LITMIR.BIZ

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up as straight as her belly would allow. “We can’t.”

      “Let me see you out,” Seth said, almost—but not quite—sounding friendly. He crowded Roger toward the door and opened it, waiting.

      Roger’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He looked back at Kate and said, “You look great, you know.”

      There was a time when Kate would have clung to that halfhearted compliment as proof that Roger did care for her, that she was doing the right thing staying with him. Now?

      Too little, too late. She did not return the compliment.

      Roger opened his mouth as if he were going to say something else, but Seth cleared his throat. It was the most menacing sound Kate had heard come out of him yet.

      Then the men were outside and Kate half wanted Seth to take a swing at Roger and half just wanted the idiot to go away.

      She was going to have to take Roger to court—that much was obvious. Lawyers were going to be expensive, but she wasn’t going to let him weasel his way out of this.

      She sank down in her desk chair and dropped her head into her hands. He hadn’t even asked if she was going to have a boy or girl. Why was she surprised? She wasn’t, really. Of course Roger was going to disappoint her. He really didn’t care. Not about the baby, not about her.

      The door jingled again and there was Seth, shutting it firmly behind him. “He’s gone,” he said, looking at her with open concern. “Are you all right?”

      Kate’s throat was thick with emotion—damned hormones. “I stood up to him,” she said around the lump in her throat. “He doesn’t want to pay child support and I told him I’d sue him if I had to. God, what a hassle.”

      Seth grinned at that. He glanced back at Harold’s dark office and then came around her desk, pulling her up into his arms. “You were amazing,” he agreed. Rubbing her back in just the right place. “I wish I could’ve seen the whole thing.”

      She was crying—but she was also laughing. “Oh, you would’ve hit him. I would’ve liked to have seen that.” Seth leaned back and stroked her tears away. She loved that her random bouts of hormones didn’t freak him out. “I can’t believe I almost married him.”

      He cradled her face. “I’m so glad you didn’t.”

      Kate almost lost herself in the tenderness of the moment. No—she couldn’t fall for Seth all over again. “Did he say anything to you outside?”

      Seth snorted. “He seemed hurt that I hadn’t used him for my real estate agent.”

      “Lord.”

      Seth hugged her tighter, and she sank into his warmth. He was always here when she needed him, lending her his strength. Without him, she might have buckled and agreed to marry Roger. She might have let Roger out of his financial obligations.

      She would’ve been miserable. But she wasn’t. Upset, yes. Pregnant, definitely. But she’d refused to roll over to make someone else happy. Seth had shown her she could fight for what she wanted and for that, she would love him forever.

      He stepped all the way around her and began to knead his thumbs into her lower back. God, it felt so good. “What are you doing here?”

      “I needed to see you,” he said, sending a thrill through her. Then, after a long pause while he worked on a particularly sore spot, he added, “We finalized the plan for the Shanghai showroom.”

      All of her good feelings disappeared in a heartbeat. Because this was it—the end. “Oh?” she got out in a strangled-sounding voice.

      “Yeah.” Kate couldn’t tell if it was a consolation or not that he sounded almost as depressed as she felt. “Best-case scenario is Shanghai for six months, but it’ll probably be closer to ten, maybe even twelve.”

      She shut her eyes, although that didn’t change things. “That’s great,” she lied, because his job was important to him. His family was important to him, and she could not allow him to damage those relationships for her.

      “Yeah,” he said again, sounding positively morose about it. “It’s going to be really exciting. I’ll leave on the second.”

      They were down to days at this point. Sixteen days. And then he would be gone from her life and she would still be here, arguing with Roger and trying to do the best she could with what she had.

      Suddenly, she couldn’t bear it. She turned, throwing her arms around his neck. “I wish I could go with you.”

      His hands cradled her belly. “I couldn’t ask it of you. I wish I could stay.”

      She shook her head against his shoulder. “I couldn’t ask it of you, either.”

      He pulled a small box out of his pocket. “I got this for you.”

      She stared at the Christmas wrapping. She didn’t want to open it—didn’t want to accept the fact that the best thing that had ever happened to her was winding down to its natural conclusion. “Thank you. I haven’t had time to get you a present yet.”

      “I don’t...” He pulled her back into his arms and held her for a long moment. Then, almost by unspoken agreement, they both pulled back. Lingering would do no one any good. “Promise me,” he said, taking her hands and staring down into her eyes. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself and Madeleine. Promise me you won’t...” He swallowed, his eyes suspiciously bright. “Don’t wait for me, Kate. There’s a great guy out there who is going to be really lucky to have you and I don’t want you to pass him up.”

      “You’re being ridiculous,” she said, hiccupping. She was almost seven months pregnant. The number of men who would look at her and see anything but baggage could probably be counted on one hand.

      In fact, there might only be one of them. Standing right in front of her.

      “If you need anything,” he went on, ridiculous or not, “you call my parents. My mom’s an expert about single moms with new babies. Okay?”

      “Seth—”

      “Promise me, Kate,” he insisted, squeezing her hands.

      All good things came to an end. And that was what this was. The end. “I promise.”

      She’d never realized how much that sounded like goodbye.

       Sixteen

      An odd sort of tension settled in and made itself comfortable between Seth and his family. Sure, they all opened presents together Christmas morning. But even Julie, who professed to still believing in Santa Claus, was giving him looks that he didn’t want to think about. She was too much like their father sometimes, and he was in no mood to be judged by a ten-year-old.

      His mom would look at him and sigh and damned if it didn’t sound like disappointment. And his dad? The temperature dropped a solid ten degrees anytime he walked into the room.

      No one spoke about it. No one asked about Kate. They barely talked about Shanghai. Just tension.

      Just Seth slowly going insane. He hadn’t seen her since that day in her office—the day he’d given her the necklace. She hadn’t opened it. He almost called her Christmas afternoon but he told himself he’d wanted a clean break and that it was for the best.

      That didn’t explain why he called Kate on New Year’s Eve and asked her to come spend it with him. She must have been doing okay, because she refused and in a way, he was glad. He was flying out first thing on the second to LA and from there, to mainland China. If she came over for one last night, he honestly had no idea how he was going to leave.

      He was miserable and pissy and worried sick about her being alone for Madeleine’s birth. Even though he knew that if the shit hit the fan his family would

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