One Night, So Pregnant! (14 page)

Eva stepped into the room, stroked a comforting hand down Tess’s arm. ‘First of all, why would you want to get it out of your system, if it feels good? And you’re enjoying yourself?’

Tess shrugged, still unable to look at her friend.

Because it was what they had agreed. Because even if her feelings had changed, Nate’s probably hadn’t and she didn’t think she could stand him freaking out again, as he had the last time. She wanted him to be a part of the baby’s life, and if she put him on the spot, admitted that things had got a lot more complicated than expected, that she wanted them to be more than just friends, with benefits, what guarantee did she have that he wouldn’t walk away again? And anyway, how did she even know this wasn’t just a passing fancy, brought on by some kind of pregnancy-brain phenomenon, or great-sex endorphin overload?

‘Tess, this last month or so you’ve been glowing. I’ve honestly never seen you so happy. And more than that, you’ve been calm and focused and content too.’ The sincerity in Eva’s voice only made Tess’s chin quiver more. She clenched her teeth. ‘I thought it was your new business, and this house, and probably the pregnancy.’

‘Well, it probably is,’ Tess whispered, her throat raw as she clutched at straws. But all of a sudden she couldn’t seem to make the lie stick any more.

How could she have been so idiotic? To let this happen? Now? When it was the last thing she needed?

‘But it’s not those things, is it?’ Eva asked, but it wasn’t really a question. ‘Or not
just
those things. It’s him too. It’s Firecracker Guy?’

Tess sniffed, and pulled some tissues out of the cabinet. ‘Please stop calling him that.’ She blew her nose loudly, concentrated on folding the tissue into a tiny square. The funny name didn’t fit any more, because this had suddenly become deadly serious.

‘I don’t get it,’ Eva said. ‘Why are you upset? You’re having a baby together. You’re enjoying each other’s company. You’re having mega-fantastic sex. Why can’t this be the start of something wonderful?’

‘Because we agreed, this would be strictly friends with benefits.’

‘Friends with...’ Eva sucked her teeth in disgust. And Carmine burbled as if he were trying to mimic her. ‘What does that even mean?’

‘It made sense at the time,’ she said lamely, still not sure why it didn’t make sense any more.

Hadn’t she jumped at the opportunity too, the chance to have her cake and eat it without having to worry about picking up the crumbs afterwards? That had been the idea: that they could enjoy themselves and not think about the emotional implications. And Nate wasn’t the only one who had wanted it nice and simple and not too involved or overwhelming. She’d wanted it that way too, to keep her emotions out of the mix. She’d had no problem doing that all through her twenties. And now she’d reached twenty-seven. And bam. She’d managed to get accidentally pregnant. And then double bam. Her emotions sneak up and smack her over the head to boot.

It was her worst nightmare. Regressing to that mass of seething emotions and hurt feelings she’d suffered in her teens.

She perched on the side of the bathtub, her head starting to hurt. ‘I feel like such a stupid cliché.’

‘Why?’

Tess finally risked a look at Eva, whose sympathetic expression only made her feel more like crumpling into a heap. ‘I can’t believe I fell for him when he’s all wrong for me.’

‘Why is he wrong for you? And what’s clichéd about falling in love?’

Tess winced at the use of the L word. Was that what this was?

‘Why is he wrong for me?’ she repeated, determined to make sense of the feelings churning inside her. ‘Let me see... For starters, I like my independence and he wants to be in charge. I can be impulsive, and he’s very big on responsibility. None of which is going to make for an ideal relationship.’

‘There is no such thing as an ideal relationship,’ Eva countered. ‘People are not magically made for each other—that’s the real cliché. It kicks off with mutual attraction and then you have to work everything else out from there.’

If only that were true. But it wasn’t going to be as simple for her and Nate as it had been for Nick and Eva. Nick and Eva hadn’t been saddled with making a major commitment because of a faulty condom. She and Nate had the responsibility of a baby to think about as well as themselves. And she wasn’t sure she had the guts to risk screwing up the only relationship in her life that would always matter, for the sake of a relationship that might not.

‘Tess, have you even spoken to him about how you feel?’

‘Of course not!’ This bit at least was fairly simple. ‘It’s only been a couple of months. And I’m not even sure how I do feel. Love seems like too strong a word.’

Eva sent her a doubtful look. ‘Okay, if you say so, but can I give you a bit of advice?’

Tess waited a beat. ‘Yes, okay.’ Given how confused she felt at the moment, she could probably do with all the advice she could get.

‘Don’t let him take the lead on this. I let Nick do that, because I was too insecure and too timid to stand up for myself, or to make any demands. I let him walk away from me and it wasn’t until he came back that I finally had the guts to tell him what I wanted.’

