A Promise for the Baby
A Promise for the Baby
Jennifer Lohmann
He always does the right thingThere's one exception to Karl Milek's rule—the Vegas weekend that leaves him with a night to remember, and a beautiful new wife he’d rather forget. Those divorce papers are put on hold, however, when Vivian shows up on his doorstep pregnant.Karl offers her shelter and everything else she needs until their baby is born. Yet soon he realizes that he could definitely get used to seeing Vivian in the mornings, sharing dinner with her at night…and inhaling her jasmine scent. But he doesn't think he can risk giving his wife the one thing she wants most—his love.
He always does the right thing
There’s one exception to Karl Milek’s rule—the Vegas weekend that leaves him with a night to remember, and a beautiful new wife he’d rather forget. Those divorce papers are put on hold, however, when Vivian shows up on his doorstep pregnant.
Karl offers her shelter and everything else she needs until their baby is born. Yet soon he realizes that he could definitely get used to seeing Vivian in the mornings, sharing dinner with her at night…and inhaling her jasmine scent. But he doesn’t think he can risk giving his wife the one thing she wants most—his love.
This was exactly what he wanted to avoid!
When Karl walked through the doorway to his apartment at eleven o’clock on Friday, he found Vivian sitting on a dining chair in the entryway, reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting. He should have known it had been too much to hope that he could dodge her for eight months.
“Good evening, Karl.” She rested the book on her lap and looked up at him. “Have you been avoiding me?”
It sounded cowardly when she put it like that. He stared at the curve of her bottom lip over her pointed chin. soft over sharp, and he had to stop himself from running his thumb over the bow. He didn’t have to be drunk to be susceptible to the arcs of her face, but he needed to remember that she was only temporary. The baby was permanent, but Vivian was fleeting.
“I work a lot.” It came out like a defense.
“Well, you’re home now and I’m still up, so we can finally talk.”
Dear Reader,
Jo Beverley has a post on the blog Word Wenches where she talks about the marriage-of-convenience trope, calling it “vows before love.” This trope appeals to Beverley because the vulnerability of the heroine required for the story shows her strengths to the fullest effect. (Beverley compares this to a thriller where the hero starts out trapped.) To me, this is Vivian in a nutshell. When the book opens, there is little more in her life she can lose, and we see her battle her fears, weakness and, occasionally, her husband to become a fuller, stronger person.
Karl has a different journey to take. If you’ve read the other two books in the Milek series (Reservations for Two, February 2013, and The First Move, April 2013), then you know Karl is a bit uptight and a serial dater. Finding the perfect match for him was hard; my laptop is full of first chapters where Karl meets a heroine who is great—but not for him. It took me several tries before I realized Karl needs someone to challenge his preconceived notions about himself and the world, without shaking him loose from his core. Love stories work best when we have to push ourselves to be worthy of our beloved.
If you’re interested in Vivian’s background and family in the novel, I recommend Iris Chang’s The Chinese in America: A Narrative History.
Enjoy!
Jennifer Lohmann
A Promise for the Baby
Jennifer Lohmann
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Lohmann is a Rocky Mountain girl at heart, having grown up in southern Idaho and Salt Lake City. After graduating with a degree in economics from the University of Chicago, she moved to Shanghai to teach English. Back in the United States, she earned a master’s in library science and now works as a public librarian. She was the Romance Writers of America librarian of the year in 2010. She lives in the Southeast with a dog, five chickens, four cats and a husband who gamely eats everything she cooks.
To big brothers everywhere, especially mine.
Contents
Chapter One (#u584f87ca-a0e2-58a8-849d-1e487842c27b)
Chapter Two (#u9afb0a2a-5c3f-5cd0-8c75-3537d9aca55b)
Chapter Three (#uf36df09c-8f82-55db-9d6f-6d32f4221cf6)
Chapter Four (#ubb916a6a-9abd-55e1-8959-4b9b181c9b64)
Chapter Five (#u4161646d-916b-5200-bb1c-950ef2166db5)
Chapter Six (#ub2fa0aa3-b950-5c35-8257-03e51df21c8a)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
VIVIAN SAT ON an uncomfortable chair in the starkly decorated lobby of her husband’s apartment building and waited for Karl to come home from work. She’d been waiting for hours, her feet propped up by a couple of suitcases, garnering suspicious looks, but the doorman hadn’t kicked her out yet. He’d tried, but she had a marriage certificate that said she was Karl Milek’s wife. Unwilling to throw her out onto the street, he’d also been unwilling to let her into Karl’s apartment.
She was pretty sure he was regretting both decisions. At least Xìnyùn, her father’s blue parrot, had stopped talking an hour ago. His chipper conversation wasn’t welcome in this modern building and his brightness was an unwanted distraction in the white-and-black interior.
Every time someone came through the rotating doors, the February winds whistled and Xìnyùn responded with his own tune, dancing up and down the rainbow ladder in his cage. Not a single person who’d walked past had smiled at Xìnyùn’s antics. Her husband lived in a building as cold as his hands.
She had called his office five times, but “he is in a meeting,” they said. “We will pass on the message,” they said. She didn’t tell them she was his wife. With divorce terms agreed upon, he probably hadn’t told his coworkers about his Vegas mistake. He’d probably figured—as she had—that their secret would keep until the divorce was finalized, and then it wouldn’t matter anymore. They’d be divorced and have moved on with their lives. But now she needed him, and she needed him to be her husband. Outing him to his coworkers seemed a poor way to gain his cooperation.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
She was supposed to have stayed in Vegas.
The energy in the lobby flared when her husband walked through the door. He was the cold, stiff man she remembered from their morning after, and he didn’t seem to be any warmer with all of his clothes on—and not hungover. Maybe he didn’t notice the freezing temperatures outside. He wore a forest-green scarf wrapped around his neck and a tan wool coat as though they were for show, so the people around him wouldn’t wonder at his ability to walk through snow naked and not get frostbite. No hat covered his brown hair. His hazel eyes were more attractive when not bloodshot, but glasses didn’t soften the sharp planes of his face. She had assumed his face only looked hard when angry—but he didn’t have a reason to be angry. Yet.
She needed Karl to be the man whose eyes had been mostly brown when he’d offered to buy her a drink, but had turned a lush green when she’d brushed her hand against his as she reached for that drink. The man who’d noticed her shiver and tucked her tightly against him as they walked out of the hotel, even though they had both known she wasn’t cold. The man who had made her laugh when she felt as if nothing in her life could ever be funny again.
Perhaps that man had been an illusion and as fake as the Luxor pyramid, given flesh only by the carnival lights of Las Vegas. That she was even sitting here in the lobby of this apartment building was evidence that she wasn’t as immune to Las Vegas magic as she thought she’d been.
The doorman scurried over to her husband, his arms out in supplication and face creased in apology. Tingles shot down her spine when Karl looked over at her. He showed no hurry as he walked across the lobby to her, his face as blank as she remembered.
“You were the woman calling my office today,” he said in greeting.
“Hello to you, too.” They hadn’t planned on seeing each other again, but there was no reason not to be civil. In theory, theirs was an amicable divorce. “Can we talk somewhere private?”
His eyes took in the pile of suitcases and the birdcage sitting next to them. He didn’t nod or say a word, just picked up the birdcage and a suitcase and walked toward the elevator. Vivian scrambled to her feet, slung her purse over her shoulder, picked up two more suitcases and hurried to follow him, the heels of her boots clicking on the marble floor.
On the elevator ride up to his apartment, Vivian opened her mouth a couple times to speak, but Karl silenced her with a raise of his eyebrow. “You wanted private. We can at least wait until we are in my apartment.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. She’d waited for hours; another couple of minutes wasn’t going to kill her.
In his apartment, she put down her suitcases in the entryway and followed him to the couch, taking the birdcage with her. Dark wood floors made his apartment more welcoming than the lobby, though his furniture looked to be just as uncomfortable. The only sign of softness amidst the leather, glass, steel and stone was a plush rug in the living room. He didn’t even have any curtains to soften the floor-to-ceiling windows. She sat on the couch. He sat in one of the armchairs and looked at her expectantly.
If she was waiting for a greeting of some kind, apparently she would be disappointed.
“I’m sorry to drop in on you like this,” she said, gesturing to the luggage near the door. “I didn’t feel I had any choice.”
“Were the terms of our divorce not sufficient?” His elbows rested on the arms of the chair and he’d laced his fingers together in a bridge over the chest of his charcoal-gray suit. Anyone looking in on the scene through the windows would see Karl’s cocked head and casual pose and imagine they were discussing some local curiosity. Vivian imagined that he must have soon-to-be ex-wives drop in on him as a regular occurrence if he managed to remain so self-possessed about the whole thing.
His absolute composure was the reason she’d answered “sure” when he’d gestured to the doors of the chapel, a half smile on his face, and asked, “Shall we?” She had wanted to be a part of his stability then; it was unfair of her to be irritated by it now. And what if she also wanted the passion they’d shared? Well, that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
“Yes. I mean, no, they were fine. But I don’t want a divorce right now.”
If she’d shocked him, his only reaction was to lean back in the chair and lift his left foot to rest on his knee. She was glad he hadn’t sat on the couch next to her. She felt crowded enough by him without having to make room for his knees and elbows—and his infinite placidity, which took up far more space than any single lack of reaction should.
Xìnyùn said, “I fold.” At least the parrot showed a reaction.
“I’m pregnant and I want to keep the baby.”
* * *
“HIT ME,” THE bird squeaked.
Karl looked at the blue bird dirtying his coffee table and wondered what was more ridiculous, his one-night stand/wife telling him she was pregnant or the bird asking to be punched.
If this was his punishment for indulging his emotions with liquor, he would pour every ounce of booze in the apartment down the toilet and shatter the wineglasses. Unfortunately, humoring his impulses was unlikely to allow time to flow backward until he walked into his apartment building and passed through the lobby up to his apartment without a wife—pregnant wife—in the way.
“Are you sure you’re pregnant?” Three weeks ago—his birthday—he’d sat at a hotel bar and gulped down whiskey every time he remembered he was older than his father ever had been or would be, only without a wife or child. Now he had both, and he didn’t want either of them. “Are you sure it’s mine?”
“Yes, I’m sure. About both questions. I don’t make a habit of sex with strangers.” A series of rapid blinks over her light brown eyes—barely a shade darker than her skin—were evidence of her nerves, but she didn’t shrink away from him. She was on a mission and determined to see it through.
“I don’t know anything about you other than you did once have sex with a stranger.” And her maiden name was Yap. He’d learned that from the marriage certificate he’d found under some tiger lilies on a table in his hotel suite.
“I wasn’t the only one in that room.”
No, but he wished to God the man in the hotel room had been someone other than himself. His office was in the middle of a sole-source contract investigation; he didn’t have time for whatever she needed from him. “If the only thing you know about me is that I also did once have sex with a stranger, then I assure you, if you are pregnant with my child, I can change the terms of the divorce. You’ll get sufficient child support.”
“No argument about my keeping the baby?”
He swallowed his irritation. The night they’d stumbled around Las Vegas now seemed like a mirage, and if he concentrated on his memories, the images wavered before disappearing completely. The alcohol and the lights had made every smile the secret smile of a lover, and when she’d slipped her hand into his, he’d felt as though they’d shared souls. Also the alcohol talking. The alcohol and being surrounded by the constant—fake—sounds of people winning had turned him into a man charming enough to pick up a woman in a bar.
Vivian would soon learn that the man who had made jokes and removed the sadness from her eyes didn’t exist outside of that night in Vegas.
But she’d taken a chance coming here. She couldn’t know for certain that he’d meant what he said when he’d spoken about the responsibility a man had to his family. Or that he would never argue about an abortion with a woman, because her body was her body and his faith was his faith.
That night she had also talked about the importance of family—had argued with him when he had referred to a “man’s responsibility to his family.” Every member of a family, she’d said, had responsibility for keeping the unit whole. She’d squeezed his thigh when she’d said that, probably more to make her point than out of any sexual advance, though he hadn’t had the wits about him to care either way.
Were the opinions she’d expressed about family a product of the night—as his sudden charm had been—or were they as heartfelt as his words, alcohol or no alcohol? It didn’t matter. She was pregnant and he’d learn about her dedication to family soon enough.
“I respect your choice, though you don’t need to be here in Chicago for me to send you child support.”
She drew back in surprise, covering her jeans and still-flat stomach with a hand. “You wouldn’t want contact with our baby?”
He thought about the tiny infant she would give birth to. With its small fingernails and fat face not yet grown into Vivian’s pointed chin. Food poisoning. Croup. The shattered glass of a car accident ripping a dimpled face to pieces. Better not to see the child at all. Better to get them both out of his apartment and back to Las Vegas.
“I would want to know you cared for it.” Him? Her? When could you find out the sex of the baby? What was he supposed to call it until then?
She folded her other hand over her stomach. There was a baby under there. “I need health insurance.”
“You said you had a job.” Back in his hotel room, when he’d been sober, and the harsh lights of the hotel bathroom had ripped the dream away, he’d accused her of marrying a stranger for money. She’d told him to keep his damn money and that maybe there was room for it wherever he stored his ego. She’d said she had a job and didn’t need to have sex in exchange for handouts.
“I lost it.” She kept her hands on her stomach, the twisting of her fingers another sign of her nerves. “I will find another—I was hoping to find one in Chicago—but until then, I need health insurance. The baby needs health insurance. I have no other place to go.”
Karl did some quick math in his head. They still had four days to get Vivian and the baby on his health insurance. “I’ll need the marriage certificate.”
“Just like that?”
“Double,” the bird squeaked, then whistled.
“Do you want health insurance?” At one time in the distant past, he’d thought he understood women. Exposure had cured him of such idiotic thinking.
“Yes, but, you didn’t say so much as ‘hi’ to me downstairs. You accuse me of trying to sell you a pig in a poke, insinuating I’m some kind of slut who bangs tourists for fun, but when I say I need health insurance for a baby you don’t believe is yours, you say ‘sure’?”
“Even if that baby isn’t mine, you should have insurance while you’re pregnant. And you are my wife. If the baby is mine, I can provide it with health insurance and child support. If it’s not mine, I can provide it with health insurance until you are able to provide for it yourself. I won’t force a fetus to get less care than I can provide because I don’t trust its mother.”
“I can get a DNA test done while pregnant, as early as the ninth week.”
“Where are you staying?”
She turned her head to look out the windows of his apartment, the first time she’d not been willing to meet his eyes since he had walked into the lobby of his building. “I was hoping to stay here.”
“You don’t have another place to go?”
She faced him again, the pertness of her chin softened by her full, pale pink lips. How had he not remembered the lushness of her lips? “I have ten dollars, three suitcases and a parrot to my name.”
“Family?”
“They’re not available.”
When he’d considered her presence punishment for his behavior, he’d lacked the imagination to envision how the situation could get worse. If mother and child needed medical care, they also needed a roof over their heads. Not to mention the little bird she called a parrot. Chicago had enough wild parakeets without him adding to the population.
“What did you do in Las Vegas?”
“I wasn’t a prostitute.”
Any twinge of guilt he’d felt over accusing her of that the morning he’d woken up married to a stranger had long since vanished. Three weeks ago he’d hurled accusations at her, but he hadn’t asked what she actually did. He wasn’t going to ask more than once now. If he was silent long enough, she would share. She needed a place to stay and didn’t know him well enough to know he’d offer her a bed regardless.
She blinked first. “I was a table dealer. Craps, blackjack, roulette.”
God, how much had he had to drink to take her up to his room? At least she wasn’t a stripper.
“At Middle Kingdom?” His assistant had booked him a room at the Chinese-themed resort instead of the conference hotel. Greta had thought it would be good for him to have a minivacation—her words. But he’d ignored the brochures about the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon she’d tucked into his work papers in favor of overpriced hotel whiskey. If he’d listened to Greta, he would’ve come back with a couple of postcards instead of a wife.
Though postcards wouldn’t have looked nearly as pretty sitting on his couch in a pink cable-knit sweater and cowboy boots.
Thoughts like that had prompted him to engage Vivian in conversation, to fall under the spell of her mysterious smile and be hypnotized by the rise and fall of her breasts when she breathed. If all he’d done was invite her up to his room, the night in Las Vegas would make more sense, but he’d been thinking about marriage and families, and in his drunken haze had decided he wanted to wake up with her warm skin pressed against his for the rest of his life.
Reality had intruded the next morning and, almost a month later, was sitting on his couch.
“And you’re not working there anymore because...”
“My supervisor disagreed with a decision I made.”
“Was I your decision?” She wouldn’t have been the first woman unfairly fired because of sex, and she wouldn’t be the last.
She turned her head to look out the windows again. An effective nonanswer, which he let go for now. She was—the fetus was—his responsibility for another eight months. He’d get his answer eventually.
“I have a guest bedroom. You can sleep there for now.”
She closed her eyes, the light pink of her eye shadow sparkling in the lamplight, and exhaled. The wool of her sweater must be stiffer than it looked, because even though she went boneless with relief, she didn’t sink into the back of the couch. “Thank you.”
“Have you eaten dinner?”
“I’m fine.”
He took that as a no and didn’t ask how long it had been since she’d eaten. The worry lines at the corners of her eyes said it had been too long. “What do you like?”
“I’m fine,” she said again, as though hoping if she said it enough times he would believe her. Or maybe she hoped to believe it herself.
Karl stood and walked over to the small table in his entryway. He riffled through the menus in the drawer until he found the one he was looking for, then he handed it to Vivian. “Pick out what you want.”
She looked up at him, one thin black eyebrow raised. “Chinese?”
He ignored the uncomfortable reference. “They have the fastest delivery.”
“Buddha’s vegetable delight. Brown rice, please.”
“Soup? Egg rolls?”
Her stomach growled, betraying the casual look on her face and making a lie of her insistence of being “fine.” How long had those ten dollars been all she had to her name? Had she had no savings? All things he could learn tomorrow, after she’d eaten and had a good night’s sleep. He called in her order and his, adding enough extra food to give them leftovers for days. He didn’t know if she could cook, and he sure as hell didn’t. If not for takeout, the baby might starve.
“Let’s get your bags put in the guest room.”
* * *
FOR ALL ITS personality, the guest room might have been in a hotel. There was less glass and more wood than in the living room, but that was because the single piece of furniture in the room was a large, wooden platform bed with a built-in nightstand. The bedspread wasn’t white or black, so Karl must at least know color existed, but the geometric pattern and primary colors didn’t invite Vivian to snuggle. Still no curtains. What did this man have against curtains?
“There’s a dresser in the closet.”
“Thank you.” Thank you for acknowledging I might be here longer than just tonight. “Is there something I can put Xìnyùn’s cage on?”
“Who?”
“The parrot’s name is Xìnyùn. It means luck in Chinese.”
He eyed the cage sitting on the floor. Xìnyùn eyed him back nervously. “Are you sure it doesn’t mean bad luck?”
She picked the cage up off the floor and opened the closet doors to find the dresser to set the cage on. Parakeets didn’t like humans to loom over them and Karl loomed as naturally as most people breathed.
“Double,” Xìnyùn whistled in approval.
She was pregnant, unemployed and homeless. Her father had fallen off the face of the planet and taken her life savings with him. Xìnyùn, at least, was happy to be off the floor. “At this point, I’m not sure of anything.”
He nodded, left the room for a moment and returned with a small table. “Here’s a table for the bird.” He had his hand on the doorknob, about to leave the room, when he turned back to face her, his eyes in shadow and his expression unreadable. “How did you get to Chicago?”
“I drove.” As her gas gauge edged toward empty and the ten dollars felt lighter and lighter in her pocket, she’d turned the dial on her radio until she found a country music station and Carrie Underwood singing “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” She hadn’t run out of gas, even if she had coasted into Chicago on wishes and a prayer.
“Where’s your car?”
She described where it was parked.
“Give me your keys and I’ll move it into the garage. I’ll leave money for dinner with the doorman and bring it up when I return.” Without so much as a goodbye, he closed the door, leaving her alone with the skyline.
Inviting or not, all she wanted to do was curl up on the bed and sleep until the nightmare of her life was over and she woke up single, employed and not pregnant. Impossibilities. Time didn’t travel backward.
She picked up one suitcase and hefted it over to the closet, which—except for the dresser and some hangers—was completely empty. Karl didn’t accumulate crap. Or, if he did, he didn’t store it in the closet of his guest bedroom. The room gave her nothing to judge her husband by, other than that his decorating sense was as cold as his hands and as lacking in expression as his face.
No, she was being unfair. She opened a small drawer and shoved underwear in. He’d invited her—a near stranger, no matter that the marriage certificate said otherwise—to stay in his home. He was moving her car and buying her dinner. And the morning she’d woken up naked in a hotel room with him calling her Vivian Milek and asking her if she was a prostitute, he’d handed her a cup of coffee and gotten her a robe.
Maybe he wasn’t as unfeeling as his language and his composure made him seem.
She tossed some hangers on the bed and unpacked the rest of her clothes. When she was finished, she turned back to the other suitcase on the floor. Even if she’d wanted to unpack her mementoes, there wasn’t a flat surface in the room to hold them. She shoved the last suitcase, without bothering to open it, into the closet and shut the door on her past.
Too melodramatic, Vivian. You just don’t want it to look like you’re moving in.
CHAPTER TWO
KARL RETURNED TO the apartment later than he’d planned. Her little convertible had been easy enough to find. It’d been parked exactly where she’d said it would be and the Nevada plates gave away that it was hers. So had the pile of fast food containers on the floor of the passenger side. The blankets and pillows in the backseat had been a surprise. As had the empty gas tank. He’d thrown the trash away when he’d filled up her tank. The blankets and pillows he’d left in the backseat, though he’d left them folded rather than in a heap.
Riding up the elevator with bags of Chinese food and a growing sense of unease, he prepared to face his wife.
Vivian had set the table he never used with the place mats, white cotton napkins and flatware he also never used. Jessica, his ex-wife, had bought them. She hadn’t taken them with her when they’d divorced. Neither had she taken the apartment nor the BMW. All were status symbols he was certain she’d considered more important than their marriage, but not important enough to possess after the divorce was final. An indication, he’d felt when he’d signed the divorce papers, of the low regard in which she had held their marriage.
Time allowed him to be more generous with his reflections. Marriage to him hadn’t given Jessica anything she’d really wanted, so why keep the trappings? Leaving the flatware, china and linens in the apartment with her ex-husband, she was free to start fresh.
He wondered if Vivian had been married before. Did she have an apartment, friends or a book club? Why had she estranged herself from her life to drive halfway across the country in search of an unknown husband? After setting the bags of food on the counter, he looked around the room for her. He could learn the answers to his questions later. Eventually, people always told him the information he wanted.
Just as he determined that the living room was empty, he noticed Vivian leaning against the rail on his terrace, looking north over the skyline of Chicago. With the room lit up against the dark night sky, Karl could only make out contours of her slim body. When he turned off the lights in the living room, her form gained substance. She reached up with her arm, pulling her hair off her neck and over her shoulder, exposing skin to the cold.
The night they’d spent together existed in a dream world, but his memories of the morning after were clear and sharp. He remembered waking up to find her sleeping, her black hair spread across the pillow and her neck exposed. He remembered looking at the knobs of her spine as they trailed from her nape down her back and under the covers. How kissable those knobs had looked. But then he’d gotten out of the bed to make coffee, found the marriage certificate and any thought of kissing her neck was gone.
