Accidentally Expecting. Michelle Celmer

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СКАЧАТЬ to be. I know that if we try we can work out a plan we both can be comfortable with.”

      “I don’t think you’re looking at the big picture,” he said, in an infuriatingly patient tone. As though he were addressing a child. Or a moron. Yet somehow he managed not to sound condescending, which was even more frustrating. He was so damned sure of himself. So reasonable.

      “That is all I’ve been doing for the past week,” she told him. “I’ve weighed my options. We live in the twenty-first century, where single parenthood is readily accepted.”

      “Not for me it isn’t. It’s against everything I believe. I’ve built my career around family values.”

      “And I’ve built mine around being a modern, independent woman. Am I just supposed to marry you and throw that all away?”

      “A child should grow up with both parents.”

      “And our baby will. Just in separate households.”

      “If you’re worried about money, I’ll see that you’re always taken care of, no matter what.”

      “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes at him. He was stepping on very dangerous ground. “Don’t even go there. Don’t think for a minute that you’re going to turn me into Suzie Homemaker. I’ve played that game before and I lost big-time. The only person taking care of me is me.”

      “So this is all about your career?” he asked, and she could see his patience slipping. He was getting frustrated. But he still hadn’t so much as raised his voice.

      Would he be like her ex-husband? Would he change after they were married? Would he start calling her stupid and useless? Would he compare her to wives of his friends? Things like, “Dave’s wife keeps their house spotless. Why can’t you be more like her?” or “Look how thin Mike’s wife is. Why don’t you lose some weight?”

      “Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black,” she told Zack. “Tell me you’re not thinking about the jump in book sales when everyone hears you’ve reformed a man-hating feminist she-cat.”

      The corners of his mouth quirked up. “Someone actually called you a man-hating feminist she-cat?”

      She shot him a warning look and he wiped the smile from his face. “Saving your career is a lousy reason to get married.”

      “And it’s a lousy reason not to.”

      “You want a reason why we shouldn’t get married? You don’t love me and I don’t love you. We hardly know each other!”

      “How about this for a reason.” He cupped a hand behind her head, threading his fingers through her hair and tilted her face up to his. The same aggressive yet gentle approach he’d used that night in the hotel. She knew what he was going to do, and she knew she should stop him. But as his head lowered, as if she were under some sort of spell, her eyes slipped closed instead. And when his lips touched hers, she went weak all over.

      Talk about a pushover. Where was her sense of empowerment? The one she talked about in her book. The one every woman was supposed to have. The God-given right, not to mention responsibility, to speak up and say no.

      Or maybe you had to want to say no for that to work.

      The kiss went from sweet to passionate in the span of a heartbeat. He tasted like coffee and something sweet, and she was thankful for the breath mint she’d popped in her mouth on the way over from the airport.

      He slid one big hand over her backside, pulling her intimately against him, and her brain nearly shut down altogether. She fisted her hands at her sides to keep from touching him.

      When he finally pulled away he did it reluctantly, his lips lingering over hers for several seconds, his hands sliding up to her shoulders, then down her arms before he let go and backed away.

      “Reason enough?” he asked, his tone deep and lusty.

      She attempted a reply, but her voice cracked, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “You know as well as I do that animal attraction isn’t enough to make a marriage work.”

      He gave her that grin, the one that managed to be cocky without actually being cocky. “We connected. You can’t deny that.”

      She wouldn’t even try to. And she could see he wasn’t going to back down. What did he think—he would kiss and she would melt?

      Well, okay, maybe she had melted. That didn’t mean he could snap his fingers and tell her to jump and expect her to ask how high. Not in this lifetime. Not even if he asked politely. “It’s not going to happen, Zack. I don’t want to marry you, and I don’t think you want to marry me, either.”

      “I want to be a part of my child’s life.”

      “And you will be. We’ll work out a custody arrangement we can both live with.”

      “Fatherhood doesn’t begin with the birth. I want the whole nine yards. I want to hear the heartbeat at doctor’s appointments. I want be there for the ultrasound. I want the baby to bond to the sound of my voice. It would be unfair to deny me that.”

      He was right. This was as much his child as hers. But he was asking the impossible.

      She took a seat at the kitchen table, suddenly feeling exhausted. She thought telling him would be a relief, that it would lift the weight that had been resting on her shoulders. Now she could see that it had only opened the door to more problems that would need solving before she got back to her life. “How can we do that? We live a thousand miles apart.”

      “We have only one choice.” He pulled out the chair next to hers and spun it around, straddling the seat, his arms resting on the low back. It was tough to reconcile the memory of the relationship guru she’d sparred with on the radio, with the real man sitting there in jeans, a T-shirt and bare feet. He looked so normal.

      “I’m all ears,” she said.

      “One of us will have to relocate.”

      Of course, that would be the logical solution. And she could just imagine which of them he expected to pull up roots and move halfway across the country.

      But she was in the middle of writing a book. She had piles of research and reference books in her home office that she needed access to. She had an obstetrician she loved. There was simply no way she could uproot her entire life right now.

      And she was sure that wasn’t what Mr. I-Want-To-Be-A-Part-Of-My-Child’s-Life wanted to hear.

      “Since my lecture schedule will frequently be taking me on the road, anyway,” he continued, “it makes sense that I move to Texas.”

       Huh?

      She was too dumbfounded to speak. She must have heard him wrong.

      “You would relocate to be close to me?” she said, to confirm exactly what he was saying.

      “Temporarily, yes. At least until the baby is a few months old.”

      No way it could be that simple. He СКАЧАТЬ