“How are you feeling?” he asked, his gaze intense.
Feeling? What would she be…Oh. “You mean the baby.” She touched her stomach. “Honestly, I don’t feel anything. I don’t know when I’m supposed to start having symptoms and it’s not like I want to ask my mom. I did make a doctor’s appointment for a prenatal checkup.”
“Good. When is it?”
She told him.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “We’re in this together, so I’m interested in information, too.”
Going with her? “You don’t have to.”
He smiled. “I want to be there through all of this.”
His words gave her a warm kind of glow in her tummy. “Okay. That would be nice. I’ll admit I was a little scared. Just because I’ve never done this before.”
“Me, either.”
She served dinner and they sat at the round table. Dev told her about what had happened at the office that day. When he was finished, she said, “I’ve signed up for summer school. I’m taking calculus.” She wrinkled her nose. “Math is not my thing, but it’s required, so I decided to get it out of the way in one intense, horrible six-week period. I go for three hours a day, four days a week. I start Monday.”
“That’s a lot of calculus.”
“I know. I don’t want to think about the homework, but I keep telling myself by the middle of August, it will be over.”
“This is excellent,” he said, cutting off another piece of meatloaf. “I’m now officially won over by your cooking, but don’t worry if you don’t have time once you’re in school. Getting your education should be your priority.”
“And the baby.”
“The baby won’t arrive until next year.”
She nodded. “I guess I’ll be due in early March.”
“So you can go to the fall semester and then take the spring semester off. And graduate the following January.”
She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I like that. The baby will be what, six months old when I go back to college? Day care won’t be a problem. There’s a great program at our church. My mom will love being able to see her first grandbaby whenever she wants.”
Whoa—this was a little too much to be dealing with right now. “Speaking of my mom,” she said, deciding for her own peace of mind she needed to shift topics. “She called today. She still wants to do a big party, but that’s going to take some putting together. In the meantime, she would like to throw us a wedding shower. Probably just for girlfriends, if you don’t mind.”
His trapped expression cleared. “I think it’s a good idea. You and your friends will have fun.”
Typical guy, she thought with a smile. “But the thing is, we need to register. People are going to want to buy us gifts. I went through the kitchen and you already have everything. But there’s only one set of china, so maybe something for special occasions?”
“I don’t care about that kind of thing,” he said. “Noelle, pick out what you’d like to have. Then you can take it with you when this is over.”
The “this” being their marriage. “You’re not interested at all?” she asked, a little surprised by how disappointed she felt.
“You’ll have fun choosing things like china and sheets.”
Not by herself, she thought glumly. Maybe Rachel or Crissy would want to help. But that wasn’t the same as having Dev doing with it her. After all, he would be eating off the plates, too.
“I did have something I wanted to ask you,” he said, setting down his fork and looking at her. “I should have brought this up before. Do you want to speak to a grief counselor about Jimmy?”
He wouldn’t pick out china but he was offering her therapy? “I’m okay,” she told him.
“I can get you some names. I wasn’t sure, what with you having the baby and all.”
“Thank you.” She sipped her water. “I know Jimmy and I dated for a while and we, well, you know. He had talked about getting married and all, but…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t think we were really in love with each other.”
Dev stiffened in his chair. “We don’t have to talk about that,” he said gruffly.
He seemed uncomfortable. But why? Because she was being realistic about her relationship with his brother? Did that upset him? Did he want to believe they’d been madly in love? Or was he judging her for sleeping with a man without being sure she loved him?
“Dinner was great,” he said as he rose and carried his plate to the counter. “I brought some work home, so I’ll excuse myself.”
And with that, he was gone. She didn’t think she was going to see him again that evening.
Separate lives, she thought. That’s what they were living. While she hadn’t considered what their married lives would be like, she’d never thought she would be so…lonely. She felt lost in this big, beautiful house, living with a man who didn’t want to have much to do with her. Lost and alone and not sure what to do about it.
Chapter Six
Dev arrived home nearly two hours early to find loud music filling the house. He walked into the family room and saw Noelle sprawled across the sofa, a large text book propped up as she slowly flipped through the pages.
Instead of the conservatively dressed woman he’d seen last night, today his wife of less than a week wore a tank top and shorts. Her feet were bare, her hair piled up on top of her head in a ponytail and she was chewing gum. She was, he acknowledged wryly, a teenage boy’s dream. Which meant he had no excuse for what he was feeling—he was old enough to know better.
Still, the information didn’t seem to have any impact on the sudden rush of blood south or the desire to cross the room, pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. He imagined her yielding and aroused, straining to get closer, reaching for him as they—
He forced the erotic images out of his mind. This was a marriage of practicality, he reminded himself. Nothing more. Besides, he’d been enough of an ass last night. He should take a break from that kind of behavior.
Pushing her to talk about Jimmy had been out of line and now that she’d admitted she didn’t think she and his brother had been in love, he, Dev, felt even more like a jerk. He’d only done it to find out if she was in mourning or not. Knowing she wasn’t overwhelmed by the loss of his brother meant, in a twisted way, that she was more available to him. Maybe he was the one who needed professional help.
He crossed to the CD player and turned down the volume. Noelle jumped. She sprang to her feet and the textbook hit the floor.
“Dev!” she said, obviously startled. “You’re home early.” She touched her hair, then fingered the hem of her tank top. “I’m not ready.”
“You live here,” he reminded her. “There’s nothing to get ready for.”
“Dinner,” she said as she folded her arms over her chest. “I was going to get changed.”
“You don’t have to for me. I think you look charming.”
She tried to smile, then failed. She reached up and pulled a band from her hair so that it tumbled loose around her shoulders.
The instant disarray was too sexy by far. Despite the steady hum of the air conditioner, he had the sudden need to unfasten his collar button and pull off his tie.
Instead he walked over to the large wrapped