Only now the worst-case scenario that had eaten at his gut for months was a reality and it didn’t feel like the worst of anything. It was just...not what he’d expected. Yes, it had turned his life upside down. Disrupted plans for the both of them. But he wouldn’t take it back. He was going to be a father. With months yet before he would be able to lay eyes on his child, the connection was already there.
“I know I shouldn’t have left, Jeff. And I’m sorry. But I was out of my depth. And the truth is, even if everything had been different, if you’d asked me for more than a single night, I still wouldn’t have been able to take you up on it. I was moving. That day.”
“I have a helicopter, cars, money. I could have met you. Anywhere.”
What was he doing, trying to convince her of the possibility of a scenario he knew wouldn’t have come to fruition? Unless, what he wanted was for her to start believing in the potential of what might have been—because he wanted her to believe in what still could be.
Her head tipped back, and Jeff found his eyes drifting over the slender extended column of her neck, the soft spill of blond down her back and the small smile playing across her lips. Hell, was that what he was doing there? Had he started to believe?
* * *
Darcy, closed her eyes. “Hmm. You would have buzzed over to San Francisco for a night out on the Wharf with your Vegas cocktail waitress?”
“Probably would have skipped the Wharf unless it was where the woman I met in Vegas wanted to go.” There was no missing the emphasis on his clarification or the hard look he gave her when he made it. But then the amusement was back as he leaned in conspiratorially closer.
“I would have booked the first trip around business. Made it look like I was playing it cool. Like meeting up just happened to work out.”
What if? was a dangerous game to play. One Darcy had made it a life habit to avoid. But as with so many things, all Jeff had to do was flash a dimple and there she was, playing along. Flirting around a road not taken.
If things had gone like this...which they didn’t...it could have been like that.
And why not? It wouldn’t lead anywhere.
“Just look that way?” she teased.
But then Jeff was looking into her eyes, the small concentrated furrow between his brows giving her pause, drawing her attention to the way that invisible thing she could feel but couldn’t see shifted in the air between them.
To a slow spreading warmth skimming the surface of her skin.
To one beat of time blending into another, until Jeff answered, “Yes.”
With Jeff’s eyes locked on hers and his make-believe admission still hovering in the air between them, suddenly giving in to this flirtation once removed seemed far from harmless. Like it had become a dangerous thing with the potential to destroy something important to her.
And Darcy wasn’t going to let that happen.
So clearing her throat, she made a show of screwing up her face and pushing a wry note into her voice. “Hmm, sounds nice. But if you really want to know, I have an aversion to Pretty Woman fantasies.” Then quickly added, “Not that I see myself as a prostitute.”
Jeff laughed. “Geez, Darcy, what kind of childhood did you have? Cinderella ring a bell? Hardworking-maiden, working her fingers to the bone serving the wealthy-but-cruel stepsisters, sneaks off to meet a hot prince who doesn’t want to let her go and then moves heaven and earth to find her.”