Since Marcus mentioned people were giving me looks, I was having fun walking by people and then quickly glancing back. He was right, there were quite a lot of looks. I hadn't announced my pregnancy, so maybe they were trying to figure out if I was just getting fat.

I spent the next week nervous about meeting Marcus's mom. She was coming into the city specifically to have lunch with us. Meeting her when I was already several months pregnant wasn't the greatest idea, but there was nothing to be done about that. I sure as hell couldn't meet her when I was still bruised and hurt from the kidnapping.

Marcus continued to pretend that we didn't have a relationship at work, which was fun. Trying to flirt or touch each other while keeping it a secret was entertaining, especially now that I knew we weren't going to get fired for it. Marcus would come over to see how I was doing and rub his hand on the back of my neck. I'd put my arm down, grabbing his calf, or run my finger down the front of his thigh. We were horrible. We'd be so worked up by the end of the day that we could barely keep our hands off each other.

It probably wasn't nice of me to tease Marcus so bad, but I couldn't help it when Luke was continually asking me if I needed help or how my work was going.. Every time Marcus saw us you could practically see steam coming out of his ears.

I wasn't being mean- okay, so maybe I was using Luke's generosity a bit, but I knew Luke wasn't being helpful just to be helpful. He wanted in my pants, so I didn't feel too bad about taking Luke up on his offers of help. An added bonus was that it made Marcus so irritated that he made sure I knew, when we get home from work, who my husband was and how he was better than Luke in all respects.

Poor Luke. I knew once he learned that I was married to Marcus he wouldn't be flirting with me anymore. That might be the end of the frantic, angry hot sex we'd been having when we got home from work. Plus, Marcus was getting nervous about doing anything more than hand jobs or blowjobs now that I had gotten a lot bigger. Seriously, what did I need to do to get sex, get a royal decree or something?

The day came for our lunch with Marcus's mom. I thought that we should meet her at the penthouse and tell her in person, so any yelling wouldn't be done in public, but Marcus told me that not everyone acted like my parents and his mom would be fine. I wanted to believe him but I still had my doubts.

We left the office separately and several minutes apart. I went out first and got in the car, talking to Bill, before Marcus slid in the car. I felt like I had known Bill forever. I guess having him help rescue you from your insane parents would bring you close like nothing else. We pulled up at some swanky restaurant I had never been to. We walked toward a table where a nice looking older woman sat. You could definitely see the resemblance.

Marcus's mom stood up and took both of my hands in hers. "Oh honey, I am so glad to meet you. You don't know how much I've worried that Marcus would never settle down, due to his father."

I glanced at Marcus. I could guess how Marcus felt about his mom talking about this stuff in public.

"Mom let's just sit down and have lunch." Marcus's mom, Helen, asked me questions about where I grew up, how I liked the law field, and other common questions used to get to know someone. She shared a few stories about Marcus when he was younger, which was awesome to hear.

Finally, we got to the main point of lunch. "Mom, like I told you over the phone, I've got some news to share. The first thing is that we would like your help. Ryan and I are expecting a baby and we'd like you to plan and host the baby shower in our penthouse, for close friends and family."

This was the part that made me nervous as hell. If it were my parents, they would drag me out and beat me within an inch of my life. I was tense and nervous. Marcus had his hand on my thigh, trying to reassure me. When his mom stood up, I tensed. She came around the table, put her hands on my cheeks and kissed my forehead.

"Oh, I am so very relieved. You must be a very special man to have caught my boy, Marcus. I am honored to plan this baby shower for you, just honored."

She had tears running down her face. She went back to her seat and wiped her face. This was completely different from what I had expected. Even though I knew Marcus wouldn't have a nut job for a mom, I was still nervous. I was raised that being unwed and pregnant was a horrible, terrible thing. It certainly wasn't seen that way by Marcus's mom, just like he had been trying to tell me.

Marcus squeezed my thigh. "See? I told you." I squeezed his hand and turned back to his mom. "Mom, there's another thing we need to tell you too.. We needed to get married very quickly, so we got married in Vegas."

I thought that the way she handled the baby shower would be the way she handled the news of our wedding. Nope. Her happy face dropped and her face looked like Marcus's when he destroyed opposing counsel. Now I knew where he got it. "You did what?"

Hoo boy. I turned to Marcus, scared, but he sat there smiling at his mom without a concern. "We're going to have a wedding reception and we need your help planning it. Could you help us with that too?" She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.

"I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to mollify me, to give me a little bone to make me feel better about the fact that I didn't see my eldest son's wedding. How could you do that to me?"

"Like I said, mom. There were extenuating circumstances. We had a ten hour window in which we had to get married. I'll tell you about it, but not in public. Let's just say some very crazy events prompted it, pertaining to," Marcus looked at me and I nodded my head, "Ryan's family. And my borrowing the company Learjet to rescue him."

Helen's arms dropped and her anger was replaced by shock. "That Learjet can only be used for business. I know because I wanted to use it to go to the Cayman Islands."

"See? I lied to be able to use the jet and we had to make the lie real before we got back, even though it had already been clear in my mind that Ryan was the one for me. Actually, it had been clear in my mind the first time I saw him." Marcus squeezed my thigh and we looked at each other. I will never, ever get tired of hearing that.

We turned back to Marcus's mom, who was now dabbing her face, trying to stop her tears. "Oh you two. I am so happy for you both. If I had known that this lunch would be so emotional I would've brought my makeup bag with me."

