Chapter 16
A
manda's tea went down her windpipe and she started choking.
Jill jumped up and pounded her back. “I didn't mean to kill you with the question.”
Amanda tried to wheeze out an answer, but she couldn't make her voice work.
Jill stood back. “Oh, hell. It's already happened hasn't it? I knew it! You're such a babe in the woods with men. What did he do, tell you not to worry, he'd pull out?”
Amanda's face felt sunburned and her throat hurt from coughing. “It wasn't like that. Sit down, please.”
Jillian shook her head, her red hair waiving wildly. “I'm going to kill him.”
“
Jill
.” Amanda reached out and grabbed her friend's flailing arm at the wrist. “Stop it. I'm not pregnant.”
“Are you sure about that?”
At the sound of Simon's voice, Jillian spun around, ripping her arm from Amanda's grip. “You jerk! I suppose you don't think anything ofâ”
Amanda's hand on Jill's mouth cut her off. She'd jumped up from her seat the minute Jillian started in on Simon. “Calm that Irish temper down or I'm going to end up eating your words and being humiliated in the process.”
Jillian's eyes narrowed, but she nodded. Amanda moved her hand and turned to see Simon's reaction to her friend's outburst. He wasn't looking at Jill.
His entire attention was on Amanda. “I thought your period wasn't due for another week.”
If her face had felt sunburned before, it now felt like she'd sustained a third-degree burn. “It's not.”
“Then how can you be sure you aren't pregnant? Did you take a test?”
The only thing needed to make this farce more embarrassing would be for Jacob to make an appearance. “No. How could I? I doubt your local store even carries them.”
He smiled cynically. “Don't be so sure about that, but if you didn't take a test, you can't know. Yet, you told your friend you're not pregnant.”
“All right!” She glared at both Jillian and Simon. “I should have said I don't think I'm pregnant, okay?”
Jillian opened her mouth to say something and Amanda forestalled her. “Before you go off again, it's not Simon's fault.”
“Oh really?” Jillian was at her sarcastic best. “Are you saying you had sex with someone else?”
Even the thought of another man touching her like Simon had made her sick to her stomach.
“No.”
Simon looked at Jillian. “It is my fault. I'm the one who forgot protection.”
“And I made you forget it.” She was still a little awed by that fact. Not a rational reaction, she knew, but when a woman had spent her whole life being told she didn't measure up in the female stakes, it was definitely a
natural
one.
“You sound proud of yourself,” Jill accused.
“I noticed that too,” Simon agreed laconically.
Amanda felt attacked from two sides even though, logically she knew that in their own way both Simon and Jill wanted to protect her. “How do you want me to sound? Ashamed? I left my hair shirt in California along with any false front for emotions I don't feel.”
“Are you saying you want to be pregnant?”
Jill practically shrieked in astonishment.
“Lunch is served.” The addition of Jacob's voice to the melee was more than Amanda could handle with equanimity.
She turned on the housekeeper cum security expert with blood in her eye. “Discretion is the mark of a proper butler.”
“I was being discreet. I didn't mention that pregnant women need to keep up their strength, did I? Didn't comment on the fact that a woman pushing thirty and a man already there should be a little more savvy about birth control. Now that would have been indiscreet.”
Simon choked on something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh and Amanda wanted to hit him.
Jillian was busy nodding her head vehemently. “You took the words right out of my mouth. They're both old enough to know better.”
“Twenty-six is not pushing thirty,” Amanda informed them all loftily. As topics for conversation went, her age outdid pregnancy by a wide margin.
She spun on her heel and went back into the house.
“Where are you going?” Simon demanded from behind her.
“Jacob said lunch was served and as he so delicately pointed out, if I am pregnant, I need to keep up my strength.”
“Uh oh . . . .” Jill's singsong voice followed her. “I know that tone. She's really miffed. Simon, you don't have a big screen television, do you?”
“No, he doesn't, but he does have a collection of
katanas
that would make admirable gardening implements.” Amanda didn't bother turning around when she made the threat, but she knew the people still on the deck could hear her.
“What's a
katana
?” Jill asked.
“A Korean sword.” Surprisingly, it was Jacob who answered. “The boss is partial to his collection. They're all one of a kind and some are over a hundred years old.”
“And no way are you using them to dig in the garden, even if you are pregnant with my baby.” Simon's voice whispered in her ear as he leaned around her to pull a chair out from the dining table for her to sit in.
“That is not something I want to discuss right now.” She let herself be drawn into the chair and scooted up to the table.
Jacob and Jillian came into the room.
“You're eating with us, aren't you?” she asked Jacob, thinking an obviously starstruck fan would thwart Jillian's inevitable attempt to grill Amanda over the possible pregnancy.
His poorly disguised fascination with Hollywood would make an ideal topic for the lunch table.
One gray brow rose in question. “You want me to eat with you? Thought you'd be embarrassed talking about the baby in front of me.”
“We are not going to discuss babies or the possibility of a pregnancy,” she said repressively.
“We're not?” Jillian asked tauntingly.
