Prodigal Son (20 page)

“Honestly,” she said, forcing herself to make eye contact again. “I had a minor freak-out. I went home, got a solid night’s sleep and now I’m all good.”

He looked as though he wanted to say more and she made a big deal out of checking her watch.

“Wow. We’re both going to be late for Sam’s birthday lunch if we don’t put our skates on,” she said.

“I’m ready to go. I thought we could walk together.”

“Oh. Great idea. Except I’ve still got one last call to make. And I don’t want to make you late, too,” she fibbed. “Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll see you at the restaurant?”

Again, she didn’t give him a chance to object, brushing past him and walking toward her office. She didn’t let her breath out until she was through the doorway and safely out of sight.

This was why it always paid to keep work and her private life separate. She lifted the sheaf of papers and smacked them against her forehead. From now on, anything to do with her personal life stayed at home and was handled after nine to five. No exceptions.

As for Ethan… He would get the message. He’d have to, because she wasn’t exposing herself any more than she already had. The sooner they both forgot her breakdown last night, the better.

* * *

Ethan watched Alex disappear into her office, a frown on his face. In the two years he’d worked with her, she’d never once had trouble meeting his eye—except for today. Mind you, she’d also never let him as close as she had last night. Prior to that, the most personal topic they’d discussed had been her hatred of black cherries. To be fair, he hadn’t volunteered the intimate details about his own life, either, but he’d always had the sense that even if he’d tried to get closer to Alex she would have kept him at arm’s length. She was happy to joke and spar and compete with him, but anything deeper than that was out of bounds. It had never really bothered him before, but today he felt distinctly pissed that he’d been shut out.

He straightened his cuffs and buttoned his suit jacket and told himself to get over it. It wasn’t as though he was in the market for a new bosom buddy—he had his brother and a handful of mates he could rely on to have his back. And it definitely wasn’t that he was keen to play Dr. Phil and pass the tissues. It was no skin off his nose if Alex didn’t want to share.

He was about to head for the elevator when a blinking red light caught his eye. The printer Alex had been hovering over so urgently was jammed.

He couldn’t say what made him open the various flaps and trays to check for a paper jam. Perhaps it was because Alex had been so jumpy and furtive. Or maybe some other instinct guided him.

Whatever it was, it took him only seconds to find the culprit—a single page that had folded in on itself instead of exiting to the out tray. He pulled it free and straightened it, shaking toner dust off his fingers.

He scanned the first few lines but comprehension was a few moments in coming. His head came up and he turned to stare toward Alex’s office.

What on earth…?

Surely she wasn’t seriously thinking…?

He took a step, the incriminating evidence in hand, then stopped. What was he going to say to her? Hadn’t he just established for himself that their friendship was limited to work and the racquetball court? That she didn’t want to discuss her private life?

He slowly folded the sheet in half, then into quarters before slipping it into his jacket pocket. He went to join the rest of the partners for lunch.

He had it right the first time—this was nothing to do with him.

Chapter Three

E
than kept an eye out for Alex as the rest of the partners arrived and seated themselves in the private dining room at Grossi Florentino, but she didn’t slip through the door until a good ten minutes after everyone else was perusing the menu.

He watched as she made her excuses and took the last remaining chair between Keith Lancaster and Toby Kooperman at the other end of the table. She smiled at Keith when he said something, then leaned back to allow the waiter to place a napkin across her knees. He returned his attention to his menu, but the sound of her laughter drew his gaze.

She had one hand pressed to her chest and her eyes shone with amusement as she talked animatedly with Keith. Ethan watched the tilt of her head and the flush in her cheeks and the way she gestured with her hands and had to remind himself that it was none of his business that she was planning to buy frozen semen from some faceless donor in the U.S. because she was afraid she’d missed the boat. It was her life, her decision. Nothing to do with him.

And yet…

She was only thirty-eight years old and she was an attractive, sexy woman. Not conventionally beautiful, perhaps, but incredibly appealing with her rich brown eyes and chestnut hair. More than once when they’d been lunching together he’d found himself fixating on her mouth, with its lush, full lower lip. She was smart, too, and funny. If she hadn’t been a fellow partner and if he hadn’t instinctively known that she was not the kind of woman who did casual affairs, he would have asked her out long ago. There had to be a bunch of men out there who would give their eyeteeth to meet someone like her.

And yet she was planning on using a sperm donor to become pregnant. It simply didn’t make sense to him that a woman with as much as she had to offer was taking such a compromised route to motherhood. He wanted to push back his chair, grab her arm and drag her somewhere private so he could point out that she was selling herself short, big-time.

He didn’t. She’d made it more than clear that they didn’t have the sort of friendship that invited that kind of straight talking. They were work buddies. Good for a little bitching about office politics, a joke at the water cooler and a weekly workout. That was it.

