Present day...
Moments later the bathroom door swung open and the mother of what was presumably his child emerged.
The cool steely gray of her eyes met with his. Eyes he remembered warming through the course of those hours they spent together. Eyes he’d watched go soft beneath him, and had made him wonder if a single night was going to be enough. Eyes that had haunted him for weeks after he’d been back in L.A., until he’d forced himself to put them out of his head. Get a new game plan and move on.
Which is exactly what he’d done.
Olivia.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he gave his head a stern shake. One thing at a time.
Darcy took a nervous breath and then cleared her throat. “So, maybe we should start by getting a few things straight up front.”
Jeff nodded, checking the legal pad he’d started making a list on. “Agreed.”
Validate paternity.
Confirm/upgrade health care.
Establish child support.
Hire nurse.
Buy house with yard and security.
Start screening for nanny.
Private preschools (*gifted and talented programs?).
Top five universities in country.
Quality playgroups.
Safety reports *family vehicles.
“I don’t want to marry you,” she said abruptly, wincing almost as soon as the words left her mouth.
Jeff blinked.
Wait. She didn’t want to marry him?
He blew out a measured breath while mentally talking his ego down from the ledge. Because seriously, after slinking out of his bed without so much as a “thanks for the good time, sport,” that’s how she wanted to kick this conversation off?
“Not that I remember asking,” he said evenly. “But good to know we’re on the same page.”
Or maybe not quite so evenly after all, considering the slender brow arched in his direction, topping off an all too familiar look that did something to him not entirely bad, but not exactly welcome, either.
Their eyes held a beat before she glanced away. “And I’m not interested in picking things up where we left off.”
“Something the woman I’m seeing will appreciate, I’m sure.”
Yeah, and best to get that out there right away, even though he was fairly certain there wasn’t one thing about this Olivia was going to appreciate.
Especially if she ever got a look at Darcy. Because even having just spent twenty minutes losing her lunch, she was still a knockout. So far as he could see the pregnancy hadn’t done much to her body yet.
Before he realized where that thought was taking him, his attention was doing a slow crawl south of her neckline, roaming over the full curves and narrowing tucks of a figure that—