For Their Baby

She’d considered booking a room somewhere glitzy—a fancy hotel that would show David Gerard she wasn’t someone who could be pushed around. But that idea had evaporated after a nanosecond. She didn’t have much left in her savings, and she had no idea whether David was the type who might tell her to go to hell, and take the baby with her. She had to hang on to every penny.

Still, she had to do something to take her mind off the fact that he and his lawyer would be here in about five minutes. She was determined not to spend the time second-guessing what they might say.

She needed, more than anything else, to stay calm.

But…how could she have been such an idiot? How could she have let herself end up in such a wretched mess? Everyone knew sex with strangers was dumb. Everyone knew condoms weren’t foolproof.

Everyone except Kitty Hemmings and David Gerard, apparently. She’d seen the shock in his eyes when she announced that she was pregnant. And then she’d seen the cynicism, the disdain, the quick up-and-down glance that said he thought she was lying.

If only she were.

The last thing in the world she wanted was to have a baby right now. With her life so up in the air, no roots under her feet. With a man she barely knew. A man who thought she was, at best, a little island tramp and, at worst, a sociopathic gold digger.

But she was going to have a baby, and it was his, and he’d have to come to terms with the idea, just as she’d had to.

The restaurant door opened, letting in a long rectangle of light briefly, then shutting it out again as it closed. David was here.

Her heart lurched a little, partly fear, partly just the same reaction any female would have to someone that good-looking. And of course he’d brought the tallest, best-dressed lawyer in San Francisco, doubling the intimidation factor.

She held up a hand to help them find her, although she knew her green hair was as good as a neon sign. David glanced at the other man, who slowly nodded, his gaze piercing even from ten yards away.

She felt a blush creep over her cheeks.

Temper, temper. Getting mad at David wasn’t just counterproductive—it was unfair. He hadn’t forced her to have sex that night. Far from it. She was honest enough to admit it had been entirely her idea.

And he certainly hadn’t poked holes into the condom. He was just as shocked and confused as she’d been when she found out a couple of weeks ago. By bringing a lawyer, he clearly just intended to protect himself. What was wrong with that?

In the end, wasn’t that what she was doing, too? The only difference was, she was also protecting her child.

“Kitty.” He had reached the table, and managed to summon up a smile. That was nice, anyhow.

“David.” She didn’t rise or hold out her hand because it felt wrong. Everything about this meeting felt wrong.

“Kitty, this is my attorney and friend, Colby Malone. He’s advising me today.”

Malone didn’t seem to have any scruples about the standard courtesies. He probably dealt with awkward situations every day. He held out his hand with such authority it didn’t occur to her not to take it. “Hello, Ms. Hemmings. I hope you don’t mind if I sit in on the meeting.”

She shook her head. “No, of course not. Whatever.”

Both men sat, and Kitty shifted her glass over, just for something to do with her hands. What a pair. Their pictures were probably in the dictionary, illustrating the phrase “looks like a million bucks.”

Malone smiled at her, his eyes cool but kind. “Ms. Hemmings, David is—”

“No.” David lifted his palm. “Colby, thanks, but…let me.”

Malone hesitated briefly, then leaned back in his chair, putting his elbows on the padded arms to signal his easy agreement. “Of course. Sorry.”

David cleared his throat, then began.

“Kitty, I—”

The waitress, of course, took that moment to come by. The men ignored the woman’s flirtatious blinks and calmly ordered coffee. Kitty decided to get an order of unbuttered toast. For the past few weeks, her stomach had been unsteady, not just in the mornings and not just when she was arranging the future of her unborn child. She’d always heard what a tough time her mother had with pregnancy, and apparently she’d inherited the problem.

In fact, it was when she puked on Sugarwater’s best beach bar customer that she’d lost her job.

“Kitty.” David turned to her one more time. “I want you to know, right from the beginning, that if this baby is mine I don’t intend to shirk responsibility.”

She pressed her hands together in her lap. “If?”

