Authors: A. C. Arthur
Except this week. Because of her sickness, she’d can
celled two appointments with the therapist and one early morning photo shoot for a Victoria’s Secret lingerie ad. Her agent had reworked that one so that later this afternoon she was expected in the studio. And come hell or high water she was determined to be there.
Climbing into bed with her cup of now tepid tea, Tia pulled the covers up to her neck and burrowed deep under the covers. Her head hurt and she felt as if she were floating, no, falling down an endless flight of stairs. Her stomach still churned and she wondered if it might not be smarter to simply make her bed on the bathroom floor.
The last week had been a repeat of this, not really getting worse but definitely not getting better. Tomorrow would be day seven and if she was still feeling ill she’d resigned herself to finally calling the doctor.
Just when she’d begun to doze off her doorbell rang. Tia moaned, then decided if she kept quiet whoever was at the door would go away.
Bzzzzzzzz.
Wrong. Persistence was definitely not a virtue.
Climbing out of the bed, she found her robe and slippers and made her way out of the room and down the stairs to the front door.
Never would she have expected to see the smiling person on the other side.
“Noelle? What are you doing here?”
“And good morning, nice to see you, too,” Noelle Vincent said, stepping into the house uninvited. “Long story short, Camille’s worried and so is Ms. Beverly. I’m here scoping out new venues for Linc’s expansion so I told them I’d stop by to make sure you’re okay.”
Noelle paused just as Tia closed the door. She was wearing big-framed dark sunglasses with a white jeweled
rim that she pulled off slowly. Eyeing Tia up and down, she began to shake her head. “Oh, no, no, no.”
“What?” Tia looked at herself. Her robe was satin, peach, a really good color for her. Her slippers, furry and white, her hair was pulled back courtesy of her latest bout in the bathroom retching up any and everything in her stomach. So what was Noelle staring at?
“You are tore up from the floor up.”
Tia frowned. “I am not.” Then self-conscious, she wrapped her arms around her waist. “And it’s too early in the morning for anybody to look as pretty and pert as you do.”
She walked away toward the living room, knowing that Noelle would follow her.
“No, dear, it is never too early to look good. You know that, you’re the model.”
“Models do not work 24/7.”
“Looking at you I’d say they’re on hiatus.”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” Tia quipped, then fell onto the couch, pulling her legs up behind her and lying down. “Welcome to my home, have a seat,” she told Noelle, who stood looking down at her disapprovingly.
Noelle knelt and put her hand on Tia’s forehead. “No fever,” she said.
“Thank you, Florence Nightingale.”
“Smart-ass mouth.” Noelle continued to assess Tia. She sniffed. “Have you been throwing up?”
“What?” Tia sniffed. She’d washed her face, hands and brushed her teeth after her bathroom tryst.
“You look like hell but you smell like a bottle of mouthwash. Either you have a hangover or you’ve been puking.”
Tia sighed, closing her eyes and trying to steady the
queasiness building in her stomach again. “Tell me again why you’re here, Noelle. To be nosy, right?”
Noelle laughed. “Nope, not nosy, just considerate. Now, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong with you the phone call I make back to Camille will definitely ensure some level of nosiness on her part as she’s going to hop on a plane and come see you for herself.”
“Damn.” Tia took another steadying breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Is that good enough for you? I’ve been sick for a couple of days. Vomiting, headaches, nausea.”
Noelle had removed her jacket and was perched on the other end of the couch looking at Tia while she talked. Lifting slightly when she didn’t hear a response, Tia glanced at Noelle. “What?”
Noelle smiled. “You don’t have a clue, do you?”
“A clue about what?” Tia groaned and sat up, prepared to haul ass to the bathroom with the next painful wave in her stomach.
“You’re pregnant, that’s what.”
Tia’s head snapped in Noelle’s direction. “I am not!” she said adamantly, then felt that wave and jumped up from the chair. There was a powder room on the lower level and Tia just made it in time to avoid an embarrassing mess.
She was leaning over the sink rinsing her mouth out when she heard Noelle’s approach.
“You were saying?” she said with a knowing grin.
