“I will this time,” I assure her. “Scout’s honor.”
Scoffing, Laurel cocks an eyebrow at me. “No way in hell were you ever a Boy Scout, Rafe Morelli.”
Offering a smile I know she’ll find charming, I lean a little closer and trace the curve of her jaw with my finger. “You got me. Still, I mean it. You caught me off-guard before, that’s all. Ask anyone. I’m normally much better in a crisis.”
My words dull her, if anything. “See, you call it a crisis. You say you want me, but even if that’s true, what if I come with a baby? What if I do want to go through with this pregnancy?”
This part is a little harder to sell, given my own conflicted emotions about it, but there’s no time for that right now. Laurel is still of a mind to flee, and now goddamn Mia has gone and offered her a golden ticket to get away from me. At least before, I was an advantage. If she thinks she can handle all this on her own without ruining her life… well, then all I have to lure her in with is me, and I haven’t made that package look very good to her lately.
With far more calm than the mental image of a baby brings me, I tell her, “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
That gives her pause. Her eyes dance with vulnerability, triggering a river of relief pouring through me. I’ve damaged her trust in me, but she’s still willing to open up. I’ve only fucked this up temporarily; it can still be fixed. “Really?” she asks.
“Really,” I verify, nodding once. “You don’t need Mia to babysit, I can hire you a nanny.”
“Us,” she corrects.
I lift an eyebrow in question.
“It’s not my baby, it’s our baby. If you hire a nanny, it’s for us, not for me. We need to get a handle on this sexist bullshit right now.”
&n
bsp; “It wasn’t sexist bullshit; it was a slip of tongue.”
Not buying that bullshit, she says, “No, it was distancing language, and it’s stuff exactly like this that makes me nervous about relying on you.”
Gripping her shoulders, I look into her eyes. “I won’t bail on you. If I’m telling you we’ll have the baby, we’ll have the baby. If I tell you I’ll hire a nanny so you can continue your studies, I’ll hire a damn nanny. I have to be honest; I’m personally invested in you becoming a professor. You’ve spawned a series of fantasies where I fuck you on, around, and near your desk that I’m very interested in bringing to life.”
Laurel bites down on her plump bottom lip, trying to hold back a smile. “Oh, have I?”
“You have,” I answer, evenly. Missing a beat, I watch her for a moment before going on. “Remember how nice things were between us over Easter? Remember what a nice day we had before you skipped town? You’re having my baby. I realize it’s not ideal because we don’t know each other as well as two people who are becoming parents together should, but we have nine months to get to know each other, don’t we?”
“Seven,” she murmurs.
“Hm?”
“Seven months. I’m already 8 or 9 weeks, I think. I’m not sure. I haven’t gone to an appointment yet.”
“Well, we should probably do that, then. Should you have gone to an appointment by now?”
Laurel nods her head.
“We’ll do that this week. I’ll ask Gio who took care of his wife when she had their daughter, have him get you an appointment.”
I watch her interest fizzle. “In Vegas?”
“Of course, in Vegas. We have to go back home, Laurel. It’s more important now than ever that I hold down the fort there, and here I am gallivanting off to fucking Chicago. This is not where I should be right now.”
“That’s not my home. It’s your home. I don’t want to go back there.”
“You liked it well enough a couple of days ago,” I remind her.
Laurel’s gaze drops again. She’s clearly not enjoying this conversation, but at least she hasn’t moved away from me. I can feel right now that she wants to, and it’s aggravating, but I can’t shake the feeling she’s thinking of Sin.
Since being coy when I need to get back to my fucking town isn’t going to work, I ask outright, “Is this about him?”
There’s only one him I could be referring to, so she nods, still looking down. “I know you won’t like hearing this, but I had feelings for him and my heart still aches when I think about him. I don’t want to have to see him.”