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The tone unsettled her enough not to push further. “Monday after work,” she confirmed.
“Good. See you then,” he said, holding her gaze for a couple of seconds too long. A couple of seconds that sucked the oxygen from her lungs before he turned around and left her office.
Erika immediately sank into her chair and covered her face with her hands. “Damn him,” she whispered. He still knocked her sideways. She scowled. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.
But part of her response was understandable, she told herself. Preparation was key with Gannon. She absolutely couldn’t fly by the seat of her pants with that man.
Erika rubbed her knees and paused for a breath after ten games of one-on-one. She’d had her lunch handed to her during the last six games. Looking at the fourteen-year-old responsible for pounding the living daylights out of her via a basketball, Erika shook her head. “You could show a little pity for the elderly.”
Tia Rogers, the pretty but lanky girl with chocolate-brown eyes who Erika was mentoring, shrugged as she walked to the side of the basketball court Erika had reserved for their use. Since she’d been promoted, she got dibs on the EPH gym.
“You ain’t old. You just sit on your butt too much in that fancy high-rise office.”
“Aren’t old,” Erika automatically corrected, though at the moment thirty-two seemed over the hill. “Getting paid to sit on your butt isn’t all that bad. And I don’t just sit on my butt,” Erika said. “By the way, how’s algebra?”
Tia made a face. “I don’t like it.”
“What’d you get on your last test?”
“B minus,” Tia said.
“It’s going up. That’s the right direction.” Erika patted the girl on the shoulder and scooped up both their coats from the bleachers. A group of men immediately took their place on the basketball court. Erika led the way to the elevator. Tia was quiet on the ride down.
“I need an A,” Tia finally said in a glum voice. “I need all As if I’m going to get a scholarship to college.”
“You’ll get a scholarship,” Erika said, waving at the security guard before the two of them stepped out into the cold night.
Tia swore and spit as she stepped outside. “How do you know?”
Erika swallowed a wince. She was supposed to inspire Tia and help polish her mentee’s rough edges. Tia, who lived with her aunt because her mother was in prison for repeated drug violations, had been chosen for the mentor program because she worked on the school newspaper. “Ditch the spitting and swearing.”
“Everyone else swears and spits,” Tia said in a challenging voice.
“Everyone else isn’t you. You’re different. You have talent, brains, common sense and, most importantly, you have drive.”
Tia met her gaze with wide brown eyes filled with hope but tempered with skepticism. It was Erika’s job to help give the hope and drive she glimpsed in the young teen a bigger edge in the battle.
“Is that what got you your fancy job in the office you showed me a couple weeks ago? I hear you always need a connection.”
Erika exhaled and her breath created a visible vapor trail. “I’m working for a company where most of the executives are related and I’m not part of the family.”
Tia smiled. “So you’ve had to kick some butt, too.”
“Metaphorically speaking,” she said as an image of Gannon’s backside slithered across Erika’s brain. She’d had a tough time totally banishing him from her mind since his surprise visit yesterday. She still didn’t know what she was going to do about Pulse. She lifted her hand to hail a taxi.
“My aunt keeps asking me why you don’t have no man.”
“Why I don’t have a man,” Erika corrected.
“S’what I said,” Tia said and climbed into the taxi that stopped by the curb.
Erika climbed in beside her and gave the taxi Tia’s address. “I don’t have a man because—” She broke off. Why didn’t she have a man? Because Gannon had ruined her for other men. “Because I fell for someone and he dumped me.”
“Wow,” Tia said. “Why’d he do that? You’re pretty for an older lady. You got it going on.”
Erika groaned at the reference to age. “Thanks, I think. Why’d he dump me? I guess he didn’t think I was the right woman for him.”
Tia swore again. “You should teach him a lesson. Go get you another man. A better man.”
“Yeah,” Erika said, thinking she’d been trying to do that for a year now.
An hour later Erika walked into the Park Slope brownstone she owned and immediately stepped out of her shoes and into her bunny slippers. She looked down at the pink furry footwear and smiled. They always made her smile.
Making a mental promise to wash the clothes in her gym bag, she left the bag in the hallway and headed for the kitchen as she glanced through her mail. Bills, bills … She paused at the postcard that featured a Caribbean cruise and felt a longing for hot weather, sunshine, an icy margarita and the sound of steel-drum music.
Sighing, she dismissed the mini fantasy and used her remote to turn on the sound of Alicia Keys while she poured herself a glass of red wine. She picked up her phone and listened to her messages.
