He’d have to alter his strategy, because Nicole’s greedy brother-in-law wasn’t the weakest link. Nicole was. She was the one who could snatch his child from him at the last possible second—just like Jeanette had before.
If he wanted this baby, then Nicole Hightower was the one he had to work on, the one he had to win over.
To do that he needed to get closer to her. He had to get into her head so he could anticipate her next move and be prepared to counter it.
He wasn’t losing another baby.
Nicole hurried from the building, running from her thoughts, running from her doubts and trying to escape the pain tearing her apart. Maternal instincts she hadn’t known she possessed surged though her, making her desperate to flee her current situation.How was she going to keep her promise to Beth and Patrick?
Unless they pulled out of the contract, she had to or she’d turn her family against her. Hurting Beth meant incurring the entire family’s wrath. Beth might be her older sister, but she was also the acting matriarch of the family because their mother had abdicated that position a long time ago. At fifty-eight Jacqueline Hightower was little more than a figurehead president of the HAMC board of directors who wanted what she wanted and more often than not managed to get it.
Nicole knew giving Beth and Patrick the baby they’d wanted for so long was the right thing to do. She knew deep in her heart somewhere that once the stress of being denied the child they’d craved passed they’d be happy again.
But knowing that didn’t lessen the ache in her chest.
You’ll get past your doubts. Today was just a shock, that’s all.
Ryan caught her elbow outside the doctor’s office and pulled her to a stop yards short of her car. Despite the sun overhead, she was so cold she couldn’t stop shivering. His hands buffed her biceps, warming her cold flesh through her sweater. She wished he’d quit touching her. The contact confused her.
Correction. Her reaction to his touch confused her.
Her shivering lessened. His hands stilled, squeezed in silent support that made her eyes burn with the few tears she hadn’t shed all over the exam table. This was so much harder than she’d thought it would be. She struggled to mask the hurricane of emotions churning inside her before she lifted her face to his.
“Hand over the keys, Nicole.” His voice was soft, gentle, and yet still commanding. His eyes held both sympathy and understanding. And then she remembered. He, too, knew how it felt to lose a child. He’d already been down the road she was about to travel. “You’re in no shape to drive.”
How astute of him to notice. She considered arguing, but she didn’t have the energy. And he was right. She had no business behind the wheel at the moment. Uncurling her fist, she offered the keys. His short nails scraped her palm as he scooped her key ring from her hand, and a flaming arrow of energy shot up her arm and crash-landed in the pit of her stomach.
How did he do that? How did this man she barely knew affect her on such a visceral level? And when she was already an emotional wasteland? It couldn’t be anything but the baby they shared. Her body must somehow recognize him as the father of her child on a primitive level.
He gently thumbed away a fresh tear then helped her into the car as if she were fragile, and circled to the driver’s side.
No doubt about it, Ryan Patrick puzzled her. He was understanding and yet ruthless. He opened doors, held chairs, seated her before seating himself and did a multitude of other gestures you usually only saw from an older generation. And yet he went to a fertility clinic and hired a surrogate to have his baby.
The contradiction between his old-fashioned courtesies and his modern science choices intrigued her. And the emotional response to the baby that he hadn’t been able to hide had shaken her conviction that he’d be a bad father. He’d been as enthralled by the image on the screen as she had. At that moment he’d become more than the man who wanted to take her baby. He’d become the father of the child she carried, someone with a valid emotional stake in the outcome of her pregnancy, someone with something precious to lose.
Someone like her.
But how could someone who always chased thrills be a good parent? Her parents were perfect examples. They’d traveled the globe, always searching for their next good time. Her mother chose men, her father casinos. And they’d left their children at home in the care of nannies. There had been some good, loving nannies who Nicole had hated to see go, but the majority had been there for the paycheck and even a child could feel the difference. Nicole had learned early on not to bond with someone who might leave unexpectedly.
Ryan slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key. “What time is your next appointment?”
“I don’t have any official appointments this afternoon. I’m working on scheduling and client special requests.” She’d deliberately allowed for emotional recovery time after her doctor’s visit and chasing down obscure items seemed like a good way to keep her mind from straying along forbidden paths. “Why?”
“We’re having lunch before I take you back to work.”
She’d planned to eat before returning to the office, but not with him. She needed solitude to get her head together. “That’s really not necessary.”
“We both need the decompression time. We’ll also pick up your prescription.”
Hadn’t he heard a word she said? “I can do that myself.”
“I want to make sure you have it, and I intend to help you with your medical expenses.”
