A Tricky Proposition(51)

What Lily had just told Ming should have relieved her own guilt over what she and Jason were doing. Evan had moved on. He was in love. If he ever discovered what was happening between her and Jason, Evan should be completely accepting. After all, he’d fallen for her sister. All Ming was doing was getting pregnant with Jason’s child. It wasn’t as if they were heading down the path to blissfully-ever-after.

Struck by the disparity between the perfect happiness of every couple she knew and the failure of her own love life, Ming’s heart ached. Her throat closed as misery battered her. Her longing for a man she could never have and her inability to let him go trapped her. It wasn’t enough to have Jason as her best friend. She wanted to claim him as her lover and the man she’d spend the rest of her life committed to. On her current path, Ming wasn’t sure how she was ever going to find her way out of her discontent, but since she wasn’t the sort who moldered in self-pity, she’d better figure it out.

*

Unwinding in her office after a hectic day of appointments, Ming rechecked the calendar where she’d been keeping track of her fertility cycle for the past few months. According to her history, her period should have started today.

Excitement raced through her. She could be pregnant. For a second she lost the ability to breathe. Was she ready for this? Months of dreaming and hoping for this moment hadn’t prepared her for the reality of the change in her life between one heartbeat and the next.

Ming stared at her stomach. Did Jason’s child grow inside her? She caught herself mid-thought. This was her child. Not hers and Jason’s. She had to stop fooling herself that they were going to be a family. She and Jason were best friends who wanted very different things out of life. They were not a couple. Never would be.

“Are you still here?” Terry leaned into the room and flashed his big white smile. “I thought you had a wedding rehearsal to get to.”

Ming nodded. “I’m leaving in ten minutes. The church is only a couple miles away.”

“Did those numbers I gave you make you feel better or worse?”

Earlier in the week Terry had opened up the practice’s books so she could see all that went into the running of the business. Although part of her curriculum at dental school had involved business courses that would help her if she ever decided to open her own practice, her college days were years behind her.

“I looked them over, but until I get Jason to walk me through everything, I’m still feeling overwhelmed.”

“Understandable. Let me know if you have any questions.”

After Terry left, Ming grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Until five minutes ago, she’d been looking forward to this weekend. Max and Rachel were a solid couple.

Thanks to Susan Case, Max’s mother, the wedding promised to be a magical event. After both Nathan and Sebastian had skipped formal ceremonies—Nathan marrying Emma on a Saint Martin beach and Sebastian opting for an impromptu Las Vegas elopement—Susan had threatened Max with bodily harm if she was denied this last chance at a traditional wedding.

Most brides would have balked at so much input from their future mother-in-law, but Rachel’s only family was her sister, and Ming thought the busy employment agency owner appreciated some of the day-to-day details being handled by Max’s mother.

When Ming arrived at the church, most of the wedding party was already there. She set her purse in the last pew and let her gaze travel up the aisle to where the minister was speaking to Max. As the best man, Jason stood beside him, listening intently. Ming’s breath caught at the sight of him clad in a well-cut dove-gray suit, white shirt and pale green tie.

Was she pregnant? It took effort to keep her fingers from wandering to her abdomen. When she’d embarked on this journey three weeks ago, she’d expected that achieving her goal would bring her great joy and confidence. Joy was there, but it was shadowed by anxiety and doubt.

She wasn’t second-guessing her decision to become a mom, but she no longer wanted to do it alone. Jason would freak out if he discovered how much she wanted them to be a real family. Husband, wife, baby. But that’s not how he’d visualized his future, and she had no right to be disappointed that they wanted different things.

As if her troubled thoughts had reached out to him, Jason glanced in her direction. When their eyes met, some of her angst eased. Raising his eyebrows, he shot her a crooked grin. Years of experience gave her insight into exactly what he was thinking.

Max couldn’t be talked out of this crazy event.

She pursed her lips and shook her head.

You shouldn’t even try. He’s found his perfect mate.