He dragged his gaze away, joining in the conversation around him. As with most partner lunches, the wine flowed freely and the room became noisier as the meal progressed. Ethan stuck to one glass since he had a heavy afternoon schedule and kept an eye on the time. Occasionally, against his will, he found himself watching Alex and his mind did a loop of the same circle of thoughts. He repeated his mantra—
nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you
—and returned his attention to his end of the table.

He decided to give it twenty more minutes before he made his apologies when Alex pushed back her chair and stood.

“Well, someone has to pay for this lunch,” she said. “I’d better get to it.”

Laughter greeted her announcement as he pushed back his own chair.

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

She looked at him and he caught a flash of unease in her eyes. He crossed to the door and waited for her to join him.

“I don’t think they’ll be billing many hours this afternoon,” he murmured as they made their way through the restaurant.

Her gaze flashed toward him before skittering away again.

“Probably just as well, given the way they’re working their way through the wine list.”

They both stopped when they reached the double front doors. Outside, the sky was a dark, leaden gray, and rain was pouring down.

“Good old Melbourne,” Alex said, then she glanced ruefully at her shoes. “What are the odds of us finding a taxi that’ll take us half a block up the road?”

He didn’t bother responding, simply flipped up the collar on his suit jacket.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She sighed and turned up the collar on her own jacket.

He was about to open the door when a waiter rushed to their side carrying a large golf umbrella.

“With our compliments,” he said, offering the umbrella to Ethan.

“Thank you. We’ll get it back to you this afternoon,” he said.

Although given the amount of money the firm would drop on lunch, the restaurant could afford to give every partner an umbrella and still come out on top.

He held the door open and Alex stepped out under the restaurant’s portico. He followed, breathing in the smell of wet cement and rain.

“Should have checked the weather report before we left the office,” she said.

He unfurled the umbrella and lifted it.

“Ready?” He gestured toward the teeming, wet world that awaited them.

She joined him beneath the curve of the umbrella, her shoulder brushing his, and they both started walking, falling into step with one another after a few paces.

“How was your meal?” she asked after a short silence.

“Good. Yours?”

“Yeah, good.”

He glanced at her, but her head was lowered. They’d never been reduced to small talk; even at the very beginning of their friendship they’d always found plenty to say to each other. He felt as though he was being punished somehow. Frozen out with the silent treatment because he’d witnessed her in a moment of weakness last night.

“Alex—”

The world flashed white and a huge roll of thunder cracked overhead as the heavens opened even further, sending rain pelting down out of the sky. He operated on instinct, wrapping an arm around her waist and hustling her beneath the scant shelter of a nearby shop portico.

She shot him a startled look when he finally let her go.

“Can’t use an umbrella in a lightning storm,” he explained as he furled the soaked umbrella.

“No. Of course not.” Then, to his surprise, her mouth quirked as though she was suppressing a smile.

“What’s so funny?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been rescued before,” she said. “For a moment there I felt like I was in a Cary Grant movie.”

“Are you suggesting that I manhandled you?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Lucky I didn’t give in to my first urge to throw you over my shoulder, then.”

She laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners attractively. He looked into her face and it hit him again that what she was planning was just plain
wrong.

“Don’t do it, Alex,” he said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

She stilled, the smile fading from her lips. “Sorry?”

Rather than try to explain, he pulled the sheet of paper he’d rescued from the printer from his pocket and passed it over. She made a small distressed sound when she unfolded it and understood what it was.

“You’re panicking right now, and the last thing you should be doing is making irrevocable decisions,” he said.

Dark color flooded her face. “This is none of your business.” She crumpled the paper in her hand and glanced over her shoulder as though she was afraid someone else might have seen it.

“Someone has to point out the obvious—this is a mistake.”

Alex blinked, her brown eyes wide with shock at his bald pronouncement. “At the risk of repeating myself, this is
none of your business,
” she said.

Ethan knew she was right. She was a fellow partner, and he was stepping way over the line, but he couldn’t help himself. She deserved a million times better than what she was considering.

“I’m not going to stand by while someone I like and respect makes a mess of her life. Look me in the eye and tell me this is the way you want to have a child.”

She flinched, then her chin came up. “I’m not having this discussion with you, Ethan. Just because I had a moment of weakness while you happened to be around last night doesn’t give you a free pass into my private life.”

“Answer my question.” He took a step closer. “Or are you afraid to?”

He knew that would get her—he might not know what school she went to, but he did know that Alex prided herself on never retreating from a challenge.

She lifted her chin and eyed him angrily. “What do you want me to say, Ethan? You want me to admit that I’m desperate? That this is my last resort? Okay, sure. I am and it is. You want me to tell you that when I was a little girl and I dreamed of having a family of my own, never in a million years did I imagine myself picking his or her father from an online catalog? Absolutely. And if there was any other option on the horizon, there is no way in the world I would consider doing this. But there isn’t, and I refuse to sit on my hands while my last chance to have a family fades away.”

