can’t be much left” came the gruff voice from behind her.
As the spasms subsided, she hazarded a glance at the man she’d married. Beyond the contemplative expression, those dark eyes didn’t offer up much to read.
“There isn’t...” she groaned. “I’ve been on empty for a few rounds already. This...is just my stomach making a point...I think.”
“Hmm. Really driving it home, I see.” The touch of dry humor pulled her focus back to him again. To the details she’d missed in the first pass. He was tall. And not because of her near-floor-level perspective. Tall enough so as he leaned against the open doorway, his free hand hung in a loose grip from the top of the frame mere inches from his head. And he was built in a powerful, lean-strength kind of way where the muscles across his chest, abdomen, shoulders and arms were well-defined but without the extreme bulk of serious bodybuilders. This guy just looked really fit. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he was classically handsome too, with a blade-straight nose, high cheekbones and an assortment of even features so appealing she suddenly wondered how long she’d been staring.
From her little hangout on the floor...by the toilet...where she’d been throwing up.
Ugh!
Really, the humiliation couldn’t get much worse. But it didn’t matter. This guy and all his good looks weren’t a part of her plan. So what if he was handsome, or that she’d seen hints of the kind of humor she typically appreciated, or that she was, in fact, married to him? She’d had enough close calls in her life with men she’d actually known, and she was through with the whole business.
Still, pride had her stumbling to her feet on limbs that were clumsy and tight from the combination of dehydration and kneeling too long. Limbs that weren’t quite working. Suddenly she was going right back down until two strong hands gripped her beneath her arms, holding her steady as she regained her footing.
The contact was awkward. Her, trying to hold herself apart; him, trying to support her without getting too close. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem.” And then after a pause, “Just one of the benefits of having a husband around, I guess.”
She nodded, exhausted, overwhelmed, but somehow more grateful than words could convey for that bit of superficial exchange. As much as they needed to, she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened last night. About how they were going to sort it out this morning and over the next however long it took to get an annulment processed.
Not until she’d at the very least had a shower, tooth-brushing, floss and several intensive minutes with the most mediciney mouthwash she could get her hands on. Glancing down, she added a change of clothes to her list. And then, committed to doing her part, she replied in kind, “Knew there was a reason I’d picked one up.”
The low answering chuckle had her daring another look over her shoulder.
It was the smile that did it. That brought the melee of vodka-soaked images into order enough for her to see at least a glimpse of the man from the night before rather than the near stranger she’d woken beside this morning.
Oh, God. What had she gotten herself into—and how fast could she get herself out of it?
Twelve hours earlier...
“OH, COME ON, screw the sperm bank.” Tina sighed with a dismissive flutter of her candy-apple acrylics. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Megan Scott tipped her glass, swallowing the last decadent drops of white-chocolate martini, then slumped deeper into the plush cushions of the lounge chair she’d taken up residence in some forty minutes before. Contemplating another drink, she did her best to ignore the incessant bickering her fellow bridesmaids had perfected through a lifetime of practice.
That it was her womb they were battling over was of as little consequence as the fact that Megan already had a plan and she was sticking to it.
“Um...the fun comes nine months later,” Jodie snipped back. “All tiny and new, wearing one of those little nursery beanies...and without any of the communicable side effects on offer with your plan...”
Tina’s plan, as Megan understood it, revolved around the T-shirt—hot off the silk screen and sporting the slogan GOT SPERM?—folded neatly on the cocktail table between them.
“I mean, seriously, who’s to say this total, random stranger enticed by your thirteen-dollar custom call for baby batter isn’t attempting to walk off the early stages of Ebola or worse? Casual, unprotected sex is stupid. And you’re trying to talk Megan into it. For God sake, why don’t you pick up a knife and stab her.”
Turning the glass upside down, Megan watched as a single last drop of martini goodness slid to the rim. Catching it with her tongue, she hoped the cocktail waitress would take her action as the plea for help it was and bring a refill. Fast.
“You’re such a prude. It’s pathetic.”
Eesh.
“What I am is too much of a lady to say what you are.”
“Girls, please,” Megan interjected before the volley of barbs got any more intense. “I totally appreciate you two looking out for me this way.” Okay, she was stretching the truth, but somehow her tongue let her get away with it. Honestly, she’d have rather been of such little interest they both got her name wrong all weekend and ignored her through dinner. But courtesy of her mother’s propensity to spill secrets, the family grapevine had guaranteed her Vegas arrival for cousin Gail’s wedding was met with a tempest of polarizing opinion regarding her decision to undergo artificial insemination in two months’ time. “Tina, I love—really love—this T-shirt, but the only place it’s going is into my scrapbook. And, Jodie, thank you for the support but—”
Jodie’s hand came up, cutting her off. “I don’t, really. Support what you’ve decided to do. You ought to wait to find a husband like the rest of us.”
Images of Barry and the two years they’d dated flashed through her mind, threatening to suck her into a vortex of churning emotions she wouldn’t allow herself to surrender to. Shame, embarrassment, anger and helpless frustration.
“Megan, I swear I didn’t even realize it myself. Not until right that minute...and suddenly I knew. I’d never stopped loving her.”
She wasn’t going there again, wasn’t wasting another precious second on the man who’d left for a conference talking about starting a family with her and then come home married to someone else.
Spine stiffening, she reined herself in.
She didn’t need Barry.
She didn’t need any man to have the child she’d always wanted—well, at least not for more than five minutes of quality time with a plastic cup.
Jodie sighed, a faraway look settling over her features. “Wait for your Prince Charming and you’ll have someone to share your special moment in the nursery, making it all the sweeter.”
“Well, actually,” Megan started, but Jodie wasn’t finished.
“You’re what’s wrong with our society. I mean, life isn’t about getting everything you want the instant you want it. Some things are worth waiting for. That said, in a toss-up between bedding down with the next patient zero or hitting the drive-thru for prescreened sperm...I’ll back the bank.”
Megan felt the telling wash of heat rush through her cheeks, but thinking about Gail and what kind of wedding she’d have if all three of her bridesmaids were at each other’s throats, she tamped it down. “Okay. Well, thank you...for your thoughts on the issue.”
Tina’s less-than-delicate snort sounded from beside her, and Megan craned her neck in search of their waitress. Only, rather than the leggy server with the no-nonsense attitude, she found