The Baby Deal Read online

  Which should have made her happy.

  But somehow the sense that he was going to do that depressed her a little.

  He surprised her though. “I don’t want to go our separate ways and pretend we never met,” he told her. “I can’t do that. I don’t think I would have wanted to do that even if there wasn’t a baby and we’d met again, but now that there is a baby, it really isn’t an option.”

  There was more strength and certainty in his voice than she expected there to be. He wasn’t wavering. And not only wasn’t he accepting the out she was giving him, he was letting her know he wasn’t allowing her to brush him off, either.

  “Come on,” he said then. “A cup of coffee. Right across the street. So we can talk. That’s not a big deal.”

  “It’s late….” Delia said, still hedging, almost afraid to have coffee with him when she could feel herself succumbing to his appeal all over again. Even against her will.

  “It isn’t late. It’s not even nine-thirty,” he said insistently. “One cup of coffee. If you’re too tired to walk over, I’ll drive.”

  The coffee shop was close enough to make that suggestion funny and Delia couldn’t help smiling. She also couldn’t help giving in, despite knowing without a doubt that she shouldn’t.

  “One cup of coffee,” she said, warning him with her tone that that was the extent of what she was willing to concede to. “And I don’t need to be driven across the street. Even if I am nine years older than you are.”

  He grinned and leaned toward her as if to share a confidence. “That wasn’t an age-related remark.”

  But there were a lot of other age-related issues that Delia made a mental note to keep in mind as they headed across the street.

  When they got to the coffee shop Andrew seated her at a corner table and then went to the counter to get their beverages. As Delia sat there waiting, she felt compelled to watch him. Actually, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  He really was a striking man. Even with signs of fatigue and stress tightening his features. Tall and straight-backed, he emanated power and strength and confidence. More than she would expect of a man not even thirty yet.

  The white shirt he wore under his suitcoat was minus the tie she assumed he’d had on all day, and the collar button was unfastened, exposing a thick neck she suddenly remembered—all too well—kissing. Hot and solid, that’s the memory she had. With smooth, smooth skin…

  “Here we go,” he said as he returned to their table carrying two cups of coffee.

  Delia yanked herself out of her reverie and silently chastised herself for the direction her thoughts had wandered. Recalling anything about being with Andrew in Tahiti was forbidden—she’d decided that this morning—and she was sticking to it.

  “Thank you,” she said, glad the place was so dimly lit, because she was concerned that her very fair skin might have some kind of telltale blush to it to go with those thoughts that were off-limits to her.

  Andrew sat in the chair across from her and crossed one calf over the thigh of his other leg, grasping the calf with his right hand.

  For no reason Delia understood, her gaze went to that hand, relishing the sight of long, thick fingers, and again flashing back to the taboo of Tahiti—to that hand on her breasts, those fingers…

  Again she put effort into altering the course of her thoughts and forced her eyes and her attention back to Andrew’s face.

  “So,” she said to encourage him to say whatever it was he’d wanted to talk about over coffee, hoping to keep herself in line that way since she was failing miserably otherwise.

  “So,” he repeated, his eyebrows arching in what appeared to be lingering amazement. Tinged with perplexity. “A baby.”

  “A baby,” she parroted him this time.

  “Wow.”

  Delia just nodded.

  “Are you…healthy?”

  “Very.”

  “Do you have, I don’t know, morning sickness or anything?”

  “I’ve actually felt fine.”

  Andrew nodded this time, and Delia noticed that he had a death grip on his coffee cup as he raised it to his mouth and took a drink. And if she weren’t mistaken, he had some trouble swallowing as she sipped her decaf and watched him over the rim of her own mug.

  Then he said, “What about…emotionally? Are you all right with…a baby?”

  “I really am,” she assured without hesitation. “I admit when I first found out I was kind of knocked for a loop—”

  “Right,” he said, as if there were finally something they had in common.

  “But after a while I realized that I’m okay with it. Better than okay, I’m happy about it.”

  He nodded once more but Delia could tell it was difficult for him to identify with the concept of being happy about this situation. So she qualified it.

  “I’m older, remember? And my ’having baby’ days are numbered. So for me, after I adjusted to the idea, I decided maybe it was a good thing. Not something I’d planned, or something I would have gone out and purposely done, but since it happened anyway, I’m okay with it.”

  Andrew nodded yet again but it was obvious he still didn’t share her sentiments. “Well, that seems like a good way to look at it.”

  He did more tight-fisted coffee drinking. Then he looked her in the eye and said, “I don’t doubt the baby is mine. I know we should have used something that night and we didn’t and that’s my fault. And the timing maps out, and… Well, I’m sure you didn’t look up at me unexpectedly last night and instantly figure there’s somebody to pin it on.”

  Delia’s expression must have shown her negative reaction to what he was saying because he put both big hands up, palms outward, as if to stop something, and said, “I’m sorry. That sounded bad and I didn’t mean for it to. I’m just… I’ve had a lot of shocks and changes in the last two days. And no sleep. I’m not firing on all burners. I’m just trying to say that I know that you aren’t the kind of person who would say the baby was mine if it wasn’t.”

