by Laura Moore
He glanced at her. The dark wings of her brows were drawn together. She’d probably been focusing—understandably—on the impact the news would have on her. Now she’d be thinking about him, too. It wasn’t necessarily fair, but as the saying went, all’s fair in love and war. Not that this was love. This was about looking after her.
“And you know, there are other things to consider. There are straight-up benefits to our marrying.”
Her glance was wary. “Such as?”
“Your health insurance, for example. I saw you have an HMO. As my wife, you’ll be covered on my plan, which comes with every bell and whistle imaginable. Our child will be on it, too. That’s important to me, Dakota. It may not seem like a big deal, but what if something goes wrong while you’re pregnant and you need to consult with a specialist outside of your network or have a special procedure—”
She held up her hand to cut him off. “Please don’t. I see where you’re going with this. I understand it’s important. It’s just—” With a weary sigh, she let her head fall back against the headrest. “I’m really, really wiped out.”
His gut clenched. “Let’s get you home and I’ll fix you something to eat and drink.”
“I don’t need you to—”
“Yeah, but you’ve got me.”
—
Unlocking her front door, Dakota stumbled across the threshold and made for the sofa. She sank down on it with a moan. The room had begun to spin.
She had a hunch the vertigo was due to Max’s ambush of a marriage proposal as much as anything. It was more than sufficient to set her world atilt.
She closed her eyes.
She could hear Max moving about. Then came the muffled bangs of cabinets and drawers being opened and shut and rummaged through as he familiarized himself with her galley kitchen.
Add a man messing around in her kitchen to the list of the day’s firsts. She would never have allowed one of the men she dated to root around in her space. But Max didn’t follow any of the rules she laid down. Nor did he fit into the life plan she’d envisaged.
And he wanted to marry her?
As proposals went, his was as dry as the toast she smelled wafting in the air. Funny that it had nevertheless caused her heart to squeeze painfully. She told herself it was from disappointment. The proposal was essentially a business proposition, a remedy to silence the whispers circulating throughout the Hamptons and New York City. Yet behind Max’s pragmatic pitch she had detected a caring note. And didn’t caring entail affection?
She realized how much she wanted that to be true—that while he might not be able to admit it, he did care for her. The wish only underscored how vulnerable she was.
Max had hurt her once before. How would she feel when the time to break up came again, as surely it must?
Another scent reached her. The aroma of chicken soup now mingled with that of toast, and it made her hollow stomach ache. She caught the sound of Max’s low voice. He must be calling someone. He’d lost hours out of the workday. Then she heard some clinking noises followed by the thud of approaching footsteps. She opened her eyes to see him carrying a plate and two mugs.
“Lunch,” he said, setting one mug, a spoon, and a plate piled high with toast on the coffee table. He nabbed one of the slices for himself and took a large bite.
She sat up. “You’re joining me?”
He chose the off-white accent chair for himself and stretched out his legs under the coffee table. “I’m starving. I chose the chicken soup with noodles.” He took a sip. “It’s good.”
“Rae splurged and went to Citarella.” She took a tentative sip.
“I know. I called her and told her you need lots of protein and calories. You don’t have a blender. I told her to pick one up.”
“Shouldn’t you be heading back to New York?”
He smiled, as if fully aware that she wanted him gone from her house, which still felt too small with him in it. “I arranged for a flight back in a couple of hours. I have time.”
“Great to hear,” she murmured.
He drank from his mug. “How’s the soup? Staying down?”
“So far so good.” She realized that she’d never had a man warm soup for her before.
“Good.”
He let her eat in peace for a few minutes. When she put the mug down and reached for a slice of toast and began to nibble on it, he said, “I’d like to know what you’re thinking.”
“What I’m thinking?”
“About getting married,” he prompted.
“Oh.” She ate another corner off the toast.
Finished with his soup, he put the mug down and leaned back in the chair, all relaxed grace. “I realized I left out a number of other bonuses to our marrying.”
She eyed him over her half-eaten slice of toast. “And those would be?”
“For instance, I could help you with your homework. I bet you’ve fallen behind—”
“Are you serious? I am not getting married so you can help me with my homework!”
“I can help you with investment strategies, too, discuss which start-ups show the most promise.” The side of his mouth lifted. “I’d be like an in-house consultant.”
“In-house?” She put her toast down for fear of mangling it. “Are you saying we’d live together?”
“Why not? I told Dr. Davis that I’d make sure you ate well. My feeling is that promise covers making sure you’re getting healthy and strong. I can take care of you better at my place, but if you want me to move in…”
“Max, I don’t—”
“But I can’t help but think that your moving into Windhaven would be a powerful counterattack.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me how angry your aunt was when I bought the house. Now she’s, shall we say, shown her very limited affection for you. How will she react when she hears that we’re married and living in the ancestral pile?”
She met his gaze. “It will absolutely kill her.”
He smiled. “Right now, there’s nothing I’d like better than for that to happen.”
She considered him in silence. Then with a small shake of her head, she said, “You’re very good.”
He arched a brow. “And?”
“And so I’ll think about it. Weigh the negatives as well as the positives.”
