Nobody's Baby but Mine(72)
“Is that what you think?” He let his gaze ramble down over her body in what she could only interpret as a gesture of psychological warfare. She was wearing a red T-shirt with Maxwell’s Equations printed on it, although the final equation disappeared into the waistband of her slacks where she’d tucked it in. His eyes lingered on her hips, which certainly weren’t as slim as the hips he was accustomed to seeing on his women. Still, she took heart from the fact that he didn’t look all that critical.
“It’s crossed my mind.” She pushed away her oatmeal and studied him. “I just want to know what the rules are. We haven’t talked about this, and I think we should. Are we free to sleep with other people while we’re married or not?”
His eyebrows shot up. “We? What’s this we?”
She kept her expression carefully blank. “I beg your pardon? I’m not following you.”
He shoved his hand through his hair. It had grown a bit longer in the last few weeks, and a spike stuck up on one side. “We’re married,” he said gruffly. “That’s it.”
“That’s what?”
“It!”
“Uhmm.”
“You’re a married woman, and a pregnant one, to boot, in case you forgot.”
“And you’re a married man.” She paused. “In case you forgot.”
“Exactly.”
“So does that mean we’re going to mess around with other people while we’re married or we’re not?”
“It means we’re not!”
She concealed her relief as she rose from the stool. “Okay. No messing around, but we can carouse until all hours of the night with no explanation and no apologies, right?”
She watched him mull that one over and wondered how he’d work around it. She wasn’t entirely surprised when he didn’t try. “I get to carouse. You don’t.”
“I see.” She picked up her oatmeal bowl and carried it to the sink. She could feel him waiting for her to rip into him, and she knew him well enough to suspect he was relishing the challenge of defending a position he knew very well was indefensible. “Well, I suppose from your point of view that’s only logical.”
“It is?”
“Of course.” She gave him a silky smile. “How else can you possibly convince the world you’re still twenty-one?”
* * *
On Wednesday night she took her time dressing for the mysterious date she’d finally agreed to go on, despite her misgivings. She showered, powdered, and perfumed. Then she was ashamed of herself for placing so much importance on the occasion. But she’d had such a good day, it was hard to be annoyed with herself for long. Her work had gone well, and she was enjoying the fact that Cal seemed to be hanging around the house a lot more this week. Today he’d even made an excuse to accompany her on her walk, saying he was afraid she’d get so preoccupied solving some damn formula that she’d get lost.
She didn’t like admitting how much she enjoyed being around him. She’d never met anyone who made her laugh as he did, while his razor-sharp mind kept her on her toes. It was ironic that the intelligence that made him so attractive to her was also the source of her greatest concern.
She pushed the unhappy reminder of her baby’s future aside and thought about the battered red Ford Escort that had been delivered a few hours ago and hidden away behind an old shed in the far corner of the estate. Buying a used car by telephone might defy conventional wisdom, but she was satisfied with her purchase. True, the car wasn’t anything to look at with its dented door, broken front grill-work, and bad touch-up job, but it had fit comfortably into her budget, and all she needed was basic transportation to get her through the next few months until she returned to Chicago and the perfectly good Saturn waiting in her garage.
She also didn’t intend to keep the car hidden, but she knew Cal was going to be furious, and she wanted to enjoy her evening before she broke the news to him that her imprisonment was at an end.
She smiled as she finished dressing. She’d followed his instructions about wearing jeans, but instead of the halter top, she’d chosen a mulberry silk blouse and a pair of semi-trashy gold hoop earrings that were more appropriate for one of Cal’s baby dolls than a theoretical physicist. She couldn’t figure out why she liked them so much.
She unbuttoned the top button of her silk blouse and watched it fall open to show the lacy top of her black bra. She studied herself, sighed, and rebuttoned the blouse. For now, trashy earrings were as far as she was prepared to go.
Cal came out into the foyer as she descended the stairs. He wore an old Stars’ T-shirt that outlined all of those beautifully developed chest muscles and was tucked into a pair of jeans so tight, faded, and threadbare he might as well have been naked.