David was careful not to glance at Malone, though Kitty could see that the other lawyer was listening very carefully to this part. He looked as serene as ever, but Kitty could sense the spiked awareness. He was ready to intervene should David utter a syllable that wasn’t in the script.

“I have to assume you’ve come to me because you’re looking for some kind of financial commitment. And if the baby is mine, you’ll get one. I don’t walk away from my mistakes. But first I’m going to need indisputable proof that this is my mistake.”

Malone’s eyes flickered. He might as well have groaned out loud. He obviously knew, even if David didn’t, how damned rude that sounded.

She felt her throat tightening. “No, David. First you need to wrap your mind around the idea that this is a child, not a mistake. And then, you need to take your legalese baloney and—”

“Ms. Hemmings.” Malone smiled again. “I think what David is trying to say—”

“I know what he’s trying to say. He’s trying to say I’m such a tramp the baby could be anyone’s. But I’m not, and it isn’t.” She looked at David. “Unless…you don’t have me mixed up with Jill, do you? I was the first one.”

Neither man looked surprised. That hurt, because it killed her last real hope that Jill had been lying when she said she’d gone to see David after Kitty left. It destroyed the illusion that David hadn’t really slept with Jill, too, as if he’d booked a room at an amusement park of sex.

But he wasn’t even trying to deny that there had been a second whirl on the roller coaster that night. Her heart hardened a little, processing its disappointment.

The unruffled demeanor of both men also answered another question: whether David had shared all the dirty details with Malone. She wondered when David had told him. Just today, to prepare for the meeting with her? Or eight weeks ago, when David had arrived home from the Bahamas with a good tan and a great locker-room story?

“I’m perfectly clear about the two of you,” David answered coldly. “But I have no idea what you might have done before that night, or in the eight weeks since.”

She scowled, then leaned forward, her mouth open, her cheeks as hot as if he’d held a match to them. “I don’t—”

“Kitty, listen,” David said, forestalling her. “I can understand why you might think I’m a fool, because I certainly acted like one in the Bahamas. But I’m not. Before I accept…” He stopped, and for the first time he looked uncertain. “I need to establish beyond a doubt that the child is mine.”

Suddenly she was precariously close to tears. Damn these hormones. She blinked hard and narrowed her eyes.

“Well, we’d better find a way to establish that in a hurry. I lost my job because of this pregnancy, although of course they cooked up some other excuse. And I don’t have insurance. This pregnancy isn’t going to be easy. I’m Rh negative, but you’re probably not, which is a problem. My mother had two miscarriages, and my family has seen three sets of twins in the past three generations. I’m not a high-risk pregnancy, but it’s not exactly a cakewalk, either. So if you think I’m going to see some quack at some third-rate charity clinic, where God only knows—”

“Hey.” He put his hand over hers. It was the first physical contact since that night, and even through her anger she sensed the warm sizzle of skin against skin. She moved her hand up onto the table. She didn’t want his pity pats.

“Kitty, please,” he said. “Relax. It’s absurd for us to—”

She lifted her chin. “Too late,” she said. “This whole thing is absurd, and believe me, I know it. But, still, here it is.”

David shook his head, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with such an emotional female. Well, let him try being pregnant. Let him try being jobless and homeless, and counting pennies, and waking up in the night doubting yourself, wondering if your own child would be better off adopted…

“There’s a test we can have done right away,” he said.

She frowned. “It’s too early for an amniocentesis.”

“I know, but—”

Everyone fell silent as the waitress set down coffee and toast. Great. The kitchen had buttered the toast, though Kitty had made a point of asking for it dry. Little greasy yellow puddles glistened on the brown surface. Nausea twisted Kitty’s stomach. She swallowed hard and pushed the toast to the side, out of sight behind the silver coffee carafe.

When they were alone again, Malone took over, as if handling Kitty were a relay race, and the baton had been passed to give David a rest.

“The test David’s referring to is called CVS, which stands for Chorionic Villus Sampling. It’s quick—a week, maybe ten days at most for the results. If it’s done properly, through an obstetrician we mutually agree upon, David will accept the results as definitive.”

