Divine Design (18 page)

“A little reassurance, maybe,” she said coyly. “Let’s face it, I’m no longer the slim and lithe young woman I once was,” she added, only half joking.

He gave her a considering smile. Aside from the night when they’d first met, this was the first time she had initiated any closeness between them. Michael thought it was a good sign. Perhaps it meant she was finally accepting the idea that he was part of her life now. Maybe it wouldn’t take much longer for her to build up her confidence in their love to tell him the truth. Time and encouragement might be all she needed.

“No, you’re not. But do you know the World Trade Center buildings have always been my most favorite buildings? In fact, if we got right down to it, I’d have to admit to being a large-building freak. They’ve always fascinated me,” he said, as he began to unbutton the front of her cotton blouse. “Before I got into journalism, I wanted to be an architect and build skyscrapers all over the world. But someone told me you had to be good in math to be an architect. It was my worst subject.”

He lowered his head and pressed his lips to the warm sloping valley between her breasts. Reaching around her, his hands savoring the feel of her smooth, warm skin, he released the catch to loosen her bra, while he said, “But I have never wanted to make love to one. Meghan, darlin’,” he said with a shake of his head, “your pregnant body is beautiful. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing in the world more wondrous or magical than what’s happening in your body, to your body, and through your body. But more importantly”—his voice lowered to a deep caress as he looked into her pure green eyes—“I love you. Not just your body or just your brain or just your independence or just your humor or just any one thing about you. I love all of you. Totally and completely.”

Meghan’s chin quivered and tears welled in her eyes. Her heart throbbed painfully in her throat as she croaked out, “Oh, Michael.”

Never had she felt so loved, so cherished, or so wanted. She couldn’t remember her life ever being so wonderful or so worthwhile. Michael was everything to her. His touch thrilled her. His embrace made her feel protected and secure. His intelligence and humor befriended her own. Michael’s warmth and tenderness touched her very soul. He returned her love freely, and all she’d ever done was to cheat and lie to him.

Shame released her tears. One by one they rolled down her cheeks as she rose to place a gentle, heartfelt kiss on Michael’s lips.

“Shh,” he soothed. He knew her guilt and the burden she carried. He ached to help her overcome her fear. “Let me love you, Meghan. Let me show you how very much you mean to me. All I want in return is your trust.”

He kissed her passionately, drawing out her life’s breath and filling his own lungs with it. Meghan gave herself up to the moment. Her body was aquiver with the electric sensations Michael generated with his hands, lips, and tongue.

She couldn’t recall them moving into the bedroom or how she lost the rest of her clothes, but her Michael-drugged mind did register the fact that he was standing naked before her. His hands on her abdomen, he took one aroused, deep red nipple in his mouth to tease it further with his tongue and nibble at it with his teeth until Meghan thought she might faint.

The dimly lit room darkened around her, and her knees became like rubberbands. Michael had to lower her gently to the bed.

With his hands and mouth, he conveyed his abiding love for her. His words carved themselves into her heart. His body expressed his need to have her with him for all time.

Together they claimed the magical, mystical land only their coming together had the power to create. They reveled in its splendor and revered one another for making its existence possible. Finally, hand in hand, they returned. Spent. Satisfied. Closer for all they had shared.

“One of your better ideas,” Michael murmured against her temple a short time later, his breathing still rapid, skin damp from exertion.

“Mmm,” was her drowsy response.

Michael’s arm slid down from across her chest to her baby-filled belly. With his big hand he made soothing, circular motions.

He liked touching the baby, she thought vaguely. He wanted his baby, and married or not, she knew, Michael would be a good father. She had certainly made the right choice.

“I can hear your gears grinding. What are you thinking?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

“That movie, An Affair to Remember? It reminds me a little of us,” she confided.

“How so?”

“Well don’t you think our whole relationship just screams of fate? Not the night we first met, but you coming to our firm of all places, your being too dense to know a great brush-off when you get one. It all seems so planned.”

“Dense?” he repeated with mock indignation, hoping that with her usage of the word “planned,” she was about to tell him the rest of her secret.

