something had happened. The second Dr. Greenberg had said she was pregnant, Julie’s heart had nearly burst with joy. She’d never much thought about having children. They had been far in her future. Yet knowing there was a life growing inside of her had changed everything. In that moment, she’d suddenly felt her life had meaning and purpose, which theoretically it had had before, but not in such a big way.
A baby. No, a miracle.
He braced his arms on the table and leaned toward her. “No,” he said clearly. “I will be a father to my child.”
Great. Because morning sickness wasn’t enough of a hassle. “You don’t have to do this to look good. No one needs to know.”
His dark gaze locked with hers. “I will be a father to my child,” he said again, his voice low and forceful. “I want to.”
He looked good. Too good. She hated that she still found him tempting. She wanted to lean toward him as well, so their mouths were close. She wanted to breathe in the scent of him and touch him and be touched. She wanted him to make the bad parts of their last time together go away so they could have the good parts again and again.
“Obviously we’ll have to work something out,” she said calmly so he wouldn’t guess what she’d been thinking. “As I’m less than a month along, we have time to deal with all this.”
She rose and pulled a business card out of her jacket pocket. She’d put it there earlier and had written her home number on the back. Of course she’d hoped he would agree to walk away from the child, but based on how her luck was going lately, it hadn’t seemed likely.
She held out the card.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You have nothing else to say? Nothing else you want to talk about?”
She set her card on the table and shrugged. “There isn’t anything else. I’m pregnant. That’s for me to deal with. When there’s a child, you can get involved. Between now and then, I suppose we’ll talk.”
“You mean I’ll call and you’ll ignore my messages.”
She thought about the times he’d phoned her office. “I won’t ignore them this time.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
She picked up her purse. “I’m not the one who lies.”
“Are you ever going to let that go?”
“No.”
He took a step toward her. “Julie, we’re having a baby together. You have to forgive me sometime.”
“Actually, I don’t,” she said, then turned on her heel and left.
Six
Ryan spent the afternoon in his office, not working.
Pregnant. He knew he’d been there and he knew what had happened, but it still seemed impossible that a single night could produce a baby.
Todd walked in and slumped on the leather sofa by the window.
“So what did she want?” he asked, then shook his head. “No, wait. I want to guess. She’s forgiven all and desperately wants to be with you.”
“Did she act like either of those was true?”
Todd shrugged. “She was mad, sure, but was it real or an act? Come on. We’ve seen it all. Some of them are better than others.”
At one time Ryan would have agreed with his cousin. Recently he’d become convinced there weren’t any honest women left. But he’d been wrong.
“She’s pregnant.”
Todd straightened and stared at him. Then he swore and flopped back on the sofa. “You’re totally screwed,” he said glumly. “Doesn’t it just figure. She wins in the end.”
“No one’s winning,” Ryan said. “We’re dealing. She asked me if I wanted to sign away rights.”
“And in return she’d ask you for nothing?” Todd shook his head. “I won’t believe it until I see the paperwork myself.”
“I told her no.”
“Of course you did.”
“This isn’t what I would have planned, but now that it’s happened …” He didn’t know what to say. In truth, the thought of a kid of his own was appealing.
Todd frowned. “Don’t go all father and son on me.”
“I wouldn’t mind a daughter.”
Todd groaned.
Ryan grinned. “Look at the bright side. I read somewhere that a child gets most of its intelligence from the mother. Julie’s bright enough that her kid could grow up to save the world.”
“You need saving right now. You barely know this woman and now you’re having a baby with her? If she offered you an out, you need to think about taking it.”
“No.”
“Look what happened last time.”
“This is different. I won’t be a stepfather. I’ll be involved from the beginning. We’ll make decisions together.”
“You sure about that?”
“Julie has every right to be pissed at me.”
“I don’t agree but we’ll go with it,” Todd said. “Fine. She’s pissed and are you so sure she’ll get over it? Or play straight with you? Are you even sure the kid is yours?”
Ryan stared at his cousin. “Have you always been such a cynical bastard?”
“We both are.”
“Not anymore.”
“No way.” Todd rested one ankle on the opposite knee. “You can’t tell me this changes anything. You met her, you liked her, you obviously slept with her, which I’ll now point out you didn’t tell me.”
“It didn’t seem relevant.”
“All evidence to the contrary. You have no way of knowing who she was with the night or week before she met you. Okay, sure, assume it’s yours, but protect yourself, Ryan. It makes sense.”
It did make sense, he thought. The thing was, he knew it wasn’t necessary. Something in his gut told him that Julie was telling the truth.
“Maybe she planned this,” Todd said. “Maybe she set the whole thing up.”
“Right. She arranged to reconcile with a grandmother she didn’t know she had, confident Ruth would insist one of the sisters go out on a date
