“Yeah, I know that, I meant how did it happen between you and Will? You don’t even like the bloke.”
“It just happened. We didn’t plan it.”
Judy scratched her head. “I’m totally confused. I mean did you go to a hotel? What? Where? How?”
“Old Mr. Knight left me some money, and Will came over to talk about it. One minute we were talking about this and that and the next he was in my bed.”
“Oh, shit. So what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t be daft. The man’s loaded. He had his fun now, he’s gotta pay the price.”
“He doesn’t give a rat’s arse about me or the baby. I haven’t spoken to him since that night.” That wasn’t altogether a lie — after all, she’d refused to speak to him. Her conscience got the better of her. “Well, he did try a couple of times to speak to me.”
“Why wouldn’t you speak to him?”
“I didn’t want to, that’s why. There’s nothing between us that’s stable, or even the tiniest bit romantic.”
“So what? Bugger that. He’s got to face his responsibilities. It’s not as if you raped him, is it?”
Charli laughed through her tears. “Hardly. He’s built like a brick outhouse.”
“Tell him, Charli, he has the right to know.”
“I will tell him.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Judy sighed. “What a bloody mess. What can I do to help?”
Charli shook her head. “This is my problem and I’ll work it out.”
Do not cause offense toward her family.
Charli climbed out of the bath, wrapped herself in a large towel, and headed for her bedroom. An early night and a good book was the order of the day. She dried herself off, slipped on her Bugs Bunny pjs and slid her feet into slippers shaped like a carrot. Another gift from Judy.
She headed for the kitchen to make herself a hot chocolate when the doorbell rang. “Damn, who could it be at this hour?” She shuffled her way to the door, and through her peephole stared at the creature from hell on her doorstep. He looked bedraggled as if he hadn’t slept for a week. She refused to feel sympathy for him. “What do you want?” she called through the letter slot.
“We need to talk. I intend to wait here until you let me in.”
Charli chewed her bottom lip.
“Let me in, Honey.” He banged the door with his fist. “I mean it. I won’t budge from your doorstep.”
“Okay, okay, don’t break down the door,” she said as she opened it and allowed him entrance.
There was dark fire in his eyes and a fine chill threaded through her. He was as mad as a maniac with a meat axe.
“When were you going to tell me? Next week, next month, next bloody year? I’ve got a share in this baby too. He’s my child.”
She held up her hands. “Now don’t go off half-cocked.” She turned and shuffled back into the kitchen. “I’m making hot chocolate, want one?”
He almost fell into a chair, elbow on the table, holding his forehead with one hand. “I had to hear about the baby from my receptionist.”
Damn Judy. She should have known she’d blab. Maybe on another level she had known that Judy would tell Will and maybe this was what she’d wanted her to do. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in me or the baby.”
He raised his stricken face. “Don’t be so bloody stupid.”
She sat opposite him, contrite. “I’m sorry, Will, I should have been the one to tell you.”
He grinned. Her heart melted. “The main thing is I know now. The next thing is what to do about the situation?”
She shrugged.
“You’re financially strapped?” he said.
She straightened in her chair. “I have enough money to last a year.”
“I’ve thought this over carefully, Honey. I want to be involved in my child’s birth and his life. Therefore, I’m involved with yours.”
She began to splutter. He held up one hand. “You have two choices. Listen well to me, Honey, because it is what it is and nothing you can say or do will alter it. Are you with me so far?”
She nodded.
“Good, good. First choice. I support you financially until after the baby is born and until you find suitable employment. I can help you there also. I will, of course, always support my child both emotionally and financially. That’s a given.”
“And the second choice is?”
“Marry me.”
She choked, coughed, blinked her eyes and said, “That idea is intolerable. This is going from bad to worse. The answer is an unequivocal no.”
“Hear me out. Being a single mum is no picnic. You’ll get no respite. You’ll be on demand 24/7.”
“I can handle that. I’ll do anything for my — our child.”
