But the doctor’s appointment had floored her.
She was having a boy.
She didn’t know why the gender of the baby had flummoxed her, but it had. Maybe in her grand scheme of things, she’d figured she’d be raising a little girl and it’d be the two of them against the world, much like Greer and her mother . . . except Greer would actually be present. A little girl? She knew girl things. She could handle that. A little girl would be just fine with one parent, a mommy.
But she was having a boy.
And she felt so damn guilty. Greer nibbled on her lip, thinking about the contract she’d made Asher sign, forsaking his parental rights. Would he be excited about a boy? Probably. She could see someone like him showing up at Little League practices, and playing catch, and heck, a million other boy things that she’d have no clue about. Did Asher deserve to be in her baby boy’s life?
She was no longer sure the answer was no. And she hated that she’d done a one-eighty on her values simply because the man was a good kisser.
No, that wasn’t it, she told herself as she stared out the window at the busy streets of the city. She’d known Asher to be a great guy in the past; that was what had attracted her to him in the first place. She just hadn’t grasped the depths that he’d fallen to when his life had turned upside down.
And . . . he was not just a good kisser, but a great kisser.
She was closer to forgiving, but she wasn’t there yet. Understanding, yes. Forgiving, no. Greer touched her mouth, thinking about his kisses. He was here in the city. Would he want to get together and take up where they’d left off? He’d left messages with her father’s assistant but she hadn’t responded, because she wasn’t sure what to say. She worried he think she was obsessing and following him to NYC since he’d been gone too long? Perhaps it was best if she didn’t let him know she was here, after all.
Course of action decided, Greer paid the driver and got out of the cab, heading for the small, trendy bistro in SoHo that was one of Gretchen’s favorites.
Inside the crowded restaurant, Taylor was easy to pick out. For one, even though it was summer, she was wearing a long, red and brown Doctor Who scarf and had a backpack that looked like a cat hugging her. Her messy hair was tucked under a tweed news cap. She waved a hand excitedly in the air, ushering Greer over. Only . . . Gretchen wasn’t sitting next to her. A big, muscular man with tawny hair and a tan was poring over the menu. That was odd.
“Greer! I want you to meet Loch!” Taylor jerked to her feet, nearly upending the small table. “Whoops.” She pointed both fingers at the man at her side and pumped them back and forth. “I’m his guide to the city for the next few weeks.”
Loch got to his feet, a good deal more graceful than Taylor. He extended one enormous hand—really, the man seemed to be enormous all around—and gave Greer a polite smile. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Chadha-Janssen.” His voice was accented, European.
Taylor put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her fists, giving Loch an adoring look as he shook hands with Greer. “Isn’t his accent wonderful, Greer?”
Having grown up with a Dutch father and a native Indian mother, she was a lot less impressed with an accent, but Taylor’s enthusiasm was hard to deflate. “You do have a lovely voice,” Greer said politely, taking a seat across from the duo. “British?”
“Bellissimi,” he corrected. “It’s a very tiny country in the Alps, but I think you must know that if you know Griffin. He is a cousin of mine.”
“Ah. Of course.” Griffin was in Hunter’s circle of friends and a name they’d been tossing about to step in to the wedding since Levi had bailed. “Are you enjoying New York?”
He flashed her a smile and glanced over at Taylor. “It’s very different than what I’ve expected, but entertaining.”
Oh dear. Entertaining was what people said to be polite. “She’s making you go to gaming meet-ups, isn’t she?”
“Something called an LAN party,” he agreed, chuckling. “And we’re playing Wordcraft later tonight.”
Taylor made a pained noise. “Warcraft, Loch. Warcraft. Oh my god. I will die of shame if you call it Wordcraft in front of my guildies.” She raised her menu and hid her face from him, leaning in. “He called ‘orcs’ ‘porks’ instead. Can you believe it?”
“The nerve,” Greer teased. No one was quite as into games as Taylor was. Sometimes it was hard to get her to leave her apartment. Guild obligations, she’d say. But judging from the way she beamed at Loch and the color in her cheeks, she had a new thing to obsess over, and that new thing was tall, European, probably played polo in his spare time instead of computer games, and was busy rescuing Taylor’s scarf from her glass of water.
“Is Gretchen coming?”
“Of course. She’s being a spaz over wedding stuff.” Taylor grimaced. “Except I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
“Oh no. A spaz? What kind of wedding stuff? Did we miss a deadline?” Gretchen, bless her heart, was a wonderful friend, but she’d been a fairly hellish client so far. She’d make a decision one day and completely change it two weeks later, which caused Greer endless amounts of work. The only saving grace so far was that Gretchen kept pushing her wedding further and further out because it “had to be perfect.” As of now, they were edging close to Christmas, which meant new themes and entirely new freak-outs for Gretchen.
Taylor waved a hand and it smacked against Loch’s menu, sending it flying. “Oops.” She grimaced as he leaned over to pick up the menu, nonplussed. “I’m sure you’ll hear about it. What about your baby appointment? Did you have it today?”
“I did.” Greer patted her slightly rounded stomach. “Everything is shipshape.”
