“I’m not…” Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t true.

“Aren’t you tired of it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Protecting everyone. Your father, your partners, your grandmother, me, yourself.”

She stared at him unable to speak, her brain running a hundred miles an hour. Had he read her thoughts last night? How could he know that all of her life she’d been doing exactly this, hoping her interference would bring peace where there was chaos-and having no life of her own in the process. She could plan her work, her business years in advance, but could never see her personal future because she didn’t think she deserved one.

“I have to go,” Ethan said, mistaking her silence for indifference.

“No,” she said sternly just as Olivia and Tess came toward them, waving.

“I’m so sorry, Mary,” Olivia said sympathetically, placing an arm around her friend’s shoulder. Then she noticed Ethan and gave him a curious smile. “Mr. Curtis. Hello. What are you doing here?”

“He took over my grandfather’s company,” Mary said quickly and without thinking. “But he was just leaving.”

When Ethan’s cold gaze found hers, she realized what she had said and how it had sounded. It was one thing to protect him, but to act ashamed of him…She wanted to explain, but with Tess and Olivia standing right there she knew it would have to wait.

Ethan nodded to both Tess and Olivia. “Ladies.” Then turned and left.

Mary’s heart sank.

“What happened here?” Tess asked.

Olivia grimaced. “Hope it wasn’t something I said.”

“No,” Mary assured them, knowing it was about time to come clean with her partners. “I’m afraid it was something I said.”

Twelve

“Yes, Mr.Valentine, I’ll be there.” Olivia rolled her eyes as she hung up the phone. “This is his third call in two days. The excessively rich can not only be bossy but paranoid, as well.” She swiveled toward Mary and gave her a sheepish expression. “Sorry, Mary. I don’t mean you.”

It was quarter to five and they were all sitting in Olivia’s office going over the appointments and events that were scheduled for the next two weeks. It was September and business was starting to really pick up.

As she sat beside Tess on the other side of Olivia’s desk, Mary crossed and uncrossed her legs. “Hey, I’m not rich.”

Tess looked up from her notes. “I thought your grandfather left you a small fortune.”

“It still doesn’t make me rich,” Mary said on a laugh that sounded incredibly forced. “Comfortable, maybe-but I’ve found that rich is an attitude.”

“I’ll say,” Olivia went on. “Just because this guy has a dozen or so women who’d do anything from shine his shoes to act as though they don’t know where Darfur is just so he can feel like the smart one, doesn’t mean he should expect the same from me.” She snorted. “As if I would forget a meeting. The nerve.”

“You’ll make sure he gets a clue, Olivia, I have no doubt.” Tess winked at Mary, who smiled in turn.

The three women had changed during the past several weeks-since the funeral and the three-hour dessert and coffee gab session they’d shared afterward. Exactly ten minutes after Ethan had walked away from her, Mary had broken down and confessed their relationship to Tess and Olivia.

The two hadn’t been surprised, but they had asked, no pressure, if she’d wanted to talk about it. She did, and she had. Not that it had changed the situation any, but it had been moderately cathartic and had made Mary realize what she’d been missing in a friendship.

Both Tess and Olivia hadn’t mentioned Ethan since, and she was beyond thankful for that because Ethan hadn’t contacted her for two weeks except to send a check to NRR for services rendered. There hadn’t been a note in the envelope, nothing that would make her think he missed her or had even thought about her at all. For her part, she’d called him to try and explain, but he’d refused to listen. Even so, she hadn’t stopped thinking about him.

Tess closed her book with a sigh. “I think that’s it. We’re all going to be incredibly busy this month, so take every opportunity to relax.”

“Agreed,” said Olivia pulling out her Rolodex. “And I know just how to start the relaxation process.”

Tess groaned. “I can’t take another one of those seminars on How to Cool Your Cooperate Stress.”

“Seriously,” Mary agreed wholeheartedly. “I fell asleep at the last one and the group leader actually tousled my hair to get me to wake up. It was very freakish.”

Shaking her head impatiently at both of them, Olivia explained, “I’m not talking about a seminar, I’m talking about Senõr Fred’s-tonight.” She wiggled her brows. “Spiciest salsa in town and dollar margaritas.”

“Oh, I’m so in,” Tess said without hesitation, standing up and heading out of the office. “Let me get my coat, finish up some paperwork and I’ll meet you at reception in fifteen minutes.”

“What about you, Mary?” Olivia asked. “I mean, can anyone really turn down a margarita?”

At that question, Mary wanted to laugh, but she didn’t feel merry enough to make it happen. She could turn down a margarita, and pretty much anything alcoholic for the next nine months. She was back to where she’d started, with a pregnancy test hidden behind the rolls of toilet paper under the sink. And this time, she’d actually missed her period.

She scrubbed a hand over her face. How was she going to tell Ethan, or not tell him?

“I’d love to come,” Mary said finally, feeling slightly sick to her stomach at the thought of salsa and chips and happy hour chaos. “But I think I’ll stick to soda.”

Olivia smiled and shrugged. “Okay.”

“But if you two end up completely hammered,” Mary said, gathering up her notes and grinning. “Consider me your designated driver.”

Dr. Eleanor Wisel was a kind, grandmother type of Ob/Gyn with cool hands and warm instruments and a penchant for delivering news with her eyes closed. Dramatic effect? Who knew, but it was exactly how she’d told Mary that yes, she was indeed pregnant.

