The Daddy Decision (22 page)

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Authors: Donna Sterling

BOOK: The Daddy Decision
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“I felt you were making a serious mistake,” he admitted cautiously. “And you weren't listening to anything I had to say about the matter.”
“Do you know why?” Her eyes flashed, and she didn't wait for an answer. “Because my personal plans with Fletcher were
none of your business.
”
Ridiculous, how much that hurt. “Let's go sit down and talk about this.” He turned toward the kitchen, away from her gaze, with his sack of ice cream and pickles still tucked under his arm. She damn sure wouldn't laugh now, if he gave them to her.
“You're not headed for the kitchen, are you?” she called from behind him. At least she was following him. “There's no table or chairs in here,” she pointed out when they arrived. “Or did you forget? The only table or chairs are
in your bedroom.
”
He resisted the urge to wince. How devious must
that
seem to her? He shoved the ice cream into the freezer, set the pickles aside and turned to face her. Anger glistened in her eyes. He'd never been gladder to see it there. Her impersonal coldness had been cutting him to the quick.
“So then let's go to my bedroom,” he quietly replied, his gaze probing hers.
Vulnerability flashed across her face.
His love for her leaped and glowed. “What difference does it make where we are? We can sit and talk in my bedroom
just as easily as we can make love here on the kitchen floor.”
She backed away with something like alarm. “I shouldn't have come here.”
He shifted closer, needing to take her in his arms. “Laura—”
She held up a halting hand. “No, don't.” She took a moment for some internal struggle, then reclaimed her poise. The distancing coolness had returned. “Your honesty meant a lot to me, Cort. I believed I could trust anything you said. And that trust was one of the most important reasons I thought I could raise a child with you.”
Alarm coursed through him. He took hold of her shoulders, urgently seeking an emotional connection. “We
can
raise a child together,” he swore. “We
will.
”
“I hope that won't be necessary.”
Those softly whispered words jolted him.
She no longer wanted his baby.
He probably should have deduced as much, but he hadn't. The sense of loss and rejection staggered him.
He'd brought it on himself, he knew. He couldn't deny that. He
had
lied. He
had
schemed. And now he wanted more than ever to explain why. But wasn't this exactly how Fletcher had met his fate, wanting her too much to hold back the damning words?
“I...I care about you, Laura.”
Pitifully inadequate.
“I never meant to hurt you. That's...that's the exact opposite of what I meant to do.”
Her expression changed in the most baffling way. As if he'd somehow hurt her again. But the anger and emotional distance had vanished. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded sad and wistful. “I know you care about me, Cort.” The smile she gave him was fraught with troubled affection and regret. “I realize your intentions were good.
And your offer to father my baby was...” she paused and swallowed “...touching.”
“Touching?” He didn't like the sound of that.
“And maybe I owe you my thanks, in a way.”
Her thanks.
Oh, God...
“In what way?”
“Your presence did force Fletcher's feelings for me out into the open, which helped settle things in my mind. At least now I know the truth about him.”
The truth about him.
As if he'd committed some unforgivable crime.
“But more important than that,” she continued, “I've learned something about myself in the past few days. I've realized that platonic friendship isn't enough. And neither is a purely sexual relationship.”
Purely sexual.
She had to be talking about him. Did she still see their relationship in that light?
“Maybe I have been running from intimacy, as everyone seems to think.” She drew in a breath, glanced at the ceiling with eyes that grew too shiny, then forced her gaze back to his. “But I'm over that now. I realize what I need. A relationship that has it all—friendship, passion and
love.
You understand that, don't you? I want to...to fall in love. With someone who will love me. And I hope, I pray, that a baby will come from that union, and no other.”
He stared at her, his throat locked up with the most incredible pain. Moments ago, she'd made it clear that she no longer wanted his baby. And now she'd explained why. A “purely sexual” relationship wasn't enough. She wanted to fall in love.
