19. Elijah
ELIJAH
Elijah juggled the bag containing the soup and crackers he had bought at the sandwich shop into one arm and used the other hand to ring Stephanie’s doorbell.
He hated that she was sick, but also, he felt a shiver of excitement—this was new.
He had never had someone so close to him that he’d felt the urge to care for her when she wasn’t feeling well.
If any other woman he’d been involved with had sent him the texts Stephanie had sent this morning, he would have sent back a frowning face and then gone about finding some other way to occupy his time for the day.
He couldn’t do that with her, though. She mattered too much.
He wanted to make sure she was all right.
And honestly, if she was open to it, he wanted the chance to spend the day with her.
He wasn’t put off by the fact that she was sick.
He wanted to give her this soup, and to curl up in bed and watch TV with her, and to hand her tissues and get up and refill her glasses of water or juice or make her cups of tea…
What in the world is happening to me? He shook his head in amusement.
This wasn’t the kind of man he had ever been, and yet something about Stephanie had brought about a change in his character.
Honestly, it excited him. And the truth was that he just wanted to spend the day with her, no matter what they were doing.
She didn’t answer the door, though. Elijah frowned and rang the bell again. Was she so sick that she couldn’t make it to the door? That was worrying. He wondered what he would do if she went on not answering. Could he search for an unlocked window? Was that crazy behavior?
Then he heard the sound of feet shuffling. A moment later, the door was unlocked and cracked open. Stephanie appeared, Bruno at her heel.
The first thing Elijah saw was that her eyes were red. Clearly, she’d been crying, and it nearly turned his heart inside out to see it. “Stephanie,” he murmured.
“I thought you were going to be my food delivery.” Her voice was hoarse.
He held up the bag containing the soup. “I am,” he said. “Just maybe not the one you were expecting. Can I come in?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Come on. I don’t care if whatever you have is contagious,” he told her. “I have a great immune system. I’m sure I’ll be able to fight it off. Let me in. I have soup for you, and you deserve to be taken care of a little while you’re not feeling well.”
She closed her eyes. “Elijah… you should come back tomorrow.”
“If you don’t let me in, me and this soup are just going to sit here on your porch,” he informed her.
She let out a soft groan. “You’re impossible. I am so in over my head with you.” But she pulled the door back to let him inside.
She was wrapped in a bathrobe, and he could see at once that she hadn’t bothered to comb out her curls today. She wore no makeup. She turned away from him and made her way back to the kitchen table, and he saw that she had been drinking a mug of tea. It was still steaming.
Elijah took the soup out of the bag and held it up. “Chicken and rice,” he said. “Are you hungry? Can I heat this up for you? Or do you not have an appetite?”
“Actually, I’m very hungry,” she confessed. “That’s why I’d ordered food. But I guess I knew you couldn’t be it. I just placed that order five minutes ago.”
“Perfect,” he said. “The soup can be an appetizer.” He turned to the microwave and popped it in.
“I promise, my cooking skills are good enough for this,” he assured her, punching in a time.
“I even asked the guy at the restaurant how long I should microwave it for, to make sure I wasn’t going to mess it up. ”
The ghost of a smile crossed her face. “That’s great.”
He took the soup out of the microwave and set it down in front of her, along with a spoon. “So… what’s going on?”
She looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Is it the flu? Just a bad cold?” He leaned on his elbows, surveying her. “I can’t pretend I’m not a little worried about you here.”
“There isn’t anything to worry about.” But she bit her lip and looked down.
Elijah had mostly meant his comments in a lighthearted way—he was worried for her comfort, but not actually for her health.
He had been confident she would recover in a few days.
But the way she was behaving, as if she was keeping some secret from him, unsettled him.
“Stephanie, what is it?” he asked, reaching across the table to take her hand.
She looked up, tears in her eyes. “I need to tell you something,” she whispered.
“Tell me. Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.” He kept his face calm, but his heart was beating madly. He had never seen her like this.
She closed her eyes. “Elijah… I’m pregnant.”
The word stopped him in his tracks, froze his mind. It was the last thing in the world he could have anticipated she would say. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I…” she trailed off.
His mind raced to catch up with what she had said.
She wasn’t sick… she was pregnant. She was going to have a baby. His baby. He was going to have a baby. I’m going to be a father?
Then her last words registered. “Hold on. Why are you apologizing?”
“Well, it’s just… I know this must be a shock…”
“That’s putting it mildly.” He huffed out a laugh and raked a hand through his hair, and then he realized he was still holding her hand. He gave it a squeeze. “I bet it was a shock for you too.”
She looked up at him, her tears spilling over, and he knew that he had said the right thing. “I didn’t know what to do,” she confessed. “I know I should have called you right away.”
“When did you find out?”
“This morning. I woke up feeling sick, and I did the math and I took a test…”
“Hey.” It killed him, seeing her cry. He got to his feet and went over to her. Dropping to his knees, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her forward so that she could rest her head on his shoulder. “This is okay. We’re going to be okay.”
