4

When I get to Lifelines Bistro, I order a margarita immediately. If I don’t, I’m gonna have a nuclear meltdown. My nerves are frayed beyond belief and I can’t stop my hands from shaking.

Alcohol usually does the trick in these kinds of situations.

Unfortunately, no sooner have the words “make it strong” come to the tip of my tongue than do I remember that the entire reason I’m here in the first place precludes me from getting drunk at all.

So with a sigh, I amend to say, “Make it… virgin.”

I pick a table in the corner with a vantage point of the front door and sit down. It’s quiet in here tonight, which is a little weird for a Chicago Business District bar on a Wednesday at happy hour, but that’s one of the reasons I picked it.

I want as few onlookers as possible to witness what might be the most awkward conversation of my life.

Uh, yeah, so we don’t know each other, sir, but it seems like we’re about to have a baby together.

Cue cringe vomiting.

The virgin margarita disappears down the hatch before I even realize how fast I’m drinking it. I need something to distract myself, even if this is placebo alcohol.

I order another one, mostly just to have something to do with my hands, and that goes down even easier. The thorny, recurring thoughts that have plagued me all day seem to retract their claws a little bit more with each and every sip.

Mocktail or not, it’s helping.

I watch the door like a hawk, sparing an eye for the time on my phone every now and then. But fifteen minutes passes by, and no one shows.

Thirty minutes. Nothing.

I’m wearing a scarlet red blouse, just like I told Dr. Saeder to let the sperm donor know, so I’m pretty hard to miss. But as 5:45 P.M. comes and goes, I start to lose faith.

Maybe this was silly. What am I even hoping to gain from it? A co-parent? Someone to replace the role that Rose and Jared were supposed to fill? Hell no. Truth is, I don’t even want this mystery man to have anything to do with this baby.

I just…

I don’t even know. I just want to meet them, I guess. To look my baby’s father in the face so I understand what kind of person has somehow snuck into the most intimate part of me.

But that’s dumb, isn’t it? It won’t change anything. It won’t bring back my family or make my life any less difficult.

This mystery man, whoever it is, can only make things harder.

I’m gathering my bag to go home so I can at least eat some ice cream and put this day from hell to bed when I accidentally knock my phone off the table. I bend down to scoop it up…

But before I can, a huge male hand grabs it from the floor for me.

Horror fills my gut before I even look up. It takes me a moment to understand why.

That scent.

Mint and cedar.

There’s only one person in the world who smells exactly like that.

So, with my heartbeat pounding in my temples and the blood rushing in my ears, I drag my gaze from the tiled floor…

Past a pair of gleaming leather loafers…

Skimming up over muscular legs in well-fitted charcoal gray slacks… and a baby-blue-shirt-clad midsection I was fantasizing about literally this morning…

To look in the eyes of the last man on this planet that I would ever want to be the father of my baby.

Dmitri Egorov looks down at me and smolders.

“Seems like you and I have a lot to discuss, Ms. Turner.”