Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Three weeks after the anatomy scan, Evan invited Abby to his office. The second hospital had completed its security review, and the team planned to mark the signed contract with drinks and dinner on Friday evening.
“You should come,” he said while they waited for the diner server to divide their check. “You listened to me complain about the contract for two months, so you qualify for the more pleasant part.”
Abby looked at the bill, holding it out of his reach as he put out his hand.
They had begun taking turns paying after she objected to his habit of reaching for every check, and tonight was hers.
“My turn tonight. Do your employees know who I am?” she asked as she slid her card beneath the receipt.
“I don’t want to walk into a room where everyone knows Makayla and has been told nothing about me. ”
“Some of them met Makayla.” Evan folded his hands on the table. “They know the engagement ended, but I haven’t discussed why.”
“Then how would you introduce me?” Abby asked as the server collected her card. “I’m not trying to make this difficult. I’d rather know before I get there.”
“As my friend, Abby.” Evan held her gaze without hesitation. “That’s what you are, right? My friend. If anyone asks a question that isn’t their business, I’ll tell them so.”
Friend was accurate. The word should have settled the question, but Abby had become increasingly aware of how much of her week she organized around seeing him and how inadequate the word friend felt.
She had caught herself buying the coffee he preferred because it was on sale, then leaving it in her pantry for eleven days because giving it to him seemed more significant than purchasing it. The bag still stood behind her own coffee, evidence of a decision she had not examined closely.
“All right,” she said as the server returned her card. “What do people wear to a technology-company celebration?”
“Whatever they wore to work.” Evan slid out of the booth and reached for his coat. “One of the engineers has been wearing the same sweatshirt since Monday, so the standard is flexible.”
“That does not help me.” Abby stood more slowly, adjusting to the weight that seemed to pull her forward now. “I have a limited stock of maternity clothes, most of which make me look as if I’m going to a garden party.”
Evan waited while she collected her purse. “Wear something comfortable.”
“You’re very bad at this.” Abby stepped into the aisle and looked up at him. “I’m asking what would allow me to enter the room without feeling overdressed or underdressed.”
He considered the question with the seriousness he gave a funding problem. “A dress or trousers you would wear to dinner. Nothing formal.”
“That is an answer.” Abby walked beside him toward the door. “You should have started there.”
The following Friday, Abby changed clothes four times. She rejected one dress because the waistband made sitting uncomfortable, another because the fabric clung too closely, and a third because it made her look like Mrs. Doubtfire.
She eventually chose a dark green wrap dress she had bought the week before. The color made her skin look warmer, and the soft fabric followed the curve of her stomach without attempting to hide it.
Abby stood before the mirror longer than the decision required. She had spent the first half of pregnancy dressing to avoid attention, as though looking attractive while pregnant and newly single might imply an intention she did not have.
The dress did not change her intentions. It allowed her to recognize herself in a body that had become unfamiliar.
Evan’s company occupied the fourth floor of a converted warehouse near the river. The elevator opened into a bright room of exposed brick, long tables, and glass-walled offices arranged around a central workspace. People moved between the tables with paper plates and glasses of wine.
Evan stood near a wall-mounted screen speaking with a gray-haired man in a blazer. He wore dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, and the absence of his usual sweater changed him more than Abby expected.
His shoulders appeared broader beneath the shirt. When he turned at the sound of the elevator, his attention found Abby almost immediately.
The conversation beside him continued for several seconds before he answered. Abby watched him lose the thread, recover it, and excuse himself.
“You found the building,” he said as he approached. “The entrance is easy to miss from the street.”
“I walked past it once.” Abby adjusted the strap of her purse when his gaze moved over her dress and returned to her face. “You should put the company name on the door.”
“The landlord has rules about signs.” Evan stopped a few feet from her. “You look beautiful.”
The compliment was quiet and direct. Abby felt heat rise along her neck before she could decide how to receive it.
“Thank you.” She glanced at his rolled sleeves and open collar, then forced herself to meet his eyes again. “You look different without the sweater.”
Evan looked down at his shirt as if he had forgotten what he was wearing. “The office became warm.”
