“Huh?” Kendrick asked, obviously confused.
“What’d you have to bribe her with?”
“Not telling you she was pregnant if you happened to call.”
Julius frowned.
“What are you gonna do?” Kendrick asked, loosening his tie.
Julius walked over to the mahogany bar in the corner of the room and poured himself a shot of Courvoisier. Thinking of his predicament, he tripled it. “Now he asks me,” he muttered into his drink murderously, before he gulped it down in one swig with a wince.
Julius released a heavy breath. “So this is what it feels like between a rock and a hard place?”
Kendrick rose to walk over to the bar. “It’s just until she gets on her feet, Julius.”
Julius felt the tension increase at the back of his smooth neck. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
Kendrick poured himself a glass of ginger ale and looked over at Julius in astonishment. “I’m suggesting that she stay here. What were you thinking?”
Julius reached down to pull a can of Pepsi from the mini-fridge, taking a healthy swig to kill the aftertaste of the liquor. “I’m suggesting paying for an abortion.”
“No abortion. Tamara already asked.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Damn,” Julius swore, rubbing his beard. “If I agreed to the absurdity, where’s she supposed to sleep? My only other bedroom is set up as my home office.”
Kendrick wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Julius immediately shook his head, adamant. “No. No. Hell no. I’m not looking to play house. Sex and living together adds up to one sticky ass situation.”
Footsteps echoed on the stairs. Julius’s eyes darted to the entrance of the living room just as Caress appeared.
This woman was going to be the mother of his child… if the child was his. Were prenatal paternity tests safe?
She walked straight up to him, her eyes swollen and red from tears. “I’m sorry.”
Julius swallowed back a desire to pull her into his arms. “For?”
“All of this,” she said, looking pointedly down at her stomach.
Julius nodded. “It took both of us, so don’t apologize.”
Caress nodded.
Instinctively, Julius could tell that she was embarrassed by her situation. He looked over her head to Kendrick. His friend’s eyes said, “Do the right thing.” He looked to Tamara, who now leaned against the doorframe, and her eyes said, “Don’t make me whup your ass!”
“Come on, Kendrick,” he said reluctantly.
“Where we going?”
Julius looked down at Caress. “To buy whatever I need to change my office back into a bedroom.”
He strode out of the living room before anyone could say a word.
Kendrick hopped up, moving to kiss his wife before leaving the house behind Julius.
Tamara moved over to hug Caress’s petite frame close in a motherly fashion.
Caress swallowed back hormonal tears.
“I’m going to have a baby.” Caress whispered the words softly as she lay resting on Julius’s bed.
Because the furniture for the other bedroom wouldn’t be delivered until tomorrow, Julius had given her use of his bedroom for one last night. Caress would only admit to herself that she was a little disappointed that they wouldn’t share the same bed and pick up where they left off.
Obviously Julius didn’t feel the same way. That night clearly meant nothing to him, and a relationship was the last thing he wanted. In fact, since Julius returned late this afternoon he had kept his distance.
If that’s how he wanted it then that was fine. Caress was not a woman to force herself on any man. Not even one she was pregnant by.
Truthfully, she was happy about the pregnancy. Okay, not at first. But once she realized that she couldn’t bear to have an abortion and would have a beautiful baby after about nine months, well she got happy.
Tamara’s assertion that Julius was not the kind of man to be a deadbeat dad had pleased her even more.
“As long as he’s a good father to you,” Caress spoke to her child, her hand on her still-flat womb. “Then I’ll be fine about everything else.”
She wasn’t any less anxious about giving up her space and independence than Julius was. But the first rule of motherhood—as far as she was concerned—was you do whatever, whenever for your child. She would give her child something she hadn’t had since she was two years old. A mother.
Caress was climbing out of the bed when someone rang the doorbell. Knowing Julius had secluded himself in his darkroom in the basement, Caress made her way out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She was just opening the front door when the door leading from the basement opened.
A tall and beautiful dark-skinned woman stood on the porch in a massive sable that was open and showing that she wore absolutely not a stitch of clothing underneath it. Obviously she thought Julius was going to open the door.
Well she thought wrong , Caress thought, frowning. “Excuse you?” she asked with attitude.
The woman didn’t even bother to close her fur as she stepped past Caress into the foyer. “Julius?” she asked, her tone obviously confused.
Caress turned, realizing that he stood behind her.
Julius looked from Karina, his forgotten date, to Caress, the woman pregnant with his child, and then looked heavenward.
Chapter Four
Julius forced his eyes away from the sight of enough T&A to make Playboy look G-rated. He just didn’t have the courage to face Caress if he acted on the temptation. Not that he owed her anything. Right? Okay, fine. He felt like he did.
Julius leaned forward and gently pulled the edges of Karina’s coat together. “Karina, I—”
She gave him a look to kill as she whipped the fur back open with flare. “Julius,” she said with plenty of question and annoyance and every other piece of drama that he didn’t want to deal with right now.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Caress said softly, before she pushed through Julius and Karina and dashed up the stairs.
“Are you married?” Karina snapped, looking past Julius’s broad shoulder at Caress’s retreating figure. “Shacking? Involved? Looking for a ménage? Hell… busy? What’s going on?”
Julius shook his head. “Karina, plans have changed. I meant to call you earlier—”
Karina looked offended before she nudged her fur opened a bit wider. “Do you know how many men would die to be you right now?” she asked with a slight jiggle and wiggle of her breasts.
Julius took a very deep swallow over a suddenly huge lump in his throat. He lightly grasped her elbow and steered her back toward his front door. The brown tips of her hard nipples poked just past the edge of the fur, tempting him, but Julius ignored the stirring below his waist as a need to check on Caress topped anything else he might feel. “Trust me, I know, but it can’t be avoided.”
“Three whole months Julius.” Karina finally closed her fur and tied the thick leather belt around it snugly. “No one has ever made me wait so long.”
Julius felt relief and a little regret, but he pressed on. “Different time. Different place.