Nine Months

“I can’t worry about the future. At least not the distant future. I have to concentrate on the present and on the immediate future, and how I’m going to explain to everyone that I’m four months pregnant and not married. I wish I wasn’t so old-fashioned., but I come from a very conservative, traditional family that believes that you marry and then have children.

* * *

Jared had left the office an hour ago with no intention of returning today. Spending an entire morning around Paige had been more difficult than he’d ever imagined. He realized now that getting her out of his system was going to be more difficult than giving up cigarettes. He’d quit smoking seven years ago, but he’d be damned if he didn’t still miss the old habit.

During his burger-and-fries lunch at The Saloon, a local bar and grill, he had decided that avoiding Paige was the act of a coward. He’d stayed away from her for four months, running from his feelings. Now, dammit, he’d returned to Grand Springs to face those feelings head-on…and conquer them.

Entering Paige’s office, Jared found it empty. She had probably gone out for lunch. Fine. He’d grab a cup of coffee in the employees’ lounge and get busy on some phone calls he needed to make.

As he neared the lounge, he heard two female voices and immediately recognized them. Paige and Kay.

“…How I’m going to explain to everyone that I’m four months pregnant and not married,” Paige said.

Jared stopped dead in his tracks directly outside the half-closed lounge door. It couldn’t be! Surely he’d misunderstood what Paige had said. She couldn’t be pregnant. She couldn’t be!

“Look, I think all your worries would be over if you’d just tell him he’s going to be a father,” Kay said. “I’ll bet money that he’ll want to marry you. Something tells me that he’s the old-fashioned, possessive kind.”

“I don’t want him to marry me because of the baby! What kind of marriage would that be for either of us? When a man asks me to marry him, I want it to be because he loves me and for no other reason.”

“I understand how you feel, but maybe you should have given that some thought before you had unprotected sex and got yourself pregnant.”

Unprotected sex! Good God Almighty! Jared eased backward several steps, then turned and bolted down the hallway, toward the elevators. He wasn’t thinking, only reacting, like a hunted animal trying to escape. Escape from what he’d overheard. Escape from Paige. Escape from the possibility that he could be the father of her baby.

Jared wound up back at The Saloon, where he ordered a rusty nail on the rocks, drank it too quickly and cursed a sudden headache. Then he ordered another and wisely sat there nursing the drink.

Paige Summers was pregnant. Four months pregnant. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the child was probably his. Although he didn’t really know Paige, somehow she didn’t seem the promiscuous type. As a matter of fact, even though she’d been as hot and wild for him as he’d been for her that evening in the elevator, there had been something almost innocent about the way she had reacted to his lovemaking. As if she had never experienced desire that powerful or pleasure that intense.

But on the other hand, it was possible that there was another man. Someone before him or after him. He couldn’t be one hundred percent sure the child was his.

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. “You know that baby’s yours.” He ran a shaky hand through his neatly styled hair. “How the hell did you get yourself into this kind of situation?”

You know how, his inner voice responded. Because you got so hot and bothered over a tempting piece of— No, Paige was not just another easy conquest. He had desired women before but never lost his head so completely that he forgot to use a condom.

Jared had never wanted a woman the way he’d wanted Paige, and heaven help him, he still wanted her. But she was the wrong woman for him. She didn’t fit into his plans. She was attractive and sweet and intelligent, but she was hardly the kind of wife who could step into his life and be an asset as his life’s partner.

But she was carrying his child. His child! He had no choice. He’d have to do the honorable thing. The marriage would be doomed from the start, of course, since it would be based on neither the love she wanted from a husband nor the suitability he desired in a wife. But even a marriage of short duration would give Paige and their child his name and protection. And it would give him the opportunity to get to know Paige, see her up close, flaws and all. Marriage to her was probably a surefire way to get her out of his system once and for all.

Before he made any definite plans, he’d have to talk to Paige and ask her point-blank if the child was his. His gut instincts told him that she wouldn’t lie to him. After all, a simple DNA test after the baby was born would verify the child’s paternity.

A nagging little thought persisted in repeating itself over and over in Jared’s head. What if Paige, sweet and innocent as she seemed, had known all along who he was? What if she had set out to trap L. J. Montgomery’s millions?

He couldn’t confront her at the office with all his questions. They needed privacy. He’d wait and go to her apartment this evening, and if she told him he was the father of her child, he’d tell her all her worries were over. He would do the honorable thing and marry her. She would become Mrs. L. J. Montgomery and be the envy of every woman in the Southwest. But before they said ‘I do,’ he’d make sure Paige signed a rock-solid prenuptial agreement that would protect all his financial assets.

