The Best Laid Plans

by Sarah Mayberry

  As she rolled out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, she started strategizing. First, she needed to find a reputable clinic. She needed to explore the ins and outs of sperm donation, the screening process and the success rate for artificial insemination. Then she needed to get her life in order. If she was going to be pregnant in the foreseeable future, there were a lot of things she needed to get sorted.

  A nursery, for starters.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

  Dear God, I’m really going to do this.

  Pointless to deny that there was a definite thread of sadness mixed in with the determination and excitement. She’d grown up without a father. She would have preferred for her child to have one. But there were hundreds of thousands of single-parent families in the world. She would do her best by her child, if she was blessed with one, the same as any other mother. That would have to be enough.

  She dressed in one of her dark tailored skirt suits, matching it with her steel-gray suede pumps, then brushed her hair until it fell smoothly to her jawline. She never wore much makeup apart from a dusting of powder, mascara and lipstick. Five minutes later, she was on her way to work.

  It wasn’t until she was about to slide out of her car in Wallingsworth & Kent’s underground garage that she spotted Ethan in her rearview mirror and remembered the other part of last night—the embarrassing, revealing part where she’d lost it and somehow wound up confiding in him. She’d been so caught up in her plans this morning, so determined not to waste another minute, that she’d forgotten how thoroughly she’d exposed herself.

  Instinctively she slunk down in her seat, waiting for Ethan to reach the elevators before checking the rearview mirror again. Only when the doors had closed on him did she sit up straight, feeling absurd and foolish and relieved all at once.

  Why, oh why, hadn’t she gone home instead of giving in to obligation and playing that stupid racquetball game with him last night? She had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, that was the problem. And look where it had gotten her.

  There were plenty of women, she knew, who would line up around the block to take solace in Ethan Stone’s arms. But he was Alex’s colleague and fellow partner, and while she was prepared to privately acknowledge that he was an extremely attractive man, she had never, ever allowed herself to do more than that. She valued her hard-earned reputation as a professional who knew her stuff and who didn’t let emotion get in the way, far too much to indulge in office flirtation. Especially with a man who went through as many women as Ethan did. As for blubbering all over him like a histrionic schoolgirl, moaning about her declining fertility…

  Aware that she’d been hiding in her car too long, Alex made her way to the elevators. She told herself that when she saw Ethan this morning, she would simply pretend it was business as usual. He’d have to take his cue from her and follow suit. A few days from now, he’d have written off her confession as hormones and they’d be back to their old footing.

  Except the moment she exited the elevator on the fifteenth floor she heard his voice and spotted him standing in the kitchenette, chatting with Franny while he poured himself a coffee.

  Do it. Grab a coffee, talk about the weather. Show him that you’re back to your mouthy, smart-ass self and normalize the situation.

  She took a deep breath—then pivoted on her heel and walked the long way to her office. Which made her an enormous chicken, she knew, but she was only human.

  She ducked him twice more that morning, bowing out of a meeting she was supposed to attend with him and taking the stairs when she saw him heading for the elevator. She told herself she was merely buying herself time—for her to get over her self-consciousness and for him to forget the details from last night.

  She had half an hour free before the partner lunch at midday and she spent the time checking out fertility clinics on the internet, one eye on her office door the whole time.

  She found a number of information pages, complete with testimonials, and she followed the links to yet more sites. She bookmarked a few, then found a recent newspaper article reporting that there was a drastic shortage of sperm donors in Australia, particularly donors who were willing to offer their sperm to single women or same-sex partners. According to the article, for some time Australian women had been ordering sperm from banks based in the U.S. Curious, she clicked on a link and found herself staring at literally hundreds of profiles on a U.S. website. She scanned the first one with growing incredulity.

  Donor 39 is five foot eleven inches, average build, blue-eyed, blond hair. His background is Russian, German and English. He is a professional, tertiary educated…

  It was a little shocking to Alex that all this information was so readily available and that the ordering process was so easy. She’d assumed she’d have to jump through more hoops, but according to the website all she had to do was supply her credit-card number and she could purchase the specimen of her choice and have it shipped out to a clinic in Australia within the week.

  Feeling a little dazed, she hit the print button so she could take the donor profiles home and read them in privacy. It wasn’t until she closed the screen down that she jolted back to reality.

  She was at work, for Pete’s sake, and she shared her printer station with her legal secretary and two other lawyers. All of whom could be standing around the printer right now watching her profiles spit out of the machine.

  Shit!

  She was on her feet and rounding her desk in seconds. Her high heels dug into the carpet as she bolted for the door. She raced past Fran’s desk to the printer alcove and sagged with relief when she found no one there.

  Thank God. Thank. God.

  The machine was spewing out pages and she collected them anxiously. She checked the first page—one of twenty! And it was only on page nine. She shot a look over her shoulder, then refocused on the machine.

  Come on, come on!

