Juliet tipped her head to one side, annoyed by his reference to her pregnancy as a “problem.” She could hardly call him on it, though, since until very recently she’d thought of it exactly the same way. Even worse, she’d considered it something of a major catastrophe.
“What if you go back to the real world and leave me here to pretend awhile longer,” she suggested hopefully.
His plan made sense, and she could understand his desire to be medically certain about what she was telling him, but she just wasn’t mentally prepared to return to New York so soon. She’d barely gotten any time alone to sort things out, thanks to his unexpected arrival.
“Nice try,” he replied with what could only be described as a smirk, “but not on your life. Now go pack your things and meet me back here in ten minutes or I’ll toss you over my shoulder and carry you to the car, with or without your belongings.”
She narrowed her eyes, her need to stand her ground warring with the fact that she believed Reid would do exactly what he said.
“Fine,” she finally acquiesced.
She wasn’t happy about it, but as long as he kept his word about letting her hide out at his brownstone, she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to see a doctor and have the pregnancy confirmed. She should probably be on prenatal vitamins and the like by now, anyway.
The only problem with staying with Reid was that they would be alone together for heaven knew how long. And wasn’t that how she’d gotten herself into this mess in the first place?
* * *
They left Juliet’s car at the lake house and drove back to the city in the Range Rover Reid had borrowed from his company’s vehicle pool. She wasn’t exactly happy about it, but he hadn’t given her a choice. And he’d promised to make arrangements for a couple of his employees to drive to Vermont and bring the BMW back to New York for her. Of course, that would also require hiding it somewhere until she was ready to let her family know she’d returned—possibly in his corporate lot.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave” kept dancing through his head as he drove, the only thing to fill the otherwise tense silence. He didn’t like secrets, and he didn’t like lies. It was part of the reason he’d become an investigator—to ferret out those sorts of details and set things right for the people who had been taken advantage of or betrayed.
Yet everything to do with the person sitting next to him seemed to be smothered in secrets and wrapped in lies. From the moment he’d met her. Worse, he’d found himself twisted up in his own share of both when he’d always prided himself on his solid and unwavering strength of character.
And he’d ignored the signs, made excuses, all because of the irresistible hold she apparently had over him.
And now there was a baby.
Maybe a baby. Not that he doubted Juliet’s word, not about this, but mistakes could be made, and he would feel better hearing it from a medical professional after the proper tests had been conducted. Then and only then would he let himself start making any kind of plans for the future.
Reid’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. He was pretty sure the entire thing was going to snap in two if he didn’t loosen his grip soon. Behind his eyes, a headache was brewing.
How ironic that this would happen to him twice in a lifetime.
When he’d first met Valerie, he was in the army. Special Forces, to be precise. They’d been hot and heavy in the way only two young people with too many hormones running rampant and not enough common sense to keep them in check can.
Then she’d turned up pregnant. Valerie hadn’t been the least bit happy about it, but surprisingly, Reid had. He’d been ready to settle down, ready to find something that would ground him and help him find a balance between what he did for a living and a normal, everyday life.
He hadn’t been in love with Valerie as much as in lust, but with a kid on the way, he was more than prepared to marry her and do the whole modern-American-family thing.
The problem was, Valerie had no interest in marrying him or settling down to start that family. Instead, he found a note taped to his door not long after she’d told him about the baby, and she and the kid were both gone with the wind.
He’d thought about going after them, of course. Every day for a really long time, as a matter of fact. But if Valerie didn’t want to be with him, didn’t want him to be a father to her—their—child, then maybe it had been smarter of her to leave without telling him where she was going. For all he knew, she’d had an abortion on her way out of town, and the whole fatherhood thing was a moot point.