Chapter 17
The next two weeks were heaven on earth.
Lexi and Quentin spent every possible minute together, which was no easy feat considering their busy, demanding careers.
But they found creative ways to make it work.
When Quentin flew to New York to appear on Larry King Live and Good Morning America, Lexi canceled her classes for the day and went with him, rationalizing that she could kill two birds with one stone by having lunch with her editor while she was in town.
Once she and Quentin had concluded their business for the day, they locked themselves in their luxurious suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, ordered room service and devoured each other for the rest of the night.
They spent countless hours in bed together, alternately making passionate love and talking, rediscovering little things about each other that amused and fascinated them.
They made up trivia questions to test their knowledge of each other.
Neither was surprised when they both passed with flying colors.
One weekend they tackled the job of repainting Lexi’s family room, which she’d been wanting to do since the divorce.
She’d never really cared for the color Adam had chosen, but she’d capitulated to keep the peace.
Now, as she worked alongside Quentin, she found it incredibly cathartic to cover the walls with a fresh coat of terra-cotta-colored paint.
Out with the old, she thought. In with the new.
When she met Quentin’s gaze, she knew he felt the same way.
They had nearly finished their task when Quentin suddenly flicked a spatter of paint at her, hitting her squarely in the chest. After she recovered from her shocked indignation, she’d dunked her own brush in the pan and gone after him.
Their laughter rang out as they chased each other around the room, taunting and slinging paint at each other.
By the time they were through, their hair and clothes were smeared with paint, and the protective cloth draped across the floor was covered with terra-cotta-colored footprints.
Later, as they cuddled in bed together, Lexi realized that in less than two weeks, Quentin had brought more joy and laughter into her house than she’d experienced in the two years she’d lived there with her ex-husband.
Near the end of the month, Michael invited Lexi to join him and Reese on Howlin’ Good to promote her cookbook. Halfway through the taping, she was explaining how to prepare one of the featured recipes when Reese abruptly rose from the chair she’d been sitting on.
Michael and Lexi stared at her. “Are you okay?” they asked in unison.
“I’m fine.” Reese wore an oddly serene smile. “My water just broke.”
“What!” Michael exclaimed, rushing to her side as a wave of excited murmurs swept across the studio audience. “We have to get you to the hospital!”
“I know.” Reese’s calm smile never wavered as he began ushering her from the set. “But isn’t there something you should do first?”
Michael eyed her frantically.
Reese sighed, then grinned into the camera and blithely announced, “In light of the fact that I’m going into labor…that’s a wrap, folks!”
Several hours later, Lexi and Quentin entered the quiet hospital room where Reese reclined in the bed, a tiny bundle cradled lovingly in her arms. Michael sat close beside her, as close as he could get without being in the bed with her.
Both were beaming with joyous wonder as they gazed upon their newborn daughter’s sleeping face, so enthralled that they didn’t notice their friends’ arrival until Lexi and Quentin had nearly reached the bed.
“Congratulations,” they chorused softly, so as to not wake the baby.
The proud parents glanced up at them, both wearing identical rapturous grins. “Hey, you two.”
“Hey, yourselves.” Lexi and Quentin huddled around the bed to get their first look at the sleeping infant in Reese’s arms. Savannah Wolf had inherited her parents’ exquisite mahogany complexion and had a head full of curly black hair.
“Oh, my God,” Lexi breathed. “She’s beautiful.”
Quentin grinned. “She definitely takes after her mother.”
Michael chuckled. “Nice try, wise guy. But I happen to agree with you.”
Laughing, Quentin clapped his friend warmly on the back and handed him a Cuban cigar. “You done good, Daddy.”
“Daddy.” Michael looked dazed. “Wow. I can’t believe I’m a daddy.”
Reese gave him a teasing smile. “You’ll believe it when you’re getting up for two a.m. feedings and diaper changes.”
Everyone laughed.
Lexi added a floral arrangement to an already teeming assortment of bouquets, balloons, teddy bears, chocolates and other gifts that had been brought to the new parents.
Then, perching on the edge of the bed, she smiled gently at Reese.
“Hey, Mommy. And how’re you feeling after eight hours of labor? ”
“Wonderful.” Reese sighed, gazing down at her daughter. “Seven pounds, twelve ounces wonderful.”
Michael tenderly stroked his wife’s cheek. “You were amazing, sweetheart. And I can’t believe how composed you were when your water broke. You had to calm me and Lexi down.”
“I know.” Lexi laughed, remembering the mad scramble to get Reese to Emory University Hospital, where she also worked. Her colleagues were going to spoil her rotten during her stay.