“No,” Amanda replied firmly as Simon took the chair kitty-corner to hers. “You can tell us all about the show. Are you going to end up married to your love interest?”
The look she gave Jillian told her friend to go with the flow or else.
Jillian went, but with a disgruntled look.
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Simon wasn't surprised when Jillian came to find him in his gym. Amanda was working on an emergency e-mail she'd received from Extant Corporation and it was the first time Jillian had had all day to corner him alone.
“So which one of these is over a hundred years old?” she asked pointing to the wall on which his
katana
collection hung.
He indicated one near the center. “That one is actually three hundred years old.”
“Wow. If something's more than ten years old in Hollywood, it's considered an antique.” Her eyes were focused on the sword in question with definite awe.
He smiled and moved into his form.
She turned her head toward him, her expression set. “I'm worried about Amanda.”
He liked her directness.
“Me too,” he admitted as he pivoted on his foot for the next step of his form.
That seemed to surprise her and she idly fingered the handgrip on one of the swords. “She's not very experienced around men. I don't think she'd like me telling you that, but you should know.”
“She told me I'm the only lover she's had besides that bastard she was married to.”
Jillian laughed. “He's a bastard all right and you probably don't know the half of it, but I'm glad she told you she doesn't sleep around.”
“She told me.” And he'd liked hearing it. He went through his entire form in a series of rapid movements that left a light sheen of sweat on his skin.
When he stopped, Jillian was eyeing him speculatively. “Are you just playing with her?”
“What is this, a rendition on the âwhat are your intentions' theme?” He grabbed a small towel and swiped at his face. “Isn't that something parents are supposed to ask?”
Jillian crossed her arms and glared at him. “Maybe it is, but Amanda's parents are dead losses where she's concerned. They were rotten to her growing up and completely wrote her off when she left Lance.”
“They don't believe in divorce?” he asked, curious about every nuance of Amanda's life.
“They don't love their daughter.” Jillian's voice was dripping with contempt. “They're more worried about appearances and business contacts than her happiness.”
“You care about her.” It wasn't a question. Jillian had flown up from Los Angeles to check on her friend. That showed genuine caring.
“I'm the only person in her life that does.”
“No.” He took a swig from his water bottle. “You're not.”
“Then your intentions are honorable?”
“That's between Amanda and myself.” And not something he could answer right now. It was too complicated. “I'm glad you care about her, but this is something you have to let her work out for herself.”
“That's what I thought about Lance. I knew he was a smarmy toad, but I didn't say anything because she seemed so happy. By the time they'd been married a month, I bitterly regretted my silence.”
Simon was beginning to understand Jillian's motivation for flying to her friend's rescue. “You felt responsible for her marrying someone that hurt her so much.”
Her green eyes glistened with moisture. “Yes. She was so innocent and he wasn't.”
“But she left him when he had an affair.”
Jillian's laugh was harsh. “Lance had his first affair within months of their marriage and I think Amanda knew it, but she blamed herself for not being sexy enough. He was such a bastard. He rejected her every way a man can reject a woman and made her feel like it was her fault.”
“They're divorced now.” She had to have figured out at some point it wasn't her problem.
“Yes, thank God, but she's still vulnerable. She hasn't even dated since the divorce and then she falls into bed with you. Can you understand why I'm worried?”
He removed one of the
katanas
from the wall and began an ancient fighting routine. “She's decided to spread her wings, find out what she's been missing.”
“Amanda's not like that.”
He wished he shared Jillian's confidence. “Are you saying you think she's in love with me?”
Jillian averted her eyes and that said it all.
“I didn't think so. Look, I don't want to hurt her. Our relationship means a lot to me.”
“I'm glad to hear that.”
He finished the routine and started oiling the sword.
“What are you going to do if she turns up pregnant?”
“At the risk of repeating myself, that's between Amanda and me. You'll have to trust your friend to know what's best for herself.”
“Like she did with Lance?” Bitter worry laced her voice.
He understood her pain, but he couldn't alleviate it. What he wanted and what Amanda wanted were probably two different things, but whatever happened, they had to work it out between themselves without anyone else's involvement.
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Amanda waited with the car running for Jillian to come out of the bed-and-breakfast. She'd called her on the cell to say she was here a minute ago.
Jillian had shocked her the night before when she had refused Simon's offer to stay at his house. She'd said her clothes and everything were already unpacked in her room. Then she had asked Amanda to come over to Port Mulqueen to spend the day with her today.
Amanda couldn't say no, not even knowing it was losing a whole day of the limited time she had left with Simon. A Saturday. Jillian had flown up from Los Angeles because she was worried about Amanda. Because she cared. Amanda refused to dismiss that as unimportant.
Besides, a day spent with just the girls held some appeal. For some reason she didn't understand, Simon had suggested inviting Elaine to join them. When Jillian had learned that Elaine was his cousin's wife, she'd gone along with the idea wholeheartedly. Amanda had no problem understanding what motivated her friend. She wanted to pump Elaine about Simon.
The passenger door opened and then Jillian slid in. “Sorry I didn't come down right away. I had to finish making some plans.”