Why? Because he genuinely wanted to help? Or because helping would give him leverage? “Thank you, but no.”
“Are Beth and Patrick covering your medical bills?”
Another sore subject. “No. This is my gift to them. My health insurance covers almost everything.”
“What kind of deal is that? You’re making all the concessions.”
“That’s the way I want it.” Beth had told her finances had been severely stretched by years’ worth of failed fertility treatments.
“I don’t want you cutting corners. I’m helping. Deal with it.”
She did not need his bossy attitude right now. She needed peace and quiet and time to think. The emotional appointment had drained her. Exhaustion made her head and shoulders heavy and her patience short. A tension headache nagged at her nape.
“Are you going to show up each morning to make sure I take the iron tablets along with my prenatal vitamins, too?”
Oops. So much for patience, politeness and perseverance. Sarcasm wasn’t a good choice if she wanted to keep this on a friendly footing as her attorney had suggested.
“Do I need to?”
She didn’t doubt he would for one minute. “I would never do anything to endanger my child.”
“Our child. Yours and mine.” His possessive tone sent a wave of goose bumps rolling across her skin. “Admit it, Nicole. After seeing the scan you don’t want to give your sister and brother-in-law this baby.”
The truth of his statement punched the air from her lungs. How had he known what she’d been unwilling to admit even to herself? Ryan read her too easily.
“What I want is irrelevant. I gave my word and signed a contract. The baby will be better off with two parents.”
“Two parents who bicker incessantly?”
She smothered a wince. She’d hoped he’d missed that at the barbecue. “It’s a high-stress time for Beth and Patrick. They’ve been trying to get pregnant for years. They love each other. It’s just a little hard to see that right now. Once the baby arrives everything will be fine again.”
“You don’t honestly believe that?” His tone said he didn’t.
After her conversation with Beth she wasn’t as certain as she’d once been. Ryan didn’t need to know that. “Yes, I do.”
Ryan scowled harder. “It’s better to be with a single parent who wants you than stuck between two who use you as a weapon against the other. I lived that life. My kid won’t.”
Sympathy and empathy she didn’t want to feel for him invaded her like a rising tide. When her parents had fought she’d either taken cover or looked for a way to distract them. Distracting them more often than not meant she’d ended up in trouble—trouble Beth had had to fix when their parents had thrown their hands up in disgust. But at least it had stopped their fighting.
“I’m sorry, Ryan.”
He shrugged. “I survived.”
He turned into the closest restaurant driveway and pulled up to the drive-through speaker, cutting off her questions. Without asking her preference, he ordered a variety of foods. When they reached the window he handed her the massive bag. The mouthwatering aromas of fried chicken, barbecue, Brunswick stew and peach cobbler filled the car as he headed toward downtown, and at the moment she craved every fat-laden, Southern cooking calorie of those comfort foods.
Leaning back in her seat, she closed her eyes and held on to the hot bag. She’d counted ten fingers and ten toes on that black-and-white screen, and seeing those little digits wiggle had reached right out and grabbed her heart with crushing force.
How would she survive giving away her baby?
She didn’t protest when Ryan drove into his condo complex, but she bolted upright in her seat when he bypassed the building and pulled up to the dock. “Why are we here?”
“We’re going to take a short boat ride and picnic.”
Her uneasiness increased. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Do you get motion sickness?”
That was the least of her worries. She didn’t want to run the risk of another one of those misguided kisses when she hadn’t been able to erase the first one from her mind. She was already vulnerable and that spark of attraction each time their fingers touched made it clear the earlier chemistry hadn’t been a fluke.
Ryan made her feel things she shouldn’t and didn’t want to experience ever again. Things she didn’t want to believe she was capable of feeling for any man other than Patrick. If she could experience that attraction for other men that would mean that there was some of her mother in her, and she didn’t want to be like her fickle, promiscuous mother.
“I don’t get seasick, but I can’t waste a day on the river.”
“Racing across the water with the wind in your hair will blow away the stress. The bike does the same thing on the road, but I’m not putting you on a motorcycle when you’re pregnant.”
Her older brothers had taught her to never admit weakness unless you wanted it to be used against you. “Who says I’m stressed? And just for the record, I don’t want to ride your death rocket.”
Ryan hit her with a lowered eyebrow look. “Riding a bike is only dangerous if you’re careless. I’m not.”
The conviction in his eyes told her he believed what he said.
He climbed from the car and paused beside the open door to remove his suit coat and toss it into the backseat. One tanned hand reached for his tie, loosening the knot and pulling the silk free. He released the cuffs of his shirt and then unbuttoned the placket.