The Pregnancy Test (2 page)

M
andy clutched her roiling stomach and pondered the irony of it all.

Beckwith Tripp had been right.

Only no bake shop for her. Beckwith’s pastries had in fact been buns. Or more specifically,
a
bun. In her oven.

God help her, she was pregnant.

“Are you okay?” Caroline asked as she strode through the lobby, heading to the offices of NY Computing. Mandy inched along behind her, wishing there was a wall she could clutch.

“I’m just lovely, really, other than the fact that I’m being sick every three minutes.”

Caroline stopped walking and spun around, her black pumps squeaking on the hard glossy floor. There wasn’t a wrinkle anywhere on her charcoal gray suit, and not a single hair dared escape the twist into which she had expertly maneuvered it. Her skin and makeup were flawless, a discreet winter tan giving her color.

“You’re not going to throw up during this interview, are you?”

“No, of course not.” At least she hoped and prayed she wouldn’t. “I was being sarcastic and bitter.”

Feelings that came quite easily to her now, since four weeks ago when that stick had turned pink and her whole life had been tossed upside down and around like a Tilt-a-Whirl. Before that moment, she had been blithely considering selling her shop and contemplating her feelings toward Ben. She had been wondering if perhaps it was time to stand on her own two feet separate from her parents and their pocketbooks and grow up just a little bit.

That had been four weeks ago.

Now she was going to be a mum.

Ben had gone bye-bye.

And growing up was no longer an option, but a necessity.

She’d sold the shop, receiving an offer much quicker than she had expected, and while her parents had assured her she could keep the capital gains when the closing went through next month, it was still absolutely necessary to get a nine-to-five job. With health insurance.

She wanted this baby badly, despite its unexpected timing. And she wanted to raise her child on her own two feet, without running to Daddy and Mother for help. She wanted her child to have a self-reliant and responsible mother, with a stable income.

“Good. No throwing up allowed. And save the bitter for later. Right now you need to project confidence and intelligence. Remember what I told you—Damien Sharpton is an impatient man, a total workaholic. He doesn’t tolerate weak women.”

Mandy remembered. She remembered every horrible thing that Caroline had said about the man, from the grimace she always gave when she brought up his name, to the fact that he had run through four assistants in the previous year.

“He made his last assistant cry almost every day for two weeks until she quit.”

“Nice guy.” Mandy concentrated on taking little tiny breaths and swallowing slowly. Her fingers quivered as the nausea rose up for one frantic moment, then settled back down again. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

“And don’t forget,” Caroline said as she reached forward and brushed something off the shoulder of Mandy’s black suit jacket, “you’re not pregnant.”

It was still so incredibly bizarre to think that she was, in fact, pregnant. She didn’t feel maternal, so it shouldn’t be that hard to fake. She felt as though she had a horrific case of the flu, but she couldn’t really fathom there was a baby growing inside her. She touched her stomach, brushing her hands over the button on her blouse.

She was thrilled. She was terrified.

She was going to be sick.

Mandy clamped her lips tightly shut and breathed through her nose.

“Mr. Sharpton won’t hire you if he thinks you’re pregnant. But if he hires you and we hide the pregnancy from him for a while, well, when the truth finally becomes obvious, he won’t be able to fire you because of discrimination. And he absolutely hates to think there was something his superior intelligence didn’t pick up on, so he’ll never, ever admit that he didn’t realize you were pregnant when he hired you.”

It sounded all rather complicated to Mandy at the moment, when she was fighting to stay vertical and not slide to the floor like a narcoleptic. She had never been so tired in her entire life. Vampire victims probably had more energy than she did.

“But won’t he be angry when he finds out?” And given how pleasant Mr. Sharpton sounded, Mandy didn’t think that would be a fun day in the office.

“We’ll just act like we told him you were back in the beginning. I told you, he’ll never admit he didn’t know.”

Caroline started walking toward the elevators, and Mandy followed, shuffling in her boots. She had heels in the bag on her shoulder to change into, unwilling to tromp through the slushy March snow in them. Somehow Caroline had managed to stay completely intact on the two-block walk from the subway, whereas Mandy felt rumpled and pimply and swollen. She felt like she was thirteen and facing her mother over the table.

How could you have wrinkled that blouse in the three minutes it takes to walk from your bedroom to the dining room?