Marcus

I regretted telling my mom that she could plan the baby shower and wedding reception. I should've known she would go absolutely crazy. She kept calling with questions, like,"Is there enough room for a four piece symphony quartet? Can I have your credit card to buy the extra tables and chairs you'll need? People will want to see the baby's room. We need to get that done before the baby shower. Give me your credit card and I'll get the baby's room done."

The answer was no to every single one of those questions. I finally had her talk to Ryan. He was getting sick and tired of being pregnant. I knew he wouldn't be above saying his ankles hurt or his back hurt or whatever random new bodily thing was going on, just to get off the call.

Last week it had been burps. Just random burping. He looked as surprised as I was when those things started flying out of his mouth. He won any argument with my mom by telling her he had to go lay down or the baby was kicking. That's exactly why I had fobbed my mom off on him.

I was sad that we wouldn't be able to do our little charade at work anymore, but I was relieved and happy because I could bring my husband into my office without having to sneak around. Of course, people would probably be more aware of any noises now that they knew we were together. I was still hell-bent on getting Ryan bent over my desk, but with his belly getting bigger all the time, I think my window of opportunity had passed.

"How many people do you think will show up?" I shrugged my shoulders. Ryan had passed out invitations to the baby shower two weeks ago.

I was wondering when a meeting with the other partners would get arranged when they found out I was the father of Ryan's child and we were married. I was pretty sure there were going to be some tense questions over whether this relationship started before Ryan was part of my paralegal team or after. At this point, did it really matter? He was knocked up and we were married- not much you could do about that.

Ryan felt bad about not telling his friends at the firm the truth about why the baby shower was being held in our penthouse. Nobody knew I lived here except Eric and Meredith. When asked, Ryan shrugged it off, saying he knew the guy that lived there. You bet he did.

Ryan walked by, carrying a stack of cloth napkins to set on the dining room table. I took that opportunity to smack him on the ass. He kept walking while throwing a smirk over his shoulder. My mom yelled at me for smacking my pregnant husband on the ass. "Mom, we're married. Besides, you know how babies are made." I'll admit it was funny when my mom got all flustered and had to leave to go to the bathroom to "powder her nose".

Ryan had managed to get my mom to settle on a somewhat normal baby shower. There would be a catered buffet along with cake, cookies, alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. No string quartet, thank God, but the kind of music Ryan and I liked would be playing over speakers. This was an informal baby shower- slash- wedding announcement. There was no need to go country club.

There was no room to hide a big wedding cake in my fridge so we nixed that idea, until Eric thought of getting it delivered during the partyWe were going to have the baby shower for about forty five minutes and then a three-tiered wedding cake was going to show up. I couldn't wait to see the looks on everybody's faces when they figured it out.

A surprisingly large number of people showed up to the shower. It looked like everybody from the firm showed up- Ryan's friends, my friends, Steve, the FBI agent that saved our asses during Ryan's rescue.

I did wonder what the hell was going on with Eric and Lance. They were on different sides of the room, throwing little glances at each other. Something must've happened because neither one of them looked as upbeat as they normally were. Though Eric denied dating Lance, I still swear something was going on there.

I stayed back around the periphery of the annoying baby shower games and the gifts. When forty minutes had passed I started hanging out near the elevator. When that elevator door opened and the cake company rolled out the gigantic wedding cake, I knew it was time for the fun to begin. Well, it would be fun for about two seconds before everybody started glaring at me for taking advantage of a subordinate.

"Oh Ryan, I think some more dessert just arrived." Ryan blushed and stood up from his chair in the living room. I tried to stay in character, but I just couldn't. I had a gigantic smile on my face. You might even say it was a cocky smile. The cake was wheeled into the dining room as people stood up and the murmuring got louder.

Ryan stood next to me, but we didn't hold hands, as I wanted to keep this charade going for as long as possible. "I'm glad everybody came for my baby shower. I really appreciate it. I know there's something that you've probably all been dying to know. Who's the father of my baby?" Ryan moved towards me, grabbed my hand and smiled even bigger.

Meredith and Eric already knew, and so did Lance and Steve, but I wished I had a camera to record everybody else's faces. It was priceless. Looks of shock and horror, with eyes bouncing from Ryan to me, mingled in with some looks of disgust. I started laughing. "Stop it. You're not making this easy on me." Ryan hissed at me but I couldn't stop.

"As you can see, my idiot husband thinks this is hysterical."

And there was the second part of the announcement. The gasps I heard were well worth it. I laughed even harder. Yeah, I was going to get my ass chewed by Ryan but this was just priceless.

I finally calmed down enough to speak. "I'm sorry, but it was pretty funny seeing your faces. Yes, we really are married. We went to Vegas. There'll be a wedding reception so don't worry, you'll get to drink and dance at my expense. And no, Ryan won't be working in my section after the baby is born. He'll be moving to another section at work."

Finally the looks settled into more normal expressions, and even happiness. "I'm glad you finally made an honest man out of him, you old lech!" That was Steve, hopefully breaking the ice so that other people would offer congratulations or at least saying something.

"I'm happy you found a love match at our firm. You sure kept it quiet." That was perfect because then everybody started talking about how they had no idea or they totally knew we were having a relationship. I gave Ryan a quick kiss and then dragged him over to the cake. We cut the first piece together, then I let my mom and the cake company cut the rest.

There was one person that left the baby shower wedding announcement a little early. Not long after we announced our marriage, Luke left. I didn't think Ryan noticed as he was too busy talking to the other paralegals. I snickered and ate my wedding cake.