Stepping outside into the cold pushed away those memories. They were married, she was in Chicago, and kissing the slim line of her neck had never been further away from possible. “Do you have a winter coat?”
She was standing outside in jeans, her sweater and pink argyle socks. “I’m not cold.”
Even in the hazy moonlight he could see goose bumps dotting her neck, but she didn’t shiver or tuck her hands around her body for warmth.
“I bought the apartment for this view,” he said, folding his arms on the railing of the terrace and leaning forward to look out over the city with her.
“What are the names of some of the buildings?”
He pointed out the Aon Center and Smurfit-Stone Building. “If you’re still here in the summer, maybe you can go on an architecture boat tour. Or they have walking tours year-round.”
“You don’t have curtains.”
“No.” Removing the curtains was one of the few changes he’d made when Jessica had moved out.
“Not even in your bedroom?”
“I value openness.”
“You should come west.”
“I’ve been to Vegas.” He slid closer to her on the terrace. Not so close that their arms touched, but close enough to feel her presence. She still smelled like jasmine.
“Not Vegas. Vegas is the flashy west. I mean southern Idaho, where you can see for miles in every direction and there’s nothing but sky and canyons.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“I graduated high school in Jackpot, Nevada. It’s right across the border.”
He’d married a blackjack dealer from a town called Jackpot. The world had an unfortunate sense of humor. “It would’ve been a shorter drive from Vegas to Jackpot.”
She turned her head to the side to look at him, the corners of her mouth turned up in a mysterious smile. “Shorter, yes, but there’s nothing for me in Jackpot. Plus, it would be wrong not to let you know you’re going to be a father.”
“A phone call would’ve sufficed.”
“Would you want to learn that you’re going to be a father with a phone call from a stranger?” She didn’t slip again and admit to not being able to go home, as she had when they’d been talking in the living room.
He didn’t have an answer to that question. If asked this morning, he would’ve said yes. Now, standing next to Vivian on his terrace, looking at the lights sparkle across Grant Park and smelling her jasmine perfume, he wasn’t so sure. Her neck was even more kissable up close.
“Dinner’s getting cold.” He pushed off the railing and walked back into the apartment, not looking to see if she followed.
* * *
KARL WASN’T MUCH for words, Vivian thought, as she picked up the plates after dinner. They were strangers, sure, but they were married strangers who were having a child together. Even after they finalized the divorce, they would still have a child to raise together. The least they could do during the next eight months was to get to know each other.
But based on his terse responses over dinner, he didn’t agree. She heaped the utensils on the stacked plates and took them into the kitchen. When she turned, he had followed with the cups and trash.
“I’ll get those.” She took the glasses from his hand and loaded them into the dishwasher. “Don’t worry about the plates,” she said when he started rinsing them. “Go sit down. I’ll clean up.”
“I’m not letting you stay here so you can clean up after me.” He didn’t stop rinsing the plates, but did let her load them into the dishwasher. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves before turning on the water, and light brown hair dusted his forearms.
She blinked, uncomfortable after catching herself staring at his arms. The plates clinked against one another as she used a little too much force to close the dishwasher.
“I know, but...” She didn’t want to finish that statement.
“But?”
But I’m here because we had a one-night stand and I got pregnant, and we were drunk when we got married and I now need help and you’re giving it to me and I don’t know how long I’ll need the help and I don’t know how long you’ll offer the help and I wish you’d let me clean up after dinner. Her insecurities nearly pushed her down as they flooded over her, but all she said was, “I’m happy to help out.”
He nodded before grabbing a sponge and leaving to wipe down the table. He wasn’t nodding because he knew she was happy to help out. She could feel in his intense hazel eyes that he knew what she had left unsaid. He knew she would act as maid in a poor attempt to make up for invading his life. He knew and he still went to clean the table.
She knew very little about her husband. Their night together had been his last day in Vegas, and their conversation over breakfast had been about the details of a divorce. The next day she’d received a phone call from a lawyer saying he represented Karl Milek and they would pursue a divorce according to Nevada laws. When could she come by his office? Did she have her own lawyer? No? Did she need time to find one?
Like all things in Nevada, getting out of the trappings of your sins was far more complicated than getting into them.
Karl’s efficiency had intrigued her enough that she’d done an internet search on him. After reading newspaper articles, exploring his office’s website and watching snippets of televised news stories, she’d felt as though she had a sense of who this man was. But now she realized every movement he made, everything he said, was carefully constructed to give the illusion of revelation without actually revealing anything. Not that any of that had been important to her at the time.
Then she’d gone home to an apartment emptied of anything of value and a note containing an apology from her father folded on the kitchen counter. When she had checked her bank account she’d found every penny she had carefully saved was gone. Then she had missed her period, and by that point it had been too late for Plan B. She hadn’t even had enough money for an abortion, if she had decided to go that route, anyway. Then she had been fired, and suddenly the most important thing in the world was that her husband seemed to be the kind of person who fixed problems.
Their marriage had been a problem, and he was going to fix that. Now her pregnancy was the problem, and his magical fix had smoothed away the practical, immediate problems of that, too. She didn’t want to have to rely on him, but she couldn’t predict what help she would need after the baby was born—or what he would be willing to provide.
Once the activity of cleaning up after dinner was done, they were left with nothing to do but face each other and feel awkward. At least, Vivian felt awkward. She had the sense that Karl could have a fox eating out his stomach under his shirt and his face wouldn’t reveal any pain. How drunk had he been to indulge himself in a feeling as human as lust? What else had been going on in his life that he’d allowed himself to get that drunk?
“Well—” she clapped her hands together “—I’m beat.” She was no such thing. Wired and punchy would be a more accurate description of how she felt right now. “Do you have a book I could read before I fall asleep?”
“I thought you said you were beat.”
She opened her mouth to respond but he’d already left the kitchen. He returned with Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, as well as Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works and a military history of World War I.
“A selection,” he said, holding them out to her. Not a muscle had changed in his bland expression, but Vivian was pretty sure he was amused with himself for his offerings.
“Thank you.” She’d hoped for a mystery or thriller, but lying in bed with one of these books would help her fall right to sleep. “I’m sure I’ll learn something.”
* * *
KARL WOKE EARLY the next morning to a dark, silent apartment. Not even the ridiculous bird was making any noise. He pulled his boxers on and went into the kitchen to make coffee. When he didn’t hear any noise in his guest bedroom after the coffee grinder whirled, he cracked the door open to check on his guest. She was lying on her side, facing the door, the Keegan book on World War I flopped over her hand. The down comforter covered any rise and fall of her chest and he was about to check her pulse when she snorted and twitched before settling down again. Vivian wasn’t dead, and she hadn’t run off.
It looked like she’d made it halfway through the book before finally falling asleep. Despite its appearance, the Keegan book was unlikely to bore someone to sleep. He eased the door shut and went to get himself a cup of coffee. In the kitchen, he found a travel mug for Vivian to keep her coffee warm and poured her a cup, as well. Last night, before bed, he’d read a little about pregnancy—he was glad he’d had decaf in the freezer—and he remembered how grateful she’d been when he brought her coffee that one time in their Vegas hotel room. But when he went back into the guest bedroom to put the coffee on the nightstand, she still didn’t stir.
When he had awoken in the hotel room a month ago to find himself married, he’d assumed her deathlike sleep had been due to alcohol. She hadn’t seemed hungover—God knew he’d been too bleary-eyed and angry to notice if she had been—but she’d slept until he’d yelled her name and shaken her awake. This morning she seemed on course to do much the same. The bird stirred in its cage behind a cover, but Karl ignored it. Even if the bird was awake, he had no idea what to do with it unless it also wanted a cup of coffee.
It. The bird had a name. Luck, only not luck. Whatever was Chinese for luck. He still didn’t know if the bird was male or female.
And the bird was probably easier than a baby. Not that he hadn’t planned on having children. He had. One day. He’d just expected a little warning and time to read every baby book the Harold Washington Library had on its shelves before hearing the words, “I’m pregnant.”
He turned his attention back to the mother of his child. Though he believed she was telling the truth about who the father was, he’d still insist on a DNA test. He believed her, but he wasn’t stupid. Yet looking at her sleeping, the test felt like a formality. The mother of his child slept on her side and snorted in her sleep.
Karl was surprised how much her sleeping in his guest bed pleased him. He thought he’d been pleased when his divorce lawyer had confirmed she didn’t protest the divorce or the terms. That feeling was nothing like the warmth in his heart at seeing the contrast of her black hair against the primary colors of the duvet cover.
Before he left for the gym and office—both to work and to investigate his wife—Karl checked his laptop to make sure she wouldn’t find anything personal on it, and then he wrote her a note.
* * *
VIVIAN WOKE UP to sunlight, though the west-facing room wasn’t as bright as she’d expected with the lack of curtains. The gray clouds pressed as heavily on Chicago today as they had yesterday. The travel mug on the nightstand next to a note that said “decaf” was full of lukewarm, black coffee, which she drank anyway. At the sound of the mug hitting the table, Xìnyùn started shuffling his feet and whistling, “Deal, deal, deal.” When he finally squeaked out, “Deal, goddammit,” Vivian swung her feet out of bed to face the day and her father’s parrot.
In the kitchen she found a laptop and another note. Karl’s first two suggestions seemed reasonable, the third she was going to ignore completely. After showering and eating a small breakfast of leftover egg roll and cold, hard rice topped with honey, she opened the laptop and prepared to look for a job. A résumé was something she’d always planned to create, once she finally graduated from college. Middle Kingdom had only required a desperately prepared job application when it had opened in grandeur before the big economic downturn.
Her job history was easy enough to write, but what name should she put at the top? There were riverboat casinos around Chicago, but they would call Vegas and learn Vivian Yap was unemployable. Yet, as Vivian Milek, she didn’t have ID.
When Karl got home, Vivian had prepared a draft of her résumé and notes of jobs to apply for—none of them at a casino. She was also ready with her arguments about the third point on his note. “You are not going to buy me a winter coat.”
“Do you have a winter coat?” He unloaded take-out containers of Middle Eastern food on the counter without turning to face her.
“No.”
“Do you have money to buy a winter coat?”
He knew the answer. Did he have to make her admit to it? “No.”
“It is February in Chicago. I can buy you a winter coat or you can sit in my apartment until spring. If you’re lucky, spring will come early this year.” He handed her two plates, as tranquil as if they were talking about the weather and not how increasingly indebted to him she was.
Of course, they were talking about the weather. Next time she married a stranger, she was going to pick one from Florida or San Diego—someplace that didn’t require a winter coat.
She took the plates and flatware to the table, her back stiff with the worry of what accepting a winter coat from a stranger implied. “I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and I don’t like it.”
“Are you a prostitute?”
The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The other thing she was going to keep in mind the next time she married a stranger was to pick a man who didn’t feel the need to ask her if she was a prostitute more than once. “The first time you asked me that question was one too many times.” In case he didn’t get the point, she let the plates drop to the table with a clang.
He waited until he’d filled his plate with hummus and tabbouleh before responding. “Stop implying I’m a john and I’ll stop wondering if you’re a prostitute.”
“I don’t want you to spend money on me.”
“Vivian,” he said, setting his fork on his plate without making a clink like she would have. “A winter coat won’t cost me anything near your health insurance and child support. Take the damn coat.”
“I wasn’t—”
“The only one in the hotel room, I know. We share equal responsibility for everything that happened. But you are the only one without a winter coat. Unless you count the baby.”
She didn’t miss that he’d used the word baby this time. Baby and not fetus. He chose his words carefully enough for it to be deliberate.
“Pregnant women aren’t supposed to allow themselves to get overly hot.” Arguing with him was stupid. She needed a winter coat. She knew she needed a winter coat. She just didn’t want him to buy one for her.
“Then we’ll get you a jacket, as well.”
“It gets cold in Las Vegas, you know.”
“The low there yesterday was forty-four. Today’s high in Chicago will be thirty-two. Do you want to continue arguing about this?”
“No.”
“You’re a poor liar.”
Vivian was too irritated to talk to him for the rest of the meal.
* * *
KARL HAILED A cab to take them to Macy’s. The department store was close enough that he’d normally walk, but the cherry-red fleece Vivian came out of the guest room wearing wouldn’t keep her warm for a mere walk across the street. Fortunately, she didn’t argue about the coat once they were in the store, even when he bought her two—a dressy coat to wear to interviews and a casual coat to wear with jeans. Neither did she argue when he suggested she wear the casual coat over her fleece for the walk back home.
“What’s that?”
Karl’s gaze followed her pointing finger to the looming red building with green owls perched on the corners.
“The library.”
“Can we go in and get some books?”
“Didn’t like the ones I picked out for you last night?”
She rolled her eyes, and he suppressed a smile. “For someone who was, quote, ‘beat’ you read almost half the book.”
“I’ve always enjoyed history.” She stopped at the doors. “I don’t know anything about being pregnant, and I’d like to at least know what questions to ask the doctor.”
After seeing three people he knew at Macy’s, Karl was pleasantly surprised not to run in to anyone he knew while looking through pregnancy books. He hadn’t yet figured out how to inform people that he was married and expecting a child. Or, more accurately, he hadn’t figured out how to deal with the constant questions that would follow “I’m married and expecting a child” and still manage to get work done.
They had checked out several pregnancy books and Vivian was browsing the popular library when Karl heard his name. He turned to find his brother-in-law, Miles, and Miles’s daughter, Sarah, standing there.
“A little light reading?” Miles nodded his head to the book Karl had slipped into the department store bag—apparently too slowly, because Miles had seen what it was.
“Enjoying a trip downtown?” Karl ignored the question and gesture. With Sarah around, Miles wouldn’t press.
“We went to the Art Institute and then lunch,” Sarah explained. She either hadn’t seen the book or didn’t recognize it on sight.
“Go pick out some movies for us to watch tonight,” Miles told his daughter.
Stupid of Karl to think Miles would let this slide.
“You could just tell me to get lost,” Sarah said.
“Get lost.”
“I’m going to pick out something you’ll hate,” Sarah said with a flounce.
Miles waited until she was out of earshot before gesturing to the bag again. “The cover of that book hasn’t changed that much since my ex bought a copy seventeen years ago.”
Karl wasn’t in the habit of lying. When he didn’t want to admit to anything, he just didn’t acknowledge the conversation. “Is Renia working at a wedding today? Mom said her photography business has been in high demand for weddings lately.”
“Don’t think I’m not going to tell your sister about this.”
Just what he needed—his family to know about Vivian and the baby before he was ready to tell them. “The book is for research.”
Miles laughed loudly enough for the staff to stare at him. “You’re a lawyer. Your research books are leather bound and cause seismic events when dropped.” He at least had the forethought to look around before asking, “Who’d you get pregnant?”
“Karl,” Vivian said from behind him, “I’ll need your library card to check out.”
Miles didn’t bother to hide that he was peeking over Karl’s shoulder to find the source of the voice. “I’m definitely telling your sister about this.”
Karl shifted his body to include Vivian in the conversation. He couldn’t dodge this forever. “Vivian, meet Miles. He’s my brother-in-law. His daughter, Sarah, is over there. Miles, meet Vivian, my wife.”
“Nice to meet you, Miles.”
Relieved when Miles was too shocked to even offer his hand in greeting, Karl put his hand on Vivian’s back and led her to the checkout.
CHAPTER THREE
KARL AVOIDED VIVIAN for the rest of the weekend. He made sure there was food in the house for her to eat, left his laptop out for her to use and otherwise stayed away.
Back at the library, when he’d put his hand on Vivian’s back, he let himself imagine their connection was more than just her pregnancy. In that moment, the certainty about Vivian he’d felt in Las Vegas had broken through reality, and the enjoyment he’d gotten from leading her away from Miles scared him. He hadn’t enjoyed silencing Miles—he’d enjoyed feeling Vivian’s shoulder blades shift when he put his hand on her coat.
Hopefully she’d find a job soon and move out.
Given the fight she’d put up over the stupid winter coat, he didn’t think she’d welcome being set up in her own apartment like some kept woman. But if she had a job, she might not turn down an offer of help to finance her own place.
Of course, if she were actually a kept woman, he would be able to sweep her hair aside and kiss the nape of her neck....
At work on Monday, Greta came into his office with some paperwork and his plans to keep Vivian a secret from his employees died.
“Does your mother know you’re married?” She used the papers to gesture to the marriage license sitting in plain sight on his desk.
Karl looked from the benefits application on his computer to his overly maternal assistant. She was one of the few people who could outwait his ploy of ignoring a question, but he held out his hand for the papers and tried anyway.
She folded them against her chest. “When did you get married?”
“The papers, Greta.” His hand stayed outstretched in supplication.
“You can’t not tell me. What do I do if she calls?”
“She won’t call.” Or not again. Vivian had health insurance and a roof over her head. What more could she want right now?
“So you are married. No one in the office is going to believe this.” The papers crinkled in her hands as she clenched her fists in excitement.
“No one in the office is going to know.”
“Was she the woman calling the office on Friday?”
He waggled his fingers at her and she finally gave him the papers, along with a gust of cigarette fumes that had been lingering on her clothing.
“She was—oh, and I was so short with her.” Greta didn’t leave the office. She’d handed over the paperwork, but she remained standing with her eyebrows raised at him, hoping for more information.
Despite a tendency to mother, Greta was a great legal assistant. She’d been working in the city’s inspector general’s office longer than anyone else in the building, and Karl was fairly certain that she’d be working here long after his tenure was up. He threw her a bone. “I met her in Las Vegas. But,” he added, before she had a chance to beam and I-told-you-so, “don’t think you can take credit or tell anyone about this.”
“No more information?” The quickness with which her eyebrows collapsed amplified the ridiculousness of this entire situation.
“No.”
“You should still tell your mother.”
“What makes you think I haven’t?”
“You don’t lie outright, so if you won’t tell me that you have told her, I can only assume you haven’t. She’ll want to know.” Having said her piece, Greta left his office.
Since he hadn’t gotten a phone call from his mother, it would seem Miles and Renia hadn’t told her yet, either. Maybe he could put off telling his mother for another eight months and present her with a daughter-in-law and a grandchild at the same time. She might be so overwhelmed at the grandchild that she’d overlook the surprise daughter-in-law.
“You’re married?”
Karl looked up from his computer again to see the director of investigations staring at him from the doorway. Malcolm’s dark black skin and intense golden eyes made people feel as though he was a panther eyeing their suitability for dinner. Malcolm enjoyed the effect, multiplying it by wearing only dark colors.
“Did Greta tell you?”
“No.” Malcolm smiled. “You should learn to keep your door closed. Your assistant has a voice like a bassoon. Everyone on this floor probably knows by now.”
“Yes, Malcolm. I’m married. I’d not planned to tell anyone.”
“Did you really think you could keep information like that a secret?”
Yes, he had thought he could keep this a secret, but apparently he’d been delusional. If Vivian had stayed in Las Vegas, they could have gotten the divorce and no one would have been the wiser. However, with her pregnant and in Chicago, he was going to have to tell people. Putting it off would only make the inevitable more painful—yet he was still thinking about postponing the inevitable.
“How did you meet the lovely new Mrs. Milek? You’re always working. Even when everyone thinks you’re relaxing, you’re working.” Malcolm stroked his chin, a parody of the thoughtful investigator. “What kind of woman was able to slip through those defenses?”
“I’m not going to answer any of your questions, so you might as well stop wasting the city of Chicago’s time.”
Malcolm’s grin widened. “It’s funny how you think you can keep information a secret from me.”
“Listen, Malcolm, if you’re so curious about my wife, then why don’t you just investigate her yourself—just as long as you don’t do it on work time.”
“Hah! And how much of the information I learn about the new Mrs. Milek do you want me to share when I’m done?”
“None.” It wasn’t a lie. Karl intended to find out everything he needed to know about Vivian before Malcolm could ferret it out.
“Apparently you don’t think it counts as lying if you’re also lying to yourself.” With a salute, Malcolm left.
Karl could still hear Malcolm chuckling as he walked down the hall. Karl turned back to his computer, clicked on a browser. The cursor hovered over the search box. In a moment of uncharacteristic indecision, he closed the browser window and opened up work files, determined to put Vivian out of his mind for now.
* * *
VIVIAN PICKED UP the note Karl had left her on Friday morning, balled it up and threw it to Xìnyùn, who lobbed it into a small glass she’d appropriated for the game. Since Karl had disappeared last Saturday after they returned from the library, Vivian and Xìnyùn had gotten very good at basketball. Her husband seemed to think communicating through notes was an appropriate way to manage a marriage.
Even if theirs had been a hasty, drunk marriage better left in Vegas, they couldn’t hope to raise a child together communicating only through notes.
Dear Karl,
Jelly Bean flipped me off this morning. Apparently you said it was a “salute.” Be careful what you say to a four-year-old.
Thank you for your concern,
Vivian
Of course that was ridiculous. Karl would be at work too much to teach Jelly Bean—the name Vivian had taken to calling the baby growing inside her—how to flip someone the bird.
Dear Karl,
Jelly Bean returns from visitation having forgotten how to talk, but has become a surprisingly good correspondent. His teachers are worried.
Talk, dammit!
Vivian
She needed things from him. Humiliating though it was, she needed a place to live and health insurance. And she had also needed to get out of Las Vegas. Karl had given her those things with a poof of his magic fix-it sense. But an apartment and health insurance—and food, and a laptop so she could search for jobs, and a transit card and gas to get her around Chicago and to interviews—only solved her physical problems, not to mention that they made her feel increasingly dependent and trapped.
Maybe she didn’t need someone to talk to, but she wanted someone to talk to. Jelly Bean was still abstract; she couldn’t feel the baby yet, but she could feel her body changing and she wanted to talk with someone about it. When she told Xìnyùn everything she ate tasted like metal, he only whistled. And she couldn’t face her Las Vegas friends—not yet anyway. Not until she found new bearings.
Chicago was a big city, with people who might be her friends, eventually. But right now she was alone and the one person she knew was hiding from her.
Plus, she had things she needed to discuss with him. Such as whether or not she was officially on his health insurance yet and could go to the doctor. And did he want to go with her? She didn’t expect him to be an equal partner in her pregnancy—they were married, but they weren’t intimate—she just wanted...
Hell, she didn’t even know what she wanted.
She wanted to be able to stay awake past nine at night and catch him when he came home so she could eat dinner with him, rather than leaving his food on the stove. Maybe have a conversation with an animal that wasn’t a bird. Play a game other than solitaire. Measure Karl’s head for the hat she was making him as a gift rather than just guessing his size.
Vivian put Xìnyùn back in his cage, packed up her purse and headed out the door with a list of potential employers to visit. Her solution to her current situation was to get a job. A job would give her money. Money would give her the freedom to get her own apartment. There was always the possibility she’d make friends with someone she worked with.
Besides, being unemployed was not something she could handle for long, if only because getting up in the morning and going to a job had been a part of her daily routine for so long. She’d been working since it was legal for her to do so. It had been the only way to make sure she had money to save for college and find a life that didn’t involve moving in the middle of the night.
Fat lot of good it had done her. Her father had taken her life savings and disappeared into the darkness, leaving her to do much the same.