“Thanks, Caroline, for getting me this interview. It couldn’t have been easy since I have no marketable skills to speak of.”

Caroline looked outraged. “Mandy! Check that defeatist attitude at the door. You have run your own business for three years. Everything Mr. Sharpton asks you can be answered in some way with that. You have computer experience; employee management experience; you’ve dealt with distributors and done your own marketing. You are overqualified for this job. Besides, I got you the first interview with HR, but you passed that round and got yourself the actual interview with Sharpton.”

Mandy managed a smile. Caroline, Allison, and Jamie had rallied around her, the true friends that they were, offering support and a shoulder to lean on. Allison and Jamie had staunchly assured her she could stay in their two-bedroom apartment after the baby was born, since Caroline, whom she shared one of the bedrooms with, was getting married in July and moving out.

And now Caroline was risking her reputation at NY Computing, where she was a marketing manager, by securing Mandy an appointment with HR, which had led to this interview with Demon Sharpton, her hopefully soon-to-be boss. The fact that he had been given that nickname by the executive assistants on his floor, based on the freaky little boy Damien from the classic horror movie
The Omen,
was unimportant. About as frightening as getting caught under a kicking horse, but unimportant. This was her future, and she could do this.

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right. I will project confidence, and I won’t run out screaming or burst into tears unless a jackal pops out from under his desk. Then I’m out of there.”

Caroline laughed as they stepped onto the elevator. “Remember, eighteenth floor. I’m getting off on twelve. HR has screwed up the amount they’re withdrawing on my taxes again.” She shook her head. “I can’t wait to see how long it will take for them to change my name after the wedding.”

“I’m so happy for you, Caroline. I can’t believe it’s only a few months until the wedding.”

“Sixteen weeks. Give or take a day.” Caroline grinned. “Brad and I are booking our honeymoon to Paris tomorrow.”

“Paris in the summer will be lovely. I haven’t been there since I was sixteen. I fell wildly in love with a Parisian. He was eighteen and played in clubs…he made music with office supplies. I thought it was very deep.”

She had always been attracted to the rather flighty types, the artists, the musicians, the modern day Einsteins. That’s why it had seemed like Ben was such a mature choice, such an improvement, a stable alternative to passion and poetry.

There certainly hadn’t been any passion when Ben had looked her straight in the eye, offered her a five thousand dollar cash compensation for their mutual mistake, and informed her not to call him ever again.

The elevator slid open on twelve, and Caroline and another man moved into the hall. “Don’t forget to change your shoes, and good luck!” Caroline gave her a smile and a wave before strolling off with a professional and confident walk.

Mandy glanced down at her thick sheepskin-lined boots peeking out from under her suit skirt. “Right-o. Change the shoes. I remembered that.”

No, she hadn’t. She couldn’t remember her head from her hind end these days. She dug her heels out of her bag as the elevator stopped on fourteen, and the remaining three passengers got off. For one exciting second, she thought she was actually going to get privacy to hop around one-footed tugging her boot off, but then a man got on the elevator, stopping the door from closing with his foot.

Damn.

He was good-looking.

With dark hair, expensively cut. Pricey, but conservative gray suit. Shiny shoes. The
Wall Street Journal
tucked under his arm and a cup of coffee in his hand.

The kind of man who worked with her father, who always made her feel a bit inadequate, dismissed. Like her father himself had.

This man wasn’t dismissing her—he wasn’t even acknowledging her existence. He glanced at the number panel and gave a firm push to the eighteenth floor, which was already lit.

As if
her
pushing it wasn’t good enough. Somehow his pushing it would get them there faster.

Pompous you-know-what.

Mandy dropped her bag to the floor and held on to the handrail. Lifting her leg, she tugged a boot off and let it tumble on top of the bag. Then she hooked her toes into her shoe and hopped a little as she tried to push the heel in. The motion made her stomach heave.

Of course, even wiggling her pinky finger made her stomach heave these days. Forget complicated maneuvers like crossing her eyes or touching her toes.

Or putting on heels in a moving elevator.

She lost her balance and hit the wall with her shoulder. “Damn.”

The man glanced her way, but didn’t turn far enough to actually see her. His leg tapped impatiently. He watched the buttons climb floors, glanced at his watch, patted his pocket, probably making sure his mobile phone was still intact.

