Teddy Bear Heir (10 page)

"I know. There's nothing basically wrong with me. My father used to always say I was as healthy as a horse."

The doctor's smile widened. "I'll leave you to tell that young man of yours the good news."

"That I'm just fine? He'll be so pleased."

"That you're pregnant."

"
What?
" There was a peculiar roaring sensation in her head and she gripped the sides of the chair she was sitting in. She stared at the older man sitting so calmly behind his desk and wondered at the fact that one sentence out of his mouth should completely alter her world, tip it on its axis, change her life forever.

"Congratulations, Ms. Larkin. You're going to have a baby."

* * *

I'll leave you to tell that young man of yours the good news.

Ha!

She staggered out into the waiting room. Cameron must have immediately caught on to the fact that something was very wrong.

"Mike?"

She held up her hand, asking him for a moment of silence. In an effort of total willpower, she composed herself.

Pregnant. Pregnant. You'll be holding a baby in your arms by the end of the year.

You are pregnant with the Teddy Bear heir.

She wondered if Cameron would be happy when she finally had to tell him the news. Maybe Nancy would bear him a child as well and he could buy them both an island in Tahiti and have his own little tribe of women and children.

Heir and a spare.

Totally inappropriate laughter bubbled out of her as they walked down the hall, took the elevator to the first floor and got back inside the limousine.

She'd argued with Dr. Mallory furiously but he'd shown her the test results and asked after her various symptoms. Now they all made a terrible sort of sense. The dark circles and constant exhaustion. The nausea. The tenderness of her breasts, the crazy, insane behavior, her temper. The smell of food being so much sharper—

A miracle. It was a miracle. She was living proof that miracles still happened in this day and age.

Unless.
.. She wrinkled her nose in thought.

"Mike?"

She jumped. Apparently Cameron had been trying to communicate with her for some time.

"Yes?"

"I have to go back to the office this afternoon but I'm going to leave the car at your disposal."

She nodded her head, deep in thought. Yes. That would be perfect. She had a little visit to make this afternoon and a limousine would be the perfect touch.

* * *

She'd always wanted to make a scene in front of her first husband but had never had the nerve. One of the advantages of being pregnant was that your mind stopped functioning normally. Making a total scene, destroying someone's peace of mind, became an utterly rational, perfectly natural piece of behavior.

This little confrontation had been long overdue.

Ed's law firm wasn't half as prestigious as Coleman, Watts and Buriell but it was still stuffy enough.

Stuffy enough so that when she went swinging through the door and toward her husband's office, his personal assistant went into a complete panic.

She must have looked like either an Amazon warrior or an avenging angel, because no one stopped her. Opening the door to Ed's office, she caught him sitting in his desk chair, an attractive woman in her early twenties sitting in his lap and nibbling on his ear.

"You bastard," she hissed.

Ed Buttall jumped out of his leather chair, dumping his current fling on the rug.

"Michaela!" he squeaked.

"Who is this?" the girl demanded.

"I'm his wife!"

"Ex-wife!
Ex!
  Danielle, wait a minute, I can explain everything—"

The door slammed shut with a resounding crash and he turned toward her wearily.

"What the hell do you want?"

"You have a lot of nerve, you worm, making me believe it was all my problem."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I'm right, aren't I?" He remained quiet. "Aren't I?" she asked again.

He paled beneath his tan. Michaela knew she had her answer.

"Look, when I went to the doctor—"

"It was you, Ed. It was you all along. And like a
real
  man, you let me believe it was all my fault."

"Now, honey—"

"Don't you
honey
me. You're a
bastard
, the absolute worst, and the things I'm thinking of doing to you don't even bear repeating—"

The door opened just a crack, and his assistant poked her head in. "Mr. Buttall, your three o'clock is here—"

"They'll have to wait." Michaela calmly crossed the room and smiled at the curious assistant. "Mr. Buttall and I have a very serious matter to discuss."

* * *

I couldn’t bear to admit it was me, Michaela. You've got to believe that...

She was out in the garden, weeding, thinking about that afternoon's encounter with her ex-husband. He'd found out he was sterile early in their marriage and hadn't been able to deal with it. Thus he'd maneuvered and manipulated and made her believe it was all her fault.

She closed her eyes as she thought of all the pain she'd endured because of Ed's masculine vanity.

The funny thing was, she'd loved him. Once. And as much as she'd wanted children, she would've stayed with him. No matter what. They could've adopted.

But he'd been sickeningly eager to get rid of her and married a woman who had three children of her own. This arrangement, of course, in no way hampered his affairs with his clients.

Ah, Ed, what a man!

Boy, can you pick 'em.

Her father had never liked Ed. He had, however, liked Cameron. And warned her not to get involved with him.

"Unless, my girl, you can get him to give up his heart," Mike Larkin had said. "For without love, there's not much in a man's life, is there?"

Mike Larkin had known what he was talking about. Fiona had been the love of his life. After she died he’d been merely marking time. Oh, there had been a few ladies over the years, the relationships always respectful and discreet. But Mike Larkin never remarried.

He'd told her once about the night he'd met her mother at a party. "The room faded away and there was only your mother standing there, so pretty in her party dress. I felt like a big buffoon but she danced with me and that was it, my darling. That was it."

Her hands stilled their movement and she glanced down at the fistful of weeds.

Oh, Pop. You'd be so ashamed of me.

The instant the thought formed she knew it wasn't true. Mike Larkin would have howled at the moon over the prospect of a grandson or granddaughter. He would've been so happy.

In a funny kind of way, the thought of having a child made her less lonely for her father. It was a continuation of everything her family had been and everything it would be.

She closed her eyes, her hand over her belly.

Thank you, thank you, oh, thank you.

