The Pregnancy Pact: The Pregnancy Secret / The CEO's Baby Surprise / From Paradise...to Pregnant!

“How come you’re home?” he asked again.

“Things were slow,” she, who never told a fib, lied with shocking ease. “I shut it down a bit early. It seemed to me I should be helping out here. After all, I started it, too.”

“I don’t really see how you can help. You’re kind of handicapped at the moment.” He regarded her with a furrowed brow. “You still look not quite right. Pale. Fragile.”

“I’m fine.”

He brightened as he thought of a use for her. “I know what you could do! You could order pizza. Is Stradivarius still around the corner? God, I’ve missed that pizza. I haven’t had it since—”

His voice trailed away. Since you left me. Had he missed her? At all? Or had even pizza rated higher than her?

It didn’t matter. Their lives were separate now. She was moving on. Which reminded her of why she had rushed home. And it was not to order him a pizza!

She sidled by Kade. She passed close enough to him to breath in the wonderful familiar scent of him, mixed with something unfamiliar. Sawdust from the floor?

It was tempting to lean just a little closer and breathe deeply of the intoxication that was his scent. But she didn’t.

“I’ll just go, um, freshen up.” She didn’t mean changing her clothes. Changing clothes had become a rather daunting undertaking with one arm out of commission. What she really meant was she would go to her office and put her life away from his prying eyes just in case he did make it in there.

Behemoth, it turned out, was in the bathroom, not her office. It would be necessary to climb over it if she was really freshening up, which she wasn’t. How far did she need to take the ruse? Did she need to climb over that thing and flush the toilet?

It seemed as if it would be endangering her other arm, and unnecessarily, because when she glanced back down the hall, Kade was not paying the least bit of attention to her.

As always.

The thought was edged with so much bitterness she could practically taste it, like chewing on a lemon peel.

Jessica went into her office. The papers were all out, just as she had remembered, but they were undisturbed. She slid them into the top drawer of the desk. She considered locking it, but it fell under the category of him not paying any attention to her. She doubted Kade would find her interesting enough to pry into her closed desk.

“Interesting placement of Behemoth,” she said when she came back into the living room.

“I was thinking it might start a trend. Every man would like a recliner in the bathroom. Some kind of recliner-toilet combination is probably a million-dollar idea just waiting to be developed.”

“That is gross.”

“It isn’t. It’s combining practicality with extreme luxury. You have to admit there is nothing particularly comfortable or luxurious about a toilet seat.”

She remembered this about him with an ache of longing: that easy irreverence that made her want to be stuffy and disapproving, but she always gave in and laughed instead.

She could feel her lips twitching. He saw it, too.

“Think about it,” Kade pressed on. “We could offer designer colors. Pickled pumpkin and redneck camo. We could throw in a free matching dress with every purchase.”

She tried to be stern. She giggled. He smiled at her giggle. She succeeded in smothering her giggle. He succeeded in smothering his smile.

“I think,” she said severely, Mother Superior to misbehaving novice, “we should try to get the floors done before we tackle anything else together.”

“Oh, right. Okay. So come and look at this.”

She went over to where he was glaring at the floor. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“That was what I was afraid of,” he groaned. “I already sanded this part. Not much is happening. I just went out and got a different grit of sandpaper. I’m going to try it again. Cover your ears.”

Obediently, Jessica put her hands over her ears. The machine roared to life. It was like standing next to a jackhammer.

To her relief, Kade stopped it after a few seconds. “Better,” he said, “but still...” A light came on in his face. “It’s not heavy enough.”

“Huh?”

“The sander. It isn’t heavy enough to really dig into those floors. Get on.”

“What?”

“Come on. Sit on the front of it.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“You wanted to help. You can’t do much with your arm like that. Come sit on the sander.”

Why hadn’t she just gone and ordered a pizza? Against her better judgment, she moved a little closer. “Sit on it?” She tapped it. “Here?”

He nodded eagerly.

Oh, jeez, it had always been hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm.

She kicked off her shoes, gathered her skirt underneath her and sat down regally on the sander. She planted her feet firmly on a part of it that looked like a front fender. “Do not do anything that will jeopardize my other arm,” she warned him.

“Don’t worry.” Grinning happily, he started the sander. A quiver ran through her. And then a tremble.

“Oh, my God.” Her voice came out shaking, as if she was trying to talk from under water. In the midst of an earthquake. With her good hand, she clutched wildly at the side of the sander. She braced her front feet.

“Ready?”

Ready? Sheesh, Jessica, run for your life! Instead, she clung like a bronc rider waiting for the gate to open. She nodded her head.

The machine lurched across the floor.

“That’s better,” Kade called. “It’s working!” He swung the huge machine slowly back and forth over the floor.

“I feel like I’m on one of those machines from a seventies gym,” she yelled. Her voice sounded as if she was a cartoon character. Her whole body was vibrating crazily. She could see the flesh on her arms and legs jiggling rapidly.

She started to laugh. Even her laughter was shaking. Kade also gave a shout of pure glee.

He abandoned the slow sweeping motions in the corner and swiveled the machine outward. He raced across the living room, pushing the machine in front of him. Jessica glanced over her shoulder. A wide swath of sanded wood showed behind them, like the wake behind a boat.

They rocketed toward the front door.