A Piece of Me (8 page)

Other people were even beginning to
comment and notice. He couldn’t fault her for not going, because
most of the time he could handle things on his own in the
preliminary meets or take one of the execs with him. So, it wasn’t
as if she were shirking her work responsibilities.

Sitting at his desk, he looked at the
stack of letters, contracts and memos she had flagged for him to
review, sign or address. Yes, she was still efficient at her
job.

However, things had substantially
changed between them in other ways. Monday following their night of
passion, Amana had been missing from their early morning workout.
Worried, he’d called her, but she had simply said she was going to
take a few days off from working out. It was her body and he
couldn’t force her to go to the gym, but those few days had turned
into two weeks. Not knowing anything about fertility and the female
reproductive system, he’d expected her to come in and announce she
was pregnant, but she’d remained silent on that front, so he’d done
the same. He knew how important having a baby was to her and if she
hadn’t conceived, he didn’t want to bring up the subject and make
her deal with the emotions surrounding the disappointment when she
may not have been ready.

By the end of the first week, Amana
had begun to come into work at the official time she had to be
there.

She no longer stayed later than she
had to and if he needed her to accompany him after hours, she
always drove herself. They had agreed that things wouldn’t change,
but they had.

But he couldn’t blame her for the
tension between them. She’d simply wanted a way to have a baby and
not foot the full procedure out of pocket and he had been the idiot
who volunteer himself like a rent-a-stud.

He had to admit that Amana’s behavior
ensuring that things remained on a pseudo business level was a
blessing in disguise, because he had not been able to put their one
night out of his mind. There wasn’t a night in the last two weeks
that he hadn’t gone to sleep thinking of her, from the way she
laughed or how she cried out when she climaxed. The mornings were
just as bad. When he woke up after a night filled with memories and
fantasies of all the things he wanted to still do with her, he was
always shocked not to have her body next to him.

His bed and his life felt empty
without her. Even though she was technically still there, he wanted
more. The worst part of all was having her at work, around him
every day and not be able to hold her, kiss her or even touch more
than her hand. Many times he’d thought about leaning over and
kissing the side of her neck when she sat taking notes with her
head tilted.

Amana had become a fever in
his blood. However, he knew it wasn’t just lust. No, lust meant
that his sole desire was to bend her over his desk and bury his
dick deep inside of her and have her call out his name,
Neal
, as she came. His
desire for her went further than that. He wanted the sappy things
that went with relationships like walking along the beach at dawn
holding hands and not saying a word, just glad to be with her. He
wanted to lie on his couch and hold her while they watched a movie.
He wanted the freedom to talk with her about anything and
everything that didn’t have to do with security
software.

Sighing he turned on his computer to
check his calendar and see if Amana was at a meeting or perhaps
taking notes in a conference call he’d forgotten about. As his
computer booted up, he immediately heard the chimes signifying that
he had an instant message waiting from Ms. Hudgens.

Selecting the option to open Amana’s
message, he read the brief words.

Sir, I’m taking a sick
day. Will be at work promptly at 8:30 tomorrow. I made sure you
will have assistance with your meetings.

That was it. There were no further
details about the supposed illness. From most people it wouldn’t be
strange, however, Amana rarely got sick and the occasional time
that she did, she’d still be at work until he forced her to go
home.

What could it
be?

It had been over two weeks since he
and Amana made love--in hopes of making a baby. His heart began to
pound in his chest and his gut clenched with trepidation. What if
she’d just now realized she wasn’t pregnant or had lost the baby?
She would be at home alone dealing with it. Even if the child
wasn’t his, he would want to be there to comfort her. In the last
two years, they’d developed a friendship that had come from them
leaning on each other. First her, then him. Now, she was going to
deny him the chance to hold her when she needed him the
most.

Hell, when he had a father’s right to
be there.

He’d never looked towards having
children, but at that moment, with a dark cloud over his head that
Amana possibly had miscarried, he wanted that baby like his lungs
wanted the next breath.

She would tell me, his mind declared.
But, he was afraid she’d try and brave it alone and inform him
tomorrow at work in between pouring him a cup of coffee and
briefing him on his schedule. He wasn’t having that.

Opening his top drawer, he removed a
set of keys to his personal car. Most of the times Dan drove him
around, but he kept a car at the office for when he needed it. He
needed it now. Rushing towards the door, he barely stopped himself
from colliding with Wanda, one of the admin staff from
HR.

“
Oh, goodness, Mr.
Stephens.” She pressed herself against the open door.

“
Whatever it is, Wanda, I
don’t have time right now. I’m on my way out.”

“
But, Ms. Hudgens asked me
to cover your afternoon meetings for her. You have one in fifteen
minutes.” Even unwell, Amana had arranged someone to fill in for
her.

Damn, he forgot about everything in
his rush to get to Amana. “Cancel it.”

“
Okay… will you be back for
the two--”

“
No.” He moved passed her.
“Cancel the whole damn day.” Over his shoulder, he yelled, “If
there’s an emergency call me on my cell phone, but other than that
I don’t want to be disturbed.”

Wanda’s ‘Yes, sir’ followed him down
the hall as he headed towards the stairs, not in the mood to wait
for the elevator.

