THREE
It was the fourth time Josie had gotten up this morning to relieve her stomach of its contents. She turned on the sink each time, trying to mask the sound of her retching. She and Jake were the only ones in the office today. Even the workers were not on site because their work was postponed until the heavy rains subsided. It had rained all night, making it nearly impossible to even drive up to the site. Josie had parked on the street and walked into the trailer just before another downpour began.
Jake had taken note early on that Josie made it a habit to make it to the office early, and many times, she was there before him. He made her a key to let herself in, for which she was grateful. While she did like to be early, she was coming in earlier than she normally would because she wasn’t sleeping as well. Somewhere between eight o’clock in the morning and a little past noon, she became incredibly ill. Today had to be the worst day for it to happen. For one thing, the smell of the dirt and worms was making her queasier. And then there was Jake.
The first two trips she made, he didn’t seem to notice. By the third, twenty minutes after her last trip, no less, she thought she saw him raise an eyebrow in question. But he was too polite to ask. She was thankful for that. It was embarrassing, though. Who knew what conclusion he’d jumped to on his own?
Now, she was on her fourth. She’d had piece of toast with jam and a cup of tea this morning. Four trips to the bathroom later, she’d officially crossed blackberry jam off of her list of things she liked to eat. If she could just manage to finish half of the work that lay ahead of her, she could try to take the rest and work on it at home before tomorrow. The things that needed to be completed by tomorrow, however, needed to be done in the office. Josie splashed her face with cool water as she thought about the things she had to do.
“Are you okay?” Josie froze with the towel on her face when she heard Jake’s muffled voice outside of the restroom.
“Yes. I must have had some milk that was off this morning,” she lied. “I’ll be fine.” She opened the door and gave him a weak smile. “It’s all yours if you need it.”
He frowned at her, and she knew he saw through her words. “Are you sure?” His eyes bored into her own, and she fidgeted.
“Of course.” Then it hit her. He’d asked her on the way to work if she’d like him to pick anything up. She’d declined and told him what she had already eaten. He knew she was lying, and now she felt really stupid. Well, what did he care? she thought, irritated. She could have put milk in her tea for all he knew.
“It’s fine if you’re not feeling well,” he said carefully. “You can have the rest of the day off if you need it.”
Josie shook her head, and tears began to well up in her eyes. This was another thing she wasn’t used to. She always kept her emotions in check, but around Jake, she felt comfortable to be herself, which apparently meant waterworks. He’d seen her in her most vulnerable state, and he’d taken her from what had begun as an extremely painful experience and had turned it into the most pleasurable experience she’d ever had.
She felt like a part of herself had attached itself to him forever. The safety she felt around Jake, mixed with her out-of-control emotions, made for extremely difficult emotions to process. She didn’t know if she was happy or sad about something.
Even Gabby had had to stop and question her at one point two nights ago. Josie had finally broken down and told her about her pregnancy, and after Gabby had finished screaming out of excitement, she’d begun to dig up as much information about Jake as she could from the internet.
“He’s squeaky clean,” she said glumly. “Good for you, not for me. I could use some excitement, to be perfectly honest with you.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Josie fretted. “How am I supposed to tell him I’m pregnant? And let’s not forget my dad has been trying to track him down, and now he’s probably after me, too.”
“You tell him the truth,” Gabby said firmly. “He won’t react well, I’m sure. But there’s no easy way to say something like that. So I suggest that you just say it and let him process it. You let him worry about how he’s going to process it. Don’t worry about more than you need to.”
Josie sighed. Gabby was right. Usually, Josie was the more practical one out of the two of them. Suddenly, the tables had flipped. Since Gabby had become a mother, she’d become more grounded and less impulsive. Josie felt like the only thing anchoring her at the moment was Gabby’s voice of reason.
She’d spent the past few days trying to come to terms with the fact that Jake was the man her father had referred to as Edward in his files. With so many things on her plate already, Josie had pushed everything concerning her father to the back of her mind. She did try to stay alert, making sure she wasn’t being followed. She knew eventually they would catch up to her, but she hoped by then that she would have a plan in place. Preferably with Jake’s help.
Every so often, she got the sense she was being watched, but when she looked around, she didn’t see anyone. Once, she’d thought she’d seen Sam, but New York was a big city. After a while, everyone either looked incredibly familiar or like a complete stranger.
Jake stepped out of the office for a few minutes to take a phone call, and she used that time to collect herself. She had to finish her work and go home. Gabby had sent her a dress to wear to the event tomorrow, and it would be delivered today. She told her that it would be in her size, and Josie hoped it would fit because her stomach was beginning to poke out ever so slightly.
