LITMIR.BIZ

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do happen, but I’ve never heard of one on this subject The last I knew, it always takes two to tango.”

      Nicole understood the woman’s wry teasing was an effort to help her relax, but this was no humorous matter. Not to her. “I realize you think I’m joking, but I swear I’m not. I haven’t tangoed with anyone! The tests simply have to be wrong. I only came in because I thought I had the flu, for Pete’s sake.”

      The nurse practitioner patiently spent another fifteen minutes with her. It didn’t help. Nicole left the women’s clinic feeling shell-shocked, carrying prescriptions for vitamins and morning sickness, her mind buzzing with information on the symptoms she could expect for the next six and a half months.

      Pregnant. The word kept reeling through her mind as she pushed open the door. Outside, a blustery damp wind tore straight through her ivory silk blouse and clawed at her auburn hair. She should have known better than to leave her suit jacket at the office. Two hours before, the day had been balmy warm, but weather on the Oregon coast was typically capricious—if not downright mean—in early March.

      Hurrying to her white Taurus, she climbed inside, but her fingers were so shaky she could hardly fit in the ignition key, much less punch the buttons for the heater. This was just so crazy! If she were almost three months pregnant right now, that meant the baby had to be conceived around the Christmas holidays.

      And that was impossible. Not a little impossible. 100% impossible.

      She swung onto the coastal highway and leveled her foot on the accelerator. Work By Design, her business, was only a ten-minute drive from the women’s clinic, ample time for the last few years to flash in front of her eyes.

      Long ago she’d discovered a talent for design, but there was a crowded abundance of competition in the interior decorating field. The psychology of work environments was new then. Employers were just catching on that an ergonomic, efficient office space could provably increase worker productivity and job satisfaction. She’d seen the niche. More relevant for her personally, she’d needed to do something that made a positive difference in others’ lives. She did the artsy stuff from the start, but it took finding the right engineer and architect to really make Work By Design come together. After four years—and her specifically devoting sixteen-hour days—the business was not only cooking, but bubbling over with potential growth now.

      Through these years, though, there had never been a spare second to think of babies or a private life. If the right man had popped into her life, who knew, maybe she’d have rethought having a baby. But that was precisely the point. There’d been no right men, no wrong men, no any men.

      Nicole had never exactly planned to turn into a celibate saint, but there were darn good reasons why she’d chosen the life-style of a workaholic hermit.

      Her stomach suddenly clenched with nerves. Old nerves. Old, scary, ghost-nerves that hadn’t peeked out of her emotional closet in years. She’d grown up taking every wrong road there was to take. She’d known trouble from the inside out. Cripes, she’d been trouble from the inside out. But a cop named Sam had helped her around seventeen years ago. She’d started a new life in a new place and done her best not to look back.

      She was ashamed of where she’d been—but, finally, proud of the woman she was becoming. There’d been no irresponsible, impulsive mistakes. None. Not even little ones. She’d turned herself into a completely different kind of woman than the hellion teenager she’d been growing up as.

      Or so she’d believed. Until the pregnancy test this afternoon had turned out positive.

      Minutes later, she parked in front of the stone-and-glass office building and barreled inside, away from the devil wind, hiking past John. Mitch. Wilma. Rafe.

      Her office was at the far end, a sanctuary with blue silk walls and thick, silencing carpet and windows that overlooked a cliff edge view of the Pacific. Waves thundered and pounded the rocks below, looking wild and lonely. Exactly how she felt. With her pulse racing faster than a frantic battery, she plunked down in the chair behind her gleaming pecan desk and squeezed her eyes closed.

      The faces of her staff again chased through her mind. John, Mitch, Wilma, Rafe. And yes, of course she remembered holding an office party two days before Christmas last year. It was the only social event she’d been remotely part of in a blue moon.

      And long before today, she’d realized that parts of that evening were hazy in her memory—but that never seemed remotely strange, simply because she’d been so dead tired that night. She’d hosted the party at her house for a number of reasons. She wanted the staff to indulge in all the champagne they wanted, and at home, she had spare rooms for anyone to sleep over so no one had to worry about drinking and driving. There’d been so much to organize and plan. She’d had lobsters brought in, oysters on the half shell, chocolate-covered strawberries—every luxury she could think of, because her team had an unbeatably successful year and deserved being spoiled.

      Nicole suddenly rubbed two fingers on her temples. The staff had had a blast, which was exactly what she’d wanted to happen—she recalled moments from the party with crystal clarity. But until now, she’d forgotten how they’d teased her about not drinking. They were always ribbing her about being too formal, never letting down her hair and loosening up.

      It was never a good idea to let down her hair. Ever. She had too much past history she wanted buried good and deep. The staff respected her, and she’d done her absolutely damnedest to earn that respect. Besides that, she couldn’t handle liquor—which heaven knew she’d learned the hard way years before.

      But Nicole suddenly remembered a glass of champagne being thrust in her hands that night. At least one glass. Possibly two.

      Holy cripes, could she have had three?

      Because suddenly she realized that was precisely the part of the evening when her memory turned as murky as an ocean cave. That hadn’t mattered before. But unless she’d become pregnant via immaculate conception—which unfortunately was a stretch, even for a woman who made a living on her creative imagination—suddenly the part of the evening she didn’t remember mattered a whole bunch.

      Restlessly she swung out of the desk and paced to the open door. Each employee had an individual office, but the central area was organized with tables and drafting boards and a video setup. Developing models and layups took space, and often the staff worked together on projects.

      John was sprawled with his feet on a table, working with a sketch pad on his lap. From the doorway, she could see the smooth dome of his head, his Mickey Mouse tie, the concentration furrow in the middle of his brow. John handled the advertising and marketing. He was forty-two and growing a little couch-potato pooch and wonderful at his job. When his wife left him the year before, Nicole had been afraid he’d never climb back from a pit-awful depression. She thought the absolute world of John, and if he really needed something, she knew she’d go the long mile to come through for him—but John was like a brother, as comfortable to be with as an old shoe. Even if she’d guzzled an entire winery worth of champagne, she simply could not imagine getting naked with him.

      Rafe ambled by, carrying a fresh mug of coffee, and plunked down in front of a drafting board. Rafe was thirty-four, single like John, and originally Nicole almost hadn’t hired him. He had the exact engineering background she was looking for, but between the dark hair, dark eyes, and husky muscular build, he was a cut-and-dried hunk. She’d worried those good looks could be asking for trouble—but she’d been wrong. Rafe could get impatient and tempermental with the rest of the staff, but he was smart and ambitious and unbeatably capable at his job.

      Nicole’s gaze lasered on his back for a second longer. Yeah, he was an eyeful. And anyone’s deprived hormones could be stirred up with alcohol. But unlike the rest of the team, Rafe never talked about his private life—he’d openly admitted losing a job before because of mixing business and pleasure, and he felt adamant about never making that mistake again. He’d never told her an off-color joke, never looked at her sideways. Even if he were attracted, she couldn’t imagine him initiating a pass. It was just impossible. It could never have happened.

      Wilma

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