She had one pump partially on and one winter boot, and it looked as though it was going to stay that way unless she got some assistance. Setting her foot back down, she tried to ram her heel in. Nothing happened, so she let go of the handrail, bent over, and used two hands to wedge her heel in the shoe. All the blood in her upper body flooded into her face in a hot, dizzy rush.

“Oh, no.” This was bad.

Shiny black shoes turned toward her.

She was afraid to move. If she did, it was highly likely her breakfast of tea and toast would come hurtling up onto her shoe, her bag, and the tired mauve carpet.

“Is something wrong?” He had a hard voice, clipped, reserved. There was reluctance in his question.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Mandy wondered if she could hobble forward off the elevator, still bent over at the waist. She might have managed it if her bag wasn’t lying on the floor two feet away, and her footwear scattered left and right. Her wallet was in her bag, just out of reach.

“Well, get off the elevator then.”

He said it as if this was obvious, which it would be if she could move.

Even with her hair falling in her eyes, Mandy could see the black shoes and pant legs were in front of the door, holding it open.

“I can’t. If I stand still, I think I’m okay. If I move, I think I’ll…well, be sick.” It seemed inappropriate to say “puke my guts out” in front of this frosty businessman. Or in front of his feet anyway.

“You can’t just stand there all day,” he said, with a touch of disbelief.

Well, no shit, Sherlock.

The door tried to close, and he pushed it back open.

“I suppose I can’t.” Mandy raised herself a half inch. Her head swam, but her stomach only lurched. “I have an eight o’clock appointment—a job interview—and I’ve got this bad case of”—
Morning sickness
—“the flu.”

Nothing but silence came from shiny-shoe man.

Oh, my God, this was a nightmare brought to life. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t move. She was nauseous, she was mortified. She was stuck on a bloody elevator with her head around her ankles and her bum in the air.

She really didn’t think that was the confident side Caroline wanted her to be projecting.

D
amien Sharpton usually knew what to do in any given situation.

But he didn’t know what the hell to do about the woman bent completely over in the elevator, ass up, head down.

His first urge was to step out in the hallway and let the door close on her.

Despite what people said about him, however, he wasn’t quite that heartless.

He was impatient. Calculating. Aggressive. Consumed by his work and utterly devoid of a personal life.

He was okay with all of that. Yet regardless of the past three years, and everything he’d been through, he wasn’t inhumane.

So he hovered, holding the doors open, and wondered what exactly he was supposed to do now.

“Do you want me to call someone?” He reached for his cell phone, pleased that he’d thought to foist her off on someone else. Let one of the executive assistants deal with her, until her husband or boyfriend or friend came and retrieved her. Not his assistant, since he didn’t have one at present.

That dippy little girl Lanie he’d hired out of total desperation had not worked out at all. Even the most simplistic of tasks like using the copier had been a struggle for her, and when he’d pointed out ways to increase her efficiency, she had burst into tears on him.

But he could call Jim’s assistant, Terri. She was very maternal and sweet and would know what to do with a potential vomit situation.

“No, no, I’m fine, really. I have to get to this interview. I really need this job for the health insurance.”

Obviously, since she was sick as a dog. Damien tried to remember what she looked like when her light brown hair wasn’t covering her face, but he hadn’t really noticed her when he’d stepped on the elevator. He had been thinking about his nine-o’clock conference call with the Atlanta team and hoping that his eight-o’clock interview would result in an assistant who could actually use Instant Messaging without inserting giggling smiley faces every other word.

Lanie had been fond of those.

Damien cleared his throat and flipped open his phone, trying to remember Terri’s extension.

“Can you hand me your coffee cup?”

“For what?” But he was already leaning down and sticking his coffee cup under her hair in the direction of her hand, figuring it wouldn’t be wise to upset her. The door tried to close again, but he held it with his foot and hip, hoping it wasn’t creasing his suit.

“I’m going to stand up, but I need something to catch it, just in case I get sick.”

Oh, good God. He was sorry he’d asked. And while he’d gotten a grande, he didn’t think the cup was that big. And it was still half full.

A little fist of nausea curled in his own stomach, and he lifted his eyes up from her head to distract himself. Her suit jacket had slid down toward her neck, given the pull of gravity, and he could see her bare back above her waistline. Her flesh was smooth, slightly pink, her waist tapering in above her skirt, in a way that was very…

Damn.

