“He thinks you're crazy?”
Susan shrugged, shocking Michael when her eyes filled with tears. “He doesn't think I'm mother material.”
Seth's lack of confidence had shaken her. “He's nuts.” Michael heard the words before he'd even realized he'd had the thought.
“Really?” Her beautiful eyes glowed with uncertainty in the dusky room.
“Just look at Seth if you need evidence,” Michael said. “You practically raised him.” Which was one of the reasons Michael had thought she'd never want children. With three younger brothers, she'd had more than her share of babysitting and housework and driving her brothers to practices and games. Her mother
had needed her at home, so her high-school years had been rife with missed opportunities.
Somehow she was back in his arms and Michael soaked up her warmth, her soft feminine scent. The evening washed over himâthe good and the bad. Was her need to have this child so great that she'd be willing to give up her job? Move to Chicago?
The thought wasn't as displeasing as it might have been. He'd lost track of the number of times he'd wished he'd never had to divorce her in the first place. The number of sleepless nights he'd spent lying beside her, trying to convince himself that a long-distance relationship could work. Instead, he'd been tortured with visions of needing his wife at some important function and her not being there, or vice versa. He'd imagined them wearing themselves out trying to be together every weekend out of obligation to each other. And he'd thought of what marriage meant, of the expectations it brought, of two people being one unitâand just couldn't picture the link between him and Susan stretched across two states. Visions haunted him of the damage they'd eventually do to each other by trying to hang on when they kept disappointing each other, when expectations couldn't possibly be met. He'd tried to imagine himself being a good husband to Susan from Chicago and knew that he'd had no choice but to let her go. He'd finally had to face the fact that they couldn't possibly be true to themselves, to their own needs and desires, and to each other, as well. There wasn't room in either of their lives for anyone else's expectations.
But that was before he'd known she wanted to have a baby.
“You want us to get married again,” he summed up.
She didn't say anything right away. “Nothing's changed for us, has it Michael?” she finally asked, frowning.
“How do you mean?”
“Our reason for divorcing. Your career needing you one place, mine needing me another.”
So, she
wasn't
planning to move to Chicago? “Not for me, it hasn't.”
“Then why would we get married again?”
“So you can have your baby.”
“This is almost the new millennium, Michael.” Her voice was a little arrogant as she settled back against him. Hard. “You don't have to be married to have a baby.”
He was apparently too damn tired to think straight. “Do you mind telling me then, what exactly you do want from me?”
“Your sperm.” Susan grinned up at him. And he saw in her eyes, in the cocky tilt to her mouth, the woman he'd fallen in love with so many years before. The one who always made everything sound so easy.
Â
ALMOST FOUR DAYS LATER, Susan couldn't believe how relieved she was to have asked the question. She knew there was a good chance Michael was going to say no. But she couldn't ignore the fact that he hadn't already done so. And couldn't help but hope that he wouldn't.
She'd spent the rest of the weekend in Chicago, and it had been just like old times. He'd taken both
days off in deference to her birthday and they'd played to their hearts' content. In bed and out of it
They'd done the city, gone to the zoo, walked along the skydeck of the Sears Tower, taken a walking tour through downtown Chicago to view the skyscrapers. They'd been sidetracked before they'd actually seen many skyscrapers, however. The cold and their hunger had driven them inside. After an hour and a half spent stuffing themselves at Michael's favorite restaurant down by the lake, Michael had driven her through the Lake Shore Drive Apartmentsâglass houses he called themâand out to the Widow Clarke House, the oldest surviving building in Chicago.
And not once, throughout the entire weekend, did they mention Susan's babyâor anything else remotely serious.
But she knew Michael. He was thinking about the baby. And he'd let her know when he'd made a decision. She just hoped it was sometime before her fortieth birthday.
In any case, she was feeling better Monday morning than she had in a long while. She'd asked him. She could afford to wait. At least for a week or two.
In the meantime, she had another little problem to attend to. A problem named Tricia Halliday. Tricia's officeâit was still hard for Susan to think of it that wayâoccupied the whole floor above Susan's. Formerly belonging to Tricia's husband, Ed, the room was a sportsman's dream. It had a half basketball court at one end, basketball being Ed's favorite sport, a putting green running along one wall, and a ceramic tile floor underneath the furniture to accommodate
Ed's best friend, Annie. And it was all wrong for Ed's widow, Tricia.
Susan had gone to work for Ed right out of college. Having grown up with five brothers, she fit right in with the sports talk, understood the needs of athletes. She could even hold her own on the basketball court if she had to. And she'd adored Ed. She'd been devastated when he'd died of a heart attack last year, playing tennis at his club one Sunday afternoon.
