Practice Makes Pregnant

Allison nodded, and he slipped an arm around her waist to tug her body gently against his. He folded his fingers around her right hand and swept her into the rhythm.

She felt the same jolt of startled recognition that she’d felt in the ballroom earlier, when she’d looked up and found him watching her. The black silk of her bodice brushed against his pleated white shirt, her left hand lay against the black tux jacket covering his broad shoulder and only inches from the thick dark hair that gleamed in the light from the ballroom behind them. Each time she drew breath, she pulled in the subtle scent of his aftershave. Spicy and masculine, it mingled with an underlying hint of clean soap, starched shirt and a uniquely male scent in a potent, heady mix that went straight to her blood, making it race more swiftly through her veins.

“Tell me, Allison Baker, what do you do when you’re not dazzling men at fund-raisers for large mammals?”

She tilted her head back, her lips curving in response to his teasing smile. Should she tell him about her job at Manhattan Multiples? No, she decided, not tonight. Tonight, I’m not my everyday self. So she compromised. “I’m a student.”

“Really? And what are you studying?”

“Law.”

“Yet another thing we have in common.” The music changed, switching to a slower tune. They swayed in time to the music, and he lifted her right hand to his shoulder so he could clasp her waist and draw her nearer.

“You’re studying law, also?”

“No. I did study law, now I practice law.”

She beamed at him, delighted. “You’re an attorney? How lovely. What field do you specialize in?”

“Criminal law.”

“Then you must be very busy,” she said dryly. “The crime rate in America is a disgrace.”

“Hey,” he laughed. “Not my fault. And I’m doing my part to improve the situation.”

A waiter moved past them, circulating a tray of canapes, and Jorge skillfully avoided a collision by tucking Allison closer. Their bodies pressed together from shoulder to thigh and she caught her breath, blindsided by the surge of desire that had her slipping her arms around his neck to hold him closer. His arms tightened, crushing her against him.

Allison was only vaguely aware that the sounds of music and laughter faded; she was too caught up in the feel of his hard body against her softer curves and in the driving need to have more. She tilted her head back to look up at him, her hair brushing against his throat and face, and found his eyes glittering down at her between lowered lashes.

Then his mouth covered hers, and the sexual tension that had vibrated between them from the first, exploded. She was dizzy with it, her heart pounding frantically, heat exploding in her veins.

The kiss quickly skipped all the tentative preliminaries of a first embrace and went straight to carnal. One big hand cradled the back of her head and his tongue thrust against hers as he ravaged her mouth. Delight raced through her veins and she met him eagerly, gasping with shock that quickly submerged beneath sheer pleasure as his hand covered the black silk over her breast and found the stiff peak of her nipple. He pushed her against the wall and shifted, pressing one hard thigh between her legs.

She murmured frantically, twisting against him in an unsuccessful attempt to find release. For one heartstopping moment he surged against her, but then he stiffened, the muscles in his arms flexing with iron strength before he pulled his mouth from hers, breathing hard.

“Allison, we can’t do this here. Come upstairs with me.”

She stared at him, unable to think, the transition from total absorption in the physical to clear thought impossible.

“I have a room upstairs. Ross booked it for himself and his wife—when he asked me to stand in for him tonight, he gave me the key in case I wanted to stay over. Come upstairs with me, sweetheart. Please.” His voice was nearly unrecognizable, roughened with the passion that vibrated between them.

“I don’t do this sort of thing,” she finally managed to say, not sure why it was so important for him to know.

The heat in his eyes flared, the pupils black with desire. “Neither do I.”

Allison could barely think with his hard body pressed against hers and her own body screaming to continue. She’d never felt passion before, had never thought she would, not after being forced by a date when she was barely seventeen. Could she turn her back on what might be her one chance to make love?

Just for tonight, she thought. Just this once.

“Yes.”

Fierce satisfaction blazed in his eyes. Without another word he stepped back, wrapping an arm around her when her legs wobbled.

