A Pregnant Proposal

Matt gave a half shrug. “Just that if you say one wrong thing he might jump on it and use it for his case.”

“What could I say that he could use against me? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“No, you haven’t.” Matt’s voice was gentle but firm. “But if you get flustered—and he will be an expert at trying to make you feel that way—who knows what you might say?”

Jen gave a laugh. “Think I might slip and make an arbitrary confession to smuggling or extortion?”

Matt smiled, but his eyes remained fastened on hers. “Of course not. But people have been known to confess to things that weren’t true when the pressure was on them.”

She shook her head. “Not me. The truth is on my side in this case.”

“Sometimes that’s not enough.”

She sighed. Matt could be right. On the other hand, maybe they were giving Dutch Sedgewick a lot more credit than he deserved. “Maybe he’s just a blowhard and the worst he can do is act the way he always has toward me—like I’m an irritating gnat flying in his face.” She waited a moment and added, “I promise this, if he maintains this suit, I’ll be a lot more trouble than a gnat.”

Matt looked at her for a moment, then sat down, shaking his head. “You’re what my grandmother would have called a real pistol, you know that?”

“This is a good thing?”

“Sure. If you like giving fits to the people who care about you.”

She bit her tongue before self-pity let her say that, apart from Susan and Matt, she felt like there were more people against her than for her. Of course, that was counting the messenger who had given her the papers and the kid at the coffee shop who she was sure was lying when he said they didn’t have any more chocolate macadamia biscotti.

The baby moved, kicking Jen’s ribs, and her perspective came back to her in a rush. She no longer had the luxury of feeling sorry for herself, she had someone else to take care of now. Already her love for the baby took precedence over everything else in her life. Surely when the Sedgewicks saw that, they’d drop their suit.

The telephone on Jen’s desk trilled.

“Do you want me to have them hold your calls?” Matt asked, poised to take action.

Jen shook her head. “It’s okay.” She picked up the phone. It was Leila, calling for Matt.

With an apologetic smile, he took the phone and answered it. “I thought I told you to take messages,” he said into the receiver, then listened. “Oh. I see. Uh-huh.”

Jen studied his profile as he talked. He was certainly handsome, she thought to herself. No wonder so many women were after him. She smiled to herself, remembering how he had once confided to Susan and herself that he was tired of shallow relationships, but that he didn’t want anything deeper. He’d rather be alone, he’d said, than play the games any longer. Privately she and Susan had agreed that a great guy was being wasted and that they should keep their eyes out for the perfect woman for him. Now, though she was loathe to admit it, she was glad they hadn’t succeeded. It felt nice to have him here for her, looking after her interests and reassuring her.

“Sorry for the interruption,” he said, hanging up the phone. “It seems we just hired a mail-room clerk with a criminal past.”

Jen raised an eyebrow, absently rubbing her hand across her belly. “So we’re an equal opportunity employer, what’s the problem?”

“By criminal I mean two million bucks’ worth of mail fraud at a large accounting firm in Boston.” Matt shook his head. “He got off on a technicality.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “I guess he didn’t mention that in his application.”

“Nope.”

She sighed and sat down heavily in her hard leather chair. “You’d better get down and take care of that, then.”

“I hate to leave you alone with this right now.” He looked at her with so much concern, her chest tightened.

But she didn’t want to be a burden to him, or to anyone. She waved him off with her hand. “Oh, I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t look convinced. “How about dinner tonight?”

“You don’t have to baby-sit me, Matt, honestly.” She looked into his eyes. “I’m really all right.”

He put his hands up in surrender. “I believe you, I believe you. But I have selfish reasons for asking you to dinner. We still haven’t talked about the day care, and Kane’s breathing down my neck about it. I’d like to get your opinions and since we didn’t make lunch…”

“Sold.” She was glad to have a good reason to accept because, the truth was, ever since he’d mentioned going out to lunch, she’d been hungry for a big juicy hamburger. Maybe she’d change it to a big juicy steak for dinner. The four doughnuts she’d had for lunch weren’t really very satisfying. “I usually leave around five-thirty, how about you? Should we go from here?”

“Whatever you prefer, Jen, it’s your pick. After all, you’re the one doing me a favor.”

In fact, she would have preferred to go home and get herself together first, maybe put on some makeup and a nicer outfit, but she didn’t want Matt to think she thought it was a date, so she said, “Great, then let’s go from here.”

He gave a short nod. “I’ll come meet you here at five-thirty.”

“Perfect.” She pushed her hair back off her face. “See you then.”

He started for the door, then stopped and turned back to her. “In the meantime, Jen,” he looked at the telephone and then back at her, “don’t do anything foolish, okay?”

“Me?” She smiled. “Of course not.”

“Remember what I said, don’t talk to Sedgewick unless it’s through a lawyer. God knows what he’d get you to say.”

“I’m a big girl.” She glanced theatrically at her belly. “A really big girl. I can take care of myself and whoever else may come along.”

Matt eyed her for a moment, then gave a single nod. “All right.”

She watched him go with a curious sense of emptiness. As long as Matt had been in the office with her, she’d been occupied. As long as she’d been occupied, she hadn’t had to make the call to Dutch Sedgewick that Matt was trying so hard to keep her from making. Yet she knew she had to do it. If she waited and had a lawyer contact Dutch for her, that would really set him off. He would look at it as a call to battle. That was the last thing she needed. Whereas, if she spoke with him herself, there was a possibility, at least, that she might be able to reason with him.

And now that she was alone, she couldn’t put it off any longer.

With more care than was necessary, she took the phone book out of her desk drawer and looked up the number for Sedgewick-Armour. When she found it, she had to fight an urge to slap the book shut and forget the call, but she had to make it. So she settled into the chair behind her desk, took several deep breaths for courage and dialed the number.

“Dutch Sedgewick, please,” she said when a crisp-voiced receptionist answered the phone.

“May I tell him who’s calling?”

“Jennifer Martin.”

“One moment please.” There was a click, then dead silence as she waited on hold. No fuzzy radio station or soothing Muzak for Dutch Sedgewick. He probably wanted his clients and his adversaries alike to hear their own hearts beat as they waited for him to come on the line. Refusing to give in to the anxiety, Jen hummed to herself and watched the timer on her telephone count the minutes—four and a half of them—until the receptionist came back on the line.

“Mr. Sedgewick can’t be interrupted right now,” the voice said coolly. “May I take a number so he can call you back?”

It took nearly five minutes for him to tell you he couldn’t be interrupted? Jen thought. She knew this was another of his lawyerly tactics, but she didn’t see that she had a choice. She left her work number and said that she would be there until five-thirty.

He returned her call at five twenty-five.

“Dutch Sedgewick here,” he said, in a voice that boomed like Fred Flintstone’s, without the humor.