It seemed a tad early for that to happen, but then, she wasn’t familiar with the stages of pregnancy. Her hand rested gently on her stomach, and she stroked it idly. Tomorrow. She would tell him tomorrow. He deserved to know, and soon. The sooner she told him, the sooner he could help her figure out a plan.
Jake walked in, and his gaze went to where her hand was resting on her middle. “Go home,” he said firmly. “You’ve more than proven yourself as a reliable employee and a valuable asset. You need to take care of yourself, too.”
Josie thought about arguing with him but saw that she was finished in the office for today. The bulk of the work that remained, she could take home to work on. “Okay,” she relented. “I promise, tomorrow I should be a hundred percent better.”
“You better,” Jake shuffled the papers on this desk. “It’s a double shift,” he joked. “Speaking of which, I didn’t see any charge on my card when I went to pay my bill yesterday. Did you get a chance to find anything to wear for the event? Normally, I don’t have this many problems with getting my employees to spend my money.” He gave her a lopsided smile.
She was disarmed by it and felt like telling him everything right then and there. But that would certainly put a big strain on the rest of the day tomorrow. “Well, actually, I had a friend send me something she’d only worn once. Seemed like a waste to buy something so expensive.”
Jake shook his head, “Again, your call. But I’ll just tack on a bonus to your check.” He stood again when he saw her loading up file folders to take home. “Let me help you to your car.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly. She didn’t want him to see some of the pamphlets she had sitting on her passenger seat. She’d gone to visit three local hospitals and a handful of emergency clinics, trying to find one that worked for her and her current financial state. With no insurance for the first trimester, she had to look at all the costs. While Gabby had pledged her support in that department, too, she hesitated to ask so much of her friend.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll soon learn, if you haven’t already, that I always get my way. That’s the secret to being the boss -- you just have to insist the loudest on things that other people are fighting against. Before, it was about the dress; now it’s moving the files.”
He was teasing her, trying to keep the conversation tone light, which she appreciated. But all she could think about when she looked at him was their night together when he insisted that she not break eye contact with him. She felt her face flush in an instant, and she could only avoid his eyes now for fear of reigniting the same passion. He had gotten his way there, and she hadn’t minded then.
“Are you okay?” he sounded concerned, looking at her intently.
“Yes,” she felt flustered now. “I’ll just grab my bag and this tote. If you could get the file box, I’d appreciate that.” She made sure she walked ahead of him and covered up any hint of her pregnancy. Josie knew from working with him that details rarely escaped him. That was usually a good thing, but she wasn’t ready to tell him yet.
When Josie finally got home, she was famished. After a late lunch, she took a long nap and woke up to work on the files she’d brought home. It was close to ten when she finally put everything away. She hung Gabby’s dress up in the closet after trying it on. It fit like a dream, and the ball had come just in time. If it had been a week later, there would be no telling how much I would be showing, she thought with alarm.
Even with all the throwing up, the baby seemed to be growing fairly rapidly. She made a mental note to send Gabby a thank you note. She had sent heels in Josie’s size along with the dress. Josie felt incredibly lucky to have her support. Josie took the dress down and held it up to herself in front of the mirror. She felt like Cinderella again. A pregnant Cinderella, she smiled to herself.
***
It was well into the afternoon before Josie got a chance to take a break from her work. While she was grateful for the distraction, she was also feeling more exhausted. Before leaving work, she would have to make a pot of coffee. She wouldn’t survive the evening, otherwise. The day had seemed longer because she’d hardly seen Jake at all. He had come in early, then left for meetings at around nine, and she hadn’t seen him since. Every time the door opened, she looked up, hoping to see his face, but it was always Bill or another one of the workers there to discuss an issue.
It wasn’t until she was making a pot of coffee that Jake finally breezed back into the office. “You read my mind!” he exclaimed.
Josie felt a thrill rush through her. “I wasn’t up that late yesterday, but I feel worn out,” she said honestly. She knew the real reason was because of the baby, but she couldn’t very well say that.
“I’m going to need some of that to stay awake through all the dull conversations I’ll have to suffer through tonight.” He looked at her. “I hope you like small talk or tonight’s going to get pretty rough.”
“I can manage,” she laughed. She’d had to attend plenty of fancy dinner parties with her father; while making idle talk had seemed dull at the time, she saw it as an asset now.
“Great. Listen, why don’t you get out of here and get ready. Bill and I can take care of everything else. Unless you were working on the Emerson blueprints still?”
“I can do those at home,” she said. “I enjoy taking my time on those, and it’s not possible here with the interruptions of phone calls and keeping on top of the paperwork.”
“Hmm, I can see that. If we get a lot more work for you down the road, we can definitely look into getting you an assistant.”
