Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Those words made my brain chug to a stop. Though they were funny as hell, especially when combined with Sage’s expression.
I swear to God, hearts swam out of my best friend’s eyes and aimed for the ceiling. Imagining exactly that only made me laugh harder.
And distracted me from thinking about the reality bomb she’d just laid on me.
“With child? Really? What are you, a nun?” I wiped my eyes and found Sage’s smile had vanished, along with her bubbly excitement.
“Yeah, guess I kind of am.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I should get back to work. I didn’t let Jean know I was taking a break.”
My stomach clenched and I grabbed her arm. “Wait. That didn’t come out right. It wasn’t a virginity dig. Hello, I’m barely not one myself anymore.”
“There’s no barely not a virgin. Either you’ve ma—fucked or you haven’t. And you have. Twice.”
“Yeah.” I wanted to smile, and it so wasn’t the time. “The nun comment wasn’t referring to that though. I meant you make it sound so spiritual. So holy. Sometimes people just lean over a desk and get plowed into from behind.”
She forgot to be mad at me long enough for her eyes to go wide. “That sounds hot.”
“It was. Extremely.”
“And he didn’t use a condom this time.”
“No.” Since Sage’s imminent flight risk seemed to have passed, I released her to rub my throat. I was having Seth coming flashbacks, and the heat between my legs was swiftly outpacing the flush in my cheeks. “He did not.”
“Did it feel different? Like you know, no condom vs condom.”
“Yes. It felt very different. The biggest difference was when he…” I couldn’t tell her this. I couldn’t tell anyone this.
Dear God, I had to tell someone.
“After he, um, let go inside me, he did this thing. He, ah, lifted my legs up. Straight in the air. So—”
“So the ejaculate didn’t run down your legs.” Sage fanned herself. “Lordy, I’m about to blow.”
I laughed again. “Skip using the word ejaculate, because ick, but yeah, me too. It shouldn’t have been hot.
It freaked me out more than a little. But it was hot.
Everything he does is hot, and now I might be pregnant, and I should be running the other direction.
Instead, even though it’s insanely premature to even think this way, I can’t help wondering what if I can’t do this for him. What happens then.”
“If you can’t do what?”
“If I can’t give him a baby.” Just saying it sounded ridiculous, so I laughed again, right on cue.
I wasn’t prone to fits of tears all that often.
Hysterical laughter was another story. “I’m untried in that area, you know?
I could have fertility issues. We could be a mismatch.
So many reasons why this might not work, and that’s not even why I’m wigging the most.”
Sage just waited.
“I loved the guy before we got naked,” I whispered. “Now I can’t imagine life on the other side. Where he gets where he wants or he doesn’t, but he can move on.”
“What if he can’t? What if he feels exactly the same way as you but, I don’t know, concocted this elaborate ruse so he doesn’t have to put anything on the line?”
“Oh please. Seth Hamilton? Do you not know the guy? He oozes confidence. He could have any woman he wants, and—”
“And he wanted you. Not just you, but to have a baby with you. A lifetime bond, Ally. Do you get that? You have a kid with someone, you’re not walking away. Even if you think you can, there’s always that tie. That piece of you linked.”
Shaking my head, I rubbed at the sudden moisture in my eyes and looked away.
Anywhere but at her. “He wanted to pay me off for my egg, basically. Send me away and raise the kid on his own. He might not think I’m a bad risk DNA-wise—and even that’s a crapshoot with my family’s history—but he didn’t even want me involved much at first.”
“At first?” She inched up on her tiptoes and got right in my face. “Lawrence, you’re holding out on me.”
I sniffled. Stupid allergies. “After I bailed on him after we did it, when he found me here at the diner the next day, he apologized for coming up with such a crazy plan. And he suggested we do it together instead. I don’t know, it could’ve just been his new way of getting me to say yes.”
“Have it together. Raise it together.”
“Yeah.”
Sage let out a laugh. “Girl, I might be the virgin, but you’re the dummy. He so wants to put you on lockdown. Forget put a ring on it. He wants to put a baby in it.”
“You’re being silly. He just wants to have a kid for Laurie, so she has a sibling like he did before they’re too far apart in age.”
“You just said he could have any woman. Does that or does that not include their wombs as well?” She propped a hand under her chin.