She shook her father out of her head. He had no place in Chicago. He wouldn’t think to find her here and if he couldn’t find her, he couldn’t ask her for more money. All the money she got from a job would go to providing for her and Jelly Bean. And she’d start to get some of her self-worth back. With a job would come the knowledge that she wasn’t a leech on Karl’s silent kindness. And maybe the hope that she could pay him back, somehow.
* * *
WHEN KARL WALKED through the doorway to his apartment at eleven o’clock on Friday night to find Vivian had pulled a dining chair into the entryway and was reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, he knew it had been too much to hope that he could dodge her for eight months.
“Good evening, Karl.” She rested the book on her lap and looked up at him. “Have you been avoiding me?”
It sounded cowardly when she put it like that. He stared at the curve of her lips above her pointed chin—soft over sharp—and he had to stop himself from running his thumb over the bow. He didn’t have to be drunk to be susceptible to the arcs of her face, but he needed to remember that she was only temporary. The baby was permanent, but Vivian fleeting.
“I work a lot.” It came out like a defense.
“Well, you’re home now, and I’m still up, so we can talk.”
He beat her to picking up her chair to carry it back to the dining table. As he passed the bar area of the kitchen, someone whistled at him. The bird was climbing around on a miniature jungle gym. Xìnyùn whistled again, a high-pitched, squeaky wolf whistle. The bird was on his kitchen counter. And whistling at him. He stopped to look at the bird, who hopped in response.
Vivian made kissy noises—at the bird, not at him. “Xìnyùn always did prefer men.”
Karl shook his head and continued carrying the chair to the dining room table. “Why is he out of his cage?” That wasn’t the question he wanted answered. “Why do you have a bird that prefers men?”
That still wasn’t the right question—the one that had been niggling at him. He wanted to know why she was here in Chicago. The growing fetus and health insurance didn’t seem enough of a reason for a stranger to be living in his apartment. But he didn’t ask those, because he was too caught up watching Vivian bend over and encourage the bird to hop onto her finger.
“Luck, be a lady tonight,” the bird squeaked. At least, that’s what Karl thought the bird said. It might have been a whistle.
He sat in a chair at his table in the apartment that used to be his escape from the chaos of life.
“Xìnyùn’s out of his cage because he needs the exercise and mental stimulation. Parrots are smart and need regular challenges to their intelligence. In answer to your second question, I have a parrot that prefers men to women because he’s not my parrot.”
“Are you going to be hunted down by someone whose parrot you stole?” What did he know about her other than that she claimed to be pregnant and was living in his apartment? And that he liked the curve of her lips and length of her neck.
She laughed, but a haunted look accompanied the noise. “Xìnyùn’s my father’s bird.”
“Where’s your father and why doesn’t he have the bird?”
“Um...” She looked at the window.
“There’s probably bird shit on my kitchen counter. You can at least tell me where your father is.”
She looked back at him. “I’ll clean up Xìnyùn’s mess. I’ve been cleaning it all week.”
Of course. He hadn’t been home all week. The bird could’ve been dancing on his pillow for all he knew.
“And my father said he couldn’t keep the bird right now. I came home from work one day to find Xìnyùn in my apartment, along with a note.” She said all that while looking at him, but then she looked out the window. There was more to the story of her father. “But I wanted to talk to you about our child.”
She sat at the table across from him, and the bird hopped down her arm, landing on the belly of the pregnant woman on the cover of the book.
“Should you be around a bird while pregnant?” He really should know more about pregnancy than that Vivian shouldn’t have caffeine or alcohol.
“It’s fine. I wear gloves when I clean up after him and wash my hands often, but that’s one of the things I wanted to talk with you about. I need to find a doctor.”
“Are you sick?”
She pulled her chin back into her neck and gave him a funny look. “I’m pregnant.”
Karl’s throat tried to choke him and he coughed. “This is all new to me.”
“It’s new to me, too. I’ve not had much more time to get used to the idea than you have.” She patted his hand like he was a child. Her hand was warm. “I need to start having regular checkups for myself and the baby. Would you like to go with me to the first visit?” When he turned his hand palm up, she grasped it and squeezed. “Maybe it will help this all be real to you.”
It’s not as though he hadn’t imagined having a pregnant wife before. When he’d believed their marriage to be happy, he’d roll over in bed to look at Jessica and wonder what their children would look like. But with Jessica everything would’ve been planned. There would have been a calendar tracking when she was fertile, the best OB-GYN practice in Chicago already chosen and she would have picked out the crib she wanted before they even stopped using birth control. Jessica organized everything.
And he would’ve been a better partner to Jessica. Despite their arguments, Jessica wouldn’t have questioned whether he would be around to discuss the pregnancy. She would have assumed.
Vivian was a stranger, but legally she was his wife and—until he knew for certain otherwise—she was carrying their child. He should be no less a partner to Vivian just because she and the baby were inconvenient. Pregnancy was hardly convenient for Vivian, either. Whatever had driven her out of Vegas, she’d had a life there.
He squeezed her hand in return. “Yes. I would like to go to the first prenatal visit. I’m not sure I can make all of them, but I’ll make the ones I can, so long as you want me to.”
“I dropped in on your doorstep with no warning and you’ve taken me in. You’ve been great, considering. Really.”
“You’re a bad liar.” She looked out the window, but he saw the lie in the way her nostrils curled. “I didn’t kick a pregnant woman out on the streets, which means I’m not a jerk. It doesn’t make me great. We don’t know each other now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t eventually become friends. Friendship would be a better place to start than many people having a baby together.”
“Friends.” She turned her head back to face him. She was wearing the same pink sweater she’d worn when she’d first arrived. At the time he’d been too overwhelmed by the situation to concentrate on anything other than small details of her features and the haze of his memories. Looking at her now, face-to-face and with his mind open to his changing circumstances, he could see how pretty she was. Simple and without fuss, like a sunrise over the lake. “I’d like that.”
Neither of them noticed they were still holding hands until the bird climbed from the cover of the book to stand on Vivian’s middle finger and whistle.
She blushed and eased her hand out from his grip, the bird still carefully balanced on her finger. “I need to go to bed. This is past my pregnancy bedtime. I’ll clean up Xìnyùn’s mess in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said to her back as she slumped off to the bedroom. Cleaning up after a parrot would give him something to think about, other than his suddenly empty hand.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’M SORRY, DAD....”
Karl eased the front door closed, not wanting to disturb Vivian’s conversation, and if he was being honest with himself, because he wanted to hear what she had to say to her father. She was in her bedroom, but the door was open so she couldn’t have an expectation of privacy.
That she probably still expected him to be out getting their breakfast made that argument a bit specious—a technicality he was willing to ignore to learn more about his mysterious bride. Vivian wasn’t forthcoming with information.
“...but I’m not going to tell you anything about what’s happened to me if you’re not going to tell me where you are.”
Interesting. Not knowing her father’s whereabouts was very different than his being unavailable.
“You always say it’s important, Dad, but me telling you that I’m fine is all you need to know right now.”
He slipped his shoes off and walked to the door of the guest bedroom in his socks, indecision an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling.
“No, nothing much in my life has changed since I last saw you.” The sarcasm in her voice cut through the door and Karl was certain her father was bleeding on the other end of the call, though it sounded as though her dad didn’t know why she was being so cutting. Hell, Karl didn’t know why she was being so cutting.
When had she last seen her father? She’d said he wasn’t available—a bit of an overstatement—but did he even know she was pregnant? That she’d lost her job? Based on the present conversation, Karl was willing to bet the answer to all those questions was no. For all her dad knew, Vivian was still in Vegas, dealing, single and with an empty uterus.
Vivian sighed. “Yes, you’re my father and you care about my well-being, but maybe you can see how that doesn’t mean very much to me right now.”
Clearly she didn’t want her father to know about the upheaval in her life, but why? Was she lying about the pregnancy? He shook the second question from his head. She would be a fool to lie about a pregnancy and invite him to the doctor’s office. He pulled his hand back from knocking at the door. It was unethical to eavesdrop and he now had more questions than answers—a punishment the Greek gods could have devised.
“I’ve been in Sin City for sixteen years and you were never so interested in my well-being before.” One short thunk came from the room. “I will continue to take care of myself, and it will be easier without wondering if you’ll show up on my doorstep.”
Her words stopped his attempt to be courteous and find something else to listen to. However occasionally constricted Karl felt at having his entire family live in the same city, he couldn’t imagine fearing their appearance on his stoop. Or worse, believing them to be more of a hindrance than help if he got in trouble.
“Dad, that was a fun time, but I’m too old to be looking for the next adventure.”
The desperation in her voice echoed the strain on her face from the night she’d shown up in his lobby. It had been that strain that had convinced him she was pregnant and that she believed it was his baby. Both of their lives would be a lot easier if he’d never bought her that drink.
Realizing he wasn’t going to learn any more about his wife, Karl walked to the kitchen, setting the newspapers and the bag of bagels on the counter. He was putting out plates when she came out of her room.
“Oh.” She stopped short at the sight of him, blinking. “I didn’t hear the front door.”
He turned his back to her and poured two cups of coffee. “I know.” When he turned back to face her, she hadn’t moved. “Sit down. Have some breakfast.”
She clasped her hands together, twisting them. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know you don’t know where your father is and that you’ve not told him you lost your job. Or that you’re pregnant. Why?”
A quick, frightened glance at the bedroom door gave away her thoughts.
“Is there a reason the fact of your father’s ignorance might induce me to kick you out of the apartment?”
“No.” Her hands fell to her sides and she inched to the breakfast bar. She gave him one more cautious look before sitting down. “I have good reasons for not telling my father about losing my job.”
He pushed a cup of coffee to her. “And for not telling him that you’re pregnant.”
“That, too.” She wrapped her hands around the mug, but didn’t drink any coffee. Karl waited. “I’m not going to tell you what those reasons are right now, no matter how silent you are.”
His laughter surprised them both. “The tactic loses some of its effectiveness when you put it so baldly.” That he was continuing to help her didn’t disturb him—she was pregnant and he didn’t believe in punishing a child for the sins of the mother, whatever the sins she was hiding might be—but how little he cared about her secret scared the hell out of him. Her attractiveness wasn’t enough to justify his feelings. He liked her, simple as that. “At least tell me that you’re not keeping a secret from me because you did something illegal.”
“I didn’t do anything illegal.” The matter-of-factness with which she said those words left a myriad of other secretive possibilities undenied.
“Does the secret have to do with why you were fired?”
“I don’t want my dad to know I’m pregnant because I don’t want him to have extra incentive to come looking for me.” Topic of conversation seemingly changed with the vague answer, she reached for a bagel, but Karl wasn’t satisfied.
“Because?”
Vivian put the bagel on the plate with a sigh. “Because he’s trouble, and I’m too old to go on thinking it’s fun.”
“Shouldn’t it be a parent’s prerogative to know if they’re going to be a grandparent?”
“Have you told your parents about me yet?” she asked.
“Parent. My dad died when I was sixteen.”
“I knew that. I’m sorry.”
“The people responsible for his death are the ones who should be sorry. You didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“But I’m not the only one keeping secrets from one of the baby’s grandparents.” She looked out the window before reaching for the tub of cream cheese. “My dad is better off not knowing.” Scrutinizing her bagel as she smeared it with cream cheese, she continued, “He wouldn’t care that much anyway.”
Interesting. She had the same tells when she was lying to herself as she did when lying to other people.
He took his time choosing his bagel and spreading it with cream cheese, enjoying her wary looks as she tore small bites off hers and chewed them slowly. If she didn’t want to continue worrying about what would happen if he knew her secrets, she should spill them and get the pain over with.
His coffee was barely hot as he washed his breakfast down before changing the subject. “Speaking of a parent’s prerogative and whether or not she knows about you, my mom planned a family dinner for tomorrow.”
* * *
VIVIAN COUGHED, BUT managed to choke down her mouthful. Couldn’t he have waited until after I’d swallowed before laying that on me?
“Am I invited?” Did she want to be invited? She didn’t want to be a dirty secret locked up in a basement somewhere, but meeting Karl’s family had seemed less scary when it was an abstract idea. Or when bumping into his brother-in-law at the library without the chance to escape or the opportunity to worry about it beforehand.
“We’re married and you’re carrying my child. I think that makes you family. Or do you plan to hide from my family like you’re hiding from yours?”
How nicely Karl evaded the fact that he’d been hiding her, as well. “Hiding from my family is an exaggeration. My father could probably find me if he tried.”
His shoulders fell, but he didn’t sigh in exasperation at her. Since she was exasperated herself, this was a bit of a surprise. “There are aspects of your life you don’t want to tell me right now,” he said. “That’s fine. Not great, but we’re strangers in a rough situation and I’m trying to be understanding. But don’t outright lie to me.”
“Fine.” She put down her bagel and looked him straight in the eye. “It’s not an exaggeration, and I’m hoping he doesn’t try, but not for the same reasons you’re keeping me from your family, I’m sure.” What she had to say next would be harder to admit to, but she wanted him to understand, even if she couldn’t tell him everything. “My dad’s fun, but he’s not responsible. I need responsible.”
“Did he do something illegal?” His voice expressed simple curiosity, but there had to be more behind the question. Vivian didn’t believe Karl ever asked anything out of simple curiosity.
“What’s your time frame?” She pushed her half-eaten bagel away, no longer hungry.
“It’s not a trick question, Vivian. He either did or he didn’t.”
“Maybe it’s easy for you, but you’re a lawyer and you spend your time looking for evildoers. This is my father we’re talking about. He’s lazy and looking to make a quick buck involving the least amount of work. Combine that with Las Vegas...” She shrugged. “There are a million things he could have done that are wrong without being illegal.”
And that was just Las Vegas. If she assumed that every time they had moved in the middle of the night it had been because her father was escaping the law...
Of course, on a few occasions he might have been escaping his partners in crime, not the authorities.
“You should tell your father the truth.”
“No.” The word came out more forcefully than she had meant it to, causing Xìnyùn to whistle from the next room. “When I’m settled, I’ll tell him. Until then...” An offensive tactic seemed to be a better idea right now. “What are you going to tell your family about me?”
He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. It was cold, which was probably why she hadn’t touched hers. “At dinner will be my mom, my sister Tilly and her boyfriend, and my sister Renia and her husband, Miles. You met Miles at the library. I don’t know if his daughter, Sarah, will be there.”
“I’ll get you another cup of coffee,” she said, reaching out for his mug.
His hand was cool when it grabbed her wrist. “Don’t. If I want another cup I’ll get it myself.”
“I’m just trying to be nice.” I’m still in your apartment, eating your food, without a job. And now we have this secret hanging between us.
“When you’re offering just to be nice, I’ll let you get me a cup of coffee. Until then, you’re doing it because you feel beholden to me and I’m not interested.” He let go of her hand and she missed the cool touch of his palm on her skin.
Which was nuts. They weren’t a couple; they were a couple of people stuck having a baby together. She would get a job and her own insurance, they would agree on divorce terms and child support and she would never feel his touch again. He was a domineering pain in the ass, anyway. Because you feel beholden. Assuming jerk.
But because he was right, she asked her question again. “What are you going to tell your family about me?”
“The truth.”
“That we met while drunk, had sex and woke up married?”
The corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile, marking this morning as the first time she’d heard him laugh much less give any indication he could smile outside of Las Vegas. And she couldn’t help notice that his hazel eyes twinkled when he smiled. “An edited version of the truth.”
“Could you—” how to ask this question without sounding like she was trying to hide even more “—not tell them about the baby?”
The corners of his mouth fell as his smile turned suspicious. As he should be, Vivian thought, only not with regard to the baby. “Any particular reason to keep it a secret?”
“I’d always heard it was bad luck to tell anyone before the third month.”
“Miles knows—or at least guesses. He saw the book.”
“Just between us for now. Okay?”
* * *
KARL DIDN’T USUALLY lie to his mom, but he knew how to keep something from her. He’d hidden his impending divorce from her almost until Jessica had served him with the petition. It wasn’t something he liked doing—his mom had been angry about the secret of the divorce for months—but he made it a habit not to answer questions people didn’t ask. It hadn’t occurred to his mother to ask if he was getting a divorce. However...
“Is she pregnant?” his mom asked in a whisper as she handed him a platter of sauerkraut pierogies to take to the dining room.
“Why do you ask?” If he could avoid answering the question, he wouldn’t have to lie to his mother. He didn’t want to. But he understood Vivian’s reluctance to share the news—though his reasons were different. The fewer people who knew about the pregnancy, the fewer people who would insist on showing him adorable baby booties and maybe the fewer chances he’d have to think of all the horrible ways children die. As long as only he and Vivian knew about the baby, he could ignore the risk childhood posed to a child whenever he wasn’t around his wife. Or so he told himself.
His mom grabbed the waistband of his pants, preventing him from walking out of the kitchen. He sighed in response. Some days, you are still five years old to your mother. “You married a woman I’ve never met. What am I supposed to think?”
“Mom, even if she were pregnant—and I’m not saying she is—I wouldn’t tell you until she was three months along. It’s bad luck.” At least Vivian had been kind enough to give him something to tell his mother while he lied to her.
“What do you know about this woman you’ve married? Where’s she from? What’s her family like? How do you know if you have anything in common with her?”
He removed his mother’s grip on his pants and turned to face her, surprised when her expression held fear. “We’re here for family dinner. You can ask her all the questions you want. Get to know her. You’ll probably like her.”
I do. More than the curve of her lips and line of her neck. He could relax in Vivian’s calm presence. She had a quiet, efficient manner and he found himself watching her move about the apartment instead of enjoying his view of the Chicago skyline. He had even changed the chair he sat in while in the living room so he could watch her knit or play solitaire.
“She’s just—” his mom halted “—different, and I’m not sure she belongs.”
Of all the things he expected to come out of his mother’s mouth... “Are you saying you don’t like Vivian because she’s not from Chicago, not Catholic—” at least, he didn’t think she was “—or not white?”
“I just think marriages work better when the couple shares a common background.”
He set the pierogies on the counter in exasperation. “You complain about Tilly and Dan not even planning a wedding yet—”
“‘I’m building my business’ isn’t a reason not to get married,” she interrupted.
“And you’re a devout Catholic wishing your sister could marry her longtime female partner.”
“She’s my favorite sister. Their relationship has lasted longer than most marriages I know.”
“Vivian and I have done what Aunt Maria and Josie can’t do and what Tilly and Dan haven’t cared to do. Be happy about that.”
“I just wish I knew her.”
“No, you wish you’d had the chance to approve of her before I married her.” Like you approved of Jessica because the two of you wanted the same things out of me, and they weren’t what I was willing to give. The marriage you approved of led to divorce. And Jessica and I had a lot in common.
He picked the pierogies up off the counter and headed through the living room to the dining room and the rest of his family.
In the dining room, Vivian was laughing at the anecdote of Dan panning Tilly’s restaurant and then picking her up at the Taste of Chicago, each unaware that she was the chef to whose restaurant he’d given a bad review. Instead of being an uncomfortable story, Tilly’s lively hand gestures and gift with words made it one of their best party stories. Karl slipped into the chair next to his wife with the odd feeling that the family table was finally complete. Until tonight, hearing Vivian chuckle at Dan’s tales of the ribbing his friends had given him over the review, Karl hadn’t known something had been missing.
* * *
THE CAR RIDE home was uncomfortable. Vivian’s enjoyable chat with Karl’s sisters had come to a screeching halt when his mom had entered the dining room with roast pork and twenty questions. Vivian had smiled and tried to remain pleasant, while avoiding the questions she thought were none of the woman’s business—and inappropriate to be asked at a get-to-know-you dinner.
“Everyone seemed very nice,” Vivian remarked to the passenger-side window and cars they were passing. By everyone, she meant Karl’s sisters, his brother-in-law and Dan. She hadn’t expected someone as straitlaced as Karl to have a sister with wild blue hair, and his other sister, Renia, while reserved, had an undercurrent of real warmth.
Qualifying her statement seemed rude, and she could be polite to Karl, who had watched the interaction between her and his mother with interest but hadn’t done anything to interfere. Just because she came from mysterious people and a state that Easterners couldn’t distinguish from Iowa, didn’t mean she didn’t know how to be polite.
“Did you enjoy the food?”
“Yes. It’s the first time I’ve ever had pierogies. Probably the first time I’ve ever had Polish food that wasn’t kielbasa from the grocery store.” The only thing the sausage they’d eaten for dinner had in common with the vacuum-wrapped oval from the meat case was the name. Then there had been the cucumbers in a light sour cream dressing. “It was all delicious.”
“No Polish blood in you?” His question was lightly asked, but she’d been asked that question about ten different ways over the past two hours.
“I didn’t realize you were also obsessed with my ancestry.” Being offended warred with her fear of losing the little stability she had managed to grasp.
And she’d thought better of him.
“Of all my mom’s questions that you avoided answering, that’s the one I care least about. Tell me why you got fired and why you’re hiding from your dad, and I won’t bat an eye when you tell me that your grandparents are from Jupiter.”
“Is that why you didn’t stop your mom from combining dinner with a security clearance interview?”
He didn’t sigh, but she could feel the frustration come off his body in waves at her remark. “Vivian,” he said finally, “I haven’t known you very long, but you don’t strike me as the type of person who wants a man to rescue her just so he can prove he’s not neutered. You were holding your own. If you had needed to be saved, I would have done so.”
“What do you call me living in your apartment, eating your food and using the transit cards you leave on the table?” Suddenly she needed the parameters of their relationship defined. If he didn’t see her as helpless and dependent, how did he see her?
“Providing you with a helping hand isn’t the same as a rescue. If I were rescuing you, I’d have done this whole thing differently.”
“How?”
“I’d have a suit of armor and horse,” he said with the same flat tone with which he said everything else.
Something between a snicker and a sigh escaped her mouth. She hadn’t told his mother anything about her heritage because she was offended that it seemed to matter. When Karl said he didn’t care, she believed him.
Besides, if she offered him some answers, perhaps she’d win a reprieve from the questions about her father and why she was fired. She didn’t know that much about “her people” anyway. Her father had a habit of alienating people, even family. Maybe especially family.
“The last name and most of the blood on my father’s side is Chinese, but there’s some Mexican and Sicilian in there, too, I think. There were lots of different ethnic groups working on the railroads, fighting forest fires and mining out west. My mom’s a hundred percent Chinese, though.” She let the silence consume the oxygen in the car and extinguish her fear. “Would your mom like me more if I had Polish blood?”
She didn’t want to care what his mother thought, but this was his baby, too, and that woman was the baby’s grandmother. If the baby’s grandmother couldn’t get past her nonwhite skin, well...well, she’d figure out something. She always had.
“It would give her something to hang on to until she got to know you better. Being Catholic would work just as well.” Her leather seat creaked as she turned from the window to look at her husband, but the darkness swallowed his expression—if he had one.
She turned back to the window, disappointed in his answer and disappointed in herself for caring. “The Mexican and Sicilian parts are probably Catholic.”
She started when his hand rested on her knee and squeezed. She’d touched him once or twice, but he’d steadfastly avoided initiating any contact with her since putting his hand on her back as they’d left the library that day. She’d noticed that he watched her when they were in the apartment together—whether out of suspicion, curiosity or some other emotion she didn’t know and his expression didn’t reveal—but he never touched her.
