Fifteen
“Have your assistant return everything but this.” Pen held up a tiny pair of shoes. “I can’t part with these even though they’re hysterically overpriced. The rest of it I can shop for online.” She stood over the boutique baby clothes spread on Zach’s king-size bed, her hands on her hips. There was a line in the center of her brows communicating her worry.
“Why?” He slid out of his suit jacket and hung it in his closet.
“Because a growing baby doesn’t need extravagant—” she gestured to the stacks of gender-neutral clothing “—everything.”
She’d set up the visit to the baby boutique for Saturday afternoon, and then they did something he’d never pictured himself doing. They shopped for their future son or daughter.
He’d purchased the clothing, shoes and toys that he and Pen carried out in the boutique’s signature shiny bags, but he didn’t stop there. He’d also snapped several pictures of furniture with his iPhone and sent them to his interior designer. Like right now, Pen had loved it but protested the inflated price tag.
“No one needs extravagant everything,” Zach commented, unbuttoning his shirt. Pen paused, a yellow stuffed elephant rattle in her hand, and watched. He liked the way she looked at him—like he was her next meal. “Come take your clothes off.”
“There’s an invitation,” she said with a laugh.
She tossed the elephant aside and came to him in the closet. Her eyes were sleepy despite it being hours before bedtime. After a shopping excursion and a late lunch, she looked beat. Not that it hindered her beauty at all.
Holding herself steady on the closet’s interior wall, she slipped off one high-heeled shoe and then the other.
“Ah, so much better.”
He’d lectured her nonstop about the damn shoes. It hadn’t done any good.
“Just so we’re clear,” he said, shrugging off his shirt and tossing it into a hamper, “our child is entitled to have as many extravagant things as we see fit.”
Her eyes roamed over his bare chest and he sucked in a breath to expand it farther. She smiled and gave him a playful shove.
“That’s what I’d like to avoid. An entitled child.” She turned and lifted her hair and he pulled down the delicate zipper holding her dress closed. “I want our son or daughter to be loved and know that ‘stuff’ doesn’t matter.”
Zach ran his fingers down her exposed back, pausing at her bra strap. “This, too?”
She eyed him over her shoulder, a spark of want in her eyes mingling with the fatigue. As tempting as it was to seduce her, he’d digress.
“I’m going to work at home for a bit. Why not grab a nap?”
She slipped out of her dress, revealing smooth skin and a softly rounding belly. His chest flooded with possessiveness.
She covered her stomach and her brows bent.
He moved her hand and gave her a smile. “I like watching the changes in your body.”
She cocked her head as if to challenge him. “You mean my growing girth?”
“You’re making a human being. That takes up some real estate.” It was a miracle in every sense of the word. “It’s okay to take a break.”
“I’ll relax, but I want to keep my eye on the internet for our inevitable online debut.”
The photographer had shown up like Pen arranged, snapping pictures of them inside the store through the windows as well as from across the street when they left the baby boutique.
“Right. The blogger.”
“Not just any blogger.” She hung her white dress and pulled on a pair of stretchy pale-pink pants.
He wanted to dispute the long white shirt covering her, until he realized he could see the shape of her nipples and the swell of her heavy breasts outlined by the thin fabric.
“The Dallas Duchess,” Pen stated with a gesture that sent her breasts jiggling.
He pulled on a T-shirt and jeans and slipped into a pair of tennis shoes. “And she’s important, I gather.”
“Mmm-hmm. She keeps an eye on the Dallas movers and shakers. She’ll have our photo up by this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I made sure of it.”
That rogue twinkle in Pen’s eye lit whenever she talked about her work. Whether she was digging a pair of canoodling actors out of a steaming pile of drama or arranging Zach’s internet debut. He couldn’t resist capturing some of that fire for himself. Not while she stood this close to him.
He wrapped an arm around her back and lowered his lips to hers, pressing her breasts to his chest as he made out with her long and slow. She tracked her fingers along his abs, and his belly clenched. He let out a low growl as she dropped from her toes and smiled up at him. He wanted her. Badly.
“You don’t have to work right away, do you?” she asked with the quirk of one eyebrow.
“Hell, no,” he answered, and then hoisted her in his arms and carried her the short distance to the bed.
* * *
She and Zach had played their roles while shopping earlier today. They’d kissed and hugged and smiled. She’d coached him this morning en route to the store, and he’d grumbled about the preparation, arguing that he wasn’t that good of an actor.
Yet this afternoon, there he was, heat in his eyes and firmness in his kiss. But that wasn’t all acting, now, was it? He’d been looking at her with heated eyes and owning her with his kisses since they’d re-met. And their going to bed together when they returned home was definitely par for course.
Mercy. She wondered how much of the sex she could blame on the hormones.
She finished packing the baby clothes and toys into the shopping bags for returning later. She was serious about not wanting an entitled child.