“Fair enough.” He rose from the chair. “One last thing to think about, Dakota.”
She looked up at him. “What’s that?”
“This,” he said, leaning over. Sliding a hand behind her neck and tangling his fingers in her hair, he covered her lips with his. Moving his mouth with gentle yet unwavering persuasion, his kiss reminded her how well Max knew how to please her. When at last he raised his head, her fingers were curled into the sofa’s cushions, the only way she could prevent them from latching on to him and demanding more.
Still bowed over her, his eyes glittered, bright with desire. “I want you, Dakota. I haven’t stopped.”
There were times when one needed a sounding board. Or three. Dakota simply couldn’t think logically or clearly. The memory of Max’s kiss and of his husky voice saying that he wanted her had cast a thoroughly beguiling spell.
So she called for reinforcements: Lauren, who’d known her for twenty years, their friendship formed one hot July day as they bodysurfed on Main Beach, the two breaking into giggles and matching smiles when Lauren asked if Dakota’s tank suit bottom was heavy with sand, too; Rae, who understood her love for Premier Service and shared her determination to make it a Hamptons success story; and Gen, who was not only a friend but also married to a man who had much in common with Max. She would have added a fourth, Hendrick, but he was back in the city seeing patients. And Monday evenings were his and Marcus’s culture nights; they had long-standing subscriptions to the ballet and opera.
Under normal circumstances, Dakota would have suggested they meet in Sag Harbor at the Beacon or the American Hotel, but she didn’t trust her stomach and loved b
oth places too much to risk forever associating them with an ill-timed bout of nausea. After being sequestered for so many days, she was eager to get out of the house. Gen solved the problem by suggesting they come to her place. She was in the city when Dakota called but assured Dakota that she could make it out by six o’clock.
“I’ll leave right after I pick Gracie up at school. Tilly can watch her and Brooke until Alex comes home. The girls love having a night with him to themselves, and it will give me a chance to do some sketching tomorrow morning. It’s been madness since the show, and I’m itching to get back to work. Tell everyone to come around six-thirty.”
When Dakota rang Gen’s doorbell, Gen answered it with a cry of “Dakota!” that was echoed by the others. In the hall she was hugged and exclaimed over, Dakota having already confirmed her pregnancy to the three of them. As they sat down in the living room, where Gen had lit a fire and laid out appetizers, Lauren was the first to broach the gossip making the rounds. “That vindictive bitch Mimi has really gone too far.”
“Can you believe she had the gall to crash my opening and spread her lies there?” Gen said.
“I think I should slash her tires,” Rae said. “I haven’t told you this, Dakota, but I ran into Constance Harvey at Williams-Sonoma—”
“Oh no.” Constance Harvey was one of Mimi’s besties.
“Oh yeah. She said she felt it was her ‘duty’ to tell her friends at the Bridgehampton Historical Society about how you trapped Max. How low can she go?” Rae said, outraged.
“When it comes to Mimi and her pals, the answer is subterranean,” Lauren said.
“Unfortunately true,” Dakota said. “But let’s avoid any property destruction, okay, Rae? Your being charged with a felony might be worse for our reputation than my getting pregnant with a client.”
“You may be right. I’m just super annoyed with myself that I didn’t say something to you earlier. I’d kind of suspected you were pregnant when you first came down with that ‘flu,’ ” Rae admitted.
“You did?” Dakota said.
Rae looked abashed. “I assumed it would occur to you fairly soon. Believe me, I’d have pulled you aside for a little heart-to-heart if I’d thought for a moment it would be Piper spilling the beans.”
“That’s the thing about Piper,” Lauren said. “She lulls everyone into assuming she’s too self-absorbed to notice anything. But then she goes and sticks you with a comment that destroys. Mimi’s a blunt weapon compared to switchblade Piper.”
Dakota choked out a laugh. “I was actually feeling sort of sad for Piper when I was at the doctor’s. I wonder whether she regrets not knowing the name of the guy who got her pregnant. Having Max with me really helped.”
The news that Max had accompanied her to Dr. Davis’s was greeted with “He came to the doctor’s with you?” and “Oh, good for him!” and “I remember Zach at our first ob/gyn visit when I was pregnant with Katie. I thought he was going to faint.”
“Yes, Max lost a little of his cool,” she admitted with a smile. “It was kind of cute. And it made me feel a lot better knowing I wasn’t the only one freaked out at the prospect of a baby. But Dr. Davis said the baby’s fine so far. And that’s the important thing.”
“Absolutely. On that note, I have some very fine chilled ginger ale for you.” Gen pointed to the plastic bottle chilling in a bucket. Next to it was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. “We poor slobs will be drinking champagne.”
Dakota grinned. “Poor, poor pitiful you.”
Once they had their glasses in hand, Gen said, “I propose a toast to Dakota, Max, and their baby.”
“Hear, hear!”
“So how are you feeling?” Gen asked.
“My morning sickness is still pretty bad, but I managed to keep down some soup and toast at lunch that Max made for me after we got back from the doctor’s. And I ate some vanilla ice cream this afternoon.”
