Undeniably Yours Read Online Free PDF Page B

had stacks of paperwork on every flat surface except his chair, though. “Paulie can handle the bar. We can go upstairs where it’s quiet.”
    Her expression was grim and, having some experience with rowdy patrons, he wondered if Derek the drunken asshole boss was making good on his threat of lawsuits.
    He’d find out soon enough, he thought as he signaled for Paulie to take over for him. And he’d find out her damn phone number, too.
    ***
    Kevin didn’t talk on the way up to his apartment in an elevator that looked more like a decrepit, oversized dumbwaiter. His silence made Beth nervous, but it also gave her more time to rehearse what she was going to say. Of course, she’d been rehearsing for two days and still had no clue what was going to come out of her mouth. She’d talked to her mirror, to herself, to her ceiling in the middle of the night. Didn’t help at all when she was standing here next to the man whose life she was about to turn upside down.
    As he unlocked his apartment door and gestured her inside, her hands started to shake. He pointed to the couch and told her to have a seat, but she chose to sit in the single armchair. If he sat next to her—close enough to touch her—she might chicken out.
    “You look awfully serious.” He sat on the couch, across from her, and propped his elbows on his knees. “And it’s not like you can lecture me on not calling you, since you didn’t leave your number. Hell, you didn’t even leave behind a glass slipper on the front step.”
    “Sorry for leaving like that, but I didn’t see any point in staying.” He looked like he was going to respond and she didn’t think she had the patience for explaining her Cinderella act, so she blurted it out. “I’m pregnant.”
    That shut his mouth with a snap.
    “I know you used a condom,” she continued when it became obvious he wasn’t going to say anything, “but I…let’s just say I’d been in a bit of a drought and I haven’t been with anybody else since so, somehow, it’s yours.”
    “A baby.”
    “Yes.”
    “My baby.”
    “Yes.”
    “Wow.” He leaned back against the couch, rubbing his hands on the tops of his thighs. “You’re sure?”
    “I haven’t been to the doctor yet, but I took a home test and…yes, I’m sure.” She braced herself for whatever was to come. Denial. Accusation. Maybe he’d even throw her out.
    And if he did that, she’d go. And if he still felt the same way after taking some time to digest the news, she’d be just fine. Having done the right thing and informed him of the situation, she’d be free to get on that bus to Albuquerque. Or maybe Florida, just to be closer to her parents.
    “Are you okay?” he surprised her by asking. “I mean, are you feeling okay?”
    She nodded. “I think it’s still too early for morning sickness. I got a book from the library yesterday and it said between four to six weeks. But some women don’t even get it. I’m hoping I’m one of the some.”
    He still looked a little shell-shocked. “You’re keeping the baby, then?”
    Even as she opened her mouth to tell him she was, her subconscious coughed up another alternative. She’d seen the Kowalski family dynamic at his brother’s wedding. They were close. Loving. She could stick it out nine months, then give the baby to Kevin and get on a bus.
    Even as the thought snuck into her brain, she looked down and watched her hand come to rest on her stomach, as if it had a mind of its own. She didn’t know what would happen in the next nine minutes, never mind the next nine months. But she wouldn’t be walking away from her baby.
    She watched horror creep into his features and anger tighten his jaw. “No.”
    “No what?”
    “Don’t do it,” he said, and there was a pleading note in his voice that didn’t make any sense.
    “Don’t do what? I didn’t say anything.”
    “Don’t have an abortion. Please.”
    Frustration had a way of shortening her fuse, but she took a deep