She hesitated, holding a hand to her hair. “Do we have to go through the ballroom?” she murmured, glancing about them and realizing for the first time that they stood in the shelter of a heavy stone column, out of sight of the other guests.

“No.” He flicked an assessing glance over her and tugged her bodice higher over the swell of her breasts, his fingers reluctantly leaving the soft skin. “There’s a back way.”

He took her through a nearly hidden door at the far end of the terrace that led to a service hallway behind the huge ballroom. Tucked against his side, Allison was soon confused by the maze of corridors they walked through to reach the elevator.

“How do you know so much about this hotel?” she asked as the elevator rose.

“They were robbed two years ago. I prosecuted the case and spent a lot of time walking the halls and studying the layout to understand the system the defendants used.”

She nodded, barely listening to his words, her gaze focused on the movement of his lips as he spoke. She badly wanted his mouth on hers.

“Stop it.” The growled words were thick. When her gaze met his, his eyes were hot. “I’m not going to touch you in here. If I do, we won’t make it to the room.”

Her mouth formed a startled, rounded O. His arm tightened around her shoulder, tension thickening the air, the hard body she was tucked against strung taut with control.

The elevator doors opened silently, and Jorge moved her out and down the hallway with swift purpose. One quick swipe of the card key opened the door, and within seconds they were inside. He backed her against the door and took her mouth, his hands making short work of the zipper at the back of her gown. Allison helped him, wiggling impatiently as he pushed the dress off her shoulders, his mouth leaving hers to find the peak of her breast as the dress pooled around her feet.

She screamed when he tugged her nipple into the hot, wet cave of his mouth and sucked, her hips pressing urgently against his.

He swore and picked her up, crossing to the bed. Within seconds he’d stripped both of them, donned protection and covered her. She welcomed the heavy, hot press of his weight, nearly mindless as he drove her higher with his hands and mouth.

He lifted above her, going motionless, his dark hair tousled, the lines of his face fiercely possessive. “Are you safe?”

Allison could barely understand his words, his voice thick and roughened. What had he said? Was she safe? The answer was yes; she felt safe with a male for the first time in her life. She nodded, unable to speak, and then she forgot all about safety for he surged inside her and sent them both over the edge.

Allison frowned and flipped the page on her desk calendar again.

This can’t be right.

But there was no getting around the fact that the last time she’d scribbled red asterisks on her calendar to mark the beginning and end of her monthly period was over six weeks ago.

Did I forget?

No, she knew she hadn’t forgotten. She never forgot to jot down the dates of her period. She’d been jotting those little red marks on her calendars since the summer she turned thirteen.

She quickly scanned the notations on the days between the last little red mark and today’s date. Halfway in between, she was stopped short by a date, circled in red but without an accompanying note; it was the Saturday night she’d gone to the party with Zoe and Jack—and left with Jorge Perez.

Heat moved through her veins and flushed her face and she squeezed her eyes closed at the flood of memories. They’d spent hours together after leaving the party. I shouldn’t have slept with him. But sleeping had nothing to do with what the two of them had done in his bed.

Allison dropped her face into her hands and groaned.

I’m such an idiot. What was I thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking, she admitted to herself. That was the problem. She hadn’t been able to think rationally from the moment she’d looked across the ballroom and found him watching her. And when he took her in his arms, their powerful sexual attraction drove everything but him from her mind.

It wasn’t until she’d wakened in the gray pre-dawn that she asked herself what came next—and then she’d panicked, slipped from his bed and fled the hotel room. She hadn’t seen him since; but then, she hadn’t expected to. He didn’t know where she lived or worked and in a city as large as New York, it was unlikely that he would find her, even if he bothered to search, which she doubted he would.

She flipped the calendar page to the current month, absentmindedly jotting “six weeks” on the square for today’s date.

I hope I don’t start my period this weekend, she thought idly. She had too much homework to finish and she couldn’t afford to spend a day in bed with cramps.

She stared at the red letters she’d just written on the white square. Six weeks? Of course, she thought, frowning. It had been six weeks. Something about the time frame niggled at the edge of her consciousness. But I’m never late.

