Twenty-Three
Now that the other bedroom in her apartment housed a crib and a changing table, and Pen had let her office go, she’d taken to working from the sofa. She spread her planner, cell phone and laptop on the coffee table: command central. It was perfect, really, since she was only a few yards away from the coffeepot she couldn’t wait to utilize again, and the bathroom.
Okay, so it wasn’t perfect.
She missed her office. She needed a designated space. Once her daughter was born, she’d be home fulltime—Pen had almost convinced herself that working from home was the best-case scenario.
Until she went mad from being housebound. Then she’d have to...she didn’t know what.
At least she’d landed a new account on Monday. Bridget Baxter, a chirpy, adorable blonde had requested Pen meet her for coffee. Bridget had been referred by Serena, and had a little PR problem of her own. Pen learned that Bridget, who co-managed the Dallas Cowboys, had had a one-night stand with one of the players. She was worried he’d ruin her reputation with the team, and she didn’t want to lose her high-up position. Bridget explained she’d worked hard to prove she was qualified.
Pen could so relate to having her reputation ruined by a man. She could also understand how Bridget had blindly followed her heart and had wound up at a destination she hadn’t foreseen. Pen didn’t hesitate accepting the job.
A job that smacked of her recently annihilated relationship, but also gave her something better to focus on than attempting to heal her heart, which had a million tiny lacerations.
Or maybe she was being dramatic.
The reminder for Bridget’s appointment popped up on the laptop screen. Pen needed to leave soon if she expected to arrive at the stadium on time.
She’d given a lot of thought to Bridget’s situation. How to best utilize the media, if at all. The more she turned it over, the angrier she became. Why was it up to Bridget to save her job? The guy she slept with certainly wasn’t in danger of being ousted from the team because he slept with an executive.
It was all so unfair.
Life was unfair.
The team was practicing today, which was why Bridget wanted to meet there. That was where her former beau would be, and she wanted to pull him in on the conversation if needed.
After winding around a bunch of corridors and walking into the wrong office, Pen stopped a coach-looking guy wearing a cap and holding a clipboard, and asked for her client.
“Bridget Baxter?” he repeated, regarding Pen like she’d sprouted a horn.
“We have an appointment.”
“She’s practicing on the field.” He shook his head. “You can follow me if you want.”
She followed, her head held high. If Bridget was getting this much disrespect from the coach, Pen could imagine the uphill climb she’d have if everyone found out Bridget had slept with a guy on the team.
Determination propelled her steps out into the sticky weather where teammates and cheerleaders dotted the field.
This kind of unfairness wouldn’t stand. Pen would make sure Bridget saw justice. She scanned the crowd for the tiny blonde. Ho boy. There were a sea of blondes in cheerleader uniforms and not a single pencil skirt in the mix.
Then one of the blondes separated from the crowd and shot Pen a wide grin.
Bridget.
Wearing a cheerleader uniform.
What?
“She’s here!” Bridget shouted. In a blur of blue and silver, the cheerleaders formed a line on the field. The guys didn’t stop practice, but a few of them looked at her and smiled.
Bridget bopped over to stand in front of Pen. “Sorry for the subversion. It was his plan. But I did have fun playing a corporate mogul.” With a wink and a buoyant giggle, Bridget ran back to her girls.
“Whose plan?” Pen asked, confused.
“Give me a Z!” Bridget called out, and the cheerleaders echoed with, “Z!” What followed was an A, a C, and an H.
With each letter, Pen felt her knees weaken.
“What’s that spell?” Bridget called. In answer, the cheerleaders parted, pom-poms swishing, and a tall, blond man wearing a tuxedo emerged.
Zach’s hair had been recently trimmed, and his sexy dimple was in full force. Talk about input overload. The sun, the cheering, the crash of football players in the background, and in the center of it all, the very man she’d been trying to put in her rearview mirror.
“Penelope Brand,” he said, looking confident and cool, and...different from before. There was sureness in each step he took toward her. Certainty in the way he dismissed the cheerleaders with a “Thanks, ladies.”
“What are you doing?” Her voice was cautious for a very good reason. If he’d gone through this trouble, it was because he was making a gesture of some sort. One that didn’t involve sending the UPS truck to her building every single day.
And if he asked her again to share his life with him, she didn’t trust herself to tell him no. If nothing had changed in his heart, then she couldn’t allow anything to change in hers.
He lifted her hand, the hand where her engagement ring used to sit. She’d left it on Zach’s dresser the day she went with the movers to the house. She couldn’t bear to look at it on her hand when she knew the truth behind it.
That the love she felt for Zach had ultimately not been returned.
It’d all been a ruse.
“A long time ago,” he said, “I made a rule to never get hurt again.”
Oh, my God, he was doing this...right here. Right now.
“Zach, please.”
“You asked about Lonna. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
She swallowed around a lump forming in her throat, curiosity and hope—so much hope it made her head spin—at a peak.
She nodded. He dipped his chin and continued.
“After I proposed to Lonna and she told me in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t take me seriously, I swore I’d never fall in love again. Avoiding love was the only pathway to happiness. The only path to a fulfilled life. Or so I thought. Then I met you.”
She couldn’t look away from his earnest green eyes—from the sincerity in them.
“I love our daughter, Penelope, but you have to understand something.” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I love her because of how much I love you.”
Pen froze, eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar. Did she hear him right? She shook her head, refusing to hope. Refusing to believe.
“You’re...you’re... That’s not true,” she finished on a whisper.
“I’m not attached physically to our baby girl the way you are, Pen,” he stated. “The only way I could feel this much love and devotion for her is because I felt it for you first. I’ve been in denial about this for a long time. Since the moment I proposed at my brother’s birthday party.”
She blinked.
“Even then, I knew.” He tugged her close, locking an arm around her lower back. Between them, her swollen belly pressed against his torso.
“I love you, Penelope Brand. I’m sorry I bullied you into everything. Staying when you didn’t want to stay. Moving in with me when you didn’t want to give up your place. Proposing without confessing how I felt about you. It was a childish way to get what I wanted—you—without putting my heart on the line. I take it all back. I don’t want you to marry me.”
He didn’t? She blinked, confused. That wasn’t where she saw this speech headed.
“Unless,” he added with a cocky smile, “you love me, too.” He lifted one thick eyebrow and when she didn’t respond right away, some of that certainty bled from his expression.
He wasn’t sure how she felt.
Because she’d never told him.
She’d been as guilty as he was about not sharing. She’d never given him the chance to know how she felt about him. So she’d tell him now.
“I love you so much I can’t imagine my life without you.” She curled her hand around one of his. “And believe me, I’ve been trying.”
His grin was cunning, wicked with intent and promises to come. “In that case...”
He rested his teeth on his bottom lip and let out a sharp whistle. Behind him, in a flurry of movement, the cheerleaders reformed a line and held up giant white cards with letters that spelled Marry Me?
Zach made a circling motion with his finger and a cute redheaded cheerleader at the end flipped her card—a question mark—so that it was an exclamation point instead.
Zach faced Pen, who dropped her purse on the ground at her feet, wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed to her toes.
He sealed her mouth with his.
Behind them, cheers and whistles, and low male hollers of approval, lifted on the air as Pen allowed herself to sink into Zach’s embrace.
Into the promise of his words, especially the three that meant more than anything.
He loved her.
As much as she loved him.