The Child Who Changed Them, page 12
“Let me know if you want me to go with you to eventually pick up the dog,” he said, though why she would, he had no idea. He just kind of wanted to go. The dog was going to grow up with his kid.
“We’re doing the right thing, Greg. We made the right choices.” She hadn’t even had a sip of that tea, but appeared to be noticeably calmed by her decision. “It’s hard, going from what we were to what we are, but we both need it to be this way.”
Her matter-of-fact tone and words did what broken bones had not. His body shrank, settled.
And he knew she was right.
“Sleep well,” he told her.
“You, too. And Greg?” He stopped, again—as he figured he was always going to when she called out to him.
“Leave your schedule on the refrigerator and I’ll fix up the shelter appointment for a time you can make.”
She smiled at him.
He smiled back.
And figured the evening had turned out all right after all.
* * *
Strangely enough, Elaina slept well that night. And for several nights after that. Knowing that Greg wanted her, that she wasn’t alone in her fight against physical attraction, was a strange kind of comfort.
Having him in the house...even more so.
She knew she couldn’t get used to having him there. It wasn’t like he was going to spend the rest of his life down the hall from her, staying celibate. And she had to live solidly on her own feet, not go around feeling good because she had a man in the house again.
But getting her rest was paramount for the baby’s well-being, so she allowed herself to feel thankful. Until one Friday night, two weeks after the first ultrasound, when she was suddenly lying wide awake at two in the morning.
In years past, she’d have thought it was Retro waking her, going out through the doggy door that she seldom heard from her suite, but there was still no dog in the house. Number Two had already been adopted by the time she’d called to inquire about him. And she hadn’t yet settled on another.
Maya, the shelter volunteer, had suggested that she come in and meet all of the dogs—they were having an adoption day in another couple of weeks—and though she hadn’t told Greg about it yet, she figured that the suggestion was a good one. Planned to ask him if he wanted to come along.
She just hadn’t really seen much of him in the weeks since.
If he’d told his parents about the pregnancy yet, she didn’t know about it. And figured, since there was no sign of his mother, it hadn’t happened yet.
Cassie and Wood were getting tidbits of information when she stopped by on her way to work a couple of mornings a week, just to get a hug from Alan, as she’d been doing since the baby’s birth. They knew she wasn’t having any morning sickness, and that things were going fine with Greg living in the suite at the end of the hall.
And at work, she’d told her administrator that she was pregnant. Her techs knew, too, as she told them she would not perform a couple of procedures until after she gave birth—but she hadn’t said who the father was, and no one had asked. If Greg had said anything—and she assumed he’d at least have put in an address change with hospital HR—he hadn’t informed her whom he’d told, or what was said.
Funny how, now that they were sharing a house, she saw less of him than after she’d broken up with him.
He was working nights—a shift she knew he had to have volunteered for—and was generally sleeping, or out, when she was about. The times they ran into each other, he asked about her health, looked her over as though she was one of his patients, wondered if she needed anything, and that was it.
Their interaction at work was limited to business, as it had been since their breakup.
To the point that she was beginning to wonder why he was staying with her at all. And she knew that wasn’t fair, either. He was there for when the baby started to be active. When she started to get bigger. When she hit the eighteen-week mark and their baby began to hear sounds and would need to become familiar with his voice.
He’d left her a note at the twelve-week mark, on the notepad on the refrigerator—“Past the critical point”—with a check mark and a big smiley face.
She’d taken it down and tucked it in her satchel.
And hadn’t looked at it since.
But she knew it was there. Liked having it there.
And there...she heard a noise again. Not the dining room door—not Greg going out or coming from the pool—but...voices. She heard a voice. Higher than Greg’s. Female.
In her house.
He had a woman in her house?
She couldn’t make out words, or even sound for a bit, and then...there it was again, a faint hint of a female voice.
In her house!
Greg was dating someone.
Heart pounding, she told herself all the reasons why it didn’t matter. He had every right to have a relationship with someone else. But instead of finding calm, she wanted to curl up and cry.
Greg was with another woman.
He’d brought another woman to Elaina’s house and was doing...
She started to tremble.
Was his tongue leaving wisps of desire down her stomach? And...
Turning over, she pulled the pillow up to cover her ears.
The other woman wouldn’t have gotten naked yet, not if Elaina could hear them. It wasn’t like he’d be making out in her living room.
Or would he?
Realizing she was behaving like a juvenile, Elaina pulled the pillow off her head. Sat up.
Heard the low rumble of a male voice. Remembered how Greg would keep her engaged during his lovemaking with a softly spoken “You like that?” or “I want to...” or “You want to?” He’d never just moved on her, or with her; he’d talked them through it. Asking her before he did something new. And she’d found herself growing out of who she’d been with Peter, becoming someone more adventurous. Someone who allowed herself to take pleasure.