Her hand froze, the tip of the fountain pen bleeding a small spreading blob of red ink on to the pristine white paper of the calendar. Allison stared at the red blot without seeing it, horror widening her eyes and shortening her breath.

Six weeks—my period is two weeks overdue. Could I be pregnant?

A swift image of Jorge Perez’s compelling face and the muscled strength of his body pressing hers into rumpled sheets had her groaning with dawning apprehension and shock.

Pregnancy was more than a possibility, she realized. She wasn’t on the pill, nor had she used a diaphragm or any other form of contraception. That night with Jorge was the first time in her life she’d been carried away by passion, and she’d been completely unprepared.

She knew that condoms had a risk factor. She couldn’t even blame Jorge if she’d conceived that night, because he’d used protection. She was the one who’d been irresponsible and failed to add backup birth control.

She dropped the pen on the calendar and sat back, pushing trembling fingers through the thick fall of her hair.

What am I going to do if I’m pregnant?

Her hand pressed against her belly in an instinctive, protective gesture.

Her one night of incredible passion with Jorge might have consequences that would alter her life forever. Not to mention her body.

She tilted her chin down and stared assessingly at her torso. She couldn’t discern any changes—her abdomen was as flat as usual.

But if she were pregnant, the shape of her body wouldn’t stay the same for long. She’d seen lots of pregnant women come and go through the doors of Manhattan Multiples, a care center for mothers expecting more than a single baby, and she had no illusions about what would happen to her now-slender body if she were carrying Jorge’s baby.

Jorge. She blanched. Did she have to tell him?

Of course I have to tell him. How can I not?

On the other hand, how could she? Would he be happy? Angry? Would he want visitation rights, or God forbid, custody?

Allison pressed a hand to her chest, felt the heavy thud of her racing heart, and took several deep breaths in an effort to calm herself.

She had to be practical, she thought, forcing herself to think logically, when she really wanted to run screaming from the building. Before she considered all the many questions, she had to find out if she was really pregnant. On her lunch hour she would go to the pharmacy and buy a pregnancy kit.

She glanced at her watch. Two hours until lunch.

Resolutely she shifted her calendar to the corner of her desk and pulled a file toward her, flipping it open. She forced herself to focus, bringing up the appropriate data file on her computer and moving doggedly through the necessary action.

She canceled a lunch date with a co-worker and went to the pharmacy instead, returning with the kit concealed in a plain brown bag tucked into her purse. The afternoon hours dragged by, the hour hand on her watch moving slowly toward 5:00 p.m.

The hum of activity in the office grew louder with end-of-the-day preparations, drawers opening and slamming shut, files being dropped into the return-to-shelf basket.

“Don’t work too late, Allison.”

Allison lifted her head to find her boss, Eloise Vale, standing in her office doorway, her purse slung over one shoulder and a leather briefcase in her hand.

“I won’t.”

“Good. You spend too many late nights in the office,” Eloise chided, her smile affectionate.

“Not tonight. I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Eloise glanced at her watch. “Oh, drat. I’m going to be late. Bye.”

Allison called a good-night as Eloise whisked off down the hall. She forced herself to wait until all sounds had ceased, until the last slam of desk drawers being closed and cheery good-nights were followed by the closing of the outer door. Then she made herself wait another ten minutes in case one of her office mates had forgotten something and might return to their desks.

At last, reassured by the absence of human activity in the silent outer office, she picked up her purse and left her office for the community bathroom.

The room was silent. Allison pushed open the doors to the three empty stalls to verify that she was alone before dropping her purse on to the marble-topped vanity. A crystal vase with a bouquet of spicy, white carnations, lush pink roses and delicate white baby’s breath brightened one corner of the gray marble countertop that held two sinks with porcelain fittings. Recessed lamps cast a soft light in front of the long mirror that took up the entire wall above the vanity.

Allison drew in a deep breath, flipped open her purse and closed her fingers over the brown-bag-enclosed test kit.