‘But that’s just it,’ Tess said. ‘I’m not sure what I want.’

‘So that’s something you’ll have to work out,’ Eva said, patiently. ‘But be honest with yourself. And don’t assume that because he hasn’t said anything, he knows what he wants either. He could just be avoiding the question, like you are.’

‘But what if I ask him for more and that’s not what he wants?’ She heard the quiver of uncertainty in her own voice, and shame engulfed her.

She sounded scared. Afraid to ask for what she wanted in case he said no? Was that the real reason she hadn’t confronted her own feelings? The real reason she hadn’t admitted to herself that her relationship with Nate had gone way past the physical before they’d even started sleeping together regularly, because she was scared he wouldn’t want her? Why had she made him the boss of everything? Especially when he appeared to be as clueless about what was really happening between them as she was?

How did she even know what he wanted if she had never asked? Damn it, this wasn’t about being more flexible. Or more mature. This was about being a pathetic wimp.

‘Don’t answer that,’ she said to Eva, before her friend could state the obvious. ‘I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I? I can’t believe I fell for that stupid “friends with benefits” idea!’

The more she thought about it, the more angry she became—with Nate’s avoidance tactics as well as her own cowardice.

Of course Nate hadn’t wanted to make any kind of long-term commitment, because he liked to be in control—of his emotions as well as everything else. And she’d gone along with it, because she hadn’t wanted to risk her emotions being as out of control again as they had been when she’d been a teenager.

She’d made so many stupid choices then—out of fear and grief and immaturity. But she’d been so petrified of making similar mistakes again, she hadn’t actually learned from the old ones. She’d ended up spending a year with Dan the Dweeb and had even considered marrying him when she hadn’t even liked him that much—and she’d tried really hard not to admit how much she liked Nate because she’d known he wouldn’t be an easy man to love.

But when had the fear of failure become a valid reason for just giving up? They could have something really good together. As Eva said, this didn’t have to be an end, it could be a beginning.

Was she really going to settle for less, just because she was too scared to admit she wanted more?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

N
ATE
jerked upright at the loud buzz from the condo’s intercom, and spilled a large dollop of the chili he’d just nuked onto his favourite sweatshirt.

‘Damn!’

He glanced at his wristwatch. Who the hell was that? At ten-thirty on a Thursday night? He levered himself up and padded to the kitchen to wipe his shirt, dismissing the stupid jitter of excitement that it might be Tess come to pay him a visit for a change.

He deliberately hadn’t gone over to the cottage tonight. Had decided that it made sense to let things lie for a day or two—after the way everything had gone down that morning. He dumped the paper towel in the trash. Well, for one night at least. Given the amount of will power it had taken to stop himself from jumping straight in the Jeep after work and heading for Highway One, and how bored he’d been tonight watching a pivotal Giants game—he didn’t hold out a lot of hope that he’d be able to commit to two nights without her.

But it had been important to prove to himself tonight that he could hold off. That he could spend at least one night away from her. He’d checked his calendar and he hadn’t had a night away from her in nearly two weeks. Not a whole night anyway. Sure he’d managed to force himself to work late a couple of times. And left before she’d woken up, on one or two occasions, but it had been far from easy, especially the mornings. He’d practically had to dynamite himself away from the sight of her, curled under the sheet, the soft rise and fall of her breathing making her breasts peep above the linen and the scent of her infusing the air.

He’d been hard as an iron spike both times, and driving in that condition was no picnic. But much worse had been the wrench of longing as he’d stepped onto the cottage’s porch in the early morning sunlight without the chance to say a proper goodbye. And heading down the estate’s driveway knowing he didn’t really have any clearly defined reasons when it came to driving back again.

So he’d come to a decision today, after she’d point-blank refused to let him invest in her business again. He had to find a way to make this whole ‘friends with benefits’ thing work to his advantage more. It was working out great in some areas, but in other areas not so much. He didn’t like it one bit that Tess seemed oblivious to the fact he had responsibilities towards her as well as their baby.

Sure she liked her independence, but they were sleeping together now, on a regular basis. And maybe it wouldn’t last for ever, as she kept on mentioning, but as long as it did last—and it sure as hell didn’t look to him as if it would be ending any time soon—and as long as she was having his baby, he wanted her to lean on him a little more. But the frustrating thing was, the more pronounced her pregnancy became, and the more demands it made on her, the less demands she seemed to make on him.

When he’d found her throwing up after that first week, and had started staying over, he’d hoped that she would see reason and that things would change. But they hadn’t. Not really.