“When do you find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“I . . . asked the doctor not to tell me,” Greer lied. Telling others the gender of the baby before Asher seemed like a bad idea. “As long as it’s healthy—and it is—I don’t care.”
Taylor made an impatient noise in her throat. “You’re better than I am! I’d be hitting up every fortune-teller the moment I got knocked up to see if they could tell me the gender. I hate waiting.”
“It’s fine,” Greer began, when arms wrapped around her from behind and squeezed, and Greer found herself being hugged by bridezilla herself, Gretchen. “Hello, there,” she said, awkwardly hugging her friend back.
“God, I am so freaking glad to see you,” Gretchen said, slapping a gigantic bag on the table. “Now, I have seven different cake samples that I brought for you to try. I’m not happy with any of them, but the lemon one has potential. Except I’m not sure that I should do lemon for an entire wedding cake, and if I only do it for one tier, I worry the other six tiers are going to be shit. I don’t want a shitcake! And I tried to talk to the baker about adding more eggs to the recipe but he got all huffy with me and now he won’t return my emails and I am freaking out, Greer. Freaking. OUT.” Gretchen hauled small plastic containers onto the table and shoved them in front of Greer. “So you need to eat these and tell me what you think so we can freak out together.”
“Told you,” Taylor whispered from behind her menu.
“Have a seat, Gretchen?” Loch said easily, and got up to pull the chair out next to Greer.
“Aren’t you a sweet, overfed thing.” She reached up and pinched his cheek, then sat down and opened the first container. The sickly sweet scent of sugar wafted through the air. “You need to try these before we order, Greer. I’m serious. I can’t function until I pick out a cake.”
“Which flavor was Hunter’s favorite?”
“He said he’d go with whichever made me happy. And since none of them do, that’s the problem.”
Greer dutifully picked up a plastic fork and pushed her glasses farther back on her nose. “Let’s get this taken care of, then, shall we?”
***
By the time lunch was served, all the cake samples had been tasted. Greer had agreed that lemon had the best flavor, though the others were by no means bad. Taylor liked vanilla, which earned her a scathing look from Gretchen. Poor Loch declared that he liked carrot the best, which sent Gretchen on another tirade, because she refused to have carrot cake as one of her tiers. “No vegetables,” she hissed at him, snatching his plastic fork away before he could take another bite.
“I see. I believe I shall check with the kitchen and ask for some coffee. If you ladies will excuse me.” He hastily got up from the table and raced away as Gretchen glared after him.
“I’ll go help Loch,” Taylor volunteered and got up. She stepped on her own scarf, detangled herself, then nearly careened into a nearby table as she tailed after the European man.
The moment they left, Gretchen gave Greer a calculating look. “So what do you think?”
“I do think the lemon is quite tasty, but if you’d like, I can definitely speak with the baker—”
“No, silly! Those two!” She wiggled her fingers after Taylor and Loch, who were standing at the counter and talking. Taylor was leaning in awful close to the big man. “Am I good or what?”
Ah. Matchmaking. “You planned it?”
“Well, not truly. So remember I wanted to kill Levi for being a douche-nugget and dropping out of my wedding? Hunter wanted to sub in Griffin, but Griffin actually asked us to invite Loch instead, as a favor to him. Apparently there’s some stuff going down in the home country and he needed an excuse to come to the states.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t too keen on it until I saw what a hunka-hunka-burning-love the man was and decided Taylor needed to bag herself some of that.”
Greer smiled to herself. Count on Gretchen to matchmake in the midst of her wedding plans. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate. “They seem to get along well?”
“They do, though I think she’s blown him off a few times to play her game, and I don’t know what the hell’s going through that head of hers.” Gretchen gave Greer a puzzled expression. “Here I am, practically gift wrapping the man and handing him to her, and she wants to go play games online.”
“She takes her games very seriously.”
“That man has serious buns. I mean, they’re not as good as Hunter’s, but whose are?” Gretchen got a dreamy look on her face. “You should have seen—”
Greer held up a hand. “Stop right there. I don’t want to know.”
“Party pooper.” She looked over at Greer and then peered at something past her shoulder.
Automatically, Greer turned to look, and was surprised to see Asher in a pale gray business suit, making his way across the crowded restaurant to them. Well, that was odd. “How did he know I was here?”
“I might have checked in on an online app,” Gretchen said, patting her phone. “And I might have mentioned you were here with me.”
Greer shot her a look.
“And then I might have tagged you on Facebook. And him. And then when that didn’t get a response, I texted him.” She gave Greer a sunny smile. “You’re welcome.”
She had noticed Gretchen reaching for her phone several times, but she’d thought it was to text her fiancé, or to take notes on the cakes. “You’re the worst.”
“Or the best. You be the judge.” She gave Greer a sly wink.
“Just for that, I’m changing my vote from lemon cake to carrot cake.”
Gretchen’s eyes widened. “You whore.”
Greer chuckled and then took a nervous sip of her water. It wasn’t that she was upset that Asher was here. After all, Taylor and Loch were, and they’d discussed wedding stuff. It just made sense for another person in the wedding to show up and hang out. And Asher was good friends with Gretchen. And they were all in town.