“I was saying that if I am pregnant you’ll be the number one babysitter on my list.”
The fear that Noelle might be absolutely right sank in and Tia felt like she’d finally hit the bottom of those stairs she’d been floating over these last few days. Hitting the floor with a resounding thud, she fainted.
“How are you, baby?” Beverly Donovan spoke into the phone while sitting on the deck looking at the early morning sunrise.
“I’m good, Mom. How are you and dad?” Trent asked, his voice a little scratchy.
Since when did her son start lying to her? “We’re well.”
“That’s good. I just wanted to call and check up on you guys. How’s Jade and the twins?”
“Torian and Tamala are beautiful. Linc is in heaven, you know.”
“Yeah, I talked to him the day before yesterday.”
And he talked to Adam almost every day. Never, and she believed the word, never had Trent called home this many times while being on an assignment. Something was definitely wrong and she knew what it was.
“Are things going all right with work?”
“He’s a slippery one but then we knew that since we’ve been tracking him for five years. But we’re closing in.”
“So you’ll be home soon?”
He was quiet.
“Trent?”
“I’m not sure I’m coming home, to Vegas I mean.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ve been thinking about opening that P.I. firm with Sam Desdune. If so, I’ll probably head back east for a while to see how he’s running the operation there, then settle on a location on the west coast.”
“Oh,” she said waiting patiently for him to get to the real reason he’d called. “That sounds like a smart plan if it’s what you really want.”
He sighed. “Yeah. I think it’s time to get out of this game. The traveling and instability, I’m getting a little old for it.”
Beverly nodded. “So you’re ready to settle down…in one place I mean?”
“I think it’s time.”
He sounded lonely, and her mother’s instinct wished it could reach through that phone and hug him. But Trent was her most independent child. He made his own decisions in his own time or he didn’t do it. That’s why she kept silent and only hugged him three weeks ago when he’d come to the house to say he was leaving. She’d seen something in his eyes that day she’d never seen before and knew it could only be one thing.
Her baby had finally fallen in love.
Of course she’d talked to Camille who’d informed her that Tia and Trent were no longer seeing each other. Tia hadn’t given Camille all the details except to say that it just wasn’t going to work. She didn’t want to be sitting on pins and needles wondering if he’d come back to her dead or alive.
To a certain extent Beverly could understand the young woman’s fears. She certainly worried each and every day that Trent was away. But she’d learned to have faith that whatever was meant to be would be. As she’d told Tia before, God did not make mistakes.
“It might be time you stopped calling everybody but the one you really want to talk to,” Beverly said quietly.
“She doesn’t want to talk to me. She made that perfectly clear.”
“And what do you want?”
Trent was so quiet for so long she thought they’d been disconnected.
“Trent?”
“I want her.”
She sighed. “You’ve never backed down from something you wanted before. Why now?”
“Because I love her enough to want her to be happy. And if she’s happier without me,” he cleared his throat. “If she’s happier without me then that’s the way it will be.”
“I don’t think either one of you is happy and it’s high time somebody did something about it.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ve accepted the way things have to be.”
But Beverly hadn’t. Those two belonged together and the minute Trent stepped back on American soil she was going to make sure they knew it.
Camille had warned Adam not to call. What she’d told him this afternoon was in the deepest of confidence. He couldn’t betray her.
He shouldn’t betray her.
But Trent was his brother and he deserved to know.
“Donovan?”
Adam moved into his home office after closing and locking the door. Camille was somewhere in the house so he’d used his cell phone. Locking the door ensured she didn’t walk in on his conversation.
“Hey, man, what’s up?”
“Adam? What’s going on? Are Mom and Dad okay?” Trent asked, concern lacing his voice.
“They’re fine,” he answered quickly. This was the first time Adam had ever called Trent while he was on assignment. But circumstances called for drastic measures.
“Then why are you calling?”
“Is this a bad time?”
“I’m in the Middle East hunting a terrorist. What do you mean is this a bad time? What’s going on?”
Adam took a deep breath and said it before he changed his mind for the billionth time. “Tia’s pregnant.”
There was a lot of background noise and Adam called out to Trent wondering if the line had been broken.