“That’s major progress,” Rae said.
“And how did the doctor’s visit go? Did you have an ultrasound?” Lauren asked.
She nodded. “It was pretty intense. We could see the baby’s heart beating.”
“Ah, man,” Rae said. “I can’t wait for that moment. It must have been awesome.”
“It was.”
“Zach cried when he saw the ultrasound for Katie and for Ali,” Lauren said softly. When Dakota reached out and squeezed her hand, she sniffed and smiled. “I’m okay. It’s a good memory.”
“Alex was a basket case, too. Then he went around showing everyone the photo, our doormen included.”
“Okay, now I totally get how Max sounded when he called earlier,” Rae said. “He gave me a shopping list that filled an entire page, told me to charge everything I bought to him, and then told me to get one of those super-duper blenders—you know, the Vitamix? When you’re ready to move on from the water crackers,” she said, nodding at the plate of crackers Gen had set out among a half a dozen other nibbles, “I have a protein smoothie waiting for you in the fridge, per Max’s strict instructions. He even knew what kind of protein powder I should buy. The man’s crazy for you.”
Or he was crazy at the prospect of having a child, Dakota thought. She wondered how her friends would react when she told them about his plan. Drawing a deep breath, she said, “He wants us to get married.”
She’d expected shock, or at a minimum several seconds of heavy silence while they processed the preposterousness of the idea.
“Yay!” Gen cried as she jumped up from the sofa to hug Dakota. “I’ve been hoping for this since that brunch we threw. There was just something there between you.”
Rae’s face split in a wide grin. “So happy for you, Dakota. Though I could have called this one, too.”
“Not sure there’s anyone good enough for my girl Dakota,” Lauren said. “But I figure we can have Alex do something like sour all Max’s business deals if he doesn’t rise to the challenge.”
“You may be overestimating Alex’s power,” Gen said with a laugh. “Though probably not,” she admitted when Lauren raised a skeptical brow.
“Wait.” Dakota raised her hand. “Hold on a second here. You all are forgetting something. Max and I had a fling. Then we called it off. We were over. So for all intents and purposes this is a practical decision.”
“Practical in what sense?” Gen asked.
She explained Max’s arguments for how their marrying would solve a number of problems: salvage her business reputation, smooth his uptight director’s feathers, and give Mimi a conniption fit.
“So you see, it’s not romantic by any means.” It wasn’t love, not like what Lauren had experienced with Zach and what Gen and Rae shared with Alex and Marcos.
“Gotta disagree there,” Rae said. “I think Max caring enough to save Premier Service from having any more mud slung at it is pretty darn romantic.”
“And taking on Mimi?” said Lauren, “that’s beautiful and shows he has the right instincts. Lord knows I’ve been itching to do it, but I’m vulnerable, too. I can’t afford to have her badmouth Hilltop Farm any more than you can have Premier Service trashed. So, three cheers for Max. I hope Mimi develops an ulcer at the thought of you together.” Reaching for a prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spear, Lauren took a healthy bite. “Mmm, these are delicious, Gen.” And she passed the platter to Rae.
“Thanks.” Rae helped herself to a spear. “And don’t forget how down in the dumps you were after you and Max broke it off, Dakota. That’s not how you usually are when you call it quits—”
“No, it’s not,” Lauren chimed in.
“—which to me means you really dug him, right? So why not give marriage a go?”
Rae made it sound so easy. They all seemed to think it was the logical step to take. Would they feel that way if they knew about Max’s sister, Rosie, and how her death still affected him? But while she’d spoken to Hendrick about Max’s loss, it would be wrong to do so with them when Max hadn’t shared the story of his twin sister’s d
eath with Alex.
But they had plenty of other problems facing them. She focused on one that troubled her most after Max’s kiss. “We’d be moving in together. I don’t know whether I’m ready to take that step.”
“Living together is an adjustment, all right,” Lauren said. “But things went well when you guys were together, right?”
Things had been great.
“Pretty good,” she said, earning snorts of laughter from her friends.
“So, Windhaven? That’s one beautiful house—now that it’s had a Premier Service makeover,” Rae said. “And you have loads of space.”
“And we’ll practically be neighbors!” Gen smiled.
“Wow, you, Max, and the baby living in Windhaven. Forget Mimi coming down with an ulcer—we’re talking full-blown apoplexy.” Lauren lifted her champagne glass. “A second toast to you and Max.”
After draining their glasses, Gen said more seriously, “You should move in with him, Dakota. If you don’t and you continue to live at your place, that will just cause tongues to wag all over again. And I’m with Rae. I think you care for each other, and with the baby, you have an added incentive to make it work. So why not give the marriage a chance to grow into something real?”
“But what if it doesn’t? What if it ends? Won’t our marrying have made everything worse?”
“Maybe,” Gen replied. “But isn’t that the risk every couple faces when they say ‘I do’?”
—
Later, after they’d thanked Gen and waved Rae off, Dakota and Lauren lingered for a moment, staring up at the incredible night sky, a black velvet blanket studded with stars.
“Wow. Reminds me of those nights we spent on the beach,” Lauren said.
