Pursued by the Playboy (25 page)

He quirked a brow.  “Should I be?”

She shook her head.

“Fine.”  He dropped a brief kiss on her lips.  “As long as we’re on the same page now.   We’ll go by your place when you feel up to it, and pack up the rest of your things, whatever you want to bring with you.  We can fix up one of the spare rooms so you can have a home office.  How much notice do you need to give your landlord?”

She reared up, clutching the sheet to her chest.  “Wait a minute—I’m not giving up my apartment.”

He sat up as well, jaw flexing.  “I thought we’d already agreed on that.  Come on, Kate, you’re pregnant, we’re having a baby in another – what, seven months?”

“Yes, but…”

“But, nothing.  We’re already living together. I said I’d give you whatever space you need.”  He left the bed and jerked open a dresser drawer.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Kate found her eyes inexorably drawn to the sleek muscles of his back and buttocks as he pulled on a fresh pair of boxers.  A t-shirt followed, and then a pair of ancient jeans that had faded to white along the seams.    As he fastened the zip, he turned and caught her ogling him.  He sighed.  “We’re both busy enough that even if we are sharing space it’s not like we’re living in each other’s pockets.  What’s to discuss?”

How about love,
she wanted to say.  But the fear of rejection was too strong, and she bit her lip.  

His expression softened and he came back to the bed, this time perching on the edge of the mattress beside Kate’s hip.  He pried one hand loose from the sheet and engulfed it between both of his own.  “There’s plenty of room, Kate.  I promise you won’t feel crowded.  You can re-arrange things, redecorate, do whatever it takes to make this feel like home.  It’s a safe neighborhood, quiet, convenient.  Think of the expense you’d save on rent alone.” 

She felt like slapping the smug smile right off his face.  Did he think this appeal to her practical side would prevail over her reservations about giving up her independence?  What if something went wrong?  What if he up and decided he wasn’t ready to settle into long-term monogamy and fatherhood, after all?  Where would she retreat? 

She supposed Jake would always welcome her back.  But he had his own life and finally a girlfriend he seemed to be serious about.  The last thing she wanted to do was infringe on their privacy and potentially screw things up.  Which left her with—what?  Her mother, stuck in some studio sublet Kate had yet to be invited to visit?  Her father, rattling around the house in which she had grown up and which might or might not survive the divorce settlement?  Not to mention his own preoccupation with the pregnant-and-on-bed-rest Tiffani.  

Apparently she had let the silence go too long.  Marc rubbed his thumb across her knuckles and launched a fresh offensive.  “Once the baby is born, you won’t even need the access to campus anymore.  We could look for a house in the ’burbs, near my parents.  I’m sure Sophia will be happy to lend a hand.”

This time she nearly did slap him.  “Are you nuts?”  Tugging her hand out of his grasp, she wrapped the sheet more tightly around herself and edged away from him, until she sat with her back flush against the headboard.  “I have a whole research group depending on me.  Funding for three years, remember?  More grant applications in the works.  Paper submissions.  And what happens with my prospects for tenure if I just up and quit?  No reasonable university would ever hire me again.  I’d be out in the cold.  Sure, I could always work in industry.  But that should be my choice to make because it’s something I
want
to do, not something I’m
forced
into because I have no other options.”

Marc blinked.  “Okay,” he said slowly.  “What about part-time?”

“Maybe later.  Someday.  But not now, not until I make tenure.”

“What if you don’t make tenure?”

She brought her knees up under the covers and hugged them to her chest.  “Then I’ll have to find another university to take me on, start the whole thing over again.” 

He was silent for several minutes, fingers tapping against his jean-clad thigh.  “Both our families are here,” he finally said.

“I know.  And I realize how important your family is to you.  I wouldn’t ask you to give that up.”

“So where does that leave us?  You’d go off on your own?  Leave me and our child behind?”

She cringed.  “I would never leave my child behind.”

“I see.  So just me.”  He got up and paced toward the window.

She shifted, unsure how to bridge the widening divide between them.  “You could come with me,
if you wanted,
” she ventured softly.

His back tensed beneath the t-shirt.  “Or you could get another job locally.”

She scooted off the bed, careful to keep the sheet wrapped around her.  This was not a conversation she wanted to continue while lying in bed, naked.   “I don’t think you realize how difficult academic positions are to find.  How competitive the field is.” 

“I’m certainly beginning to,” he muttered.

“We don’t have to decide anything now.”  She pulled on a camisole and panties, then reached for a pair of yoga pants.  “Other than the fact that I’m going back to work as soon as I can.  We can get a nanny.  We can both try to cut back on hours a bit.  Be a little more flexible.  Other people manage.”

He grunted noncommittally, but his stiff posture relaxed a
little
and he half-turned to watch as she finished dressing.  When she scooped up the discarded sheet and shook it out over the bed, he moved and caught the opposite side of the linen, helping her smooth it over the mattress. 

She picked up a pillow that had fallen to the floor.  “I have another three, maybe four years
before I come up for tenure
, depending on what I can arrange with my dean.  They we’ll see.  If I get
it
, we’re golden.  And if not, I’ll start looking around.”  She settled back on top of the bed, and offered Marc a tentative smile when he sat down next to her.  “If some other university really wants me, they’ll bend over backwards to accommodate our needs.  And you, Dr. DiStefano, are a highly marketable sub-specialist—or so you keep telling me.”  She nudged his shoulder with her own. “So in all likelihood our two-body problem will not be a problem at all.  I just have to build up my CV, make sure I’m a hot commodity, and then we can write our own ticket.”

“Or I could just keep you pregnant, until you stop worrying about building your CV once and for all.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” She lunged toward the edge of the bed, away from him.

