Baby By Accident(18)

Tracy immediately nodded in instant understanding. “Our Lise does have her principles.”

“Which we applaud.” Suz tapped her long fingernail on her chin. “Still. This had to have developed fast. Out of the blue, so to speak.”

“Yes,” her other friend chimed in. “Our girl hasn’t been looking at any other man since her engagement.”

Not true.

She’d been looking at him, dreaming of him, for two long months before she’d fallen into his trap. Ever since he’d strode into the company’s conference room and eyed her with disapproval. His censure of her hadn’t stopped her looking at his broad shoulders as he shrugged her suggestions away or his tight butt as he walked away from her presence. All the looking she’d done had continuously galled her during the past few months.

But now? During these last six weeks?

Now it was even worse. Now she knew what lay beneath those Italian silk suits. Now she held the image of his naked body in her head. Now she had memories instead of dreams.

Something on her face must have alerted them to her thoughts. Damn it.

“Not true.” Suz’s arms waved in the air as she jumped around. “Our girl has been looking.”

Her other friend joined in the stupid dance. “More than looking, clearly. Maybe not a one-night stand. Maybe something far more. How long has this been going on?”

“This,” Lise said, her teeth grinding in her mouth. “This is not a this.”

“Well, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Suz chided.

“There is nothing to this. It was just, just…”

“So it was a one-night stand.” Tracy’s brown eyes went wide. “A very memorable one-night stand.”

The memory of the night, of the man, the passion swept through her against her will. His long black hair draped across his shoulders. The tensing of his muscles as he drove into her. The blaze in his tawny eyes as he took her and put his stamp on her.

Put his baby in her.

“She's blushing.” Suz eyed the other woman. “Do you see this?”

“Yes.”

“We absolutely must meet this man.”

“Yes, yes,” Tracy agreed. “He has to be something really special to get to Lise.”

“Get her blushing, get her flustered—”

“And most importantly, get her into bed.”

“No.” She glared at both of them. “The most important thing is he got me pregnant.”

Her words rolled over her two friends like a cold wash of the Thames. Their faces fell.

“Sorry to tease you.”

“Kiddo, we were just surprised—”

“It’s okay.” She sagged in the uncomfortable chair. “This kind of surprised me, too. The whole night, actually.”

“Come on, Lise,” her best friend pleaded. “We have to know who he is. What happened? You can’t leave us in suspense like this.”

“All right. All right.” She sighed. What did it matter if they knew? It wasn’t as if they’d ever reveal her secret to a man they didn’t know. “Vico Mattare.”

Well. If there was one saving grace for blurting out her most-embarrassing-ever-in-her-lifetime secret it was the confession did give her what she’d been wishing for in the past few minutes.

Her friends were speechless.

“You know his reputation. I showed you those tabloids with him all over them.”

Tracy’s brown eyes were wide to the point of popping. The red hair on Suz’s head practically stood at attention like stark shots of fire. Both of them stared at her without uttering a word.

She had an uncontrollable need to babble into the silence. “I mean, it has to be clear he's as far from being a good father as could possibly be.”

Neither of them moved. Both female jaws stayed open. Except no words came out.

“Vico Mattare is a womanizer.” She slapped her hand on the counter in front of her. “He's probably slept with a dozen women since we were together six weeks ago.”

A sharp shot of pain raced through her at the thought, but she stamped it down, turning the hurt into righteous indignation.

Still no words from her endlessly talking, gabbing, gossiping friends.

“I mean, he's the worst.” Lise threw her hands up, in complete rejection and disgust.

Tracy coughed.

“I've told you how conniving and cunning he was to go behind my back to the other stockholders. Even now, I can’t convince any of them to change their minds. At least, not yet. And it’s all his fault.”

Suz wheezed.

“Plus, he's treated me like absolute crap since this happened,” she continued. The ugly pain she’d carried around inside her for the last six weeks surged. He’d been so mean, so horrible. So different than how he’d been before.