“I’m sure you will.” He reached out to touch the top of her hand. “But there is only my mother and me, and she is, well, outmoded in her outlook on love and marriage. She wouldn’t understand you having my baby and me not marrying you. Me not standing up to my responsibilities.”
“You could explain that we don’t love each other.”
“Hell, Honey, that’s so lame, and not a reasonable excuse, not in my mother’s eyes. She’d say, we loved each other enough to make a life, and now we’re both responsible for that life. To take care and protect our child.” He stared at his hands. “There’s only you and your father, isn’t there?”
Miserable, she nodded. “Yes.”
“How would he take you having a baby and not being married?”
“He’d be delighted about the baby,” she said. Her shoulders slumped. “He wouldn’t like it for me.”
“I didn’t think he would. So the right thing for all is for us to marry.”
“Right thing?” she exploded. “You have such a nasty way of putting things.”
He stirred in his chair. “Hey, look, this isn’t my idea of fun.”
“You think I want to be tied to you, think again, mister.”
“Married to you? Why it’d be simpler and saner to marry Medusa. All I need with her is a blindfold. With you I’d need the strength of Hercules double-folded.”
“And you think I’m drooling at the corners of my mouth at the thought of being tied to you?” Charli snapped. “Get real. And don’t think for one moment that I’m going to consider this ridiculous proposal. I have no intention of marrying you or anyone for that matter. I could think of nothing worse. You’re rude, insufferable, and utterly arrogant. I’d rather marry a Martian with a horn for a head than marry you.”
“Please be quiet for at least a minute. Ever since I’ve met you, you’ve had something to say and most of it never made any sense.”
Charli shook her head. “This is ridiculous. I can’t believe I’d — you’d — ”
“Shut up,” he yelled and then drew in a deep breath. “Sorry about the yelling. Our baby needs a daddy. And, at this time in your life, you need protection. I can offer both. We could make a go of this if we remain cool and logical.”
“I agree the baby needs a father, it’s marrying you that sticks in my neck.”
“I’d never intended getting married again. Once, believe me, was truly enough. Have you got any romantic ideas about love and marriage?”
Yes, I have. I want someone who’ll court me until I fall for him and he falls in love with me. I want someone who’ll love me forever. We’ll eat popcorn and potato chips watching television, I want dogs and cats and fish in a bowl and I want us to go bowling every Friday night. And when the kids are asleep in bed, I want to be with him in front of a roaring fire and make love.
“No.”
“Good, good. Let’s look at this logically — .”
Only the facts, ma’am. “Logic is so far better a word than romantic.”
“What?”
“I want my job back as CE.” She studied her fingernails.
“What? No way.”
“Then no deal.” She stood.
He waved her back to her seat. “If I agree then you’ll marry me?”
Then, before she could control the words, she said, “You don’t love me.”
“Now you’re being childish. Love doesn’t enter the equation. This marriage will work out because it lacks love. Don’t you see? Can’t you understand? There’s no pretense about love. This is an arrangement for both business and — ”
“You were going to say pleasure,” she cut in.
“You’d be hard to resist; you’re a beautiful woman.”
“That’s made my day.”
“Look, I’m only trying to help make the situation bearable.”
“Bearable? Hell, you have a way with words. A nasty way.”
His eyes flashed sparks of chipped emeralds, but his voice was passive when he spoke. “And you’re Miss Sweetness and Light, I suppose, who wouldn’t hurt a fly?”
She sprung out of her chair, her fingers spread, her nails flashing. “Why you — you rat.”
He followed suit, almost rushing around the table to stand in front of her. “That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? That makes you feel virtuous about the whole affair. The poor innocent maiden forced to marry the wicket tyrant. Well, if that’s what it takes to get you to marry me, okay, I can live with that.”
He towered over her and the sheer nearness of him was suffocating. Her hand flew to her throat, determined not to allow her senses to reel under his potency. From the moment she’d met him, Will had projected this power over her, made her head spin along with her heart.
She hoped her stare would turn him to stone as she said haughtily. “What will we tell everyone at work?”
“That we’re getting married.”
“They’ll be shocked, and that’s putting it mildly.”
