Tracy Wolff - Beginning with Their Baby

“I’ll call you later, Camille.”

“Sure. Later.” She started to slam the door, but stopped as Matt held out a hand to her.

“Make sure you get some lunch—and pick out a place for dinner. I’ll take you out.”

“You don’t have to do that, Matt.”

His eyes grew even darker, hotter, as he growled, “I want to. Now stop arguing and go get some rest. I’ll talk to you later.” He leaned across the seat, grabbed her hand. Squeezed. And suddenly she didn’t feel nearly so uncertain.

Stepping back, she slammed the car door and watched as he drove away. He waved right before he turned the corner and her hand lifted automatically in response, though he had already turned and couldn’t see her.

Then, refusing to think about what that kiss had or hadn’t done to their relationship, she headed up the stairs to her motel room, where she flopped onto the bed and promptly fell asleep, fully dressed.

FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT he could remember, Matt had a difficult time keeping his mind on his job. During the meeting with the new clients, he screwed up no less than four times—on minor stuff that any architectural grad student should have a strong grasp of.

Right around the fourth mess-up, he caught his best friend and partner, Reece Sandler, staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. And when, a few minutes later—after he’d screwed up again—Reece mouthed, “What the hell is wrong with you?” he didn’t even take offense.

How could he? He was so far off his game that it was a miracle the clients hadn’t given up and walked out. He wouldn’t blame them if they did—despite the copious amount of work he and Reece had put into designing the new Japanese skyscraper. The building was tall and monolithic, with incredible angles that let in an abundance of light and a roof that was different from anything else in the business. He and his partner considered it one of their best designs. What had started out as a brainstorming session a couple of years ago had turned into what they hoped would soon be the Makati Tower.

Which was why, when the meeting was over and the Makati Corporation representatives were on their way out, Matt didn’t object to letting Reece show them to the elevator on his own. From the time they had set out their shingle eleven years before, Reece had always been the deal-closer. Funny, polished and extroverted, he rarely failed to bring the client around to their way of thinking. He was a hell of an architect, too, but he was definitely the salesman in their partnership.

Matt was the detail guy, the one who took Reece’s sometimes fantastical ideas and made them work. He was the problem-solver, the number cruncher, the one who made the difficult easy and the impossible possible. Which was why it sucked that he’d been off his game today—when Hiro Makati himself had asked about the methods that went into creating the sharp angles that were the building’s cornerstones, it should have been a slam dunk for him to answer. After all, he’d designed them.

Instead, all he’d been able to think about was Camille and how she’d looked when he’d driven away from her after the doctor’s appointment.

Beautiful, stunned and a little insecure—which was not a word he normally associated with his former lover—she’d touched his heart. Again. After he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t let it happen, wouldn’t let her get inside him this time so that she could just walk away again. And he’d blown it, already.

She’d been back from Italy less than twenty-four hours and he was already hungering to take her to bed, to let her back into his life. To try again, even though he was sure it wouldn’t work out. They were too different—he liked security, craved it, and she was the woman her high school graduating class voted most likely to sail around the world. Even more, she was the woman who had sailed around the world—more than once, while he’d always been the guy to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground.

How the two of them were ever going to raise a child together, he didn’t know. But he was smart enough to know that complicating that job with a renewal of their sexual relationship was definitely not a good idea. Eventually things would burn out between them and then where would they be—bitter and angry with each other at worst, awkward and uncomfortable at best.

No, it was better to keep things simple between them. To keep things platonic. Besides, he couldn’t afford to mess with Camille—she was bad for his peace of mind, bad for his organization. Chaos followed her around and, even worse, worked its way into his own life when he was with her. His disastrous performance at the meeting today was proof of that.

Because he felt guilty as hell—he and Reece had worked too hard on this design to watch it go up in smoke because he couldn’t get his ducks in a row—Matt didn’t even try to dodge Reece’s incredulous look when he came back into the conference room.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Reece demanded, leaning against the table. “And don’t tell me ‘nothing,’ because I’ve known you since we were freshmen at UT and I have never seen you screw up like that. Not once in damn near eighteen years of friendship.”

For a split second, Matt didn’t know what he wanted to say. After all, he’d yet to come to grips with everything that had changed in his life in the past twenty-four hours and the idea of talking about it… Still, this was Reece and he knew his friend well enough to know that he didn’t let go once he’d sunk his teeth into something—in this case, Matt’s uncharacteristic screw-ups.

Not sure what he was going to say, he opened up his mouth and the words “Camille’s pregnant” flew out before he could stop them.

Reece didn’t immediately respond, just sat there and blinked at him for a few long seconds. “Camille? The woman you were dating a few months back?”

“Yes.”

“The one you moped around about for weeks?”

“Yes.”

“She’s pregnant?”

“Yes.” He was beginning to feel like a parrot.

“With your kid?”

“Well, yeah. I don’t think I’d be this stressed out if it was someone else’s.”

“Hey, when did this happen?”

Matt stared at his friend incredulously. “Excuse me?”

“Not the pregnant thing, the you-finding-out thing.”

“Oh. Yesterday.”

“So this is what you needed the gynecologist’s number for?”

“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t for me.”

“Yeah, but I figured one of your sisters was looking for a new doctor or something. It never occurred to me that you’d gotten a woman pregnant, but at least everything is making a bit more sense now.”

“I’m glad it makes sense to you, because my head is so screwed up that I can barely see straight.”

Reece reached over, clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me.”

He didn’t have a clue where to start, so for the first time in his life he opened his mouth and just rambled. “I fell for her the first time I saw her. She was doing sidewalk art a few blocks from the UT stadium, keeping the fans amused as we killed time before the game.”

“I remember. You were twenty minutes late for kickoff and when you finally showed up you looked like you’d been hit in the head with a two-by-four.”

“That’s how I felt. I hung out with her for over an hour, even paid her twenty bucks to do a caricature of me.” She’d drawn him in a suit and tie, a huge briefcase clutched in one hand and an even bigger pocket watch in the other. He’d been amazed at the astuteness of her drawing, especially since he’d been dressed in faded jeans and an old UT shirt. “Then I stood around, trying to get her number as she drew a bunch of pictures for other people.