Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

“I shared your skepticism. Laura, too. She was reluctant to take the tests in the first place, afraid that doing so might jinx it.” He laughed. “But once the third one came out positive, she began to believe it was true. A test at the doctor’s office confirmed it.”

“She’s already gone to a doctor?”

“This morning. She pleaded with her gynecologist’s office to work her in. They did a blood test. They just called her with the happy news that her hormone level indicates that she’s pregnant.”

“Is she there with you?” Griff imagined them hugging each other, laughing, crying with joy.

“She was at the office, but she’s on her way home now. I’ve iced down the champagne. Well, I’ll have champagne. Laura, of course, can no longer drink, so I’ve got club soda on ice for her.” Speakman laughed. Griff forced himself to join in. “I wanted to share the news with you immediately. You’ve just become a very rich man.”

“Yeah. It’s kinda hard to take in.”

“Would it be convenient for you to come to the house tomorrow evening? I’ve worked out the details of that hitch.”

“Hitch?”

“How you would continue to be paid in the event that neither Laura nor I outlived you.”

“Oh, that.”

It seemed like a long time ago since he had been in the library of the mansion, sipping Coke from cut crystal, talking about deal points, hammering out the details of this bizarre arrangement. Now that he thought back on it, it seemed like a dream. And only now did he realize that he’d never thought it would actually work out as planned. He hadn’t counted on it ending to everyone’s satisfaction. But it had. The Speakmans were going to have the child they wanted. He was going to be a millionaire again. He was set for life.

He felt like he’d been hit with a sack of shit.

“It’s an unlikely scenario,” Speakman was saying, “but I’ve worked out a contingency for it. Also, we’d like to pay you your half million in person.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to ever see each other again.”

“Just this once. This is a special occasion, and I want to give it the ceremony it deserves. A gesture of our eternal gratitude. Will you come?”

“Sure,” Griff heard himself say. “What time?”

He arrived at eight-thirty on the dot. He dialed the house from the gate, identified himself to Manuelo, and the gate swung open. The aide opened the door even before Griff rang the bell. He was wearing his customary black, his smile as vacuous as before. He didn’t say a word before ushering Griff through the vaulted entry and into the familiar library, where Foster was waiting. Alone.

“Griff!” he exclaimed happily. He did a funny thing with his chair before wheeling it forward. Smiling ear to ear, he clasped Griff’s right hand between both of his and pumped it enthusiastically. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Worth the errand, huh? Five hundred thousand in cash. Do you have an armored truck to go home in?”

Griff laughed as expected.

“What would you like to drink?”

He nodded at the highball glass sitting on the end table at Speakman’s elbow. “One of those will be fine.”

“Uno más,” Speakman told Manuelo, who went immediately to the bar and poured Griff a drink from a decanter. As soon as he delivered it, Speakman motioned that the aide could leave. Manuelo pulled the double doors closed behind him.

Speakman retrieved his drink from the table. “I drank an entire bottle of champagne last night and woke up with a terrible headache this morning. But you can toast with good bourbon, too, can’t you?” He raised his glass. “To our success.”

“To our success,” Griff echoed. He took a hefty swig of the whiskey, which burned all the way down. “Mrs. Speakman isn’t joining us?”

“Unfortunately, no. A matter has been brewing in Austin for several months. A baggage handling problem that needed her attention. Or so she thought. I tried to talk her out of going, but she insisted that one of us needed to see to the resolution, and she thought the quick round-trip would be too much for me.”

Griff figured that was the excuse she’d given her husband. The truth of it was that she had hightailed it to Austin because she didn’t want to see him. Her absence sent a clear message that caused him to waver somewhere between longing to lay eyes on her again and anger over her cowardice about meeting him face-to-face after that last afternoon together.

“I won’t let her take on that extra work for much longer,” Speakman said. “From now until the baby is born, my hardest job will be getting her to delegate responsibility. She’s stubborn when it comes to turning a chore over to someone else.” He chuckled with self-deprecation. “Of course, so am I. But we both want to be full-time parents. When the baby arrives, I have no doubt she’ll devote herself to mothering.”

Of course, that was what this had been about, wasn’t it? Laura wanted a baby. She wanted to give her husband a baby. A few orgasms had been a bonus, but they sure as hell hadn’t changed her agenda, and he’d been a damn fool to think they might.

He was no different than a sperm bank, except that he had party favors-a hard dick, fingers, a tongue. He’d got her off a few times. So? So, nothing. She belonged to Foster Speakman, and so did the baby she would have. Bingo. Mission accomplished. Time to pop corks.

So long, Griff Burkett. It was nice knowing you. Nice fucking you. Nice fucking you over.

And if he had any doubt of that, he had only to listen to her husband’s gushing monologue. “You should have seen her this morning when that third test was positive.” He placed his fist over his mouth to contain his rising emotion. “Her face…I’ve never seen her look more beautiful than when she smiled at me and said, ‘We have a baby.’ We. That two-letter word was extremely meaningful to a man in my condition.”

“I’ll bet.”

Speakman didn’t seem to pick up on Griff’s snideness. He was too caught up in his euphoria. “Even before she took the test, I knew she was pregnant. Her breasts are already fuller. So tender she won’t let me touch them.” He laughed. “It would embarrass her, my telling you this. Forgive me for going on and on. I can’t help it. My heart is full to overflowing. And I’m still a bit drunk, I think.”

That reminded him to offer Griff another drink. Griff declined with a shake of his head. At the mention of Laura’s breasts, he’d shot the remainder of his whiskey. It had made his ears ring and his heart beat fast. He felt clammy and a little nauseated.

“Do you have any inclinations toward what it is?” Foster asked.

“What what is?”

“The baby. Did you feel particularly abundant in X’s or Y’s the day it was conceived?”

On the day it was conceived, what he’d felt was Laura. Her skin. Her heat. Her passion. The whiskey had caused his throat to sting, but he managed to say, “No. I never thought about it one way or the other.”

“I think about it constantly,” Speakman admitted sheepishly. “Our child’s sex-in fact, all its characteristics-were determined the instant the egg was fertilized. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Amazing.” Amazing how many times I came inside her.

“I can’t wait to know whether it’s a boy or a girl, but we can’t find out till the fifth month.”

Amazing how many times we came together.

Speakman chuckled. “Five months from now you’ll probably be lying on the beach of some Caribbean island with a cold drink in one hand and a hot chick in the other.”

Griff forced a smile. “Sounds good.”

“I guess you’ll eventually know about the baby. What it is. What we named it. You’ll probably read the announcement in the newspaper.”