Unnatural Relations (Lust and Lies Series, Book 1) (10 page)

When she awoke again, her stomach was only slightly queasy... until she blinked the sleep out of her eyes and saw Russ sitting in a chair right next to her. He was staring at her so intently she wondered if she'd grown horns while she was asleep. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked as she got up and wrapped the robe more tightly around her.

"How do you feel?"

She felt his eyes following her to the kitchenette. "Fine."

"No kidding. I never heard of a one-hour flu bug," he said, coming up behind her. His hands closed over her shoulders and turned her to face him. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

She stepped away from him and opened the cupboard door. "What I'd like is a cup of tea and some toast without conversation. We'll get along much better when you realize I'm not very sociable when I first wake up."

He shrugged and went back to the chair he'd vacated, but his gaze remained glued to her while she prepared and ate her light breakfast.

"All right!" she finally said. "What do you want me to tell you?"

"Did Howard knock you up?"

Her objection to the way he phrased it made her want to defend Howard despite the fact that he didn't deserve her support. "I don't know." She sighed, realizing that the lie wasn't fooling either one of them. "Probably. I'm two weeks late and have every other symptom in the book, but I haven't been to a doctor."

"Not seeing a doctor won't make the baby disappear."

"Don't you think I know that?" she shot back at him in an exasperated voice. "I'm sorry. This isn't your problem."

He walked over and sat down at the kitchen table with her. "How can you think that?" He grasped her hand and squeezed it. "Howard is the best friend I ever had and you're already more of a friend than he was. Did you turn me away yesterday when I came to you for help? Of course not. And I'm not going to turn away from you now. In fact this could work out great. We could help each other."

She tried to retrieve her hand but he held fast. "That's very sweet of you, Russ, but I'd rather not rely on anyone else to get through this."

He frowned, but didn't argue the point. He gave her hand another squeeze then let it go. "Sure, babe. I understand. Just know that I'm here if you do need someone."

Now that her fear had been spoken aloud, she had no choice but to do something about it. On the recommendation of one of the waitresses she worked with, she called a woman obstetrician, Dr. Roselli, and was able to get an appointment the next afternoon.

About an hour before her shift ended that night, Russ showed up at the restaurant. "I went to see a movie," he explained, "and figured we could go home together."

Barbara was pleased to have the company, especially since he kept her laughing for most of the trip. She also decided it wasn't so bad having someone around the next day to help her get through the bout of sickness, and was actually relieved to have him accompany her to the doctor for moral support.

Dr. Roselli was the perfect obstetrician for Barbara. Her examination revealed that Barbara should have no problems with a natural delivery and that the baby was due in mid-February. There was only one problem. The doctor required payment of half of her standard fee by the next appointment and the balance by the end of the second trimester. Since Barbara had no health insurance, she either had to come up with the cash or go to a public clinic.

"How much do you need?" Russ asked before he left Barbara at the restaurant.

"Three thousand dollars, but it might as well be a million. I only have about seven hundred in the bank and it took me two years to save that much."

"Can you borrow it from someone? Your parents? Friends?"

Barbara didn't need to give that much thought. "No. I've decided not to tell my parents until after the baby is born. And most of my friends have less money than I do."

"You could probably get it from the Hamiltons."

Her eyes widened in panic. "You wouldn't tell them, would you? I'd rather die than have any of them find out."

"Even Howard?" Russ prodded.

"Especially Howard. If he didn't love me enough to choose me over his mother, I certainly don't want him to feel obligated to come to me because of a baby. Please, Russ, promise, no,
swear
on your life that you won't tell a soul about this. Heaven knows what twisted plans they'd have for my child. As much as I hate the idea of going to a clinic, I'll do that before I take one penny from the Hamiltons."

Russ gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead. "You won't have to do either. I swear. Something will come up."

She was surprised to see him back at the restaurant a few hours later.

"I have something for you that just couldn't wait until you got home." He handed her a folded white piece of paper.

It took Barbara a moment to comprehend that it was a receipt from Dr. Roselli's office for fifteen hundred dollars.

"I need the other five hundred for an investment that should bring in the rest in plenty of time."

Instead of being overjoyed as he expected her to be, she was extremely annoyed with him.
"Russ!
That was all the money you had. I don't know when I'd ever be able to repay you. You've got to get your money back."

"Now, babe. I know you wanted to do this on your own, but you have a little one to consider. I'm going to help one way or the other, so you may as well stop being so stubborn about it. And you don't have to repay me. Consider it my portion of the rent. Anyway, I owe you for giving me the idea about the florist. The owner of the third shop I went to this afternoon jumped at the idea of my operating a sidewalk franchise of his store. The money I have left should be plenty to get started and in exchange for his help with the business end, I'll work for him for free a few hours each week."

"That's wonderful." She was elated that her suggestion had helped him, but his offhand remark that he had just prepaid his share of the rent for an indefinite number of months nullified her pleasure.

She was determined to get his money back and have a straightforward conversation with him about her preference to live alone, but another issue took precedence that night. Russ hung around for the remainder of her shift, exchanging jokes with the waitresses when they had a minute and talking at length about sports with her boss.

Barbara was repeatedly told what a great guy Russ was and how cute he was.

"You be nice to this boy, Barbara," her boss told her as they were leaving. "You make him wait too long and some other girl will steal him away!"

"What was that all about?" she asked Russ after they were outside. Russ winked at her. "Just laying the groundwork for your cover story."

"I beg your pardon?"

