as she heard Nathalie’s voice behind her. Turning, she saw the woman pausing in the doorway, obviously on her way out.
Nathalie’s eyes were smiling as she turned them toward her. “You know how when you were a kid and your mother warned you not to make funny faces because it would freeze that way? Jason didn’t listen.” With a throaty laugh at her own joke, Nathalie patted her on the shoulder. “Just wanted to tell you you did a great job today, Mindy. Keep it up.” She looked significantly at Jason. “Well, I have to go. I’ve got a date,” she announced.
Jason glanced at his calendar, as if to assure himself that this was Monday, the beginning of a work week. “A date?”
“Yes, a date.”
Nathalie leaned into the office, her eyes on Jason. She tossed her hair, obviously knowing the lighting would catch some of the red highlights her hairdresser had slaved to put in.
“Some of us have a social life.” She winked at her partner. “See you tomorrow, smiley.”
Nodding at Mindy, she sailed out of the room and out of the suite of offices.
Nathalie left silence in her wake. Jason shifted in his seat. He and Nathalie needed to have a long talk soon about her less-than-subtle hints.
“Well, you’re probably in a hurry to get to your husband, so I’ll see you tomorrow.” He was already looking down at the report he couldn’t seem to read.
She was being dismissed, Mindy thought. A lot better than being fired. Still, something wouldn’t allow her to leave this way. “That won’t be possible.”
Jason raised his eyes from his reading material and caused a tidal wave in her stomach. She hoped the twins were able to grab on to something stable to weather the storm out.
“I won’t see you tomorrow?”
“No, I mean it won’t be possible for me to hurry to my husband.”
Having gone through the trauma himself, the first thing that occurred to Jason was that her spouse was dead. And he’d just told her to hurry off home to him. Quickly he tried to make amends.
“Hey, I’m sorry—”
She had no idea why he felt he had to apologize. “Nothing for you to be sorry about.” Unable to stop it, the mental image of Brad’s limbs tangled around that two-bit, anorexic flake he’d supposedly hired to take dictation flashed across her brain. “Brad, of course, is another story.”
Damn, why had she just said that? Mindy upbraided herself. Jason certainly didn’t want to hear about her life and she certainly didn’t want to talk about it. From the way he was acting, Jason didn’t want to hear about anything that had to do with anything that was outside of the company he ran.
He surprised her by leaning forward. “What do you mean?”
Panic nibbled away at her, followed by a wave of shame. Her husband had cheated on her. Not once, but a number of times. This after she’d tried so hard to please him. Had given up so much to make him happy. That meant there had to be something lacking in her. She didn’t want Jason to think that, didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. “You don’t want to hear.”
“I wouldn’t have asked the question if I didn’t want to hear an answer.” He leaned back in his chair, allowing himself to study Mindy for the first time. Along with the beauty, there were signs of stress that artful applications of makeup didn’t completely manage to hide. What did she have to be stressed about? What had happened to her since the years they walked the same halls together? “What are you doing here, Mindy?”
She raised her chin ever so slightly. Defensiveness rose in her chest. “Working.”
“Besides that.”
She glanced toward the doorway that Nathalie had just vacated. “Trying to go home.”
Jason sighed. What had come over him? Where did he get off, prying? He’d never appreciated probing questions aimed at him. The least he could do was treat her the way he wanted to be treated.
He waved her on her way. “Sorry, didn’t mean to keep you.”
This time the dismissal stung. She hadn’t meant to shut him out. “No, I’m sorry. That wasn’t very polite of me. You asked a question and I gave you a flippant answer.” She squared her shoulders. “The reason I’m not going home to my husband is because I’m divorced, or about to be,” she amended. The divorce was almost final. It couldn’t be fast enough for her.
Divorced. He and Debra would have been divorced by now if she hadn’t been killed. A wave of empathy washed over him. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
Oh no, was that pity in his eyes? She wasn’t about to accept pity, not even from the hunk who’d inhabited her daydreams for so long. If possible, she squared her shoulders even farther. A tiny ache rose instantly in her lower back. A sign of things to come, she thought. But first things first.
“I’m not.” She glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she could just make her five forty-five appointment with her doctor at Manhattan Multiples.
He saw the way she looked at her watch. He was keeping her, he thought, and she was anxious to get away. Jason inclined his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It was her cue to go. Still, she paused one moment longer. She needed to know. “Then it was all right? My work?”
“Your work was fine. Surprisingly so.” He saw her brows narrow. She probably took that as an insult, he realized, and was quick to make himself clear. “I didn’t think this kind of thing was up your alley.”
She was grateful for the presence of mind that had made her take business courses while at Northwestern. “Survival is up everyone’s alley.”
“No argument there.” He closed the folder for the last time that day. No use beating a stalled horse. “And Mindy—”
She turned from the door to look at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Tomorrow call me Jason. Mr. Mallory makes me feel like my old man.”
There was nothing old about Jason, she thought. Godlike, maybe, but not old. “Fine. Jason, then.”
Mindy smiled to herself. Workplace or not, it felt right calling him that. Like something had just moved closer in sync.
With that she withdrew, unaware that he watched her progress all the way to the front door. Or that he continued to look at the door, lost in thought, for a long while after that.
“You can sit up now.”
Digging her elbows in closer to her body, Mindy pushed herself up from the examination table. She sat up, dangling her legs over the side. She looked at the rugged profile of her doctor, Derek Cross, and realized that she was holding her breath. These days she kept waiting for the shoes to fall and disasters to line themselves up like macabre ducks in a row. His expression gave nothing away, short of the fact that he looked tired.
“Is everything all right, Dr. Cross? With the babies, I mean,” she added when he looked at her.
“Couldn’t be better.” He retired his stethoscope, draping the length of it along his neck while his nurse, Lara Mancini, removed the machine that had allowed Mindy to listen to the heartbeats of the babies she was carrying. They sounded like tiny hoofbeats. Looking at his patient, he smiled. “But I’m afraid you’re going to have to prepare yourself to be losing that girlish figure of yours very soon.”
She’d forgotten about that. Mindy bit her lower lip, her thoughts shifting to Jason as if they were on automatic pilot. She wasn’t normally a vain person, but this time it was different. This time she was going to be facing Jason. She wanted at least a little time before she mushroomed.
“Am I going to be huge?”
Derek exchanged glances with Lara and laughed. “Not