“OH MY GOD, SIERRA.” Callie grasped her hands. “Are you sure?”
“I peed on a stick three times. All of them were positive.” She squeezed her friend’s hands across the white tablecloth of their usual restaurant, begging for a last scrap of hope. “You’re a doctor. Those things can be wrong, can’t they?”
“If you take the test too early, they can. But you’d be two and a half months along. If three tests came up positive, you’re pregnant.”
Sierra slumped in her chair. Callie’s words were so final. So definite. But deep down, Sierra had known.
It wasn’t just the positive tests. The nausea that plagued her, the weariness, her swollen, tender breasts had all prepared her for that pink line. But once Callie said “You’re pregnant,” once Sierra allowed herself to think I’m pregnant, she couldn’t pretend it would go away.
“What are you going to do?”
She looked down at her untouched chef’s salad, battling the urge to weep. “I have no idea.” This, on top of losing her parents, was too much. “I can’t think.”
“If you need to make an appointment at a…clinic, I’ll go with you.”
Sierra shook her head. “I can’t do that.” Another loss would completely destroy her. “I want this baby.”
“Okay, then we’ll figure it out together.” Callie, brisk and efficient, sat up straighter.
“I’m a little worried, Cal.” She tried to smile at her friend, but her mouth quivered. “My mom had all those miscarriages. Maybe…maybe I will, too.”
“You’re going to have to tell Nick.”
“I know, but I’ll wait a few more weeks.” Her throat swelled. “No sense telling him if—if…”
“Yeah, I get it.” Callie studied her over the rim of her wineglass. “You want to stay with me for a few days?”
So you’re not alone?
Her friend didn’t have to say it. Did Sierra look that pathetic? “Thanks, Cal, but I’ll be okay.”
SIERRA ROLLED HER CHAIR away from her desk and took a deep breath. She would do it tonight. The office had emptied, but Nick was still here.
It had been two weeks since her dinner with Callie, and Sierra had put it off too long. Tonight she would tell Nick she was pregnant. He’d be shocked. Probably upset. But a man had a right to know he was going to be a father.
And if it didn’t go well, she would move up her trip to Wisconsin to take a look at Walker Barnes’s property.
Nick’s office door was open, the light spilling into the hallway. She paused before she reached it, straightening her skirt, her jacket, running a hand over her hair. Then, taking a deep breath, she stepped to the door.
He was looking at her, as if he’d heard her approach. She swallowed once and moved inside. “Nick, we need to talk.”
CHAPTER THREE
NICK PUSHED AWAY FROM his desk. “Sierra. Come on in.” He straightened his red tie and pushed his rolled-up shirtsleeves a little higher on his arms. She remembered how his arms felt, wrapped around her. Strong. Comforting. Protecting her from the darkness.
His forearms were dusted with dark hair, and she remembered the glide of those hairs across her body, as well.
She took her time easing the door closed as she tried to regain her composure. It was one thing to plan her speech in the quiet of her office. It was quite another to have to look Nick in the eye and tell him she was pregnant with his child.
When she was sure the door had clicked shut, she drew a deep breath and turned around. Nick was still on his feet, watching her calmly. Politely, as if she was merely an employee with a question.
She’d bet he wasn’t going to look so polite, or so calm, after she told him her news.
She perched on the edge of the sleek leather couch against the wall, instead of the chair in front of his desk, where she usually sat. Tonight, she needed a little distance. She expected that he would, too.
Nick sank back into his chair, watching her. Waiting. Her heart pounding, her mouth suddenly dry, she tugged her skirt a fraction of an inch lower. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. “We’ve both been avoiding the subject, but we need to talk about…about what happened in Los Angeles.”
Instead of the tension she’d expected those words to cause, his shoulders relaxed. “You’re right. We should have cleared the air about this a long time ago. I don’t want it to affect our working relationship.”