“Yeah,” she said, and giggled. “Like stupid, dim-witted, not too bright …”

“I know what it means,” he broke in, coming up on one arm. “And you’re wrong. I was smart enough to know a good thing when I had it. Your original idea, however, is probably correct. When historians write about our love affair, they’ll call it Meghan and Michael: A Divine Design,” he finished, grinning.

She returned his teasing smile and pronounced, “I like that.”

“The title or my touching you?” he asked, as he continued the lazy circular motion.

“Both,” she murmured, as she cuddled closer to him. “You do that a lot. Why?”

“I’m trying to communicate with the baby,” he said simply, lying down once more, cradling Meghan in his arms. “I want it to like me.”

“Why on earth wouldn’t it like you?” Meghan asked, startled by his reply.

“It doesn’t know who I am yet. Once it’s born, we’ll get better acquainted. It’ll help me to convince you that the three of us were meant to be together. We were meant to be a family. It’s all part of the divine design of things.”

“Michael,” she cautioned, her tone guarded.

He laid a long index finger across her lips and said, “Wait a second. I can do a better job than that. Don’t move.”

He padded across the room and dug around in the top bureau drawer until he found a small purple velvet-covered box. Returning to the bed, he took Meghan back into his arms before he spoke.

“I got this for you for Christmas. It was going to be a sort of a … think-about-marrying-me ring … or if you wouldn’t have agreed to that, it was a ring you needed to own anyway. The minute I saw it, I knew you ought to have it. Open it.”

Meghan took the box hesitantly. She knew what was inside and she knew what it meant, but she didn’t know how she would be able to turn him down—and refuse him, she must. Even she couldn’t stoop low enough to marry Michael without telling him the whole truth about the baby. And if she told him, he’d hate her, not to mention the complications his anger would cause.

The ring was stunning. A small rectangular emerald surrounded by diamonds, it was exquisite.

“It matches your eyes,” he whispered near her ear. “Please marry me, Meghan. I love you more than I’ll ever be able to find words to tell you. I want you … I need to have you in my life.”

Meghan’s eyes were a portrait of agony as she turned to look into his face. She could see his deep love for her, but her guilt wouldn’t let her accept it.

“Michael, I … the baby … I …” She faltered on the cold, hard lump in her throat.

“I love you and I love the baby,” he assured her sincerely. “I’d be a good father, I promise.”

“You’d be a wonderful father,” she agreed. “It’s just that … I … I can’t.”

The misery in her expression tore at Michael’s heart. “Just tell me,” he screamed at her from inside. “I’ll still love you, and you’ll feel so much better.” He considered confessing that he already knew her secret, but her trust was important to him. He wanted her to believe their love could endure all things.

“Darlin’,” he said, giving her a tight squeeze. “Think about it. If things are too confusing right now, we’ll wait till after the baby’s born and everything settles down. I was hoping to get married before the birth so I could give the baby my name, but I can always adopt it later.”

Meghan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Is that why you’re doing this? To give my baby a name? To give it your name? Because if …”

“Meghan,” he broke in calmly, “I want to marry you because I love you. I planned to ask you when I left New York in December long before I knew about the baby. The baby has nothing to do with it except that it’s an added bonus,” he told her firmly. “And you can turn me down now if you want to, but I won’t give up. I’ve been waiting all my life for you. I won’t lose you.”

“Michael,” she murmured, her voice forlorn. Meghan believed Michael when he said he loved her. She knew in her heart of hearts it wasn’t just the baby he wanted.

“Let’s table it for the time being, darlin’. Think about it awhile. I’m content for the moment to settle for our just loving one another. I can wait a little longer until you’re ready to make a commitment. Let’s get some sleep.”

Meghan lay in Michael’s arms, but sleep eluded her. Michael, too, apparently was having trouble falling asleep as his embrace remained firm and he continued to caress her skin gently. Finally he softly cleared his throat, and Meghan braced herself to hear whatever it was he’d been ruminating about.

“You awake?” he asked, feeling she was but needing to be sure.

“Yes.”

