The Child They Didn't Expect

Deb agreed, and they went on to check the list of items Ali had planned for her shopping expedition in the morning. They divided the lists. Deb was to purchase a diaper bag and supplies along with car seats—one for Ronin and one for the nannies—as well as a stroller and a portable crib in case the baby overnighted with his grandparents when he was a little older. Ali took on the nursery furniture and final decorations for the room, as well as the clothing and feeding necessities. She made a mental note to ask Ronin to check with the hospital about which formula the infant was being fed so she could make sure there was a sufficient supply at the house for when the baby came home.

By the time their working day drew to a close, she was feeling excited. It was because she would deeply enjoy the tasks ahead, she told herself firmly as she locked up the office and headed for her tiny apartment in Mount Eden. It had nothing to do with seeing Ronin again the next day.

Liar, she admitted to herself with an illicit thrill. Dressing the nursery was a fun job, but it had nothing to do with the slow moving heat that was spreading through her veins at the thought of being near him again. For all the words she’d bandied in Deb’s direction today, she couldn’t help but wonder—what would it be like if she and Ronin had another chance? Ali dismissed the question almost as swiftly as she’d thought it. She’d made her decision to remain single after the devastation her marriage had caused her. She didn’t want or need the complications that a relationship with a man like Ronin Marshall would bring. Not one little bit.

Four (#ulink_8cc9a31f-7749-521f-8340-a689da324e08)

Ronin huffed in frustration as the doorbell rang for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. He’d had no idea how disruptive changing one room over for a tiny baby could be, but he was certainly finding out. He’d thought he could work quite comfortably at home but the steady stream of courier deliveries had negated that possibility. Now he had boxes strewn all over his foyer and no idea what was in them or where they needed to go.

“Feeling a bit under siege?” Ali asked with a sunny smile as he opened the door to her and she espied the stacks of boxes around him.

Relief seeped through him. Thank God she was there. Now I might be able to put my focus where it belongs and get something done.

“You could say that,” he replied. “I could have done with you here from about ten this morning.”

“I’m sorry. I came as quickly as I could.” She hefted a book of curtain samples a little higher, and he swiftly reached out for the heavy item.

“Here, let me take that for you.”

“Thanks. I have a couple more in the car.”

“Seriously?”

She laughed at his obvious surprise and he felt his lips curl in response. “Yes, seriously. This is important.”

She spun on a ridiculously delicate high heel and went straight to her car. Ronin followed and accepted the additional sample books from her, all the while trying to keep his gaze averted as the fabric of her neatly cut trousers pulled across the curves of her backside as she reached down into the trunk of her car. It occurred to him that nothing she wore stood out as particularly high fashion, yet everything still managed to deliver a punch when she put it on. He shifted his focus to the heavy books in his arms.

“All this for one set of curtains?” he asked.

“Oh, there were more,” she answered with a sweet curve of her lips. “But they didn’t have what I was looking for.”

He followed her back into the house, where she paused in the foyer and inspected the labels on the various boxes that had accumulated there. She pulled her tablet out of her voluminous handbag and made some notes before stacking a couple of the smaller boxes in her arms.

“Shall we go upstairs? I’d like your opinion on the fabric swatches.”

“Really, I know nothing about color. I usually left all that to...” His voice tailed off as that sweeping sense of loss tugged hard at his heart.

Decorating had been CeeCee’s forte and her business, and she’d been exceptional at it. It was part of the reason he’d teased her so mercilessly about not doing anything for the baby’s room. She’d never been superstitious growing up, which begged the question—had she had some intuition that something was going to go wrong? He shoved the idea from his mind before it could bloom into something further. He’d never held with that way of thinking and never would. To him intuition was, more accurately, picking up subconscious clues. No clue on earth could have predicted what would happen the night CeeCee and R.J. were killed.

He realized that Ali was waiting for him to finish his sentence. “To others who are far more adept at it than I am,” he finished lamely.

“Well, if you’re happy for me to make the final choice, I’m okay with that. I just thought that since it’s your home we’re working on you might like some input.”

“I’ll take these up for you and leave you to it. I have a conference call with a client in Vietnam shortly that should take about an hour. Please don’t leave until I’m done. I really can’t afford any delivery interruptions during the call, so if you could take care of opening the gate and getting the door, I would really appreciate it.”

Ali smiled calmly. “No problem at all. I’ll be here all afternoon. The furniture will be delivered by three, and I’d like to set it up as quickly as possible.”

“Good, I’ll get your fingerprint programmed into the biometric reader when I’m finished on the call.”

