nodded and loosened his tie. He’d worn a proper suit to the meeting. His jacket was already gone, though. But he never remained in professional attire for too long, routinely discarding what he considered the stuffy portions of his wardrobe. Only, at the moment, his restless nature seemed even more pronounced.
He said, “No one has come to me to talk about it.”
“Why would they? You’re the boss.”
“Who knocked up his assistant? I’ll bet they think I took full advantage of you.” He frowned. “I didn’t do that, did I, Carol?”
The guilt in his eyes unnerved her. “No, you didn’t, and me getting pregnant doesn’t change the facts. I wanted you as badly as you wanted me.” She’d made him well aware of that when they were in the midst of it, and she wasn’t going to let him twist things up now. “Even Kristen said that she suspected I was attracted to you.”
“Really? I guess women are observant that way. Of course, with the way she admires you, she would notice, I guess.” He removed his tie and crammed it in his pants pocket. “I’m glad you’re back. I missed having you around here.”
“You’re probably going to be seeing a lot of me outside of the office, too.”
“Yeah.” He smiled a little. “I’ve been trying to picture you months from now.” He made a big-belly motion. “I’ve never touched a pregnant woman’s stomach before.”
Would he be touching hers? The thought made her weak. “I have. Lots of my girlfriends have kids.”
“Have you told any of them yet?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to wait until everyone at work knew. I wanted to get that over with first.” She questioned him. “Have you told Garrett or Max?”
“No. Max is still backpacking all over the country or whatever the hell he’s doing. And since he’s trying to stay off the grid, I’m going to wait to call him until the time feels right. But I’m going to tell Garrett this weekend. I already told him that you were sick, so now I can clarify why.”
“I wonder what he’ll think.”
“After he gets over the initial shock, he’ll probably want to kick my ass for not being more careful.”
“It could have happened to anyone.”
“Yeah, but it happened to me. The guy who plays around. That won’t go over well.” He shoved the tie deeper into his pocket. “Are you nervous about telling your friends?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t deny that her news was going to worry them, too. “They’re not going to like the idea of me being a single mom, not with how marriage-minded I’ve always been.”
“I’m sorry, Carol.”
For insisting that he couldn’t marry her? “It’s not a problem.” She’d agreed with his reasoning from the beginning. “I know better than to think that having a baby is going to turn us into a lifelong couple.”
“I wonder if it’s going to be a boy or a girl.”
“It’s too early to tell. But we can find out during a midpregnancy ultrasound, if we want to know. They can’t always tell for sure, though. It depends on the position the baby is in.”
He kept looking at her, almost as if she was still his warm and willing lover. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
She shuffled a stack of papers on her desk, wishing he would stop intensifying their chemistry, especially when she was struggling to ignore it. “We have a lot of bridges to cross.”
“Too many,” he said, before he moved toward the door. “Do you want me to grab you some lunch later?”
Normally she got his lunch, if he wasn’t dining out with clients. “No, thanks. But it was nice of you to ask.”
“Okay, well... I’ll see you.”
“You, too.” Was it crazy for her to wish that they were right for each other? That he was a different type of man than he was? Probably. But she couldn’t help it.
Somewhere in the pit of her dreamy soul, Carol wished that they were meant to be together like expectant parents should be.
Jake met with Garrett on the boardwalk located near the resort. They sat on a bright white bench, in front of a gourmet coffee shop that faced the ocean.
With as much strength as Jake could muster, he told his foster brother about the baby. As expected, the conversation wasn’t going in his favor.
“It just happened,” Jake said in his own defense.
“Earthquakes just happen. Tidal waves just happen.” Garrett gestured to the water as if it was going to rise up like a monster and swallow them whole. “But getting your assistant pregnant? That could’ve been prevented.”
Jake used the only excuse he could think of. “The condoms failed.”
“You know that wasn’t what I meant.”
“Yeah, I know.” Clearly, Garrett was suggesting that he should’ve never taken Carol to bed. “But I’m already a mess over it. So I’d prefer not to have you jumping all over me, too.”
“I’m sorry, bro. I don’t want to make this more difficult for you. But it’s just that you got yourself into something major here. And Carol is a nice girl who shouldn’t be left holding the bag.”
“I’m trying to do right by her and the baby. I’m going to set them up in a place in my neighborhood and be there when they need me.” Jake watched a family playing on the beach. The youngest kid was a fair-haired toddler, a rough-and-tumble boy squirming in his mom’s arms. “I don’t really know how, though. To be there, I mean.”
“Just give it some time. You’ll learn.”
“I hope so. I want to keep her and the baby safe.” He kept watching the family. The older kids were running toward the shore with their paddleboards, and the little one remained on his mom’s lap; only now, he was playing with a red plastic bucket his dad had given him.
Garrett said, “Life takes some strange turns.”
“Boy, does it ever.” Being at the beach was making Jake miss the romance he’d had with Carol. But getting reinvolved with her in that way would only complicate things further. “I wonder if I should invite her to stay with me until we find her a house. Not as my lover or anything,” he clarified. “But just so I can get more familiar with her pregnancy. So I can be part of it, too.”
Garrett encouraged him. “That sounds like a solid idea to me.”
“Maybe I’ll take her on a picnic or something tomorrow and we can talk about it then.” Unless she had plans on Sunday. He didn’t have a clue what Carol did with her free time. “It’s hard to say how she’ll feel
