadn’t wanted the mess and the clutter in his emotional life that he knew being in love could bring. Today had taught him that he’d been so very wrong.
“Sally?” he asked, wondering if she’d fallen asleep.
“Hmm?” she answered.
“Could I stay tonight?”
She shuffled away from him, and he felt the loss as if a piece of him had been sliced away.
“Stay? Here?”
“I can sleep on the couch. I don’t expect... I just need to know you’re going to be okay and to be on hand to get you anything you need.”
When she started to protest, he put up a hand.
“Seriously, I know you’re worn-out with the visit to New York and flying home and having been to the hospital. And if I left you here alone, I wouldn’t sleep a wink—I’d be up all night, worrying about you. Let me help you, for both our sakes, okay?”
She stared at him, her blue eyes underlined by shadows of weariness that made him want to do nothing more than swoop her up into his arms and take her to her bed and insist she stay there for the next week. But he didn’t even have the right to suggest it.
“Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“Thank you.”
“But why, Kirk? You know I’m okay, don’t you? I don’t need to be monitored or anything.”
“I know. I just need to be sure. Today scared me more than I thought it was possible to be. It brought a few truths home to roost.”
Sally raised her brows. “Oh?”
“It made me take a good long hard look at myself. At what I want. I meant what I said at the hospital. I’m here for you. And I really wish I had the right to be here for you on a permanent basis.”
She sighed and looked away. “Kirk, we’ve discussed this. I told you I don’t want to marry you.”
“I know. I’ve been an idiot. You were right to turn down what I was offering. I thought that all it would take was for us to agree to be a couple, but today taught me that there’s so much more than that. Yes, I wanted the dream—the beautiful wife, the perfect child, the career every man envies. But I wasn’t prepared to work hard enough for any of that. I wasn’t prepared to make myself vulnerable or even admit that I needed anyone else to achieve my goals. To be totally honest, I was prepared to accept something that would look more like a business partnership than a marriage, and it absolutely shames me to admit it.”
Sally frowned, looking uncertain. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I didn’t believe you needed love, real love, to make a successful marriage. But now I know that for a marriage to really mean something, the people have to truly mean something to each other.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s my understanding of it, too. I won’t settle for less.”
“Me either. Standing there in that ER waiting room, knowin
g I had no right to be there with you, no right to support you the way you deserve to be supported—” His voice cracked, and he rubbed a hand across his face. “Sally, it was the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and it made me realize something very important.”
“And that is?”
“That I love you. I’m not a man who is big on expressing my feelings, but please believe me when I say that today was hell on earth for me. You mean more to me than any person I’ve ever known. I want to spend the rest of my life proving that to you, if you’ll let me.”
“And the baby?”
“And the baby, too, of course. But no matter what, I love you—and whether you agree to marry me or not, I always will.”
Sally’s eyes washed with tears and she looked away. For a moment he thought she was going to turn him down, but then she looked back at him and a tentative smile began to pull at her lips.
“Always?” she asked, her smile broadening.
“Forever. I mean it.”
“And I’ll continue in the leadership program at work?”
“Of course. You’re a valuable member of the team, why wouldn’t I want you there?”
“Forever, you say?”
He nodded, holding his breath.
“I couldn’t accept your proposal without love, Kirk. My parents had a short but loving marriage. No one deserves less than that. Even you.”
He looked at her in confusion. Was she turning him down again? Was she saying she couldn’t love him? It would kill a piece of him to accept her decision, but he’d do it if that was what made her happy.
Sally reached out and took his hands in hers. “Thank you for opening up your heart to me tonight. I needed to hear it—needed to know that you had it in you to feel as deeply for me as I feel for you, because I love you, too.”
Kirk sucked air into his lungs, barely able to believe the words she’d just said.
Little Secrets--The Baby Merger Page 16