She looked from one man to the other, wondering if she could trust any of this. Was she being set up for some kind of fall?

She hadn’t researched Colby Malone, of course, since she hadn’t known whom David would consult. But she had used Google to research the heck out of David, and she hadn’t found anything squalid or dishonest. In fact, at worst, he appeared to have an over-active social conscience. All kinds of charity functions and do-gooder lawsuits, lots of sober interviews in boring, peer-reviewed journals.

So apparently the indiscriminate sex had been an aberration. What happens in the Bahamas, and all that.

She had pretty strong feelings about the importance of a father in a child’s life, but still. If David had turned out to be a true sleazeball, she would never have breathed a word to him about the baby. She’d work five jobs if she had to, rather than saddle her child with an untrustworthy, deadbeat dad.

But David clearly was, with the occasional lapse, a good guy. He had a right to know he was about to be a father, and he had an obligation to assume his half of the responsibility.

The two men waited, apparently patiently, for her answer. Malone never seemed to look anything but pleasantly confident, but David’s face was tight and wary. Suspicious. She wondered if he hoped she’d refuse to submit to the test—which he could take as proof that her accusation had been a con from the start.

She breathed through her mouth, so that she didn’t smell the coffee, which suddenly seemed too bitter.

She’d heard of this CVS thing, read about it somewhere, maybe, but she hadn’t paid enough attention. Why should she have? She’d never imagined it could matter to her. “Are there risks?”

Malone started to shrug, but David nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “The risks are very small, but I want you to understand completely. Colby brought some materials.”

Malone retrieved a colorful brochure from his briefcase. She took it from his outstretched hand, wondering where he’d picked it up on such short notice. Did his practice specialize in paternity suits or something?

She leafed through the brochure blindly, the words indecipherable through the haze in her brain.

“You don’t have to read it now,” David said. “Take your time. Obviously you can consult any physician you like while you make your decision, though, as Colby said, the test must be performed by someone we agree on. Colby has a few names to suggest.”

“Of course,” she said, and accepted Colby’s doctor list, printed on creamy, classy letterhead that said Diamante, Inc. Whatever that was.

The brochure was glossy and obviously expensive, as well. That meant the test wasn’t cheap. “Who will pay for this CVS test? I know you said you wouldn’t be drawn in before—”

“Since it’s in my interests to settle the problem definitively, one way or another, I’m willing to pay for it.” David waved the issue away, as if payment were sublimely unimportant.

And she knew, from her Google searches, that, to him, it was. A few hundred, a few grand, he’d never miss it.

Suddenly her anger surged back, full force. Well, bully for the big guy, to whom her pregnancy was the “problem.” The “mistake.” When he realized the baby really was his, he’d probably have Colby sue the condom company, and her child support checks would all come marked Trojan, Inc.

Jerk.

She slid the brochures into a neat stack, like folding a bad poker hand. She stood, pushing her chair back with a scrape that echoed through the nearly empty restaurant.

“Make the appointment,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

CHAPTER THREE

DAVID SAT in the waiting room of the obstetrician’s office, surrounded by pregnant women, hyperkinetic toddlers and hovering husbands. He hadn’t ever been so uncomfortable in his life.

It might as well have been tattooed across his forehead: I don’t belong here.

He flipped through the newspapers he’d found on the magazine table and tried to remember who was running in the upcoming special elections. But real life, or what he used to call real life a week ago, seemed remote. Kitty’s announcement had blasted him into an alternate dimension. He still met clients, took depositions, researched case law, but it all had the muted, out-of-focus quality of something seen through dirty glass.

And yet, this “baby” and “fatherhood” world didn’t seem real, either. That left him…nowhere. Suspended in some murky, slow-motion half-life.

He wondered if things would snap back into clarity when the results of the paternity test came through.

Or would life just get weirder still?

He glanced at the closed door through which the nurse had escorted Kitty at least forty-five minutes ago. Their cheek swabs had been done earlier, when they first got to the office. Now the CVS test was supposed to take no more than half an hour. Had something gone wrong?