  She snatched each page as it appeared, adding it to the pile pressed to her chest. By the time she was down to pages nineteen and twenty her armpits were damp with nervous sweat.

  “Hey. I’ve been looking for you. You missed our meeting earlier,” a deep voice said behind her.

  She started, almost dropping her armful of incriminating documents.

  “Ethan, you startled me.”

  “No kidding. No more coffee for you today, tiger.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled nervously, painfully aware that there was still one page outstanding from her tally. “So, um, how was the meeting? I had a scheduling conflict that I didn’t see until the last minute.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the last page emerge from the printer. She grabbed it as it hit the tray. Only when all twenty pages were pressed tightly to her chest did she give Ethan her full attention.

  “Dull, as usual. Remind me again why we volunteered to head the billing-software review.”

  “Because we thought we could avoid making the same mistakes that were made last time?” she suggested.

  “Right. How noble of us.” He moved a little closer and lowered his voice. “How are you doing today?”

  She’d known this was coming from the moment she heard his voice. She steeled herself to meet his deep blue gaze.

  “I’m great,” she said firmly. “Really great.”

  “Yeah?”

  He was standing so close she could smell his aftershave again. Embarrassed heat rose up her face. She dropped her gaze to the lapel of his charcoal pinstripe suit.

  “Absolutely.”

  She didn’t need to be looking at Ethan to know he was studying her closely.

  “Honestly,” she said, forcing herself to make eye contact again. “I had a minor freak-out. I went home, got a solid night’s sleep and now I’m all good.”

  He looked as though he wanted to say more and she made a big deal out of checking her watch.

  “Wow. We’re both going to be late for Sam’s birthday lunch if we don’t put our skates on,” she s
aid.

  “I’m ready to go. I thought we could walk together.”

  “Oh. Great idea. Except I’ve still got one last call to make. And I don’t want to make you late, too,” she fibbed. “Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll see you at the restaurant?”

  Again, she didn’t give him a chance to object, brushing past him and walking toward her office. She didn’t let her breath out until she was through the doorway and safely out of sight.

  This was why it always paid to keep work and her private life separate. She lifted the sheaf of papers and smacked them against her forehead. From now on, anything to do with her personal life stayed at home and was handled after nine to five. No exceptions.

  As for Ethan… He would get the message. He’d have to, because she wasn’t exposing herself any more than she already had. The sooner they both forgot her breakdown last night, the better.

  ETHAN WATCHED ALEX disappear into her office, a frown on his face. In the two years he’d worked with her, she’d never once had trouble meeting his eye—except for today. Mind you, she’d also never let him as close as she had last night. Prior to that, the most personal topic they’d discussed had been her hatred of black cherries. To be fair, he hadn’t volunteered the intimate details about his own life, either, but he’d always had the sense that even if he’d tried to get closer to Alex she would have kept him at arm’s length. She was happy to joke and spar and compete with him, but anything deeper than that was out of bounds. It had never really bothered him before, but today he felt distinctly pissed that he’d been shut out.

  He straightened his cuffs and buttoned his suit jacket and told himself to get over it. It wasn’t as though he was in the market for a new bosom buddy—he had his brother and a handful of mates he could rely on to have his back. And it definitely wasn’t that he was keen to play Dr. Phil and pass the tissues. It was no skin off his nose if Alex didn’t want to share.

  He was about to head for the elevator when a blinking red light caught his eye. The printer Alex had been hovering over so urgently was jammed.

  He couldn’t say what made him open the various flaps and trays to check for a paper jam. Perhaps it was because Alex had been so jumpy and furtive. Or maybe some other instinct guided him.

  Whatever it was, it took him only seconds to find the culprit—a single page that had folded in on itself instead of exiting to the out tray. He pulled it free and straightened it, shaking toner dust off his fingers.

  He scanned the first few lines but comprehension was a few moments in coming. His head came up and he turned to stare toward Alex’s office.

  What on earth…?

  Surely she wasn’t seriously thinking…?

  He took a step, the incriminating evidence in hand, then stopped. What was he going to say to her? Hadn’t he just established for himself that their friendship was limited to work and the racquetball court? That she didn’t want to discuss her private life?

  He slowly folded the sheet in half, then into quarters before slipping it into his jacket pocket. He went to join the rest of the partners for lunch.

  He had it right the first time—this was nothing to do with him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ETHAN KEPT AN EYE OUT for Alex as the rest of the partners arrived and seated themselves in the private dining room at Grossi Florentino, but she didn’t slip through the door until a good ten minutes after everyone else was perusing the menu.

  He watched as she made her excuses and took the last remaining chair between Keith Lancaster and Toby Kooperman at the other end of the table. She smiled at Keith when he said something, then leaned back to allow the waiter to place a napkin across her knees. He returned his attention to his menu, but the sound of her laughter drew his gaze.