“I probably should have called you right away, I just didn’t know what to say…”
“I don’t want you to worry about that,” he told her firmly. “I’m here now. I know now.” He pushed her back a little so that he could look her in the eye. “How are you feeling? Are you actually sick? Do we need to go to a clinic or something?”
“No, I’m fine,” she said. “I felt sick this morning, but that passed, and I think it was normal. I’m not worried about that.”
“Okay. Well, we should still make an appointment to have you seen by a doctor.” Butterflies exploded in his stomach. “Oh my God, Stephanie—we’re having a baby.” He suddenly found that he couldn’t keep a giddy grin off his face.
“You’re happy?” Her eyes widened.
“Of course I’m happy! I told you that I dreamed of becoming a father one day, didn’t I?
Having a real family of my own? I never imagined it would happen this soon, of course, but…
everything you and I have done together has been so wonderful, even though it’s all come so much faster than I would have expected.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something here.
Maybe we’re supposed to be doing this together. Don’t you think that’s possible?”
She shook her head, but she was smiling. “I’ve been trying not to imagine this conversation with you,” she confessed. “I thought you were going to be… I don’t know. Not angry, but not happy. Shocked. Stressed. I never expected this from you.”
“No, I’m thrilled,” he said. “I mean, I know it’s going to be complicated. There’s a lot for us to figure out.” He took both of her hands. “But we’re going to figure it out together, and it’s going to be just the most amazing adventure, and I’m so excited to do this with you, Stephanie. Truly.”
She rose to her feet. Elijah did too, and the next thing he knew, she was in his arms.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you so much. I never could have dreamed of this moment. You’re so wonderful. I’m so glad it’s you.”
He held her, not pulling away, just relishing in the feeling of that moment.
Her warmth up against him, the softness of her breathing, and the knowledge that at this very moment their unborn child was cradled between them.
This is my family. This is the family I have always dreamed I would create someday.
It’s really happening. I’m going to be a father.
He wanted to linger forever in that hug, but there were things to do.
“We need to set you up a doctor’s appointment,” he said, stepping back.
Her computer was sitting on the table, and he grabbed it and opened it.
“Do you have someone you want to see? Or I can do a search and try to find someone with good reviews.” He opened the internet browser.
The top tab was her email inbox, and he meant to click out of it, but something caught his eye and he paused.
His father’s name.
Before he had registered what it might mean, before his thoughts had caught up with him at all, he was aware of a hollow sensation—a feeling of deep wrongness—in the pit of his stomach. “Why do you have an email from my father?”
Stephanie went rigid. “That… it’s not what it looks like.”
“What does it look like?” He skimmed down her inbox. “There are more of them. You’ve been corresponding regularly.”
“No. Not anymore. Not…” She took a deep breath. “I can explain.”
“Okay.” He turned to face her, spreading his palms on top of his thighs, fighting to keep his nerves steady. Whatever this was… maybe she was being honest. Maybe it wasn’t anything to feel weird about. He would let her explain.
“I met your father… the night I met you,” she said. “After you and I danced. He approached me and… well, and he asked me to spend time with you. He said he liked me better than the women you usually dated, and he wanted me to… to keep you out of trouble until the product launch.”
Her face was white as she spoke. She couldn’t look at him.
Elijah felt unsteady, like he might slip off his chair. “You’ve been seeing me—all this time—because my father asked you to?”
Her head jerked up. “Not all this time! Not at all! Once I realized I had feelings for you, real feelings, I reached out to him and told him that the deal was off, and that I wasn’t going to take his money.”
Elijah’s stomach lurched. “He was paying you to do this?”
“Elijah, please listen to me. It hasn’t been like that for a long time.
I went to his office before any of this started to try to get a loan from him for my company, that’s all it really was.
He refused me. But then he said if I spent time with you he would reconsider the loan.
It was an exchange of favors, it wasn’t…
it wasn’t like he was paying me to go out with you… ”
Elijah was on his feet, pacing back and forth. “And the baby?”
“What about the baby?” she whispered, her hand moving protectively to her stomach.
“Was that part of it? Did my father tell you to?—?”
“No! Of course not, Elijah, you don’t really think I would do that, do you?”
She was trembling. She wasn’t crying anymore—she looked beyond tears.
She sank back into her seat. So much of Elijah wanted to go to her and comfort her, put his arms back around her and reassure her that everything was still going to be fine and that of course he knew she would never go so far as to get pregnant on purpose to try to trap him or trick him.
But the sight of his father’s name in her inbox kept flashing through his mind.
Could he ask her to show him the emails? He couldn’t do that, could he?
I think I’d have every right to. But I would never be able to un-know what I might find out—and I’m not sure I’m ready to see what’s in those emails.
“I have to go,” he said, his voice short.
“Elijah.” He could hear the tremor in her voice. It cut at him, sharp as a knife.
“No, I need to go,” he told her. “I need some time, Stephanie. I need to think about this.”
“Will… will you call me?”
“I will,” he said. Of course they would have to speak again, at least one more time. He couldn’t just never talk to her again. He had a responsibility to that child, even if…
His mind couldn’t finish the thought.
He turned toward the door and hurried out.