“It’s not fading away. You’re thirty-eight, not forty-eight, and there are hundreds of men who’d break a leg to meet a woman as attractive and together as you.”

She made a rude noise. “You think men are lining up to ask out a busy woman with a mind of her own who probably earns more than they do? Especially when there’s some young blonde thing in her twenties hanging around at the bar who only wants to have a good time?”

“You think all men are a bunch of morons who’d rather go out with a centerfold than a woman with a brain in her head?” he countered.

“You tell me—when was the last time you bypassed the beauty and went for the brain?”

“This isn’t about me. You’re copping out, Alex, and you’re going to regret it.”

“Don’t you dare judge me. You have no idea what it’s like to know that in a few years’ time your own body is going to take away your options. So don’t stand there and lecture me about what I’m worth or what I deserve. Life isn’t about what you deserve—it’s about what you can get and what you can live with. And I will not be able to live with myself if I don’t try to make this happen.”

She turned on her heel and walked into the rain.

“Alex,” he said, darting after her to pull her back beneath the shelter of the awning.

She jerked free of his grasp. “No, Ethan.”

She kept walking, her head down, her shoulders rounded against the force of the rain.

He swore under his breath—but he didn’t go after her. He’d already stepped over the line and he didn’t trust himself not to do it again.

She was making a mistake. But maybe he should have listened to his first instinct and walked away.

Maybe.

* * *

Alex was dripping wet when she returned to the office. Fran took one look at her and shot to her feet.

“I’ve got a towel in my gym bag.”

“Thanks.”

Alex had toed off her shoes and was peeling off her wet suit jacket when Fran returned.

“You’re soaked to the skin,” Fran said, sliding a mug of tea onto Alex’s desk and draping a towel around Alex’s shoulders. “I brought you something hot to drink.”

“Thanks. If you wouldn’t mind, there’s some dry cleaning in my car…?” She shivered as a trickle of cold water ran down her spine.

“Give me your keys, I’ll go and grab it for you.”

Alex gave her assistant a grateful smile as she handed over her car keys. “You’re the best, Franny.”

“I know,” the older woman said drily. “Won’t be a tick.”

She pulled the door shut behind her as she exited. Once she was alone, Alex let the smile fall from her face.

She still couldn’t believe that conversation. The things Ethan had said… The fact that he
knew…

Her hands were shaking as she tugged her wet shirt from her waistband. She gripped them together, willing the trembling to stop.

He’d shocked her, that was all. She hadn’t planned to tell anyone that she was using a sperm bank, even her friend Helen, who lived in the apartment across the hall, or Samantha, whom she’d studied with. Once she was pregnant, she’d decided to simply claim the father was no longer on the scene. It happened every day, after all. Why not to her?

But now Ethan knew. And he didn’t approve. Which was pretty rich coming from a guy who made George Clooney look like an advertisement for celibacy.

Ethan thought she was
selling herself short.
Remembering the way he’d said it made her angry all over again. Did he truly think this was her method of choice for having a child? That she hadn’t considered all other options? That she was taking some kind of expedient shortcut to motherhood?

She started working on the buttons on her shirt.

Stupid, but she felt betrayed. She’d always respected him and valued his opinion. He was smart and funny and generous with his time and he never, ever patronized her or treated her as less than an equal the way some of the older partners did. Even on the racquetball court he never gave her quarter. And now—

A knock sounded at the door. “Alex.”

She tensed. She could hear the determined note in Ethan’s voice even through an inch of varnished wood.

“Go away.”

The door swung open and she gave a squawk of outrage, clutching the gaping neckline of her shirt together to keep herself decent.

“Do you mind?”

His suit was dark at the shoulders and trouser cuffs and he dismissed her modesty with an impatient wave of his hand.

“I’m sorry, okay? What I said before…you have every right to be angry with me. I just…I don’t want you to regret this.”

There was so much sincerity and concern in his voice and his deep blue eyes that the angry words in her throat dissolved. She stared at him for a long moment, then turned away to rebutton her damp shirt.

“I want a child,” she said, her voice very low. “Am I supposed to miss out because the music has stopped and all the chairs are full?”

“No.”

She turned to face him again, arms crossed over her chest defensively. “Then you tell me what I’m supposed to do, Ethan. Join a dating site and trawl for a man who’s looking for commitment and not just sex? How long do you think it’s going to take to find one of those? And if I do, when do you suggest I bring up the subject of children with him? First date? Second? Sixteenth? And if he says yes, sure, I’d love kids, how long should we wait before we start trying? A week? A month? A year?” She could hear her voice becoming strident and she made an effort to remain calm. “Do you honestly think that’s any less desperate and compromised than me going to a sperm bank? Really?”

He looked away, then ran a hand over his damp hair. “There’s no easy answer.”