“It’s not about you. My mom is mad at me for marrying someone she doesn’t know and didn’t get a chance to approve of, first. Since I am otherwise the golden child, she’s not used to feeling disappointed in me and her disapproval is landing on you. She’ll get over it, and you shouldn’t feel that you need to put up with it. If she continues, I’ll tell her to knock it off. Or you can opt out of future family dinners. Attendance isn’t a requirement for my help.”
If she hadn’t been staring so intently at his expression, she wouldn’t have noticed the slight lift of his mouth when he said “golden child.” As it was, she wasn’t sure she believed her own eyes. She ticked off her memories on her fingers, a laugh, two smiles and a touch all in the span of a couple days.
But the hint of a smile disappeared as quickly as it had come when he continued talking. “I don’t know if that helps. I’ve never been—”
“Anything but the perfect man all mothers dream their beloved daughter will marry?”
He laughed. If she wasn’t careful, she might have to take off her socks to keep track of the number of times she got a reaction out of him. “I was going to say ‘on the receiving end of a mother’s interrogation,’ but we can let your statement stand.”
“How your mother feels about me doesn’t matter in the long run, I guess. I’ll get a job, get my own health insurance. We’ll have a baby and get a divorce. You’ll be free to marry a Polish Catholic girl your mom has known since birth.”
Karl didn’t respond. But neither did he remove his hand from her knee until it was time to get off the freeway.
CHAPTER FIVE
VIVIAN WAS SHIFTING, trying to get comfortable in the waiting room chair and filling out yet another form with her medical history, when Karl came in.
“Hi,” she said, surprised. She’d told him the time and date of her first doctor’s appointment, and he’d said he’d come, but she’d expected some work emergency to conveniently detain him. Despite his touch of her knee on the way home from his mother’s and his promise they would be friends, he’d been the same distant man of the previous week. And he still seemed to work all the time. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I’m sorry. Scheduling my own doctor’s appointment made me late.” He put a heavy hand on her head, smoothing down her hair before giving her neck a reassuring squeeze and sitting down. No, she wasn’t being honest with herself. He hadn’t been quite the same man. Instead of going straight to work after the gym, he’d come home and eaten breakfast with her yesterday and today. They’d talked about how her job search was going, and she’d reminded him of today’s appointment.
And yesterday, instead of getting home from work after she’d gone to bed, he’d come home and taken her out to dinner. As she’d taken a bite of her stuffed mushrooms and peered at the pictures on the wall of the steakhouse that seemed to be a Chicago institution, Karl had turned into a different man.
No fewer than ten people, not including the gruff waitstaff, came to their table to say hello. Each time, he introduced her as his wife, accepted their congratulations, ignored their looks of surprise with ease and asked about their families. She’d started to wonder if the taciturn man she shared an apartment with had fallen into the twilight zone and been replaced by a politician. Then she’d noticed his glad-handing didn’t extend to his eyes. He smiled, but the twinkle wasn’t there. Her husband played Mr. Important out in public, but he didn’t enjoy it.
The man next to her in the waiting room, silent, steady and present, was the natural Karl.
“What are all the forms for?”
“Everything.” She handed the clipboard to him, embarrassed to be sharing her complete medical history with a man she barely knew. But he was going to learn more about her as soon as they got into the doctor’s office so why hide it now? Jelly Bean was his baby, too. “Family medical history. Vitamins I take. Past illnesses. My doctor in Vegas hasn’t sent over all my records yet, but I think they’d make me fill everything out, anyway.”
“You missed information here.”
She looked at the space he was pointing to. “I don’t remember how old I was when I had my first period.”
Karl’s head jerked and he started to blush. “I guess, I didn’t, I mean...”
This time she put the supportive hand on his knee. “It’s okay. We have one night of sex and now my menstrual cycle has become important to both of us.” She chuckled because her other option was to cry. “When we leave this office, I probably won’t have any secrets left.”
“Why’d you come to me instead of finding your father?”
Of course, she couldn’t blame him for asking the question—she’d practically invited it—but still Vivian tried to pull her hand off his knee. He stopped her, placing his hand on top of hers and keeping it there. She could feel his touch all the way down to her toes.
“I thought I should tell you about the child in person,” she said. It was the same stupid reason she always gave him.
“So, still some secrets.” Someday, she knew, he wasn’t going to let it slide.
“Yes.” And she would keep those secrets as long as she could. He needed to know about her health and her body because the child growing inside her was his as well as hers. He didn’t need to know how she’d waited until the last minute to decide not to sell her integrity, and how the fates had punished her anyway.
“You said you wanted me here. I can go back to my office if you need the privacy.”
“No. We’re a team on this—” if on nothing else “—and I’d like a friend.”
* * *
IN THE SMALL exam room, Karl turned his back to give Vivian privacy while she changed into the hospital gown. He cracked the door once she had changed, then took a seat in a chair while she sat on the examination table, swinging her feet in the air. The false intimacy of the exam room, combined with the very real consequences of their night of sexual intimacy, made for an awkward situation.
“Oh, the father is here,” the doctor said as she walked into the room. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
Karl had felt discomfited enough as the only man in the waiting room without the doctor commenting on his presence in that chipper voice people use to inform their dogs a walk is coming. But the woman didn’t seem to notice his discomfort—or she didn’t care—and the visit wasn’t about him, anyway.
“Considering how many times I hear people say ‘we’re pregnant,’ I almost never see the father.” His head jerked up when the doctor sat and patted them both on the knees. She looked old enough to be his grandmother, but he hadn’t expected her to treat them like children. “Good.” Pat. “This should be a partnership.” Pat. “And I expect this means both of you will be abstaining from coffee, alcohol, soft cheese and lunch meats.” Pat. “It’s not fair for the mother to bear those burdens alone.”
He knew about the coffee and alcohol. He hadn’t known about the cheese. How much feta had been in the Middle Eastern food he’d brought home? Had Vivian picked it out? Had she eaten it? Was it even a soft cheese? Karl glanced at her and she lifted her eyebrows in what he expected was supposed to be reassurance, but he still felt as if he was swimming through a bizarre dream the consistency of gelatin and the color of black coffee—with grounds trapped beside him in the jelly.
“So.” The doctor clapped her hands. “I imagine you have lots of questions...”
How had offering a drink to an attractive woman at a hotel bar in Las Vegas led to him sitting in an exam room with a stranger in a hospital gown?
“...let me tell you what’s going to happen at this exam, and you can ask all the questions you want when we’re done.”
Now was probably not the best time to ask that question—or to ask when he was going to wake up. Although, he cocked his head to the side and caught sight of Vivian’s pink toenails as they swayed in and out of his vision, the dream didn’t really seem terrible. Still bizarre, but not definitively bad.
“The last thing we’ll do is an internal ultrasound. It’s early yet, so you won’t see much, but we might get to listen to the heartbeat.”
“The fetus has a heartbeat?” Karl asked, and immediately felt stupid.
“If the date of your last period is right, the fetus may have a detectible heartbeat. Don’t worry, Dad.” The doctor patted his knee again. “People ask questions when they’re scared and sometimes they’re silly questions. Babies are scary and they’re also wonderful. Stick with your beautiful wife, here, and you’ll be fine.”
Vivian’s legs had stopped swinging and her lips had pursed as though she might cry. Or—he reevaluated the brightness of her eyes—burst into laughter. He wasn’t the only one who found this scene ridiculous.
The exam was reinforcing all the many things he didn’t know about his wife. He’d seen the stranger he’d married in a hospital gown, knew she couldn’t remember the age at which she had her first period and knew she’d been exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke on her job. He didn’t know why Vivian had lost her job, why her father was missing or why she wouldn’t tell him about her pregnancy. Until she told the doctor, he hadn’t realized she spent most of her days walking around the city when she wasn’t applying for jobs and cleaning up after the stupid bird.
These were the repercussions of having a child with a stranger. These strange half intimacies of hearing her describe how regular her menstruation had been—really, did such details matter now that she was actually pregnant?—but not knowing if she’d ever gone to college defined their relationship.
Vivian and the doctor were talking about genetic testing, but Karl only heard half of it. This wasn’t how he’d planned to have a baby. When he’d sat at the hotel bar knocking back whiskey and waiting to die because being older than his father was inconceivable, he’d thought back on what he’d accomplished in his life.
And he’d come up short, which had probably been the alcohol and his thirty-ninth birthday talking. He had a job that was more than just important to him, it was important to the city of Chicago. He was the independent watchdog for the taxpayer and that didn’t mean he was looking out only for their money.
The worst effects of corruption and fraud weren’t wasted dollars, but wasted lives. Two dead Milek men on the side of the highway and one dying Milek boy in the hospital were testimony to the devastation a bribe and a blind eye could leave.
He averted his eyes when Vivian started to scoot her butt to the edge of the exam table and put her feet in the stirruplike things. The doctor had a wand-ish instrument covered with a condom and lubricant. The woman who had just been patting his knee was now telling Vivian how the ultrasound would feel compared to a vaginal exam and he nearly leapt out of his chair and headed for the door.
His presence here was a mistake. Whatever was involved in an internal ultrasound was far, far too private for him to witness. They were strangers. He’d planned on having babies with Jessica, who would’ve known better than to ask him to come to the doctor’s office to witness this. Jessica had wanted two children—preferably one boy and one girl. They were going to buy a house in Andersonville and he was going to have the beautiful wife, two perfectly behaved children and a meaningful job. And when his thirty-ninth birthday hit, he was going to compare his life to his father’s and see that he’d lived up to all the man’s expectations.
“Dad.” The doctor’s voice broke through the existential crisis he wouldn’t admit he was having, even in confession, should the priest ask. “If you look on the monitor you can see the embryo. And your date for conception looks pretty spot-on with the embryo’s growth.”
The last, lingering nugget of doubt he’d had about Vivian’s pregnancy burst when Karl looked up. On the screen was some pulsing gray matter and, in a flash of emptiness, a little thing that looked like a mouse standing up and dancing. Only it wasn’t a mouse. It wasn’t anywhere near the size of a mouse. It was his baby and the doctor was saying it was a quarter of an inch in size.
From somewhere in the room came the sound of a horse clopping. Vivian’s wide smile made her cheeks pop like a chipmunk’s, but he didn’t know the source of the sound until the doctor said, “And this is your baby’s heartbeat.”
The blood pulsing in his ears took on the same rhythm of the horse galloping, the sound that the doctor was claiming was his baby. The baby he made with the beautiful woman lying back calmly on the exam table, looking at him as if she expected him to say something.
“Holy shit.” His life was never going to be the same.
* * *
KARL WAS SILENT as he pushed the cart through the aisles of the grocery store. Normally, his quiet didn’t bother Vivian, but there was quiet and then there was the silence that buzzed between them.
“Are you okay?” she asked for probably the tenth time since they’d left the doctor’s office.
“Fine.” He held the plastic bag full of apples high in the air, twisted it and tied the bag in a knot.
Already in the cart were bananas, oranges, clementines, grapefruit, grapes and strawberries that looked pretty but would probably be tasteless since it was only March. And that was just the fruit. They also had sweet potatoes, kale, Swiss chard, carrots, cabbage and a rainbow of peppers. If a doctor sitting on Oprah’s couch had ever called a plant a “superfood,” Karl had put it in their cart. His previously empty fridge was likely to expire with the pressure of the extra work. At least she’d be able to make every recipe on the planet without having to go to the store again.
She weighed the bleak look that had been on Karl’s face when their baby’s heartbeat had filled the exam room and the fact that they were strangers and she was dependent on him. The bleak look won. She put a hand on his before he could bag some rocks masquerading as peaches.
“You are not fine. You nearly fainted at the doctor’s.” A muscle pulsed where his ear rounded into his jaw, but Vivian ignored the warning. “And your silence has a deathlike quality about it. We’re partners in this. Friends, right?”
At the word death the twitch had stopped. Karl left the peaches on the display and moved on to the pears. When he’d bagged five pears, he turned his attention to her. “This is not how I expected to have a child.”
He pushed the cart away from the produce, leaving her wishing she had a bag of potatoes she could bean him over the head with. She caught up to him in the bread aisle as he was reading nutritional information.
“This wasn’t how I expected to have a child, either.” All through adulthood, she’d held on to her dream of a perfect nuclear family, raising children in a house they would own into retirement, the memories made in the home impossible to distinguish from the stuff cluttering the shelves. When she’d decided she couldn’t abort the baby, no matter how desperate her situation seemed, she’d surrendered that dream. Karl hadn’t been offered the same choices she had, and he probably had completely different dreams.
She grabbed one of the loaves and added cinnamon-raisin bread to the cart, as well. “I suspect there’s more to your reaction.”
As they passed the fancy cheeses, Vivian added Gruyère to the cart.
“No cheese.” Karl put it back in the cooler.
“No soft cheese.” She put it back into the cart.
“Huh.” He added a couple more cheeses to the pile, then crossed his arms on the cart handle and pushed his way along the aisle. She’d never seen a man look so uncomfortable while trying to look so relaxed, and again she had to hurry after him.
“Is the cheese for you?”
“No. You seem to like cheese.”
“I can’t eat all that. It’ll go bad.”
“You’re supposed to eat more, and a variety of foods.”
She put her hand on the front of the cart and turned it before he could knock down a display of potato chips with his manic forward progress. “After the second trimester, I should eat an extra three hundred calories a day. That does not mean I get to gorge myself on cheese.”
He sighed. “I’ll help eat the cheese.”
“And the fruit? And the bread? And whatever else you plan to buy me and Jelly Bean while we’re in the store?”
“Jelly Bean?” Finally, she had his attention. “You call our baby Jelly Bean?”
“You call our baby the fetus.”
“Apparently I should be calling it an embryo for another three or four weeks.”
She sighed. “Can we talk about this possessed shopping trip and what happened in the doctor’s office?”
“Not here.”
“Fine.” She navigated the cart past the dairy and around several displays until she’d dragged Karl and his cornucopia in front of the shoe polish and laces. “This is as empty as a grocery store gets. Spill.”
He looked over his shoulder. She wanted to smack him, but she also needed him. No one could call her actions patient, but she was waiting. “Hearing the heartbeat was the first time this became real. Until then I expected to wake up. But it’s not a dream and we’re in this together. I want to make sure you have all you need.”
The warmth in his voice glided above the soft hits that were playing over the loudspeakers. For the first time since she’d sat on her bathroom floor in Vegas looking at the third positive pregnancy test in a row, Vivian felt like something other than a problem. She’d come to Karl because he was the father and he was a fixer. But now...she and Jelly Bean might be something more than a speed bump in his perfectly ordered and sterile life.
His hand didn’t feel cool to the touch when she grabbed on to it—a phantom warmth she attributed to the hope rising in her own chest. “We won’t be left communicating with each other through notes about Jelly Bean’s progress in school.”
“What?” Karl hid his emotions most of the time, but puzzlement was clear on his face.
“I had visions of us as divorced parents exchanging notes through Jelly Bean’s backpack.”
“Oh.” And then he laughed. “What a ridiculous thing to think. That’s what text messages are for.”
She laughed along with him, ignoring the looks they got from passing shoppers.
“Vivian.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I may not have imagined this as how I was going to have children, but I’m finding I could do much worse.”
“It’s not much of a compliment, but I’ll take it.” She lifted up onto her toes and kissed him once on the lips. Then she headed for the cereal aisle before he could read anything other than humor in her expression.
CHAPTER SIX
DINNER EATEN AND the dishes done, Vivian followed Karl around the bar and into the living room. She sat at one end of the couch and picked up her knitting. He sat on the other end of the couch and picked up his book. It was progress. Only a week ago, he’d never been home while she was still awake. Only a couple of days ago, he was sitting in the armchair rather than sharing the couch. They were getting to know each other and, slowly, coming to trust each other.
Sometime in the near future, Karl might even tell her about his day as they sat down to dinner. She might talk about the jobs she was applying for. They might have a relationship outside of the shared parentage of their child.
The rich green wool slid through her fingers. The hat’s shape was slowly emerging out of the yarn and she could begin to picture it on Karl’s head. He needed something more than the righteous fire burning within him to keep his ears warm.
With a child on the way, she should probably be knitting baby blankets and little sweaters, but she wanted to give Karl something that didn’t originate in his own largesse. The yarn was one of the few possessions she’d brought to Chicago that wasn’t a necessity. The wool was soft, and she had needed something comforting with her.
The metal of her needles clicked. The pages of Karl’s book rustled. If, on the other side of the city, someone with a telescope was scanning windows, they would see what appeared to be an old married couple so comfortable with each other they didn’t need to talk—not two strangers with no idea what to say to each other.
“What book are you reading?” Vivian was struck by the sudden and silly fear that a stranger looking in the windows with a telescope knew what Karl was reading while she, sitting next to him, had no idea.
“Hmm?” Karl looked up and it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her across the cushions. “It’s a collection of Herman Melville’s short works. He wrote Moby Dick.”
“I know who Melville is. I may not have graduated, but I’ve taken some college classes. I’m not stupid.”
He turned his head back to the pages, giving her snippy comment all the attention it deserved.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ve never said or even implied I was stupid. I don’t know why I reacted so poorly.”
Only she did. The uncertainty of her existence and unwanted helplessness wore on her, coming out in bile when she was least prepared to stop it. Feeling close to, yet so distant from, the man on whom her life currently depended on was unsettling.
Which was no reason to be a bitch when all he’d done was answer her question.
He lifted his head and turned to her again, his face as expressionless as desert sand. “Not knowing who Melville is would only imply a deficit of education. It wouldn’t say anything about your innate intelligence.” Then, though there was no discernible change in his expression, his eyes softened. “I didn’t know you went to college. What did you study?”
“Nothing.” His expression hardened and he was turning his attention back to his book when she started talking again. “I didn’t mean that to be snippy. Working full time meant I didn’t have much time for school, and so I took what I wanted when it was available. It didn’t amount to much of anything in particular.”
She didn’t tell him that the thought of finally graduating from college and facing job applications was terrifying. What if she’d spent all that time and money getting a degree and then still couldn’t get a job other than dealing in casinos? So long as she never graduated, she never had to face losing the security of a job that offered health insurance and paid enough for her to keep an apartment and a car. She never had to leave the comfort of walking through the same doors for sixteen years and the security of knowing exactly who she was and what she was doing, even if she didn’t like it.
It hadn’t escaped Vivian that her father had been responsible for both destroying her chance at college after high school and destroying the life she’d built for herself once she’d realized “college student” wasn’t something she could make work and still hope to eat. She could’ve handled the pregnancy on her own if she’d still had that job security.
“When did you learn to knit?” He was focused completely on her, the book on his lap closed, without even his finger to mark where he’d stopped.
Vivian admired Karl’s ability to focus, although she was afraid she might come to crave it. When his hazel eyes fixed on her, her heart raced and her entire body warmed by ten degrees. Between pregnancy and being in the same room with Karl, she didn’t need a winter coat.
“About ten years ago—when it seemed like everyone was learning how to knit. I’ve always liked activities that used my hands.” Mostly she’d made dishcloths, which she’d had to donate to the thrift store before driving to Chicago because she couldn’t justify taking them with her.
“Like card dealing?”
“The casino had automatic shufflers and the fancy shuffling techniques my father taught me would have been forbidden anyhow.” Some of which made counting cards really easy and had been designed to facilitate cheating. But she’d always preferred the ones that looked fancy without being deceitful.
“Can you show me?”
“Card shuffling tricks or knitting?”
He appeared to take her question seriously, even though she’d meant it as a bit of a joke. “Card shuffling tricks.”
“Really?” Karl had tried to hide his opinion of her previous career, but he hadn’t been as successful as he probably thought.
“We’re trying to be friends, right?”
Friendship had been a great idea in the doctor’s office when she’d been lying back on the examination table feeling about as sexy as an ottoman. Now, sitting on the couch with him scooching closer to her, those intense eyes burning into her, friendship seemed a sure path to sex, and sex was a bad idea. They’d had sex as strangers and look where it had gotten them.
What’s stopping you? The horse is already out; no use shutting the barn door now. Think of how his hazel eyes will burn when he explodes into you.
That was just the pregnancy talking. The books had warned her that pregnancy made some women horny. It had to be the pregnancy. It couldn’t be seeing the fine hairs on his strong, bare forearms and being reminded of why she’d broken her own rules and slept with a resort guest to begin with.
“Um, sure.” She stood up quickly—to find a deck of cards, not to escape Karl and her own lustful thoughts.
When she returned, she had a new deck of cards and a plan. She sat in the chair Karl normally used and faced him across the coffee table. He gave her a knowing smile, as though what was bothering her was bothering him, too, but he didn’t argue or ask her to sit next to him.
Friendship was a good idea. This wanting she was feeling would only lead to bad things. He had bought her two winter coats, was paying for her health insurance and providing her with a place to live because they were married, but they weren’t married because they were in love. The child growing inside her wasn’t an expression of their love. She’d been feeling vulnerable and he’d been talking about how important family was to him and she’d succumbed to a dream that didn’t exist. They’d had hot, dirty, wonderful, random stranger sex, and now they couldn’t stay strangers.
Sex would change the bargain. Sex would put them uncomfortably close to an exchange of pleasure for material goods, and that wasn’t a bargain she was willing to make. In that moment she made a promise to herself. They would be partners when she was finally able to put her lips against one of his chiseled cheeks and lick her way to his collarbone and down his chest until she made his heartbeat pound and echo through her body. She would have a job and contribute something other than dinner to his day. She wouldn’t be helpless anymore.
“What do you want to see?”
He shrugged. “Impress me.”
She held the deck of cards in her left hand and gripped two corners with her right. Both thumb and ring finger two-thirds on the corner, one-third off, just as her dad had taught her. Then she lifted the deck of cards with her right hand nearly two feet from her left, angled her thumb and let the cards fall.
* * *
THE CARDS BARELY made a whisper as they cascaded into her left hand. When Karl had been in high school, there was a kid in his class who’d liked to show off his card tricks. The kid had bragged about his mastery of the cards, but when he’d done that trick, the cards had sounded like someone was rustling through a trash can and he’d had to brace his arm against his body in such a way that the cards shot into his gut, rather than flowing through the air.
“Wanna see it again?” she asked.
“Yes.” At the bar that fateful night, he’d watched her long fingers wrap around her drink and wondered if he could let go of himself long enough to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman. She had smiled, a little shy and a little sad, and suddenly making her laugh had become more important than his own problems.
He paid attention to those hands again, now, watching exactly where she placed her fingers and how she bent the cards before releasing them. He wasn’t any less impressed seeing her card trick the second time.
You were so focused on what her lips would feel like on your body that you didn’t stop to think what effect those dexterous fingers could have. Her eyes were twinkling and the way her pink lips curved into a half smile when he looked from her fingers up to her face confirmed that he’d been right to focus on the power of those lips. The nimble fingers were an added bonus.
“You weren’t expecting to be impressed,” she said.
“No. I’ve never seen cards shuffled that way so well.” He realized that compliment sounded hollow when Vivian’s eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t do it and I’m not foolish enough not to credit expertise when I see it, even if I don’t fully understand it.”
