Harper laughed. “Dante flew from Zurich to Los Angeles, then to Dallas almost back-to-back to tell me he’d screwed up when he left. I’ve been in love with the man for ten years. I would have taken a phone call. But it was nice to feel like I was his number-one priority.”
“You all deserve the happiness you’ve found,” Trinity sniffed. “But you married men who wanted to have children—”
The gales of laughter interrupted her as all three women wiped tears of mirth from their eyes.
“I cannot even begin to tell you how wrong that is,” Cass said when she’d gained a small measure of control. “Becoming a father to a one-year-old was probably the hardest thing Gage ever did. He looks like a pro now, but trust me when I say it took a lot of soul-searching on his part to get where he is today.”
Harper laced her fingers with Trinity’s and smiled. “You do remember that Dante is not the biological father of my baby, right? It took me forever to convince him to go to the doctor with me as my friend, let alone for him to decide he wanted to be the baby’s father. It nearly broke us apart, but we figured it out. If it’s meant to be, you and Logan will, too.”
“And if it’s not,” Alex countered, “you’re a strong, independent woman. We’ll be there for you as you raise your baby.”
“If the pregnancy sticks,” Trinity reminded everyone. Because that was the biggest hurdle. It didn’t matter what she wanted. It mattered what her body decided to do with the baby, which she had no control over. That was probably messing her up the most.
But the love in her friends’ words filtered through all the misery anyway, and Trinity smiled for the first time in a long time. “Thanks. You guys mean the world to me, and I appreciate your support. You would have been well within your rights to tell me to stick my self-righteousness where the sun don’t shine when I got pregnant.”
Harper grinned. “I thought about it. You were pretty smug when you swore you’d never get knocked up. I should get a medal for not blabbing that fifty percent of all pregnancies are unplanned.”
“Statistically speaking,” Cass said drily, “I think the four of us proved that in spades.”
“Yet we still manage to run a multimillion-dollar company.” Trinity smiled because that was still amazing. “Even though we apparently suck at launching a secret revolutionary product.”
“Hey.” Cass scowled. “Your marketing proposal for Bloom is brilliant. We’re launching the formula on schedule despite numerous setbacks with first the leak to the industry about our unannounced product, then the legalities of the FDA approval process nightmare. We navigated the tainted samples and triumphed over the public smear campaign. Each of us according to our strengths. That’s how we started this business and that’s how we’ll keep on doing it.”
Flinging her red hair over her shoulder, Harper leaned forward with her pit-bull face on. “I wasn’t going to mention it since this is supposed to be a party, but since we’re on the subject, when I met with my staff earlier, I had an idea for how to catch our culprit. I’m pretty sure I know who it is. But I need everyone’s help to close the deal.”
“Like a sting operation?” Alex’s raised eyebrows reflected in her tone loud and clear. “We’re executives, not Charlie’s Angels.”
“But our lawyer already advised us we couldn’t go to the police because we didn’t have enough evidence,” Trinity argued. Honestly, the whole thing sounded like exactly what she needed to get her mind off everything else. Alex didn’t have to ruin all the fun with her logic and reason. “At least hear what Harper has to say.”
They bent their heads together and talked through Harper’s thoughts, which Cass insisted was more productive and beneficial than opening gifts containing clothes the baby couldn’t even wear until it was born.
Finally, they had a solid plan for how to deal with the hits their company had taken over the last year as they dared branch into a new product line. They were still four strong and would prevail.
Right after they made their plan, Cass, Harper and Trinity devoured the finger sandwiches and cakes Melinda, Fyra’s receptionist, had ordered for the party. They were all eating for two, after all.
Ten
Logan groaned and put a pillow over his head as his phone rang at the god-awful hour of...9:45 a.m.
How was it already almost ten? Did he have a game today? Was someone calling to see where he was? His brain would not connect any dots.
Juggling the phone into his hand, he launched out of bed. His big toe collided with the heavy wood nightstand, and when his foot jerked back automatically, his ankle crashed into the bed frame.