She grinned at Michael and Lexi. “Haven’t I been telling you guys for months that I know what I’m doing?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they humbly conceded, and Reese and Quentin chuckled.
Lexi grinned wryly at Michael. “Your producer must be on cloud nine. I remember how ecstatic he was when you proposed to Reese on the show last year. He still hasn’t stopped gushing about how your ratings skyrocketed after that episode aired.
Just imagine how viewers will respond to Reese going into labor on the show.
I smell another Emmy,” she added in a singsong voice.
Reese and Michael traded smiles. “In that case,” she said, “we’ll have to keep coming up with milestones to celebrate on the air.”
Quentin grinned. “Savannah’s first step, Savannah’s first tooth…”
Everyone laughed.
“Where’s the family?” Lexi asked curiously. “Quentin and I thought we’d have to fight our way into the room when we got here.”
Reese grinned. “Michael shooed everyone out so I could feed the baby. I think they all headed back to Dad’s house for a celebration dinner.”
“The whole gang was here?”
“Yep,” Reese replied. “My parents and Raina and Warrick. Dad and Asha. Mom and Grant flew in from Minnesota. Marcus and Samara brought the boys, who are very excited about their new cousin and can’t wait to play with her.”
Lexi thought of Samara’s secret pregnancy and hid a smile. Soon enough, Matthew and Malcolm Wolf would have another playmate to get excited about.
“I’m glad you’re both here,” Reese said to Lexi and Quentin. “Michael and I would like to ask a very special favor of you.”
Michael smiled at them. “We want you to be Savannah’s godparents.”
Quentin grinned broadly. Lexi gasped, so touched that tears sprang to her eyes. She and Quentin looked at each other, joined hands, then turned back to their friends and chorused, “We’d be honored.”
Michael and Reese beamed with pleasure. “Good.”
Lexi sniffled. “I need a tissue.”
She’d barely gotten out the words before Quentin removed a handkerchief from his pocket, knelt in front of her and gently dabbed at her watery eyes.
“Look at our feisty, tough-talking Lexi getting all sentimental,” Michael teased. “What have you done to her, Q?”
Quentin smiled into her eyes. “What has she done to me?” he murmured.
Lexi reached out and touched his face before she remembered that they had an audience. She glanced up in time to see Michael and Reese exchange quiet, knowing smiles.
Flushing self-consciously, Lexi grinned at Reese. “May I please hold my precious goddaughter who upstaged me on her daddy’s show this morning?”
The others laughed as Reese gingerly handed over the baby. As Lexi cradled the warm, swaddled infant in her arms, something melted inside her.
“Hello, Savannah,” she cooed softly. “What a beautiful name for a beautiful little angel. You’re going to have your daddy wrapped around your finger. Mommy too.” To her delight, the sleeping newborn puckered her tiny lips. “Oh, guys, look—”
Lexi glanced up and froze, arrested by the tender expression on Quentin’s face as he stared at her with the baby. When their eyes met, a deep ache of longing swept through her, squeezing her heart almost painfully.
Glancing away, she kissed Savannah’s silky crown of curls, then gently passed her to Michael. “Here, Daddy. It’s your turn.”
As Michael and Reese resumed cooing over their daughter, Lexi and Quentin smiled softly at each other.
They left shortly afterward, promising to return the next day with the rest of the family.
On the ride home they were unusually quiet, each absorbed in their own private thoughts. When they reached Quentin’s high-rise, where they’d already agreed to spend the night together, they rode the elevator to the twentieth floor in silence.
Once inside the darkened penthouse, they removed their coats and hung them up in the foyer closet.
Their eyes met.
Without a word passing between them, Lexi took Quentin’s hand and led him upstairs to his bedroom.
They undressed each other slowly, then fell across the bed in a tangle of limbs.
Moonlight poured through the wall of windows, cascading over them as they rolled around, mouths searching, hands caressing and exploring each other’s bodies as if they hadn’t already memorized every detail.
Rising over him, Lexi pushed Quentin down to the bed and straddled him.
Gripping the thick base of his shaft, she positioned him and sank down.
She heard his breath escape in a slow hiss, heard her own moan as her inner muscles tightened around his penis.
He steadied her hips with his hands as she began to move on him.
Finding a rhythm, she let her head fall back and surrendered to her body’s instincts, rocking, riding up and down his length with long, deep strokes.
He groaned and fondled her breasts, arching his hips to meet every downward pump of hers.
They came together, shuddering and crying out each other’s names. Lexi’s heart soared as Quentin spent himself inside her, spurting liquid heat into her womb with violent pulses.
As their gazes locked, Lexi wondered if she was the only one who hoped they’d just created a new life.