In her infinitely gentle way, she'd said to him exactly what he'd said to her fifteen years ago. That all they had between them was sex. And that she didn't love him.
Or had he misunderstood? As unlikely as that seemed, he had to be sure, absolutely sure. He couldn't let her drift
out of his life if there was any chance that she might yet fall in love with him. But he couldn't jeopardize their future relationship with full honesty in case she was, in fact, carrying his child. His raspy whisper scalded his raw throat. “Do you have any particular man in mind?”
Deep, complex emotion roiled in her gaze. The most obvious was reluctance to answer. “No,” she finally whispered. “But I'm sure I′ll find him some day.”
And he suddenly understood why she, in her compassion, broke contact with men who showed signs of serious attachment—to avoid ripping out their very hearts and souls.
11
I
T WOULD TAKE about two weeks from the night they'd made love, Laura estimated, before she would know if she was pregnant She had promised Cort she'd call him the moment she knew.
Two weeks!
She'd barely made it through that first day back in Memphis. How would she ever make it through the intervening days? The uncertainty was torture. The pain of living without Cort was worse. She couldn't stop thinking about him. Craving his company, his smile, his touch. Loving him.
She tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that she had done the honorable thing. She had relieved his mind, she hoped, of the idea that he'd traumatized her into a fear of intimate relationships. She had convinced him that she was ready to find love.
But that was one thing she would never do. Because the man she loved—the only man she would ever love—did not love her. That much was obvious. He hadn't tried to stop her from leaving. He'd driven her to the airport with barely a word; hugged her, and watched her board the plane. He'd broken her heart again, and didn't even know it.
She'd done the right thing, cutting their ties.
But those ties couldn't be completely cut if she turned out to be pregnant. Her emotions at this possibility swung like a pendulum from moment to moment. She fervently
prayed she wasn't, then desperately hoped she was. She knew she should stay far, far away from Cort Dimitri and the heartbreak he would always bring her...yet she wanted more than anything to have his baby.
Their baby.
The only relief she found during the first few days away from Cort was through her work. She buried herself in projects, including the design of his house. She also spent time with Fletcher, choosing furniture, artwork and other antiques for Cort.
Though she felt somewhat of a strain with Fletcher at first, they soon fell back into a semblance of the roles they'd established over fifteen years. He'd mentioned that Cort was investing two hundred thousand in his business. Laura was glad for him.
Fletcher also talked about B.J. quite a bit. She'd spent the week with him, photographing antiques to sell over the Internet. Laura suspected that her presence at that particular time had to do with the conspiracy to sabotage their parenting plan, but she refrained from pointing this out. It seemed that B.J. planned to travel with him to an upcoming auction. Laura was pleased Fletcher had found company.
She, on the other hand, spared no time for socializing, not even for Christmas activities. Her project of designing the interior of Cort's house absorbed her for hours every day. Although her assistant had agreed to handle all personal contact with him—a request that had raised eyebrows—Laura prepared samples, sketches, photos and a disk of layouts to ship to him.
She wondered what he'd think of her “vision.” He'd been adamant about giving her free rein, but she worried he might be disappointed. She couldn't allow herself to dwell on that, though. She'd already wasted too much time thinking about him, missing him, wondering where
he was and whom he was with. Trisha, maybe, in London? Some other woman, who now played, laughed and loved with him in the very rooms she was designing?
Her heart ached. The days crawled by.
Steffie and Tamika both called her during that first week, concerned that she might be feeling down because of her foiled plan for motherhood. Laura tried her best to persuade them she was fine. She forced a cheerful demeanor, but the effort drained her.
She told no one,
no one,
about the possibility that she carried Cort's baby. He had agreed to keep the matter confidential. There'd be time enough to break the news to friends if and when she knew for certain she was pregnant. That possibility hovered in her mind relentlessly throughout the first week.
One more excruciating week to go before her period was due.
She prayed that she wasn't pregnant. She prayed that she was.