“Say that again,” he finally spoke.
“Noelle went out to L.A. for work and she stopped by to check on her. Tia was really sick. For the next two days Noelle stayed with her and finally convinced her to go to the doctor. She found out she was pregnant yesterday.”
“Did she tell you to call me?”
Adam didn’t answer.
“Adam, did she tell you to call me?”
“It doesn’t matter. You two are being ridiculous. She’s carrying your child, man. You need to get your ass back here and take care of her. Make things right with her.”
Thousands of miles away Trent pinched the bridge of his nose. They’d captured Clobol last night but not without bloodshed. Josh was hurt, his truck barely escaping the explosives that booby-trapped Clobol’s hideaway. Baywatch had been shot twice while they attempted to apprehend the suspected terrorist. It had been a rough night and now this.
“I’m not what she wants,” he said finally, feeling the all too familiar sting of rejection.
The day Tia had told him they had no future had been worse than all the deaths he’d witnessed, all the lives he’d taken. The pain had been unbearable, intolerable, until he’d had no choice but to walk away from her. Because to stay would have been dangerous for them both.
“That’s bull and you know it! You’ve both got some pretty stupid hang-ups if you ask me. And this baby is just the sign you two need to get off your stupid stools and act like mature adults who love each other.”
Was this his baby brother talking? Was this the same one
who’d wiped snot on his shirt sleeve until he was in middle school? When had Adam grown into such a man?
“Adam, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but—”
“Don’t give me that. You know what the right thing to do is, Trent. I don’t have to tell you. She’s carrying your child and I thought you should know.”
Trent was silent, letting this entire conversation digest. “Camille’s going to kick your ass for telling me this, you know that right?”
Adam chuckled. “That’s why I’m counting on you to make things right so I’ll have some leverage when she finds out.”
There really wasn’t a choice, Trent conceded. If Tia was pregnant with his child he had to go to her. The fact that they couldn’t make it together was their decision and he would live with it. But his child…his
child
…Trent never thought about having kids of his own, never realized he’d wanted them. But with this new knowledge he felt a warmth in his chest, a tingling of pride that he and a woman like Tia had created a child, a baby that would call him “Daddy.”
“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” he said, then disconnected the line and hurried to pack.
Chapter 17
S
leep didn’t come easy to Tia these days. It had been almost a week since she’d found out she was pregnant. Yes, pregnant with Trent Donovan’s baby.
How bad could one person’s luck actually be?
Tia felt as if she had a permanent hex placed on her personal life. Her career was in full swing but she’d made an error in judgment the night she’d invited Trent to her bed. Initially she’d thought she could handle it, she’d done so before.
But those other men weren’t Trent. Only Trent could get her so worked up she’d forget to remind him about protection. He’d apologized afterward, she remembered, and looked genuinely remorseful. But the fact was, they’d gotten carried away. Both of them. So it was a mutual mess up.
Resting a hand to her still-flat stomach she sighed. A mutual mess up that would now forever be a reminder of the short time they’d had together.
Tia was hardly kidding herself. She and Trent were over. She’d told him that she could not stay in a relationship with him, he’d accepted and left. But then what had she thought he would do? Did she want him to quit his job to be with her? Would that have made her happy? Probably not, she decided. That man loves his job.
She stared at the phone wondering if today would be the day she tried to contact him. Shaking her head she looked away. No, not today. She needed more time to acclimate herself to this new development before pulling Trent into the equation.
It was bad enough Noelle and Camille knew. If and when the rest of the Donovan clan found out they would circle her like a pack. Because that’s what they were: a family, a strong, close-knit family who did what they had to do for each other.
Tia had no doubt that would include telling Trent about her situation.
No, she was definitely not ready for that.
“Tia?” Noelle called as she knocked lightly on her bedroom door.
Noelle had been with her for the past week. She’d stayed in L.A. under the pretense of casino business, but Tia knew that it was at Camille’s urging that Noelle stayed and kept an eye on her. Which for the most part didn’t bother Tia. She hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to go back to her solitary life after having the Donovans under foot for the past month. Tia had to admit she really enjoyed them.