Nameless Series Boxed Set (5 page)

“Or?”

“Or you could
be more involved. Spend time and everything. We could definitely work something
out. It’s up to you.” After a pause, she reiterated, “But you don’t have to
decide now.”

“Nothing to
decide,” Seth said clearly, scooting his chair back from his desk. “I would
like to be involved.”

She felt a
sickening jump in her gut. “You would?”

“Yes. I would. I’ve
never had a child before. This might be my only one.”

It was a
strange thing to assume, since he was just in his early thirties, but he’d been
alone for most of his life so he must see himself being alone for his whole
future.

“And you want
to...to be involved?” Erin breathed, trying to return to her cool composure. She
shouldn’t be so surprised. Seth’s persona might suggest he’d want to remain
distant from a child, but hadn’t she just lectured him about making those kinds
of assumptions? “Why?”

His eyebrows
shot sky-high. “Do I owe you an explanation?”

Right. Her own
response to him. She returned his ironic look with a quirk of her mouth. “Point
taken. All right. You can be involved. There won’t be much happening for a
while though. It’s early yet.” She stood up, feeling suddenly so exhausted she
was afraid she might fall to the floor. The office spun a little, so she
breathed deeply. “We can stay in touch and try to work out some sort of system
or guidelines about your involvement.”

Seth nodded. “We
should work out a legal contract.”

 “Of course, a
lawyer would say that.” She sighed, thinking about how she would feel when
confronted with Seth and all his legal resources. She still remembered a little
about contracts from law school, but she wasn’t going to risk her and her
child’s future on such sketchy knowledge. “Well, I suppose I’ll scrounge up a
lawyer for myself.”

She cringed,
thinking about her bank account. It wasn’t in horrible shape, but—particularly
after her vacation in the Caribbean—she really didn’t need to be forking over
money for legal fees.

Something
flickered in Seth’s eyes. Something that almost looked like respect.

“If it’s all
right, I’d like to be kept updated on your pregnancy too,” he continued. “You’ll
let me know how things are progressing?”

Erin stared up
at him in surprise. “Of course.”

She was silent
for a moment, and finally Seth shifted from foot to foot. “I assume you’re not
expecting me to get down on one knee and propose now.” His voice was dry and
amused.

 “You do that,
and I’d definitely faint. I’m a little woozy as it is, so I wouldn’t risk it if
I were you.” She paused. “That’s one thing at least we’re agreed on. This isn’t
a sappy romance, and this baby isn’t going to draw us together into some sort
of eternal love.”

“I’m glad we
can both be realistic about it.”

Erin smiled
back at him, feeling oddly comforted by his reaction. If he were as
matter-of-fact about this as she was, then maybe it wouldn’t have to be complicated.

Then, gazing up
at him—a powerful, articulate, attractive, unattainable man—she experienced a surreal
feeling that was made up of terror and bewilderment and wonder. “Are we really
having a baby?”

“I believe
that’s what you came here to tell me.”

She shook her
head. “Weird.”

She had looked
away momentarily, but—when her eyes returned to his face—she caught a look that
was as unexpected as it was telling. He looked almost
anxious
.

He’d acted
calm, controlled, and down-to-earth about this whole thing, but it couldn’t
have been as easy as that. Erin had spent two weeks brooding over this change
in her life and desperately trying to figure out what to do about it. Seth
seemed to have made his decision in just a few minutes, but there must be more
going on that she couldn’t see.

She couldn’t
help but wonder why he’d been so quick to ask for involvement. He’d never had a
real family himself. He’d never really had anyone—except Mac, whom he’d pushed
away. She knew there might be lonely, wounded parts to his soul that he never
revealed to anyone.

But there was
no use in worrying too much about it. Seth was his own person, and he made his
own decisions. As long as they didn’t interfere unduly with Erin’s decisions,
she was happy for him to decide whatever he wanted.

They could work
out some sort of system to make his involvement as simple and non-threatening
as possible.

She put a hand
on her belly as she made her way out of his office and over to the elevator.