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Jennifer Lohmann
He always does the right thingThere's one exception to Karl Milek's rule—the Vegas weekend that leaves him with a night to remember, and a beautiful new wife he’d rather forget. Those divorce papers are put on hold, however, when Vivian shows up on his doorstep pregnant.Karl offers her shelter and everything else she needs until their baby is born. Yet soon he realizes that he could definitely get used to seeing Vivian in the mornings, sharing dinner with her at night…and inhaling her jasmine scent. But he doesn't think he can risk giving his wife the one thing she wants most—his love.
He always does the right thing
There’s one exception to Karl Milek’s rule—the Vegas weekend that leaves him with a night to remember, and a beautiful new wife he’d rather forget. Those divorce papers are put on hold, however, when Vivian shows up on his doorstep pregnant.
Karl offers her shelter and everything else she needs until their baby is born. Yet soon he realizes that he could definitely get used to seeing Vivian in the mornings, sharing dinner with her at night…and inhaling her jasmine scent. But he doesn’t think he can risk giving his wife the one thing she wants most—his love.
This was exactly what he wanted to avoid!
When Karl walked through the doorway to his apartment at eleven o’clock on Friday, he found Vivian sitting on a dining chair in the entryway, reading What To Expect When You’re Expecting. He should have known it had been too much to hope that he could dodge her for eight months.
“Good evening, Karl.” She rested the book on her lap and looked up at him. “Have you been avoiding me?”
It sounded cowardly when she put it like that. He stared at the curve of her bottom lip over her pointed chin. soft over sharp, and he had to stop himself from running his thumb over the bow. He didn’t have to be drunk to be susceptible to the arcs of her face, but he needed to remember that she was only temporary. The baby was permanent, but Vivian was fleeting.
“I work a lot.” It came out like a defense.
“Well, you’re home now and I’m still up, so we can finally talk.”
Dear Reader,
Jo Beverley has a post on the blog Word Wenches where she talks about the marriage-of-convenience trope, calling it “vows before love.” This trope appeals to Beverley because the vulnerability of the heroine required for the story shows her strengths to the fullest effect. (Beverley compares this to a thriller where the hero starts out trapped.) To me, this is Vivian in a nutshell. When the book opens, there is little more in her life she can lose, and we see her battle her fears, weakness and, occasionally, her husband to become a fuller, stronger person.
Karl has a different journey to take. If you’ve read the other two books in the Milek series (Reservations for Two, February 2013, and The First Move, April 2013), then you know Karl is a bit uptight and a serial dater. Finding the perfect match for him was hard; my laptop is full of first chapters where Karl meets a heroine who is great—but not for him. It took me several tries before I realized Karl needs someone to challenge his preconceived notions about himself and the world, without shaking him loose from his core. Love stories work best when we have to push ourselves to be worthy of our beloved.
If you’re interested in Vivian’s background and family in the novel, I recommend Iris Chang’s The Chinese in America: A Narrative History.
Enjoy!
Jennifer Lohmann
A Promise for the Baby
Jennifer Lohmann
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Lohmann is a Rocky Mountain girl at heart, having grown up in southern Idaho and Salt Lake City. After graduating with a degree in economics from the University of Chicago, she moved to Shanghai to teach English. Back in the United States, she earned a master’s in library science and now works as a public librarian. She was the Romance Writers of America librarian of the year in 2010. She lives in the Southeast with a dog, five chickens, four cats and a husband who gamely eats everything she cooks.
To big brothers everywhere, especially mine.
Contents
Chapter One (#u584f87ca-a0e2-58a8-849d-1e487842c27b)
Chapter Two (#u9afb0a2a-5c3f-5cd0-8c75-3537d9aca55b)
Chapter Three (#uf36df09c-8f82-55db-9d6f-6d32f4221cf6)
Chapter Four (#ubb916a6a-9abd-55e1-8959-4b9b181c9b64)
Chapter Five (#u4161646d-916b-5200-bb1c-950ef2166db5)
Chapter Six (#ub2fa0aa3-b950-5c35-8257-03e51df21c8a)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
VIVIAN SAT ON an uncomfortable chair in the starkly decorated lobby of her husband’s apartment building and waited for Karl to come home from work. She’d been waiting for hours, her feet propped up by a couple of suitcases, garnering suspicious looks, but the doorman hadn’t kicked her out yet. He’d tried, but she had a marriage certificate that said she was Karl Milek’s wife. Unwilling to throw her out onto the street, he’d also been unwilling to let her into Karl’s apartment.
She was pretty sure he was regretting both decisions. At least Xìnyùn, her father’s blue parrot, had stopped talking an hour ago. His chipper conversation wasn’t welcome in this modern building and his brightness was an unwanted distraction in the white-and-black interior.
Every time someone came through the rotating doors, the February winds whistled and Xìnyùn responded with his own tune, dancing up and down the rainbow ladder in his cage. Not a single person who’d walked past had smiled at Xìnyùn’s antics. Her husband lived in a building as cold as his hands.
She had called his office five times, but “he is in a meeting,” they said. “We will pass on the message,” they said. She didn’t tell them she was his wife. With divorce terms agreed upon, he probably hadn’t told his coworkers about his Vegas mistake. He’d probably figured—as she had—that their secret would keep until the divorce was finalized, and then it wouldn’t matter anymore. They’d be divorced and have moved on with their lives. But now she needed him, and she needed him to be her husband. Outing him to his coworkers seemed a poor way to gain his cooperation.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
She was supposed to have stayed in Vegas.
The energy in the lobby flared when her husband walked through the door. He was the cold, stiff man she remembered from their morning after, and he didn’t seem to be any warmer with all of his clothes on—and not hungover. Maybe he didn’t notice the freezing temperatures outside. He wore a forest-green scarf wrapped around his neck and a tan wool coat as though they were for show, so the people around him wouldn’t wonder at his ability to walk through snow naked and not get frostbite. No hat covered his brown hair. His hazel eyes were more attractive when not bloodshot, but glasses didn’t soften the sharp planes of his face. She had assumed his face only looked hard when angry—but he didn’t have a reason to be angry. Yet.
She needed Karl to be the man whose eyes had been mostly brown when he’d offered to buy her a drink, but had turned a lush green when she’d brushed her hand against his as she reached for that drink. The man who’d noticed her shiver and tucked her tightly against him as they walked out of the hotel, even though they had both known she wasn’t cold. The man who had made her laugh when she felt as if nothing in her life could ever be funny again.
Perhaps that man had been an illusion and as fake as the Luxor pyramid, given flesh only by the carnival lights of Las Vegas. That she was even sitting here in the lobby of this apartment building was evidence that she wasn’t as immune to Las Vegas magic as she thought she’d been.
The doorman scurried over to her husband, his arms out in supplication and face creased in apology. Tingles shot down her spine when Karl looked over at her. He showed no hurry as he walked across the lobby to her, his face as blank as she remembered.
“You were the woman calling my office today,” he said in greeting.
“Hello to you, too.” They hadn’t planned on seeing each other again, but there was no reason not to be civil. In theory, theirs was an amicable divorce. “Can we talk somewhere private?”
His eyes took in the pile of suitcases and the birdcage sitting next to them. He didn’t nod or say a word, just picked up the birdcage and a suitcase and walked toward the elevator. Vivian scrambled to her feet, slung her purse over her shoulder, picked up two more suitcases and hurried to follow him, the heels of her boots clicking on the marble floor.
On the elevator ride up to his apartment, Vivian opened her mouth a couple times to speak, but Karl silenced her with a raise of his eyebrow. “You wanted private. We can at least wait until we are in my apartment.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. She’d waited for hours; another couple of minutes wasn’t going to kill her.
In his apartment, she put down her suitcases in the entryway and followed him to the couch, taking the birdcage with her. Dark wood floors made his apartment more welcoming than the lobby, though his furniture looked to be just as uncomfortable. The only sign of softness amidst the leather, glass, steel and stone was a plush rug in the living room. He didn’t even have any curtains to soften the floor-to-ceiling windows. She sat on the couch. He sat in one of the armchairs and looked at her expectantly.
If she was waiting for a greeting of some kind, apparently she would be disappointed.
“I’m sorry to drop in on you like this,” she said, gesturing to the luggage near the door. “I didn’t feel I had any choice.”
“Were the terms of our divorce not sufficient?” His elbows rested on the arms of the chair and he’d laced his fingers together in a bridge over the chest of his charcoal-gray suit. Anyone looking in on the scene through the windows would see Karl’s cocked head and casual pose and imagine they were discussing some local curiosity. Vivian imagined that he must have soon-to-be ex-wives drop in on him as a regular occurrence if he managed to remain so self-possessed about the whole thing.
His absolute composure was the reason she’d answered “sure” when he’d gestured to the doors of the chapel, a half smile on his face, and asked, “Shall we?” She had wanted to be a part of his stability then; it was unfair of her to be irritated by it now. And what if she also wanted the passion they’d shared? Well, that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
“Yes. I mean, no, they were fine. But I don’t want a divorce right now.”
If she’d shocked him, his only reaction was to lean back in the chair and lift his left foot to rest on his knee. She was glad he hadn’t sat on the couch next to her. She felt crowded enough by him without having to make room for his knees and elbows—and his infinite placidity, which took up far more space than any single lack of reaction should.
Xìnyùn said, “I fold.” At least the parrot showed a reaction.
“I’m pregnant and I want to keep the baby.”
* * *
“HIT ME,” THE bird squeaked.
Karl looked at the blue bird dirtying his coffee table and wondered what was more ridiculous, his one-night stand/wife telling him she was pregnant or the bird asking to be punched.
If this was his punishment for indulging his emotions with liquor, he would pour every ounce of booze in the apartment down the toilet and shatter the wineglasses. Unfortunately, humoring his impulses was unlikely to allow time to flow backward until he walked into his apartment building and passed through the lobby up to his apartment without a wife—pregnant wife—in the way.
“Are you sure you’re pregnant?” Three weeks ago—his birthday—he’d sat at a hotel bar and gulped down whiskey every time he remembered he was older than his father ever had been or would be, only without a wife or child. Now he had both, and he didn’t want either of them. “Are you sure it’s mine?”
“Yes, I’m sure. About both questions. I don’t make a habit of sex with strangers.” A series of rapid blinks over her light brown eyes—barely a shade darker than her skin—were evidence of her nerves, but she didn’t shrink away from him. She was on a mission and determined to see it through.
“I don’t know anything about you other than you did once have sex with a stranger.” And her maiden name was Yap. He’d learned that from the marriage certificate he’d found under some tiger lilies on a table in his hotel suite.
“I wasn’t the only one in that room.”
No, but he wished to God the man in the hotel room had been someone other than himself. His office was in the middle of a sole-source contract investigation; he didn’t have time for whatever she needed from him. “If the only thing you know about me is that I also did once have sex with a stranger, then I assure you, if you are pregnant with my child, I can change the terms of the divorce. You’ll get sufficient child support.”
“No argument about my keeping the baby?”
He swallowed his irritation. The night they’d stumbled around Las Vegas now seemed like a mirage, and if he concentrated on his memories, the images wavered before disappearing completely. The alcohol and the lights had made every smile the secret smile of a lover, and when she’d slipped her hand into his, he’d felt as though they’d shared souls. Also the alcohol talking. The alcohol and being surrounded by the constant—fake—sounds of people winning had turned him into a man charming enough to pick up a woman in a bar.
Vivian would soon learn that the man who had made jokes and removed the sadness from her eyes didn’t exist outside of that night in Vegas.
But she’d taken a chance coming here. She couldn’t know for certain that he’d meant what he said when he’d spoken about the responsibility a man had to his family. Or that he would never argue about an abortion with a woman, because her body was her body and his faith was his faith.
That night she had also talked about the importance of family—had argued with him when he had referred to a “man’s responsibility to his family.” Every member of a family, she’d said, had responsibility for keeping the unit whole. She’d squeezed his thigh when she’d said that, probably more to make her point than out of any sexual advance, though he hadn’t had the wits about him to care either way.
Were the opinions she’d expressed about family a product of the night—as his sudden charm had been—or were they as heartfelt as his words, alcohol or no alcohol? It didn’t matter. She was pregnant and he’d learn about her dedication to family soon enough.
“I respect your choice, though you don’t need to be here in Chicago for me to send you child support.”
She drew back in surprise, covering her jeans and still-flat stomach with a hand. “You wouldn’t want contact with our baby?”
He thought about the tiny infant she would give birth to. With its small fingernails and fat face not yet grown into Vivian’s pointed chin. Food poisoning. Croup. The shattered glass of a car accident ripping a dimpled face to pieces. Better not to see the child at all. Better to get them both out of his apartment and back to Las Vegas.
“I would want to know you cared for it.” Him? Her? When could you find out the sex of the baby? What was he supposed to call it until then?
She folded her other hand over her stomach. There was a baby under there. “I need health insurance.”
“You said you had a job.” Back in his hotel room, when he’d been sober, and the harsh lights of the hotel bathroom had ripped the dream away, he’d accused her of marrying a stranger for money. She’d told him to keep his damn money and that maybe there was room for it wherever he stored his ego. She’d said she had a job and didn’t need to have sex in exchange for handouts.
“I lost it.” She kept her hands on her stomach, the twisting of her fingers another sign of her nerves. “I will find another—I was hoping to find one in Chicago—but until then, I need health insurance. The baby needs health insurance. I have no other place to go.”
Karl did some quick math in his head. They still had four days to get Vivian and the baby on his health insurance. “I’ll need the marriage certificate.”
“Just like that?”
“Double,” the bird squeaked, then whistled.
“Do you want health insurance?” At one time in the distant past, he’d thought he understood women. Exposure had cured him of such idiotic thinking.
“Yes, but, you didn’t say so much as ‘hi’ to me downstairs. You accuse me of trying to sell you a pig in a poke, insinuating I’m some kind of slut who bangs tourists for fun, but when I say I need health insurance for a baby you don’t believe is yours, you say ‘sure’?”
“Even if that baby isn’t mine, you should have insurance while you’re pregnant. And you are my wife. If the baby is mine, I can provide it with health insurance and child support. If it’s not mine, I can provide it with health insurance until you are able to provide for it yourself. I won’t force a fetus to get less care than I can provide because I don’t trust its mother.”
“I can get a DNA test done while pregnant, as early as the ninth week.”
“Where are you staying?”
She turned her head to look out the windows of his apartment, the first time she’d not been willing to meet his eyes since he had walked into the lobby of his building. “I was hoping to stay here.”
“You don’t have another place to go?”
She faced him again, the pertness of her chin softened by her full, pale pink lips. How had he not remembered the lushness of her lips? “I have ten dollars, three suitcases and a parrot to my name.”
“Family?”
“They’re not available.”
When he’d considered her presence punishment for his behavior, he’d lacked the imagination to envision how the situation could get worse. If mother and child needed medical care, they also needed a roof over their heads. Not to mention the little bird she called a parrot. Chicago had enough wild parakeets without him adding to the population.
“What did you do in Las Vegas?”
“I wasn’t a prostitute.”
Any twinge of guilt he’d felt over accusing her of that the morning he’d woken up married to a stranger had long since vanished. Three weeks ago he’d hurled accusations at her, but he hadn’t asked what she actually did. He wasn’t going to ask more than once now. If he was silent long enough, she would share. She needed a place to stay and didn’t know him well enough to know he’d offer her a bed regardless.
She blinked first. “I was a table dealer. Craps, blackjack, roulette.”
God, how much had he had to drink to take her up to his room? At least she wasn’t a stripper.
“At Middle Kingdom?” His assistant had booked him a room at the Chinese-themed resort instead of the conference hotel. Greta had thought it would be good for him to have a minivacation—her words. But he’d ignored the brochures about the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon she’d tucked into his work papers in favor of overpriced hotel whiskey. If he’d listened to Greta, he would’ve come back with a couple of postcards instead of a wife.
Though postcards wouldn’t have looked nearly as pretty sitting on his couch in a pink cable-knit sweater and cowboy boots.
Thoughts like that had prompted him to engage Vivian in conversation, to fall under the spell of her mysterious smile and be hypnotized by the rise and fall of her breasts when she breathed. If all he’d done was invite her up to his room, the night in Las Vegas would make more sense, but he’d been thinking about marriage and families, and in his drunken haze had decided he wanted to wake up with her warm skin pressed against his for the rest of his life.
Reality had intruded the next morning and, almost a month later, was sitting on his couch.
“And you’re not working there anymore because...”
“My supervisor disagreed with a decision I made.”
“Was I your decision?” She wouldn’t have been the first woman unfairly fired because of sex, and she wouldn’t be the last.
She turned her head to look out the windows again. An effective nonanswer, which he let go for now. She was—the fetus was—his responsibility for another eight months. He’d get his answer eventually.
“I have a guest bedroom. You can sleep there for now.”
She closed her eyes, the light pink of her eye shadow sparkling in the lamplight, and exhaled. The wool of her sweater must be stiffer than it looked, because even though she went boneless with relief, she didn’t sink into the back of the couch. “Thank you.”
“Have you eaten dinner?”
“I’m fine.”
He took that as a no and didn’t ask how long it had been since she’d eaten. The worry lines at the corners of her eyes said it had been too long. “What do you like?”
“I’m fine,” she said again, as though hoping if she said it enough times he would believe her. Or maybe she hoped to believe it herself.
Karl stood and walked over to the small table in his entryway. He riffled through the menus in the drawer until he found the one he was looking for, then he handed it to Vivian. “Pick out what you want.”
She looked up at him, one thin black eyebrow raised. “Chinese?”
He ignored the uncomfortable reference. “They have the fastest delivery.”
“Buddha’s vegetable delight. Brown rice, please.”
“Soup? Egg rolls?”
Her stomach growled, betraying the casual look on her face and making a lie of her insistence of being “fine.” How long had those ten dollars been all she had to her name? Had she had no savings? All things he could learn tomorrow, after she’d eaten and had a good night’s sleep. He called in her order and his, adding enough extra food to give them leftovers for days. He didn’t know if she could cook, and he sure as hell didn’t. If not for takeout, the baby might starve.
“Let’s get your bags put in the guest room.”
* * *
FOR ALL ITS personality, the guest room might have been in a hotel. There was less glass and more wood than in the living room, but that was because the single piece of furniture in the room was a large, wooden platform bed with a built-in nightstand. The bedspread wasn’t white or black, so Karl must at least know color existed, but the geometric pattern and primary colors didn’t invite Vivian to snuggle. Still no curtains. What did this man have against curtains?
“There’s a dresser in the closet.”
“Thank you.” Thank you for acknowledging I might be here longer than just tonight. “Is there something I can put Xìnyùn’s cage on?”
“Who?”
“The parrot’s name is Xìnyùn. It means luck in Chinese.”
He eyed the cage sitting on the floor. Xìnyùn eyed him back nervously. “Are you sure it doesn’t mean bad luck?”
She picked the cage up off the floor and opened the closet doors to find the dresser to set the cage on. Parakeets didn’t like humans to loom over them and Karl loomed as naturally as most people breathed.
“Double,” Xìnyùn whistled in approval.
She was pregnant, unemployed and homeless. Her father had fallen off the face of the planet and taken her life savings with him. Xìnyùn, at least, was happy to be off the floor. “At this point, I’m not sure of anything.”
He nodded, left the room for a moment and returned with a small table. “Here’s a table for the bird.” He had his hand on the doorknob, about to leave the room, when he turned back to face her, his eyes in shadow and his expression unreadable. “How did you get to Chicago?”
“I drove.” As her gas gauge edged toward empty and the ten dollars felt lighter and lighter in her pocket, she’d turned the dial on her radio until she found a country music station and Carrie Underwood singing “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” She hadn’t run out of gas, even if she had coasted into Chicago on wishes and a prayer.
“Where’s your car?”
She described where it was parked.
“Give me your keys and I’ll move it into the garage. I’ll leave money for dinner with the doorman and bring it up when I return.” Without so much as a goodbye, he closed the door, leaving her alone with the skyline.
Inviting or not, all she wanted to do was curl up on the bed and sleep until the nightmare of her life was over and she woke up single, employed and not pregnant. Impossibilities. Time didn’t travel backward.
She picked up one suitcase and hefted it over to the closet, which—except for the dresser and some hangers—was completely empty. Karl didn’t accumulate crap. Or, if he did, he didn’t store it in the closet of his guest bedroom. The room gave her nothing to judge her husband by, other than that his decorating sense was as cold as his hands and as lacking in expression as his face.
No, she was being unfair. She opened a small drawer and shoved underwear in. He’d invited her—a near stranger, no matter that the marriage certificate said otherwise—to stay in his home. He was moving her car and buying her dinner. And the morning she’d woken up naked in a hotel room with him calling her Vivian Milek and asking her if she was a prostitute, he’d handed her a cup of coffee and gotten her a robe.
Maybe he wasn’t as unfeeling as his language and his composure made him seem.
She tossed some hangers on the bed and unpacked the rest of her clothes. When she was finished, she turned back to the other suitcase on the floor. Even if she’d wanted to unpack her mementoes, there wasn’t a flat surface in the room to hold them. She shoved the last suitcase, without bothering to open it, into the closet and shut the door on her past.
Too melodramatic, Vivian. You just don’t want it to look like you’re moving in.
CHAPTER TWO
KARL RETURNED TO the apartment later than he’d planned. Her little convertible had been easy enough to find. It’d been parked exactly where she’d said it would be and the Nevada plates gave away that it was hers. So had the pile of fast food containers on the floor of the passenger side. The blankets and pillows in the backseat had been a surprise. As had the empty gas tank. He’d thrown the trash away when he’d filled up her tank. The blankets and pillows he’d left in the backseat, though he’d left them folded rather than in a heap.
Riding up the elevator with bags of Chinese food and a growing sense of unease, he prepared to face his wife.
Vivian had set the table he never used with the place mats, white cotton napkins and flatware he also never used. Jessica, his ex-wife, had bought them. She hadn’t taken them with her when they’d divorced. Neither had she taken the apartment nor the BMW. All were status symbols he was certain she’d considered more important than their marriage, but not important enough to possess after the divorce was final. An indication, he’d felt when he’d signed the divorce papers, of the low regard in which she had held their marriage.
Time allowed him to be more generous with his reflections. Marriage to him hadn’t given Jessica anything she’d really wanted, so why keep the trappings? Leaving the flatware, china and linens in the apartment with her ex-husband, she was free to start fresh.
He wondered if Vivian had been married before. Did she have an apartment, friends or a book club? Why had she estranged herself from her life to drive halfway across the country in search of an unknown husband? After setting the bags of food on the counter, he looked around the room for her. He could learn the answers to his questions later. Eventually, people always told him the information he wanted.
Just as he determined that the living room was empty, he noticed Vivian leaning against the rail on his terrace, looking north over the skyline of Chicago. With the room lit up against the dark night sky, Karl could only make out contours of her slim body. When he turned off the lights in the living room, her form gained substance. She reached up with her arm, pulling her hair off her neck and over her shoulder, exposing skin to the cold.
The night they’d spent together existed in a dream world, but his memories of the morning after were clear and sharp. He remembered waking up to find her sleeping, her black hair spread across the pillow and her neck exposed. He remembered looking at the knobs of her spine as they trailed from her nape down her back and under the covers. How kissable those knobs had looked. But then he’d gotten out of the bed to make coffee, found the marriage certificate and any thought of kissing her neck was gone.
Stepping outside into the cold pushed away those memories. They were married, she was in Chicago, and kissing the slim line of her neck had never been further away from possible. “Do you have a winter coat?”
