Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (28 page)

She blinked first. “I was a table dealer. Craps, blackjack, roulette.”

God, how much had he had to drink to take her up to his room? At least she wasn't a stripper.

“At Middle Kingdom?” His assistant had booked him a room at the Chinese-themed resort instead of the conference hotel. Greta had thought it would be good for him to have a minivacation—her words. But he'd ignored the brochures about the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon she'd tucked into his work papers in favor of overpriced hotel whiskey. If he'd listened to Greta, he would've come back with a couple of postcards instead of a wife.

Though postcards wouldn't have looked nearly as pretty sitting on his couch in a pink cable-knit sweater and cowboy boots.

Thoughts like that had prompted him to engage Vivian in conversation, to fall under the spell of her mysterious smile and be hypnotized by the rise and fall of her breasts when she breathed. If all he'd done was invite her up to his room, the night in Las Vegas would make more sense, but he'd been thinking about marriage and families, and in his drunken haze had decided he wanted to wake up with her warm skin pressed against his for the rest of his life.

Reality had intruded the next morning and, almost a month later, was sitting on his couch.

“And you're not working there anymore because...”

“My supervisor disagreed with a decision I made.”

“Was I your decision?” She wouldn't have been the first woman unfairly fired because of sex, and she wouldn't be the last.

She turned her head to look out the windows again. An effective nonanswer, which he let go for now. She was—the fetus was—his responsibility for another eight months. He'd get his answer eventually.

“I have a guest bedroom. You can sleep there for now.”

She closed her eyes, the light pink of her eye shadow sparkling in the lamplight, and exhaled. The wool of her sweater must be stiffer than it looked, because even though she went boneless with relief, she didn't sink into the back of the couch. “Thank you.”

“Have you eaten dinner?”

“I'm fine.”

He took that as a no and didn't ask how long it had been since she'd eaten. The worry lines at the corners of her eyes said it had been too long. “What do you like?”

“I'm fine,” she said again, as though hoping if she said it enough times he would believe her. Or maybe she hoped to believe it herself.

Karl stood and walked over to the small table in his entryway. He riffled through the menus in the drawer until he found the one he was looking for, then he handed it to Vivian. “Pick out what you want.”

She looked up at him, one thin black eyebrow raised. “Chinese?”

He ignored the uncomfortable reference. “They have the fastest delivery.”

“Buddha's vegetable delight. Brown rice, please.”

“Soup? Egg rolls?”

Her stomach growled, betraying the casual look on her face and making a lie of her insistence of being “fine.” How long had those ten dollars been all she had to her name? Had she had no savings? All things he could learn tomorrow, after she'd eaten and had a good night's sleep. He called in her order and his, adding enough extra food to give them leftovers for days. He didn't know if she could cook, and he sure as hell didn't. If not for takeout, the baby might starve.

“Let's get your bags put in the guest room.”

* * *

F
OR
ALL
ITS
personality, the guest room might have been in a hotel. There was less glass and more wood than in the living room, but that was because the single piece of furniture in the room was a large, wooden platform bed with a built-in nightstand. The bedspread wasn't white or black, so Karl must at least know color existed, but the geometric pattern and primary colors didn't invite Vivian to snuggle. Still no curtains. What did this man have against curtains?

“There's a dresser in the closet.”

“Thank you.”
Thank you for acknowledging I might be here longer than just tonight.
“Is there something I can put Xìnyùn's cage on?”

“Who?”

“The parrot's name is Xìnyùn. It means luck in Chinese.”

He eyed the cage sitting on the floor. Xìnyùn eyed him back nervously. “Are you sure it doesn't mean bad luck?”

She picked the cage up off the floor and opened the closet doors to find the dresser to set the cage on. Parakeets didn't like humans to loom over them and Karl loomed as naturally as most people breathed.

“Double,” Xìnyùn whistled in approval.

She was pregnant, unemployed and homeless. Her father had fallen off the face of the planet and taken her life savings with him. Xìnyùn, at least, was happy to be off the floor. “At this point, I'm not sure of anything.”

He nodded, left the room for a moment and returned with a small table. “Here's a table for the bird.” He had his hand on the doorknob, about to leave the room, when he turned back to face her, his eyes in shadow and his expression unreadable. “How did you get to Chicago?”

“I drove.” As her gas gauge edged toward empty and the ten dollars felt lighter and lighter in her pocket, she'd turned the dial on her radio until she found a country music station and Carrie Underwood singing “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” She hadn't run out of gas, even if she had coasted into Chicago on wishes and a prayer.

