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Chapter One
She didn’t want dinner. She wanted his support of her plan to buy herself some sperm.
Excited in a way she hadn’t been in far too long, Mallory Harris calmed herself as she waited for Braden to join her at the upscale, quiet restaurant he’d chosen for the meeting he’d called. Staring out the wall of windows toward the harbor, watching people walking along the decks of a cruise ship that had docked, she turned her attention to the pink skies beyond, the miraculous beauty of the sun’s final rays gracing the Pacific before it would drop beyond the horizon for another day.
Wishing she’d ordered a glass of wine, she changed her mind and did so. A glass of her favorite California-grown Sauvignon Blanc. Braden would be expecting her to have one and she didn’t want any raised eyebrows until she was ready to deliver her spiel.
A little liquid courage didn’t hurt, either, though she wasn’t normally one to seek sustenance from anyplace except inside herself. And somewhat from Braden. She and her ex-husband might not be simpatico, but she still trusted his judgment on most things. Things that didn’t deal with actual emotions.
He’d had a reason for the upcoming dinner. Though they ate out together on a fairly regular basis, it was never just to eat. There was always something to talk about requiring them to come together.
Speculating about the reason for the meeting was wasted energy, she’d decided long ago. After three years of being post-divorce friends, she and Braden had found a groove with which they were both relatively comfortable. At least she thought so.
One was never quite sure how Braden felt—probably not even him. If ever a man was disconnected from his emotional side, it was Braden.
All water under the bridge. Not her problem anymore.
He was probably going to tell her he was seeing someone. Why he felt the need to confess to her every time he saw a woman more than once was beyond her. They were divorced. Technically, she no longer had a right to know.
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Or even a desire to know.
Her wine arrived and she took a sip. Okay, maybe a little piece of her, way deep inside, liked that he told her about his relationships. Like she was in one step deeper than the women he told her about. Shaking her head, she pushed the thought away—as far as she could get it.
Wanting to be inside Braden’s deep places wasn’t healthy. She’d very purposely and specifically chosen, through much personal work and counseling, to get herself outside of him. To stay outside of him. Lest she waste her life in a vortex of void and unfulfilled need. Or feel like she had to hide every time she had a tear to shed. Being ashamed of her grief was something she’d worked long and hard to get past.
Braden had never meant her to feel shame, she knew that. But when someone got uptight every time you cried, or, worse, walked out when you cried, you ended up with learned reactions that weren’t necessarily accurate. Humiliation. Mortification. Guilt. And a host of other words she’d heard bandied about during her group grief sessions.
So yeah, wine was good. If he thought her idea was nuts, she wasn’t going to cry. Or even be embarrassed. She was going to remind herself that they were divorced and that she had every right to pursue single parenthood. That, for some women, it was not only the best choice, but the only real workable choice.
When the waitress came by again, she ordered a beer for Braden. She’d purposely arrived early enough to not risk walking in with him—looking or feeling like a couple. When they were meeting others, it didn’t bother her to travel together, but when it was just the two of them, she had her rules. Her boundaries.
They never spoke of them, but he respected them just the same. She always got there at least fifteen minutes early. He’d arrive exactly five minutes before the designated time.
Unless he texted to say he was going to be late.
Or she did.
They had the friendship down to a science.
Now if only she could be certain that he was going to be friendly about the new direction her life was about to take. With all of the preliminary testing and physical exams done, the paperwork filled out and money paid, all that was left before the actual procedure was letting him know. She could do it without him. Would do it without him.
But life was still better with Braden in it.
* * *
She’d changed after work. It wasn’t a big deal for her to have done so. Her house was only a couple of miles from the daycare—and from the harbor restaurant he’d chosen for dinner. Braden just noticed, as he was walking across the room to meet her, that she looked phenomenal in black leggings and that tight-fitting cream-colored shirt. He’d been expecting jeans and a Bouncing Ball polo shirt. After all, she didn’t know that this meeting was major, as opposed to the more general passing of news for which they normally came together.
She didn’t need to know that the sight of her still turned him on.
Working in the same high-rise executive office building as they did, albeit with his property management and real estate business taking up the top floor and her daycare housed in a double suite on the ground, they could chat there any day they chose. They just, by some unspoken agreement, didn’t choose to.
No point in having people who shared their professional days gossiping any more than necessary about the couple who’d divorced after their five-month-old baby died.
The pity, even after all this time, was hard to take. He had no desire to feed the trough.
He was hungry, though, and ready, as he slid into the booth across from his ex-wife, to order a big juicy steak. She’d have some kind of meal-sized salad.
He’d never been a salad kind of guy.
Taking a long sip of the beer she’d ordered for him, he smiled at her, liking the warm gaze she sent back in his direction. Maybe he was making a mistake, transferring himself a little further out of her life, but he had to do something or they were both going to stagnate and die.
By the end of their smile, the waitress was standing there, tablet in hand ready to take their order. Without looking at the menu, they both told her what they wanted. She thanked them, took their menus, turned around and he all but pushed her away from the table.
He had to get this over with. Plans for his move to L.A. were moving rapidly. He needed Mallory to know.
And to fully understand, from the outset, that he wasn’t selling the building in San Diego or in any way changing their business arrangement. It had been in effect before they were married and would remain for as long as she wanted The Bouncing Ball, her highly successful daycare, to be housed in the executive office building that used to be his only commercial holding but was now one of many.
He raised his beer to her glass of wine and sipped it, words spilling in his head, unable to utter them. Not at all like he’d decided this would go.
He knew he just had to say what he’d come to say. That he was acquiring land north of L.A. to build a professional complex similar to the one they now shared in San Diego, and he would be moving there for the foreseeable future.
“I’m going to have a baby.”
Good thing his beer was close to the table. When it slipped out of his hand, it didn’t break. And barely spilled.
Mouth hanging open, he sat there, too dumbfounded to say anything.
“I just wanted you to know.”
He stared. White noise from the room around them faded.
“I’d kind of hoped you’d be supportive, but if you’d rather not know about it, hear about it, I completely understand.”
He didn’t move.
She did. Standing, she touched his arm. “I’m so sorry, Bray. I had no idea the news would upset you so much. I guess... I mean, in light of the fact that the last time we did it together... I mean...with losing Tucker... I should have been more sensitive. I just... I’m the one who’s been dragging us both down with my inability to move on and I’m really excited about this. I just...couldn’t wait to let you know that I...”
Her fingers on his arm were nice. Familiar. Tender and light.