She was standing outside in jeans, her sweater and pink argyle socks. “I’m not cold.”
Even in the hazy moonlight he could see goose bumps dotting her neck, but she didn’t shiver or tuck her hands around her body for warmth.
“I bought the apartment for this view,” he said, folding his arms on the railing of the terrace and leaning forward to look out over the city with her.
“What are the names of some of the buildings?”
He pointed out the Aon Center and Smurfit-Stone Building. “If you’re still here in the summer, maybe you can go on an architecture boat tour. Or they have walking tours year-round.”
“You don’t have curtains.”
“No.” Removing the curtains was one of the few changes he’d made when Jessica had moved out.
“Not even in your bedroom?”
“I value openness.”
“You should come west.”
“I’ve been to Vegas.” He slid closer to her on the terrace. Not so close that their arms touched, but close enough to feel her presence. She still smelled like jasmine.
“Not Vegas. Vegas is the flashy west. I mean southern Idaho, where you can see for miles in every direction and there’s nothing but sky and canyons.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“I graduated high school in Jackpot, Nevada. It’s right across the border.”
He’d married a blackjack dealer from a town called Jackpot. The world had an unfortunate sense of humor. “It would’ve been a shorter drive from Vegas to Jackpot.”
She turned her head to the side to look at him, the corners of her mouth turned up in a mysterious smile. “Shorter, yes, but there’s nothing for me in Jackpot. Plus, it would be wrong not to let you know you’re going to be a father.”
“A phone call would’ve sufficed.”
“Would you want to learn that you’re going to be a father with a phone call from a stranger?” She didn’t slip again and admit to not being able to go home, as she had when they’d been talking in the living room.
He didn’t have an answer to that question. If asked this morning, he would’ve said yes. Now, standing next to Vivian on his terrace, looking at the lights sparkle across Grant Park and smelling her jasmine perfume, he wasn’t so sure. Her neck was even more kissable up close.
“Dinner’s getting cold.” He pushed off the railing and walked back into the apartment, not looking to see if she followed.
* * *
KARL WASN’T MUCH for words, Vivian thought, as she picked up the plates after dinner. They were strangers, sure, but they were married strangers who were having a child together. Even after they finalized the divorce, they would still have a child to raise together. The least they could do during the next eight months was to get to know each other.
But based on his terse responses over dinner, he didn’t agree. She heaped the utensils on the stacked plates and took them into the kitchen. When she turned, he had followed with the cups and trash.
“I’ll get those.” She took the glasses from his hand and loaded them into the dishwasher. “Don’t worry about the plates,” she said when he started rinsing them. “Go sit down. I’ll clean up.”
“I’m not letting you stay here so you can clean up after me.” He didn’t stop rinsing the plates, but did let her load them into the dishwasher. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves before turning on the water, and light brown hair dusted his forearms.
She blinked, uncomfortable after catching herself staring at his arms. The plates clinked against one another as she used a little too much force to close the dishwasher.
“I know, but...” She didn’t want to finish that statement.
“But?”
But I’m here because we had a one-night stand and I got pregnant, and we were drunk when we got married and I now need help and you’re giving it to me and I don’t know how long I’ll need the help and I don’t know how long you’ll offer the help and I wish you’d let me clean up after dinner. Her insecurities nearly pushed her down as they flooded over her, but all she said was, “I’m happy to help out.”
He nodded before grabbing a sponge and leaving to wipe down the table. He wasn’t nodding because he knew she was happy to help out. She could feel in his intense hazel eyes that he knew what she had left unsaid. He knew she would act as maid in a poor attempt to make up for invading his life. He knew and he still went to clean the table.
She knew very little about her husband. Their night together had been his last day in Vegas, and their conversation over breakfast had been about the details of a divorce. The next day she’d received a phone call from a lawyer saying he represented Karl Milek and they would pursue a divorce according to Nevada laws. When could she come by his office? Did she have her own lawyer? No? Did she need time to find one?
Like all things in Nevada, getting out of the trappings of your sins was far more complicated than getting into them.
Karl’s efficiency had intrigued her enough that she’d done an internet search on him. After reading newspaper articles, exploring his office’s website and watching snippets of televised news stories, she’d felt as though she had a sense of who this man was. But now she realized every movement he made, everything he said, was carefully constructed to give the illusion of revelation without actually revealing anything. Not that any of that had been important to her at the time.
Then she’d gone home to an apartment emptied of anything of value and a note containing an apology from her father folded on the kitchen counter. When she had checked her bank account she’d found every penny she had carefully saved was gone. Then she had missed her period, and by that point it had been too late for Plan B. She hadn’t even had enough money for an abortion, if she had decided to go that route, anyway. Then she had been fired, and suddenly the most important thing in the world was that her husband seemed to be the kind of person who fixed problems.
Their marriage had been a problem, and he was going to fix that. Now her pregnancy was the problem, and his magical fix had smoothed away the practical, immediate problems of that, too. She didn’t want to have to rely on him, but she couldn’t predict what help she would need after the baby was born—or what he would be willing to provide.
Once the activity of cleaning up after dinner was done, they were left with nothing to do but face each other and feel awkward. At least, Vivian felt awkward. She had the sense that Karl could have a fox eating out his stomach under his shirt and his face wouldn’t reveal any pain. How drunk had he been to indulge himself in a feeling as human as lust? What else had been going on in his life that he’d allowed himself to get that drunk?
“Well—” she clapped her hands together “—I’m beat.” She was no such thing. Wired and punchy would be a more accurate description of how she felt right now. “Do you have a book I could read before I fall asleep?”
“I thought you said you were beat.”
She opened her mouth to respond but he’d already left the kitchen. He returned with Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, as well as Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works and a military history of World War I.
“A selection,” he said, holding them out to her. Not a muscle had changed in his bland expression, but Vivian was pretty sure he was amused with himself for his offerings.
“Thank you.” She’d hoped for a mystery or thriller, but lying in bed with one of these books would help her fall right to sleep. “I’m sure I’ll learn something.”
* * *
KARL WOKE EARLY the next morning to a dark, silent apartment. Not even the ridiculous bird was making any noise. He pulled his boxers on and went into the kitchen to make coffee. When he didn’t hear any noise in his guest bedroom after the coffee grinder whirled, he cracked the door open to check on his guest. She was lying on her side, facing the door, the Keegan book on World War I flopped over her hand. The down comforter covered any rise and fall of her chest and he was about to check her pulse when she snorted and twitched before settling down again. Vivian wasn’t dead, and she hadn’t run off.
It looked like she’d made it halfway through the book before finally falling asleep. Despite its appearance, the Keegan book was unlikely to bore someone to sleep. He eased the door shut and went to get himself a cup of coffee. In the kitchen, he found a travel mug for Vivian to keep her coffee warm and poured her a cup, as well. Last night, before bed, he’d read a little about pregnancy—he was glad he’d had decaf in the freezer—and he remembered how grateful she’d been when he brought her coffee that one time in their Vegas hotel room. But when he went back into the guest bedroom to put the coffee on the nightstand, she still didn’t stir.
When he had awoken in the hotel room a month ago to find himself married, he’d assumed her deathlike sleep had been due to alcohol. She hadn’t seemed hungover—God knew he’d been too bleary-eyed and angry to notice if she had been—but she’d slept until he’d yelled her name and shaken her awake. This morning she seemed on course to do much the same. The bird stirred in its cage behind a cover, but Karl ignored it. Even if the bird was awake, he had no idea what to do with it unless it also wanted a cup of coffee.
It. The bird had a name. Luck, only not luck. Whatever was Chinese for luck. He still didn’t know if the bird was male or female.
And the bird was probably easier than a baby. Not that he hadn’t planned on having children. He had. One day. He’d just expected a little warning and time to read every baby book the Harold Washington Library had on its shelves before hearing the words, “I’m pregnant.”
He turned his attention back to the mother of his child. Though he believed she was telling the truth about who the father was, he’d still insist on a DNA test. He believed her, but he wasn’t stupid. Yet looking at her sleeping, the test felt like a formality. The mother of his child slept on her side and snorted in her sleep.
Karl was surprised how much her sleeping in his guest bed pleased him. He thought he’d been pleased when his divorce lawyer had confirmed she didn’t protest the divorce or the terms. That feeling was nothing like the warmth in his heart at seeing the contrast of her black hair against the primary colors of the duvet cover.
Before he left for the gym and office—both to work and to investigate his wife—Karl checked his laptop to make sure she wouldn’t find anything personal on it, and then he wrote her a note.
* * *
VIVIAN WOKE UP to sunlight, though the west-facing room wasn’t as bright as she’d expected with the lack of curtains. The gray clouds pressed as heavily on Chicago today as they had yesterday. The travel mug on the nightstand next to a note that said “decaf” was full of lukewarm, black coffee, which she drank anyway. At the sound of the mug hitting the table, Xìnyùn started shuffling his feet and whistling, “Deal, deal, deal.” When he finally squeaked out, “Deal, goddammit,” Vivian swung her feet out of bed to face the day and her father’s parrot.
In the kitchen she found a laptop and another note. Karl’s first two suggestions seemed reasonable, the third she was going to ignore completely. After showering and eating a small breakfast of leftover egg roll and cold, hard rice topped with honey, she opened the laptop and prepared to look for a job. A résumé was something she’d always planned to create, once she finally graduated from college. Middle Kingdom had only required a desperately prepared job application when it had opened in grandeur before the big economic downturn.
Her job history was easy enough to write, but what name should she put at the top? There were riverboat casinos around Chicago, but they would call Vegas and learn Vivian Yap was unemployable. Yet, as Vivian Milek, she didn’t have ID.
When Karl got home, Vivian had prepared a draft of her résumé and notes of jobs to apply for—none of them at a casino. She was also ready with her arguments about the third point on his note. “You are not going to buy me a winter coat.”
“Do you have a winter coat?” He unloaded take-out containers of Middle Eastern food on the counter without turning to face her.
“No.”
“Do you have money to buy a winter coat?”
He knew the answer. Did he have to make her admit to it? “No.”
“It is February in Chicago. I can buy you a winter coat or you can sit in my apartment until spring. If you’re lucky, spring will come early this year.” He handed her two plates, as tranquil as if they were talking about the weather and not how increasingly indebted to him she was.
Of course, they were talking about the weather. Next time she married a stranger, she was going to pick one from Florida or San Diego—someplace that didn’t require a winter coat.
She took the plates and flatware to the table, her back stiff with the worry of what accepting a winter coat from a stranger implied. “I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and I don’t like it.”
“Are you a prostitute?”
The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The other thing she was going to keep in mind the next time she married a stranger was to pick a man who didn’t feel the need to ask her if she was a prostitute more than once. “The first time you asked me that question was one too many times.” In case he didn’t get the point, she let the plates drop to the table with a clang.
He waited until he’d filled his plate with hummus and tabbouleh before responding. “Stop implying I’m a john and I’ll stop wondering if you’re a prostitute.”
“I don’t want you to spend money on me.”
“Vivian,” he said, setting his fork on his plate without making a clink like she would have. “A winter coat won’t cost me anything near your health insurance and child support. Take the damn coat.”
“I wasn’t—”
“The only one in the hotel room, I know. We share equal responsibility for everything that happened. But you are the only one without a winter coat. Unless you count the baby.”
She didn’t miss that he’d used the word baby this time. Baby and not fetus. He chose his words carefully enough for it to be deliberate.
“Pregnant women aren’t supposed to allow themselves to get overly hot.” Arguing with him was stupid. She needed a winter coat. She knew she needed a winter coat. She just didn’t want him to buy one for her.
“Then we’ll get you a jacket, as well.”
“It gets cold in Las Vegas, you know.”
“The low there yesterday was forty-four. Today’s high in Chicago will be thirty-two. Do you want to continue arguing about this?”
“No.”
“You’re a poor liar.”
Vivian was too irritated to talk to him for the rest of the meal.
* * *
KARL HAILED A cab to take them to Macy’s. The department store was close enough that he’d normally walk, but the cherry-red fleece Vivian came out of the guest room wearing wouldn’t keep her warm for a mere walk across the street. Fortunately, she didn’t argue about the coat once they were in the store, even when he bought her two—a dressy coat to wear to interviews and a casual coat to wear with jeans. Neither did she argue when he suggested she wear the casual coat over her fleece for the walk back home.
“What’s that?”
Karl’s gaze followed her pointing finger to the looming red building with green owls perched on the corners.
“The library.”
“Can we go in and get some books?”
“Didn’t like the ones I picked out for you last night?”
She rolled her eyes, and he suppressed a smile. “For someone who was, quote, ‘beat’ you read almost half the book.”
“I’ve always enjoyed history.” She stopped at the doors. “I don’t know anything about being pregnant, and I’d like to at least know what questions to ask the doctor.”
After seeing three people he knew at Macy’s, Karl was pleasantly surprised not to run in to anyone he knew while looking through pregnancy books. He hadn’t yet figured out how to inform people that he was married and expecting a child. Or, more accurately, he hadn’t figured out how to deal with the constant questions that would follow “I’m married and expecting a child” and still manage to get work done.
They had checked out several pregnancy books and Vivian was browsing the popular library when Karl heard his name. He turned to find his brother-in-law, Miles, and Miles’s daughter, Sarah, standing there.
“A little light reading?” Miles nodded his head to the book Karl had slipped into the department store bag—apparently too slowly, because Miles had seen what it was.
“Enjoying a trip downtown?” Karl ignored the question and gesture. With Sarah around, Miles wouldn’t press.
“We went to the Art Institute and then lunch,” Sarah explained. She either hadn’t seen the book or didn’t recognize it on sight.
“Go pick out some movies for us to watch tonight,” Miles told his daughter.
Stupid of Karl to think Miles would let this slide.
“You could just tell me to get lost,” Sarah said.
“Get lost.”
“I’m going to pick out something you’ll hate,” Sarah said with a flounce.
Miles waited until she was out of earshot before gesturing to the bag again. “The cover of that book hasn’t changed that much since my ex bought a copy seventeen years ago.”
Karl wasn’t in the habit of lying. When he didn’t want to admit to anything, he just didn’t acknowledge the conversation. “Is Renia working at a wedding today? Mom said her photography business has been in high demand for weddings lately.”
“Don’t think I’m not going to tell your sister about this.”
Just what he needed—his family to know about Vivian and the baby before he was ready to tell them. “The book is for research.”
Miles laughed loudly enough for the staff to stare at him. “You’re a lawyer. Your research books are leather bound and cause seismic events when dropped.” He at least had the forethought to look around before asking, “Who’d you get pregnant?”
“Karl,” Vivian said from behind him, “I’ll need your library card to check out.”
Miles didn’t bother to hide that he was peeking over Karl’s shoulder to find the source of the voice. “I’m definitely telling your sister about this.”
Karl shifted his body to include Vivian in the conversation. He couldn’t dodge this forever. “Vivian, meet Miles. He’s my brother-in-law. His daughter, Sarah, is over there. Miles, meet Vivian, my wife.”
“Nice to meet you, Miles.”
Relieved when Miles was too shocked to even offer his hand in greeting, Karl put his hand on Vivian’s back and led her to the checkout.
CHAPTER THREE
KARL AVOIDED VIVIAN for the rest of the weekend. He made sure there was food in the house for her to eat, left his laptop out for her to use and otherwise stayed away.
Back at the library, when he’d put his hand on Vivian’s back, he let himself imagine their connection was more than just her pregnancy. In that moment, the certainty about Vivian he’d felt in Las Vegas had broken through reality, and the enjoyment he’d gotten from leading her away from Miles scared him. He hadn’t enjoyed silencing Miles—he’d enjoyed feeling Vivian’s shoulder blades shift when he put his hand on her coat.
Hopefully she’d find a job soon and move out.
Given the fight she’d put up over the stupid winter coat, he didn’t think she’d welcome being set up in her own apartment like some kept woman. But if she had a job, she might not turn down an offer of help to finance her own place.
Of course, if she were actually a kept woman, he would be able to sweep her hair aside and kiss the nape of her neck....
At work on Monday, Greta came into his office with some paperwork and his plans to keep Vivian a secret from his employees died.
“Does your mother know you’re married?” She used the papers to gesture to the marriage license sitting in plain sight on his desk.
Karl looked from the benefits application on his computer to his overly maternal assistant. She was one of the few people who could outwait his ploy of ignoring a question, but he held out his hand for the papers and tried anyway.
She folded them against her chest. “When did you get married?”
“The papers, Greta.” His hand stayed outstretched in supplication.
“You can’t not tell me. What do I do if she calls?”
“She won’t call.” Or not again. Vivian had health insurance and a roof over her head. What more could she want right now?
“So you are married. No one in the office is going to believe this.” The papers crinkled in her hands as she clenched her fists in excitement.
“No one in the office is going to know.”
“Was she the woman calling the office on Friday?”
He waggled his fingers at her and she finally gave him the papers, along with a gust of cigarette fumes that had been lingering on her clothing.
“She was—oh, and I was so short with her.” Greta didn’t leave the office. She’d handed over the paperwork, but she remained standing with her eyebrows raised at him, hoping for more information.
Despite a tendency to mother, Greta was a great legal assistant. She’d been working in the city’s inspector general’s office longer than anyone else in the building, and Karl was fairly certain that she’d be working here long after his tenure was up. He threw her a bone. “I met her in Las Vegas. But,” he added, before she had a chance to beam and I-told-you-so, “don’t think you can take credit or tell anyone about this.”
“No more information?” The quickness with which her eyebrows collapsed amplified the ridiculousness of this entire situation.
“No.”
“You should still tell your mother.”
“What makes you think I haven’t?”
“You don’t lie outright, so if you won’t tell me that you have told her, I can only assume you haven’t. She’ll want to know.” Having said her piece, Greta left his office.
Since he hadn’t gotten a phone call from his mother, it would seem Miles and Renia hadn’t told her yet, either. Maybe he could put off telling his mother for another eight months and present her with a daughter-in-law and a grandchild at the same time. She might be so overwhelmed at the grandchild that she’d overlook the surprise daughter-in-law.
“You’re married?”
Karl looked up from his computer again to see the director of investigations staring at him from the doorway. Malcolm’s dark black skin and intense golden eyes made people feel as though he was a panther eyeing their suitability for dinner. Malcolm enjoyed the effect, multiplying it by wearing only dark colors.
“Did Greta tell you?”
“No.” Malcolm smiled. “You should learn to keep your door closed. Your assistant has a voice like a bassoon. Everyone on this floor probably knows by now.”
“Yes, Malcolm. I’m married. I’d not planned to tell anyone.”
“Did you really think you could keep information like that a secret?”
Yes, he had thought he could keep this a secret, but apparently he’d been delusional. If Vivian had stayed in Las Vegas, they could have gotten the divorce and no one would have been the wiser. However, with her pregnant and in Chicago, he was going to have to tell people. Putting it off would only make the inevitable more painful—yet he was still thinking about postponing the inevitable.
“How did you meet the lovely new Mrs. Milek? You’re always working. Even when everyone thinks you’re relaxing, you’re working.” Malcolm stroked his chin, a parody of the thoughtful investigator. “What kind of woman was able to slip through those defenses?”
“I’m not going to answer any of your questions, so you might as well stop wasting the city of Chicago’s time.”
Malcolm’s grin widened. “It’s funny how you think you can keep information a secret from me.”
“Listen, Malcolm, if you’re so curious about my wife, then why don’t you just investigate her yourself—just as long as you don’t do it on work time.”
“Hah! And how much of the information I learn about the new Mrs. Milek do you want me to share when I’m done?”
“None.” It wasn’t a lie. Karl intended to find out everything he needed to know about Vivian before Malcolm could ferret it out.
“Apparently you don’t think it counts as lying if you’re also lying to yourself.” With a salute, Malcolm left.
Karl could still hear Malcolm chuckling as he walked down the hall. Karl turned back to his computer, clicked on a browser. The cursor hovered over the search box. In a moment of uncharacteristic indecision, he closed the browser window and opened up work files, determined to put Vivian out of his mind for now.
* * *
VIVIAN PICKED UP the note Karl had left her on Friday morning, balled it up and threw it to Xìnyùn, who lobbed it into a small glass she’d appropriated for the game. Since Karl had disappeared last Saturday after they returned from the library, Vivian and Xìnyùn had gotten very good at basketball. Her husband seemed to think communicating through notes was an appropriate way to manage a marriage.
Even if theirs had been a hasty, drunk marriage better left in Vegas, they couldn’t hope to raise a child together communicating only through notes.
Dear Karl,
Jelly Bean flipped me off this morning. Apparently you said it was a “salute.” Be careful what you say to a four-year-old.
Thank you for your concern,
Vivian
Of course that was ridiculous. Karl would be at work too much to teach Jelly Bean—the name Vivian had taken to calling the baby growing inside her—how to flip someone the bird.
Dear Karl,
Jelly Bean returns from visitation having forgotten how to talk, but has become a surprisingly good correspondent. His teachers are worried.
Talk, dammit!
Vivian
She needed things from him. Humiliating though it was, she needed a place to live and health insurance. And she had also needed to get out of Las Vegas. Karl had given her those things with a poof of his magic fix-it sense. But an apartment and health insurance—and food, and a laptop so she could search for jobs, and a transit card and gas to get her around Chicago and to interviews—only solved her physical problems, not to mention that they made her feel increasingly dependent and trapped.
Maybe she didn’t need someone to talk to, but she wanted someone to talk to. Jelly Bean was still abstract; she couldn’t feel the baby yet, but she could feel her body changing and she wanted to talk with someone about it. When she told Xìnyùn everything she ate tasted like metal, he only whistled. And she couldn’t face her Las Vegas friends—not yet anyway. Not until she found new bearings.
Chicago was a big city, with people who might be her friends, eventually. But right now she was alone and the one person she knew was hiding from her.
Plus, she had things she needed to discuss with him. Such as whether or not she was officially on his health insurance yet and could go to the doctor. And did he want to go with her? She didn’t expect him to be an equal partner in her pregnancy—they were married, but they weren’t intimate—she just wanted...
Hell, she didn’t even know what she wanted.
She wanted to be able to stay awake past nine at night and catch him when he came home so she could eat dinner with him, rather than leaving his food on the stove. Maybe have a conversation with an animal that wasn’t a bird. Play a game other than solitaire. Measure Karl’s head for the hat she was making him as a gift rather than just guessing his size.
Vivian put Xìnyùn back in his cage, packed up her purse and headed out the door with a list of potential employers to visit. Her solution to her current situation was to get a job. A job would give her money. Money would give her the freedom to get her own apartment. There was always the possibility she’d make friends with someone she worked with.
Besides, being unemployed was not something she could handle for long, if only because getting up in the morning and going to a job had been a part of her daily routine for so long. She’d been working since it was legal for her to do so. It had been the only way to make sure she had money to save for college and find a life that didn’t involve moving in the middle of the night.
Fat lot of good it had done her. Her father had taken her life savings and disappeared into the darkness, leaving her to do much the same.
She shook her father out of her head. He had no place in Chicago. He wouldn’t think to find her here and if he couldn’t find her, he couldn’t ask her for more money. All the money she got from a job would go to providing for her and Jelly Bean. And she’d start to get some of her self-worth back. With a job would come the knowledge that she wasn’t a leech on Karl’s silent kindness. And maybe the hope that she could pay him back, somehow.
