The Best Man's Baby(11)

“Claire.” Jake’s voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked into his eyes, wishing for a second that they could go back to that night when he’d stopped in the middle of the ballroom and danced with her. When she still thought of Jake as the man of her dreams. But they couldn’t. He’d left. She was pregnant. And now…

“Marry me.” His voice was throaty, gruff, and filled with emotion.

This wasn’t the way her marriage proposal was supposed to go. No, she had naively dreamed up hundreds of different ways Jake Manning would one day propose to her. But in her kitchen, because she was pregnant, out of duty, was not one of them.

She shook her head. “I can’t. We would never work. This was not the way my life was supposed to go, Jake. I’ve always done what everyone expected me to. I’ve always played by the rules, and the one time I gave in I wind up pregnant. What kind of loser gets pregnant the first time she has sex?”

“Uh, like a quarter of the population.”

“Yeah, except they’re teenagers, not women who are almost thirty.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”

She stopped moving and felt every muscle in her body tense. “None of your business. Completely irrelevant.”

“Uh, yeah, my business. Yeah, important. That’s a big deal, Claire. You don’t just shock a guy with that.”

She still didn’t turn around to face him. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”

“Um, yeah. Very noticeable.”

“What do you mean? Was I that pathetic?” The sheer humiliation of the fact she was actually asking him if she’d sucked in bed was almost worse than the answer she knew was coming. He leaned down to look at her. His expression wasn’t one of a man about to tell her how horrible she’d been.

“Are you kidding?” His hands moved from her shoulders to her face. Why did the feel of his rough hands, so gentle on her skin, make her melt into a thousand little pieces? She met his eyes and wanted to walk into him, a part of her knowing he would wrap his arms around her and make her believe everything really was going to be okay.

She backed herself as far away from him as she could, the counter edge digging into the small of her back. She stared at the tanned skin exposed at the opening of his sweater, and knew it would be hot beneath her fingers if she touched it. She didn’t want to meet his eyes. Jake was so not the right man for her.

“Claire,” he whispered, the tenderness in his voice making tears prick her eyes. His hands cupped her face, his thumb grazing her cheekbone, all but forcing her chin up. She met his eyes and the expression on his face made her forget why she couldn’t be with him. When his thumb traced her lower lip, she knew she needed to get the topic back to their argument or she’d be a goner.

“I’m doing this on my own,” she whispered.

He frowned and pulled back slightly, his arms dropping his sides. “You’re not raising our child by yourself. I’m the baby’s father and I’m not going anywhere. And there’s no way in hell I’m letting another man raise my kid. Besides, how are you going to run your business and raise a child?”

…

Jake couldn’t believe she was arguing with him still. It took all of his concentration to keep up with the argument as well, because at the moment he was lost in Claire and how appealing she was. He had thought about her every day of those damn six weeks.

“I have it all planned out.”

“Let’s hear it,” he said folding his arms across his chest.

“Fine.” She ducked away from him and marched out of the kitchen. He followed her into the hallway. She stalked into a small room that must have been her home office. It was white and pink, but he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. It couldn’t be.

Claire had two giant dry-erase boards on easels, and she was standing in front of them with two markers, glaring at him. She looked like a cross between a very hot teacher and a very angry woman. He was toast. He looked at the complex flowcharts she had on each board and felt his stomach sink like a lead weight.

“Here is plan A,” Claire said in a clipped voice, pointing to the board on her left. There was a big bubble in the middle that said “Keep the business” and then all these squiggly lines leading to other bubbles. This was bad. He scanned the chart—his name wasn’t there.

“So if I decide to keep my business once the baby is born, I plan on modifying my schedule so we are closed on Sundays and Mondays. Right now we’re just closed on Monday. Then I plan on promoting Leigh, who has worked for me since I opened five years ago. She can handle all the day-to-day operations. I can do most of the design work from home. I will just go in for bridal appointments and on Saturdays when my mother can watch the baby.”