The first was from one of her best friends, inviting her to visit a trendy new bar. The second was her mother checking on her. Erika bit her lip in response to that. Her mother had called her at a weak moment and Erika had told her too much about the results of her doctor’s visit. The third message was from Doug. Doug the dud, she added. A nice enough guy. He was just so boring.
The call-waiting beeped as she listened to his message and she automatically picked up. “Hello?”
“Erika, I wondered when I would hear your live voice again. How are you, sweetheart?”
Her mother. Erika winced. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ve been very busy at work and I took on a mentoring project with an inner-city teenager. How are you? How’s bridge?”
“Your father and I came in second last night. We host tomorrow night. What is this about mentoring an inner-city teenager? Darling, you don’t really think that will take the place of having your own child, do you?”
Erika’s chest twisted. “No, but it’s a good use of my energy right now.”
“Honey, if you would just make a little effort and be more open-minded, I know you could find a man in no time. Then you could have both the husband and the baby you want.”
Erika squeezed her forehead. “I’ll make a deal with you, Mom. I’ll go out with two men next week if you stop asking me about this for the next week.”
“I’m just thinking of your well-being. You’ve always wanted children.”
“I know.”
“You just kept putting it off,” her mother added.
“Mom,” she said, and Erika couldn’t keep the warning note from seeping into her voice.
Her mother sighed. “Okay. Two dates, two men next week. I’ll say a prayer and make a wish on a star.”
Erika felt her heart soften. Her mother did love her. She just felt the need to interfere sometimes. “I love you. Have fun tomorrow night.”
Clicking off the phone, she set it down and smiled, picturing her parents and the house in Indiana she’d left behind when she moved to attend college in the East.
The town of her childhood had often felt sleepy to her, the pace hadn’t been fast enough. She’d wanted more excitement, more action, more challenge.
She remembered the smell of the cholesterol-laden, but delicious home-cooked meals that had greeted her every time she returned home, and the scent of chocolate chip cookies every time she left again.
She remembered making crafts with her mother on rainy days and the countless times her mother had sat with Erika while she’d done her homework. Her father had taught her to play basketball and encouraged her to relish her height instead of being afraid of it.
She’d always known she had the best parents in the world. She’d also always known that she would need to leave in order to really fly.
And she’d certainly learned to fly. At least professionally. In the back of her mind, she’d had a mental plan. Graduate from college, get on a career track that would take her to the top and along the way she would squeeze in finding a husband and having a baby.
Before she’d even graduated from college, Erika had wanted a child, but she’d told herself not to get caught in the trap of getting married and having a baby before establishing her career. It was all about discipline, she’d said, but many times she felt a strong longing on rainy days to make crafts with a child of her own, to nurture and love a human being and experience the wonder of helping a little someone become the very best person they could be.
Her work was exciting and rewarding, but part of her remained untouched. Part of her longed for something that work couldn’t fulfill.
Sighing, she opened her eyes and pulled a sheet of paper from the wooden file she kept for mail. She glanced at the medical report again and sighed. Endometriosis. That was why she’d had such terrible cramps. That was why her fertility was headed into the toilet. That was why she would consider having a baby without a husband.
Two
At precisely five thirty-one in the afternoon, Erika heard a knock at her office door. Her stomach dipped, but she ignored the sensation. Today she hadn’t kicked off her shoes below her desk. Nope, today she wore high-heel boots that brashly flaunted her five-foot-nine-inch height and a black suit with a crisp white blouse. Today she was prepared.
She strode to her door and opened it, spotting Gannon lifting his hand for another knock. He was still too damn tall. She would need stilts to meet him eye to eye. Dressed in a black wool suit with a faint blue stripe, he would leave quivering females in his wake wherever he went—the elevator, his office, the street. Erika imagined women all over the office melting into the carpet.
His green gaze flicked over her, then he looked into her eyes for an assessing second. When he’d taken the time, he’d always been able to read her. Better not to let him see too much, she thought.
“Come in,” she said and returned to stand behind her desk. She liked having a large wooden object between her and Gannon. At that moment she wished her desk was a little bigger, perhaps boat-sized. “How are you?”
“Fine, and you?” he asked, moving the folder he held into his other hand.
“Good, thank you.” Pleasantries over. “I’ve thought about your offer. I loved working at Pulse. It was the most challenging and creative job I’ve ever had. I loved the fast pace. I loved working with such sharp minds.” She paused and took a quick breath and reminded herself she was doing this for her sanity. “But I’m very happy and productive where I am right now. I have an excellent rapport with everyone who works for me. It’s a warm atmosphere and it works for me.”
He remained silent.