* * *
WHEN KARL WALKED through the doorway to his apartment at eleven o’clock on Friday night to find Vivian had pulled a dining chair into the entryway and was reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, he knew it had been too much to hope that he could dodge her for eight months.
“Good evening, Karl.” She rested the book on her lap and looked up at him. “Have you been avoiding me?”
It sounded cowardly when she put it like that. He stared at the curve of her lips above her pointed chin—soft over sharp—and he had to stop himself from running his thumb over the bow. He didn’t have to be drunk to be susceptible to the arcs of her face, but he needed to remember that she was only temporary. The baby was permanent, but Vivian fleeting.
“I work a lot.” It came out like a defense.
“Well, you’re home now, and I’m still up, so we can talk.”
He beat her to picking up her chair to carry it back to the dining table. As he passed the bar area of the kitchen, someone whistled at him. The bird was climbing around on a miniature jungle gym. Xìnyùn whistled again, a high-pitched, squeaky wolf whistle. The bird was on his kitchen counter. And whistling at him. He stopped to look at the bird, who hopped in response.
Vivian made kissy noises—at the bird, not at him. “Xìnyùn always did prefer men.”
Karl shook his head and continued carrying the chair to the dining room table. “Why is he out of his cage?” That wasn’t the question he wanted answered. “Why do you have a bird that prefers men?”
That still wasn’t the right question—the one that had been niggling at him. He wanted to know why she was here in Chicago. The growing fetus and health insurance didn’t seem enough of a reason for a stranger to be living in his apartment. But he didn’t ask those, because he was too caught up watching Vivian bend over and encourage the bird to hop onto her finger.
“Luck, be a lady tonight,” the bird squeaked. At least, that’s what Karl thought the bird said. It might have been a whistle.
He sat in a chair at his table in the apartment that used to be his escape from the chaos of life.
“Xìnyùn’s out of his cage because he needs the exercise and mental stimulation. Parrots are smart and need regular challenges to their intelligence. In answer to your second question, I have a parrot that prefers men to women because he’s not my parrot.”
“Are you going to be hunted down by someone whose parrot you stole?” What did he know about her other than that she claimed to be pregnant and was living in his apartment? And that he liked the curve of her lips and length of her neck.
She laughed, but a haunted look accompanied the noise. “Xìnyùn’s my father’s bird.”
“Where’s your father and why doesn’t he have the bird?”
“Um...” She looked at the window.
“There’s probably bird shit on my kitchen counter. You can at least tell me where your father is.”
She looked back at him. “I’ll clean up Xìnyùn’s mess. I’ve been cleaning it all week.”
Of course. He hadn’t been home all week. The bird could’ve been dancing on his pillow for all he knew.
“And my father said he couldn’t keep the bird right now. I came home from work one day to find Xìnyùn in my apartment, along with a note.” She said all that while looking at him, but then she looked out the window. There was more to the story of her father. “But I wanted to talk to you about our child.”
She sat at the table across from him, and the bird hopped down her arm, landing on the belly of the pregnant woman on the cover of the book.
“Should you be around a bird while pregnant?” He really should know more about pregnancy than that Vivian shouldn’t have caffeine or alcohol.
“It’s fine. I wear gloves when I clean up after him and wash my hands often, but that’s one of the things I wanted to talk with you about. I need to find a doctor.”
“Are you sick?”
She pulled her chin back into her neck and gave him a funny look. “I’m pregnant.”
Karl’s throat tried to choke him and he coughed. “This is all new to me.”
“It’s new to me, too. I’ve not had much more time to get used to the idea than you have.” She patted his hand like he was a child. Her hand was warm. “I need to start having regular checkups for myself and the baby. Would you like to go with me to the first visit?” When he turned his hand palm up, she grasped it and squeezed. “Maybe it will help this all be real to you.”
It’s not as though he hadn’t imagined having a pregnant wife before. When he’d believed their marriage to be happy, he’d roll over in bed to look at Jessica and wonder what their children would look like. But with Jessica everything would’ve been planned. There would have been a calendar tracking when she was fertile, the best OB-GYN practice in Chicago already chosen and she would have picked out the crib she wanted before they even stopped using birth control. Jessica organized everything.
And he would’ve been a better partner to Jessica. Despite their arguments, Jessica wouldn’t have questioned whether he would be around to discuss the pregnancy. She would have assumed.
Vivian was a stranger, but legally she was his wife and—until he knew for certain otherwise—she was carrying their child. He should be no less a partner to Vivian just because she and the baby were inconvenient. Pregnancy was hardly convenient for Vivian, either. Whatever had driven her out of Vegas, she’d had a life there.
He squeezed her hand in return. “Yes. I would like to go to the first prenatal visit. I’m not sure I can make all of them, but I’ll make the ones I can, so long as you want me to.”
“I dropped in on your doorstep with no warning and you’ve taken me in. You’ve been great, considering. Really.”
“You’re a bad liar.” She looked out the window, but he saw the lie in the way her nostrils curled. “I didn’t kick a pregnant woman out on the streets, which means I’m not a jerk. It doesn’t make me great. We don’t know each other now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t eventually become friends. Friendship would be a better place to start than many people having a baby together.”
“Friends.” She turned her head back to face him. She was wearing the same pink sweater she’d worn when she’d first arrived. At the time he’d been too overwhelmed by the situation to concentrate on anything other than small details of her features and the haze of his memories. Looking at her now, face-to-face and with his mind open to his changing circumstances, he could see how pretty she was. Simple and without fuss, like a sunrise over the lake. “I’d like that.”
Neither of them noticed they were still holding hands until the bird climbed from the cover of the book to stand on Vivian’s middle finger and whistle.
She blushed and eased her hand out from his grip, the bird still carefully balanced on her finger. “I need to go to bed. This is past my pregnancy bedtime. I’ll clean up Xìnyùn’s mess in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said to her back as she slumped off to the bedroom. Cleaning up after a parrot would give him something to think about, other than his suddenly empty hand.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’M SORRY, DAD....”
Karl eased the front door closed, not wanting to disturb Vivian’s conversation, and if he was being honest with himself, because he wanted to hear what she had to say to her father. She was in her bedroom, but the door was open so she couldn’t have an expectation of privacy.
That she probably still expected him to be out getting their breakfast made that argument a bit specious—a technicality he was willing to ignore to learn more about his mysterious bride. Vivian wasn’t forthcoming with information.
“...but I’m not going to tell you anything about what’s happened to me if you’re not going to tell me where you are.”
Interesting. Not knowing her father’s whereabouts was very different than his being unavailable.
“You always say it’s important, Dad, but me telling you that I’m fine is all you need to know right now.”
He slipped his shoes off and walked to the door of the guest bedroom in his socks, indecision an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling.
“No, nothing much in my life has changed since I last saw you.” The sarcasm in her voice cut through the door and Karl was certain her father was bleeding on the other end of the call, though it sounded as though her dad didn’t know why she was being so cutting. Hell, Karl didn’t know why she was being so cutting.
When had she last seen her father? She’d said he wasn’t available—a bit of an overstatement—but did he even know she was pregnant? That she’d lost her job? Based on the present conversation, Karl was willing to bet the answer to all those questions was no. For all her dad knew, Vivian was still in Vegas, dealing, single and with an empty uterus.
Vivian sighed. “Yes, you’re my father and you care about my well-being, but maybe you can see how that doesn’t mean very much to me right now.”
Clearly she didn’t want her father to know about the upheaval in her life, but why? Was she lying about the pregnancy? He shook the second question from his head. She would be a fool to lie about a pregnancy and invite him to the doctor’s office. He pulled his hand back from knocking at the door. It was unethical to eavesdrop and he now had more questions than answers—a punishment the Greek gods could have devised.
“I’ve been in Sin City for sixteen years and you were never so interested in my well-being before.” One short thunk came from the room. “I will continue to take care of myself, and it will be easier without wondering if you’ll show up on my doorstep.”
Her words stopped his attempt to be courteous and find something else to listen to. However occasionally constricted Karl felt at having his entire family live in the same city, he couldn’t imagine fearing their appearance on his stoop. Or worse, believing them to be more of a hindrance than help if he got in trouble.
“Dad, that was a fun time, but I’m too old to be looking for the next adventure.”
The desperation in her voice echoed the strain on her face from the night she’d shown up in his lobby. It had been that strain that had convinced him she was pregnant and that she believed it was his baby. Both of their lives would be a lot easier if he’d never bought her that drink.
Realizing he wasn’t going to learn any more about his wife, Karl walked to the kitchen, setting the newspapers and the bag of bagels on the counter. He was putting out plates when she came out of her room.
“Oh.” She stopped short at the sight of him, blinking. “I didn’t hear the front door.”
He turned his back to her and poured two cups of coffee. “I know.” When he turned back to face her, she hadn’t moved. “Sit down. Have some breakfast.”
She clasped her hands together, twisting them. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know you don’t know where your father is and that you’ve not told him you lost your job. Or that you’re pregnant. Why?”
A quick, frightened glance at the bedroom door gave away her thoughts.
“Is there a reason the fact of your father’s ignorance might induce me to kick you out of the apartment?”
“No.” Her hands fell to her sides and she inched to the breakfast bar. She gave him one more cautious look before sitting down. “I have good reasons for not telling my father about losing my job.”
He pushed a cup of coffee to her. “And for not telling him that you’re pregnant.”
“That, too.” She wrapped her hands around the mug, but didn’t drink any coffee. Karl waited. “I’m not going to tell you what those reasons are right now, no matter how silent you are.”
His laughter surprised them both. “The tactic loses some of its effectiveness when you put it so baldly.” That he was continuing to help her didn’t disturb him—she was pregnant and he didn’t believe in punishing a child for the sins of the mother, whatever the sins she was hiding might be—but how little he cared about her secret scared the hell out of him. Her attractiveness wasn’t enough to justify his feelings. He liked her, simple as that. “At least tell me that you’re not keeping a secret from me because you did something illegal.”
“I didn’t do anything illegal.” The matter-of-factness with which she said those words left a myriad of other secretive possibilities undenied.
“Does the secret have to do with why you were fired?”
“I don’t want my dad to know I’m pregnant because I don’t want him to have extra incentive to come looking for me.” Topic of conversation seemingly changed with the vague answer, she reached for a bagel, but Karl wasn’t satisfied.
“Because?”
Vivian put the bagel on the plate with a sigh. “Because he’s trouble, and I’m too old to go on thinking it’s fun.”
“Shouldn’t it be a parent’s prerogative to know if they’re going to be a grandparent?”
“Have you told your parents about me yet?” she asked.
“Parent. My dad died when I was sixteen.”
“I knew that. I’m sorry.”
“The people responsible for his death are the ones who should be sorry. You didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“But I’m not the only one keeping secrets from one of the baby’s grandparents.” She looked out the window before reaching for the tub of cream cheese. “My dad is better off not knowing.” Scrutinizing her bagel as she smeared it with cream cheese, she continued, “He wouldn’t care that much anyway.”
Interesting. She had the same tells when she was lying to herself as she did when lying to other people.
He took his time choosing his bagel and spreading it with cream cheese, enjoying her wary looks as she tore small bites off hers and chewed them slowly. If she didn’t want to continue worrying about what would happen if he knew her secrets, she should spill them and get the pain over with.
His coffee was barely hot as he washed his breakfast down before changing the subject. “Speaking of a parent’s prerogative and whether or not she knows about you, my mom planned a family dinner for tomorrow.”
* * *
VIVIAN COUGHED, BUT managed to choke down her mouthful. Couldn’t he have waited until after I’d swallowed before laying that on me?
“Am I invited?” Did she want to be invited? She didn’t want to be a dirty secret locked up in a basement somewhere, but meeting Karl’s family had seemed less scary when it was an abstract idea. Or when bumping into his brother-in-law at the library without the chance to escape or the opportunity to worry about it beforehand.
“We’re married and you’re carrying my child. I think that makes you family. Or do you plan to hide from my family like you’re hiding from yours?”
How nicely Karl evaded the fact that he’d been hiding her, as well. “Hiding from my family is an exaggeration. My father could probably find me if he tried.”
His shoulders fell, but he didn’t sigh in exasperation at her. Since she was exasperated herself, this was a bit of a surprise. “There are aspects of your life you don’t want to tell me right now,” he said. “That’s fine. Not great, but we’re strangers in a rough situation and I’m trying to be understanding. But don’t outright lie to me.”
“Fine.” She put down her bagel and looked him straight in the eye. “It’s not an exaggeration, and I’m hoping he doesn’t try, but not for the same reasons you’re keeping me from your family, I’m sure.” What she had to say next would be harder to admit to, but she wanted him to understand, even if she couldn’t tell him everything. “My dad’s fun, but he’s not responsible. I need responsible.”
“Did he do something illegal?” His voice expressed simple curiosity, but there had to be more behind the question. Vivian didn’t believe Karl ever asked anything out of simple curiosity.
“What’s your time frame?” She pushed her half-eaten bagel away, no longer hungry.
“It’s not a trick question, Vivian. He either did or he didn’t.”
“Maybe it’s easy for you, but you’re a lawyer and you spend your time looking for evildoers. This is my father we’re talking about. He’s lazy and looking to make a quick buck involving the least amount of work. Combine that with Las Vegas...” She shrugged. “There are a million things he could have done that are wrong without being illegal.”
And that was just Las Vegas. If she assumed that every time they had moved in the middle of the night it had been because her father was escaping the law...
Of course, on a few occasions he might have been escaping his partners in crime, not the authorities.
“You should tell your father the truth.”
“No.” The word came out more forcefully than she had meant it to, causing Xìnyùn to whistle from the next room. “When I’m settled, I’ll tell him. Until then...” An offensive tactic seemed to be a better idea right now. “What are you going to tell your family about me?”
He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. It was cold, which was probably why she hadn’t touched hers. “At dinner will be my mom, my sister Tilly and her boyfriend, and my sister Renia and her husband, Miles. You met Miles at the library. I don’t know if his daughter, Sarah, will be there.”
“I’ll get you another cup of coffee,” she said, reaching out for his mug.
His hand was cool when it grabbed her wrist. “Don’t. If I want another cup I’ll get it myself.”
“I’m just trying to be nice.” I’m still in your apartment, eating your food, without a job. And now we have this secret hanging between us.
“When you’re offering just to be nice, I’ll let you get me a cup of coffee. Until then, you’re doing it because you feel beholden to me and I’m not interested.” He let go of her hand and she missed the cool touch of his palm on her skin.
Which was nuts. They weren’t a couple; they were a couple of people stuck having a baby together. She would get a job and her own insurance, they would agree on divorce terms and child support and she would never feel his touch again. He was a domineering pain in the ass, anyway. Because you feel beholden. Assuming jerk.
But because he was right, she asked her question again. “What are you going to tell your family about me?”
“The truth.”
“That we met while drunk, had sex and woke up married?”
The corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile, marking this morning as the first time she’d heard him laugh much less give any indication he could smile outside of Las Vegas. And she couldn’t help notice that his hazel eyes twinkled when he smiled. “An edited version of the truth.”
“Could you—” how to ask this question without sounding like she was trying to hide even more “—not tell them about the baby?”
The corners of his mouth fell as his smile turned suspicious. As he should be, Vivian thought, only not with regard to the baby. “Any particular reason to keep it a secret?”
“I’d always heard it was bad luck to tell anyone before the third month.”
“Miles knows—or at least guesses. He saw the book.”
“Just between us for now. Okay?”
* * *
KARL DIDN’T USUALLY lie to his mom, but he knew how to keep something from her. He’d hidden his impending divorce from her almost until Jessica had served him with the petition. It wasn’t something he liked doing—his mom had been angry about the secret of the divorce for months—but he made it a habit not to answer questions people didn’t ask. It hadn’t occurred to his mother to ask if he was getting a divorce. However...
“Is she pregnant?” his mom asked in a whisper as she handed him a platter of sauerkraut pierogies to take to the dining room.
“Why do you ask?” If he could avoid answering the question, he wouldn’t have to lie to his mother. He didn’t want to. But he understood Vivian’s reluctance to share the news—though his reasons were different. The fewer people who knew about the pregnancy, the fewer people who would insist on showing him adorable baby booties and maybe the fewer chances he’d have to think of all the horrible ways children die. As long as only he and Vivian knew about the baby, he could ignore the risk childhood posed to a child whenever he wasn’t around his wife. Or so he told himself.
His mom grabbed the waistband of his pants, preventing him from walking out of the kitchen. He sighed in response. Some days, you are still five years old to your mother. “You married a woman I’ve never met. What am I supposed to think?”
“Mom, even if she were pregnant—and I’m not saying she is—I wouldn’t tell you until she was three months along. It’s bad luck.” At least Vivian had been kind enough to give him something to tell his mother while he lied to her.
“What do you know about this woman you’ve married? Where’s she from? What’s her family like? How do you know if you have anything in common with her?”
He removed his mother’s grip on his pants and turned to face her, surprised when her expression held fear. “We’re here for family dinner. You can ask her all the questions you want. Get to know her. You’ll probably like her.”
I do. More than the curve of her lips and line of her neck. He could relax in Vivian’s calm presence. She had a quiet, efficient manner and he found himself watching her move about the apartment instead of enjoying his view of the Chicago skyline. He had even changed the chair he sat in while in the living room so he could watch her knit or play solitaire.
“She’s just—” his mom halted “—different, and I’m not sure she belongs.”
Of all the things he expected to come out of his mother’s mouth... “Are you saying you don’t like Vivian because she’s not from Chicago, not Catholic—” at least, he didn’t think she was “—or not white?”
“I just think marriages work better when the couple shares a common background.”
He set the pierogies on the counter in exasperation. “You complain about Tilly and Dan not even planning a wedding yet—”
“‘I’m building my business’ isn’t a reason not to get married,” she interrupted.
“And you’re a devout Catholic wishing your sister could marry her longtime female partner.”
“She’s my favorite sister. Their relationship has lasted longer than most marriages I know.”
“Vivian and I have done what Aunt Maria and Josie can’t do and what Tilly and Dan haven’t cared to do. Be happy about that.”
“I just wish I knew her.”
“No, you wish you’d had the chance to approve of her before I married her.” Like you approved of Jessica because the two of you wanted the same things out of me, and they weren’t what I was willing to give. The marriage you approved of led to divorce. And Jessica and I had a lot in common.
He picked the pierogies up off the counter and headed through the living room to the dining room and the rest of his family.
In the dining room, Vivian was laughing at the anecdote of Dan panning Tilly’s restaurant and then picking her up at the Taste of Chicago, each unaware that she was the chef to whose restaurant he’d given a bad review. Instead of being an uncomfortable story, Tilly’s lively hand gestures and gift with words made it one of their best party stories. Karl slipped into the chair next to his wife with the odd feeling that the family table was finally complete. Until tonight, hearing Vivian chuckle at Dan’s tales of the ribbing his friends had given him over the review, Karl hadn’t known something had been missing.
* * *
THE CAR RIDE home was uncomfortable. Vivian’s enjoyable chat with Karl’s sisters had come to a screeching halt when his mom had entered the dining room with roast pork and twenty questions. Vivian had smiled and tried to remain pleasant, while avoiding the questions she thought were none of the woman’s business—and inappropriate to be asked at a get-to-know-you dinner.
“Everyone seemed very nice,” Vivian remarked to the passenger-side window and cars they were passing. By everyone, she meant Karl’s sisters, his brother-in-law and Dan. She hadn’t expected someone as straitlaced as Karl to have a sister with wild blue hair, and his other sister, Renia, while reserved, had an undercurrent of real warmth.
Qualifying her statement seemed rude, and she could be polite to Karl, who had watched the interaction between her and his mother with interest but hadn’t done anything to interfere. Just because she came from mysterious people and a state that Easterners couldn’t distinguish from Iowa, didn’t mean she didn’t know how to be polite.
“Did you enjoy the food?”
“Yes. It’s the first time I’ve ever had pierogies. Probably the first time I’ve ever had Polish food that wasn’t kielbasa from the grocery store.” The only thing the sausage they’d eaten for dinner had in common with the vacuum-wrapped oval from the meat case was the name. Then there had been the cucumbers in a light sour cream dressing. “It was all delicious.”
“No Polish blood in you?” His question was lightly asked, but she’d been asked that question about ten different ways over the past two hours.
“I didn’t realize you were also obsessed with my ancestry.” Being offended warred with her fear of losing the little stability she had managed to grasp.
And she’d thought better of him.
“Of all my mom’s questions that you avoided answering, that’s the one I care least about. Tell me why you got fired and why you’re hiding from your dad, and I won’t bat an eye when you tell me that your grandparents are from Jupiter.”
“Is that why you didn’t stop your mom from combining dinner with a security clearance interview?”
He didn’t sigh, but she could feel the frustration come off his body in waves at her remark. “Vivian,” he said finally, “I haven’t known you very long, but you don’t strike me as the type of person who wants a man to rescue her just so he can prove he’s not neutered. You were holding your own. If you had needed to be saved, I would have done so.”
“What do you call me living in your apartment, eating your food and using the transit cards you leave on the table?” Suddenly she needed the parameters of their relationship defined. If he didn’t see her as helpless and dependent, how did he see her?
“Providing you with a helping hand isn’t the same as a rescue. If I were rescuing you, I’d have done this whole thing differently.”
“How?”
“I’d have a suit of armor and horse,” he said with the same flat tone with which he said everything else.
Something between a snicker and a sigh escaped her mouth. She hadn’t told his mother anything about her heritage because she was offended that it seemed to matter. When Karl said he didn’t care, she believed him.
Besides, if she offered him some answers, perhaps she’d win a reprieve from the questions about her father and why she was fired. She didn’t know that much about “her people” anyway. Her father had a habit of alienating people, even family. Maybe especially family.
“The last name and most of the blood on my father’s side is Chinese, but there’s some Mexican and Sicilian in there, too, I think. There were lots of different ethnic groups working on the railroads, fighting forest fires and mining out west. My mom’s a hundred percent Chinese, though.” She let the silence consume the oxygen in the car and extinguish her fear. “Would your mom like me more if I had Polish blood?”
She didn’t want to care what his mother thought, but this was his baby, too, and that woman was the baby’s grandmother. If the baby’s grandmother couldn’t get past her nonwhite skin, well...well, she’d figure out something. She always had.
“It would give her something to hang on to until she got to know you better. Being Catholic would work just as well.” Her leather seat creaked as she turned from the window to look at her husband, but the darkness swallowed his expression—if he had one.
She turned back to the window, disappointed in his answer and disappointed in herself for caring. “The Mexican and Sicilian parts are probably Catholic.”
She started when his hand rested on her knee and squeezed. She’d touched him once or twice, but he’d steadfastly avoided initiating any contact with her since putting his hand on her back as they’d left the library that day. She’d noticed that he watched her when they were in the apartment together—whether out of suspicion, curiosity or some other emotion she didn’t know and his expression didn’t reveal—but he never touched her.
“It’s not about you. My mom is mad at me for marrying someone she doesn’t know and didn’t get a chance to approve of, first. Since I am otherwise the golden child, she’s not used to feeling disappointed in me and her disapproval is landing on you. She’ll get over it, and you shouldn’t feel that you need to put up with it. If she continues, I’ll tell her to knock it off. Or you can opt out of future family dinners. Attendance isn’t a requirement for my help.”
