As she paused outside the flat and laid her palm on the wood of the door like she was trying to feel Matt through it, she knew a storm was brewing between them and it was going to either break or suffocate them.
Something was going to have to give, and give soon. The only question about it was which of them would be the catalyst.
* * *
Matt had no idea how he was going to reclaim his position in the friend zone when he was fucking Romy all night in his sleep and thinking about fucking her every moment of the day.
His solution was to distract himself by invading Artie’s Wimbledon house. Annoyingly, he could think of only two business matters for them to discuss, and both were finalized by 11:20 a.m. on Matt’s first day.
At that point, Matt decided he had no option but to confess to Artie that impending fatherhood was responsible for his earlier-than-expected arrival in London. He felt a surge of energy after getting that off his chest, and urged Artie to join him in some steam-releasing activities. But he was doomed to disappointment. Artie, never the most intrepid of adventurers, was uninterested in abseiling down the ArcelorMittal Orbit, rap jumping down a tower or kayaking on the Thames, and informed Matt that he got all the daredevilry he needed from his DIY obsession: in fact, his only recent hair-raising stunt had been making a birdhouse in his mantuary—a.k.a. backyard shed—during which he’d narrowly avoided slicing off an arm with a circular saw.
Which was when Matt had the brilliant idea of making his baby a crib. What better way of a) keeping himself from going stir-crazy in that Romy-saturated apartment, and b) demonstrating to Romy that he didn’t really think fatherhood was all about slinging money at the kid?
By one o’clock, he and Artie had downloaded a design for a crib in a half-moon shape with cutout stars on the sides to match Romy’s nursery decor, ordered wood and paint, familiarized themselves with the necessary tools and were ready to blaze a home handyman trail starting Tuesday morning.
And thus, the pattern of Matt’s temporary life with Romy was set.
He’d go for his morning run, then make and eat his own breakfast. When Romy headed for the shower, he’d scramble her eggs the way she always made them, with mayonnaise, Parmesan and basil. She’d come to the kitchen counter, they’d exchange a subdued “Good morning” and he’d leave her to eat while he took his turn in the bathroom. By the time he was done Romy would have left for her Islington office and he’d be ready to head to Artie’s to get macho with the power tools. He’d then be back at the apartment showering off man-cave grime before Romy left her office at six o’clock for the trip home.
When she arrived, Matt would be reduced to farcical TV Sitcom Land, making use of anything readily available to hide his exhibitionist dick—his laptop, Romy’s London AZ guide, a cushion. If she’d had a damn pot plant in the place he may even have snapped off a frond and tied it around his groin! He’d get a reprieve while she cooked dinner, because she’d banned him from helping her in the kitchen on the—correct—grounds there wasn’t enough room for the two of them.
They’d eat dinner while making inane conversation, then watch TV until the rigidity of perching as far away from her as possible without falling off the damn couch gave him an actual pain in the neck. At that point, he’d excuse himself to catch up on his San Francisco projects while the time zones were favorable, after which he’d dream about Romy all night and wonder if she was dreaming about him.
In other words, it was Hell. On. Earth.
And then, on Friday night, everything changed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CRADLE WAS finished on Friday afternoon.
Artie was jubilant that they’d completed it with only one trip to the emergency room to get his forearm stitched.
Matt had been jubilant because he’d thought it looked fucking amazing...until he saw it in situ and by comparison to Romy’s pristine paint job on the walls, realized it was in fact fucking crap.
He pictured Romy coming into the room in all her chic neatness and zeroing in on that drip of silver paint that he’d thought was unnoticeable but could now see would be visible from Jupiter using nothing but the naked eye. He envisioned her comparing his amateurish jigsaw-cut stars to the perfection of the ones painted on the wall. He imagined her waiting impatiently for Matt to leave London before she threw it out.
And then it sank in that he probably wouldn’t know what she did with the damn cradle, because given the way things were going between them the chances of her inviting him anywhere near her for the rest of their lives seemed remote.
He thought back to what he’d said to her when she’d put Plan C to him—that whatever outcomes her Plan C covered, she’d be in his life no matter what. The truth was he needed that guarantee; it was what had driven all his decisions about Romy from the night he’d met her. Her, in his life somewhere.
And not the way they were at the moment. That wasn’t having her in his life; that was losing her from his life—piece by piece, a little more every day. And it was going to have to stop.
He was going to fix whatever was wrong. Change the dynamic between them. There could be no more meaningless conversations over dinner. No struggling to keep their limbs separated on the couch. No more scheduling of morning showers to avoid contact. They had to have contact! They’d always had contact. Except for those four weeks after she’d flown home from San Francisco when he’d heard nothing from her, and he couldn’t take another month like that. Nor could he wait another nine days to find out what sort of contact they’d have in the future. He had to know now, tonight.
Babies needed certainty, she’d told him. And he was ready to do his bit to guarantee their baby had it, via parents who would never give up on each other! If his gruesome parents could stay together for thirty years, he and Romy had to be able to manage some kind of longevity, didn’t they?
Restless, he gave the cradle a gentle push with his fingertip to check the way it rocked on the nursery floor. Another push. Another. Picturing his tiny daughter in it.