Assistant! Josie was excited at the thought of that and more work. She didn’t mind doing the office work, but she was thrilled to be doing the work she was most passionate about.
By the time she got home, Josie had downed two cups of coffee, but it was evident that the sluggishness was not going anywhere. She made it home only to walk straight to her bed and collapse from exhaustion. She would wake up in thirty minutes, she thought drowsily. Just a little nap was all she needed.
When she woke up, she was confused. Was it morning? She peered outside and saw the sun setting. Oh, evening. Evening. Oh! She looked around and didn’t see her purse. She smacked her forehead. She must have left it in the car! Running to the door, she threw it open and saw Jake standing there, looking extremely worried.
“Where have you been?” he practically shouted. “Are you okay?” His eyes raked over her rumpled work clothes.
She felt embarrassed when she looked at the state of her clothes. She could only imagine what her makeup looked like. Her skirt was hiked up on her thighs, she’d taken her blazer off, and her wrinkled tank blouse was falling off of her shoulder, revealing her bra strap. She moved to straighten her clothing and looked at him apologetically.
“I’m so sorry. I’ve probably made you late; I can’t believe I--” she broke off in a sob.
“Hey!” Jake came in further and shut the door behind himself. “You’re not making me late, and even if you were, I’m not missing much.” He pulled her into the kitchen and sat her down at one of the chairs. “Let me get you some water.”
She wiped her tears with a napkin and gently blew her nose. He probably thought she was incredibly unstable by now. So much for the cool, collected, competent employee image she was striving for. She wanted to hide under a rock. Now what? “You know what? Let me go get ready,” she said hurriedly. “I’ve made you late already, and I can get ready quickly, I promise.”
“No, it’s fine. We can be late, or we can skip it. I can find another way to network with some of these people. Honestly, if you hadn’t agreed to go with me, I wouldn’t have even gone at all.”
She noticed how handsome he looked. He was even more dressed up now than he had been at the wedding where they had met. His tuxedo was pressed well, he had cufflinks, and his shoes were shiny and spotless. She could only imagine what he looked like in uniform. She bit her lip, wondering if the dress she had would match him in class. Only one way to find out.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” she said. With that, Josie showered to freshen up and skipped washing her hair. There wasn’t enough time to dry it anyway, she reasoned. She threw on the dress and styled her hair up, leaving a few strands free to caress her neck. She wiped off the remnants of makeup and reapplied everything. When she was finished, she stepped into the heels and stood back to look in the mirror. Because the gown was a midnight blue, she could hardly see the small bump beginning to develop. Perfect. One minute to spare.
Josie stepped out into the living room and went into the kitchen to find Jake with his back to her, making another pot of coffee. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Great, this pot’s almost done. Do you have any mugs we can put these in? I’m going to just assume we’ll be needing this.” He turned his head toward her and froze. His jaw dropped, and he stood still for several seconds before responding. “You. You look...incredible.”
Josie blushed. When anyone else said that to her, she had trouble believing them. But when Jake said it, she knew he absolutely meant it. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
They were quiet all the way to the car, and Josie was tempted to fill the silence with idle chatter but thought better of it. She wanted so badly to tell him that she was carrying his child. Their child. But she just couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to take away from the moment. He had an incredible way of making her feel desired without ever having laid a finger on her. It was intoxicating. Just let it be tonight, she thought, the truth could be revealed tomorrow, too.
At the ball, they spent three hours chatting, networking, and making small talk with what seemed like hundreds of attendees. Josie got many compliments and felt a surge of pride walking in with Jake. She was definitely the envy of many women there, even the married ones.
Well after the crowd had decreased to half its size, she began to grow bored. Jake had gotten into a deep discussion with one man about some kind of metal and its new cost, and she walked away to get more water. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied a flash of something. Turning, she saw one of her father’s men standing near the kitchen, looking around at the crowd. Walter.
Horrified, Josie didn’t stop to think. She quickly picked up her skirt and made a beeline for the closest exit. He was standing next to a partition, so he wouldn’t see her leave unless he stepped further into the room. She had no idea what she would tell Jake, but she would make up some excuse--any excuse for leaving.
If they found her, they would find Jake, too, even if they weren’t looking for him. But they weren’t looking for Jake; they were sent to look for her only -- she was sure of it. Also, everyone who was with her father knew him as Edward, and they were always circulating an old military picture of him from several years ago. They probably wouldn’t recognize him now anyway.
Josie didn’t stop until she was several blocks away. She stopped near an ice cream shop that was open until the wee hours of the morning. Grateful, she asked for a cup of water and sat down to think. How was she supposed to get home now? She’d left her clutch in Jake’s car, not wanting to carry it around. She couldn’t even call Jake if she wanted to. What a mess.