She wanted the white picket fence and the pram around the park. And he wanted her to have it. Even if it meant letting her go so someone else could give it to her.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” And that was when the first camera flashed and the shutters began snapping.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PAYTON’S gown crinkled, gaping in falls of stiff, creased blue paper as she sat atop the padded exam table, legs crossed with as much lady-like decorum as she could muster given the circumstances. She was crabby. Sick and depressed. Fighting what had become a perpetual state of lethargy for weeks. But she wouldn’t give in to it—surrender to the call of her bed simply because she’d been dumped.
It happened. To everyone, she was told.
Though usually not with the media there to witness the critical moment. But what did she really care if they’d splashed the portrait of her heartbreak across the newsstands? Or if Nate was pictured almost daily looking every bit the modern-day rake the papers made him out to be. The only thing that mattered was the affair was over and her life had to go on.
So she kept busy. Waited for the heartrending pain to pass. For her lip to finally stiffen up. For that promised time when another fish from the sea of men might actually appeal to her. She had a job she was passionate about and new friends who wouldn’t let her breakup come between them. And even her fellow teachers had reached out to her in spite of the reporters trolling the block. So she got up every day and went to work and kept her appointments.
Like this one she’d scheduled weeks ago.
Dr. Thoms breezed into the room, pumped a handful of sanitizer into her palm and rubbed it in as she scanned the electronic chart on her worktable. “So this is a regular check up today, and I see you’d called about beginning an oral contraceptive.”
Payton’s knuckles whitened as she gripped the table’s edge, tears threatening again. Please, God, not in the gynecologist’s office. They’d be writing her a referral to another kind of doctor altogether if she started sobbing here. “Um, yes, but…”
“Were you thinking primarily about birth control or to regulate your periods?”
Her ears pricked up. Of course she’d known the pill could do both, but she’d never really been inconvenienced enough to consider it. Only now, after weeks of bouncing all over the place emotionally, physically feeling the signs of an impending cycle then barely having one at all… This could be the answer to at least one of her problems. Albeit the most minor.
“Regulating my periods.” Since she couldn’t imagine ever having sex again. At least with anyone other than Nate…and she was doing her very best not to imagine that.
Thankfully, Dr. Thoms seemed oblivious to her inner turmoil and, focused on the task at hand, continued on. “Okay, then. So how are you feeling overall?”
Sad. Lonely. Stunned beyond belief that Nate could walk away from what they’d had so easily. Stunned even more by the physical toll their breakup was taking on her. “A little run-down, but it’s not—no. I’m fine.”
“Run-down? Any fever, runny nose, sore throat, upset stomach?”
“My stomach’s been off, but I think it’s more nerves than anything. And I’m beat.” Then going for a little levity, she added, “Just sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Only it fell as flat as everything else.
Ignoring the weak joke, Dr. Thoms stared at her with that placid smile in place. “And when was your last period?”
“I had it for about a day, two and a half weeks ago.”
Cool eyes met hers over the top of the chart. “Just a day? Was it heavy? Light?”
The temperature in the room dropped.
Payton didn’t like the look she was getting. Her hand went to her stomach again, and those eyes narrowed ever so slightly, following the motion.
“Light.” And then she hastily added, “But it’s not that unusual. My cycle isn’t exactly like clockwork. And we were using protection, so I really don’t think you need to worry.”
“Mmm-hmm.” The doctor typed in a few notes. “Any dizzy spells, unusual tenderness in your breasts, mood swings, cravings or loss of appetite?”
The questions hit her like rapid-fire artillery. Each punching a bigger hole through her façade of calm.
Yes…yes…yes…
Oh, God, it couldn’t be. “Doctor, I see where you’re going with this, but I can’t be—” She broke off, unwilling to even say the words. Desperately trying not to even think them.
Failing.
Pregnant.
Pregnant with a tiny, little piece of Nate growing inside her.
Her eyes pinched shut as she sucked air, willing the precious image away. She couldn’t want it to be true, shouldn’t be hoping it into existence. But something instinctual stirred to life within her, and on the deepest level she knew it was too late for hopes or wishes to make any difference at all.
“What am I going to do?”
Responding to a question far more encompassing than it had been interpreted, Dr. Thoms answered simply, “You’re going to start by taking a pregnancy test.”
Two hours later, the results had been confirmed and an ultrasound done to determine gestation. Payton walked the downtown streets in a daze, barely registering the blare of midday traffic, screeching tires and shouts for taxis as each step brought her closer to a conversation she’d never anticipated having. Explaining to Nate that his biggest fear—his worst nightmare and the horrific scenario he’d so recently escaped—had once again become a reality.
How would he react to the news?
She knew he’d be doing the math, same as she. Wondering if they’d ever had a chance or if their fate had been sealed from that very first night. He’d wonder if the fun and games had been worth it.
Know they hadn’t.
The clap of thunder broke through her reverie, pulling her eyes to the gunmetal-gray sky and the steel and glass tower slicing into it. Nate’s building.