He stood. He paced to the check-in window to see if he could glimpse anything going on down the halls. He couldn’t.

When he turned back, he saw that a little kid with a runny nose had stolen his chair. In the far corner, a woman who had to be about eleven months pregnant inexplicably burst into tears, and her husband knelt in front of her, apologizing and chafing her hands.

God. This was the waiting room of one of the most respected and most expensive obstetricians in San Francisco. David could only imagine what it must be like at a free clinic. No wonder Kitty had been so adamant that she wouldn’t go to a cut-rate place.

He checked his watch. Fifty minutes.

And then, suddenly, Kitty came through the door. For a second, her small, oval face was pale and oddly woebegone under the chaos of green curls—and then she spotted him. Instantly she rearranged her features into the feisty, chin-up expression he knew best.

But all the pride in the world couldn’t put the color back into her cheeks.

“Everything go okay?” He had already paid, days ago, so they had nothing to do but leave. He fought the urge to put his arm around her shoulders. She might be pale, but he knew she’d rather collapse on the carpet than admit any weakness.

“It was fine.”

They walked a few feet, and she stumbled over a board book some brat had left by the door. She reached out and used the wall to steady herself.

“How about if you wait here,” he said, “and I’ll bring my car around?”

“No, thanks.” The door to the obstetrician’s suite opened just a little way from the elevator, and she punched the down button quickly. “I’m all right. They said to take it easy, but no one said I needed a wheel-chair and a keeper.”

He wanted to ask her again how the test had gone, but the stiffness in her shoulders told him she wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. At least not with him. Once again that surreal detachment swamped him. How was it possible that he might be having a baby with this woman who wouldn’t even talk to him?

She spent the ride down adjusting the folds of her cloth purse to avoid making eye contact, as if he were some disreputable stranger who had crowded her and might ask for a handout.

He tightened his jaw and backed away to lean against the farthest wall of the glass elevator. Fine. If she didn’t want to talk, he knew how to be silent. He put his hands in his pockets and pretended to watch the luxuriant fern and ivy of the atrium slide by.

When they reached the ground floor, though, and the doors slid soundlessly open to release them, he saw her hesitate, her fingers tightening on the shoulder strap of her purse. And then it hit him. How had she gotten here this morning? And how was she going to get back? Her hotel was halfway across San Francisco, and he had no idea whether she could afford a cab.

Damn it. He should have picked her up. Or at least sent a cab to get her. He’d promised he’d handle the cost of this test—all the costs. But he hadn’t even thought about transportation. Obviously, he’d been spending way too much time in ivory-tower lawyerland. And she probably despised him for that, probably assumed he had been born to the cushy life and had always been smugly oblivious of details like this.

Ha. If she only knew.

“I hope you’ll let me give you a lift back to the hotel.” He smiled, working at sounding politely professional. Nothing judgmental, patronizing or overly familiar.

He seemed, thank God, to have hit the correct tone. She didn’t smile, exactly, but her face wasn’t as gray and hard as it had been upstairs. A little color had come back into her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she said. “But I’m fine.”

“I’d like to.” He thought fast. “And it wouldn’t be out of my way. I have to meet a client over in that part of town, and—”

“No, really. Thanks, but I’m fine.” She pushed a curl out of her forehead with a tense hand.

Had a hint of chill returned to her voice? Had she taken “that part of town” as an insult? He hadn’t meant it as one. Her hotel had obviously been chosen to get maximum clean-and-respectable points for minimum price, which seemed like common sense to him.

He wasn’t a silver-spoon snob; but of course she didn’t know that. All she knew of him was the luxury cottage at the Bahamas, the overdecorated office in Union Square and maybe a glimpse of the Victorian house he’d just bought in the Marina district, which looked okay from the outside but was crumbling to bits on the inside, like a facade for a film set. That moldering interior was partly why his housekeeper stone-walled anyone who came knocking at the door.

Someday, he’d have to tell Kitty about the two-job, Ramen noodle years of law school. And the loans that had crippled him financially for a decade. And how, now that he’d been fool enough to buy that fading lady of a house, he would have to restore it, plank by plank, with his own time and sweat.