“Where's your car?”

She described where it was parked.

“Give me your keys and I'll move it into the garage. I'll leave money for dinner with the doorman and bring it up when I return.” Without so much as a goodbye, he closed the door, leaving her alone with the skyline.

Inviting or not, all she wanted to do was curl up on the bed and sleep until the nightmare of her life was over and she woke up single, employed and not pregnant. Impossibilities. Time didn't travel backward.

She picked up one suitcase and hefted it over to the closet, which—except for the dresser and some hangers—was completely empty. Karl didn't accumulate crap. Or, if he did, he didn't store it in the closet of his guest bedroom. The room gave her nothing to judge her husband by, other than that his decorating sense was as cold as his hands and as lacking in expression as his face.

No, she was being unfair. She opened a small drawer and shoved underwear in. He'd invited her—a near stranger, no matter that the marriage certificate said otherwise—to stay in his home. He was moving her car and buying her dinner. And the morning she'd woken up naked in a hotel room with him calling her Vivian Milek and asking her if she was a prostitute, he'd handed her a cup of coffee and gotten her a robe.

Maybe he wasn't as unfeeling as his language and his composure made him seem.

She tossed some hangers on the bed and unpacked the rest of her clothes. When she was finished, she turned back to the other suitcase on the floor. Even if she'd wanted to unpack her mementoes, there wasn't a flat surface in the room to hold them. She shoved the last suitcase, without bothering to open it, into the closet and shut the door on her past.

Too melodramatic, Vivian. You just don't want it to look like you're moving in.

CHAPTER TWO

K
ARL
RETURNED
TO
the apartment later than he'd planned. Her little convertible had been easy enough to find. It'd been parked exactly where she'd said it would be and the Nevada plates gave away that it was hers. So had the pile of fast food containers on the floor of the passenger side. The blankets and pillows in the backseat had been a surprise. As had the empty gas tank. He'd thrown the trash away when he'd filled up her tank. The blankets and pillows he'd left in the backseat, though he'd left them folded rather than in a heap.

Riding up the elevator with bags of Chinese food and a growing sense of unease, he prepared to face his wife.

Vivian had set the table he never used with the place mats, white cotton napkins and flatware he also never used. Jessica, his ex-wife, had bought them. She hadn't taken them with her when they'd divorced. Neither had she taken the apartment nor the BMW. All were status symbols he was certain she'd considered more important than their marriage, but not important enough to possess after the divorce was final. An indication, he'd felt when he'd signed the divorce papers, of the low regard in which she had held their marriage.

Time allowed him to be more generous with his reflections. Marriage to him hadn't given Jessica anything she'd really wanted, so why keep the trappings? Leaving the flatware, china and linens in the apartment with her ex-husband, she was free to start fresh.

He wondered if Vivian had been married before. Did she have an apartment, friends or a book club? Why had she estranged herself from her life to drive halfway across the country in search of an unknown husband? After setting the bags of food on the counter, he looked around the room for her. He could learn the answers to his questions later. Eventually, people always told him the information he wanted.

Just as he determined that the living room was empty, he noticed Vivian leaning against the rail on his terrace, looking north over the skyline of Chicago. With the room lit up against the dark night sky, Karl could only make out contours of her slim body. When he turned off the lights in the living room, her form gained substance. She reached up with her arm, pulling her hair off her neck and over her shoulder, exposing skin to the cold.

The night they'd spent together existed in a dream world, but his memories of the morning after were clear and sharp. He remembered waking up to find her sleeping, her black hair spread across the pillow and her neck exposed. He remembered looking at the knobs of her spine as they trailed from her nape down her back and under the covers. How kissable those knobs had looked. But then he'd gotten out of the bed to make coffee, found the marriage certificate and any thought of kissing her neck was gone.

Stepping outside into the cold pushed away those memories. They were married, she was in Chicago, and kissing the slim line of her neck had never been further away from possible. “Do you have a winter coat?”

She was standing outside in jeans, her sweater and pink argyle socks. “I'm not cold.”

Even in the hazy moonlight he could see goose bumps dotting her neck, but she didn't shiver or tuck her hands around her body for warmth.

“I bought the apartment for this view,” he said, folding his arms on the railing of the terrace and leaning forward to look out over the city with her.