If she hadn’t been staring so intently at his expression, she wouldn’t have noticed the slight lift of his mouth when he said “golden child.” As it was, she wasn’t sure she believed her own eyes. She ticked off her memories on her fingers, a laugh, two smiles and a touch all in the span of a couple days.
But the hint of a smile disappeared as quickly as it had come when he continued talking. “I don’t know if that helps. I’ve never been—”
“Anything but the perfect man all mothers dream their beloved daughter will marry?”
He laughed. If she wasn’t careful, she might have to take off her socks to keep track of the number of times she got a reaction out of him. “I was going to say ‘on the receiving end of a mother’s interrogation,’ but we can let your statement stand.”
“How your mother feels about me doesn’t matter in the long run, I guess. I’ll get a job, get my own health insurance. We’ll have a baby and get a divorce. You’ll be free to marry a Polish Catholic girl your mom has known since birth.”
Karl didn’t respond. But neither did he remove his hand from her knee until it was time to get off the freeway.
CHAPTER FIVE
VIVIAN WAS SHIFTING, trying to get comfortable in the waiting room chair and filling out yet another form with her medical history, when Karl came in.
“Hi,” she said, surprised. She’d told him the time and date of her first doctor’s appointment, and he’d said he’d come, but she’d expected some work emergency to conveniently detain him. Despite his touch of her knee on the way home from his mother’s and his promise they would be friends, he’d been the same distant man of the previous week. And he still seemed to work all the time. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I’m sorry. Scheduling my own doctor’s appointment made me late.” He put a heavy hand on her head, smoothing down her hair before giving her neck a reassuring squeeze and sitting down. No, she wasn’t being honest with herself. He hadn’t been quite the same man. Instead of going straight to work after the gym, he’d come home and eaten breakfast with her yesterday and today. They’d talked about how her job search was going, and she’d reminded him of today’s appointment.
And yesterday, instead of getting home from work after she’d gone to bed, he’d come home and taken her out to dinner. As she’d taken a bite of her stuffed mushrooms and peered at the pictures on the wall of the steakhouse that seemed to be a Chicago institution, Karl had turned into a different man.
No fewer than ten people, not including the gruff waitstaff, came to their table to say hello. Each time, he introduced her as his wife, accepted their congratulations, ignored their looks of surprise with ease and asked about their families. She’d started to wonder if the taciturn man she shared an apartment with had fallen into the twilight zone and been replaced by a politician. Then she’d noticed his glad-handing didn’t extend to his eyes. He smiled, but the twinkle wasn’t there. Her husband played Mr. Important out in public, but he didn’t enjoy it.
The man next to her in the waiting room, silent, steady and present, was the natural Karl.
“What are all the forms for?”
“Everything.” She handed the clipboard to him, embarrassed to be sharing her complete medical history with a man she barely knew. But he was going to learn more about her as soon as they got into the doctor’s office so why hide it now? Jelly Bean was his baby, too. “Family medical history. Vitamins I take. Past illnesses. My doctor in Vegas hasn’t sent over all my records yet, but I think they’d make me fill everything out, anyway.”
“You missed information here.”
She looked at the space he was pointing to. “I don’t remember how old I was when I had my first period.”
Karl’s head jerked and he started to blush. “I guess, I didn’t, I mean...”
This time she put the supportive hand on his knee. “It’s okay. We have one night of sex and now my menstrual cycle has become important to both of us.” She chuckled because her other option was to cry. “When we leave this office, I probably won’t have any secrets left.”
“Why’d you come to me instead of finding your father?”
Of course, she couldn’t blame him for asking the question—she’d practically invited it—but still Vivian tried to pull her hand off his knee. He stopped her, placing his hand on top of hers and keeping it there. She could feel his touch all the way down to her toes.
“I thought I should tell you about the child in person,” she said. It was the same stupid reason she always gave him.
“So, still some secrets.” Someday, she knew, he wasn’t going to let it slide.
“Yes.” And she would keep those secrets as long as she could. He needed to know about her health and her body because the child growing inside her was his as well as hers. He didn’t need to know how she’d waited until the last minute to decide not to sell her integrity, and how the fates had punished her anyway.
“You said you wanted me here. I can go back to my office if you need the privacy.”
“No. We’re a team on this—” if on nothing else “—and I’d like a friend.”
* * *
IN THE SMALL exam room, Karl turned his back to give Vivian privacy while she changed into the hospital gown. He cracked the door once she had changed, then took a seat in a chair while she sat on the examination table, swinging her feet in the air. The false intimacy of the exam room, combined with the very real consequences of their night of sexual intimacy, made for an awkward situation.
“Oh, the father is here,” the doctor said as she walked into the room. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
Karl had felt discomfited enough as the only man in the waiting room without the doctor commenting on his presence in that chipper voice people use to inform their dogs a walk is coming. But the woman didn’t seem to notice his discomfort—or she didn’t care—and the visit wasn’t about him, anyway.
“Considering how many times I hear people say ‘we’re pregnant,’ I almost never see the father.” His head jerked up when the doctor sat and patted them both on the knees. She looked old enough to be his grandmother, but he hadn’t expected her to treat them like children. “Good.” Pat. “This should be a partnership.” Pat. “And I expect this means both of you will be abstaining from coffee, alcohol, soft cheese and lunch meats.” Pat. “It’s not fair for the mother to bear those burdens alone.”
He knew about the coffee and alcohol. He hadn’t known about the cheese. How much feta had been in the Middle Eastern food he’d brought home? Had Vivian picked it out? Had she eaten it? Was it even a soft cheese? Karl glanced at her and she lifted her eyebrows in what he expected was supposed to be reassurance, but he still felt as if he was swimming through a bizarre dream the consistency of gelatin and the color of black coffee—with grounds trapped beside him in the jelly.
“So.” The doctor clapped her hands. “I imagine you have lots of questions...”
How had offering a drink to an attractive woman at a hotel bar in Las Vegas led to him sitting in an exam room with a stranger in a hospital gown?
“...let me tell you what’s going to happen at this exam, and you can ask all the questions you want when we’re done.”
Now was probably not the best time to ask that question—or to ask when he was going to wake up. Although, he cocked his head to the side and caught sight of Vivian’s pink toenails as they swayed in and out of his vision, the dream didn’t really seem terrible. Still bizarre, but not definitively bad.
“The last thing we’ll do is an internal ultrasound. It’s early yet, so you won’t see much, but we might get to listen to the heartbeat.”
“The fetus has a heartbeat?” Karl asked, and immediately felt stupid.
“If the date of your last period is right, the fetus may have a detectible heartbeat. Don’t worry, Dad.” The doctor patted his knee again. “People ask questions when they’re scared and sometimes they’re silly questions. Babies are scary and they’re also wonderful. Stick with your beautiful wife, here, and you’ll be fine.”
Vivian’s legs had stopped swinging and her lips had pursed as though she might cry. Or—he reevaluated the brightness of her eyes—burst into laughter. He wasn’t the only one who found this scene ridiculous.
The exam was reinforcing all the many things he didn’t know about his wife. He’d seen the stranger he’d married in a hospital gown, knew she couldn’t remember the age at which she had her first period and knew she’d been exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke on her job. He didn’t know why Vivian had lost her job, why her father was missing or why she wouldn’t tell him about her pregnancy. Until she told the doctor, he hadn’t realized she spent most of her days walking around the city when she wasn’t applying for jobs and cleaning up after the stupid bird.
These were the repercussions of having a child with a stranger. These strange half intimacies of hearing her describe how regular her menstruation had been—really, did such details matter now that she was actually pregnant?—but not knowing if she’d ever gone to college defined their relationship.
Vivian and the doctor were talking about genetic testing, but Karl only heard half of it. This wasn’t how he’d planned to have a baby. When he’d sat at the hotel bar knocking back whiskey and waiting to die because being older than his father was inconceivable, he’d thought back on what he’d accomplished in his life.
And he’d come up short, which had probably been the alcohol and his thirty-ninth birthday talking. He had a job that was more than just important to him, it was important to the city of Chicago. He was the independent watchdog for the taxpayer and that didn’t mean he was looking out only for their money.
The worst effects of corruption and fraud weren’t wasted dollars, but wasted lives. Two dead Milek men on the side of the highway and one dying Milek boy in the hospital were testimony to the devastation a bribe and a blind eye could leave.
He averted his eyes when Vivian started to scoot her butt to the edge of the exam table and put her feet in the stirruplike things. The doctor had a wand-ish instrument covered with a condom and lubricant. The woman who had just been patting his knee was now telling Vivian how the ultrasound would feel compared to a vaginal exam and he nearly leapt out of his chair and headed for the door.
His presence here was a mistake. Whatever was involved in an internal ultrasound was far, far too private for him to witness. They were strangers. He’d planned on having babies with Jessica, who would’ve known better than to ask him to come to the doctor’s office to witness this. Jessica had wanted two children—preferably one boy and one girl. They were going to buy a house in Andersonville and he was going to have the beautiful wife, two perfectly behaved children and a meaningful job. And when his thirty-ninth birthday hit, he was going to compare his life to his father’s and see that he’d lived up to all the man’s expectations.
“Dad.” The doctor’s voice broke through the existential crisis he wouldn’t admit he was having, even in confession, should the priest ask. “If you look on the monitor you can see the embryo. And your date for conception looks pretty spot-on with the embryo’s growth.”
The last, lingering nugget of doubt he’d had about Vivian’s pregnancy burst when Karl looked up. On the screen was some pulsing gray matter and, in a flash of emptiness, a little thing that looked like a mouse standing up and dancing. Only it wasn’t a mouse. It wasn’t anywhere near the size of a mouse. It was his baby and the doctor was saying it was a quarter of an inch in size.
From somewhere in the room came the sound of a horse clopping. Vivian’s wide smile made her cheeks pop like a chipmunk’s, but he didn’t know the source of the sound until the doctor said, “And this is your baby’s heartbeat.”
The blood pulsing in his ears took on the same rhythm of the horse galloping, the sound that the doctor was claiming was his baby. The baby he made with the beautiful woman lying back calmly on the exam table, looking at him as if she expected him to say something.
“Holy shit.” His life was never going to be the same.
* * *
KARL WAS SILENT as he pushed the cart through the aisles of the grocery store. Normally, his quiet didn’t bother Vivian, but there was quiet and then there was the silence that buzzed between them.
“Are you okay?” she asked for probably the tenth time since they’d left the doctor’s office.
“Fine.” He held the plastic bag full of apples high in the air, twisted it and tied the bag in a knot.
Already in the cart were bananas, oranges, clementines, grapefruit, grapes and strawberries that looked pretty but would probably be tasteless since it was only March. And that was just the fruit. They also had sweet potatoes, kale, Swiss chard, carrots, cabbage and a rainbow of peppers. If a doctor sitting on Oprah’s couch had ever called a plant a “superfood,” Karl had put it in their cart. His previously empty fridge was likely to expire with the pressure of the extra work. At least she’d be able to make every recipe on the planet without having to go to the store again.
She weighed the bleak look that had been on Karl’s face when their baby’s heartbeat had filled the exam room and the fact that they were strangers and she was dependent on him. The bleak look won. She put a hand on his before he could bag some rocks masquerading as peaches.
“You are not fine. You nearly fainted at the doctor’s.” A muscle pulsed where his ear rounded into his jaw, but Vivian ignored the warning. “And your silence has a deathlike quality about it. We’re partners in this. Friends, right?”
At the word death the twitch had stopped. Karl left the peaches on the display and moved on to the pears. When he’d bagged five pears, he turned his attention to her. “This is not how I expected to have a child.”
He pushed the cart away from the produce, leaving her wishing she had a bag of potatoes she could bean him over the head with. She caught up to him in the bread aisle as he was reading nutritional information.
“This wasn’t how I expected to have a child, either.” All through adulthood, she’d held on to her dream of a perfect nuclear family, raising children in a house they would own into retirement, the memories made in the home impossible to distinguish from the stuff cluttering the shelves. When she’d decided she couldn’t abort the baby, no matter how desperate her situation seemed, she’d surrendered that dream. Karl hadn’t been offered the same choices she had, and he probably had completely different dreams.
She grabbed one of the loaves and added cinnamon-raisin bread to the cart, as well. “I suspect there’s more to your reaction.”
As they passed the fancy cheeses, Vivian added Gruyère to the cart.
“No cheese.” Karl put it back in the cooler.
“No soft cheese.” She put it back into the cart.
“Huh.” He added a couple more cheeses to the pile, then crossed his arms on the cart handle and pushed his way along the aisle. She’d never seen a man look so uncomfortable while trying to look so relaxed, and again she had to hurry after him.
“Is the cheese for you?”
“No. You seem to like cheese.”
“I can’t eat all that. It’ll go bad.”
“You’re supposed to eat more, and a variety of foods.”
She put her hand on the front of the cart and turned it before he could knock down a display of potato chips with his manic forward progress. “After the second trimester, I should eat an extra three hundred calories a day. That does not mean I get to gorge myself on cheese.”
He sighed. “I’ll help eat the cheese.”
“And the fruit? And the bread? And whatever else you plan to buy me and Jelly Bean while we’re in the store?”
“Jelly Bean?” Finally, she had his attention. “You call our baby Jelly Bean?”
“You call our baby the fetus.”
“Apparently I should be calling it an embryo for another three or four weeks.”
She sighed. “Can we talk about this possessed shopping trip and what happened in the doctor’s office?”
“Not here.”
“Fine.” She navigated the cart past the dairy and around several displays until she’d dragged Karl and his cornucopia in front of the shoe polish and laces. “This is as empty as a grocery store gets. Spill.”
He looked over his shoulder. She wanted to smack him, but she also needed him. No one could call her actions patient, but she was waiting. “Hearing the heartbeat was the first time this became real. Until then I expected to wake up. But it’s not a dream and we’re in this together. I want to make sure you have all you need.”
The warmth in his voice glided above the soft hits that were playing over the loudspeakers. For the first time since she’d sat on her bathroom floor in Vegas looking at the third positive pregnancy test in a row, Vivian felt like something other than a problem. She’d come to Karl because he was the father and he was a fixer. But now...she and Jelly Bean might be something more than a speed bump in his perfectly ordered and sterile life.
His hand didn’t feel cool to the touch when she grabbed on to it—a phantom warmth she attributed to the hope rising in her own chest. “We won’t be left communicating with each other through notes about Jelly Bean’s progress in school.”
“What?” Karl hid his emotions most of the time, but puzzlement was clear on his face.
“I had visions of us as divorced parents exchanging notes through Jelly Bean’s backpack.”
“Oh.” And then he laughed. “What a ridiculous thing to think. That’s what text messages are for.”
She laughed along with him, ignoring the looks they got from passing shoppers.
“Vivian.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I may not have imagined this as how I was going to have children, but I’m finding I could do much worse.”
“It’s not much of a compliment, but I’ll take it.” She lifted up onto her toes and kissed him once on the lips. Then she headed for the cereal aisle before he could read anything other than humor in her expression.
CHAPTER SIX
DINNER EATEN AND the dishes done, Vivian followed Karl around the bar and into the living room. She sat at one end of the couch and picked up her knitting. He sat on the other end of the couch and picked up his book. It was progress. Only a week ago, he’d never been home while she was still awake. Only a couple of days ago, he was sitting in the armchair rather than sharing the couch. They were getting to know each other and, slowly, coming to trust each other.
Sometime in the near future, Karl might even tell her about his day as they sat down to dinner. She might talk about the jobs she was applying for. They might have a relationship outside of the shared parentage of their child.
The rich green wool slid through her fingers. The hat’s shape was slowly emerging out of the yarn and she could begin to picture it on Karl’s head. He needed something more than the righteous fire burning within him to keep his ears warm.
With a child on the way, she should probably be knitting baby blankets and little sweaters, but she wanted to give Karl something that didn’t originate in his own largesse. The yarn was one of the few possessions she’d brought to Chicago that wasn’t a necessity. The wool was soft, and she had needed something comforting with her.
The metal of her needles clicked. The pages of Karl’s book rustled. If, on the other side of the city, someone with a telescope was scanning windows, they would see what appeared to be an old married couple so comfortable with each other they didn’t need to talk—not two strangers with no idea what to say to each other.
“What book are you reading?” Vivian was struck by the sudden and silly fear that a stranger looking in the windows with a telescope knew what Karl was reading while she, sitting next to him, had no idea.
“Hmm?” Karl looked up and it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her across the cushions. “It’s a collection of Herman Melville’s short works. He wrote Moby Dick.”
“I know who Melville is. I may not have graduated, but I’ve taken some college classes. I’m not stupid.”
He turned his head back to the pages, giving her snippy comment all the attention it deserved.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ve never said or even implied I was stupid. I don’t know why I reacted so poorly.”
Only she did. The uncertainty of her existence and unwanted helplessness wore on her, coming out in bile when she was least prepared to stop it. Feeling close to, yet so distant from, the man on whom her life currently depended on was unsettling.
Which was no reason to be a bitch when all he’d done was answer her question.
He lifted his head and turned to her again, his face as expressionless as desert sand. “Not knowing who Melville is would only imply a deficit of education. It wouldn’t say anything about your innate intelligence.” Then, though there was no discernible change in his expression, his eyes softened. “I didn’t know you went to college. What did you study?”
“Nothing.” His expression hardened and he was turning his attention back to his book when she started talking again. “I didn’t mean that to be snippy. Working full time meant I didn’t have much time for school, and so I took what I wanted when it was available. It didn’t amount to much of anything in particular.”
She didn’t tell him that the thought of finally graduating from college and facing job applications was terrifying. What if she’d spent all that time and money getting a degree and then still couldn’t get a job other than dealing in casinos? So long as she never graduated, she never had to face losing the security of a job that offered health insurance and paid enough for her to keep an apartment and a car. She never had to leave the comfort of walking through the same doors for sixteen years and the security of knowing exactly who she was and what she was doing, even if she didn’t like it.
It hadn’t escaped Vivian that her father had been responsible for both destroying her chance at college after high school and destroying the life she’d built for herself once she’d realized “college student” wasn’t something she could make work and still hope to eat. She could’ve handled the pregnancy on her own if she’d still had that job security.
“When did you learn to knit?” He was focused completely on her, the book on his lap closed, without even his finger to mark where he’d stopped.
Vivian admired Karl’s ability to focus, although she was afraid she might come to crave it. When his hazel eyes fixed on her, her heart raced and her entire body warmed by ten degrees. Between pregnancy and being in the same room with Karl, she didn’t need a winter coat.
“About ten years ago—when it seemed like everyone was learning how to knit. I’ve always liked activities that used my hands.” Mostly she’d made dishcloths, which she’d had to donate to the thrift store before driving to Chicago because she couldn’t justify taking them with her.
“Like card dealing?”
“The casino had automatic shufflers and the fancy shuffling techniques my father taught me would have been forbidden anyhow.” Some of which made counting cards really easy and had been designed to facilitate cheating. But she’d always preferred the ones that looked fancy without being deceitful.
“Can you show me?”
“Card shuffling tricks or knitting?”
He appeared to take her question seriously, even though she’d meant it as a bit of a joke. “Card shuffling tricks.”
“Really?” Karl had tried to hide his opinion of her previous career, but he hadn’t been as successful as he probably thought.
“We’re trying to be friends, right?”
Friendship had been a great idea in the doctor’s office when she’d been lying back on the examination table feeling about as sexy as an ottoman. Now, sitting on the couch with him scooching closer to her, those intense eyes burning into her, friendship seemed a sure path to sex, and sex was a bad idea. They’d had sex as strangers and look where it had gotten them.
What’s stopping you? The horse is already out; no use shutting the barn door now. Think of how his hazel eyes will burn when he explodes into you.
That was just the pregnancy talking. The books had warned her that pregnancy made some women horny. It had to be the pregnancy. It couldn’t be seeing the fine hairs on his strong, bare forearms and being reminded of why she’d broken her own rules and slept with a resort guest to begin with.
“Um, sure.” She stood up quickly—to find a deck of cards, not to escape Karl and her own lustful thoughts.
When she returned, she had a new deck of cards and a plan. She sat in the chair Karl normally used and faced him across the coffee table. He gave her a knowing smile, as though what was bothering her was bothering him, too, but he didn’t argue or ask her to sit next to him.
Friendship was a good idea. This wanting she was feeling would only lead to bad things. He had bought her two winter coats, was paying for her health insurance and providing her with a place to live because they were married, but they weren’t married because they were in love. The child growing inside her wasn’t an expression of their love. She’d been feeling vulnerable and he’d been talking about how important family was to him and she’d succumbed to a dream that didn’t exist. They’d had hot, dirty, wonderful, random stranger sex, and now they couldn’t stay strangers.
Sex would change the bargain. Sex would put them uncomfortably close to an exchange of pleasure for material goods, and that wasn’t a bargain she was willing to make. In that moment she made a promise to herself. They would be partners when she was finally able to put her lips against one of his chiseled cheeks and lick her way to his collarbone and down his chest until she made his heartbeat pound and echo through her body. She would have a job and contribute something other than dinner to his day. She wouldn’t be helpless anymore.
“What do you want to see?”
He shrugged. “Impress me.”
She held the deck of cards in her left hand and gripped two corners with her right. Both thumb and ring finger two-thirds on the corner, one-third off, just as her dad had taught her. Then she lifted the deck of cards with her right hand nearly two feet from her left, angled her thumb and let the cards fall.
* * *
THE CARDS BARELY made a whisper as they cascaded into her left hand. When Karl had been in high school, there was a kid in his class who’d liked to show off his card tricks. The kid had bragged about his mastery of the cards, but when he’d done that trick, the cards had sounded like someone was rustling through a trash can and he’d had to brace his arm against his body in such a way that the cards shot into his gut, rather than flowing through the air.
“Wanna see it again?” she asked.
“Yes.” At the bar that fateful night, he’d watched her long fingers wrap around her drink and wondered if he could let go of himself long enough to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman. She had smiled, a little shy and a little sad, and suddenly making her laugh had become more important than his own problems.
He paid attention to those hands again, now, watching exactly where she placed her fingers and how she bent the cards before releasing them. He wasn’t any less impressed seeing her card trick the second time.
You were so focused on what her lips would feel like on your body that you didn’t stop to think what effect those dexterous fingers could have. Her eyes were twinkling and the way her pink lips curved into a half smile when he looked from her fingers up to her face confirmed that he’d been right to focus on the power of those lips. The nimble fingers were an added bonus.
“You weren’t expecting to be impressed,” she said.
“No. I’ve never seen cards shuffled that way so well.” He realized that compliment sounded hollow when Vivian’s eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t do it and I’m not foolish enough not to credit expertise when I see it, even if I don’t fully understand it.”
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Jennifer Lohmann
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: He always does the right thingThere′s one exception to Karl Milek′s rule—the Vegas weekend that leaves him with a night to remember, and a beautiful new wife he’d rather forget. Those divorce papers are put on hold, however, when Vivian shows up on his doorstep pregnant.Karl offers her shelter and everything else she needs until their baby is born. Yet soon he realizes that he could definitely get used to seeing Vivian in the mornings, sharing dinner with her at night…and inhaling her jasmine scent. But he doesn′t think he can risk giving his wife the one thing she wants most—his love.