Читать книгу A Baby Between Them - C.J. Carmichael - Страница 8

“YOU DIDN’T KNOW?” Rae’s voice, usually so strong and confident, gave out in a squeak at the end of her question.

Aidan couldn’t find the words to answer her. He was in shock. Her belly was huge. Enormous. She looked as though she was ready to pop at any second. He tore his gaze from her middle and gave the rest of her a closer look. In contrast with her belly, her arms and legs seemed abnormally skinny. Once, she’d had curves in all the right places. Now, her curves were definitely in all the wrong places.

“Rae, when did this happen?”

She placed her hands, covered in quilted oven mitts, on her hips. “You know damn well when it happened. Eight months ago, in that stupid hotel room in Philadelphia where we were supposed to be preparing our presentation for the Triumph merger.”

He covered his face with one hand. Groaned. Eight months… Yes, that took them right back to the night he’d spent with her. He’d known then that he was making a mistake. But he’d had no idea just what a whopper it would turn out to be.

“Why haven’t I heard about this? You never called.”

Her gaze focused in on him like a laser beam. “You made it perfectly clear my calls weren’t welcome when you banished me to Pittsburgh.”

“Banished? That was a promotion, Rae.” Holding out his hand, he ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “You got more money, more responsibility, a step up the corporate ladder.”

Rae shook her head, releasing more strands of wild, dark hair from her loose ponytail. “Sure, Aidan. And you didn’t have to go to work every day and face the woman you’d made the mistake of sleeping with. Be honest and admit the truth. You sent me to Pittsburgh to get rid of me.”

Her words infuriated him and he had to struggle to reply calmly. “Not true.”

“If you weren’t trying to avoid me, then why did you stop making monthly visits to Pittsburgh once I was made divisional VP?”

“I trusted you to handle the job.”

“Oh, really? And the switch from the conference phone calls you used to make to divisional VPs to group e-mails—that must have been another example of your great trust? It wasn’t because you didn’t want to hear the sound of my voice?”

“You’re reading too much into all that. And forgetting how busy I’ve been, with Harrison out of the office so much….”

Since he’d married Justine, Harrison had started working eleven months of the year from here on Summer Island. It had fallen on Aidan, who’d been promoted and given a huge raise, to fill in the gaps.

“Right.” She looked at him scornfully. “You’ve been busy. You haven’t been avoiding face time with the employee you screwed. And when I say ‘screwed,’ of course I’m speaking literally and figuratively.”

Aidan paced to the far corner of the room. He needed space to think. He needed to be calm and rational. But every time he looked at Rae’s enormous belly he felt as if he was about to have a panic attack.

Focus on something else for a minute. In front of him, the Kincaid china cabinet was filled with French Provincial serving dishes, teapots, ornaments. He felt like smashing the lot of them.

So much for calm and rational.

He turned to face Rae again. “What were you expecting me to do? We shouldn’t have slept together. It was a mistake and we both should have known better.” He let out a huge sigh of exasperation. “Because of my position of authority, I recognize that I shoulder the majority of the blame.”

She blinked and her head jerked back a little, as if he’d slapped her.

What had he said wrong this time? Surely she couldn’t deny that what they’d done had been ill-advised, to say the very least.

“Look, we’re two ambitious people, who in a moment of weakness…” He paused, remembering that moment of weakness, and how truly incredible it had seemed at the time. That night he’d wanted her so badly that he hadn’t cared about consequences. About any consequences. For the first time in his life he’d been so carried away that he hadn’t used a condom.

He hadn’t even asked if she was protected. Which, clearly, she hadn’t been.

“Rae, even if you think I’m the biggest jerk in the world…”

“Sounds about right.”

He decided to ignore that. “I still deserved to be told you were pregnant.”

“Really? Why?”

Her answer stunned him. “Because I’m the father.”

“So what? You contributed the sperm. Big deal.” With her hands still covered in protective mitts, she picked up the pan and tipped the loaf of bread on it into the trash. “This smell is making me sick. Or maybe it’s you. I’m not sure.”

Fighting words, again. But throwing insults back and forth wasn’t accomplishing anything. Aidan tried to see her side of the situation. “You’ve been through a lot. Maybe you’ve got reason to be upset with me. But at least you could have told me. Given me a chance.”