He wondered if Romy had any names picked out. He kinda liked the name Rose... Similar to Romy, and yet...different. Pretty. Sweet. A little serious. He liked the idea of a serious kid.
Okay, it was a little crazy to be thinking so far ahead. The kid was still only a blastocyst, if she was here at all!
Still, he wondered what Romy would look like pregnant. As chic as ever. Beautiful.
He hoped she wouldn’t get morning sickness. That would suck after all the pain she’d already been through. Morning sickness could be serious if you got it bad—like that type the Duchess of Cambridge got. She’d have to move in with her mother if she got that kind because it would be impossible to live alone and suffer like that. Or she could go into the hospital.
He’d better check out the hospital she’d chosen for the birth, now he thought of it. In case other serious shit happened. Blood pressure problems. Gestational diabetes...
Miscarriage. Twenty percent of women had miscarriages.
Or—hang on—did women still die in childbirth?
Jesus, he hadn’t researched that one! He was going to have to look into it.
Because fuck.
Like...fuck.
No. Just no. Not going to happen.
He realized he’d stopped rocking the cradle and looked down at the sweaty palm he’d been gripping it with. He swallowed, breathed deeply, but the questions wouldn’t leave him. Pregnancy, childbirth, the things that could go wrong. He was going to have a stroke thinking about this stuff when he was back in San Francisco.
Which...meant...ooooh. Holy shit! He was going to have to not be in San Francisco—he was going to have to be here for the next nine months to make sure nothing went wrong.
For a moment, he felt disorientated, and had to sit on the edge of the bed and breathe through it. Ha! Anyone would think he was having sympathy contr
actions nine months early!
Nine months. Living with Romy for nine months...
Was it possible?
Well, yeah! Perspective! He’d lived with her for three and a half years, hadn’t he?
And all right, that was different. He hadn’t even caught an accidental bathroom flash of Romy’s body in all that time, and now he’d had sex with her twice and could visualize every damn inch of her skin. That made it a little harder to maintain a hands-off friendship.
Also, he was having a kid with her, for Christ’s sake, so...so...ooooh. He was sleeping in the nursery, and he’d have to get out of the nursery so he and Romy could get the nursery finished, which meant there was only one place to sleep and that was with her.
He stared around the room, seeing nothing, as he assembled thoughts and then disassembled them. He wasn’t flavor of the month with Romy—she’d told him sex was out of the question and she looked a lot like she wasn’t intending to back down on that anytime soon. And he had no intention of backing down on it, either.
But...but...would it be so bad? If they put strict rules in place? It was only nine months, just until the baby arrived, and she could put together whatever legal documents she wanted to regulate the arrangement, couldn’t she?
He had to shake his hands at that point to release some tension, then rub them on his jeans because his palms were sweaty again. Oh God. God! Whichever way you sliced it, this was a big deal. Huge! This was not a hookup. This was an affair. A real, bourgeois affair. He had to think this through. Maybe...maybe set the arguments out the way Romy did and try them on her tonight, easiest to hardest, no rushing his fences the way he usually did. He’d call it a Plan D.
He got up, went over to the cradle, set it rocking again, picturing a little tuft of red hair, a mini version of Romy’s pursed duckbill lips.
He smiled. That kid was going to be cute!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MATT FIRED HIS opening salvo over their evening meal of spaghetti with ricotta, prosciutto and arugula pesto—“You look tired.”
And okay, that statement wasn’t going to set any woman’s heart aflutter, but it was harder than he’d anticipated to think of something scintillating to say after five days of cold shoulder.
Romy didn’t even look up from twirling a piece of spaghetti around her fork. “That’s because I am.”
Matt waited for her to finish eating that forkful, and tried again. “Tiredness is common when you’re pregnant.”
She paused, another forkful halfway to her mouth.
He gave her a weak smile. “I...er...read up on the symptoms, that month in San Francisco. Just...just in case.”
The fork continued its journey in silence.
He cleared his throat. “So? Do you think you’re...you know...tired?”
Aaand she laid down her fork. “I have no idea if I’m pregnant. If you’re impatient for an answer because you’re ready to call it quits and go home, however, I can grab a no out of the air for you. Or you could just go!”
“I’m not leaving, Romy,” he said, which of course was exactly the point he’d been intending to work up to, but before he could elaborate she tossed her napkin on the table and stomped off to her bedroom.
Okay, that hadn’t gone exactly as he’d planned. But he had a Plan E.
He cleared the table, stacked the dishwasher, sat at the dining table with his laptop, pretending to work in case she came out but in reality checking what was on TV because he knew Romy would be out eventually to watch it with him—she’d been making a point of not running away from him as though it were a badge of honor to suffer his company.
Sure enough, twenty minutes later she emerged in sweatpants and a loose T-shirt that screamed I am in the friend zone but which nevertheless set him on fire.
Out of the corner of his eye he watched her hesitate at the couch, then take up her usual position on the extreme right end, pick up the remote, turn on the TV and start changing channels at a rate of knots.