She never admitted a single weakness, never admitted she needed anything more from him than sex. He always had to push before she’d accept his help even grudgingly—and it was starting to get annoying.

He’d nearly had it out with her this morning, but he’d seen how tired she was, so he hadn’t pushed. And he’d decided not to go over there tonight until he’d formulated a plan—formulated the best way to get this situation sorted out to his satisfaction. And he’d finally figured out, while bench-pressing weights in the condo gym this evening, the only way to make it work was for him to move in with her, at least until after the baby was born. It was the only thing that made any sense.

After seeing her being sick, he’d done some research on the Internet, deciding it was probably a good idea if he got up to speed on how the pregnancy was likely to affect her in the months ahead. The pre-natal appointments he got invited to only seemed to focus on how the baby was, all the stuff to do with Tess’s health and well-being she handled on her own with her doctor. And whenever he asked her about it, all she ever said was that she was fine.

Once he’d started reading, it hadn’t taken him very long to realise that there was no way he was going to allow her to be living in the cottage on her own when she went into labour. And while that was still several months away yet, she was already in the second trimester. Plus he knew how stubborn she was, which meant it made sense for him to move in now, and take the flak sooner rather than later.

But first he had to get her used to the idea, which meant being subtly persuasive, not flying off the handle and letting her get the upper hand because he couldn’t get a grip on his own frustration.

He’d somehow let his sexual needs become more than that, to the point where his emotions were threatening to get in the way. Just as if they had when he’d been a kid and had wanted a commitment from two people who had never been capable of giving it to him. That had nearly destroyed him. The solution had been to make sure he never needed anything like that from anyone ever again. Spending the night away from Tess would prove that this wasn’t about his needs, it was actually about hers.

The only reason it had been so damn hard was because he had become a little addicted, to the sex and the intimacy and her company as well. Once he’d gone to live with his grandfather, and gotten over Zane’s rejection, he’d learned to become a solitary guy—who was happy enough with his own company. But there was no getting around the fact that he’d rather spend time with Tess these days, than spend it alone.

And unfortunately, he didn’t just want to be with her because he wanted sex with her the whole damn time. Sure she was so sexy she made him ache, but she was also witty and smart and completely unpredictable. He never quite knew what she was going to say or do next—and whereas before Tess, he had always found that kind of aggravating in a relationship, with her he found it challenging and stimulating, and exciting.

He huffed out a humourless laugh as the doorbell buzzed again. No wonder he was so addicted to her. She had the same effect on him as a class-A narcotic, which would explain why sweating away in the gym for an hour to take his mind off Tess had felt more like going cold turkey than the endorphin rush he normally got from good, healthy exercise. He punched the button on the intercom, and the grainy picture from the entrance camera appeared on the display. ‘Tess?’ His heart kicked his larynx like a junkie who’d just mainlined heroin. ‘What are—?’

‘Hi, Nate,’ she interrupted his shocked exclamation. ‘Sorry to catch you by surprise, but you didn’t come round tonight and I have something I needed to talk to you about. Can I come up?’

‘Sure.’ He pressed on the button to let her in, and tried to hold back the intense high—that intoxicating mix of adrenaline and arousal—at the thought of seeing her again.

* * *

‘Hi, Nate.’ Tess pressed a quick kiss of greeting to firm lips, inhaled the familiar scent of soap and man, and then shifted past him before he could draw her into a more intimate greeting.

‘I hope you realise you’re staying here tonight,’ he said with that frustrating but oddly endearing tone of command in his voice as he closed the door behind her. ‘You’re sure as hell not driving back down Highway One on your own at this time of night.’

‘What a lovely invitation,’ she teased, waving her hand behind her as she heard his bare feet pad on the tiled floor as he followed her.

She felt the flicker of nerves and anticipation skitter under her skin as she strolled into the main living area of the penthouse apartment—the black onyx breakfast bar, spotlessly clean stainless steel kitchen and dark leather sofas were just what she would have expected of the Nate Graystone she’d first met.

Stark, stylish, prohibitively expensive and superficial.

But so unlike the man she had come to know. There were so many warm, wonderful, intriguing layers to Nate Graystone and she’d only begun to scratch beneath the surface. She just hoped with all her heart that what she had driven up here to tell him, to ask him really, wasn’t going to make him want to cover all those intriguing layers up again and hide them away for good.

She took a quick giddy breath to bolster her courage and whisked round to face him. ‘I accept,’ she said. ‘As long as I get to be on top.’

He sent her a rueful smile, looking deliciously rumpled and surprisingly cute in faded denim, an old UCLA sweatshirt with what looked like a new stain on it and bare feet. ‘You didn’t actually have a choice about accepting,’ he said wryly. ‘But I don’t mind being flexible about the details.’

