Daughter of the Spellcaster. Maggie Shayne
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much. I’ve missed the hell out of it.”
She averted her eyes all of a sudden. Had she felt what he had just then? That old familiar unnh, right between the belly button and points south? “Besides,” he went on, “you’re one of the smartest people I know. So please, keep on talking.”
She got a little pink-faced at the compliment, but then something else replaced embarrassment in her eyes. Sympathy. Like she could feel the unexpected heartbroken sensation in his chest. Like she knew how he was hurting right then. Like she could see it in his eyes, but even more, like she could feel it.
“All right, I will.” Her voice came out more softly than he’d heard it since she’d come back into his life this morning. Maybe softer than he’d ever heard it. “I just have one piece of advice for you today. Don’t let things outside yourself control the way you live your life. Not your father, not all he put on you—the businesses, the money—”
What a notion that was. Not to let the 3000-ton weight on his back knock him flat. If only that were possible.
“And not me,” she added, compelling his attention. “Not even this baby. You need to make up your mind what you honestly, truly want and then do it, no matter what it is. You want to keep being the spoiled, rich playboy? Then go ahead. Let the boards of directors run the companies, cash your checks and bag a different supermodel every night of the year. You want to be involved in your daughter’s life? Then figure out a way to do that. That’s all you can do. It’s all you’re supposed to do. Life should be lived, Ryan. Relished. Not spent enslaved to ‘I shoulds.’“
He looked at her face, her beautiful face, the one he’d missed way too much, and wondered how she ever got to be so smart.
“As for me, I’m gonna catch a cab to Port Authority and a bus back home, because I had no idea how much I’d miss Havenwood. This has all been… too much.”
He drank in the sight of her for a long moment. “I have a better idea.”
“Really? And that is?”
“I’ll drive you home. How ‘bout that?”
She gave him a quizzical look, like a puppy who’d just heard an odd noise.
“Maybe I’ll stay awhile,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.
She dodged his mouth with an elegant dip and a bob, and wound up standing a foot away. She looked scared. “I said you could be in our child’s life, Ryan. Not in mine.” Turning, she headed for the exit. “She’s due in February. You can come and visit then, if you want.”
4
Lena didn’t know what she was expecting when she made her exit. Maybe for him to come chasing after her, begging her not to go. Maybe at least an apology. But he did nothing, said nothing, just let her leave. So she sat amid the masses of humanity on the bus ride home, hiding behind a pair of very large, very dark sunglasses. She’d picked them up for three times their worth at Port Authority when she’d realized she was teetering on the brink of tears for the twelfth time since she’d jumped into the taxi.
Stupid to cry over him. So freaking stupid. Stupid to keep remembering that last night, the awful things he’d said. Stupid.
She leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes and thought about it anyway.
She’d decided she was going to tell him she was pregnant that night. It was time, she’d thought. She’d cooked dinner at his place, and she hadn’t thought of it as trying to show him how domestic she could be or anything, although she could see where someone else might have thought so. She roasted a small chicken with lots of veggies and dollops of sour cream. It was nice.
He wasn’t.
Oh, they were getting along great at first. And then, after they’d eaten, when they were all snuggled up on his sofa and surfing through the pay-per-view channels, she sort of took the cowardly way in. She told him a friend of hers was pregnant, and that she was wondering what the guy she’d been dating was going to say about it, and what did he think about that?
And it went zoom, right over his head. “If the guy has any brains, he’ll run screaming in the other direction,” he said, and he was dead serious.
Lena felt like he’d slapped her. “Why’s that?” she managed to ask through her rapidly closing windpipe.
He was manning the remote, pausing to read the info on anything that looked interesting to him, not looking at her. “Isn’t it obvious? She’s trying to get him to marry her.”
“That’s not true! She doesn’t want to marry the guy. She just thinks he has a right to know he’s going to be a father.”
“Right. She doesn’t want to marry him.” There was more sarcasm in his tone than there had been sour cream on their roasted veggies. “Tell me this, does he have money?”
“Well, yes. Quite a lot of it, actually. But that doesn’t mean—”
“Yeah, it does.” He set the remote down and looked at her. “No one gets pregnant by accident in this day and age, Lena. And believe me, before I met you, every woman I dated was after one thing and one thing only—my father’s fortune. They’d have done anything. Some of them even tried, but I was too smart. I was careful. I protected myself.”
“Did you, now?” She focused on her hands in her lap, thinking she needed a manicure, unable to meet his eyes. Mainly because there were hot, angry tears surfacing in her own.
“I did.” He shook his head. “I pity the guy, but it was his own stupidity. Guys with money need to be more careful than anyone about shit like this. He should have known better. Now he’s doomed.”
“Doomed?” That brought her head up, and the anger burning a path up the middle of her chest rose with it. “Marrying her would be his doom?”
“Marrying a woman who tricked him into it, yeah. Doom.” He smiled at her, still completely oblivious. “You know, this is something I wanted to talk to you about right at the beginning, and I kept getting distracted. Totally your fault, by the way.” His eyes softened, and he pushed her hair behind her ear and kissed the lobe, sending a warm shiver down her spine, despite how pissed off she was at him. She wished she could grab that warm shiver by its neck and choke it to death.
“Talk to me about it now, then,” she said. She didn’t think she was going to like this discussion, but she figured she needed to hear it.
“Well, I just… you know… have no intention of… you know…”
“No, I don’t know. I’m a witch, not a psychic. You have no intention of what?”
He sat back, and the lightbulb finally went on in his eyes. “Whoa. You’re pissed.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I’m not.” She sighed, then shook her head hard. “Yes, dammit, I am. I thought we had something wonderful happening between us, Ryan.”
“We do,” he said quickly. “We really do. I mean, it’s been great. I’m enjoying the hell out of being with you.”
“But you don’t want anything… more?”
“No.” He looked away. “I mean, certainly not now, anyway. It’s been eight weeks, Lena. Don’t you think it’s way too soon for this particular conversation?”
“Oh. You think I should wait until I’ve put in eight months and then find out I’ve been wasting my time?”
He was hurt. She saw it in his face. She was being completely irrational. Under any other circumstances it would be too soon to be having this conversation. But she was carrying his child. Not that he would ever believe she hadn’t planned it. She realized that now, and it was crushing her heart slowly. Like a vise with some