“I wonder what the average woman would say if a man like Seth Hamilton asked them to have his baby. He’s a wonderful, devoted father already, and he’s rich, smart, suave, kind-hearted, and judging from today’s office performance, a near stallion in the bedroom Olympics.
Sure, he has his jackass tendencies as well, but I’m sure he’d get few takers. ”
“He didn’t ask them, did he? He asked me.” Hearing myself, I shut my eyes. “He offered me money, Sage. As if I was a common—”
“As if he wanted to make things easier for you and knew you’d never accept the help any other way.
” Sage’s voice turned soft. “Honey, you don’t always make it easy for people to love you.
Me, I make it so easy people aren’t interested.
” She laughed weakly and my eyes popped open.
“There’s a fine line between playing hard to get and being impossible to get.
You’re practically a fortress, and Seth’s the only man brave enough to try to find a way in. ”
“He was always in, and he never even knew it.” And now my shitty drugstore mascara was running from the heat in that stuffy room. Never buying that brand again. Nope.
“Al, after he put your legs up,” she paused to fan herself again, “what happened next?”
“We talked for a minute or two then he went to speak to his secretary about lunch.” I gripped my stomach. The hole inside it was growing vaster by the second. “Wonder if I can grab a hamburger before my shift. I’m starving.”
“His secretary was right there the whole time while…” Sage blinked and swallowed. “Stallion,” she said reverently, and I had to laugh or flush forty shades of red.
I probably did both, but I was laughing too much to care.
“What happened after that? You’re talking hamburgers, so what, you didn’t like lunch?”
“I didn’t stay.” My laughter fell off quickly. “I left.”
“With his knowledge? Or did you run away again like last time while the poor guy wasn’t even aware.” When I glared at her, she lifted her hands, palms out. “Just calling ‘em like I see ‘em. You ditched the dude at a sensitive moment. Question is, was it once…or twice?”
“It wasn’t like that.” I paced away from her and pushed a hand through my hair. And inhaled such a strong whiff of Seth’s cologne that he might as well have been standing in the room with us.
Because he was all over you. Up against you. Inside you.
Christ.
“If you say so.”
“It was awkward with Shelly right outside. She probably heard, and this is all new to me, and God, it’s still so strange to face him after having him—” I exhaled. “It’s so intimate. I don’t know how to do intimate. My leaving is actually doing him a favor, saving him from all the awkward.”
“I’m sure he appreciates it.”
“Jerk.” I turned to smack her, but she darted away and reached for the doorknob.
“I gotta get back. But it’s your day off. You should probably take it. Run home, take a bubble bath.”
“Oh, God.” Her mention of bathing reminded me that yeah, I could use some serious bathroom time. “Yes, let me go take a quick shower. I’ll be back in half an hour. Can I borrow your key? I forgot my purse.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled the lanyard with her keys over her head. “So that means he’ll have to chase after you. Unless that was exactly what you hoped.” She handed me the lanyard. “If it was, I have to say good move. I never think that clearly in the heat of the moment.”
“One second you think I’m a skank for ditching him.” I shook my head, running my thumb over the battered edge of the key to our loft. “Then I’m the chick with all the moves, and let’s face it, I so am not.”
“You’re the one who has hottie Seth all tied up in a knot. I’d say you have a lot more going for you than you know.” She winked and ducked out the door, closing it behind her.
A second later, the door opened again and she stuck her head inside. “Oh, and start thinking about that shower. I’ll come up with a theme, but a gender would really help my design.”
“Get out of here.”
“Gone. And I’ll make sure that hamburger is waiting for you at your preferred table in back once you’ve showered.” She winked. “A mother-to-be needs her calories.”
She shot back out the door before I could screech.
In spite of everything, I grinned. And glanced down at my mostly flat belly, hating that she was making me wonder.
It was too soon. It couldn’t be a thing already.
I’d know, wouldn’t I? Maybe even the instant it happened.
How could you not? Something that incredible, that special, taking place inside you…
Dear Lord, I was sounding as woo-woo as Sage.
I shook my head and aimed for the door. I needed to run down the street to our loft and get cleaned up. Then I’d come back and eat my hamburger—oh God, so hungry—and read a book on my day off, instead of panic-working. I could totally handle all of this.
Maybe I’d take that meal to go and eat on a bench near the lake. A picnic for one. Yay.
Not.