Poo. He was going to force her to say the words. She would have much preferred doing this via e-mail or fax. “So thank you very much for your wonderful offer. While I’m tempted, I’m going to decline.”
He looked at her for a long moment and gave a slow nod. He moved closer to the desk and picked up her half-full mug. “The job you have at HomeStyle is like hot chocolate with marshmallows. It’s nice. It’s comfortable. A few challenges every now and then. You have to choose whether to feature needlepoint or knitting, find new crafts for Valentine’s Day, a decor for spring.”
Erika felt defensive. “You’re right. Making marsh-mallow bunnies isn’t going to rock the world. It’s just going to make it a little nicer, a little more comforting.”
“As I said, this job is hot chocolate. The problem, Erika, is you had the best whiskey in the world at Pulse. You know what it’s like to come to work knowing you’ll get an adrenaline rush. That the story you tell and the way you tell it could rock the world. Underneath the hot chocolate with marshmallows and bunny slippers is a world-rocker. You can fight it all you want, but you and I both know it’s in you.”
The challenge in his eyes made something inside her sizzle and pop. She hated that he knew her so well. She hated that he’d known her so well and left her so completely, but she wouldn’t tell him that was the reason she wouldn’t return to Pulse.
“I want you to reconsider,” he said.
She swallowed a groan. She’d really had to pump herself up for this. “I’ve given your offer a lot of consideration. You have my answer.”
His lips turned up slightly in a grin she’d seen before. A grin that signaled Gannon was in for a battle, determined to win. A grin that scared the life out of her. “Your answer isn’t acceptable to me. I want you to reconsider. My father does, too.”
Oh great, she thought wryly. Two Elliotts teaming up against her. “I’m very happy here.”
“We’ll make sure you’re happy at Pulse.” He laid the folder he’d held during their discussion on the desk and flipped it open. “How would you like to do this story?”
Erika saw photos of babies and her heart stopped.
She bent down to look at the copy. “Making the Perfect Baby: The New World of Genetic Manipulation,” she read and looked at him.
He smiled. “I knew that would get your attention. You always loved the combination of science and human interest. Cover story with your name on the front. That’s the kind of story that could win awards. Rock the world.”
Gazing at the photos of the beautiful sweet faces of the babies, she swallowed over the lump in her throat. Did he know how much she wanted a baby? How could he know? They’d never discussed it.
She took a shallow breath and forced herself to smile. “Very tempting, but I’ve given you my answer.”
He paused just a second, as if she’d surprised him. “Okay. You don’t mind looking over the story and giving me your thoughts, do you? Think about it and I’ll drop by on Wednesday.”
The trendy new cocktail bar, the Randy Martini, was packed with twenty- and thirty-something Manhattanites testing the wild, extensive menu of over a hundred martinis. It took two and a half martinis for Erika’s best friends, Jessica and Paula, to get Erika to confess what had her so distracted. “I want to have a baby and my gynecologist told me I need to do it soon or maybe not at all.”
“That stinks,” Jessica said and patted Erika’s hand.
“Maybe you could get a dog or a cat,” Paula suggested.
Erika shook her head. “I want a baby, not a canine or feline.”
Paula lifted her own martini in salute. “You might change your mind when the kid hits puberty or when you start shelling out the green for college.”
Erika shook her head again. “Even though I’ve been career-oriented, I always knew I wanted to have a child.”
“You could wait until you find Mr. Right and try adopting, although I hear that can take forever,” Jessica said. “Any Mr. Rights on the horizon?”
An image of Gannon slipped into her mind. She immediately stamped it out. “No.”
Jessica made a face. “I guess you could go the insemination route.”
Paula looked horrified. “Get pregnant without being able to blame it on a man for the rest of your life?”
“It could be fun,” Jessica said.
“For whom?” Paula asked. “Erika grows to the size of a beached whale, then gives birth to something that looks like a screaming pink alien.”
“You have no maternal instincts,” Jessica said. “It could be fun for you and me. We could throw her a shower and go to those labor classes with her. We could even go in the delivery room with her.”
“Speak for yourself,” Paula said.
“And we could be aunties,” Jessica said with a smile. “I’m liking this idea. I’ll even go with you to a sperm clinic, Erika.”
“I hadn’t considered anonymous insemination,” Erika said. “I have this fear that they would give me the wrong vial and I’d end up with a crazy man’s sperm.”
“They probably toss the crazy sperm,” Jessica said.
“But how do you know what you’re getting?” Erika mused.
“You don’t,” Paula said. “Unless you do a genetic study or at least get a look at all the guy’s siblings and parents … and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents.”