Someday. Yeah. If the test came back with his name on it, and they actually had a someday.

Right now, though, he had to get her into the car and back to her hotel so that she could rest. She had dark circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago.

“Kitty, I—”

She shook her head firmly. “I’m not going straight back to the hotel, anyhow. I have an errand to run first. I’m fine with the bus.”

The bus? A half-hour standing in the cold, waiting for it to rumble by, followed by two hours of bumping and jostling, hanging onto a ceiling strap and nosing the next guy’s armpit?

“Can’t the errand wait? You really should take it easy and—” But she was already shaking her head again, so he tried another tack. “Tell you what. I’ll take you to do the errand, whatever it is, then drop you back at the hotel. I guarantee we’ll get it all done before the right bus even shows up.”

He almost had her. Though she probably didn’t know it, a tiny worry line had formed between her eyebrows. He could practically see her willpower fading as she glanced uncertainly toward the front doors. He knew very little about her, but he knew, from the quick bar-side chitchat, customer to bartender, that she was from Virginia.

He would have known, even if she hadn’t told him. Her accent, with its soft I’s and almost inaudible G’s, spoke of a childhood spent playing under the magnolia trees of the Deep South, not on the foggy hillsides of northern California.

Besides, even natives occasionally found the public transit system daunting.

“Kitty.” He put his hand on her shoulder—and almost pulled it away again, shocked to find that his palm instantly recognized the exact shape of the curve, the exact feel of the warm, satiny, sun-bronzed skin. “Let me help. You look done in, and that can’t be good for you—or the baby.”

He wondered whether she’d say something snarky, something about how charming it was that he suddenly gave a damn about the baby, but she didn’t. Maybe she was too tired.

She nodded slowly. “All right,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

She stood somberly by his side, without chitchat, as he gave his ticket to the medical complex valet. When the car came, she settled herself gingerly, and leaned her forehead against the window for a few seconds, with her eyes closed.

As he pulled out onto the street, she finally spoke.

“The errand is…well, I have to go buy and pick up the uniform for my new job. It’s near my hotel, though, so it’s not far out of the way.”

She had taken a job? Here, in San Francisco? Thank God he was accustomed to controlling his face in court, so he didn’t let his shock show. But…surely she wasn’t planning to stay here long enough to need a job!

And that’s when he realized that, despite everything, he had continued to believe that this whole mess might go away soon.

That she might go away soon.

He tried to relax his hands on the wheel. “Where’s the job?”

“At the Bull’s Eye,” she said. Her chin tilted up maybe an eighth of an inch. “Weekend bartender.”

The silence that followed the statement was loaded, like a gun. A hundred incredulous phrases leapt to the tip of his tongue, and though he somehow bit them back, she obviously guessed at every one. She didn’t look at him, but the muscles in her body seemed coiled, ready to strike if he dared to criticize.

But a bartender? Damn it, a bartender? On her feet, in the middle of the night, in that neighborhood? As fragile as she looked? She’d lost ten pounds since the Bahamas—ten pounds she didn’t have to spare. Did she really think the Bull’s Eye was any place for a pregnant woman? Hadn’t she had enough of groping drunks to last her a lifetime?

Something hot and tight moved through his chest, and he found his fingers clenching the wheel in spite of his best efforts.

He knew how any of those questions would sound. Controlling. Patronizing. Snobbish. The mother of my child, a bartender?

He could hear her comeback now. Guess you should have thought of that, jackass, before you slept with a bartender.

He turned right onto Market, his tires complaining as he took the corner a little sharply. He eased back on the gas and forced himself to take a breath. Regroup, he ordered himself. This wasn’t about snobbery, but he’d be damned if he knew what it was about.

He had no say over where she worked. And whose fault was that? His own. He was the one who had dictated the rules here. He had rejected any official investment in Kitty, her life or her unborn child, until and unless the tests proved the baby was his.

So what was this sudden overprotective reaction all about? Why did he care what she did to earn a few bucks while she waited for the test results?

Because—