where his head had been until he looked down to discover the condom he’d been using had failed in a no-maybe-about-it kind of way.
Now? He was trying to figure out how to break the news to Darcy, rolling through the scenarios, imagining what he was going to see on her face when he told her. Accusation, fear, dread.
The idea he would cause her any of those things was like a blow to the gut. He wasn’t that guy. Not to anyone.
Not after Margo, his girlfriend through most of high school and college, and the woman he’d assumed, like everyone else, he would marry. At least until the day she’d come to him red-eyed and blotchy-cheeked with the confession she’d slept with another guy. She’d felt claustrophobic, trapped by all the expectations of their too serious, too neat, too well-planned relationship. She’d wanted out and, though a phone call would have been less traumatic to all involved, she’d found her escape in the bed of some frat guy with a coke habit.
As a result of that lesson, Jeff had all but perfected the no-hold relationship. He was a safe guy. A good time. The lover who always remained a friend after, because the romance never went too deep to come back from.
He kept his finger on the pulse of his affairs, making communication a priority. It was why he’d gotten his reputation as “Mr. Sensitive”—which was fine by him if it meant avoiding another blindside like the one he’d taken with Margo. Hell, yes, he’d talk about feelings. And the added benefit of that open dialogue? Nothing got too serious. No one got the wrong idea.
He was not the guy who put panic into someone’s eyes. But that’s what was about to happen. Because if ever there was a way to make a woman feel trapped, this was it.
Pulling it together, he reminded himself while this was the first time it had happened to him, it certainly wasn’t the first time a condom had broken in history. Both he and Darcy were adults who understood prophylactics weren’t 100 percent. Accidents happened. And this was an accepted risk inherent to sex.
They’d talk. He’d assure her he was compulsive about using protection and he was clean. She’d tell him that while she didn’t generally go home with guys she just met, she was on birth control and also clean. They’d exchange contact information and stay in touch.
But whatever fantasies Jeff had been entertaining about going forward with a casual relationship had pretty well shriveled under the icy splash of reality offered in the form of a blown-out rubber. And now all he was thinking was he’d be damn lucky to make a clean getaway.
Tightening the towel wrapped around his hips, he headed out of the bathroom and froze with one hand midrub at the back of his skull, his mouth open and all thoughts of what he’d been about to say gone—just like the woman he’d been inside of less than ten minutes before.
FIVE
Present day...
Moments later the bathroom door swung open and the mother of what was presumably his child emerged.
The cool steely gray of her eyes met with his. Eyes he remembered warming through the course of those hours they spent together. Eyes he’d watched go soft beneath him, and had made him wonder if a single night was going to be enough. Eyes that had haunted him for weeks after he’d been back in L.A., until he’d forced himself to put them out of his head. Get a new game plan and move on.
Which is exactly what he’d done.
Olivia.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he gave his head a stern shake. One thing at a time.
Darcy took a nervous breath and then cleared her throat. “So, maybe we should start by getting a few things straight up front.”
Jeff nodded, checking the legal pad he’d started making a list on. “Agreed.”
Validate paternity.
Confirm/upgrade health care.
Establish child support.
Hire nurse.
Buy house with yard and security.
Start screening for nanny.
Private preschools (*gifted and talented programs?).
Top five universities in country.
Quality playgroups.
Safety reports *family vehicles.
“I don’t want to marry you,” she said abruptly, wincing almost as soon as the words left her mouth.
Jeff blinked.
Wait. She didn’t want to marry him?
He blew out a measured breath while mentally talking his ego down from the ledge. Because seriously, after slinking out of his bed without so much as a “thanks for the good time, sport,” that’s how she wanted to kick this conversation off?
“Not that I remember asking,” he said evenly. “But good to know we’re on the same page.”
Or maybe not quite so evenly after all, considering the slender brow arched in his direction, topping off an all too familiar look that did something to him not entirely bad, but not exactly welcome, either.
Their eyes held a beat before she glanced away. “And I’m not interested in picking things up where we left off.”
“Something the woman I’m seeing will appreciate, I’m sure.”
Yeah, and best to get that out there right away, even though he was fairly certain there wasn’t one thing about this Olivia was going to appreciate.
Especially if she ever got a look at Darcy. Because even having just spent twenty minutes losing her lunch, she was still a knockout. So far as he could see the pregnancy hadn’t done much to her body yet.
Before he realized where that thought was taking him, his attention was doing a slow crawl south of her neckline, roaming over the full curves and narrowing tucks of a figure that—
“That’s great about your girlfriend, but I’m not here to option my baby, either, so...” Her fingers came into his line of sight which happened to have stalled out around the navel he’d dipped his tongue into, snapping twice and then veering into the universal eyes up here mister flag. “...so whatever you’re thinking with that look on your face? Stop.”
“Optioning your baby?” he choked out. “Excuse me?”
Her shoulders squared up.
“Well, you were staring,” she shot back with an accusing jut of her chin. Then seeming to lose a bit of her bravado, she more quietly added, “With a sort of greedy, speculative look on your face. How am I supposed to know what you’re thinking?”
Jeff shook his head, opened his mouth once and then simply closed it again, because...
Really?
And then it was like the tension that had been accumulating since she’d first lunged past him...just snapped. And suddenly, all he could do was laugh. Which probably didn’t do much to alleviate the whole greedy, speculative vibe he’d been putting off, but oh, well. Apparently there wasn’t much lower he could sink to in Darcy’s eyes.
So instead, he simply rubbed his palms over his cheeks and looked across at the woman who’d turned his life upside down in a single night, and just when he thought he’d put it back to rights, showed up and sent him into a tailspin.
One he needed to pull out of and fast.
“Relax. I got distracted by your body. It doesn’t look like it’s changed much.” And at the risk of coming across like a jerk, he added the truth. “You look good, Darcy.”
“Oh.” Then after a moment she rolled her eyes as if making some painful, grudging acknowledgment herself. “Thank you. You look good, too. Even though it doesn’t matter.”
He