He shrugged. “It’s none of their business. We’ll be the talk of the office for a week or two and then we’ll be old news.”
“I don’t want them knowing about the baby.”
“What does it matter who knows?”
She bristled at his insensitivity. “If they know,
Will
, they’ll know we had to get married and not for love.”
His eyes softened. “That would hurt?”
Her turn to shrug.
Yes, it hurts because I want you to love me.
What? Where did that come from? Will love her? This was a straight-out shotgun wedding and she was a woman who could handle anything that came her way and come out smelling of roses. Couldn’t she? “Stupid pride I guess. I’d like them to think we’re in love.”
He reached over and touched her hand. She drew back as if she’d been burned. They remained silent until Will said. “Is that all your conditions?”
“Yes.”
“And if I agree, you’ll marry me?”
“Yes, but don’t expect me to sleep with you. That’s asking too much.”
He grinned. “Aww, shucks,” he said.
“And I don’t want you flaunting your women in front of me. I hope you can remain chaste until after the baby’s born?”
“You think I’m a sex addict?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
“A year’s a long time without sex.”
“Take up knitting. It’ll keep your hands occupied.”
“It’s not my hands I’m worried about.”
Despite his quip, he seemed dejected but it could have been the moonlight streaming through the window and casting his face in shadow. “Our parents need to know that we’re getting married. That’s a given, we don’t have to tell them about the baby until much later.”
“Are we going to say it’s a premature birth?”
He frowned. “They won’t care once they have their grandchild in their arms.”
“That’s so true.” She raked a hand back through her hair and exhaled.
She cursed herself for her brusqueness. They were in this situation together. She knew what she was getting into and so did Will. So why the ravished maiden act every time he reminded her of the reason they were marrying? Because it hurt so damn much, that’s why.
Getting to know you. Walks in the rain. Holding hands. Kissing.
Charli was in the living room in an old tracksuit lying on the floor following exercises from her workout pregnancy tape. She liked the tape as loud as she could reasonably have it. It saved her mind from being distracted by any other sound that filtered through her window from the street outside.
She was calmer today. The incredible pressure and tension of the past days had gone and she was determined to remain this way; allowing nothing or no one to alter this feeling of semi-peace.
Following the tape, Charli lay on her back with her knees bent. Inhaled through her nose and tightened her stomach and buttock muscles. Flattened the small of her back against the floor and allowed her pelvis to tilt upward.
His head, poking through the open window, loomed down at her from between her stretched legs. Startled, she said, “Please go away. You’re ruining my concentration.”
“My concentration’s lapsing too.”
She jumped to her feet and ran her hands down the sides of her pants. He gave her a brief scrutiny. If he made any crack about what she was wearing she’d throw the nearest thing she could grab at him. “Ever heard of knocking?”
“I rang your doorbell for a good two minutes. Just going to give up when I saw this window open.”
“So you poke your head through and scare me half to death?”
“It was an open invitation to me and every thief within a mile radius. Besides, I have certain privileges.”
“How come?”
“Goes with rank.” He grinned and with supreme effort, she controlled her mouth from responding. “Open the front door.”
He winked when she opened the door. “Hi, just passing by, saw your lights on and thought hey, she might give me a cup of coffee.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” She moved back into the living room, picked up a towel and wiped her face and arms.
He laughed softly and took the towel from her and wiped the back of her neck and shoulders. She swung angrily away from him, grabbing the towel. “I don’t need a nursemaid, thanks, Will. I’m perfectly capable of dry toweling my body.”
“And it was giving me such pleasure.”
She flicked her hair. “Too bad.” She sniffed.
“Why are you always so angry?”
“I’m not angry, it’s just that you make me feel — ”
He moved in closer. “Sexy?”
“Queasy.”
“Is that a nice word for nauseated?”
She worried her bottom lip. She didn’t actually want to hurt him by acerbic retorts, but she wanted to put him in his rightful place, wherever that may be and it was true he did make her feel uneasy, a sort of seasickness sensation she always got when he was around her.