Wishing and Hoping. SUSAN MEIER
that’s a great idea, Mom. A wedding will be something fun for all of us. Maybe give Dad a break from the election for a day. As long as we keep it to a little wedding in the backyard.”
“That’s perfect,” Elizabeth said. “Nothing fancy. Just something small.”
Tia turned to Drew. “Unless you want to help Mom and me make wedding plans, you can go now.”
It took a second before Drew understood she was telling him his work here was done. When he got it, everything inside him melted with relief and he said, “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Elizabeth echoed. “You’re leaving?”
“I’m not much on girlie stuff, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth looked at Tia. “But you’re staying?”
“To help you plan—”
“All night?” Elizabeth said, but as she spoke her puzzled expression changed to a shrewd-mother smile. “Tia? What’s going on here?”
Chapter Two
“Nothing’s going on!” Drew said, grabbing Tia by the shoulders and turning her in the direction of the foyer. Tia struggled against his hold, but he gripped her tighter.
“Tia forgot how late it was when she volunteered to help plan tonight. You go back to the den and check on Ben. You can call us tomorrow morning and we’ll come over and talk about wedding plans then. Or Tia can come over by herself…whatever you and Ben want.”
With that, Drew pushed Tia up the hall and she gave up fighting him because it wasn’t good for her mother to see them argue or question each other.
But when they were on the front porch, out of range of both of her parents, she glared at him. “Drew—”
“Shhh,” he said, pulling her down the steps and all but dragging her to her car. “If we don’t make too much of a ruckus, maybe nobody will notice we brought two vehicles.”
He tucked her inside her little red sports car, then raced over to his truck. Tia followed him back to his house. Not at all happy with his high-handedness, she parked her car beside his in front of the two-car garage, walked into the foyer and tossed her car keys onto the curio cabinet.
“If you’d given me two minutes I could have talked my mother into planning tonight and I wouldn’t have had to come back here!”
“That was exactly the problem,” Drew said as he ambled off to the left into his living room. “It was obvious that you were trying to get rid of me when we’re supposed to be madly in love and you’re supposed to want to spend the night with me.”
Still in the foyer, Tia froze by the stairway. She barely had time to register a grateful reaction for his saving their charade. The words spend the night with me caused her chest to tighten and her pulse to scramble. She sure as heck hoped he didn’t think they should be sharing the same bed, but even as the idea entered her brain she knew that’s exactly what he thought. She was already pregnant. He knew she found him attractive. They had been magnificent together sexually. Plus, they were getting married. They would be each other’s opposite-sex companion for the next eight months. She couldn’t envision him going without sex for eight months.
She leaned against the newel post to steady herself. This situation just kept getting worse.
Well, she’d already faced two awkward conversations this evening. Time for number three.
Straightening her shoulders, she headed for his living room.
Seated on a white brocade sofa, with his arms stretched across its back and his boots on the coffee table, Drew looked disreputable and self-assured and so handsome that Tia had a sudden case of second thoughts. They might not be right for each other as a real husband and wife, but would sleeping together for the next eight months really be that bad?
“Your mother is suspicious,” Drew said, “because our story is weak. Not only do we have to come up with a more detailed story than what we told your parents, but we should also have a prenup.”
Tia’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open slightly. “You don’t have to protect your money from me!”
“How do you know I wasn’t trying to protect your money from me?”
Taken aback by that possibility, she thought about it, then remembered she didn’t have any money to protect. She’d only been working two years. Not enough time to accumulate a nest egg. Any money she had saved had gone into the down payment for her house.
“I don’t have any money.”
“Okay, then we’re back to protecting mine. But for a few seconds there, when you thought you might have money, you have to admit you wanted a prenup, too.”
This was why she wouldn’t sleep with him. He was nothing like the guy of her childhood fantasies. He wasn’t a sweet, considerate, smitten Prince Charming. He was a grouch who perpetually watched out for himself. “You’re insane.”
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t care what you think of me.” He pushed himself off the sofa and poured two fingers of Scotch. “Can I get you something? Soda? Iced tea? Glass of milk?”
“I’m fine,” she said, but she wasn’t. This morning she had been a happy-go-lucky employee at an advertising firm. She had a job secure enough that she was ready, even happy, to become a mom. In her generosity of spirit and fairness of heart, she’d decided to tell her baby’s father he was about to be a dad. She’d agreed to marry him to protect her father from the potential stress that telling the real story might generate. Now, her father was okay, but she was stuck spending too much time with a man who always looked on the dark side of things. She wished she had realized Drew wasn’t the nice guy she had created in her fantasies before she’d made love with him, but she’d been so caught up in her childhood crush that she’d let herself believe he was the man in her dreams.
He wasn’t. She didn’t know exactly who he was, but he most certainly wasn’t Prince Charming.
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
He peered at her over his Scotch glass. His gaze went from her short cap of dark hair, along her face, down her shoulders, pausing at her breasts, and then tumbled to her toes. For a few seconds he appeared to be considering his answer. Finally, he smiled and said, “I don’t remember asking.”
Embarrassment shot through her, but she ignored it. She didn’t believe for one second that he didn’t want to sleep with her. Still, she wasn’t arguing with good fortune.
“Let’s just say that was another one of those things we had to get out of the way.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
He strolled back to the white sofa and settled again on the plump cushion. “Let’s get back to the prenup.”
“I don’t have any money. I don’t want yours. I think your lawyer should be able to handle that.”
“You don’t want your lawyer to draw it up?”
“I don’t have a lawyer.”
“Then we’ll use mine. But you should get one to look it over before you sign it.”
“Why? Planning to cheat me?”
“No, just teaching you to watch your back. Marriage is as much a business proposition as anything else. It pays not to forget that.”
She would have had a snappy comeback, but as he spoke the room began to spin. She swayed slightly and groped for the back of a nearby club chair with cognac-colored pillows that matched the silk printed drapes.
Before she had a solid hold, Drew was at her side. “Whoa. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,