The door flew open with a bang. She jumped, startled, and spun to find the white-haired janitor, who looked every bit as surprised as Allison felt.

“Oh, my goodness!” The janitor’s hand flew to his heart and he audibly caught his breath. “I’m sorry, ma’am—I didn’t know anyone was here. I’ll come back later….”

“No.” Allison curved her lips upward in a stiff smile. “No, I’m finished.”

She edged her way past the elderly man and his cart of cleaning supplies and walked back down the hall to her office. Leaving the door open wide, she sat at her desk and turned on her computer, staring blindly at the glowing screen. The minutes seemed to crawl by. At last she heard the rattle of the cart as the janitor left the rest room and moved off down the hall. Allison forced herself to wait until the sound of wastebaskets clattering against the trash can ceased, until the music from the portable radio clipped to the wheeled cart faded, until the outer door to the offices clicked shut. Silence reigned once more.

Allison picked up her purse and crossed to the doorway, peering cautiously out into the hall. Nothing stirred. For the second time, she left her office and moved quickly down the hall to the rest room. She flipped on the lights, crossed to the vanity and pulled out the test kit.

Scant moments later she stared at the stick. There were two little windows, one a little circle, the other a little square. Both of them had a pink line. The test result was positive.

I’m pregnant.

She couldn’t stop staring at the pink lines in their small windows. In an unconsciously protective gesture, her hand lifted to rest on the flat plane of her abdomen.

Her gaze followed the movement of her hand, searching for any change in her body beneath her fingers.

Nothing. She looked just as she always did.

She wondered frantically if she could ignore the pregnancy.

Oh, right. That’s a great plan. The functioning, practical side of her brain scoffed at the ridiculous idea.

Her gaze lifted and she stared at her reflection, dazed, her stunned mind struggling to grasp the fact that in eight months she would give birth.

She had to have a plan. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, overwhelmed by the concept of the tiny life growing inside her. How would she cope with a baby? She didn’t know anything about being a mother. And how could she work at the office all day, go to school at night and still have time to care for a child? But how would she support them if she didn’t finish law school? The barrage of scattered, panicked questions hit her like a tidal wave until she felt light-headed.

She braced her palms on the vanity edge and bent forward to lower her head. Her hair swung forward to brush against her cheeks, and she closed her eyes until the dizziness passed.

At last she opened her eyes and cautiously lifted her head, eyeing her reflection in the mirror. The soft lighting was kind, but there was no denying that her cheeks were pale, her eyes dark and bruised looking. Feeling faintly nauseated, Allison ran trembling fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face.

I can’t make decisions now, she acknowledged. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was keeping this baby. Determination firmed her chin and once again, she smoothed her palm over her flat tummy. She’d give herself a few days to think about all the probabilities, then make choices and plans.

In the meantime, she thought, she’d have to conceal her worry from her darling, but very snoopy, boss. Eloise had sharp eyes and was genuinely interested in the well-being of all her employees at Manhattan Multiples. Allison knew that she would have to be very good at hiding her distraction. She only hoped that she would have a few weeks before her growing tummy became so obvious that Eloise guessed her secret.

The same day that Allison was struggling to come to terms with the shocking confirmation of her pregnancy, Jorge worked late at the office and returned to his apartment after 10:00 p.m.

He stopped in the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door to grab a bottle of water before heading down the dark hall to the second bedroom that he’d converted into an office. Dropping his briefcase and suit jacket on the leather recliner, he crossed to the desk, switched on the lamp, and pushed the on button for the laptop computer sitting atop the polished mahogany. While he waited for it to boot up, he opened the water bottle and drank as he picked up messages from the fax machine. Halfway through the small stack of paper, he halted, his attention captured by the distinctive letterhead of the Bretton Detective Agency. He dropped the rest of the papers back into the fax machine tray, a fierce surge of anticipation flooding him as he quickly read the body of the message.

The Bretton detective had found her. The black-and-white copy of the faxed photo attached to the letter was grainy, but there was no question that the woman glancing over her shoulder as she entered a shop was Allison Baker. And she not only lived across town, she worked in the city.