With a prescription for prenatal vitamins stuffed in her purse and a small plastic bag of coupons, information and dates for future appointments hanging from her wrist, Mary walked out of the office building and across the parking lot toward her car. Her insides had stopped shaking long enough for her brain to start processing what all this could mean. She didn’t have to worry about money or a future for this child-she had her business and the trust. She didn’t have to worry about loving this baby, she already felt totally in love with him or her. But what she did have to worry about was the father. She had to tell him, of course, but things were so crazy right now, would it be better if she waited?

She opened her car door and was about to climb in when she heard her name being called across the parking lot. Her skin prickled and her heart raced, and she quickly tossed her free bag of goodies into her car and slammed the door. When she looked up again, he was there, looking incredibly handsome in jeans, a white button-down shirt and a gray brushed-wool blazer. She found herself fascinated with his features, wondering would her baby have his eyes or hers? His hair color or hers? His roguish smile or her quirky one?

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a tone he usually reserved for employees.

“Seeing a doctor.”

Concern etched his features and he took a step closer to her. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Why did he have to smell so good? All she wanted to do was fall forward, rest her forehead on his chest, tell him how much she missed him and that everything that happened the day of her grandfather’s funeral was a stupid misunderstanding. “I’m perfectly healthy.”

He looked relieved.

“And what are you doing here?” she asked, suddenly aware of the pregnancy packet laying on the back seat in full view.

“I had a meeting in the building next door, and I saw your car.”

“Right,” she said, patting the Mustang she’d have to get rid of now in favor of an SUV or something more child friendly.

“Well, it’s been interesting.” He looked ready to take off, but Mary was not about to let him leave without at least starting the groundwork for a decent future relationship.

“Ethan, I want to apologize for what happened at the funeral-”

He put up a hand to stop her. “No need.”

“No, there is a need. What happened was a misunderstanding.”

Beside them, a woman was getting into her car, tossing her purse and effects into the back of the car, just as Mary had done a few minutes earlier. But she was not just any woman, Mary realized, her stomach roiling sickly as she turned her head and tried to go unnoticed by the woman she had chatted with in the waiting room of Dr. Wisel’s office.

“Oh, hey, there.”

Too late.

Mary gave the woman a quick wave and a very tightlipped smile as she silently begged her not to say anything more.

The woman waved, utter glee in her eyes at having heard good news today, as well. “See you later, and good luck with your baby.”

Her heart in her shoes, Mary nodded as they woman got into her car and shut the door. “You, too.”

She didn’t want to look at him, afraid of what she’d see in his dark-blue gaze: horror, disgust, disappointment. It would be something she’d always remember, but she wasn’t a coward, and she faced her child’s father with a proud lift of her chin.

“Baby?” he repeated, his face registering utter shock.

“It looks that way. It’s very early.”

“But…how is that possible? I wore a-”

“I know.”

“And the first time we had nothing at all and…well, nothing happened.”

“I know.”

He looked away, scrubbed a hand over his chin. “God, a baby. Your baby.”

“Our baby,” Mary couldn’t stop herself from saying. She wasn’t about to beg, but she loved the guy and she wanted him to want this child and her, too.

“Oh, Mary,” he said with a softness she’d only heard when she was in his arms, when he kissed her. “Were you going to tell me?”

“Of course I was going to tell you,” she assured him. “But you weren’t taking my calls-”

“I would’ve taken this one.”

“I had some things to think about first, some decisions to make-”

He went white as paper. “You’re going to…to have it, right?”

Her heart leaped into her throat. How could he even think…“Yes.”

He released a heavy sigh. “But you were going to wait to tell me?”

Around them people slammed doors and cars pulled in and out of their spaces. “Ethan, again, we haven’t spoken in two weeks. I didn’t know if we’d ever speak again the way you were ignoring my phone calls.”

“I was pissed.”

“I know.”

“I had every right to be.”

He did. “Okay.”

“But that doesn’t mean my feelings for you changed.”

Mary felt her breath catch in her throat. What did that mean? What feelings? Besides attraction and a strange friendship?

He continued, “That doesn’t mean I didn’t think about you every damn minute and want to be with you, around you, inside you.”

“Ethan,” she uttered, shaking her head.

“I have to know something, Mary.”

“Okay.”

“Are you ashamed of me, too?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What you did at the funeral-or what you didn’t do. Your grandmother treated me like dirt and you stood there.”

“You’re right. I was an idiot. At first. But after you left, I told her off.”

He didn’t look as though he wanted that answer, he was still so angry-at her, and maybe at his life and past. “You couldn’t get rid of me fast enough around Olivia and Tess.”

Sighing, she leaned against the car. “That had nothing to do with shame, Ethan.”

“What was it then?”

“I didn’t want my partners to know about you.”

He looked triumphant. “Exactly.”

“No, not exactly. I didn’t want them to know that I had allowed myself to be blackmailed by you, that I went to work for you afterward and then that I-” she swallowed “-fell in love with you in Michigan. If I’m ashamed of anyone, it’s myself.”

“For loving me?” he asked.

She studied him hard. “I’m coming clean here, Ethan. I’m admitting my failings, how I’ve screwed up. I should have found a different way to help my father, or allowed him to find a way out himself. I know that all I’ve ever done is try to keep the peace, take care of everyone else but myself. Then I used it as an excuse to stay away from relationships with people.” She looked heavenward. “But no more. I’m done with that. I have a child on the way, and I’m going to teach her by example to run headfirst into life and embrace it, and that the world’s problems are not hers to solve.” She looked at Ethan. “What are you going to teach her?”