Damien nearly thunked himself on the forehead. What the hell was he doing?

In three years, he’d never once felt the stirrings of attraction for a woman, and now he suddenly found a woman’s bare back sexy. A faceless, flu-striken woman. It was ludicrous.

“Thanks. I really appreciate this. The job I’m interviewing for, I’ve heard the boss is a complete and total ogre. He’s scared off all his other assistants and is completely unreasonable. I don’t mind, because well, I need the job, but I don’t want to cancel last minute with someone like that. So I’ve got to go, hell or high water.”

She stood up with a shaky surge, and as her eyes locked with his, Damien realized he was looking at his eight
A.M.
interview appointment.

He was the ogre.

She wanted to be his assistant.

And she was gorgeous.

With a heart-shaped face, chin-length hair that tumbled in soft waves, bangs sticking up a little from her previous position. Her brown eyes were huge, warm, vulnerable. Her cheekbones were high, her lips bowed, her skin a flushed pink and her breath rushing in and out on shaky little bursts. There were slight dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were a bit hollow, like she’d lost weight from the illness she was battling.

Germs were probably leaping off her and onto him even as he stood there, but he didn’t retreat into the hallway. In fact, he let go of the door and stepped forward. Found himself bending over to pick up her bag and her shoes.

Shoving them in her hands. “Here,” he said gruffly, as the elevator closed and started to ascend.

“Thanks.” She brushed her bangs back, making them stick up even more. Then she passed the coffee to him and kicked the brown Eskimo-looking boot off her foot. “You can have your coffee back. I don’t think I need it after all.”

Damien took the cup and tried not to curl his lip in distaste. He’d never look at a grande coffee from the cafe downstairs in quite the same way. Nor could he believe that somehow this woman had heard he was difficult, unreasonable, an
ogre
, before she’d even been hired.

When she bent partially to put on her black dress shoe, she made a small sound of distress. Afraid he’d be stuck on the elevator indefinitely, Damien grabbed her arm and balanced her before she wound up on the floor or worse. He wasn’t sure his dry cleaner could remove vomit.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

He admired her tenacity. While it would have been simpler and probably smarter for her to just reschedule the interview, she had toughed it out. Probably assuming that he would dismiss her as irresponsible for canceling and that he wouldn’t be willing to give her a shot.

Not that he would do that. He didn’t think. He mentally went through his tight calendar. He wasn’t the most patient of guys, and he’d had it with incompetent and lazy assistants. Being totally honest, he probably wouldn’t have rescheduled with her, assuming she wasn’t serious about the job.

Which annoyed him that his ogre reputation might actually have some minor basis in fact.

The elevator opened on twenty-four, and an older man got on.

Reaching over, Damien punched the eighteenth floor. No sense in riding this thing all the way to the ground floor again.

Then he watched the woman tuck her boots in her bag. He narrowed his eyes. He fought irritation. Attraction. Admiration.

Time to clear his morning. “Mandy Keeling?”

She looked up in surprise. “Yes, how did you…” Horror descended on her face, her fingers rising to clutch at her throat. “Oh, no. No, no, no, you can’t be…”

“I’m Damien Sharpton.” The door opened behind him. “The ogre.”

“Eighteenth floor,” the older man said when neither of them moved so much as a muscle.

Damien put out his hand in a polite gesture for her to lead, but his voice was the one he used in the boardroom. The one that was ten times colder than the tone that had reduced Lanie to tears. “After you, Ms. Keeling. My office is at the end of the hall, last door on the left. I’ll try to be brief.”

He expected her to wither. Stammer. Cry. Retreat. Shake her head no, let the elevator door close behind her, and ride her little germ-infested self right out of his life.

She didn’t.

Through tight lips, she simply said, “Thank you,” and started down the hall, listing to the right a little like she was on a ship at sea.

His interest and respect rose another reluctant inch or two.

Mandy bit back a whimper and clutched her bag in one hand, her stomach in the other.

Bugger it. Now, what were the odds of encountering Damien Sharpton on the elevator? And her calling him an ogre, of all things. It was so heinous it was almost funny.

She winced, and not from the pinch of her swollen feet in heels.

So much for a nine-to-five job that would make day care easier to secure. She wasn’t going to be given this position, for obvious reasons, but she needed to at least try and redeem herself on the interview so there weren’t repercussions for Caroline.

