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She sank down on the edge of the bed, feeling empty and boneless. Everything had happened so quickly that night. Had Damian used a condom? Not that she could remember. She certainly hadn’t used anything. Why take the pill, when sex was hardly a major item in your life? She knew some women carried diaphragms in their handbags but she wasn’t one of them. You needed a whole different mind set to do that. You had to be the sort of woman who might find herself tumbling into a man’s bed at the drop of a hat and she had never—she had certainly never...
A little sound tore from her throat. She looked at Susie’s questioning face and did what she could to turn the sound into a choked laugh.
“I can’t be,” she said. “How could I possibly have gotten pregnant?”
“The method hasn’t changed much through the centuries.”
“Yes, but just one night...”
One night. One endless night.
“You need to make an appointment with your doctor,” Susie said gently.
“No,” Laurel whispered. She lifted her head and stared at Susie. “No,” she said, more strongly. “It’s ridiculous. I am not pregnant. I have the flu, that’s all.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Susie said with a false smile. “But, what the heck, you want to make certain.”
Laurel rose from the bed. “Look, how’s this sound? I’ll spend all day tomorrow in bed. I’ll down aspirin and lots of liquids and if I’m not feeling better by Monday or Tuesday, I’ll call my doctor.”
“Your gynecologist.”
“Really, Susie.” Laurel looped her arm around the other woman’s shoulders. Together, they headed for the foyer. “Give that imagination of yours a rest and I’ll do the same for my flu-racked bones. And be sure and tell George I’m taking a rain check on dinner.”
“I’m getting the brush-off, huh?”
“Well,” Laurel said with forced gaiety, “if you want to hang around and listen to me upchuck again, you’re welcome.”
“Listen, if you need anything... Aspirin, Pepto-Bismol...” Susie flashed a quick smile. “Just someone to talk to, I’m here.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine. Truly. You’ll see. These bugs are all the same. You feel like dying for twenty-four hours and then you’re as good as new.”
“Didn’t you say you’d been feeling shaky all week?”
“Twenty-four hours, forty-eight, what’s the difference?” Laurel swung the door open. “It’s flu, that’s all. I’m not pregnant. Trust me.”
“Uh-huh,” Susie said, without conviction.
“I’m not,” Laurel said firmly.
She held a smile until the door shut and she was safely alone. Then the smile faded and she sank back against the wall, eyes tightly shut. “I’m not,” she whispered.
* * *
But she was.
Four weeks gone, Dr. Glassman said, later that afternoon, as Laurel sat opposite her in the gynecologist’s sunny, plant-filled Manhattan office.
“I’m glad we could fit you in at the last minute like this, Laurel.” The doctor smiled. “And I’m glad I can make such a certain diagnosis. You are with child.”
With child. Damian’s child.
“Have you married, since I saw you last?” A smile lit Dr. Glassman’s pleasant, sixtyish face again. “Or have you decided, as is becoming so common, to have a child and remain single?”
Laurel licked her lips. “I—I’m still single.”
“Ah. Well, you’ll forgive me if I put on my obstetrical hat for a while and urge that you include your baby’s father in his—or her—life, to as great a degree as possible.” The doctor chuckled softly. “I know there are those who would have me drawn and quartered for saying such a thing, but children need two parents, whenever it’s possible. A mother and a father, both.”
There was no arguing with that, Laurel thought, oh, there was no arguing with—
“Any questions?”
Laurel cleared her throat. “No. None that I can think of just now, anyway.”
“Well, that’s it for today, then.” The doctor took a card from a holder on her desk, scribbled something on it and handed it to Laurel. “Phone me Tuesday and I’ll give you your lab reports, but I’m sure nothing unforeseen will arise. You’re in excellent health, my dear. I see no reason why your baby shouldn’t be healthy and full-term.”
Dr. Glassman rose from her chair. Laurel did, too, but when the doctor smiled at her, she couldn’t quite manage a smile in return.
“Laurel?” The doctor settled back behind her desk and peered over the rims of her reading glasses. “Of course,” she said gently, “if you wish to make other arrangements...”
“I’m four weeks pregnant, you say?”
“Just about.”
“And—and everything seems fine?”
“Perfectly fine.”
Laurel gazed down at her hands, which were linked carefully in her lap. “If I should decide... I mean, if I were to...”
