LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I’m in town on business. Thought I’d stop by, see how you’re doing….”

      She wrapped her arms around herself, resting them on that impossible belly, and looked at him steadily. Now those eyes of hers looked sad. “I’m all right.”

      He parodied a smile. “Great. Did I catch you having dinner?”

      She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

      He craned to the side, hoping to see beyond her into the apartment. “Your, uh, husband home?”

      She took forever to answer. Finally, so gently, she told him, “No, Marcus.”

      He waited, his gaze on her face, carefully not glancing down again at her bulging stomach.

      Finally she heaved a big sigh. “Look. Are you coming in or not?”

      “Yeah.”

      She stepped back. He crossed the threshold. She shut the door, closing the two of them in that apartment together.

      The place was small. Straight ahead a hallway led into shadow. To the right was a narrow kitchen with a tiny two-seater table. On the left was the living room area. There, the brightly lighted tree already had a pile of festively wrapped presents beneath it. The TV cabinet dripped garland and fake red berries. She even had a Nativity scene on one of the side tables.

      Leave it to Hayley to do Christmas full out. Last December, she’d…

      But he wasn’t going to think about last December. Last December was gone. Over. Done. He was only here to say hi and wish her and her baby—and the guy, too, damn him to hell, whoever he was—a nice life.

      “Your coat,” she suggested softly, reaching out.

      He dodged her touch again. “It’s all right. I’ll keep it on.”

      She dropped her outstretched arm. “Okay.” It was her turn to fake a smile. “Well. Have a seat.” She indicated the blue couch in the living room. Obediently, he marched over there and sat down.

      “A drink?” she offered, still hovering there on the square of tile that served as her entrance hall.

      He realized a drink sounded pretty damn good. He needed a drink at a moment like this. Something to numb his senses, blur his vision. Something to make it so he didn’t care that Hayley was having someone else’s kid. “Great. Thanks.”

      “Pepsi?”

      “No. A real drink. Anything but whiskey.”

      She blinked. She knew how he felt about booze, as a rule. “Well, sure. I think I’ve got some vodka around here. No tonic or anything, though…”

      “Vodka. Some ice. Whatever.”

      She turned toward the kitchen. He watched her in there as she got down a glass. She disappeared for a moment. He heard ice cubes clinking. And then she was back in his line of vision, glass in one hand, a bottle in the other. She poured the clear liquor over the ice, put the lid back on the bottle and came to him, that belly of hers leading the way.

      “Thanks,” he said, when she handed it over. He knocked it back in one swallow and held out the glass again. “Another.”

      She opened her beautiful mouth to speak—but he glared at her and she said nothing. Silent but for a sigh, she took the glass and waddled back to the counter, where she poured him a second one. She approached again and held out the glass. He took it. And then he watched with bleak fascination as she moved to a chair across from him and carefully lowered herself into it.

      The liquor, thankfully, had no smell. He considered knocking back the second glass. But he had a feeling if he did, it might just come right back up again. So he sipped the disgusting stuff slowly and told himself to be grateful that it had no more taste that it had smell, just a slight unpleasant oiliness on the tongue.

      She asked, her chin tipped high, “How did you know where I live?”

      “I kept track of you.” Did he sound like some stalker? He qualified, “Just your address. Your phone number…” It was nothing obsessive, he’d told himself. But he did feel a certain…responsibility for her. He’d hired someone to get her address and phone number after she left him.

      And about that phone number? More than once, when he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be home, he’d dialed that number, just to hear her voice on her answering machine and know that if he needed to get in touch with her again, he could.

      “I wanted to be sure,” he said, “that you were doing okay.”

      “Well.” She lifted both hands, as if to indicate everything around her—the cramped apartment, the blue couch he sat on, the tree in the window, the baby inside her. And the husband who wasn’t home yet. “Doing fine.”

      He should have had the guy he hired find out more. He would have gotten some advance warning about that other man, about the baby coming. If he’d known, he wouldn’t be here now, drinking vodka and looking like a fool.

      “Your husband…” he said, and then didn’t know how to go on.

      She shook her head. “Marcus, I—”

      “Stop.” He tipped his glass at her. “On second thought, I really don’t want to know.” Another gulp and the second drink was finished. So was he. He set the glass down and stood. “I can see you’re okay. That’s good. You have a great life.” He headed for the door.

      “Marcus. Wait—”

      But he wasn’t listening. Four long strides and he reached the door.

      As he yanked the door open, she called again, “Damn it, Marcus!” He shut the door behind him. Ignoring the sound of her calling after him, he made for the stairs, taking them two at a time, his throat tight and his chest aching.

      In under a minute, he was across the central courtyard of her apartment complex, out the wrought-iron gate to the street and behind the wheel of his rented Lexus. He stuck the key in the ignition and turned it over. The engine purred.

      But he didn’t pull out into traffic. Instead, he flopped back in the seat and stared blindly at the dark windshield, seeing not the night beyond, but Hayley staring back at him through solemn eyes. Hayley, coming toward him with that second drink he’d demanded, her huge stomach leading the way.

      She hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring.

      He sat up straighter. She’d quit her job as his assistant and left him in…May. Seven months ago.

      In his mind’s eye, he saw her answering the door again, her hand on her stomach. Her beach-ball-size stomach.

      Marcus was no expert on pregnancy. But didn’t she look further along than seven months? Really, she looked to him to be almost ready to have the kid…

      His heart slammed into his breastbone and his stomach rolled as the world seemed to tip on its axis.

      No ring on her ring finger. And the husband. He wasn’t there because…

      There was no husband.

      Marcus yanked the key from the ignition and got out of the car. He raced across the sidewalk and up the three stone steps to the gate.

      Which was locked.

      He swore, a harsh oath, though there was no one but the night to hear him. Earlier, he’d lucked out and slipped in behind a couple too busy groping each other to notice they had company as they entered the complex. Not this time. He stood at the gate alone. Muttering another bad word, he punched the button that went with Hayley’s apartment number.

      She answered immediately, as if she’d been waiting by the receiver for him to finally add two and two and come up with four. “Marcus.”

      “Is it mine?”

      By way of answer, she

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