“A chance to do what, Aidan? Marry me?” She took off the oven mitts. Tossed them to the counter, as if she were issuing some kind of challenge.

“Is that what you want?” he asked quietly.

“Jesus, Aidan!” she exploded again. “I don’t even like you anymore. Why would I want to marry you?”

Okay, that hurt. But why? Wasn’t this exactly the real reason he’d sent her away? So that their feelings for each other might cool to a point where they’d be able to continue their professional relationship without the risk of messy emotional entanglement?

“As the father, I have responsibilities. At the very minimum, there will be support payments.” He pictured years and years of tidy monthly bills, and the thought of this obligation—which he was certainly capable of following through on—calmed him somewhat.

Rae crossed to the closest of the windows and opened it, allowing a fresh breeze into the room. Leaning her forehead against the frame, she fixed her attention on the ocean.

For a moment, Aidan admired the beauty of the woman. Rae had strong, compelling features, with thick, dark hair, rosy cheeks and a lush, wide mouth. Since the day he’d met her, he’d been attracted to Rae. Then, she’d been lean and fit, with small, high breasts and a curvy bottom he couldn’t tear his gaze from. Now, he was surprised to find that her new shape held a certain fascination for him, too.

He was so focused on the picture she made, outlined against the bright sunlight outside, that he almost missed her next words.

“This baby won’t need your support payments, Aidan.”

He took a moment to process that. “I know you earn a good living and you’re capable of handling everything on your own. But I can’t let you. It isn’t right. I’ll pay my share. And I want to be involved in other ways, too.”

That last bit startled him, as much as it obviously surprised Rae. She turned to him, her dark eyes narrowing skeptically.

When had he decided he wanted to be a father in a real sense? Aidan didn’t know. But it was true. He wasn’t going to walk away from this responsibility, no matter how much he didn’t want it.

She glanced out the window again. “That won’t be necessary. In fact, it won’t even be possible.”

So, he wasn’t good enough for their baby. He wasn’t surprised that she would think that. But what about financial support? Surely she didn’t mean to turn her back on that, as well. “You don’t want anything?”

“Not from you.”

This should have filled him with relief. Instead, Aidan was furious. With her, and with himself. He clenched his fists, and asked himself what kind of man felt like shaking a pregnant woman? Because that was certainly his urge right now. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and make her look at him. He jammed his hands back into his pockets.

“You’re just saying that to hurt me.”

“I’m saying it because it’s true. You won’t have any responsibilities for me or anyone else.”

“But…”

“Aidan, listen.” She spoke sharply, her eyes flashing. “You won’t need to look after this baby, and neither will I. I’m not keeping it.”

FOR THE SECOND TIME that afternoon, Aidan looked utterly stunned, and Rae knew he wasn’t faking it. Even Johnny Depp couldn’t act that well. Still, it was hard to believe he hadn’t heard she was pregnant. Although they worked in different cities, there were constant phone and e-mail communications between the various branch offices and subsidiaries of Kincaid Communications. Surely someone would have told him?

But maybe everyone had assumed he knew. That she’d told him. Because the rumor mill had figured out their night together and, from that, had worked out the most likely reason she’d been banished to Pittsburgh.

And she had been banished, no matter how many times Aidan described it as a promotion. All acquisitions and mergers were handled out of the Seattle office, and that had been the reason Harrison had brought her into the organization in the first place. To handle those sorts of special deals.

Frankly, the everyday business she supervised in the Pittsburgh office, even though it did amount technically to a promotion in terms of salary and title, bored her silly. Aidan had to understand that. He was the same way. He thrived on the chase, just as much as she did.

It was one of the things she’d liked most about him, one of the reasons she’d thought maybe she’d finally met her match, in the romantic sense of the word. She’d never been attracted to men who weren’t as smart as she was, as driven and competitive.

Aidan had been all of these things. In addition, Rae had thought he was honorable and principled, too. That was the way he did business, at least.

But he’d slept with her, and then he’d shown her the door. Which made him a bitter disappointment…not the man she’d thought he was, at all.

Clearly still reeling from the emotional one-two punch Rae had just delivered, Aidan opened the sliding doors that led to the patio. He walked to the railing and, after a moment’s thought, she followed him there. This view had been a solace to her over the few days she’d been here. Now she gazed over the becalmed sea and wondered what it must look like during the winter storms. This would be a bleak place in December, she suspected.

