The Secretary's Secret

“Look, I know you’re not crazy about the idea of getting married to anyone—”

“And you’re too crazy about it. Did you even stop to think that you would be marrying me for all the wrong reasons? You want Susie homemaker. Someone to squeeze out your babies, keep your house clean and have dinner waiting in the oven when you get home from work. Well, take a look around you, Nick. My life is in shambles. My house is a disaster and if I can’t microwave myself a meal in five minutes or less, I don’t buy it.”

He didn’t look hurt by her refusal, which made her that much more certain marrying him would be a bad idea. She could never be the cardboard cutout wife he was looking for. She wouldn’t be any kind of a wife at all.

And even if they could get past all of that, it still wouldn’t work. He was such a good guy. Perfect in so many ways. Except the one that counted the most.

He didn’t love her.

She took his hand between her two. It was rough and slightly calloused from years of working construction with his employees. He may have owned the company, may have had more money than God, but he liked getting his hands dirty. He liked to feel the sun on his back and fresh air in his lungs. One day cooped up in the office and he was climbing the walls.

She didn’t doubt that he would put just as much of himself into his marriage. He was going to make some lucky woman one hell of a good husband.

Just not her.

“It was a noble gesture. But I think we both need to take some time and decide what it is we really want.”

“How much time?” he asked.

“I’m going to have to make a doctor’s appointment. Let’s get through that first then we’ll worry about the other stuff.”

Who knows, maybe she got a false positive from the pregnancy test. Maybe she would get a blood test at the doctor’s office and find out they had done all this worrying for nothing.

Four

“Congratulations! Your test was positive! If you haven’t yet made a follow-up appointment with Doctor Gordon, please dial one. If you need to speak to a nurse, dial two—”

Zoë hung up the phone in her office, cutting short the obnoxiously perky prerecorded message she’d gotten when she phoned the doctor’s office for her blood test results.

It was official. Not that it hadn’t been official before. The blood test had just been a formality. She was definitely, without a doubt, having Nick’s baby.

Oh boy.

Or girl, she supposed.

She would walk down to his office and tell him, but he’d been in her office every ten minutes wondering if she’d made the call.