Still couldn’t
believe she was having a baby.

***

Two weeks later, Erin pushed
open her door and kind of fell into her apartment. She was dead on her feet and
wondered why no one had ever told her before how utterly exhausting it was to
be pregnant.

She didn’t have
to even do anything to get tired—just being awake drained her completely.

And today had
been a particularly long day.

Her job was
pretty decent. She liked Judge Hargrove. Although he was a lot more
conservative than she was, he was also an incredibly kind man. At least her job
allowed her to be on the periphery of the career she’d always wanted.
Occasionally, she imagined herself getting a windfall and going back to law
school.

But Erin was a
realist now—a cynic, as Seth labeled her—and she never expected any of her
dreams to come true.

She dropped her
bag on the floor, shrugged off her jacket, and then collapsed on her couch.

Even her
breasts were hurting today, and she sneered down at them, feeling crabby at the
entire world—including her breasts—and wishing she didn’t have to go back into
work tomorrow.

Being pregnant
sucked.

It was a wonder
that anyone did it.

She tried to
relax and was about to doze off when a ringing phone startled her awake—making
her sit up with a jerk and causing her stomach to heave a little. She really
should have eaten something when she got home. Having an empty stomach always nauseated
her more.

Breathing
deeply and laying back down on the couch, Erin reached over to pick up her
telephone. “Hello.”

“Hi,” a
familiar male voice spoke on the other end of the line. “It’s me. Seth.”

“Hi.” She’d
only seen Seth once since their encounter in his office—and that was in a
meeting with their lawyers as they were negotiating terms for a parental
arrangement. That meeting had gone much more smoothly than Erin had expected,
and her lawyer had told her that Seth must have gone into the negotiations
intending to be agreeable, since he hadn’t asked for anything that Erin wasn’t
willing to give.

Other than
that, Erin had been so wrapped up in being pregnant and trying to envision her
life in the future that she hadn’t thought about Seth in any significant way
for more than a week.

“Just checking
in,” he explained. “I hadn’t heard from you, and I’d mentioned that I’d like to
be kept up-to-date with the pregnancy.”

“Oh,” she
mumbled, trying to decide if she had the energy to go into the kitchen and find
some crackers to eat. “Right. Well, it’s only been a couple of weeks. Nothing
new is happening.”

“Everything is
going smoothly?” he asked, his voice cool and impersonal.

Erin had no
idea what he was asking or why he wanted to know. Maybe he just wanted to know
if the baby was healthy so far. She hadn’t taken him for a worrier, but what
the hell did she know. “Everything’s fine. I feel like crap, of course, but
that’s normal. Everything’s progressing as it should. I saw the heartbeat last
week.”

There was a
significant pause. “You saw the heartbeat?”

“Yes.” She felt
just a flicker of sentiment at the memory of that moment in the doctor’s
office. She supposed, for some women, that would have been a deeply emotional
experience, but for her it had been kind of hard.

She hadn’t told
anyone but Seth about the pregnancy yet, so she’d basically gone through it
alone. Rather than making her feel nurturing and motherly, it had terrified
her. Concrete evidence of what was happening inside her body.

Maybe she would
have felt differently if she’d had a husband to experience the heartbeat with
her, but she’d left the appointment feeling rather strange and uncomfortable.
Wondered if it was proof that she was an unnatural mother. “They did an
ultrasound at my last appointment, and the heartbeat is normal.”

Another long
pause from Seth. “And I’m just hearing about it now?”

 “Was I
supposed to report it to you? It was just a routine thing.”

Seth’s voice
was a little tight as he responded. “I thought I’d made it clear that I wanted
to be involved in the pregnancy and not just wait until the child is born.”

“Well, yeah, but
I thought...I mean, I didn’t know I was going to have to tell you every little
thing.” She scowled, feeling horrible and now annoyed with Seth for making her
feel like she’d done something wrong. “Would you like to know how many times I
throw up each week? Or how many times I have to get up to pee every night? Just
what kind of involvement are you expecting?”

