you agree,” Ethan said, again catching her gaze. “I have to tell you that if this is going to work we’ll also have to make everyone believe we’re a love match. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to fawn all over you, or that I’ll expect you to be my wife for real and forever. But it does mean that we’ll have to pretend to be in love for the general public, including my parents, and that you’ll need to move to Atlanta with me until after the baby is born. We’ll wait a month or two after that to make everything seem legitimate then we’ll quietly divorce.”
Savannah swallowed hard. “I need to move to Atlanta?”
“Yes. It’s where I live. It’s where you lived until two years ago. We worked together. It won’t be a stretch for people to believe we had a relationship.”
Overwhelmed with facts and possibilities, most of them bad, Savannah drew a long breath. “If I marry you, does this mean you won’t fight me for custody?”
“If you marry me I won’t fight you for custody, but visitation is an entirely different thing. I don’t want to be a weekend dad. I will be a big part of this child’s life.”
Well, the cards were on the table, Savannah thought, not entirely pleased, but at least relieved that Ethan wouldn’t take away her basic right as a mother. She knew she could probably use the marriage as further leverage to push him into some kind of visitation agreement right now, but she also recognized that she had more immediate concerns.
She couldn’t handle a cub reporter on a good day. Even though leaving her bed-and-breakfast posed an enormous problem for her, if only because she had bookings, getting her friends to take over for a few months was easier than defending her brother, herself and her baby in the court of public opinion.
She also had to take a share of the responsibility for Barry’s forgery and theft because she had made him promise she would get a good father for her baby. She had to take some responsibility for that, too.
Ethan again squeezed her fingers gently. “Savannah, I didn’t expect you to answer today. But I will need an answer first thing tomorrow.”
Glad to have a reprieve to think this through, Savannah tried to smile, but failed miserably. “Okay.”
“Just remember that the longer you take to decide the less possible this scheme becomes,” he said quietly. He studied her, then rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “Today, the clinic and a handful of police know. By tomorrow night, you can add a hundred people to that list. This time next week, you can add millions. But with the right word from me, I can have that police report filed away or destroyed as if it never existed.”
“What about the people at the sperm bank?”
Ethan smiled. “Since I could sue the clinic into bankruptcy for this, once I tell the owner I’m not pressing charges, a smart man would shove the paperwork so far back in the corner of his filing cabinet that it would never again see the light of day. Even if one of the employees sold the story to a tabloid, with that paperwork ‘lost’ there would be nothing to back it up and we could easily deny it.
“But if we let another twenty-four hours go by,” Ethan continued, “then this window of opportunity is gone because too many people will know the truth. You need to agree before seven tomorrow morning or all bets are off.”
Savannah nodded.
“Okay. I’m going to let you alone now to think about this because I can tell by looking at you that you’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
His voice softened marginally and Savannah recognized that though he was pushing her into making a huge decision, he was doing it gently, like a man taking care of her. Only then did it fully register that he was still sitting beside her, holding her hand. And only then did the knowledge that she was pregnant with his child completely sink in. Her body flushed as the heat of embarrassment spiraled through her. Though they hadn’t been physically “intimate” with each other, they were none the less sharing the most intimate experience any two people could share. Together they had created a child, a child who was growing inside her.
Savannah felt strange and awkward and suddenly faint.
Grateful that he was leaving, she cautiously slid her hand from his and took a slow breath before she said, “You’re right. I’ve had so much news in the past twelve hours that I need time to digest at least some of it before I can make this decision.”
“You rest then,” he said, rising. “And I’ll be back early tomorrow morning.”
Savannah nodded and rose from the sofa, too. As she did she noticed the way the lamplight glistened off Ethan’s shiny black hair. Though she didn’t want to be making these kinds of observations, she realized that her child could look exactly like him. He or she might have Ethan’s eyes and Ethan’s hair. Their baby could have his brains and his talent, or, better yet, their baby could really be somebody important like Ethan’s father….
Reminded of the prominence of Ethan’s family, the queasy feeling in her stomach turned into full-fledged nausea. She had just been asked to marry the son of a man who might become the next vice president of the United States. Worse, he was one of the most eligible bachelors in the world because he wasn’t merely rich, he was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. She’d noticed before, of course. She would have been blind not to, but working with him and being married to him were two different things.
“We will be getting divorced, right?”
“As soon as reasonably possible after the baby’s born,” Ethan agreed, walking to the door. “But that gives us time to talk about visitation.”
Ethan smiled at her and Savannah returned his smile, but Ethan didn’t for one second believe she was okay with all this. Which suited him just fine because he wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was okay with it, either. In fact, having her wary rather than excited at the prospect of becoming his wife was actually a point in her favor. He meant it when he said he didn’t think she had any knowledge of this scheme to use his sperm, but now that the baby had been created, he had to take steps to ensure she didn’t get any crazy ideas. Like blackmail. The shy, sweet paralegal he worked with two years ago would never think to use his child as a ploy to get money but he wasn’t so sure about the new Savannah he had found here this evening.
She didn’t even look like the woman he remembered. Instead of having short unruly red hair, she now had long tresses that cascaded all around her so that the riot of curls was flattering, not disheveled. Though her pregnancy concealed it, she must have lost some weight because her face was thinner…prettier. She wasn’t wearing an ounce of makeup, yet she looked beautiful in a way she never had when she worked at Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods. The past two years had matured her into an absolutely stunning woman.
A stunning woman swollen with his child, Ethan thought, then swallowed hard. She wasn’t merely a beautiful woman to whom he would be attracted if circumstances were different, she was somebody he had worked with, a wonderfully innocent woman he had liked and respected, and the baby she carried was his. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to forget that this situation had repercussions and allow himself to tumble headfirst into the magic of becoming a parent. He wanted to bask in the knowledge that finally—after thirty-five years—he was about to become a father!
But he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t entirely sure how this situation was going to play out. So he had to be ready for whenever Savannah decided to make her move….
Still