Silence followed, and it was worse than the hints of voices. Lying back down in the dark, she hurt like she hadn’t hurt in a long time. Hurt in a way she’d never hurt before.
Like a woman whose man was being unfaithful to her.
She’d suspected once that Peter was having something on the side with a woman who was in medical school with him. She’d been bothered to the point of finally asking him about it. And when he told her that the woman had offered, but he hadn’t wanted to screw up his marriage, she’d been gratified. But never, in all of those moments combined, had she felt anything like the pain she was feeling right now, lying there alone in her bed.
She’d never been a jealous person, but for a few seconds there, she hated the woman in the other room, whoever she was.
She spent another few moments trying to figure out who it was. Someone from work? Had to be... Greg didn’t really do a lot outside of the hospital. Not that she knew.
She didn’t want to know who it was. Or what they were doing. It had been quiet for a while. Had they gone back to his room? Was he slowly undressing her? Telling her how beautiful each part of her body was to him? With that golden glint lighting up his eyes?
Were her hands running through the sandy curls on his head? Or the ones further down?
Tears pooled in her eyes and Elaina didn’t fight them. All those years she’d lived with Wood she’d hoped that he’d bring someone home, that there’d be a woman in his bed occasionally. She’d needed him to live his life—and to feel like their home was home to him.
She’d never thought about what the woman would be getting. And not getting. Until Cassie had come into the picture. She’d had moments of unease then. Maybe even some envy. But she’d been glad for Wood.
Why couldn’t she be glad for Greg?
There. There it was again. A higher lilt. They were still in the living room.
After all that silence?
Tea. She needed tea.
Could make noise getting up, open her door loudly, slowly, so they’d have plenty of time to make themselves decent. She could apologize, head to the kitchen.
And knowing she was awake, they’d at least vacate the living room, wouldn’t they?
She had to be up for work in less than five hours. Even if Greg wasn’t in the living room with his lover, she should get some tea.
Getting off the bed, Elaina pulled on her longer silk robe over her nightie, as opposed to the shorter one she usually preferred, tied it around her waist, not trying to be quiet about moving around her room. Just for good measure, she moved the armchair under the window, adjusting it, making noise.
And then she went to the door.
She intended to avoid looking toward the couch as she walked through the back portion of the large living room, toward a light switch.
But the glow in her peripheral vision drew her attention.
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” In sweat shorts and a T-shirt, Greg had been lounged in a corner of the couch, his legs stretched out and crossed, but he sat up as he saw her.
Sat up alone, she could see by the soft glow of the accent lighting she’d just switched on—sconces along the wall.
She heard again the voice that had awoken her.
And saw the source.
Not a flesh-and-blood woman.
Not even a young woman.
The voice was coming from the flat screen mounted to the wall.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re watching television!” The surprise in Elaina’s voice wasn’t expected. Greg figured she’d come out because the television had woken her, though he always kept the volume as low as he could and still make out enough of the words to follow whatever meaningless show he had on.
He watched to dumb down his thoughts so he could sleep. To relax.
The sight of her covered from neck to toe in silk had the exact opposite effect. The woman was trying to kill him. A long, slow, painful death.
He stood, clicked off the set. “I’m sorry it woke you.” He was not going to get an erection at the sight of her in a robe. Not to full stiffness, anyway. And he truly was regretful. She needed her rest.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I just came out to get some tea.”
But she hadn’t moved toward the kitchen.
“I guess I’m just not used to having the TV on in here.”
He needed her to move toward the kitchen. He had to pass where she was standing to get to his room. “I have it on every night.”
“You do?” She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave. Greg sat back down. Sweat shorts didn’t hide much. He’d had just that one glimpse of her body, had focused on her face since seeing the robe, but this woman did something to him.
It wasn’t like he walked around with a hard-on in his pants on a regular basis. Most of the time his mind was so focused on other things that he got no exercise in that region at all. But with Elaina...
“I got in the habit during medical school,” he said. “I watch old shows, things that I find mildly entertaining but that take nothing out of me, to quiet my mind and get sleepy.”
“But...you watch it out here?”
“Sleep experts tell you that if you struggle to nod off, you should do nothing in your room except sleep, so that your body is trained to know what to do when you go there. Like a dog’s Pavlovian response, I guess. I’m not sure how valid the advice is, but it was mandated by someone my parents took me to when I was a kid, and I’ve just always kept up the practice.”
They were supposed to be getting to know each other. He figured this discussion qualified. And got his mind off her body and how badly he wanted to be allowed to touch it again.
“You’ve always struggled to sleep?” Her head tilt, the compassion in her voice, didn’t help him get any sleepier.
“I’m a full-steam-ahead type of guy. But I sleep fine once I wind down.”