  She had one hand pressed to her chest and her eyes shone with amusement as she talked animatedly with Keith. Ethan watched the tilt of her head and the flush in her cheeks and the way she gestured with her hands and had to remind himself that it was none of his business that she was planning to buy frozen semen from some faceless donor in the U.S. because she was afraid she’d missed the boat. It was her life, her decision. Nothing to do with him.

  And yet…

  She was only thirty-eight years old and she was an attractive, sexy woman. Not conventionally beautiful, perhaps, but incredibly appealing with her rich brown eyes and chestnut hair. More than once when they’d been lunching together he’d found himself fixating on her mouth, with its lush, full lower lip. She was smart, too, and funny. If she hadn’t been a fellow partner and if he hadn’t instinctively known that she was not the kind of woman who did casual affairs, he would have asked her out long ago. There had to be a bunch of men out there who would give their eyeteeth to meet someone like her.

  And yet she was planning on using a sperm donor to become pregnant. It simply didn’t make sense to him that a woman with as much as she had to offer was taking such a compromised route to motherhood. He wanted to push back his chair, grab her arm and drag her somewhere private so he could point out that she was selling herself short, big-time.

  He didn’t. She’d made it more than clear that they didn’t have the sort of friendship that invited that kind of straight talking. They were work buddies. Good for a little bitching about office politics, a joke at the water cooler and a weekly workout. That was it.

  He dragged his gaze away, joining in the conversation around him. As with most partner lunches, the wine flowed freely and the room became noisier as the meal progressed. Ethan stuck to one glass since he had a heavy afternoon schedule and kept an eye on the time. Occasionally, against his will, he found himself watching Alex and his mind did a loop of the same circle of thoughts. He repeated his mantra—nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you—and returned his attention to his end of the table.

  He decided to give it twenty more minutes before he made his apologies when Alex pushed back her chair and stood.

  “Well, someone has to pay for this lunch,” she said. “I’d better get to it.”

  Laughter greeted her announcement as he pushed back his own chair.

  “Exactly what I was thinking.”

  She looked at him and he caught a flash of unease in her eyes. He crossed to the door and waited for her to join him.

  “I don’t think they’ll be billing many hours this afternoon,” he murmured as they made their way through the restaurant.

  Her gaze flashed toward him before skittering away again.

  “Probably just as well, given the way they’re working their way through the wine list.”

  They both stopped when they reached the double front doors. Outside, the sky was a dark, leaden gray, and rain was pouring down.

  “Good old Melbourne,” Alex said, then she glanced ruefully at her shoes. “What are the odds of us finding a taxi that’ll take us half a block up the road?”

  He didn’t bother responding, simply flipped up the collar on his suit jacket.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She sighed and turned up the collar on her own jacket.

  He was about to open the door when a waiter rushed to their side carrying a large golf umbrella.

  “With our compliments,” he said, offering the umbrella to Ethan.

  “Thank you. We’ll get it back to you this afternoon,” he said.

  Although given the amount of money the firm would drop on lunch, the restaurant could afford to give every partner an umbrella and still come out on top.

  He held the door open and Alex stepped out under the restaurant’s portico. He followed, breathing in the smell of wet cement and rain.

  “Should have checked the weather report before we left the office,” she said.

  He unfurled the umbrella and lifted it.

  “Ready?” He gestured toward the teeming, wet world that awaited them.

  She joined him beneath the curve of the umbrella, her shoulder brushing his, and they both started walking, falling into step with one another
after a few paces.

  “How was your meal?” she asked after a short silence.

  “Good. Yours?”

  “Yeah, good.”

  He glanced at her, but her head was lowered. They’d never been reduced to small talk; even at the very beginning of their friendship they’d always found plenty to say to each other. He felt as though he was being punished somehow. Frozen out with the silent treatment because he’d witnessed her in a moment of weakness last night.

  “Alex—”

  The world flashed white and a huge roll of thunder cracked overhead as the heavens opened even further, sending rain pelting down out of the sky. He operated on instinct, wrapping an arm around her waist and hustling her beneath the scant shelter of a nearby shop portico.

  She shot him a startled look when he finally let her go.

  “Can’t use an umbrella in a lightning storm,” he explained as he furled the soaked umbrella.

  “No. Of course not.” Then, to his surprise, her mouth quirked as though she was suppressing a smile.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been rescued before,” she said. “For a moment there I felt like I was in a Cary Grant movie.”

  “Are you suggesting that I manhandled you?” he asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Lucky I didn’t give in to my first urge to throw you over my shoulder, then.”

  She laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners attractively. He looked into her face and it hit him again that what she was planning was just plain wrong.

  “Don’t do it, Alex,” he said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

  She stilled, the smile fading from her lips. “Sorry?”

  Rather than try to explain, he pulled the sheet of paper he’d rescued from the printer from his pocket and passed it over. She made a small distressed sound when she unfolded it and understood what it was.

  “You’re panicking right now, and the last thing you should be doing is making irrevocable decisions,” he said.