“That wasn’t criticism.” Abby shifted her purse higher on her shoulder. “The shirt looks good.”
Something passed through his expression before a woman called his name from across the room. Evan stepped aside and gestured toward the tables.
“Let me introduce you before I’m pulled into another conversation.” He kept his hands at his sides as they walked. “There’s food near the windows, and everything containing alcohol has a label.”
He introduced her to the engineers, product designers, and hospital liaison whose names Abby recognized from his stories. None of them asked about Makayla, though several exchanged quick looks when Evan described Abby as his friend.
A tall woman with Evan’s dark hair approached carrying two plates. She looked from Evan to Abby, and recognition softened her face.
“You must be Abby,” she said as she transferred both plates to one hand. “I’m Alexa, Evan’s sister.”
“I’ve heard about you.” Abby accepted the hand Alexa offered. “Evan said you helped him find the first office.”
“I found the second office.” Alexa handed one plate to her brother. “The first one was a room above a tax preparer with a radiator that never turned off.”
“The rent was low,” Evan said as he took the plate. “We needed three desks and an address.”
Alexa looked toward Abby. “He worked there for fourteen months and claimed the heat helped the computers run faster. I assume he knew that made no sense, but he wanted me to stop complaining.”
“The computers ran normally.” Evan examined the food on his plate. “That was the relevant measure.”
The exchange carried the ease of an argument repeated many times. Abby smiled and accepted a glass of sparkling water from a passing employee.
“How are you feeling?” Alexa asked as she glanced toward Abby’s stomach. “Evan said the baby is healthy, but he didn’t share anything else.”
“I’m almost twenty-three weeks, and she kicks most evenings.” Abby rested one hand against the side of her dress. “My back hurts by four, but the nausea is mostly gone.”
“A girl.” Alexa’s smile widened, though she did not reach toward Abby. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Abby looked toward Evan, who had become occupied by someone asking about a server problem. “He was at the scan when we found out.”
Alexa followed her gaze. “He told me.”
The detail should not have surprised Abby. Evan and Alexa appeared close, and the scan had affected him even if he spoke about it carefully.
“Hudson was late,” Abby said. “I didn’t want to finish alone.”
“Then I’m glad Evan was there.” Alexa picked up a napkin from the table. “He worries about becoming useful in a way that gives people no room to say no.”
Abby thought of every question Evan repeated before stepping closer: Do you want me here? Do you want me to stay? Are you sure? She had sometimes wondered whether the caution came from discomfort with her pregnancy or uncertainty about their friendship.
“He gives me room,” Abby said. “More than I’m used to.”
Alexa studied her for a moment but did not pursue the answer. “He’s been sleeping more since you became friends. I’m grateful to anyone who can persuade him to leave this building before midnight.”
“I don’t persuade him.” Abby looked toward Evan as he leaned over a laptop with two engineers. “We eat dinner once a week.”
“He schedules around it.” Alexa lifted one shoulder. “For Evan, that is a meaningful distinction.”
Before Abby could respond, the gray-haired man in the blazer called everyone toward the screen. Evan took a place near the front while the employees gathered with their glasses.
He spoke for less than five minutes. He thanked the team by name, identified the work each department had completed, and described the signed contract without pretending the company’s remaining risks had disappeared.
Abby had heard him discuss the same project across diner tables and among unpacked boxes, but she had never seen twenty people turn toward him for direction.
He did not charm the room the way Hudson would have.
Evan’s authority came from understanding every difficult detail and refusing to claim work that belonged to someone else.
When the applause began, his eyes moved through the crowd and found Abby near the window. He held her gaze for a second before looking toward Alexa.
Awareness moved through Abby with enough force to make her shift her weight. She had known Evan was intelligent and dependable, but seeing the company around him revealed the scale of what he had built.
The attraction she had refused to name arrived without ambiguity. Abby wanted him. The realization carried fear beside it.
She turned toward the window and watched traffic move along the river. Wanting Evan threatened the boundaries that had made their friendship safe, and she did not know whether the feeling was shared by him or existed only because he had been kind when her life collapsed.