Jorge glanced at the clock and muttered a curse. It was too late to appear on her doorstep.

But he had her work address. He’d see her tomorrow.

“Manhattan Multiples.” He wondered briefly what the company did. The detective’s report listed the company name and Allison’s job title as personal assistant, but there was no indication as to what type of business Manhattan Multiples was engaged in.

He jotted a quick note to the detective agency confirming that the photo was indeed the Allison Baker he wanted to find and requested a final bill.

He knew the search was going to be expensive, but finding Allison was worth whatever it cost. He could have asked the police detective assigned to the district attorney’s office to run a search for her, but to do so would have required him to explain why he wanted her located. And he wasn’t willing to tell anyone that spending one night with the elusive redhead had left him craving her so badly that he was willing to turn the city upside down in order to see her again.

And when I see her, he thought grimly, she’s going to explain why she ran away and left me alone in that damn hotel room without saying goodbye or leaving me a note. How the hell did she think he was going to see her again?

Probably because she didn’t want to see me again.

The knowledge ate at him, corrosive as acid. Despite the likelihood that Allison hadn’t planned to ever contact him, Jorge couldn’t let it go. He’d felt something rare and powerful that night. Until she told him face-to-face that she hadn’t felt it, too, he wasn’t giving up.

Chapter Two

The morning after her positive pregnancy test, Allison was at her desk at the usual hour. Instead of downing her customary mug of coffee, however, she frowned at the steaming black brew and slowly returned the mug to her desk, untouched.

Was it safe for the baby if she drank coffee with caffeine?

She had no idea.

She’d buy some books at lunch and research prenatal care. She moved the mug of coffee to the far corner of her desk, gave it one last, longing glance and flipped open a personnel file.

“Good morning, Allison.”

Allison looked up. Eloise stood in the doorway, a steaming cup in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

“Good morning, Eloise.” She watched her boss glance up and down the hallway before moving quickly to the chair opposite her desk. The older woman’s air of suppressed excitement roused Allison’s curiosity. “What is it?”

“Someone on my staff is pregnant.”

Allison felt her eyes widen. She was incapable of speech. For a long, fraught moment, all she could do was stare at Eloise.

“Pregnant?” she finally managed. “What makes you think one of the staff is pregnant?”

Eloise leaned forward, her excitement palpable. “I found a used pregnancy kit in the staff bathroom this morning and the stick had a positive reading.”

“Oh.” Frantically, Allison tried to remember if she’d forgotten anything else in the ladies rest room besides the pregnancy kit. How could she have been so careless? Had she left anything else that would lead Eloise to her?

“I can’t imagine who it could be, can you?”

Fortunately for Allison, Eloise didn’t pause long enough for an answer.

“It can’t be Leah, because she’s already pregnant.” Her lips pursed as she paused, clearly considering the rest of her staff. “Where to start, that’s the question. We must have nearly twenty employees at the moment, don’t we?”

“Yes, if we count part-time as well as full-time staff.”

“Hmmm.” Eloise tapped the tip of one elegant, manicured nail against her chin. “I’m determined to find out who among us is pregnant.”

“I’m sure you’ll know soon. It’s not likely that a pregnancy can be concealed for long, is it?” Allison asked.

“That’s true. Still, it’s a mystery, and you know how I feel about mysteries.”

“Yes, I do.” Despite her worry, Allison couldn’t help smiling with affection at Eloise, who was animated with curiosity. I need a diversion, something to refocus Eloise’s attention. She glanced at the file on her desk. “Speaking of mysteries, are my eyes deceiving me, or did you hire twins as our new security guards?”

“I did.”

“How did you find them? And however are we going to tell them apart?”

Eloise laughed. She stood and leaned across the desk to look at the photos clipped to the two new personnel files that Allison was assembling. “I suppose we’ll have to make name tags so we can tell which one is Tony Martino and which is his brother, Frank. They’re great-looking guys, aren’t they?”