 
CORT SPENT OVER a week on the road, tending to business in New York and London. He tried to engross himself with an aggressive new project as well as those already on the table.
But at night, alone in hotel suites, he thought of nothing but Laura. He missed her with an ache that wouldn't quit. Things she'd said, things they'd done, played ceaselessly in his head. Worse, though, were the dreams when he'd wake to the scent of her; the taste of her. The heat of her kiss.
She wanted to fall in love. And he, as always, was the wrong man.
What the hell would he do if she was carrying his baby? Just hearing her talk about finding her true love some day
pierced him with intolerable pain. He couldn't imagine how he'd survive raising a child with her while she made a life with another man.
But what the hell would he do if she
wasn't
carrying his baby? He would have no ties with her. No contact. No shared moments. That seemed worse, much worse, than anything he could imagine.
He returned home on a Monday afternoon, twelve days after she'd left him. Only a few more days, he assumed, before he would know if their lives would intertwine.
The Yuletide music on the radio and the Christmas lights blazing on houses he passed provoked more memories, but from the distant past. Fifteen years had gone by since he'd spent a Christmas with her, but this time of year always reminded him of Laura.
Any
holiday reminded him of Laura.
In December, she'd have Christmas lights burning, friends stringing popcorn to wrap around the tree—whether they wanted to or not—and a wonderland of holly, bows and elves. At Halloween, she'd have pumpkins and whatnot. Hell, she even decorated for Arbor Day with little trees. He couldn't look at a holiday decoration without thinking of Laura.
And now the sight of his house reminded him of her, too. He motored up the drive and the mansion loomed before him, dark and vacant. Deserted. The ache in his gut began to throb. She'd been starry-eyed and passionate over this place. She would have had lights, and wreaths, and candles in every window.
He unlocked the door, walked in, switched on the entrance-hall light. The massive emptiness of the house bore down on him. A shell of a house, it seemed. And no amount of expensive items or furnishings would ever make a difference. He saw no beauty in its architectural
details; gleaned no pleasure from its history, or satisfaction from its worth. He couldn't recapture the sense of home.
He'd never think of it as anything other than “the place he most wanted her to be.”
He would have to keep busy to make it through this night. And the next week.
The rest of his life...
He damn sure couldn't distract himself with a swim. Going anywhere near the pool would be masochistic. He could hardly bear standing here in the entrance hall, where he'd swept her into his arms and carried her up to his bed. He had no desire to gravitate toward the kitchen where that silly gallon of ice cream and jar of pickles would mock him. He couldn't think of a single room that wouldn't smother him with memories.
He settled for leafing through his mail. He let out an ironic laugh at the sight of a neatly addressed package. The return address read,
Laura Merritt Design Associates.
There was no escaping her. He took the package to the only room with chairs—his bedroom.
His bedroom,
for God's sake. Sensory images of their lovemaking nearly forced him out of the door.
He had to face up to her absence, though. Weather the worst of the storm. Hadn't he survived this same trauma when he'd left her fifteen years ago? Hadn't he eventually learned how to breathe again, how to function again, without dying a little each moment?
Only by burying the purest, finest part of himself for fifteen years.
He avoided his bed and sat in an armchair to open the package she'd sent him. Not too surprisingly, he found her plans for the house. Sketches, samples, photos and a computer disk. He wasn't in the mood to look at anything to do with the house, but he hungered for communication with her; for any kind of connection.
He slowly perused each photo and sketch, then inserted the disk into his laptop computer. Illustrations lit the screen of how each finished room would look.
A sense of awe overtook him. She'd done exactly as he'd hoped. Even gazing at the scenes on a computer screen didn't stop the magic from happening. Rooms he'd never spent much time in beckoned with new appeal. Corners he'd barely noticed suddenly caught his eye. Colors soothed. Intrigued. Provoked a whimsical longing...