He took a couple of deep-but-silent breaths, adjusting his dick for the millionth time to try to give it a little extra room in his jeans, then he grabbed a beer for himself and a glass of water for Romy and made his way over to the couch. He deposited the drinks on the coffee table and took his allocated place on the extreme left.
Immediately, his penis eased out of the position he’d forced it into, making him squirm.
Romy looked at him, frowning. “What is it?”
“Just a twinge. In my...hip,” he said, and grabbed the nearest cushion to thrust over his lap with a telepathic order to his dick to behave because he was not going to rush his fences!
“I’ve got some Deep Heat in the bathroom if you need something for it.”
He almost burst out laughing at that. Deep Heat on his cock? That’d serve the bastard right. “No, I’ll be...fine,” he said, and he let himself look at her, really look at her, in a way he hadn’t allowed himself for five days.
Every cell in his body seemed to vibrate with the need to touch her immediately. The idea of never touching her again was unendurable. And he didn’t want to build an argument rationally—he just wanted her. Fast-tracked.
Okay, he was going to rush a fucking fence.
He threw his lap-covering cushion over the back of the couch. “Romy?”
She turned to him, her hand tightening on the remote. “Yes?”
“Stick a fork in me—I’m done.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“A WHAT?” Romy asked.
“A big, sharp fork. Or your teeth if you prefer.”
She choked on the breath she’d been taking, coughed, wheezed, grabbed for the glass of water on the coffee table and took a massive gulp. What had he just said?
He grinned at her. “I can do kink, you know.”
And she choked again, this time on the water, and coughed up half a lung.
“You okay?” Matt asked. “Maybe you need some of that Deep Heat.”
Deep Heat? Yes! Yes, she needed deep heat. The deeper the better.
“But if you’re trying to change my channel,” he said, with a half laugh, “it’s too late. It’s preprogrammed.”
“Wh-what?”
He gestured to the remote, and she looked down at it as though she’d never seen it before.
“Here,” he said, taking it from her and pointing it at the TV. “Let’s agree that the next channel switch we stick with no matter what.”
But when he jabbed his finger on the remote and somehow found The Proposal, she wanted to snatch the remote off him and try again.
She and Matt had watched The Proposal together the night she and Teague had broken up. February 14, nine years ago to the day. Not that Matt would remember that. But it was etched in her mind as the date she finally accepted Matt didn’t know she was equipped with boobs and a vagina.
“What is it about this movie and Valentine’s Day?” Matt asked.
Blink of utter, utter insanity. “You remember watching this?”
“Well, yeah! I wasn’t the one who drank a whole bottle of red wine on my own—my memory is unblotted. Now shh, we’ve already missed half of it.” And he fixed his eyes on the screen while simultaneously reaching out a hand and yanking her close to him.
What the hell was going oooon—dear God, he’d put a hand on her thigh.
She waited for him to move it. One...two...five...ten seconds... But his hand stayed where it was.
What was she supposed to do? Leave it there? She tried to think if she’d felt this hot and bothered in the old days when they’d watched a movie and he’d casually touched her, but her body had gone into free fall and there was only now. A deep, painful longing for him suffused her. She’d sit through anything as long as he kept his hand there—golf tournament, snooker, home shopping channel, even The Proposal.
“So,” he said, his eyes still on the TV screen.
“Yes?” she breathed.
“Back to that fork...”
The fork. Ha! Stick a fork in him? Stick a fork in her! She was so done she was like a slab of overcooked pork crackling!
Matt hooted out a laugh as though he’d heard her thoughts, then gestured to the TV. “Do you remember this bit?”
She forced herself to focus on the screen. Ugh. “Unfortunately, yes. You made me get up and chant to the universe and dance around the living room.”
“You didn’t take much persuading.”
“Red wine.”
“Wanna have another go—without tripping over the coffee table this time?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Then shh,” he said, and as he refocused on the TV, he released his grip on her thigh and pulled her under his arm instead.
Romy kept watching the screen, conscious of the need to appear like she was just...well, breathing. Like a normal woman would breathe when she was jammed under the arm of a guy she was gagging for!
But she was struggling to take in anything, because she was seeing instead Valentine’s Day evening nine years ago...
Matt and his date du jour, Kelsey, were going to a brasserie. Rafael and Veronica were at a diner because Rafael was broke and his pride wouldn’t bend by so much as a quarter inch when it came to Veronica contributing funds toward their date nights. Romy, who’d been dating Teague for two chaste months, didn’t know where Teague was taking her because it was a surprise, but she knew if she was ever going to sleep with him this was the night. She might have actually gone through with it, too, if he’d booked any old restaurant. But the moment she’d seen it was the exclusive, expensive Catch of the Day—which she’d been dying to try but couldn’t afford—she’d had a crisis of conscience. Going to bed with Teague after such a meal would feel like a dinner-for-sex trade, and she liked him too much to go through with it. So she’d put her hand on his arm to stop him from entering the restaurant, and he’d given her his gentle, crooked smile and said, “It’s okay, Romes. Apparently Valentine’s Day breakups are almost as common as Valentine’s Day engagements.”
Getting Lucky Page 11
