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“Yeah, maybe,” he agreed, although it was obvious from his tone that he didn’t really subscribe to that theory. “All right, then why don’t we get down to it and talk about the elephant in the room?” he proposed.
Marlowe stiffened, instantly knowing what he was referring to. She felt heat rising up her neck to her face, inevitably turning it to a reddish hue. She was far more comfortable talking about gunmen, hired or crazed, than she was talking about something that was so utterly personal.
But she had been the one to initially blurt out the news to him, so she couldn’t very well just fluff Bowie off or shut him down now.
“What about it?” she asked stiffly, her voice devoid of all emotion.
“What do you want to do about...it?” he asked her point-blank.
“You mean you don’t have any suggestions?” Marlowe asked sarcastically. After all, she would have thought that an opinionated man, such as he was, would try to impose his will on her, especially since the child was half his. Or at least she assumed that was the way he would think of it.
“Oh, I have plenty of suggestions,” Bowie assured her.
Big surprise. “I thought so,” Marlowe retorted.
She’d pegged him right, she thought. But for some reason, she didn’t find that nearly as satisfying as she would have thought she would. As a matter of fact, as she examined her feeling, she was rather disappointed that he was like that.
“But,” Bowie went on to say, “it’s your body. So ultimately, the decision is yours.”
That he was capable of that sort of thinking caught Marlowe totally off guard. Was she actually wrong about him?
“Then you don’t care what I do about this baby?” Marlowe asked, trying to get a handle on how he really felt.
“I didn’t say that,” Bowie pointed out. The fact of the matter was that he clearly did care. Cared a great deal, Bowie thought. “But I’m not the one who has to go through this.”
Bowie meant the pregnancy and birthing part, but Marlowe immediately jumped on a different interpretation entirely.
“You’re damn right you don’t.” She couldn’t begin to think about everything that was involved, the huge changes that she was going to have to make in her life. Her head began to swirl. “I don’t know the first thing about being a mother—” she began in exasperation.
“Most first-time mothers don’t,” Bowie told her, staying way calmer about this than she could currently appreciate. “From what I hear, it’s a learning process that goes on indefinitely.” His eyes pinned her down. “You are aware of the fact that perfect mothers don’t just fall out of the sky, instantly doing the right thing, right?” he asked.
Did he think she was an idiot, or was he just getting his jollies talking down to her? Marlowe fumed, instantly taking offense.
“I’m a workaholic,” she reminded him. “How can I possibly juggle those two entirely different roles, being a mother and Colton Oil president, and not doing a horrible job of both?”
Bowie opened his mouth, apparently to answer. Fired up, Marlowe just went on talking.
“I’ve always been the best at everything,” she informed him, not boasting but just stating a fact. “But this...this is something I don’t know if I can pull off,” she admitted, and that really worried her more than she could express.
Bowie was quick to jump in, making the most of the fact that she was taking a breath. In the handful of run-ins they’d had, he had never seen Marlowe anything but confident. That she was actually having doubts made her all too human in his eyes.
And oddly enough, he liked this version of her. Liked the fact that she was being vulnerable.
And cute as hell, he thought, his eyes once again skimming over what she was wearing.
“Sure you can pull this off,” he told her. “You can do anything you set your mind to. Being a mother isn’t any different from being the president of Colton Oil—except that there aren’t any diaper changes involved in the latter.”
“Very funny,” she commented, visibly trying very hard not to laugh at the scenario he’d just painted.
His eyes held hers. “And I’ll help.”
Marlowe suddenly fell silent. She looked at him as if he had just lapsed into a foreign language she was completely unfamiliar with.
“You’ll help what?” she questioned.
“With the baby. I’ll help,” he repeated. He slid in closer to her on the sofa. “We’ll do it together. If you decide to have this baby, then you can count on me being there for you and the baby every step of the way,” Bowie assured her, his tone completely serious.
It took her several moments to finally get the words out. “You mean it?” she asked.
