The Boss's Baby Surprise

She took a breath, and twirled the hat pin between her finger and thumb. Its rounded, pearly end gleamed in the leaping golden light from the candle in the center of their table. Nick’s china-blue gaze was fixed on her face, and she felt as if she was swimming in the deep pools of his eyes.

“Tell me, Celie,” he said. “Don’t hedge it, or qualify it, just tell me.”

“Okay, then, here it is. Is there any chance, Nick, that somewhere in this world—” Cleveland, let’s say “—you have a baby you don’t know about?”

“A what?” Nick almost yelled the words.

“A baby,” Celie repeated.

She leaned forward and captured Nick’s big, firm hand in hers without even realizing she’d done it. It felt warm and dry and strong—even stronger when he twisted it out of her grasp and closed his fingers over her knuckles. He squeezed them and looked down, drawing her attention to the body contact. “Pick up your spoon, Celie,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” She slid her hand away at once, and continued, “It’s a little boy. I hear him crying, and I get up to go to him, and then there’s a woman who tells me it’s all right, I don’t have to, because you’ll go. And the crying stops, and I feel a sense of peace because I know you’re there, holding him, belonging with him. Only last night, you didn’t go.”

“I…didn’t…go.”

“To the baby. And I realized it was because you didn’t know that he exists. Believe me, as I’ve said, I’m not happy about these dreams, and I know this one sounds—”

“He doesn’t exist, Celie. The dream is nonsense.” He frowned. “Boy or girl, I’ve never fathered a child.”

“But I’m wondering if that’s true,” she persisted, still caught in the strong, sticky web of the dreams, forgetting her allotted place in Nick Delaney’s life, overlooking her own doubts. “You know, sometimes a woman gets pregnant and she has reasons for not wanting to tell the father. It happens. I don’t want to trespass into your personal life, but if you think back, look through your diary, isn’t there someone who could have gotten careless with—?”

“No.” The flat of his hand came down hard on the table. “I’m telling you, it’s not possible, Celie, and you need to believe me on this. I really hope you’re not suggesting that I give you a list of the women I’ve slept with.”

“No, of course not.”

“And that I should call them up and ask?”

He looked angry now.

Of course he did! This whole conversation was an affront to his privacy, to the boundaries they both believed in and to their whole working relationship. Celie should have seen it, but even if she had, would the dreams have prompted too strongly for her to resist? She needed to understand what was going on.

Her fingers slipped, and the hat pin pricked the ball of her thumb, as if to taunt her, “Gee, didn’t you handle this well?”

She dropped the hat pin on the table, beside the remains of her meal. She had no appetite left for it, now. The restaurant had filled, and the few couples who’d been here when she and Nick first arrived had reached coffee and dessert. If Nick didn’t want to listen to this, then it was time to go.

“Just how long do you think such a list would be, if you don’t mind my asking?” Nick said, his voice deceptively quiet and controlled, this time. His blue eyes sparked.

“I’m sorry,” she answered quickly. “I thought I should tell you about what the dream seemed to be saying. That’s all. Since it was so vivid. And so real. Of course I’m not suggesting you keep a—a list.”

“But you’re suggesting there’d be some names on it if I did? That there’s a woman out there from my past—and this is an infant we’re talking about, so you think it’s my recent past—who’s been pregnant with my child over this past year and I haven’t known? That I could have been that careless, that casual, and not even thought to follow up on it?”

She gaped at him, her cheeks on fire. “I’m sorry,” she said again. It sounded terrible when he said it like that. What was happening to her? How could a few dreams have taken such a strong hold on her imagination?