But then specific details drew his attention and evoked a very different response. A particular Oriental carpet...a wide, wing-backed chair...an antique armoire...a unique style of draperies...artwork from his favorite masters.
A prickling sensation crept up the back of his neck. He hadn't made any of these selections for Laura. Yet here they were, the very things he'd personally chosen last July for the other decorator—the
only
things he'd personally chosen out of the household of furnishings he'd ended up buying. He had these items, or ones strikingly similar, stored carefully in a warehouse.
How had Laura known so specifically what would appeal to him? How had she woven these things so seamlessly with her own ideas, creating a mood and theme all her own? Everywhere he looked in these renderings, he saw her. And him. Together.
He pulled the disk out of the computer and shoved it along with the photos and samples into a dresser drawer. He couldn't think about the house right now, or her vision for it, or how damn much he wanted her here. She wasn't his. She never would be. He had to find a way to live despite those facts.
The phone rang. He answered it, ill-tempered but grateful for any distraction.
“Cort? Fletcher. Had a question about the contract you sent me.”
Cort listened to the question, which proved to be an intelligent, straightforward one. He answered without hesitation. He'd been impressed with the proposal Fletcher had submitted and with his professionalism throughout their discussions. Cort knew that maintaining the businesslike demeanor couldn't be easy for him, considering Fletcher believed that Laura was in love with Cort
Another shaft of pain sliced through him. Fletcher had been wrong about that.
“Uh, by the way, Cort.” Fletcher cleared his throat. “About Laura.”
He tensed at the mention of her name. He hadn't expected Fletcher to bring up the subject, an understandably delicate one between them. They'd both wanted her. And she had shut them both out of her heart. He clutched the phone harder. “What about her?”
“Has she talked to you lately?”
Cort frowned. Was he rubbing in the fact that she'd left him? No. The guy cared more about the two-hundred-thousand-dollar investment he was about to make than that “What do you mean, ‘talked to me'? About what?”
“Anything. The way she's feeling, I guess. I know she talks to Steffie and Tamika...or at least, she used to. She used to open up to me, too, but that was before, uh...well, you know.” He hesitated, and Cort wanted to reach through the phone line and shake the words out of the guy. “There might not be anything to worry about.”
“But you think there is?” Cort prompted, his impatience and concern growing.
“Hell, I don't know,” Fletcher muttered. “She looks okay. She's been acting her usual cheerful self, and she's got Tamika and Steffie convinced she's fine. But...”
“But what?” Cort bit out, the very softness of his voice a threat.
“She hasn't put up any Christmas decorations.”
Cort held the phone in stunned silence.
“B.J. went to her house with some photos of furniture and noticed she didn't have a tree. It's already December twelfth. Laura usually has a tree up on the first. Anyway, B.J. and I took a tree to her house...and she didn't put the first ornament on it. Not even those strings of popcorn.”
Cort frowned. Squinted. Struggled to make some kind of sense out of it.
Not even the popcorn?
″Well,” Fletcher concluded, sounding somewhat embarrassed, “just thought maybe you should know.”
“Yeah,” Cort agreed, pondering the enigma with escalating concern. “Thanks.”
Something had to be wrong. Drastically wrong. Was she depressed? If so, why? Was she ill? If so, with what? Was she simply too busy? No. If Laura were the leader of the free world, she'd find time to string popcorn around her Christmas tree.
Cort's heart tripped. His breath caught.
Was she.
..pregnant?
 
SNOW HAD BEGUN to fall in Memphis early that Tuesday morning, lightly dusting the parking lot surrounding her interior-design shop. Laura stared out the side window near her desk at the hypnotic swirl of lacy flakes.
She was functioning in a state of shock. Every beat of her heart echoed the news: pregnant. Pregnant! The circle had turned red on her test kit, less than an hour ago. Not just an iffy pink, but a sure, vibrant red. And though she'd tried to prepare herself for that possibility, she felt dazed and awed and overwhelmed. She hadn't told anyone yet. She barely believed it herself.

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