“You’re being
intentionally obtuse. You obviously know there’s a difference between that and
the first detection of the heartbeat.”

“For God’s
sake,” Erin complained, knowing he had a point but kind of surprised by it. Who
would have thought Seth Thomas would want to hear about such a thing? “Don’t
get snotty. I’m sorry. I should have let you know. I guess I didn’t think
that’s what you meant by being involved.”

“And what did
you think I did mean then?”

Erin thought
for a moment. Admitted, “I have no idea. I’m sorry. Next time something like
that happens, I’ll let you know.”

Her words were
followed by another tense silence. “And I suppose it’s also unimaginable that I
might not want to merely hear about it afterwards?”

She actually
groaned—only partly because she felt so wretchedly ill. “Are you kidding me? You’re
saying you want to be there at the appointments? Please don’t tell me you’re
getting sappy ideas about this whole endeavor and you want to hold my hand or
something.”

“It’s not
prompted by sappiness, so no need for you to cringe.” He still sounded a little
unpleasant. “But I told you I wanted to be involved. My understanding is that
it’s a fairly typical father’s involvement.”

“Maybe, but
we’re not in a relationship, and I’m not that thrilled about your being present
at my pelvic exams. I don’t want things to get weird between us.”

The quality of Seth’s
silence was different than before, and she could tell he wasn’t annoyed now but
rather sorting through his thoughts. “When is your next scheduled ultrasound?”

“I don’t know. They
don’t just do them at the drop of a hat, so it might be a while before—”

“I’ll contact
your doctor.”

“You sure as
hell will
not
! They wouldn’t talk to you anyway. I’ll find out and let
you know. You can come to the next one if you want, but I’m not going to invite
you to everything. Just because I’m having a baby doesn’t mean I have to give
up all my privacy.”

“Agreed. Call
my office with the time and place of the next ultrasound.’

Erin muttered
under her breath for a minute. Then said, “If you descend into gooey sentiment
over this pregnancy, I’ll be greatly disappointed in you.”

 “No worries on
that score, but I’ve told you more than once now that I want to be involved.”

 “Fine. You
better be nice to me, you know. My hormones have been going crazy, so I might
burst into tears at any second.”

“I’ll tread
lightly. Thanks for the warning.” It sounded like he might be smiling. “Does
anyone else know about this yet?”

She wondered
how he’d known to ask that question. “Not yet. I’ve got to tell my dad and Liz this
weekend. Everyone else...whenever.”

“What will you
tell people at work?”

“I was thinking
about that. I don’t want anyone to think there’s some sort of conflict of
interest, with my working for the judge and being pregnant with your child, so
I was hoping not to let people know—”

“Yes,” Seth interrupted.
“I agree. I’d rather not have it gossiped about all over the stratosphere anyway.
We should keep this quiet, as much as possible.”

She let out a
relieved sigh.

“Are you in a
relationship with someone for which this will be a negative factor?”

It was such an
indirectly worded question that it took Erin a minute to figure out what he was
asking. “Am I dating anyone, you mean? No. Not at the moment. And, with the way
things normally go, probably not for a really long time.”

“I guess being
pregnant might discourage some men.”

He sounded
amused, so she responded in kind. “You’re one of those men, right? You’d never
date a pregnant chick, would you?”

“I don’t know—”

She snorted.

“Now who’s
making hasty assumptions based on lack of evidence?”

“What do you
mean lack of evidence? I have the evidence of a whole line of gorgeous women
you’ve dated for the last ten years. Not one of them was pregnant. That’s
evidence coming out of the—”

“All right.
Enough.”

She stopped
talking automatically, and then was furious with herself for letting him tell
her what to do, even in something so small.

She was about
to keep talking, merely to prove that she could, but her stomach started
churning dangerously. “I’ll let you know about the next ultrasound. I’ve got to
eat dinner or else I might throw up.”

“Okay. Get
something to eat. Keep me updated.”

They hung up,
and Erin took a deep breath before hauling herself to her feet. She was a
little dizzy at first, so she kept breathing deeply, holding on to the arm of
the couch for support.