The doctor’s voice was even more gentle. “You’ve plenty of time to think things through, my dear.”
Laurel nodded and rose to her feet. Suddenly she felt a thousand years old.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
The gynecologist rose, too. She came around her desk and put her arm lightly around Laurel’s shoulders.
“I know what an enormous decision this is,” she said. “If you need someone to talk to, my service can always reach me.”
* * *
A baby, Laurel thought as she rode down in the elevator to the building’s lobby. A child of her flesh. Hers, and Damian’s.
Babies were supposed to be conceived in love, not in the throes of a passion that made no sense, a passion so out of character that she’d tried to put it out of her mind all these weeks. Not that she’d managed. In the merciless glare of daylight, she’d suddenly think of what she’d done and hate herself for it.
But at night, with the moonlight softening the shadows, she dreamed about Damian and awakened in a tangle of sheets, with the memory of his kisses still hot on her lips.
Laurel gave herself a little shake. This wasn’t the time for that kind of nonsense. There were decisions to be made, although the only practical one was self-evident. There was no room in her life for a baby. Her apartment wasn’t big enough. Her life was too unsettled, what with her career winding down and an uncertain future ahead. And then there was the biggest consideration of all. Dr. Glassman was right; some people might think it old-fashioned but it was true. Children were entitled to at least begin life with two parents.
The elevator door slid open and she stepped out into the lobby. Her high heels clicked sharply against the marble floor as she made her way toward the exit.
A baby. A soft, sweet-smelling, innocent bundle of smiles and gurgles. A child, to lavish love upon. To warm her heart and give purpose to her existence. Her throat constricted. A part of Damian that would be hers forever.
She paused outside the building, while an unseasonable wind ruffled her hair. Gum wrappers and a torn page from the New York Times flapped at her feet in the throes of a mini-tornado.
What was the point in torturing herself? She wasn’t about to have this baby. Hadn’t she already decided that? Her reasoning was sound; it was logical. It was—
“Laurel?”
Her heart stumbled. She knew the voice instantly; she’d heard it in her dreams a thousand times during the past long, tortured weeks. Still, she tried to tell herself that it couldn’t be Damian. He was the last person she ever wanted to set eyes on again, especially now.
“Laurel.”
Oh God, she thought, and she turned toward the curb and saw him stepping out of the same black limousine that had a month ago transported her from sanity to delirium. All at once, the wind seemed to grow stronger. Her vision blurred and she began to sway unsteadily.
And then
she was falling, falling, and only Damian’s arms could bring her to safety.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHAT KIND OF MAN wanted a woman who’d made it clear she didn’t want him?
Only a man who was a damned fool, and Damian had never counted himself as such.
And yet, four weeks after Laurel Bennett had slept in his arms and then walked out of his life, he had not been able to forget her.
He dreamed of her—hot, erotic dreams of the sort he’d left behind in adolescence. He thought of her during the least expected moments during the day, and when he’d tried to purge his mind and his flesh by becoming involved with someone else, it hadn’t worked. He had wined and dined half a dozen of New York’s most beautiful women during the past month, and every one had ended her evening puzzled, disappointed and alone.
It was stupid, and it angered him. He was not a man to waste time mourning lost opportunities or dreams. It was the philosophy that had guided his life since childhood; why should it fail him now? Laurel was what his financial people would have termed a write-off. She was a gorgeous woman with a hot body and an icy heart. She’d used him the way he’d used women in the past.
So how come he couldn’t get her out of his head?
It was a question without an answer, and it was gnawing at him as his car pulled to the curb before the skyscraper that housed his corporate head quarters...which was why, when he first saw her, he wondered if he’d gone completely over the edge. But this was no hallucination. Laurel was real, she was coming out of the adjacent building—and she was even more beautiful than he’d remembered.
He stepped onto the sidewalk and hesitated. What now? Should he wait for her to notice him? He had nothing to say to her, really; still, he wanted to talk to her. Hell, he wanted more than that. He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms, run his thumb along her bottom lip until her mouth opened to his...
Damian frowned. What was this? The feverish glow on her cheeks couldn’t hide the fact that her face was pale. She seemed hesitant, just standing there while pedestrians flowed around her like a stream of water against an immutable rock.
Dammit, she was weeping!
He started toward her. “Laurel?”
She had to be ill. She’d never cry, otherwise; he knew it instinctively. His belly knotted.