“What are the names of some of the buildings?”

He pointed out the Aon Center and Smurfit-Stone Building. “If you're still here in the summer, maybe you can go on an architecture boat tour. Or they have walking tours year-round.”

“You don't have curtains.”

“No.” Removing the curtains was one of the few changes he'd made when Jessica had moved out.

“Not even in your bedroom?”

“I value openness.”

“You should come west.”

“I've been to Vegas.” He slid closer to her on the terrace. Not so close that their arms touched, but close enough to feel her presence. She still smelled like jasmine.

“Not Vegas. Vegas is the flashy west. I mean southern Idaho, where you can see for miles in every direction and there's nothing but sky and canyons.”

“Is that where you're from?”

“I graduated high school in Jackpot, Nevada. It's right across the border.”

He'd married a blackjack dealer from a town called Jackpot. The world had an unfortunate sense of humor. “It would've been a shorter drive from Vegas to Jackpot.”

She turned her head to the side to look at him, the corners of her mouth turned up in a mysterious smile. “Shorter, yes, but there's nothing for me in Jackpot. Plus, it would be wrong not to let you know you're going to be a father.”

“A phone call would've sufficed.”

“Would you want to learn that you're going to be a father with a phone call from a stranger?” She didn't slip again and admit to not being able to go home, as she had when they'd been talking in the living room.

He didn't have an answer to that question. If asked this morning, he would've said yes. Now, standing next to Vivian on his terrace, looking at the lights sparkle across Grant Park and smelling her jasmine perfume, he wasn't so sure. Her neck was even more kissable up close.

“Dinner's getting cold.” He pushed off the railing and walked back into the apartment, not looking to see if she followed.

* * *

K
ARL
WASN
'
T
MUCH
for words, Vivian thought, as she picked up the plates after dinner. They were strangers, sure, but they were
married
strangers who were having a child together. Even after they finalized the divorce, they would still have a child to raise together. The least they could do during the next eight months was to get to know each other.

But based on his terse responses over dinner, he didn't agree. She heaped the utensils on the stacked plates and took them into the kitchen. When she turned, he had followed with the cups and trash.

“I'll get those.” She took the glasses from his hand and loaded them into the dishwasher. “Don't worry about the plates,” she said when he started rinsing them. “Go sit down. I'll clean up.”

“I'm not letting you stay here so you can clean up after me.” He didn't stop rinsing the plates, but did let her load them into the dishwasher. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves before turning on the water, and light brown hair dusted his forearms.

She blinked, uncomfortable after catching herself staring at his arms. The plates clinked against one another as she used a little too much force to close the dishwasher.

“I know, but...” She didn't want to finish that statement.

“But?”

But I'm here because we had a one-night stand and I got pregnant, and we were drunk when we got married and I now need help and you're giving it to me and I don't know how long I'll need the help and I don't know how long you'll offer the help and I wish you'd let me clean up after dinner.
Her insecurities nearly pushed her down as they flooded over her, but all she said was, “I'm happy to help out.”

He nodded before grabbing a sponge and leaving to wipe down the table. He wasn't nodding because he knew she was happy to help out. She could feel in his intense hazel eyes that he knew what she had left unsaid. He knew she would act as maid in a poor attempt to make up for invading his life. He knew and he still went to clean the table.

She knew very little about her husband. Their night together had been his last day in Vegas, and their conversation over breakfast had been about the details of a divorce. The next day she'd received a phone call from a lawyer saying he represented Karl Milek and they would pursue a divorce according to Nevada laws. When could she come by his office? Did she have her own lawyer? No? Did she need time to find one?

Like all things in Nevada, getting out of the trappings of your sins was far more complicated than getting into them.

Karl's efficiency had intrigued her enough that she'd done an internet search on him. After reading newspaper articles, exploring his office's website and watching snippets of televised news stories, she'd felt as though she had a sense of who this man was. But now she realized every movement he made, everything he said, was carefully constructed to give the illusion of revelation without actually revealing anything. Not that any of that had been important to her at the time.

Then she'd gone home to an apartment emptied of anything of value and a note containing an apology from her father folded on the kitchen counter. When she had checked her bank account she'd found every penny she had carefully saved was gone. Then she had missed her period, and by that point it had been too late for Plan B. She hadn't even had enough money for an abortion, if she had decided to go that route, anyway. Then she had been fired, and suddenly the most important thing in the world was that her husband seemed to be the kind of person who fixed problems.