Wrapping her arms around her waist, she tried to stave off the numbing cold seeping beneath her skin.
Would he hate her?
“Payton, is that you?”
She turned toward the lilting voice and found herself face to face with Nate’s longtime assistant.
“Deborah, how are you?” she asked, embarrassed to be caught standing this way by the fifty-ish woman with a soft heart and mind too sharp to chalk her presence there up to coincidence.
“Are you headed up to see Nate?”
She opened her mouth, then simply shut it again. Was she? She’d come here to tell him about the baby, but now that she stood so close to her destination, she couldn’t do it. Not like this. Nate deserved better than to have the news dropped in his lap between afternoon meetings. He’d always tried to do right by her, and she owed him, at least, a reasonable conversation in private. The news would devastate him—shatter the life he’d worked so hard to protect. The life he’d sacrificed her to preserve.
Finally, she forced enough air from her lungs to form words. “No. I thought I’d stop in, but I…” she held up her left arm, without looking to see she wasn’t wearing a watch “…I don’t have time after all.”
Compassion shone in the older woman’s eyes as she reached out and squeezed Payton’s numb hand. “You’re shivering, sweetheart.” Then turning up her own collar against the wind and chill, she nodded toward the building behind her. “Wouldn’t you like to come inside for a coffee?”
The seconds passed as Payton stared at the lobby doors, followed the lines of the architectural mammoth dominating the landscape around it. “No, thank you. I’m going home. Don’t worry.”
With a reluctant nod, Deborah turned down the sidewalk and went on her way.
Payton smoothed a hand over the still-flat plane of her belly and, eyes fixed on the building that so reflected its owner, the dizzying truth of what would happen when Nate found out she was pregnant hit her full in the face. If she didn’t have a rock-solid plan for her future in plac
e before she told him the news, Nate Evans would take over and make one for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE piercing whistle of steam escaping the kettle was broken by the repetitive buzz of her security intercom. She turned off the gas and dashed down the hall. “Hello?”
“It’s Nate. Let me up.”
She stared blankly at the little white box mounted on her wall. Too soon. She was supposed to have hours more. He couldn’t be here already.
Then brain function kicked in and she pushed the “entry” button and swung open the front door. Nate, taking the stairs two at a time, rounded her landing in a matter of seconds. He looked tired and impatient and more handsome than any man had a right to be as he strode to her door, taking in the length of her in a sweeping head-to-toe scan that nearly rocked her back with its intensity. For one precious heartbeat, she thought he’d come for them. That he’d realized he loved her, too. That he missed her enough he couldn’t stay away—
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, pushing into her apartment.
She stepped aside, closing her eyes before Nate could catch the disappointment there. Obviously, Deborah had spoken to him. She’d suspected it would happen and even turned the phone to voice mail in anticipation of a call, but she hadn’t expected him to show up at her door in less than an hour’s time. She wasn’t prepared to face him yet, only Nate caught her arm, his hold gentle but firm as he forced her to meet his stare. “What’s wrong?” he asked more urgently.
I’m pregnant.
It was the simple answer. And yet she couldn’t make herself say the words. Not yet.
This much she’d decided.
“I’m sorry, I was going to call. You didn’t need to rush over—”
Nate’s brows drew down. His mouth pinching flat for a beat. “Deborah told me you’d been standing outside the building…crying. I cancelled my afternoon to come over here so don’t give me the runaround.”
Wincing at the cut of his sharp tone, she took a bracing breath. “I was thinking about us.”
She half expected him to check his watch, see if he could make it back to the office to finish up one of those meetings after all. But he held steady, if not somewhat wary. “Us?”
Us. The two of them. The way it had been when they were together, creating the one who would make three. “I miss you.”
Nate raked a hand through his hair, rubbed the back of his head with the rough strokes of a man trying to make sense of something exasperating beyond explanation. “I miss you, too, sweetheart. But we talked about this and decided if there was any chance for us to end up friends down the road…we need to give each other time apart now.”
She knew all that. As the she knew the answer to her next question, too—the only question that mattered, the one that would decide everything—but had to ask it anyway. Had to hear him say the words aloud.
She swallowed and then, aching with a desperate heartfelt need, forced the words past her lips. “Do you love me?”
Her breath held, painful and hope-swollen within her chest as she watched his eyes widen, felt the lingering caress of his gaze as it stroked over her cheeks, lips and eyes.
Please, she begged with every part of her heart, body and soul.
And when he didn’t answer, she couldn’t stop herself from saying more. Adding to her plea, her heartbreak and humiliation. “What we had was good.” He couldn’t have forgotten. “I miss it. I miss you.” Maybe all he needed was to know. “And I thought after you’ve had some time away.” She had to try. “Some space.” Give him every chance. “That you might—”
“Payton, stop. Don’t do this to yourself.” It was blunt and cruel. But he couldn’t stand the idea of prolonging her questions or suffering any longer. “Nothing’s changed. And it won’t.”