  “Actually, you don’t know what kind of person I am. But no, that isn’t something I would do. I have no reason to.”

  “And since I’m not questioning that it’s mine, I want to do what I’m morally obligated to do. I want to marry you.”

  Delia laughed. Not because what he’d said had been humorous, but out of reflex because it was so absolutely ludicrous. “Excuse me?”

  “I want to marry you,” he said again and Delia had the mental image of someone holding a gun to his back.

  “Because you want to do what you’re morally obligated to do,” she repeated his words.

  “Right.”

  “Just the kind of proposal every woman longs for,”

  she said sarcastically.

  “And the answer is…”

  “No,” she responded as if it were ridiculous to expect any other answer. “Not on your life. Not in a million years. Never. No way. Not a chance.”

  “Did you want to take a minute to think it over?” he deadpanned with a half smile.

  “You really do need sleep. And maybe a psychiatrist if you’re seriously suggesting we get married,” Delia told him. “Why on earth would we do that?”

  “It is something people do. Particularly people who are going to have a baby.”

  “Maybe in some cases, but you and I? We don’t even know each other. And I don’t need to be made an honest woman of. I’m not going to be shunned or thrown out of the tribe or ostracized or stoned or branded or something. This isn’t the Dark Ages. I don’t need or want anything from you. Marta is already on-board as my birth coach. Kyle and Janine will come out for the occasion, and between them and Marta and Henry, I’ll have plenty of help for as long as I need it after the baby is here. And from then on, I had every intention of doing this myself before last night. Nothing has changed because you and I just happened to meet up again. Certainly you don’t have any moral obligations or any other kind of obligations to me.”


  “Okay, I’ve made you mad. I’m sorry. I know I’m not doing this right.”

  “You don’t need to do this at all. I’m sure you mean well, but the truth is, having and raising one baby on my own is better than raising two babies at once—the one I deliver in six months and the one who fathered it—”

  Delia hadn’t meant that to sound quite as harsh as it had, and the fact that her words made Andrew draw back, as if he’d been struck, stalled them.

  He inclined his head and breathed a wry sort of sigh. “Two hits on good old Andrew in one day. First from my brother and now from you. Somebody must have declared it open season on me and not sounded the alert.”

  Delia didn’t know what he was talking about but she took a few deep breaths to calm herself before she said, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. All I’m trying to say, is that you can relax. You’re not on the hook here. You wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t accidentally crossed paths again and there’s no reason that should change now—”

  “What if I want it to change?”

  In spite of what he said, Delia didn’t have the sense that there was much conviction behind it.

  “You’re young, Andrew. Younger than I had any idea you were in Tahiti. I can see that you aren’t ready for this, while I, on the other hand, am. I’m ready financially, emotionally and in every other way there is. I’m ready to have this baby, to raise it, to love it and cherish it and be thrilled that I’ve been given it. So there’s no reason for you to do what you aren’t ready for.”

  Delia stood then, wanting to show him through her actions as well as what she was telling him, that he genuinely was off the hook. “Forget we ever met in Tahiti or again here. Forget my name. Forget I even live in Chicago. Go on with your life and I’ll go on with mine, and we’ll both be better for it.”

  She walked to the door of the coffee shop then and had to pause for two couples to enter.

  By the time she got outside, Andrew was there behind her.

  “What if I don’t want to forget you and everything else? What if I think that we’re having a baby together and we should do it together? What if I want to be a part of that?”

  Delia barely glanced up at him as she headed back across the street to the Meals Like Mom’s parking lot. “What if I think this is just some kind of grand gesture that’s coming out of a misguided notion that it’s what you’re supposed to do when the truth is, you don’t want to be a father at all?” she countered.

  “The truth is, you don’t know what the truth is because you don’t know me any better than I know you. So you can’t know whether or not I’m ready for this or might be dying to be a father.”

  Delia couldn’t suppress a small smile at that. “I know enough to know you aren’t dying to be a father,” she said with full confidence.

  They’d reached their cars by then and Andrew insinuated himself between her and the driver’s side door, requiring her to look up at his face. “You don’t know any more about me than I know about you,” he said again. “You can’t. And maybe that’s really where we need to start.”

  “We don’t need to start anything, anywhere,” Delia insisted.

  “We’ve already started a whole new human being,” he pointed out with a glance downward at her midsection that, for no reason Delia understood, sent a little thrill through her.

  Then he continued. “If you won’t agree to marry me now, then at least agree to give me a chance. Say you’ll spend some time with me, that you’ll let us get to know each other, that you’ll think about going from here.”

  From here to nowhere, Delia thought.

  It seemed obvious to her that what she’d said in the coffee shop had provoked him. That he’d taken it as some kind of challenge. A throwing down of the gauntlet. A gauntlet that he was now determined to pick up. Probably because he was so young. But she felt certain that any course set only to meet some imagined challenge to his manhood would be shortlived.