What she hadn’t told him was that she’d also started thinking about the massive income gap between hers and Zach’s annual earnings. Obviously, that’d always been a factor, but today especially, as she thought about providing for her son or daughter, she realized that half the child’s time would be spent at Zach’s house where everything would be provided in abundance. The other half? Spent with her where she’d earn a decent living, yes, and her child would never do without the necessities, but a two hundred dollar jumper wouldn’t be hanging in the closet.
She shoved thoughts of the future aside and focused on the task in front of her. An email from the Dallas Duchess herself. The duchess confirmed that the blog would go live tomorrow.
So that was that.
Penelope and Zach would be making their announcement publicly soon after, confirming that yes, they were expecting. Being that Zach was both CEO of Ferguson Oil and the mayor’s brother, the story was news to anyone looking for gossip. The Fergusons weren’t royal family status, but neither were they ignored. Their staggering good looks paired with their billionaire incomes made the two brothers and sister popular in this city.
“Way to pick a baby daddy,” Pen joked aloud. But she didn’t feel an ounce of regret for going to bed with Zach—or moving in with him. Like Cinderella, her fairy tale would soon come to an end.
She glanced around the living room—masculine browns and earth tones like his apartment with a touch of hominess in shades of blue—and admitted she liked nesting here, even if it wasn’t permanent. There would be time to ready her apartment—to acquire an apartment. In the meantime, she would be treated like a queen.
She scraped her bottom lip with her teeth as she turned over the shallow thoughts. Pen wasn’t accustomed to being dependent on anyone but herself. Her mother had raised her to be her own godmother, not the princess flailing about wearing only one glass slipper.
Once upon a time Pen had been involved with a client who had offered to “take care of everything” and look how that’d ended up. She’d vowed never to let her guard down again—yet here she was, breaking her rules for Zach.
Had she traded her pluck for comfort? Was she shallow? Or, was Zach different? Was what they had something she’d never truly experienced—the beginning of a trusting relationship that might lead to that elusive beast: love?
Surely not.
Pen had looked forward to the day she’d moved away from home. She’d excelled at running her own life. So well, in fact, she’d begun advising others how to run theirs and charging them for it.
Right now she was simply being practical. Her affinity for Zach—the doting as well as the sex—was temporary. Soon, she’d have a child to raise. A baby to nurse. And still have her business to run. She wouldn’t have time for frivolous relationships any more than she’d have time for a mani-pedi on a Sunday afternoon.
They were sacrifices she was willing to make. And with Zach in the picture, it wasn’t as if she’d be doing it alone. She’d have help. Albeit not living under this same roof, because that was impractical. But they’d have shared custody...
The sentence trailed to a muted end and her head spun.
Zach would share custody, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t try and take her child from her? Of course he wouldn’t. Unless...he dated someone else in the future. Maybe things would get serious and the woman would want to play a bigger role in their child’s life.
Pen’s eyebrows snapped together. She didn’t want their child raised by another woman. And what if that other woman ended up like Yvonne, with no scruples and a money-grubbing attitude? Zach hadn’t only dated Yvonne, he’d married her.
“Whoa. You okay?” Zach stepped into the living room, casual attire doing nothing to dash the air of power surrounding him. Power and money. “You look...not okay.”
She could imagine. If her face revealed any of her thoughts about a future custody battle, she must resemble a gladiator readying for a fight. Pen launched into a conversation without any preempting whatsoever.
“I wanted to talk to you about custody of our baby.” The words were as thick as wet sand, but she got them out.
He frowned as he came deeper into the living room and sat next to her on the couch. She set aside her phone.
“We’ll share it. Obviously,” she stated.
“When the time comes.” His eyelids narrowed. “Your home is here, Pen. I’m in no hurry to have you gone.”
“But eventually, I’ll leave.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Zach.” He’d been saying that a lot and she’d gone along, but what happened when her carriage turned into a pumpkin? “Eventually. I’ll leave. I hope you won’t fight me for full custody of our child.”
“I’m not going to fight you for anything involving our child.” He tipped his head toward the bags of clothing she’d set by the front door. “Except you keeping the purchases we made at the boutique.”
“It’s too much.”
“Penelope.” He placed his hand on her neck, his thumb sliding along her jaw as he met her eyes with his potent green stare. “I’m having a child, too. Buying for our baby, taking care of you, are the only ways I know how to participate. Let me.”
His eyebrows lifted into an earnest expression and she closed her eyes. Maybe she was too emotional about...well, everything. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m worrying about everything.”
“Worry about one thing. What you want for dinner. And then tell me and I’ll either make it or have it delivered.” He stood from the couch, bending and placing a kiss on her forehead. She watched him walk out of the room, his sure, strong steps and presence making every hectic thought in her tired brain calmer.
She might not be in love with the father of her baby, but she could admit that the biggest part she’d miss about the princess treatment was going to be Zach himself.