* * *

Joshua Burrell called her into his office that Friday, right before five.

"I see you've been taking a lot of sick days," he commented.

Two days in thirty and none for the past three years
, she thought, struggling to hold on to her temper. Whereas before she could've laughed off the stuffiness and conservative nature of the firm, she suddenly found it stifling.

"Has everything been taken care of?" he asked. Though his manner was that of a jovial grandfather, she knew what he was really asking.

I don't want any messy female emotional details. I just want to know that you will represent this firm in a way that will cause absolutely no complications.

She nodded her head, at the same time knowing her days with Coleman, Watts and Burrell were numbered.

* * *

She turned one of the bedrooms into a nursery in her spare time. The one luxury she allowed herself was a professional painter because she simply couldn't stand the smell of the stuff.

The room was painted a soft yellow and Disney murals graced the walls. Julian, thinking the toys she ordered were for a cousin, gave her a generous discount on anything she wanted from Teddy's Toys.

She didn't go overboard but her favorite was the golden brown teddy bear that sat in the rocking chair by the window overlooking the garden. He seemed to be waiting for the little boy or girl who would come play with him. She liked that feeling.

She wanted to fill her house with love and laughter, to do as good a job raising her son or daughter as Mike Larkin had done with her. Her father had been a terrific single parent. With his example, she could do the same.

And she wondered when, and what, she would tell Cameron.

She didn't have that much time. According to Dr. Mallory she was almost eight weeks along and would begin really showing somewhere in her fourth or fifth month. She already had the breasts of an opera diva but these days people assumed breast enhancement before a pregnancy.

Once she started to show, she'd have to take a leave of absence from the firm. The sight of a pregnant and unmarried woman would not be welcome at such a conservative workplace.

She'd survive. She had enough money in the bank and could continue paying for her health insurance even if she decided to quit the firm.

She'd be all right. So would her baby.

Her life had a focus now that it hadn't had in months. As Michaela sat in the nursery, the teddy bear in her lap as she gazed out over the garden, she thought the only thing that could've possibly made her happier was feeling she had the right to share this joy with Cameron.

But she couldn't. Not yet. She needed a little more time to come to terms with the fact that she was going to be a mother.

Nancy turned out to be a fabulous cook.

Cameron realized this fact when he started to gain weight. For Nancy's mother was Southern and her specialties included buttermilk biscuits, skillet cornbread, coconut cream pie, Southern fried chicken and fried ham with red-eye gravy.

Her pecan pie was to die for.

And she'd passed all her recipes down to her seven daughters, Nancy included.

"Here you go, honey." She placed the plate of fried eggs, ham and grits in front of him. He smiled up at her.

Why couldn't Nancy have been the one? Blond, nicely bovine,
cute.
  Ever so accommodating. Never a bit of trouble. Healthy and uncomplicated.

It's just fate's way of laughing at me.

Nancy didn't even mind that he was involved in finding this mystery woman. She thought it was romantic and said so at every single opportunity. As she'd moved out of her apartment and it had been promptly rented, he'd told her she could stay at his house as long as she wanted to. After all, he'd already put her through quite a lot of stress. It was the least he could do.

She'd asked him to let her stay for the semester. Afterwards she’d find another place to live.

Meanwhile his attempts at finding his mystery woman were going nowhere fast.

Chuck's amateur detective work had fizzled out, so the second online campaign had gone into production a few weeks ago. He'd rushed the job through, auditioning various actors until he'd finally come to the exhausted realization that this was one message he was going to, once again, have to deliver himself.

So Chuck had written the dialogue and Cameron had delivered it. Three takes later it was ready for the editing room and last night it had aired on YouTube.

Both the local newspapers and online news sites were having a field day.

Teddy Bear Heir Hunts For Mystery Woman! screamed
The Examiner.

Multimillionaire Cameron Black Loses Girl! said the
Times.

Search of the Century! claimed
People
magazine.

Once again, his actions made the foreign papers and Teddy's Toys was deluged with emails, each woman claiming to be the one he sought. He'd even had an email from some producer in Los Angeles who wanted to buy the rights for a Lifetime Miniseries.

Great. Now an entire television audience can see how I've screwed up my love life.

"More coffee?" Nancy stood to his side, coffeepot in hand. He'd told her she didn't have to do all this. He had servants he paid. But she loved to cook and he had to admit what she served up was a whole lot better than his last three cooks combined.

He took another look at her. A good, long look.

"What are you doing, going to school when you can cook like this?"

She blushed prettily, the pink color sweeping up to her hairline. "My cousin said the same thing the other night."

"Well?"

"Well, I—starting up a restaurant is a huge financial risk. Going to school is my safety net."

"It's not that big a risk with food this good."

"I never really thought it was possible."

Cameron came to his decision in a heartbeat. He had excellent business instincts and had used them to make a bundle of money. If Nancy had even a little help, she couldn't go wrong.

"It’s possible if you find yourself a good business partner. Preferably one with a lot of money."

It took her just a second to realize who he was talking about.

"You mean you'd...?"

He nodded his head.

She threw her arms around him and hugged him. Hard.

The moment was interrupted by a noise in the hall. Cameron frowned as Nancy stepped away from him. He remembered that voice. He remembered that attitude.

The woman burst into the dining room.

He remembered that muumuu.

"I'm sorry, sir, I just couldn't restrain her—" His butler, Browning, looked quietly miserable.

"I told you, me and Cam the Man are old friends—" Sapphire stopped in mid-sentence. "Do I smell grits?"

Cameron had to laugh. Nancy, his ever-efficient hostess, was already dishing up another plate and setting it in front of the delighted Sapphire.

"It's all right, Browning," Cameron told his relieved servant. The elderly man stepped out of the dining room but not before giving Sapphire a pointed glare.