Liz nodded. It was part of why she loved him. But she couldn't—wouldn't—let him act out of responsibility here. “Right. Well, I won't let him do it.”
“What?” Allison looked alarmed, then leaned forward in the armchair. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Liz said firmly, “we made a mistake. Since I was the one who wanted to get pregnant, I'm prepared to raise the baby on my own.”
“Mistake? Are you nuts?” Allison jumped up and planted her hands on her hips. “Do you think my brother goes around impregnating women like that?” Allison snapped her fingers, then shook her head. “Of course not. Quentin never does anything impetuous. He wants you. Otherwise you'd never be having his baby.”
Of course Allison wanted everything to be wrapped up tidily. After all, she was the one who early on had come up with the scheme of using Quentin as a sperm donor. Liz sighed inwardly. “Want is different from love.”
“No, want is the road to love.”
“He doesn't even like me.”
Allison quirked a brow in a way that reminded Liz of Quentin. “Oh, come now.” She folded her hands behind her back and started to pace. “Let's examine the evidence, shall we? My brother has avoided entanglements for the last seven years. Within weeks of meeting you again and hiring you for the day care, he breaks one of his own golden rules by mixing business with pleasure.”
Allison stopped and threw her a piercing look. “Not only that, but he does this knowing he's playing with fire. After all, you're a woman who's desperate to have a baby. Inexplicably though, he gets angry when you talk about artificial insemination and tells you to get a husband instead!” Allison rested her hands on the back of the armchair and leaned over it. “Then he all but volunteers for the job himself!”
Liz nearly smiled. Allison making a case was a sight to behold, even when it was at her expense. And although Allison couldn't have known about Quentin's idea that they consider a marriage of convenience to have a baby, she'd come remarkably close to the truth.
“I'm dying of curiosity, but I'm not going to ask exactly how this happened—” Allison paused and gave her a knowing look “—though I'd make a good listener if anybody needed one. Let's just say I know one thing and that is that you and Quentin have more chemistry than I've seen since high school.”
Liz sighed.
“You love him, don't you?”
The unexpected question and Allison's understanding look caused unexpected tears to well in Liz's eyes.
Darn. She didn't want to cry in front of Allison, but there was little she could do to hide the wetness of her eyes.
“Oh, Lizzie!” Allison sat down next to her, and gave her a quick hug. “It's okay.”
“N-n-no, it's not,” Liz choked out. “I've made a complete mess of things.”
Allison frowned. “You? I'd say Quentin's at least equally responsible if you want to call this a mess.”
Liz stifled a sob. “All I wanted to do was have a baby.”
“And you are! And I'm going to be an aunt!” Allison laughed. “And my mother—oh my gosh, Mom is going to be ecstatic!”
“About my trapping her son?” she warbled.
“No, silly, about you and a grandbaby! This has been near the top of her wish list for a while.”
“What do you mean?” Liz looked at her friend's suddenly sheepish face.
“Well, er—”
Realization dawned. “I've been an open book, haven't I?” She'd gone out of her way for years not to show any particular interest when Quentin's name was mentioned. She could have saved herself the effort, it seemed.
Allison grinned. “It was hard to miss your hero worship.”
“I'd gotten over that,” Liz protested. At the very least, she liked to think her teenage crush had developed into more mature feelings.
Allison rolled her eyes. “Thank goodness. Quentin's my brother, and I think he's pretty terrific, but the stuff of fairy tales he's not.”
Liz gave a choked laugh.
“See, you agree with me!” Allison gave her a quick, reassuring squeeze, then said briskly, “So, don't even try to give me any nonsense about Quentin. He deserves to get all the diaper-changing misery one man can get. And as for you and him, everything will work out, you'll see.”
Ten
Liz felt under siege. Her father was threatening to come up from Florida and “set things to rights.” As Allison had predicted, Quentin's mother was over the moon about the baby, and had called to say that if there was anything Liz needed, she and James would be there before Liz finished asking.
In her typical tactful way, Ava had acted as if there was nothing in the least bit shocking about her thirty-six-year-old unmarried eldest son having suddenly impregnated her daughter's long-standing best friend.
But if Liz thought Quentin had inherited his mother's tact, she was wrong. Dead wrong.
One minute she was speaking with the construction contractor for the day care, the next she felt the hair on the nape of her neck rise and stir.
“I want to talk to you.”
She eyed him warily. He was looking every inch the corporate executive today, a black, custom-tailored suit set off with a power-yellow tie. “I'm speaking with Mr. Higgins.”
He ignored the frigidity in her voice and took her arm. “I'm sure this can wait while I discuss some urgent business with you.” She found herself led away as the contractor readily took the hint and went back to his work.
The minute they were alone in the hall, she turned on him, incensed. “That was rude.”
He shrugged. “He works for me. Don't worry about it.”
“Oh, is that the way of it?” she answered in an icy voice fit to do Patrick Donovan proud. “People are just supposed to defer to your desires? No one would dare defy the mighty Quentin Whittaker, hmm?”
He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture she was coming to recognize as a sign of his frustration. “Have you been thinking about how you're going to manage with this baby? And keep Precious Bundles afloat?”
So that's why he was here. “I'll manage. I will not accept money from you,” she responded firmly and, she hoped, repressively.
“You're already accepting money from me, remember? The day-care project for Whittaker Enterprises,” he said coolly.
Uneasiness stirred in her stomach. “That's different.”
“Is it? What would happen if I decided the day care was something the company no longer needed?”