Payton banded her arms over her slim waist and nodded. Stiff. “Okay,” she whispered on a catch of breath that left him wrecked. She shook her head, the slight motion freeing a solitary tear to escape down the delicate slope of her cheek. “That’s what I needed to know.”
Damn it, this wasn’t how he wanted it to go.
He wanted the fantasy they’d talked about those few months ago. The scenario where the passion between them died a natural death, going peacefully in its sleep some night, months and months from now. The deal where they woke to the friendship that had always been there.
Where, when he saw her crying, reaching out to touch her wouldn’t just make it worse for both of them.
Her head fell forward into the cradle of her palm and she let out a shuddering breath he felt through his entire being. His fists clenched, once. Twice, before he physically couldn’t stand to let her suffer there alone and reached for her—
“I’m pregnant.”
His hand dropped to his side as the air left his lungs in a painful whoosh.
Time stood still and, paralyzed, helpless to stop it, he felt the foundation of his world begin to slide beneath his feet.
No.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again. It was impossible—except the defeated set to Payton’s shoulders told him it wasn’t.
She turned her head in profile, not quite meeting his eyes, and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Quietly she walked from the room, leaving him to absorb the truth of the situation. She was pregnant.
Alone, Nate walked to the window, stared at the rain beating down on the glass and wondered how after so little time he’d found himself brought full circle. And with the very woman he’d thought would help him leave the nightmare behind.
Ironic.
Fate’s little way of giving him the finger, he supposed.
The suspicions that had plagued him from the first minutes following Annegret’s teary pregnancy confession lurked in the shadows of his memory, daring him to revisit them. But to all those dark scenarios came the same resounding, “No.” This wasn’t some mercenary fortune hunter coming to him pregnant. It was Payton. So good even when she wanted to be bad, Payton. If she said there was a baby, there was. And without question it was his.
He shook his head, stunned. How could the entire world change in less than an hour? That was all it had been since Deborah called his direct line from her lunch break. She’d found Payton shaking in the cold outside his building, her red-rimmed eyes looking lost and scared. He’d raced to her apartment, unable to maintain the distance they’d discussed for fear something had happened.
But she’d looked fine when he arrived and he’d been angry he’d had to see her. Had to see the hurt in her eyes when he didn’t want to think about her hurting at all.
He’d wanted her to go away. Find someone else. Forget about him.
Only she hadn’t been as fine as he’d thought, and now her going away was no longer an option. She’d never find the life she deserved and he was angry all over again.
How the hell could it have happened? The way he’d been going through condoms while they were together, he should have bought stock in the company. He’d been in charge of the protection and they’d used it every time—except that once.
His gut clenched, guilt working its way up his throat like bile.
He’d stopped before he’d come, found a condom and then returned to finish what he’d started. But unprotected penetration of any kind could result in pregnancy. And he’d been so damn careless. Even after everything he’d been through. Even knowing better.
He’d done this to them.
Eyes fixed on the gray-washed day beyond the glass, he pulled his phone from his pocket and brushed a thumb across the screen to bring up Deborah.
“I need you to get Arnie on the line for me. And then see what it takes to get married in Illinois.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PAYTON sat at the kitchen table, her gaze fixed on the cooling mug of tea between her palms. She’d left Nate in the living room nearly a half-hour before. After a time, she’d heard the baritone clip of his voice as he began making calls. Then a moment ago silence resumed
.
The hardwood groaned its quiet protest under the weight of his approach and then Nate’s dark form filled the doorway. Arms braced against the frame like a looming threat, he pressed into the room without entering.
“I found out this morning at my doctor’s,” she volunteered, figuring it as good a place to start as any.
Concern furrowed his brow. “Are you okay?”
It didn’t surprise her; there’d never been a question of caring. Only of degree.
“Yes. It was time for my annual and I’d mentioned getting on the pill when I booked the appointment. One thing led to another and then…I knew.” She picked up the mug and took a lukewarm sip, wishing for the soothing relief the picture on the box promised. “It happened within that first week or two.”
Nate shouldered through the door and dropped into the seat across the table, meeting her eyes for the first time since she’d told him she was pregnant. The cold acceptance in his gaze should have hurt, but the pain was gone—replaced by a hollow kind of numb that had taken hold after she’d ripped her soul open, exposing the most tender, vulnerable part of herself to him. Begging him to love her. The blissful void of emotion wouldn’t last, but she’d savor every moment while it did.
He reached across the table and wrapped his fingers around hers in a hold that felt stiff, uncomfortably dutiful. “Do you have a doctor? An OB for the pregnancy?”
She shook her head. Noted the lines deepening across his forehead and around his mouth.
His voice lowered, taking on a hard edge she could hear him fighting. “But you are getting one.”
Then she understood what he was asking—if she planned to keep their child. “I’ve known about the baby for less than one day, Nate. The fact that I haven’t gotten a doctor yet doesn’t mean anything except that I need to do some research before selecting one.”
His eyes cleared with relief. “I’m sorry, I just—” He shook his head and blew out a strained breath. “It’s important. I have to ask certain things.”