LITMIR.BIZ

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and it shaded almost everything below. Patches of dark and light danced across his face as he approached the outdoor kitchen, where everyone had congregated.

      “The party can officially start,” he announced, giving Gwen a brilliant smile before he bent down to pull a cold bottle of locally microbrewed beer out of the small refrigerator inset to the right of the grill.

      The small gesture brought a wave of warmth to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the sun. Perhaps she’d worried for nothing. When Adrienne had first invited her up here for the Independence Day holiday, she’d had doubts. Her friend had promised her a relaxing vacation by the ocean with nothing but fun and friends. It sounded like a dream.

      The time away from work would be a godsend, as would going a couple days without having to climb the four flights of stairs to her apartment. Her daily routine got rougher as each week ticked by. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like in the last few months. She needed this break more than she’d realized.

      But she’d known seeing Alex again would be awkward. Her being pregnant made it doubly so. It wasn’t because they had parted on bad terms. They had both known it was nothing more than a little short-term fun. He’d had a business trip to go on, and it had seemed like the right time to end whatever they had going. But once he was gone, she’d been left with this restless, icky feeling she’d never felt before.

      Eventually the complications of her life had put those concerns out of her head, but it had just confirmed some of the thoughts she’d been having about her choices in men. As in—she always made bad ones. Alex was no different. And it just wasn’t working for her anymore. The decision to take the next year off from dating was obviously a wise choice.

      But Alex didn’t know how she felt about things. Their relationship had ended on a positive note as far as he was concerned. And given the firm arousal that had pressed into her back less than an hour ago, he’d arrived alone and interested in having another go at it.

      At least he had. Until twenty-two weeks of belly had come between them. Now he probably thought she was as sexy as a beluga whale—or worse in Alex’s mind—a pregnant woman.

      It was probably for the best. There was a reason why she’d planned her man-break to coincide with the pregnancy. It was built-in willpower. And lately, she’d needed it. The months of celibacy and the second-trimester hormones had done a number on her libido. If Alex was still interested, she’d be tempted to use him for a couple nights of hot sex, the way he used every other woman in his life. Turnabout was fair play, right?

      But, fortunately, she didn’t have to worry. Alex would stay at arm’s length from her all week, and she wouldn’t need the strength necessary to turn him down. And she would have to turn him down. She’d done so well. She didn’t want to fall off the wagon, even for a guy like Alex.

      “Alex, have you met everybody?” Adrienne set down her glass of tea on the table and began fulfilling her role as hostess by introducing her guests.

      Gwen had heard it all before, but she listened a second time in the hope she would actually retain the information. First was Emma, Adrienne’s half sister of sorts. She was actually the child of George and Pauline Dempsey, who had lost their older daughter in the same wreck that had nearly killed Adrienne. They’d unofficially adopted Adrienne and let her take Emma shopping or on trips from time to time. Emma had just graduated from high school, and when she got home, she had to pack up and get ready for her freshman year at Yale.

      Next was Sabine, a somewhat funky twentysomething who managed Adrienne’s boutique. She had a nose piercing and a bright purple stripe in her black hair, so Gwen wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. Adrienne ran in diverse circles.

      Peter and Helena were a middle-aged couple who lived in the brownstone next to Will and Adrienne’s new place on the Upper West Side. Rounding off the crowd was Wade, one of Will and Alex’s friends from Yale and Alex’s former business partner, and Jack, an editor for one of the big New York publishing houses. Apparently he had worked with Will at the paper a few years back.

      It was a blur of names and faces that Gwen would forget the minute the next name was called. She’d blame her short-term memory loss on the pregnancy—it was easy to label almost anything as a symptom of her condition—but the truth of the matter was that she was simply bad with names. At work, it was easy. All the staff had name tags, and all the patients had their names on a plaque outside their door or a clipboard hanging at the foot of their bed.

      When the introductions were finished, she decided her time standing in the sun was over. It had felt good at first, but now she was a minute or two from starting to burn. Taking her glass of iced tea, Gwen returned to the shade of the pergola and sat down on one of the cushioned Adirondack chairs.

      Leaning back into the cool comfort of her chair, she instantly felt better. Thank goodness she wasn’t full-term in the heat of the summer. Gwen wasn’t sure she could bear that. Her apartment didn’t have central air, just a small unit in the bedroom window. Most of the time she was cold natured and it suited her fine, but she’d had fire running through her veins the last few months.

      Taking a refreshing sip of the sweet tea she’d brewed earlier, she watched the men gather around the grill. Apparently millionaires could run companies and build empires, but outdoor cooking was a challenge. She watched Alex open the cabinet beneath it and make some adjustments to the propane line. A few minutes later, a roar of success sounded from the group.

      “We have fire!” the editor guy—Jack?—shouted triumphantly.

      Adrienne patted them all on the back and headed toward the house. “I’m off to prepare the meat,” she said with a smile as she slipped inside.

      Sabine with the purple hair quickly grew bored with the sight of an operating gas grill and came to sit in the shade with Gwen. They hadn’t spoken much since she’d arrived. She was sure the woman was perfectly nice—Adrienne was a good judge of people—but Gwen just didn’t know what they had in common to discuss.

      “When are you due?” Sabine asked before taking a sip from her beer.

      “Mid-October,” Gwen said, although watching the other woman made her think the day couldn’t come soon enough. Of all the lifestyle changes she’d had to make, the hardest had been giving up her favorite beer. She didn’t drink much, but there was just something soothing about popping the top on a cold one after a long shift, plopping onto the couch and watching a few hours of reality television on her DVR.

      “My son will be two in October, so I understand where you’re at. Do you know what you’re having yet?”

      Gwen tried not to look too surprised to learn Sabine was a mother. Imagining her own mother with purple hair was just impossible. “A little girl. I had the ultrasound last week.”

      Susan and Robert had been over the moon in the doctor’s office. It was hard to see the fuzzy image on the screen from her vantage point, but she tried not to be too disappointed. This was their baby after all, not hers. They did give her a copy of the latest ultrasound picture to show off. Unfortunately, it was in her purse on her bed when she needed it.

      “Do you have any names picked out yet?”

      The more pregnant Gwen became, the more of these questions she had to field. It had been easy when no one could tell she was pregnant. Now, unless it was just a quick comment from a stranger on the subway, it was best to tell them about her situation before they pressed on.

      “No, actually, I’m a surrogate, so the baby technically isn’t mine to name. I think her parents are considering Caroline Joy and Abigail Rose. Every time I talk to them they’ve changed it again. For now I just call her Peanut, because that’s what she looked like on the first sonogram.”

      Sabine’s eyes had grown wider as Gwen talked. Apparently dropping a detail like that and carrying on without pause had thrown her off her guard. “A surrogate? Wow. I don’t think I could ever do that,” she finally said.

      “Why is that?”

      “Being

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