Waking Up Pregnant(73)

                All he could do was show her there was another way. Prove that he never wanted to hold her back or hem her in or take away the opportunities available to her. He’d make certain she never felt trapped because of him again. She’d never need to escape.

                Cradling her jaw in his hands he met her eyes.

                “I know you don’t believe in the fairy-tale rescues and you’ve already saved yourself, Darcy, but I’m behind you now, too. Nothing will ever be like that again. Not for you. Not for our baby. I swear it.”

                Blinking back tears, Darcy nodded and said the most amazing thing. “I already know.”

                * * *

                “Locker-room talk?” Connor scoffed, his voice oozing the kind of censure only a best friend could muster. “I thought you were above all that.”

                Jeff paused in the act of relocating the stacks of papers and files from his desk to a mirror position on the conference table at the other end of the office.

                “It’s not like I’m starting a daily blog.” He looked at the half-cleared desk, and then at the clock, his heart kicking up. “But holy hell, man—”

                “Yeah, I’ve got it. The hormones. They’re like the sea. And the tide’s turned or whatever.”

                “She was at the door. Waiting, Connor. At the door. I didn’t make it past the coat stand. For. An. Hour.”

                Connor made an indifferent noise that had Jeff shaking his head in stunned disbelief.

                “Good to hear she’s feeling better. So what’s Gail think about the move?”

                “Yeah, yeah, Darcy’s feeling much better. Aside from the mornings, she hasn’t been sick for about two weeks. And my mom—she’s not pressing. I told her I was more comfortable with Darcy staying with me. Didn’t want to miss out on anything, yada, yada, yada. But forget about my mom and pay attention. About the hormones, because seriously, you and Megan might want to—”

                “Enough. I get it. The sex with your pregnant non-girlfriend lover—”

                “Darcy.”

                “Okay, sex with Darcy is insane. But I’m starting to feel a shade dirty, hearing about it.”

                Jeff stalled where he was. Yeah, truth was, he didn’t want Connor thinking about Darcy like that, either. He wasn’t nuts about the few details he’d been subjected to about Megan. There was just something different about being subjected to details about a guy’s wife.

                Not that Darcy was his wife.

                The intercom from his desk sounded. “Ms. Penn here to see you.”

                With a quick goodbye for Connor, Jeff started to return the phone to his pants pocket, then thinking better of it, tossed it onto a chair. In one sweep, he had the rest of his desk cleared and the stack dumped in a heap on the conference table. And then he was striding to the door, swinging it open with a welcome greeting that didn’t make it past his lips once he saw Darcy waiting for him in a shirt he knew for a fact she’d decided was too tight the week before. His eyes went momentarily unfocused as his tongue all but rolled out of his mouth.

                “Hi, Jeff,” she said. And he was sure it sounded completely innocuous to anyone who hadn’t heard all the incredibly, fantastically naughty things coming out of her mouth when she’d called him thirty minutes before.