Six minutes later, he was peeling out
of the parking garage adjacent to his building and into the uptown
traffic. Seven minutes after that he was pulling into the lot
across from Amana’s condo. She was close enough to walk to work,
however, he’d strongly urged her not to after her husband’s death,
because frequently she was coming to the office and leaving the
office while it was still dark.

Entering the code to the main door
that let him into her building, he took the elevator up to her
floor. Once he arrived, he knocked on her door and prayed she was
there and not at the hospital. He didn’t know if he was over
reacting or not, but on the way over his mind conjured up every
possibility, most of them not good. As he waited, he tried to
listen for any sound of distress coming from the other side of the
door. Feeling the bite of his keys in his hand, he realized his
fists were balled tight. Taking a deep breath, he made an effort to
calm himself.

The door opened and Amana stood before
him dressed in tank top and shorts. His body immediately reacted to
the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath it.

Pulling his gaze from her full
breasts, he noticed the frown on her face.

“
Sir, what are you doing
here?”

“
May I come in?” He didn’t
want to have this discussion in the hallway.

Stepping back, she allowed him to
enter and closed the door behind him.

He moved deeper into the great room
along the hardwood floor. Facing her, he noted there were no signs
of illness in her features. Outside of her apparel, the only thing
different about her was that her hair was straight and pulled up
into a high ponytail when she normally wore it down and with soft
curls. She looked younger than her twenty-nine years--innocent.
“You took a sick day.”

Folding her arms under her breasts,
she looked towards the floor. “Well, I just needed a day to
myself.”

She stood closer to the kitchen bar,
while he was in the center of her living room, only about eight
feet separated the two of them but that damn emotional wall made it
seem like more. “Why?”

Raising her head, there was fire in
her eyes, “Am I not allowed personal time, Mr.
Stephens?”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he
growled, “You know you are, Amana. However, normally you let me
know in advance and annotate it on my calendar with fifty reminders
so I don’t forget or call you repeatedly with
questions.”

“
Forgive me,” she snapped.
“I didn’t mean to do anything outside of the norm--”

“
Amana.” Her name slipped
from his lips. In an instant, he could clearly see something was
wrong with her. It wasn’t that she was showing signs of pain or
sickness, but it was her mannerism and the way she shifted from one
foot to the other that let him know something wasn’t right. He
didn’t come here to debate office protocol, but to check on her and
get one answer. “Are you pregnant?”

Her brown eyes softened. She licked
her lips then said, “I don’t know.”

“
Then why are you sitting
in your condo in silence.” There was no music or television playing
and by the haphazard way the pillows were on the couch told him
she’d been laying there before he knocked.

“
My period was supposed to
start three days ago and it didn’t.”

He forced the air out of his lungs
before he passed out from forgetting to breathe. The woman before
him could be carrying his child. He moved to her, close enough to
touch, but he kept his hands to himself and he asked, “Have you
taken a test?”

“
No.” Her voice sounded
small.

“
Why not?”

A single shoulder lifted and then
dropped. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up and it came back
negative and I was just running late this month.”

“
If that’s the case, we’ll
deal with it.” Needing to touch her and lend her his strength, he
cupped her shoulders.

“
Okay.”

“
Do you need me to go to
the store and get one?” He rubbed up and down her arms. Her skin
felt cool and he didn’t know if it was from nervousness or the air
conditioner.

“
No, I have a package in
the bathroom.”

“
How about you go take it
and I’ll be here when you come out.”

She nodded and headed towards her
bedroom. Stopping she turned back to him. “Thank you,
Neal.”

Before he could say anything, she was
gone.

Sitting on her couch, he stared out
the glass doors leading to her balcony and waited. On the short
drive there, he had made a decision and regardless of what the
result on the stick was his actions would be the same.

~YH~

Amana gripped the stick and crossed
the floor of her spacious master bedroom. It was past the minutes
for the indication markings to show up on the test, but she hadn’t
looked. She didn’t want to find out by herself. Neal had come all
the way to her condo and he deserved the right to know at the same
time she did. It confounded her how she had been so ready to do
this baby thing alone with a donor and in one night, she had
decided to conceive with a friend. Not just any friend but her
boss. Her confidante and, as he’d proven again today, her number
one supporter.

She didn’t fool herself into believing
that she would have hopped in the bed with any single male friend
who’d made the offer. Just Neal. There had always been something
about him from the first day she’d met him. Her honor had allowed
her to fight off her attraction to him, because she was married to
her best friend and loved Kevin too much to hurt him. However, over
the last two years it had become harder and harder to keep her
emotions at bay. Now they had possibly taken the first step into
parenthood and she couldn’t dream of anyone else she’d rather go
through the experience with.

“
What was the reading?”
Neal rose from the couch as soon as she walked into the front
room.

“
I didn’t want to look at
it without you,” she confessed.

“
Then we’ll do it
together.” He walked over to her.

Raising the item between them, she
took a deep breath and then turned it face up.

“
A plus still means
positive on those things, right?” He asked seeing the same bold
cross in the center of the little screen.

Lifting her head, she said,
“Yes.”

“
We’re going to have a
baby!” His arms surrounded her and he picked her up off the floor
and kissed her.

All she was aware of was the passion
in Neal’s kiss and her feet floating through the air. Gripping the
back of his neck, she pressed her body against his and allowed him
to command her mouth. Her heart swelled in her chest and everything
she’d been attempting to hide and trying to fight flooded her
soul.

“
I love you.” The words
tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them as the kiss
ended.