‘I’m sure we can have fun with the negotiation,’ she said, letting the bubble of laughter burst out.

If everything went as she hoped, tonight would be the first night of a whole new phase in their relationship. A phase without caution and evasions and limitations. A phase of exploration and expectation and hope. She’d spent the day talking it over with Eva and she knew without a doubt now how strong her feelings were for this man. So strong in fact that she hadn’t been able to hang around and wait for him to come to her.

Yes, they had some crucial differences, but those differences didn’t have to derail their relationship; if anything they could make it stronger, if they both had the guts to reach for that gold ring together.

Oh, please, let it be so.

He circled her waist with strong arms and eased her into his embrace, his eyes dark with passion but sparkling with what she hoped was so much more.

‘I’m glad you came over,’ he said, touching his forehead to hers. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Ditto,’ she replied, wrapping her fingers around muscular forearms, and stroking the fine hair, so pleased at the tender acknowledgement she thought she might die of happiness.

Had his feelings been as strong as hers all along, and all she’d needed to do was make him admit them? What fools they’d both been, avoiding the obvious.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said, his lips fastening on the pulse point in her neck, nuzzling a spot he knew would drive her wild. ‘We can talk tomorrow.’

She braced herself against him. ‘No, I have to say this now, before I lose my nerve.’

He sent her a puzzled grin, but straightened away from her. ‘What did you want to say?’

She let his arms go, took a step back, needing to see his face clearly when she told him. ‘I know we originally agreed this would be friends with benefits, but I’m not happy with that arrangement any more.’

A small line appeared on his brow. ‘Go on.’

‘I think...’ She drew in a shaky breath. For goodness’ sake, just say it. ‘I want something more permanent than that. Because I—’

‘That’s great,’ he said, interrupting her before she’d had a chance to explain properly. But the quick grin that flashed across his face had a shot of pleasure searing through her system.

‘It is?’ she asked, a little astonished it had been so easy.

‘I was thinking the same thing.’

‘You were?’

‘Yeah, how about I move down this weekend?’

‘Move down? You mean move into the cottage, with me?’ she murmured, dully.

He nodded. ‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Well, yes, that would be terrific, if that’s what you want,’ she said, trying to dismiss her uneasiness at the typically pragmatic approach.

She would love to have him there every morning when she woke up, and every single evening when she went to sleep. And the truth was he’d pretty much moved in already, so it wasn’t that big a step. But why did his suggestion make her feel deflated?

‘Cool,’ he said, sweeping her up into his arms, his eyes alight with enthusiasm. ‘I don’t want you living there alone any more, not in your condition. And it makes sense for me to be there when you go into labour. Now let’s go to bed.’

It took her a moment to register the words, to let them sink in past the barrier of hope and optimism, but as soon as they did the fragile barrier began to shatter.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said as he strode towards the bedroom. She wriggled out of his arms, when he didn’t even slow down, flattened a palm against his chest when he tried to scoop her up again. ‘Hold on, Nate. I don’t think you understand what I was trying to say to you.’

‘Come on, Tess, will you quit it with the delaying tactics? Let’s go to bed now. We can talk about the details in the morning.’

‘No, we can’t, because you’re not listening to me.’

He crossed his arms over his chest, his impatience clear. ‘Fine, say what you have to say, but hurry up—I can see how exhausted you are.’

She took a slow breath in, let it out, and tried not to let his overprotectiveness get to her. This could still be the beautiful moment she’d anticipated, if he’d just stop being so damn pushy. ‘I wasn’t talking about you moving in with me. Not specifically.’

‘You are not backing out on this already,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘We had an agreement. You said you liked the idea and—’

‘I know, I know.’ She waved her hands, trying to silence him before he got going again about his responsibilities. ‘And I do like the idea. But you’re missing the point. This isn’t about the baby, or my being pregnant, or anything like that. I’m talking about us making a more permanent arrangement because of the way I feel about you. Because I want us to be together. Because my feelings towards you are much deeper than I ever thought they would be.’ She rushed the last words, desperate to get them said, at last.

But the second they were out of her mouth, she wanted to haul them back.

His brows lowered, and, instead of looking overjoyed or even excited by the news, his expression went completely blank. ‘You’re kidding,’ he said, with about as much enthusiasm as if she’d passed him an unexploded bomb.

She tried to smile, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate, because of the lead football weighing down her stomach.

Part of her wanted to salvage her pride and agree with him, and pretend that she had only been joking, but there was just enough of the reckless girl still inside her to cling onto the small spark of hope that remained. ‘No, I’m not kidding,’ she said patiently. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve fallen in love with you, Nate.’