“Why did you say the first night we met wasn’t part of the divine design? Can you tell me, yet, what it was all about?” he asked point-blank, wanting, needing to get it out in the open.

“Michael,” she started after a long, tense moment, “I do want to tell you. And I will tell you. I just can’t right now,” she said, giving in to her cowardice and pride.

He sighed resignedly. “Okay. I’ll wait.”

Long after Michael’s muscles had relaxed and his breathing had become deep and regular, Meghan was awake, her mind racing around and around in circles. She loved him with all her heart and soul, but she couldn’t marry him without being truthful. She couldn’t tell him the truth, because he’d despise her and her heart couldn’t bear it. Either way she’d eventually lose him. Maybe she should just tell him and get it over with. She drew in his spicy scent and savored his embrace. She’d rather walk on a bed of hot coals than tell him right now.

The next few weeks passed swiftly and quietly.

Michael didn’t bring up his proposal again, but he knew she was thinking about it. She wore the ring on her right hand at his request and often he’d catch her studying it, a look of deep concern on her face, as if she was playing “Should I or shouldn’t I?” with the diamonds that surrounded the green gem. He longed to settle the decision for her, but it was hers to make.

Their relationship was loving and companionable, each of them enjoying their time together. They took long walks through the quiet town of New Bedford, with its quaint shops and its network of waterways that surrounded the city. The days were often rainy, but when the springtime sun shone, their love seemed to take on its glow and cheerfulness.

With the Dobson brothers still in control of their company until after their anniversary issue in August, and Michael’s other interests in capable hands, his idleness began to become a little tedious at times. Gestation being a rather slow process, and his part in it relatively minor, he found himself looking for new projects to occupy his time.

Always a challenge was Meghan’s reluctant, but determined ambition to become domestic. Her peanut butter-is-peanut butter attitude was enough to make a grown man cry. He taught her to read labels, choosing the brands with the least amount of sugar and the fewest preservatives.

He gave her an ongoing lesson in picking fruits and vegetables, and he frequently had to point out the difference between those you ate and those you threw at politicians. Because he ate mostly fresh fish and lean red meat, the discussion on how to choose pork chops had been difficult, and then his explanation of the benefits of a marbled roast as opposed to one with no fat ingrained had only confused her.

“In this case, not unlike your own,” he teased with a gentle pat on her abdomen, “the extra fat makes it more tender and tasty.” He bussed her nose with a quick kiss. “It’s the gravy you have to watch out for. It’ll clog your arteries faster than your peanut butter will.”

However, Meghan’s idea of going shopping had nothing to do with buying groceries, and she was no slouch when it came to the art of real shopping.

The department stores of New Bedford pushed their doors open wide to her. Since shopping for the baby had been risky in New York, and a baby shower out of the question, a whole new world of unlimited purchases opened up for Meghan.

Shopping, as an art form, required patience and endless hours of browsing to find just the right purchases. She led Michael through aisle after aisle of diapers, six-inch T-shirts, sleepers, bottles, blankets. … It seemed to him that the list went on forever.

Michael had a tendency to wander around the store when Meghan became engrossed in deep concentration over subjects like picking out crib sheets with ducks or cartoon characters. After a while he would return with something outrageous such as a pair of twelve-inch denim jeans, a football jersey with a blue and white star on it, or a cowboy hat ten inches in diameter from the boys’ department across the way. Meghan laughed the day he returned from the little girls’ section with basically the same articles of apparel, plus a ruffled yellow dress with a pinafore for Sundays.

It was during the hours spent buying things for the baby that Meghan could almost imagine herself as a married woman preparing for the birth of the child she and her husband had planned to have long before they took their vows. She enjoyed these visions and refused to face the truth until after the baby’s clothes were brought home and carefully put away.

Michael enjoyed the same dreams, only to him they were very real. In his mind, and even more in his heart, he was already totally bound and committed to Meghan. Her presence in his life had already become as much a necessity as the food he ate and the air he breathed. A marriage license with their names on it would be a mere formality, once Meghan realized the trustworthiness of his devotion and accepted his love and forgiveness.