Their marriage had been a problem, and he was going to fix that. Now her pregnancy was the problem, and his magical fix had smoothed away the practical, immediate problems of that, too. She didn't want to have to rely on him, but she couldn't predict what help she would need after the baby was born—or what he would be willing to provide.

Once the activity of cleaning up after dinner was done, they were left with nothing to do but face each other and feel awkward. At least, Vivian felt awkward. She had the sense that Karl could have a fox eating out his stomach under his shirt and his face wouldn't reveal any pain. How drunk had he been to indulge himself in a feeling as human as lust? What else had been going on in his life that he'd allowed himself to get that drunk?

“Well—” she clapped her hands together “—I'm beat.” She was no such thing. Wired and punchy would be a more accurate description of how she felt right now. “Do you have a book I could read before I fall asleep?”

“I thought you said you were beat.”

She opened her mouth to respond but he'd already left the kitchen. He returned with
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower,
as well as
Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works
and a military history of World War I.

“A selection,” he said, holding them out to her. Not a muscle had changed in his bland expression, but Vivian was pretty sure he was amused with himself for his offerings.

“Thank you.” She'd hoped for a mystery or thriller, but lying in bed with one of these books would help her fall right to sleep. “I'm sure I'll learn something.”

* * *

K
ARL
WOKE
EARLY
the next morning to a dark, silent apartment. Not even the ridiculous bird was making any noise. He pulled his boxers on and went into the kitchen to make coffee. When he didn't hear any noise in his guest bedroom after the coffee grinder whirled, he cracked the door open to check on his guest. She was lying on her side, facing the door, the Keegan book on World War I flopped over her hand. The down comforter covered any rise and fall of her chest and he was about to check her pulse when she snorted and twitched before settling down again. Vivian wasn't dead, and she hadn't run off.

It looked like she'd made it halfway through the book before finally falling asleep. Despite its appearance, the Keegan book was unlikely to bore someone to sleep. He eased the door shut and went to get himself a cup of coffee. In the kitchen, he found a travel mug for Vivian to keep her coffee warm and poured her a cup, as well. Last night, before bed, he'd read a little about pregnancy—he was glad he'd had decaf in the freezer—and he remembered how grateful she'd been when he brought her coffee that one time in their Vegas hotel room. But when he went back into the guest bedroom to put the coffee on the nightstand, she still didn't stir.

When he had awoken in the hotel room a month ago to find himself married, he'd assumed her deathlike sleep had been due to alcohol. She hadn't seemed hungover—God knew he'd been too bleary-eyed and angry to notice if she had been—but she'd slept until he'd yelled her name and shaken her awake. This morning she seemed on course to do much the same. The bird stirred in its cage behind a cover, but Karl ignored it. Even if the bird was awake, he had no idea what to do with it unless it also wanted a cup of coffee.

It. The bird had a name. Luck, only not luck. Whatever was Chinese for luck. He still didn't know if the bird was male or female.

And the bird was probably easier than a baby. Not that he hadn't planned on having children. He had. One day. He'd just expected a little warning and time to read every baby book the Harold Washington Library had on its shelves before hearing the words, “I'm pregnant.”

He turned his attention back to the mother of his child. Though he believed she was telling the truth about who the father was, he'd still insist on a DNA test. He believed her, but he wasn't stupid. Yet looking at her sleeping, the test felt like a formality. The mother of his child slept on her side and snorted in her sleep.

Karl was surprised how much her sleeping in his guest bed pleased him. He thought he'd been pleased when his divorce lawyer had confirmed she didn't protest the divorce or the terms. That feeling was nothing like the warmth in his heart at seeing the contrast of her black hair against the primary colors of the duvet cover.

Before he left for the gym and office—both to work and to investigate his wife—Karl checked his laptop to make sure she wouldn't find anything personal on it, and then he wrote her a note.

* * *

V
IVIAN
WOKE
UP
to sunlight, though the west-facing room wasn't as bright as she'd expected with the lack of curtains. The gray clouds pressed as heavily on Chicago today as they had yesterday. The travel mug on the nightstand next to a note that said “decaf” was full of lukewarm, black coffee, which she drank anyway. At the sound of the mug hitting the table, Xìnyùn started shuffling his feet and whistling, “Deal, deal, deal.” When he finally squeaked out, “Deal, goddammit,” Vivian swung her feet out of bed to face the day and her father's parrot.