They went upstairs and Ali pushed open the door to what was to be the nursery. Ronin was a little surprised at how much had already changed. He’d gotten his two part-time groundsmen to remove the furniture and store it in the loft above his multicar garage, together with the carpet square that had been in the room. Last time he’d looked in, the wooden plank floorboards had been covered with paint-spattered drop cloths and the walls had been a patchwork of the original off-white with an array of softer lemons, blues and grays. He was pleasantly surprised by the solid block of pale but warm gray that now covered the walls, offset by pristine white-painted trim on the deep skirting boards and the window frame.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d decided on in here, but I have to say I like it,” he said, laying the stack of curtain books on the floor.

“It looks great, doesn’t it? Initially I’d thought to go with the pale blue on three walls and then to have a farm scene mural painted on one wall, but you only need to look out the window to appreciate that view more than anything that could be painted in place. Deb and I decided the gray was best and would work as baby grows older, too. Removable borders can provide features anyway, and they can be changed more easily, too.”

Ronin tried to envision what she was talking about, but it all went right over his head. He was far more comfortable talking specifications and load-bearing structures than he was visualizing what was obviously so clear in her head.

Ali bent and rummaged through the fabric samples, extracting a sheer white gauze and then flipping back and forth through each of the other books. Their samples were, to his eye at least, much the same color as the nursery walls.

“Here,” she said, holding one book open to a self-patterned fabric swatch a couple of shades darker than what was already on the wall. “Could you hold that up for me over by the window? I want to see how it works with the rest of the room.”

He did as she bid and was surprised to see her shake her head vehemently. “What? Wrong color?”

“Totally,” she muttered, digging back through the samples again. “Here, try this one.”

To him they looked identical, but he dutifully held the sample up for her.

“Yes, that’s better,” she said, tilting her head slightly to one side and taking a step back. “In fact, I think that’s perfect. We’ll put the drapes against the window with the sheers on the bedroom side. That way the sheers will soften the effect on the whole room when the drapes are closed.”

“I know what you’re saying should make sense,” he laughed. “But it sounds like a foreign language to me.”

Her face broke into a wide smile and she gave him a cheeky wink. “Then it’s a good job you hired Best for Baby, isn’t it?”

She looked just as she had when they’d talked over the dinner table in Hawaii. He’d been reluctant, after a taxing day with a client, to share his solitude. But when the restaurant hostess had requested he allow someone she’d had to turn away to join him, and had pointed Ali out in the bar, he’d recognized her as the woman he’d brushed against in the crowded restaurant lobby. The woman who’d unwittingly triggered a startlingly visceral reaction. His initial resistance had been demolished and he’d said yes.

He wanted that again. That carefree easiness between them. That sense of being on a voyage of discovery together.

“Ali—” he started, taking a tentative step toward her.

“Yes?”

God, he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her. To revisit that exquisite oblivion they’d shared the night they met.

“I—” He broke off with a muttered expletive as his phone chirped in his trouser pocket. He identified the number of his office on the screen. “I’m sorry, but I need to get this.”

“No problem. I’ll be around here or downstairs if you need me.”

She took the sample book from him, and as she moved away again he caught the fresh floral sweetness of her perfume. It was so subtle he was unsure he’d even smelled it at all, but it had a very immediate effect on his body. Need bloomed low in his groin. The phone in his hand continued to chirp. He forced his attention away from the woman who’d ensnared him and fought his libido under control. This kind of thing didn’t happen in his normally rigidly structured world. Yes, he knew desire—what man didn’t? But he’d never known it like this.

He barked a greeting into his phone. Walking from the nursery, he forced himself not to wonder why each step away from Ali felt as if it were a mile rather than a mere yard.

* * *

Well, that was intense, Ali thought as she watched Ronin leave the room. For a moment there she’d thought he was going to close the gap between them and kiss her. His eyes had darkened to a deep denim blue and fixed on her, as if the world had narrowed to only contain the two of them. Her heart still thumped in her chest, pumping blood to her extremities and heightening her awareness to a fever pitch.

She bit down on her lower lip. A lip that tingled in anticipation of his caress. A lip that mourned the caress that hadn’t happened. Obviously their initial attraction was still there just as strongly as it had been an entire hemisphere away—their more recent contretemps notwithstanding.

She closed the sample books and stacked them on one side of the room. It was getting more difficult every time she saw him to remind herself she didn’t want to go there again—that she was totally wrong for him. She had to stay professional. He was her client and she was contracted by him to do a job—a job that involved a helpless, parentless infant. Something deep inside her ached at the thought. What she wouldn’t give to be that parent—to be that special someone to nurture and raise and love the child.