Uniform Desires (Make Mine Military Romance) (71 page)

Frank shrugged and clasped Roger’s hand.
 
“I think the two of them suit each other.”

They laughed together as only old friends can, and Kendall knew that their relationship would be fine.

“I move that Kendall Herrington-Parks assume the role of Chief Executive Officer of Herrington Limited, effective immediately.”

 
‘Ayes’ circled the room.
 

Once the furor had died down over the meeting, she and Grif returned to her office. Grif stood off to the side while Kendall took the guest chair in front of her desk.

“So, was there any truth that you two talked about our marriage beforehand?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Grif shift on his feet. Her question was answered.
 

“You did.” She turned to look at him. “Before you talked to me?”

He blinked, watching her carefully. “We did. We talked about what would be best for your career.”

Hurt rolled through her and she rested her hand on her belly. Furious tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “And just when were you going to tell me about this little confab?”

Grif stepped forward, head cocked to the side in confusion. “I don’t understand your anger. Your father and I talked about you and I getting married. But it was in relation to the job. He didn’t know about the baby.”

“And how much did he offer you? To marry me? To make me more stable and appealing to the board.”

He shook his dark head. “He didn’t offer me any dollar amount. When he suggested it, I didn’t say anything. The idea had already been floating in my mind as well, but for a completely different reason.”
 

He looked pointedly at her belly.

Kendall didn’t know what to believe. Grif seemed to be telling the truth. Why would he tell her about the meeting if he were trying to hide something?
 

Maybe her nerves were just frazzled. It had been a hectic day and she had several hours yet to go.

She would definitely say something to her father. Those kinds of actions would only undermine her position in the company.

Moving behind her desk, she clicked the touchpad on her Mac.
 

“You’re not going to say anything else?”

She looked up at Grif. “What do you mean?”

He shifted toward her, looking a little aggravated. “Is that the end of the conversation?”

Giving him a tight nod, she turned back to her computer. “For now it is, until I can think about it rationally. I’ve got too much in my head right now.”

Grif turned back to the window, fuming. Kendall never backed down from a fight. He had expected her to lay into him, had prepared for it actually, but now she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting it all out in the open.
 
She would sit at her desk, tight-lipped and cool-eyed, and play it off like everything was fine.
 

While he was left hanging, prepared to defend himself.
 

It was only because he felt like shit. No, he technically didn’t do anything wrong, but he took part in the situation. Maybe he should have told her what had happened that day, but he didn’t want to cause issues between her and her father.

“I didn’t do anything behind your back. Frank is my boss. When he called me to the house, what was I supposed to do?” He crossed the room and circled the desk to kneel beside her chair. “But when he offered to make it worth my while to stay in Vail, I knew I didn’t need anything to stay, just you. I told him that if I married you it would be because I knew it would make us stronger together.”

Kendall lifted her eyes. His gut clenched to see the hurt in her expression. Reaching out, he turned her chair toward him. “I promise you, I would never hurt you intentionally. You’ve become very important to me, and our life has become very important to me. I’ve never had this kind of stability in anything. I love waking up in the morning and being boring with you.”

She choked out a laugh, even as a tear slipped down her cheek.
 

Grif reached out and pulled her into his arms. They ended up sitting on the floor with Kendall draped over his lap. As ridiculous as it seemed, it was exactly what they both needed.

“You hurt my feelings,” she murmured into his neck, “but I know how my father is. So I can understand the awkward situation he put you in. Hopefully when he retires we’ll be able to live our lives without his interference.”

Grif pulled back enough to look her in the eyes, brows raised. “Are you talking about the same Frank Herrington I know? The man will be meddling until he’s in his grave. Probably even worse now that he won’t have the business to run.”

Kendall laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You’re right. It was a nice dream though.”

Rubbing her back with his hand, Grif let himself enjoy her weight, and the tension easing in his chest. As ridiculous as it sounded, he didn’t like feeling like he was in trouble with her. He liked Kendall, a lot. He didn’t want anything to rock the boat between them.

They stayed that way until his ass was numb and she had almost fallen asleep. The phone on her desk broke the silence. With a heavy sigh, Kendall pushed herself up and away from him to answer it.

Grif resumed his place at the window, easier with himself now that the air had been cleared. When he’d been in Afghanistan, he’d been responsible for many, many lives over the course of his tours and he’d been known for his coolness under fire. The two-fold responsibility sitting across the room had him sweating bullets, though.
 

The woman sneezed and he thought it was cute. Puking her guts out because of the baby,
his
baby, inside her body, seemed noble. And when she soaped his back and down his arms, paying careful attention to his amputation, his heart swelled with emotion. The fact that she could take every part of him, without flinching, freaked him out.
 

A couple weeks after Kendall was voted in as CEO, Frank Herrington officially turned over the reins to his daughter.

It made the news. Not just the local stations, but every national station as well. Former-model-turned-CEO was apparently something to talk about. Grif flipped open the paper one morning to find his own face plastered across the front.
 

Well, hell.

Kendall snickered at the title,
The New Mr. Herrington,
then sobered when he growled at her.

All of the scrutiny made Grif chafe, but his respect for his wife went up exponentially as she handled them all with grace.
 

“You just have to smile and pretend like you’re telling them secrets. They eat it up. As soon as the novelty of it wears off, they’ll move on to something juicier.”