He'd reminded her of her dad with his patience, his ability to see what was done well rather than focusing on what hadn't been done, his insistence on looking at the bright side, the right side. The major difference between the two men, as evidenced by Susan's position in the company, was Ed's lack of chauvinism. He hadn't thought, as Susan's father did, that men and women had to be pigeonholed into particular roles.
Unfortunately, Ed's character hadn't rubbed off on his widow. Tricia was honest and hardworking, but her only interest was in the bottom line. Her pocketbook. And as Halliday Headgear was a privately held company, there wasn't a lot anybody could do once the CEO made up her mind about something. Except live with it. Or quit.
Dressed in her red power suit, Susan faced Tricia across Ed's desk, determined not to leave without some sort of compromise in the McArthur case.
“Are you telling me you can't win this suit?” the older woman asked, her brows almost touching with the force of her frown.
“No. I'm not telling you that.”
“It was my understanding that my ten-year-old nephew could win this one for us.”
“Probably.”
“So why are we wasting my valuable time, and yours, discussing it?”
“Because the McArthur boy didn't do anything wrong, Tricia. True, he was playing soccer instead of softball, but the mask would have broken, probably with more serious repercussions, if he'd been hit with a softball rather than a soccer ball.”
“He wasn't.”
“No, he wasn't.” Susan paused, eyed her boss, and started again. “But that boy is still paralyzed because of the malfunction of our equipment.”
“What do you want from me, Susan?”
Susan stood, leaned over the front of Tricia's imposing desk. “I want us to settle out of court, to fund the boy's operationâand his physical therapy afterward.”
Tricia stood up, too. “That's got to be thousands of dollars.”
“The lawsuit could cost you a lot more than that.”
“But we're not going to lose the suit.”
“I had Jill spend a day with Grady Moses down in production.” Looking around at the motivational posters on the walls, the peaks being scaled by climbers, the shots being made, the rides and runs and jumps, Susan took heart from Ed's memory. “She found out that there was a malfunction several months ago on one of the machines. Six cases of masks were damaged before the error was noticed. Their hinges didn't have double sealings.”
“I'm aware of the problem.” Tricia nodded. “The machine was fixed, the cases were pulled.”
“Five of the six cases were pulled,” Susan corrected. “While Grady was at lunch someone used the sixth case to fill an order. The masks had been on back order for weeks and someone in shipping was a little too eager.”
Carefully, slowly, Tricia sat back down. Her eyes never left Susan's face. “You're telling me we're going to have more lawsuits, and somewhere along the way, one of them's going to be the result of a softball injury.”
And the McArthur incident would come to light giving Halliday Headgear some very bad press.
“No.” Susan almost wished she didn't have to be honest. “Grady was able to track down the orders and make exchanges.”
Relief softening her face, Tricia spread her arms wide. “Then we don't have a problem.”
“The men's club in Valdez had ordered five of the recalled masks. They sent back four damaged ones, but the fifth one they returned was a first-quality mask. By mistake, they kept the fifth damaged one for the boys at their church to use.”
“I see.” Tricia folded her hands on top of the desk.
Breathing her first easy breath, Susan hoped Tricia finally did see, and waited patiently for instructions to prepare the out-of-court settlement.
“We're certain this is the only mask that escaped notice?”
“Positive.” Susan nodded, perching on the edge of the desk. “Grady checked and rechecked the serial numbers.”
“Then we'll proceed as originally directed.”
“But...” Susan stood, staring down at her boss. “We know the mask was faulty,” she said, trying very hard not to raise her voice. “We
know
the boy would've been hurt no matter what ball hit him. It's only a technicality that he happened to be playing soccer instead of softball.”
“And court cases are won on technicalities all the time.”
“You realize that if this information is made known, your chances of winning will drop considerably.”
Tricia's eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”
“Of course not!” Susan backed away from the desk. “I've been with Halliday Headgear since college, Tricia. I've always,
always
seen to the best interests of the company.”
Head bowed, Tricia said, “I'm sorry, Susan. Of course I'm fully aware of how much you've done for us, how lucky we are to have you.” She looked up and Susan saw the sincerity in the other woman's eyes.
“Thank you.”
“Now, was that all you needed to see me about?”
Just like that, Tricia expected this to go away. “I can't rest the case yet, Tricia. An eight-year-old boy may never walk again.”
Shrugging, Tricia pulled a pile of papers toward her. “I pay you to be thorough, Susan. Keep searching if you feel you must to protect the company, but
unless you've got something new to tell me, I don't need to hear about this case again.”
Too furious to do anything else, Susan turned and left the office.
CHAPTER FOUR
I
F HE DIDN'T make her pregnant, someone else would.
No matter how many different ways Michael looked at the situation, he always ended up back in the very same place. Susan wanted him to impregnate her, but if he said no, she wasn't going to give up on this crazy idea. He'd be sending her directly into the bedroom of another man.