"In a few months everyone's going to know you're pregnant and wonder what happened to the father. I told them how I want to marry you, but you keep putting me off."

"You
what
? Why would you make up such a crazy story?" He looked so crushed, she regretted her choice of words, but it made no sense to her.

With much more force than necessary, he kicked a crushed can out of his way. "I only thought it would be easier on you if your friends thought the baby's father actually wanted to marry you."

She knew he didn't mean to be hurtful, but his words cut through her chest like a razor.

"I would, you know," he said quietly.

"Would, what?"

"Marry you." He stopped and took her hands in his. "If you'd have me, I'd be your husband and claim the baby as my own."

She was too stunned to respond. Apparently he misunderstood her silence, for he got down on one knee and made his offer more formally.

"Will you marry me, Barbara? Become Mrs. Russell Latham, to have and to hold, till death do us part. If we did it right away, no one would ever need to know that the baby wasn't mine."

"My God, Russ," she whispered. "You're serious, aren't you?"

He stood up and kissed both her hands. "Completely."

"But we hardly know each other."

"How long did you and Howard know each other when you said yes to him?" His voice revealed more than a little jealousy.

"Obviously it wasn't long enough. I won't make that mistake twice."

He gave that a moment's consideration, then gave each of her hands another kiss. "Good enough. I'll accept that as a maybe for now. There's just one more thing."

Without further warning, he embraced her and pressed his lips to hers. This was no tender caress to seduce her into submission. This was a raw assault on her mouth, meant to conquer and dominate. When she moaned and tried to push him away, he held her tighter, slid one hand down to brace her backside, and pressed his lower body hard against hers.

"I didn't want you to misunderstand," he murmured in her ear. "My offer wasn't made because I feel sorry for you, or because I'm such a nice guy. I want you bad, babe. I have since the first day I saw you in the barn with Howard." He shifted his hips from side to side so that she couldn't be mistaken about the extent of his desire for her. "I've been in this condition almost constantly since then. But the timing hasn't exactly been right for me to show you how I feel."

Instead of his words and actions exciting her, she felt threatened and it must have shown.

"Don't worry about it now, babe. I know you don't feel good and you've had a lot of shocks lately. Nothing will happen between us unless you tell me you're ready. Until then we're just friends."

She hadn't realized how hard her heart was pounding until he released her.

"Of course, I may have to take a lot of cold showers in the meantime."

He said that with such a comical expression, she was put at ease again. She had to give Russ credit for keeping her spirits up most of the time. Perhaps, after her heart completely healed from the damage Howard did, she might be able to care for Russ the way he was hoping she would. But at the moment, she just wasn't ready for another relationship.

His proposal made her even more determined to convince him to move out, but her body thwarted those plans. The next day, the nausea and vomiting didn't alleviate after an hour. Though she managed to drag herself to the restaurant, her reaction to the smell of food was so bad, she had to go home again.

When it didn't subside after another day, Dr. Roselli prescribed some medicine that controlled it most of the time, but made Barbara so sleepy she couldn't pull herself out of bed. The doctor assured her that she would feel better by the end of the twelfth week, but Barbara wasn't sure she would live that long.

Russ was a saint through it all—the sickness, the fatigue, the depression and crying jags. He went out to work for a while each day, but he was always back in time to coax her to eat something, take her vitamins, and make sure she bathed and brushed her teeth no matter how awful she felt. After a week of being nearly helpless, she gave up all pretenses of modesty, yet he continued to behave like the perfect gentleman, or more precisely, the perfect male nursemaid.

The only complaint she had—and it seemed too petty to voice—was the musty odor of cigarette smoke that now hung throughout the small apartment. Though he didn't smoke inside, his clothes and hair reeked of his bad habit and it seemed to slide off him onto the furniture.

It was during one of Russ's brief absences that Simon Decker called Barbara and informed her that the two-week grace period had passed. He would be at her apartment the following day to pick up either the signed agreement or the gifts, particularly the jewelry.

"I suppose I should just give him everything," she told Russ when he returned. "But I have the feeling that what they're trying to do isn't even legal, and that bugs the hell out of me."

"But you haven't got the money or the energy to fight them. Would you mind if I looked at the agreement?"

Thinking that an unbiased opinion could help, she got the envelope out of the drawer and handed it to him. As he pulled the papers out the ring fell to the floor.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, and picked the diamond up to look at it more closely. "I wonder what this thing is worth?"

Barbara shrugged. "I never asked. After I saw how much he paid for a pair of simple gold earrings, I didn't want to know the cost of anything else he bought me."

"Do you still have it all?" he asked as his eyes scanned the agreement.

"Of course. It's mainly clothes and jewelry, and the flat screen, but there were a few other things that don't have any real value to anyone but me." Like the autographed cartoons, she thought. She would keep those for her child.

"Show me. Show me everything he ever gave you. I might have an idea."

She couldn't imagine what he had in mind, but she had no objection to giving him a quick tour of her newest possessions. He encouraged her to talk about the circumstances surrounding the various gifts and she discovered that it was somewhat cathartic to be able to talk to someone about those times.

"I think you should sign the agreement," he said after she finished.

She frowned at him. "Why?"

"You said you don't want the Hamiltons' help or interference. Well, reread that sentence." He pointed at the line he was referring to:
Barbara Mancuso and Howard Hamilton IV shall be henceforth absolved from any and all promises made or implied to one or the other.
"I don't know a lot about legal stuff or business, but if I'm reading this right, it works both ways. You would have no claim on Howard, but he would have no claim on you, either, which would also mean the baby growing inside you."