  Still, if agreeing to see him was what it would take for him to give up the ghost on this, then it occurred to her that maybe that’s what she should do. That maybe if they did get to know each other some, they could even reach a more realistic approach to whatever role Andrew might decide he wanted to have in the baby’s life in the future. And that maybe that would be better for all three of them.

  “All right,” she conceded with a weary sigh.

  “All right, on second consideration you will marry me? Or all right, you’ll spend some time with me, getting to know me?”

  “Some time,” she qualified.

  “And you’ll do it with an open mind,” he said as if he’d been reading hers and knew she was only humoring him because she didn’t honestly believe anything substantial would come of it.

  “With an open mind,” she repeated.

  He smiled down at her. “That’s all I need,” he said with another show of that confidence and charm that had been so appealing in him from the start.

  Unable to contain it, Delia returned his smile. “Can I go home now? It’s been a long day.”

  He nodded but his dark eyes held her there in spite of it as if he were seeing her for the first time. And enjoying the sight.

  Then, in a tone of voice that was very like what had gotten her out onto the beach with him that night in Tahiti, he said, “You know, I had no idea you were any older than I am. I even thought I had a year or two on you. So if we’re going to forget anything, let’s forget the age thing, huh?”

  “I doubt I’ll be able to do that,” Delia confessed.

  “Try,” he urged in little more than a sexy whisper.

  Then he leaned forward only slightly.

  It may have been nothing but an alteration of posture. But still it flashed through Delia’s head that he was going to kiss her. And she got out of the line of fire in a hurry.

  “But we aren’t in Tahiti anymore and now everything is different. Now we’re in the real world,” she warned in a way that could have been only referring to the difference in their ages, or could also have let him know there would be no kissing—or anything else—if that’s what had been on his agenda.

  But if kissing had been on his agenda he gave no indication of it and again said, “Try,” as if they were still only addressing the age issue.

  Then he slid away from her door so she could unlock it.

  He opened it for her when she had, holding it as she got in.

  Which she did. Fast.

  Because suddenly she couldn’t stop recalling kisses she’d allowed from him before the one she thought she might have just shunned. Kisses she’d participated in.

  And how great they’d been…

  “I’ll be in touch,” he promised.

  For the second time Delia merely nodded, half wondering if he actually would be in touch.

  And half imagining him really touching her.

  Really kissing her.

  And really doing more to her.

  More that she had to struggle to keep from fantasizing about the entire drive home.

  Chapter Six

  “I am so, so, so, so sorry!”

  Delia hadn't been in her office on Wednesday morning long enough to put her purse in her desk drawer when Marta came in, closed the door and fell back against it to relay her apology. It was the sixth one since Monday night when her slip of the tongue about the wine had revealed Delia's pregnancy to Andrew, his brother and the advertising executive at their dinner meeting.

  The first apology had been in a message from Marta on Delia's answering machine by the time she'd arrived home Monday night. But it had been too late for Delia to return the call without waking Henry, so she'd refrained.

  Tuesdays were always busy days for both Delia and Marta. Delia spent her time at the kitchens, while Marta was also away from the office at the transportation center to deal with matters there. They almost never had contact with each other on a Tuesday. This week Marta had called five times—with more contrite messages—throughout the day
and evening. But Delia's cell phone battery had been dead and when she'd finally collected all the messages and called Marta back, Marta had been away from her own phone so Delia could only leave her a message.

  Apparently Marta had made sure to get in early enough this morning to be watching for Delia, though, so they could finally connect.

  “I know you said in your message that you aren't furious with me, but are you sure you don't want to just kill me?” Marta continued before Delia had the chance to respond. “I wouldn't blame you if you did. Or if you wanted to disown me or fire me or never see me again as long as you live.”

  With a laugh, Delia put her purse away, sat in the leather chair behind her desk and finally said, “I'm not furious with you and I don't want to do any of those other things, either. You know better than that.”

  Marta pushed away from the door and crossed to the visitor's chairs, wilting into one of them. “I couldn't believe it when the words came out of my mouth. Of all the stupid things to do—mention the pregnancy with Andrew there. And Andrew! Did you have any idea at all that he would be there?”

  “How would I have had any idea? I didn't even know Jack Hanson's brother's name was Andrew, let alone that he was the Andrew from Tahiti,” Delia answered.

  “Did you just about pass out when you saw him?”

  “Just about.”

  “Me, too. What are the odds?”

  “It was pretty amazing,” Delia agreed.

  “But still, shocked or not shocked, I should never—ever—have opened my big mouth about the baby in front of him.”

  “Actually, he didn't put two and two together. I ended up telling him myself. So you didn't really do any damage. I could have said just about anything and he would never have questioned it.”

  Marta's face showed her disbelief. “It didn't occur to him that the baby was his?”

  Delia shook her head. “No. I thought he had figured it out, too, but he hadn't. He didn't have even an inkling that it's his.”

  “Seriously?”