She pushed one last time, and the clothes disappeared behind the mirrored door, but something else fell free and hung out of the doorway at an odd angle.
It was a life-sized cardboard cut-out of me in full uniform.
“Oh my God!” Her face blushed an even brighter pink, and she scrambled to tuck the thing away.
“Is that a bra hanging from my helmet?” I managed to keep a straight face.
“Nope.” She stilled, then ripped the lacy confection down and shut the closet door. I bet it looked phenomenal cupping those exquisite breasts hidden behind her oversized UNC T-shirt. Hell, I even bet her nipples peeked through that lace just enough to make out their dusky color. Her breasts were mouth-wateringly incredible.
Those, I fucking remembered.
She turned toward me, then realized the bra was still in her hand. Sighing a rumble through her lips, she gave up the pretense and flung the thing into the overflowing hamper next to me.
I laughed and raked my hand over my hair. This whole situation was ludicrous, and we both knew it.
She rolled her eyes. “The cutout was a gift from my roommates. It’s how they told me they’d bought you in the charity auction. All of my sorority sisters chipped in, too.”
“I remember you telling me they all went in on it,” I admitted with a grin. “But you left out the six-foot-four cardboard me in your closet.”
Her mouth opened and shut a few times as her forehead puckered, but finally, she gave in and smiled as she laughed.
My heart fucking stuttered. That right there was what had drawn me to her in the first place. Before the drinks turned into many drinks, which turned into a night I barely remembered, she’d smiled, and I’d been stunned speechless…just like I was right now.
That smile of hers was genuine. Authentic. And in my world—where every woman was surgically enhanced, fake-as-hell, and always had an ulterior motive, genuine was rare. Genuine was precious.
Snap out of it.
“You said you had something for me?” I turned toward the desk and picked up a few of the books, which were all on psychology. I quickly stacked them in alphabetical order as I heard her come up behind me.
“Oh, right,” she said, opening the skinny drawer on the left side of the desk and taking out a paper. Her eyebrows knit slightly as she noticed the newly-stacked books. “Do you have OCD?” she asked softly.
I bristled. “Liking things to be their correct place doesn’t mean I have OCD.” Not officially, at least. It had taken five years of therapy after Nick died to lessen the worst of my compulsions, but stressful situations still brought them out.
This definitely qualified as a stressful situation.
She didn’t question my tight tone or look at me with skepticism or pity, which would have most-likely pushed me right over the edge. Instead, she simply handed me the paper with a soft smile. “This is your copy of my lab report.”
“My copy?” I asked as I looked it over. The doc’s office looked legit. There was her name, Liberty M. Jones.
“I figured you’d want your own.”
I read down the report to her HCG levels. She was pregnant.
Pregnant…and by the dates of her last cycle, and the estimated conception time frame on the report, the baby was mine.
Mine, mine, mine. MINE.
If the report is real, that tiny little voice in the back of my head chimed in.
Because the last time, it hadn’t been.
It had all been one giant lie.
“Say something,” Liberty urged gently.
“Looks like you’re pregnant.” My fingers tightened on the paper, making it crinkle. I read it again and again, then folded it down the center once, then twice, before tucking it into the back pocket that didn’t hold my hat.
I stared at her, searching for something else to say.
She nodded, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. “I meant what I said. I don’t want anything from you.”
“Stop saying that,” I whispered, slamming my eyes shut as gravity shifted beneath my feet. Lawyers. Paternity test. Child support. Visitation. Rights. Custody. My mother’s face. God, my mind wouldn’t stop.
“Nixon.”
I opened my eyes and focused on hers.
“Look,” she started. “I don’t know what your damage is, but it’s obvious you have some. And I get it. At first, I was seriously pissed at your reaction, but I thought about it, and I get it. You’re an NFL star who makes more money than most people could ever spend in a lifetime. I bet I’m not the first girl to come at you with a pregnancy claim, am I?” She tilted her head, exposing the long line of her neck.
“No.” Even now, I wanted to trail my tongue from her collarbone to her jaw.
“Do you have any other children?”
“Hell no.” I drew back. There had been at least a dozen claims over the years and all but two had come from women I’d never even slept with.
One of them was standing right in front of me.
“I see.” She looked away.
I had a feeling that she didn’t, but I wasn’t in any position to correct her. Hell, I was barely standing, because if that lab report was true…Don’t even let yourself think it.
“Well, there’s your proof.” She tucked her hands into her back pockets and rocked back on her heels. “But if you want more, I have an ultrasound appointment next week with my doctor. You’re welcome to come.”
“I am?” She couldn’t have shocked me more if she’d tossed a bucket of ice water on me. I’d never been invited to a doctor’s appointment.
“Well…yeah.” She looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “Half of what’s growing inside me is yours, so it only seems fair that you get to come, right?”
Yours. Suddenly the tiny apartment felt infinitesimally smaller.
“Right.”
“And I added your name as next of kin and signed a release, so you have access to my records. You can call and confirm those results yourself if you want. They’ll give you the information.”
She wasn’t hiding anything. In fact, she was exposing herself just so I’d see that she was telling the truth. My emotions jumped around so quickly that they never had time to land.
“And I talked to a lawyer. I’ll have the papers ready for you to sign next week if you want to relinquish—”
“No.” I shook my head, my entire body revolting at the idea of signing away the chance that the baby was mine…and if those dates were right—if this wasn’t the most carefully constructed lie I’d ever come across—it was mine. “When is your appointment?”
“The third at three-fifteen.” She swallowed. “I don’t know if you have practice or anything.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Promise?” she asked, challenging me with a raise of her eyebrows.
“If I say it, I’ll do it. I never make promises I don’t keep.”
And I sure as hell wasn’t starting with that one.
This wasn’t a doctor’s office. It was one of those horror-houses at a carnival. Clearly they wanted to terrify women. Why else would they show a diagram of a baby’s head that looked to be the size of a bowling ball, pressing up against a tunnel that was maybe the size of a damned nickel?