By Thursday afternoon he had one hell of a headache. And still no answers. In desperation he turned to the only other person he could possibly call. His ex-brother-in-law, Sethâand, next to Susan, his closest friend.
“What's up?” Seth asked as soon they'd assured each other they were fine and that both of them had absolutely nothing to do next Sunday but watch the Super Bowl.
“I'm sure you can guess.” Michael was finding it a little difficult to say the words. He was that opposed to the whole idea. Picking up a pencil, he started to sketch a couple of cartoon characters, a man and a woman, jumping out of an airplane without parachutes.
“Susan told me she asked you about the baby.”
“And she told me you think she's insane.” He dropped his pencil.
“I never said that!”
“No.” Michael remembered the tears in Susan's eyes. “You told her you didn't think she'd make a good mother.”
Sounding unusually defensive, Seth said, “And you think she would?”
Swiveling his chair away from his desk, Michael looked out the window behind him. He gained no inspiration at all from the barren tree limbs outside.
“She did all right by you and Sean and Spencer.”
“She didn't have a career then.”
“She has a career now and she still looks out for you.”
Seth swore softly. “Come on, Michael, you know it isn't the same thing. A kid deserves better than absences, vague promises, excuses.”
“So, it isn't her mothering abilities you doubt.” He rested his feet on the windowsill. “It's her time management.”
“Or her priorities,” Seth said. “You know her, Michael, she's been biting off more than she can chew her entire life, all the while insisting she'll manage. She always thinks that whatever she's tackling is a piece of cake.”
He agreed with Seth. But... “She does manage in the end.”
“Up until now she's only had one priority.”
That was true, too. But who was to say she wouldn't handle two priorities as successfully as she handled one? If she wanted both of them badly enough...
Michael brushed a piece of lint off his navy slacks. “Answer me something...”
“If I can.”
“Do you think she really knows what she wants?”
“If you mean do I think she really wants this baby, then yes, I do.”
Michael was afraid he'd say that. “Yeah, me, too.”
“So...you going to give it to her?”
This had to be one of the oddest conversations in the history of manâor at least of brothers-in-law. But Michael was getting nowhere on his own. And the decision was too important to be clouded by confusion or wishful thinking.
“I don't know,” he finally said.
Seth hesitated. “You know she'll, uh, find someone else if you don't.”
“I had considered that.” At least a million times in the past six days. “But she might not.”
“I don't think anything but an act of God is going to keep Susan from having her baby.”
Neither did Michael. Dammit. And damn Seth for saying so. “There's always artificial insemination.”
“I really doubt she'd consider it.”
So did Michael.
“She'd want to know the man who's going to be, biologically speaking, the other half of her child,” Michael said before he had to hear it from Seth.
“She'd insist on having the inside scoop on the littlest things, like how soon he'd learned to tie his shoes, how close his family was, whether or not he liked to go to the movies.” Seth twisted the knife a little deeper.
“She'd ask for a complete genealogical workup going as far back as possible.” Michael rubbed more salt into his wound.
After all, Susan was a lawyer. A damn good one. She wanted all the answers.
“Of course, all that extra effort, getting to know someone that well, tracking down someone's heritageâit might be a little off-putting, might make her reconsider....” Seth was obviously trying his best to help.
“Not Susan.” Michael voiced what both men knew. Turning, he picked up the pencil and added some finishing touches to the cartoon. “Because she'd underestimate the work involved, the difficulties. Just like she always does.” Just like she had that night she'd tried to talk him out of the divorce. She'd made it all sound so simple. Him living in one state, her in another. But he'd known a marriage could never survive under those circumstances. Marriage meant commitment, expectations. Sharing one life. Not two.
“So, you going to do it?” Seth asked painfully, as though he were suffering right along with Michael. And, in a sense, he probably was. Seth obviously felt pretty strongly that Susan was making a big mistake.
Michael tossed the pencil. “The last thing in the world I want is to be a father.”
“I don't think Susan's looking for a father,” Seth said. “I had the impression she just wants the...you know. The genes.” He could tell Seth didn't approve of that, either.
“Yeah,” Michael said. “That's the way I took it.” She wanted his sperm. Not him.
And that rankled, too.
Â
THE OFFER FROM Coppel Industries came through on Friday morning. Coppel stockholders wanted to make
Michael a vice president of finance. If he accepted, he'd be on the road, traveling around the country, analyzing current holdings, but mostly seeking out new ones. Diversification was the key to success. And Coppel felt that Michael could pick winners.
He'd have an office, too, a posh one, at Coppel headquarters in Atlanta.
The offer exceeded his expectations; it was a culmination of everything he'd worked for his entire life. More than a dream come true, it was a mountain successfully scaled, a goal reached, years of endless toil rewarded. Of course, it also came with Coppel's words of warning still ringing in Michael's ear.