She’d taken a step, finally. Toward the couch, and him, not the kitchen. “And you’ve been out here every night since you moved in?”
“Pretty much.”
“I had no idea.”
“That was the point. I won’t watch out here if it’s going to keep you awake.”
He could always get his flat screen out of the workshop where he’d ended up putting it and set it up somewhere in the office. He wasn’t into streaming on his phone—too small a screen for him. He spent his days dealing with small detail. Maybe he’d move the couch in there, too. He’d thought to keep things simple, since he was only likely there for a matter of months. Until the baby and Elaina were separated and he could have his own time with it.
“You’re fine,” she said. “Tonight’s the first night I’ve even heard it at all. And if I’d known that’s what it was, I’d have fallen right back to sleep.”
Interesting. And yet, there she was, saying she needed tea to help her sleep. And the natural conclusion to that was to assume she’d been awake long enough to need help falling back to sleep.
What had she thought the sound was? And how long had she been awake?
She hadn’t come out with her phone or any kind of weapon in hand. And there was the robe to consider. So probably not expecting an intruder.
More than that, if she’d thought there was any kind of danger, wouldn’t she have just picked up her cell phone and called him?
They might not run into each other all that much, but he was in the same building. Right down the hall...
“What did you think it was?” Curiosity got the better of him.
Her lack of immediate response whetted his appetite for an answer. Elaina, other than a couple of incidences of rambling or in his bed, was always calm, controlled. The most disciplined individual he’d ever met. And yet she stood there, fidgeting with her fingers, avoiding his gaze. Finally, chin up, she said, “I thought you had a woman out here.”
The idea floored him. A surge of anger followed immediately by incredulity, and then, lagging behind, a shot of...something else.
It was that last that had him saying, “And that bothered you?”
Her nod came after the question. Before he could form a response, she said, “I know it’s ridiculous. Of course, you have every right to have a relationship. And to invite anyone you’d like over. This is legally your home. You’ve signed a lease, you pay rent...and while technically the communal space could be considered off-limits for entertaining, as we’re both using it, nothing was specified to that end, so...” She shrugged. “I’m overreacting.”
Maybe. And maybe not.
“This is your home, too, Elaina. If you’re uncomfortable with anything I’m doing, I’m trusting you to talk to me about it. Otherwise little things become irritating and irritation grows into resentment, and there’s nowhere good from there.”
He’d tiptoed around Wendy—and watched her tiptoe around him—for too many months for him to not have learned something.
“Thank you.”
That could have been the end of it, but when she should have left the room, prepared her tea, taken herself out of his realm, she came over and sat on the other end of the couch, pulling the throw off the back of it and cuddling up in it.
As though they were siblings on Christmas morning or something! She was giving him more credit than was his due if she thought he could sit with her in the middle of the night, both of them half-dressed, and keep himself unaroused.
Sex with her had always driven him wild, but the knowledge that she was pregnant with his child...seemed to have put his desire for her on steroids.
Odd that it didn’t seem to be affecting his interest in other women, though. He couldn’t even think of anyone he’d have wanted to bring home that night. Let alone done it.
“I was out of line,” she said. “Being bothered by the thought of you out here with someone else.”
She apparently needed to have this conversation. He couldn’t walk away from it. “We haven’t talked about seeing other people.”
“We aren’t seeing each other, and it’s not like either of us is signing on to a life of celibacy.”
Good point.
“Is there someone you want to date?”
“No! I’m pregnant!” She seemed to think about that for a second while he sat and watched the expressions flit across her face in the night’s shadows. “I can’t imagine many guys will want to date a woman who’s pregnant with another man’s child,” she said. And then, “And I’m serious about standing on my own.”
Good reminder. He was deadly serious about not diving in headfirst and getting stunned by the force of the blow when he hit bottom.
And just as serious about no longer making promises he couldn’t keep. He couldn’t make Heather love him. Couldn’t keep Wendy happy. He’d told them both he’d do both.
Their pain was partially on him for barreling so forcefully ahead, being so sure he could make it all work if they’d just let him show them he could. But they’d also led him along, liking what he was willing to do for them more than they liked him.
And now he didn’t hear from either one of them anymore. He didn’t even want to imagine a world where he couldn’t stay in touch with Elaina.
They couldn’t just ignore what was going on between them, though.
“Were you bothered because you thought I had a woman right outside your bedroom door, because I brought her to your house at all or just because I was with another woman?”
She met his gaze head-on. His hard-on got more painful.
“Because you were with a woman at all.”
He was glad to hear it. He shouldn’t be. But he was.
“I’d feel the same way if you were to have another man in your life.”
Her lips tilted upward a bit, like she was holding back a smile. “It’s probably dangerous, us feeling this way. I mean, I know I have no right to expect you not to date.”