Which meant no referring to Damien as Demon Sharpton.

The door to his office was closed, which didn’t surprise her. In the minutes they’d been on the elevator together, she had sensed his tension, his tightness, his impatient energy brimming beneath the surface. Behind her now, she could feel his presence. Looming, firm, judging, his feet making hard strides, his suit rustling as he slowed down to keep pace with her snail speed. His breath coming out in exasperated bursts that he covered with a cough.

She knew his type. Her father was one. A man with no patience, no interest in anything other than his work. A man who didn’t understand why the whole world didn’t move at the same frantic, obsessive rate as he did.

Leaning around her, he opened the door and strode past her, tossing his phone on his desktop, dropping his coffee into the trash under it. He smoothed his rich blue tie, flipped open the lid on his laptop, and reached for a file, all before he had completed his descent into his chair.

“Have a seat, Ms. Keeling.”

Gladly. Mandy sank into a leather armchair and took a deep breath. “Please, call me Mandy, Mr. Sharpton.”

“All right. So, tell me why you think you’re qualified to be my assistant?”

No offer for her to call him Damien. No comment on the elevator incident. Right to business. She should let it go, the whole embarrassing ogre thing. But she just couldn’t. Not because of the job, but because of Caroline’s reputation, and because it seemed that if someone insulted her character, she would like to hear an apology.

“Listen, Mr. Sharpton, I need to apologize for the rather unfortunate comments I made in the elevator.”

He pinned her with a stare. “There’s no need. Really.”

While Mandy heard his almost palpable need to keep this interview clipping along so he could move on to the next task of the day, she could also see that there was more to Damien Sharpton than met the eye.

He was fabulously attractive, with dark hair cut very close to his head, strong, sharp cheek and jawbones, and the palest blue eyes she had ever seen. They matched his tie and set her heart racing with feelings that weren’t particularly maternal.

But even a mum can appreciate a good pair of electric blue eyes on an attractive man.

Not that she was a mum yet. And not that she had a husband or boyfriend, so the strange fascination she was feeling wasn’t wrong exactly.

But it didn’t matter in the least, because she wasn’t shopping for a man to fill either role. After Ben, she was done. It was time to concentrate on her child and being the best parent her inadequate self could be.

But blimey, he had nice eyes.

And behind the impatience, there was a touch of something that made her rethink Damien Sharpton. There was pain there, hiding behind his efficiency and elegance and hardness.

“No, there is a need for me to apologize, because I was completely out of line gossiping about you. I don’t know you, so I have no reason to believe any of those rumors are true, and it was small of me to be talking like that. I’m sorry. My only excuse is that I was nervous, and not feeling well, obviously, since you were witness to that, and when I’m nervous, I tend to babble.” Like now. Good God, Mandy felt her cheeks start to burn.

Damien’s eyebrows had shot up, and his hand froze on his computer mouse. If disdain had a name, it would be Damien.

“Fine. Thank you. Moving on, then. Why would you like the position here at NY Computing?”

Okay, then. Mr. Happy didn’t like to chitchat. Duly noted. Mandy crossed her leg and settled her bag on the floor and launched into the perfectly poised bullshit response that Damien was expecting.

Twenty minutes later, her answers were getting shorter, her bullshit less poised, and her stomach was doing an imitation of Chinese acrobats. He was relentless. He didn’t even give her five seconds after a response before he fired the next question at her.

And every single question seemed designed to force a confession out of her.

Why do you want to relinquish your own business and work for me?

Are you available for business travel?

Where do you see yourself in five years?

The baby she could not feel suddenly seemed like a gigantic white elephant under her skirt. She didn’t want to lie—she didn’t want to deny her child before it was even the size of a grape.

She knew it was practical to keep her pregnancy to herself, yet she still felt like standing on her chair and screaming, “I’m having a baby! I’m going to be responsible for another human being!”

But first she needed to throw up.

“Excuse me, Mr. Sharpton, where is your wastebasket?”

“What?” His head snapped up, but Mandy didn’t wait.

She dropped to her knees and stuck her face under his desktop. As she tossed her tea and toast onto his discarded coffee, it occurred to her that she had followed Caroline’s instructions. Her friend had told her to make a knockout impression, and this was certainly that.

Weak and horrified, Mandy lifted her head and found herself face-to-face with Damien Sharpton’s crotch.