What they wanted didn’t matter anymore. A lot more than their working relationship was about to change. “The thing is, Nick, I’m… I’m…”
When she couldn’t get the word out, he jumped in. “You’re feeling awkward.” He smiled. “I am, too.” He stood and moved toward her, his long, rangy body filling all the available space in the room. Her heart lurched, then began pounding as he sat next to her on the suddenly too small couch.
He leaned closer, and the scent of his aftershave drifted over her, reminding her vividly of that night. “Neither one of us should feel that way. You’d just had a horrible shock. You were upset, you weren’t thinking straight, and you needed company. I was just helping you out.” He took her hand and held it between his. They were warm and smooth. Strong. When she thought about his hands on her, how she’d begged him to touch her, she eased away.
“Yes, it’s been awkward since that night,” she said, studying his blue eyes for a hint of what he was feeling. Nothing. He would be a good poker player. “That’s not what this is about.”
His body shifted back, away from her. Was it conscious? She didn’t think so. “What then? Regret? Not necessary. You needed comfort. I was glad I could give that to you.”
Yes, she’d needed to feel something other than grief and pain, and he’d given her that. She’d asked him to. She was still struggling with why she had. “I… I wasn’t myself that night.”
The fabric of his slacks whispered across the leather of the couch as he slid farther away. “Of course you weren’t. How could you be? People do…they do uncharacteristic things when they’re under stress. Let’s just chalk it up to that and move on.”
If only it was that easy. “It’s a little late for that, Nick.”
“What, then?” His eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “What do you want, Sierra? Do you want me to say I’m sorry?”
He stood abruptly and picked up the rake from the tiny zen garden that sat on the cabinet. He concentrated fiercely on drawing even lines through the sand. “I’ll apologize if it will make you feel better, but you’re blowing this all out of proportion. The sex was…it was relaxation. You needed a distraction. It was nothing.”
It was nothing. Was that how he felt about making love? That it was casual recreation? That it had no meaning? She slowly relaxed her clenched hands and met his gaze again. “I needed someone to stay with me. To hold me so I wasn’t alone. Making love was a mistake, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have some feelings for you.”
He blanched at the word feelings, and she was proud of herself for not flinching. For staying calm. Cool. “Of course I have feelings for you. We work together. I see you every day. I have feelings for Janet, and for Bob in the office next to mine, and for Phil the janitor. I didn’t say I was madly in love with you.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself. Maybe her hormones were making her a little emotional. She stood up and paced the room.
She had asked him to have sex with her, and they hadn’t been in a relationship. That could be interpreted as taking sex as lightly as he did. “In spite of the way it seemed that night, I don’t… I don’t usually do that. I don’t jump into bed with a guy on a whim. So if I gave you the wrong message, I’m sorry. That night was completely out of character for me.”
Before she told him about the baby, she needed to make sure he understood. She didn’t want him to think that someone else could be the father. She needed to make it clear that there was no question the baby was his.
He walked back over to her, and she held her ground. When he too
k her hand, she resisted the impulse to snatch it away. “It doesn’t matter, Sierra. We’re both adults. We’re allowed to have sex if we want to. It was just sex. A moment in time. We’ve both moved on.”
His words were an arrow to her heart, quick and painful. She snatched her hand away. “Actually, Nick, it turns out we haven’t moved on. I’m pregnant.”
“What?” The color drained from his face. “That’s not possible. We used a condom.”
“Condoms can fail.”
Devastation stared at her out of his eyes. “Goddamn it all to hell. Tell me this is your idea of a joke.”
Another stab to her heart, this one a little sharper. “My God, Nick! I wouldn’t joke about this. I’m going to have a baby. You’re going to be a father.”
“Don’t use that word,” he said sharply. “I can’t be a father.”
“In about six months, you will be.”
“No, I won’t.” He dropped onto the edge of his desk. “I can’t do this, Sierra. Won’t do it. This is the last thing I ever wanted.”