No entanglements. No dependents.
Michael took the job.
Â
“OKAY.”
“Okay?” Susan sat down. She'd been waiting for his call all week.
“I can't pretend I'm happy about this.”
Sitting on the floor of her bedroom, wearing nothing but the slip and panty hose she'd been in the process of taking off, Susan couldn't stop grinning. “I know.” She couldn't believe it! He was really going to do it.
“You don't have a child on a whim, Susan.”
“I don't do anything on a whim, Michael.”
“Single-parenting is tough.”
Susan glanced at her watch. Seven o'clock on Friday night. She wondered if he was still at the office.
“I can handle it.”
“And you think it's fair to the kid, bringing him into the world without a father?”
“I have five brothers, Michael, all of whom live within twenty miles of my home. I don't think heâor sheâwill be lacking male attention.”
“This is nuts.”
“I don't think so.” It felt right. To be having a baby. To be having Michael's baby. Of course she'd prefer to be doing it the traditional way. To be sharing more than just the conception with Michael. But she'd be happy.
A baby!
“What about your job?”
“What about it?”
“You're still planning to work?”
Susan frowned. “Of course.” And then, “Who do you think's going to support this child?”
“And you honestly think you can work fourteen hours a day and still be a good parent?”
Her arms about her empty stomach, Susan leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “The only reason I still work fourteen-hour days is because I have nothing to come home for.” It was the first time she'd admitted the truth, even to herself. “I'm not climbing up anymore, Michael. I'm at the top.”
“There are always higher mountains to climb.”
“I like the one I'm on.” She used to, anyway. And she would again. In spite of Tricia Halliday.
“I can't be a father, Susan.”
“I'm not asking you to be.”
Ice clinked in a glass and she heard him swallow.
“Hell,” he swore softly. “I don't even live in the same state.”
“Which has nothing to do with anything.” She wished he'd just relax about it. “Michael, we're divorced. All I want from you is biology.”
He swallowed again. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it doesn't have to be complicated.” Opening her eyes, Susan stood, finished undressing. “I'm a single woman who's made the decision to have a baby,” she told him. “It's happening more and more. Single women are even adopting babies. But I really want the full experience, carrying the child, giving birth. All I'm asking from you is the missing ingredient I need to get started.”
Susan stopped, pulled on a pair of sweatpants. The line was silent. “I could ask a total stranger to provide the sperm,” she said, exasperated. “Would you rather I do that?”
“Hell, no!”
“You're my friend, Michael.” Throwing herself down on the bed she'd once shared with him, Susan gazed, still topless, at the picture of Michael laughing up at her from the bedside table. “My best friend.” She had to stop for a second. Catch her breath. Swallow the tears that had suddenly appeared. “Who else would I go to when I need a favor?” she finished.
“No one.” He sighed. “You were right to come to me.”
She couldn't believe how good it felt to hear him say so.
“So when do you want to do it?” His voice dropped, low and gravelly, sexy.
Covering her naked breasts with her arms, Susan wanted to tell him that this weekend was perfect timing, as far as her cycle was concerned. “Whenever it's...convenient...for you,” she said instead. It felt odd to be
discussing
it. She and Michael just kind of fell into sexâmostly because they couldn't help themselves.
They'd certainly never planned it before. It was slightly embarrassing. And she was freezing. Scrambling into her sweatshirt, she barely caught his words.
“...this weekend...off for the Super Bowl.”
“Good!” She pulled the phone back to her face. “This weekend's good.” She'd already decided to take both days off. While that would mean two full weekends in a row, she needed a little extra distance right now. Needed time to think objectively about the McArthur case. “Probably too late to fly in tonight, huh?”
Michael laughed and her toes curled. There just wasn't another man like him. She knew. She'd searched frantically during those first few years after the divorce.
“I'd like to think it's my body you're so eager for.”
It was. “That old thing? Had it last weekend.”
“Keep it up, woman.”
“So you'll come in the morning?”
“First flight out.” His voice sounded muffled, as though he were already on to the next item on his evening's agenda.
“Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
SEX. He wasn't going to think about anything but the sex. And sex with Susan was always incredible. He had to admit, as far as favors went, this one was relatively painless.
As long as all he thought about was the sex.
He occupied himself with business during the short flight from Chicago to Cincinnati, mentally reviewing possible candidates for his replacement at Smythe and Westbourne, making a list of the projects and problems his replacement would need to know about.
He still hadn't told Susan about the promotion. He had some irrational feeling that if he was going to get through this episode intact, he had to keep his private life, his own personal self, out of it. Susan's request had erected a wall between them that he was afraid to scale. Somehow, he knew that for his own self-preservation he had to keep his distance. Sharing this, the greatest success of his life, with her, the realization of all his goals, made him too vulnerable at a time when he couldn't afford to be vulnerable at all.