And they did, for the most part.
 

It was about a week later when his world shuddered again.
 

Verna Parks had an interview with one of the national stations. Though it had been years since he’d seen his mother, she hadn’t changed much. Wiry gray hair fuzzed around her head and her blue eyes blurred by alcohol, tears tracked down her lined faced when asked about her son. A bottle of liquor, his namesake of course, sat on a shelf beyond her shoulder.

“I haven’t seen him for ages, since he lost his arm in the war, but I’m sure he’ll come visit now, with his new wife. I’m not doing so good anymore. I’d like to see him before I die.”

The fuck she would.

Kendall sat beside him on the couch and he was sure she felt him vibrate with fury.
 
As if she knew what he needed, she turned and wrapped her arms around his waist. He hadn’t told her anything about his childhood. Damn humiliating now for one of the worst parts of it to be splashed all over the country. Not to mention his amputation. He didn’t know how his mother knew about it, but he didn’t care. She’d just broadcast it to the world.

Which brought back the hounds. ‘Disabled Veteran Deserts Mother’ was one of his favorite articles the next day. The reporter took down every bit of her sob story and printed it, along with his refusal to comment. Grif looked like a damn jackass. He crumpled the paper and threw it against the wall.

“If you want to fight this, we will, but we run the chance of making it a bigger story.”

He looked down at his wife and the shared fury in her eyes, and felt what he’d wanted for them to begin with: to be part of a team. Unable to do anything else, he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. The knot of tension in his gut began to unravel. “No. I think we’ll just let it go. We have other things to do and plan for.”

Kendall’s once flat tummy was a little more prominent, now. He loved to cup the child in his palm.

She placed her hand over his and leaned in until she caught his eye. “Hey, we’ll get through all this. None of it matters, but this right here does.” She tightened her hand on his, pressing a kiss to his mouth.

Emotion tightened his throat and he returned her kiss with everything he had in him. “I know, Kendall, and I appreciate it more than I can ever tell you. Thank you.”

It was hard not to tell her he loved her right then, but pride made him snap his jaw shut.
 

Chapter 10

Kendall had bent over to slip on her heel when she felt something strange in her stomach. She stood and rested a hand on her belly, waiting to see if it did it again. But nothing happened. It wasn’t until she and Grif were jogging up the stairs to her office that she felt it again. She paused on the landing, a bolt of fear going through her. Maybe she shouldn’t jog up the stairs like she did every morning. Maybe it wasn’t good for the baby.
 

Her tummy quivered again.

“What is it?”

Grif had come back down to her, his face concerned.

“I don’t know. I think I may be feeling the baby move.”

He raised his brows in surprise. “Wow. Really? What does it feel like?”

She giggled, relief rushing through her. “It feels very strange. As if I have a butterfly trapped beneath my skin trying to flutter out.”

The look on his face was a little comical, as if the thought kind of grossed him out, but he smiled and kissed her.

Kendall was distracted all day, waiting for the little feeling to return. Then, when it didn’t, she fought disappointment. Her first doctor’s appointment was later in the day and she was dying to know what she was carrying. She’d taken to calling the baby sweet-pea, because it just felt wrong to call him or her an ‘it’.
 

Parks swore up and down he didn’t care what it was, but when he murmured to her belly at night, he sounded like he spoke to his son.
 

When there’d been no response to her pleas, his mother had faded into the gray again. Kendall had debated sending her some money to shut her up, but she had a feeling it would be a never-ending cycle. So, she let things lie.

The paparazzi still harassed them occasionally, but even that had faded away. They went to work for the day, then came home. They stayed in, for the most part, because nausea would strike once in a while, just out of the blue. It had started to ease, but occasionally it caught her off guard.

Kendall watched the clock all day, counting down the minutes until they could leave. Grif seemed just as anxious, pacing in front of the window.

“Do you want to know the sex of the baby?”

He stopped when she asked him the question, quiet for a long time. “You know, I don’t think so. I think this is one of the few real surprises I’ll ever have in my life. I’d like to anticipate it.”

Kendall could have cried. She wanted to know, but it wouldn’t be fair to Grif if she slipped.
 

It wasn’t until they were actually in the doctor’s office and the technician ran the wand over her belly that she decided.

“We don’t want to know the sex of the baby.”

Grif already held her hand, but his fingers tightened around hers when she said that. “Thank you,” he whispered into her ear.

That was a day for tears. She cried when she felt the baby move, she cried when she followed Grif’s wishes, and she broke down and sobbed when she heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time and saw its little face on the ultrasound monitor.
 

“Everything looks perfect. We’ll see you in a month.”

Kendall left in a daze, feeling adrift in a sea of craziness. Luckily, Ortiz had driven them that day, so Grif could sit in the back and hold her. When they got to the condo, she climbed onto the elevator in a daze.

The little black and white photo from the doctor’s office kept drawing her attention. It slowly began to sink in that she was going to be a mom.

“I’m going to be a mom.”

Grif unlocked the door and ushered her inside. “Yes, you are. And I’m going to be a dad. Terrifying for both of us.”

Kendall nodded and kicked off her shoes. “But I’m not going to be like my mother,” she vowed. “You know, she used to not let me play outside because of bruises. They were hard to cover with makeup. And because the sun caused wrinkles.”