He caught her around the waist, toppling her back on the mattress and securing her in place with the expedient method of trapping her squirming body beneath his.  She stilled when she felt his growing arousal in response to her movement.  

“You’re impossible.”  She blew out a frustrated breath

“Then we’re well matched.”  He settled more comfortably against her, the prominent ridge behind his zipper pressing into the valley between her legs.  “I think I understand where you’re coming from.  And it sounds like we have plenty of time to figure it all out.  The most important thing is that we’re together, and we plan to stay together. Whatever happens.  Okay?”

When he put it like that, Kate didn’t have the heart to protest.

Chapter 25

Marc left his car parked out front and bounded up the stairs.  “Honey, I’m home!” he called out.  “We’re celebrating.  My patient with endometrial cancer and incidental ovarian mass did brilliantly.  No nodes.  We got it all.”

Silence greeted the announcement.  Despite the late hour, the lights were off and the living room drapes were still open.  In the faint wash of moonlight through the windows, he spied Kate huddled on the floor, her back propped against the couch, her head and folded arms resting atop drawn-up knees.  A cordless phone lay abandoned beside her.

“Kate?”  He dropped his keys and rushed toward her, his pulse jack-hammering.  

She lifted her head as he crouched down in front of her.  “You’re home.”

“Why are you sitting in the dark?”  He stroked a thumb over her cheek and it came away wet.  “What happened?”

  She sniffed and shook her head.  A sense of foreboding settled in the pit of his stomach as he pulled her unresisting body into his arms.  She buried her face against his chest, her hand clutching convulsively at his shirt.  All he could make out between her muffled sobs were the dreaded words,
bleeding
and
miscarriage.
 

He swallowed and tightened his embrace.  Cradling her head in one hand, he made soothing circles on her back with the other.  “It’s okay,” he whispered, his lips brushing softly against her hair.  He closed his eyes and forced himself to breath slowly through the band tightening around his chest. 

They hadn’t come to any definitive agreement over the compromises they would both have to make in order to raise a family.  They’d figured they had all the time in the world.  He remembered that same sentiment, echoed by one of his patients, seemingly a lifetime ago.  Had he and Kate, like that patient and her husband, lost a precious opportunity because they’d both been too driven, too focused on things that in the end paled in comparison to the miracle of having a child?   Everything in him rebelled at the thought.  Somehow, whatever it took, he’d make this right. 

He absorbed Kate’s shuddering sobs into himself, rocking her gently.  “It’s okay.  Everything will be fine.  We’ll get through this.  As long as we have each other, we’ll be fine, I swear.  Kate, please, don’t cry.  Please.  I love you.”

She stirred against him.

He leaned back, peering down into her face.  “Are you having any pain?  Cramping?”

“What?”

“We should probably go the ER just in case, make sure you’re all right.”

Her brow furrowed.  “What are you talking about?”

He swept a thumb across her cheeks, wiping away what remained of her tears.  “You said…” he hesitated.  Repeating the words out loud would lend them greater power, imbue them with the ability to hurt even more. 

“I said Tiffani had a miscarriage.”

“Tiffani…?”

“Dad’s girlfriend.  Over the weekend, apparently.  He just got around to calling me.” 

Relief rushed through him, and on its heels, confusion.  “Why were you crying?”

“She lost the baby.”  Kate’s voice wobbled and her fingers fluttered down to her abdomen.  “I can’t imagine…”

He covered her hand with his own.  “And you don’t need to,” he said, grateful beyond words at the reprieve they’d been granted.  He pulled Kate back into his arms, burying his face in her hair. 

Her voice sounded subdued against his damp shirt.  “About what you said earlier…”

He’d said a lot of things, in the heat of the moment.  A man could be forgiven his sentimentality when faced with the prospect of losing something precious, something he’d give his life to protect.  But now that the panic was subsiding, he wasn’t sure he wanted those words rehashed or dissected, especially since they hadn’t been reciprocated.  He stroked Kate’s back and redirected the conversation.  “How is your dad taking it?”

She tensed beneath his hands, then slowly relaxed again as he continued rubbing her back.  “They separated.  I think he’s kind of relieved.”

Marc muttered something disparaging. 

“Want to hear the crazy part?  It sounds like he’s thinking of reconciling with my mother.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

She leaned back.  “Doubt it.  They spend a lifetime hurling insults at each other, he cheats on her for years, she finally leaves, and now all of a sudden they’ve decided they’re ready for couples’ therapy?”

He didn’t have a ready response.

“It won’t work,” she said.  “People don’t change overnight.”

“Your mom’s on anti-depressants now.  You said she’s easier to be around.  Maybe she had some undiagnosed depression all along, and now that’s she doing something about it…”

“Maybe.”  She sighed.  “I feel sorry for Tiffani.”

“She did break up their marriage.”

“Their marriage was dead long before she showed up.  All she did was put the final nail in the coffin.  Or maybe not, as it turns out.”

“Well, at least life around your parents won’t be boring.  And if they do get back together, it’ll save us having to visit them separately. We can always spike their drinks with valium.”

She broke into watery laughter, and Marc felt his heart swell.  Lord, he really did love this woman.  He caught her face between his hands and lowered his lips to hers.

###

Later that night, Kate lay in bed, her head resting against Marc’s chest.  His fingers traced light patterns over her hip and belly.  She shivered, but made no move to reach for the sheet that had gotten tossed overboard during their recent exertions.  Instead she pressed closer to Marc, absorbing the heat that radiated from his body.  

He’d neatly avoided repeating his declaration of love by keeping her attention focused elsewhere.  She wondered now if she had imagined the earlier words.  Was it possible to want something so much that your brain provided it to you in the form of an auditory hallucination?