“You don’t have a choice, Nick.” It was hard to speak over the ache in her chest. “It’s reality.”
He stared at her, his eyes dark with panic. Denial. “I don’t want children. I don’t even want to think about children. A kid would ruin my life.”
Echoes of the unbearable pain from the night her parents had died slid through her. She pressed her palm to her abdomen, felt the slight swelling of her womb. Cupped it, as if she could prevent the baby from hearing what its father was saying. “Ruin your life? That’s pretty extreme.”
“It’s how I feel.”
Her hand dropped as she studied Nick’s lean, angular face, his bright blue eyes, his thick, dark hair. She’d always thought he was attractive. Before the night in Los Angeles, she’d had a little crush on him.
Looking at him now, her crush vanished into a distant memory. Nick’s handsome face was just the glittery wrapping on an empty package.
“I can’t be part of this, but I can give you money. You’ll have expenses. Doctor’s appointments. The kind of things pregnant women have to do.” He opened his checkbook, scribbled something, tore off the check and walked around the desk. He stood at a careful distance from her, as if he was in danger of catching a disease. “If you need more, let me know.” The check fluttered in front of her, as if his hand was shaking.
What had she ever found attractive about him? He took a careful step closer, holding out the piece of paper that represented what her baby was worth to its father. Nick thought handing her money absolved him of all responsibility. That she would walk away and he could forget all about this conversation.
Did he think she would put his response out of her mind? That she would be able to continue working for him?
Her stomach lurched and she struggled to draw in a breath. “You’ll understand why I’m submitting my resignation, effective immediately. I’ll have a letter on your desk in the morning.”
“That’s not necessary. Your employment here has nothing to do with…” He glanced at her abdomen, then looked quickly away.
She refused to let him see how devastating his words were. As she backed toward the door, she fumbled for the doorknob. Just when she found it, she felt it twist. She stumbled to the side as someone pushed the door open.
A tall, slender woman peeked around the edge. Her hair hung past her shoulders in dark waves, and she wore a severely tailored business suit that couldn’t hide her curves. Even with minimal makeup, she was stunning.
Her eyes hardened when she saw Sierra. “Nicky. Am I interrupting?”
His cheeks reddened. “Go wait in the conference room, Jasmine. I’m busy.”
As the woman’s footsteps retreated down the hall, Sierra wondered how she knew where the room was. Images of Nick and the woman, the huge conference room table, filled her head. Her stomach suddenly queasy, Sierra reached for the door again. “You’re busy, and I don’t want to keep you.”
“Take this, then.” He shoved the check in her direction. “It’s my responsibility.”
Fighting nausea, she pulled the door open and fled. She barely made it to the washroom before she threw up.
NICK HEARD THE BATHROOM door shut behind Sierra, and wanted to follow her inside. Beg her to say she was joking.
Pregnant. He paced the office as he thought about what it meant. Sierra was going to have a baby. His baby. A human being he would be tethered to forever.
A child he might get attached to.
A child who could get hurt or sick. Or worse.
Someone who could leave him, just as his mother had done.
He stared, unseeing, at the skyline of Chicago. Dusk bruised the sky, and dark clouds obscured the moon. He heard the bathroom door open again, and he reached for the bottle of scotch he kept in the small wooden cabinet next to the couch.
He couldn’t be a father. The bottle clinked against the rim of the glass as he poured, and the smooth single malt burned all the way to his stomach. He didn’t know the first thing about being a parent. Didn’t want to learn.
He didn’t want any attachments. Any strings. His life was perfect the way it was.
He swallowed the rest of the scotch in the glass.
Sierra had turned so pale when he offered her the money. She’d looked the way she had that night. Shocked. Devastated. As if she were falling into a dark, bottomless pit. He’d wanted to help her. Calm her. The sex had been nothing more than that.
She’d called it making love.
He didn’t do that, either.
