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“Yeah. And?”
“You’re telling me that you think the reason I haven’t made a move on you since you came to Wellington is because I don’t find you attractive while you’re pregnant?”
It’s my turn to blink. “Well, isn’t it?”
He covers his eyes with a hand and strokes his eyebrows as he mumbles under his breath. I can’t make out all of it, but they seem to be mostly swear words—several fucking hells, a couple of arseholes, a few wankers, and at least one motherfucker.
Finally, he lowers his hand back to his hip. “Sit down,” he demands.
I sit, my hands between my knees like a schoolgirl.
He paces up and down, occasionally stopping to look at me. “Right,” he says. “I’m probably going to fuck this up because I’m exasperated, not with you, with myself. I’ve always thought I was a great communicator, but holy shit, has this brought me down to earth with a bump. So I’m just going to say what I’m feeling. It’ll be a bit intense for you, but you’ll just have to deal with that.”
I watch him, my heart hammering, and I’m shaking a little. I don’t think he’s angry with me, but I have no idea what he’s going to say.
“First,” he says, “let’s go back to Auckland. When I woke up around four a.m. and realized you’d gone, I was close to running out into the streets to look for you, but I had no idea where you’d gone. And you’d told me you were leaving, and made it quite clear that you weren’t interested in a relationship. So I thought I should honor that, because I don’t stalk women, and I went back to bed. And I lay there for a couple of hours, not sleeping, thinking about you, and then, when it was clear I wasn’t going back to sleep, I went to work.”
I’m barely breathing now, watching him pace up and down.
“I spoke to Titus on Zoom,” he says, “and I told him about you, and right then I suddenly realized I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t let you go. So as soon as I ended the call, I left the office and walked back to the bar. I sat outside until it opened at eleven, and I went in and spoke to the manager, and I paid him fifty bucks to call the dude who’d been the bartender the night before and ask him if he knew the beautiful girl with the red hair. And he said that was the first time he’d seen you, but he thought the girls you were with were from a law firm not far away. So I walked to the law firm and asked about you there. And they said yes, you had worked there, but that you’d left the day before, and nobody knew where you’d gone. Not one person. I asked them where you lived, and again, nobody knew. You’d vanished, like Cinderella, and I couldn’t think of a way to find you.”
I hadn’t known any of this. I’d assumed he’d woken up in the morning and gone about his day without giving me a second thought.
“I was devastated,” he says. “I couldn’t figure out why. I kept telling myself you were just this girl, and it was just one night, but I couldn’t get you out of my head. I moped for weeks. And even after that, I couldn’t forget you. So I did what I always do—threw myself into work to try to forget. But I couldn’t. I thought about you every single day. Everyone commented on how grumpy I’ve been. I just couldn’t believe I’d lost you.”
I tremble, overwhelmed by his words, and having no idea what to think of his story.
“I haven’t dated anyone since I saw you,” he says. “And just so you know, I’ve never taken a girl to Island Bay. I bought the house six months ago. So you’re the first girl to go there.”
My jaw drops. “So, you haven’t been seeing anyone in Auckland?”
“Nope. And then you turned up at my office. Jesus, I nearly had a heart attack when I came out and saw you standing there. I admit, the bump was a shock, and so was finding out it was twins. But I wasn’t angry. Catie, I’m excited about the babies. And I’m overjoyed that you’re here, in Wellington.”
“Really?”
“Really.” His eyes turn gentle, and a touch sultry. “Let me make something very clear. I still think you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met.” His brown eyes are very dark and intense. “Your body is changing, and it fascinates me. All those magical things happening, and you’re getting all these sexy curves…” His gaze slides down me. “I’m not the kind of guy who gets turned off by things like that. In fact, I’m not the kind of guy who gets turned off by anything, really.”
I blink, totally bemused by his words. He still finds me attractive?
He continues, “If it wasn’t for the babies, I’d be asking you out on dates and taking my time to romance you, but we’ve done this completely back to front. We hardly know each other at all. We need to separate how we feel about each other from the fact that we’re having children together. You’re terrified I’m going to think you’re after my money, and I’m worried you’ll feel beholden to me if I buy you anything, and that you’ll feel obligated to sleep with me as some kind of crazy payment for it all. We need time to look beneath all the layers of fear and duty and honor and all that crap, and see whether what we felt back in Auckland that one night is real.”
My head is spinning. He’s implying he does want us to work toward being a couple. “I don’t understand,” I say, confused. “I asked you if you’d met anyone special, and you said there was a girl but she was proving elusive, and you were having to charm her…”
“Fuck me…” He runs a hand through his hair. “I was talking about you!”
“Me?”
He gives me a look that’s half frustrated, half amused. “You really thought I’d say that to you and be talking about someone else?”
My heart’s hammering. “And when I called you Daddy, you said, ‘Don’t call me that or I’ll come off the road,’ and I thought you were angry with me for… I don’t know… being too familiar or something…”
“I wasn’t angry, because I don’t get angry with women.” He meets my eyes then, and his lips curve up, just a little. “You can’t imagine why I might have gotten goosebumps when you called me Daddy?”
Oh shit. He’s flirting with me.
I don’t believe it. Life isn’t a fairy tale. This can’t be real.
There’s another crash above us, and he gives the ceiling an exasperated look before dropping his gaze back to me. “The important thing is that I don’t want you to stay here. I’ll worry about you and the babies all the time we’re not together. Please, come back to Island Bay with me, just for now. It doesn’t have to be permanent. Later, we can talk about where you’re going to live. It’s possible that after spending a week with me I’ll drive you nuts and you’ll be running after me with an icepick. You might prefer to have your own apartment. We can discuss all this, but I refuse to do it while a rock band is playing next door and the woman upstairs is screaming blue murder.”