“Why are you giving up the baby?”

“I would have thought that was obvious.”

In profile, Aidan’s chin was set, his mouth drawn in a long, disapproving line.

“I’m a career woman. Not the mothering sort. The baby will be happier with a mom and a dad. Parents who really want it.”

His gaze brushed against hers for a moment, conveying disbelief. “And you don’t? Want it?”

“Of course not.” What was he thinking? “You can’t be suggesting I became pregnant on purpose?”

“No.”

“That’s good. Because I didn’t. Men aren’t the only ones who can get carried away by…lust.” She chose that word because he, like most men, believed in lust and understood lust.

Whereas for her that night had been about magic and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, but she’d be damned before she’d admit to him that she’d ever held such idealistic notions.

“You don’t think it will be hard? To give up the baby after it’s born?”

“Naturally it will be hard. This whole pregnancy business has been hard! Nine months has never seemed so long.”

Aidan reached out a hand to touch her, then withdrew it. “I’m sorry, Rae. You’ve been through so much. And coped with all of it on your own.”

She closed her eyes, hating the fact that he sounded so sincere and caring. He wasn’t really the kind of man a woman could count on. It was just that every now and then he happened to say exactly the right thing to make her crumble.

“When did you find out?” he asked softly.

“I suspected I was pregnant soon after the move.” Her breasts had been so tender and she’d been atypically tired; a drugstore kit had confirmed the news, all too easily.

“And you never considered…termination?”

“Why? Is that what you wish I’d done?”

A light shifted in his eyes and he made a noise of reconciliation. “Sorry, I forgot. You were raised Catholic.”

She’d told him so much about herself on that one night together. Far too much. They’d talked for hours, in between their lovemaking sessions. She’d felt as if she’d found her soul mate. He’d been so easy to confide in.

Later, she’d been mortified to realize that she had been the one doing most of the talking. She’d wondered if he’d even been listening.

Apparently he had. At least to some of her ramblings.

He was right about the Catholic upbringing, at any rate. She rarely went to church anymore and her mother had been dead for years, but still those childhood teachings rang in Rae’s ears.

So, no, abortion hadn’t been the right choice for her.

“Has it been tough, Rae? Were you sick at the beginning?”

“Yes, and I still get sick now, even though all the books say the nauseous stage is supposed to end after the first few months.” She turned her back to the railing and leaned against it. The wind in her hair was refreshing. What had possessed her to try baking a loaf of bread in this heat?

“It’s no fun looking like a house, either,” she continued. “Or having to drink all that milk, which I hate, by the way. Lately, I’ve had the worst heartburn. And just this week my feet have become so swollen I can only squeeze them into one pair of sandals.”

She saw him look down at her bare feet. In the past, she’d kept her toenails painted all the time—no matter what the season. But now they looked terrible. Even clipping them was difficult.

“Basically, being pregnant is rough. Anyone who says they like it must be crazy.”

Aidan listened to all her complaints without saying a word and she wondered what he was thinking. Was he judging her—and finding her lacking? There had to be something wrong with a woman who didn’t like being pregnant and didn’t even want to keep her own baby. Maybe he’d sensed this deficiency in her all along. Perhaps that was why he’d exiled her to Pittsburgh.

“Do Justine and Harrison know you’re pregnant?”

His question surprised her, but she nodded. “Sure.” Harrison had made a trip to the Pittsburgh office a month ago and Justine and Autumn had come with him. It was shortly after that visit that Justine had called her with the offer to use this house for the month of August.

Aidan rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “So we were set up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You told me Justine invited you to use this house, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Harrison extended the same invitation to me.”

“He did?” She thought of the duffel bag Aidan had brought inside. It was big. Obviously, he wasn’t here for a weekend jaunt. “So…what are we going to do?”

“Under the circumstances, we can’t stay under the same roof. Since you were here first, I’ll find lodgings elsewhere.”

She stared at him, wondering why his oh-so-rational plan didn’t sound at all appealing to her. It must be the hormones scrambling her thinking.

“I’ll be out of here as soon as possible, Rae.”

“Good. The sooner, the better.”

She tried to deliver her parting line with as much scorn as she could summon. Then she hurried inside, because damned if she didn’t feel as if she was about to cry.