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I popped out of the bathroom, where I was busy pinning my hair up. “Two minutes.”
The water at the sink turned off. “One. We can’t be late, babe.”
We were due at Beth Israel, where I was scheduled for the neonatal echocardiogram and another sonogram, this time 3D. The latter wasn’t strictly necessary, but when Xavier learned that the doctor could determine the sex of the baby as soon as fourteen weeks with it, he’d insisted on paying for the extra test if only to “check on things” and make sure everything was all right.
He wouldn’t admit it, but I could see he was nervous, and not just because of a simple murmur. Why, I wasn’t quite sure.
“All right?” he asked as I exited the bathroom after one minute and thirty seconds. Compromise, right?
The question felt heavy. Everything felt heavy.
Since the night on the couch, he had helped me “pretend” several other times over the last two weeks and once had even stayed the rest of the night, holding me just the same way in my bed.
Always in the dark of night. Always by telling stories about us. The ones I would never let myself imagine on my own.
Last night, he’d been unable to help himself when I’d reached behind me to grab him, eager to touch his silky steel as I shook out yet another mind-bending orgasm. Our lips had nearly met, and in the meantime, he had spilled himself against the small of my back, bucking under my hand with a pained groan while his deep eyes stared into mine, unfathomably deep with hunger.
Pretend. That’s all it was.
I wished I could believe it.
Still, we hadn’t kissed again. Not once. I wasn’t sure what we were doing or what Xavier wanted here, but I knew he was being careful.
He hadn’t mentioned the possibility of getting back together—if anything, he had accepted that we were really and truly over as a couple. A nightly orgasm felt more like penance for getting me pregnant all over again. Like making me breakfast and paying for sonograms helped him atone for the fact that he had screwed things up beyond repair.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Now we stood in the hallway, gawking at each other like twitterpated middle schoolers trying to figure out how to ask someone out with notes bearing checkboxes for yes, no, or maybe.
Since I no longer had to spend my days tending to third-grade art projects and dodging squirting juice boxes, I could wear slightly nicer clothing. Today I had put on a black ribbed dress that hugged my hips and legs in a way that made my new curves more apparent. And while Xavier was pretending not to pay attention to anything about my body unless I explicitly asked him, it was impossible to miss the way his gaze floated over the new cleavage and more substantial derriere this pregnancy was giving me.
“I’m fine,” I said, somehow unable to look him in the eye. “You?”
He looked as gorgeous as ever in a suit and tie, though he’d shucked the jacket in favor of a leather bomber nearly as shiny as his hair. His trousers were cut in the modern way, narrow through the legs and just tight enough that I could easily imagine the size of thatpartof him I had gripped last night. Honestly, the way I was still feeling, I could climb the man like a tree many times over.
I turned away, cheeks reddened. I really was turning into an addict.
Pretending wasn’t enough. Fingers weren’t enough. Loath as I was to admit it, I wanted the real thing. I wanted it like a junkie wants her next hit. And it was right there, teasing me through the finest spun wool.
Before Xavier could reply, there was a knock at the door.
“Expecting someone?” he asked as he tossed the sponge into the sink.
“No.”
We both frowned in that direction, but I crossed the house and opened the door to find Derek Kingston standing outside in his detective’s uniform of slacks, a gray button-down, a black tie, and a jacket thrown over his arm. It was essentially what Xavier was wearing, but the difference between the two men was night and day.
Derek was an objectively good-looking guy with broad shoulders, a reasonably trim body, and a relaxed yet powerful way about him shared by a lot of Matthew’s friends in law enforcement. But while that might have done it for a lot of women, it was hard not to compare them. Derek was slightly awkward in a way that reminded me of boys in high school, whereas Xavier entered a room with nothing less than control. Derek tended to fidget, leaning back and forth on a door, picking at his nails, or shoving hands in and out of pockets, while Xavier occupied any room with stillness and gravity. To any other woman, Derek might have been a snack in his own right. But I could really only see one of them, even if whatever we had right now was more pretend than anything else.
“Hey, Frankie,” Derek said as he looked over my shoulder and found Xavier watching the interaction with an utterly unreadable expression while he appeared to be fixing his tie.
“Be nice,” I mouthed at him but had to stifle a smile when he just shrugged. I turned back to Derek. “Hey, we were just on our way out. Everything all right?”
Derek rubbed a hand over his closely cut hair. “Uh, yeah. I was just in the neighborhood on a job—”
“What sort of job?” Xavier cut in, coming to stand next to me.
Derek gave him a look. “My job. As a police detective. That’s all you need to know.”