So why was her face feeling so very hot at the moment? Greer’s cheeks felt like they were scalding.
Maybe it was because over the course of the last week, she’d had filthy phone sex with him. Repeated filthy phone sex . . . and now she was going to have to look him in the eye and act like nothing was weird.
Taylor and Loch returned to the table with four coffee cups a brief moment before Asher arrived. “Well, if it isn’t the three prettiest ladies in New York,” Asher drawled, taking a chair from a nearby table, flipping it around, and parking it next to Greer. He leaned in and gave her temple a brief kiss before straddling the chair.
“And Loch,” Taylor chimed in. “Don’t forget him.”
“I guess he’s pretty, but he’s not my type.” Asher leaned in to Greer and murmured. “How was that kiss, by the way?”
“An excellent greeting.” One that made her hormones go haywire, but otherwise excellent. She tried not to smile like an idiot because Gretchen was giving her a knowing look, and instead slid her coffee toward Asher. “You drink this for me. I’m avoiding caffeine.”
“I’ll make sure to roll it around on my tongue, just for you.” He gave her a sultry look before taking a sip.
Oh god, was she feeling awkward and flushed before? That was nothing compared to how she felt now. Greer was torn between wanting the floor to swallow her up and wanting to fling herself into his arms.
Luckily, Taylor rescued her. “You know what would go great with that coffee, Ash? Cake. Gretchen has samples and she’s trying to pick the best flavor. You should try them for her.”
Gretchen thumped the stack of samples back onto the table and offered Asher a fork. “If you tell me that you prefer the carrot, I’m going to punch you in your dirty mouth.”
***
Despite the initial weirdness of Asher’s appearance, lunch was wonderful. It was the first time that Greer felt she could truly relax in the last few weeks, and surrounded by laughing friends? It was invigorating. They ate lunch, then lingered for dessert, just so they wouldn’t have to give up their table. Taylor had a terrible sweet tooth and worked on a fudge brownie sundae despite the endless bites of cake they’d had earlier. They sipped coffee, talked, and then fought over the bill.
Greer barely paid attention as Asher put down his American Express Black and insisted on paying. At some point, his hand had migrated to a possessive clasp on her thigh under the table, and her entire focus had gone there.
It was a shame she had to go back to Vegas tonight. She was looking forward to another kissing lesson. Though they were officially on week two now, weren’t they? Which meant . . . foreplay.
Which got her all distracted again.
When it was time to leave, the women hugged and Gretchen gave Greer a list of notes so she could call the baker and discuss “the cake situation” on Gretchen’s behalf. She assured her friend that she would, and tried not to feel guilty that she’d let her father’s impromptu wedding usurp her time. Gretchen had said she didn’t mind, and Greer was only a phone call away. Didn’t make Greer feel better, though.
She shouldered her bag and turned to leave when Asher’s arm went around her shoulders. “Where are you going, beautiful?”
Greer glanced down at her phone screen. “I have to go to the airport and catch a flight back to Vegas, I’m afraid. That’s why I didn’t call you.” That among a few other things. She stifled a small yawn. Her entire body was exhausted from the day, but she’d have time to sleep on the flight.
“Tonight?” Asher shook his head and when they left the bistro, he steered her right instead of left, away from the waiting taxis. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t, huh?” She should have been irritated at his presumption, but instead, her heart was starting to race and Greer felt a surge of excitement.
“You’ve been yawning all afternoon,” he told her, and leaned in to brush a lock of stray hair off her face in a tender gesture that made Greer’s knees weak. “You’re carrying a baby and you’ve been running yourself ragged.”
All true. “I can’t change
any of that, I’m afraid. My schedule opens up once Vader’s wedding is done, but the baby thing won’t be fixed for say, the next eighteen years.” At his grin, she felt another twinge of guilt. Would her baby boy have his infectious smile?
“You can stay with me tonight.” His finger trailed down her cheek.
Her heart fluttered. “I have meetings in the morning—”
“Cancel them,” Asher said bluntly. “Take time out for yourself for a change. Is the world going to end if the caterer has to wait a few more hours to talk to you?”
“Well, no . . .”
“Are meetings your only objection to spending the night with me?”
Her entire body went on alert. Hot, sultry flashes of the last week’s dirty phone calls rolled through her mind, and her nipples pricked. “I . . .” She licked dry lips. She could turn him down. Tell him she wasn’t interested in pursuing things outside of the “lessons” he’d forced her into. But she’d be lying to him and to herself. “I don’t object to that . . .” When his face lit up, she added, “As part of our . . . practice.”
“Of course. I’ve been waiting all week for a chance to practice on you.” His fingers curved to cup her chin and tilted her head back so he could kiss her. “I’m surprised to see you here, though I’m absolutely going to take advantage of it.” Then he stilled, concern flicking in his eyes. “Why are you here? Is there a problem with Gretchen and Hunter?”
“No, it’s the baby.”
To her shock, his face drained of color. “There’s a problem with the baby?”
“I misspoke,” she said quickly, and felt even more guilt when obvious relief moved over his features. “The baby is fine. I had an appointment with my obstetrician and I wanted to keep it. I could have seen a doctor back in Vegas, but I like this one.”