* * *

Paige changed out of her work clothes and into a pair of much-washed, comfortable purple sweats. She ate a green salad with low-cal ranch dressing and devoured a small bunch of grapes. Her appetite had increased, not diminished, even with the bouts of morning sickness she’d suffered for weeks on end. Her doctor was right, she was going to have to watch her weight. All she had to do was look at her plump, middle-aged mother to know exactly what she’d look like in thirty years.

She put on four of her favorite CDs—Michael Buble, Yo-Yo Ma, Kenny G, and the Tchaikovsky selections of the Vienna Master series. She had eclectic tastes, was a connoisseur of music as a whole and not a slave to any specific type.

Then she sat down at the small worktable in the corner of her living room and picked up the Lucy Peck doll she had been working on the past few weeks. All that was needed to put the finishing touches on the blue-eyed towhead was to dress her in her 1902 frock.

Paige ran a loving hand over the doll’s wax head and mohair-stuffed body. This little lady wasn’t quite museum-piece quality, but there were collectors who’d more than compensate Paige for her time and restoration efforts. Just as she ran her finger across the 131 Regent St. address stamped across the doll’s tummy, the doorbell rang.

Who on earth? Her mother, probably, Paige decided. Always a mother hen, brooding over her chicks, Paige’s mama had become entirely too overprotective since Paige had told her she was pregnant. And Paige hadn’t called her mother today. She’d been so busy, she’d forgotten.

Not bothering to slip into her shoes, she padded across the wooden floor in her sock feet. Taking the proper precaution, she glanced through the peephole. Gasping, she stepped backward, away from the door. Jared! What was he doing here? At her apartment?

Leaving the safety latch in place, she cracked the door and peered out at him. “Hello, Mr. Montgomery. What can I do for you?”

“You can open the door and let me in,” he said. “Or would you prefer we discuss our personal life while I’m standing out here in the hall?”

Our personal life? What was he talking about? She unlatched the safety and opened the door, but blocked his entrance with her body.

“We don’t have a personal life, Mr. Montgomery. Not together, anyway. You’re my boss. I’m your administrative assistant. Anything we need to discuss, we can discuss at the office. Tomorrow.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Paige.” He put special emphasis on pronouncing her name. “We need to discuss an event that occurred four months ago in an elevator.”

Grabbing his arm, Paige dragged him into her apartment, then slammed the door. “I thought we agreed to pretend that didn’t happen.”

“That was before I realized there might have been some consequences to the incident that would make it impossible for either of us to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Jared glanced around her small living room, quickly noting how homey it was. Typical middle-class style, with stuffed pillows lining the floral sofa, a half-dozen plants dotting the tables and bookshelves, and an inexpensive CD player, DVD player and nineteen-inch TV crammed into an imitation wood entertainment center.

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Dear Lord, surely Kay hadn’t gone to Jared and told him about her pregnancy, Paige wondered. No, of course not. Kay wouldn’t do such a thing. Besides, Jared hadn’t come back to the office all afternoon, so Kay would hardly have had the opportunity to tell him anything.

Jared surveyed her from head to toe, then smiled. Even in a pair of baggy sweatpants and loose-fitting top, Paige was a knockout. Soft, feminine and so very tempting. He liked her hair the way she was wearing it pulled back in a loose ponytail, the thick mane falling down her back like a cinnamon waterfall. His hand itched to grab a handful of that silky mass and drag her toward him, just enough to devour her pouty pink lips.

“Could we sit down?” he asked.

She glared at him, her lips indeed pouting. “Yes, of course. Please, come in, Mr. Montgomery, and have a seat.”

“Thanks.” He walked over, sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs, acting for all intents and purposes as if he were settling in for quite a stay. “And stop calling me Mr. Montgomery. My name is Jared.”

“I know perfectly well what your name is, Mr. Montgomery.” She sat in an armchair, separated from the sofa by a Duncan Phyfe coffee table that had belonged to her grandmother. “You and I agreed that it was best for both of us if we kept our relationship strictly business. I’m sure you haven’t come here to tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

“That depends.” Jared slipped his hands into the side pockets of his gray wool slacks. His unbuttoned navy jacket fell open, revealing an expanse of white shirt and red silk tie.

“It depends on what?” she asked, scooting to the edge of the chair.

“On whether or not the child you’re carrying is mine.” He made the statement as calmly as if he’d said the sky is blue.

Paige’s face paled. Her eyes widened into huge brown globes. She opened her mouth on a silent gasp. He knew! He knew she was pregnant. But how? No one knew except her parents and Kay.

“How do you know I’m pregnant?” she asked.

“I came back to the office while you and Kay were having lunch in the employees’ lounge.” He watched Paige closely, keeping his gaze riveted to her face, duly noting her worried expression. “I overheard a couple of sentences of your conversation. Enough to learn that you’re four months pregnant and that Kay thinks you should tell the father.”

“You were eavesdropping. You had no business listening to our private conversation.”