My Babies and Me

Susan frowned. “Of course.” And then, “Who do you think’s going to support this child?”

“And you honestly think you can work fourteen hours a day and still be a good parent?”

Her arms about her empty stomach, Susan leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “The only reason I still work fourteen-hour days is because I have nothing to come home for.” It was the first time she’d admitted the truth, even to herself. “I’m not climbing up anymore, Michael. I’m at the top.”

“There are always higher mountains to climb.”

“I like the one I’m on.” She used to, anyway. And she would again. In spite of Tricia Halliday.

“I can’t be a father, Susan.”

“I’m not asking you to be.”

Ice clinked in a glass and she heard him swallow. “Hell,” he swore softly. “I don’t even live in the same state.”

“Which has nothing to do with anything.” She wished he’d just relax about it. “Michael, we’re divorced. All I want from you is biology.”

He swallowed again. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Because it doesn’t have to be complicated.” Opening her eyes, Susan stood, finished undressing. “I’m a single woman who’s made the decision to have a baby,” she told him. “It’s happening more and more. Single women are even adopting babies. But I really want the full experience, carrying the child, giving birth. All I’m asking from you is the missing ingredient I need to get started.”

Susan stopped, pulled on a pair of sweatpants. The line was silent. “I could ask a total stranger to provide the sperm,” she said, exasperated. “Would you rather I do that?”

“Hell, no!”

“You’re my friend, Michael.” Throwing herself down on the bed she’d once shared with him, Susan gazed, still topless, at the picture of Michael laughing up at her from the bedside table. “My best friend.” She had to stop for a second. Catch her breath. Swallow the tears that had suddenly appeared. “Who else would I go to when I need a favor?” she finished.

“No one.” He sighed. “You were right to come to me.”

She couldn’t believe how good it felt to hear him say so.

“So when do you want to do it?” His voice dropped, low and gravelly, sexy.

Covering her naked breasts with her arms, Susan wanted to tell him that this weekend was perfect timing, as far as her cycle was concerned. “Whenever it’s...convenient...for you,” she said instead. It felt odd to be discussing it. She and Michael just kind of fell into sex—mostly because they couldn’t help themselves.

They’d certainly never planned it before. It was slightly embarrassing. And she was freezing. Scrambling into her sweatshirt, she barely caught his words.

“...this weekend...off for the Super Bowl.”

“Good!” She pulled the phone back to her face. “This weekend’s good.” She’d already decided to take both days off. While that would mean two full weekends in a row, she needed a little extra distance right now. Needed time to think objectively about the McArthur case. “Probably too late to fly in tonight, huh?”

Michael laughed and her toes curled. There just wasn’t another man like him. She knew. She’d searched frantically during those first few years after the divorce.

“I’d like to think it’s my body you’re so eager for.”

It was. “That old thing? Had it last weekend.”

“Keep it up, woman.”

“So you’ll come in the morning?”

“First flight out.” His voice sounded muffled, as though he were already on to the next item on his evening’s agenda.

“Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

SEX. He wasn’t going to think about anything but the sex. And sex with Susan was always incredible. He had to admit, as far as favors went, this one was relatively painless.

As long as all he thought about was the sex.

He occupied himself with business during the short flight from Chicago to Cincinnati, mentally reviewing possible candidates for his replacement at Smythe and Westbourne, making a list of the projects and problems his replacement would need to know about.

He still hadn’t told Susan about the promotion. He had some irrational feeling that if he was going to get through this episode intact, he had to keep his private life, his own personal self, out of it. Susan’s request had erected a wall between them that he was afraid to scale. Somehow, he knew that for his own self-preservation he had to keep his distance. Sharing this, the greatest success of his life, with her, the realization of all his goals, made him too vulnerable at a time when he couldn’t afford to be vulnerable at all.

Besides, there was a small part of him that was afraid she’d be hurt because he’d accepted a job that required no familial obligations, even though he’d agreed to father her child. And the fear wasn’t just born from an aversion to hurting Susan. If she was hurt, that would mean she’d been harboring some desire for him to share more than just the conception of her child.

And he couldn’t do this for her if he thought, for one second, that she’d be asking for more than he had to give.

Staring out the window at the expanse of anonymous farmland passing beneath him, Michael forced his mind back to the loyal staff he’d built over the years. He’d pretty much decided on the person he was going to promote, and he looked forward to breaking the news. That thought gave him the balance he’d been seeking.

Business was the only thing he felt sure about. The only way he knew how to cope. To shut off the fears and concerns that were nagging at him, the uneasiness he couldn’t seem to dissipate with logic.

A man could only think so much about sex without embarrassing himself.

SETH’S DARK-BLUE Bronco was parked in front of the condo when Michael pulled up in his rental. Fond as he was of Susan’s brother, Seth sure as hell could have picked a better time to come visiting.

“I heard you were going to be in town,” the big blond man greeted him as Michael let himself in. “Thought I’d stop by and see if you two wanted to take in a movie or something.”

Susan, curled up on the couch, raised her brows and grimaced behind her brother’s back.

Michael shrugged out of his overcoat and hung it on the brass tree by the front door. “Don’t think so, buddy,” he said. There was no way in hell he’d be able to sit through a movie right now.

“The new Star Trek movie’s playing downtown,” Seth coaxed.

Exchanging glances with Susan, Michael shook his head. Trekkies though they were, a movie was still a two-hour wait in the dark. “It was just released,” he told Seth, pulling his keys out his jeans pocket to drop them on the hall table. “And it’s Saturday. The theater’ ll be full of kids.”

Dressed in beige khaki slacks and a black longsleeved fleece shirt that hugged her waist, Susan looked great. And eager. Her eyes were glowing as she shared an intimate glance with him.

“How about a game of basketball, then? I can call for a court.” Seth picked up the phone and dialed.

“I didn’t bring gym clothes,” Michael said, disconnecting the call. He met and held his friend’s gaze. “Seth, go home.”

“There’s a new restaurant on the other side of the river I’ve been meaning to try,” Seth said, still clutching the phone. “We could have lunch....”

Turning his ex-brother-in-law toward the door, Michael grabbed Seth’s coat off the rack and handed it to him. “Go home.”