Hands shaking, he reached for the bottle again and poured another two fingers. The carefully built structure of his life was crumbling around him. Crashing in on itself, disappearing as he watched.
He lifted the glass of scotch, stared at the amber liquid, then set it back down. He didn’t need the drink. He was in control.
His fingers bumped the perpetual motion toy on his desk, and the five silver balls suspended by strings began to move. They clacked against each other, each sharp sound punctuating his dread.
There was no room for a child in his life. Children were vulnerable. Helpless. Completely dependent on their parents’ whims. They came with a lifetime of strings.
Strings too easily broken.
Attachments that led only to pain. Loss. Rejection.
He was in control of his own life now, and he kept it free of strings.
He’d never worried about getting a woman pregnant. He always used a condom, even if his partner was using birth control. He batted at the metal balls of the toy, and they moved faster. The noise bounced off the walls, magnified, mocked him. Control could be snatched away from him in one careless moment.
He grabbed the strings and stopped the balls from moving, and the room went silent.
Why hadn’t he gotten a vasectomy?
This…this problem would turn out all right. Sierra couldn’t want to be a mother. She’d just suffered a crushing loss. She was struggling to deal with her parents’ estate.
He stared down at the check he’d dropped onto his desk. She hadn’t taken it.
He’d go talk to her. Make her see reason. Convince her to make the right decision. His hand shook as he set the glass carefully on the cabinet. He hadn’t heard the elevator, so she must still be here.
He headed for his office door, but as he opened it, Jasmine appeared, frowning.
“What’s going on, Nick? I thought we had a date.”
“We did, but something came up.” He took her arm and steered her toward the elevator. When he glanced down the hall, he saw Sierra’s dark red head bent over her desk. He grabbed his wallet from his pocket and pulled out a handful of bills. “Take a cab home, and we’ll have dinner another time. All right?”
Why had he thought Jasmine’s eyes were so intriguing? Right now, they just looked calculating. “I had plans for this evening. I left a lot of work on my desk to spend it with you,” she said with a pout.
“Sorry, h
oney. I have some business to take care of.”
The elevator dinged, the door opened, but she didn’t budge. She glanced toward Sierra. “I’ll wait.”
Nick followed her gaze, then dragged Jasmine into the elevator. “I’m flattered, Jazz, but it’s not going to happen. Not tonight.”
All the way to the ground floor, she leaned against the wall in the corner of the elevator, her arms crossed over her chest. He could see the wheels spinning in her head as she watched his reflection in the shiny metal door. When the elevator opened, he practically dragged her out of the building. By the time he managed to hail a cab and say good-night, dusk had deepened to darkness.
The elevator seemed to move with excruciating slowness. He watched the indicator count off the floors until it reached his. As soon as the doors opened, he hurried to Sierra’s office.
She was gone.
Her computer was centered on her desk and her briefcase and coat were missing. His chest tightened until he caught sight of her pictures and books on her bookcase. She wasn’t gone for good. She’d be in tomorrow, and he could talk to her then.
He stood in the middle of her small office, gazing at the sketches of houses she’d designed that hung on the walls, along with her diploma from the University of Illinois and several photographs of a stand of maple trees, the sun reflecting off their bright green leaves. A clump of birch trees stood off to the side.
She’d said she’d have her resignation on his desk tomorrow. He’d get here early and wait for her, and they’d talk again. This time, he’d be the one in control.
CHAPTER FOUR
SIERRA STOOD AT THE WINDOW, looking down on the city she loved. The moon hung over Lake Michigan, its glowing yellow light reflecting off the dark water, illuminating Chicago’s beautiful skyline. She’d always enjoyed her office, with its panoramic view of the lake and high-rises. Tonight, the sight of the city laid out before her brought a lump to her throat.
That was good, she told herself. She should feel something when she left the job she’d held for the past three years. Since the scene with Nick earlier that evening, she’d felt as if she’d been dipped in novocaine.
For Baby and Me Page 3
