Daniel and Cullen chuckled. “Can’t join you for a beer,” Cullen said. “I have plans.”
“Me, too,” Tag said.
“That gives me an excuse to hit the hot tub and pretend my knees aren’t killing me,” Daniel said. “See you later. Nice meeting you, Erika.”
Gannon grabbed a towel from the sidelines and scrubbed his face. “How about a shower and I take you to dinner as a thank-you for your participation?”
“Is that your way of saying I saved your butt?” Erika asked, resting her hands on her hips.
Gannon shook his head and snapped the towel at her, intentionally missing. “Never. But I’ll still take you to dinner.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, then sighed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
A ripple of surprise slid through him. “Why?”
She shrugged. “History repeating itself and all that,” she said.
“I wasn’t asking you to go to bed. Besides, you want to have my baby—”
She lifted her hand. “Wait a minute. I want to have my baby. I just want your genes.”
His ego took a hit, but he recovered. “If you want my genes, then you must like something about me.”
She sighed. “Unfortunately,” she muttered and turned away. “I need to go.”
He grabbed her arm. “Wait. You said I owed you.”
“Right. One more reason you need to give me your genes. I’ll see you Monday.”
Watching her walk away, he felt the drag of irritation and something else in his gut. He frowned when he figured out the feeling. He still wanted Erika in his bed. She would be disgusted to know that she brought out in him the sexual urge to conquer and occupy.
She tempted the hell out of him, but he needed to keep a lid on his impulses. Since he hadn’t been in day-to-day contact with her, he’d thought the chemistry between them had waned, but being around her reminded him of how hot it had been between them. Being around her left him with a nagging feeling of sexual deprivation.
He swore under his breath. Erika made a good point about history repeating itself. His grandfather had hammered it into his head that he needed to set an example for his generation of Elliotts. It wasn’t as if he was a randy eighteen-year-old. He’d been able to shelve his attraction for Erika before. No reason he shouldn’t be able to do it again. He just needed to dive into work as he always did.
Erika accepted a last-minute dinner invitation from Jessica and Paula. The three women met at a seafood restaurant. Paula mentioned Erika’s position at EPH and the host seated them immediately and their cocktails were served in record time.
“That was low,” Erika said, taking a sip of her martini and promising to limit herself to one tonight. “He probably thinks this will earn him a review in one of our magazines.”
“You never know. You may mention this place to the right person and ta-da,” Paula said, glancing at the menu. “Saturday night and none of us has a date. How sad is that?”
“Speak for yourself,” Jessica said. “My boyfriend is working.”
“Ah, the foot doctor,” Paula said. “How is our boy Bill?”
Jessica smiled. “Podiatrist. Wonderful. But more importantly, I have a prospective sperm donor for Erika.”
Erika choked. “You what?”
“I found a TDH who’s smart and has a sense of humor,” she said in a singsong voice.
Paula smiled at Jessica’s code word for a man who was tall, dark and handsome. “You can tell us all about him after we order,” she said as the waiter approached. “I’m starving.”
“Me, too. I think I burned a thousand calories playing volleyball today.” Erika wondered if she should tell her friends she might have found her own tall, dark and handsome candidate.
Paula made a face. “Sounds sweaty. Why?”
“It was a company thing. Sort of,” Erika said, thinking that turning down Gannon’s invitation to dinner had been tougher than she’d liked. She’d put herself in an odd situation by asking the most attractive man in the world to donate sperm for her child yet swearing off sex or emotional involvement with him. “Sometimes I wish I were more like a man,” she muttered.
“What?” Jessica asked.
“Nothing. I’ll take the shrimp special,” Erika said to the waiter and closed the menu. The other women placed their orders.
Jessica turned to Erika. “You wish you were more like a man?”
“Just able to detach myself emotionally,” Erika explained.
“Like me,” Paula said.
“Exactly.” Erika smiled.
“Well, you may not need to detach yourself with the guy I’ve found for you. He’s tall, dark, handsome, smart and he’s got a sense of humor.”
“How did you find him?”
“He’s a friend of Bill’s,” Jessica said. “So we can double after you get to know him.”
“Another foot doctor?” Paula said. “Bet he’s got a fetish.”
“That’s not nice,” Jessica said. “Bill doesn’t have a foot fetish.” She turned back to Erika. “This guy, Gerald, is very good-looking, and I’ve already told him about you.”
Erika felt a shot of alarm. “What exactly did you tell him?”
“That you’re gorgeous and smart and he should call you.”
“You gave him my number? Did you tell him I want his sperm?”
“No, because I think you could want Ger more than his sperm.”
Erika’s first inclination was to politely decline. This would just complicate her plans with Gannon. He was going to father her child. He’d agreed. They just needed to get the contract signed.
She thought about how much he still affected her and took another sip of her martini. Her problem was that she still let Gannon overwhelm her. What if another man had the potential to make her forget him? Or at least help her get over him? What if Jessica’s TDH could do the job? She shouldn’t turn down the possibility without checking him out.
“Hey, if all else fails,” Paula said, “you might get a decent pedicure out of the guy.”
Erika skipped lunch and moved into her new Pulse office on Monday afternoon. She struggled with mixed feelings about leaving the HomeStyle offices, where comfort and cozy were key.
Pulse was more of a man’s world, so if she took the books she’d read on climbing the corporate ladder seriously, she would need to hide her jar of M&M’s in her desk drawer along with her hot chocolate mix with mini marshmallows.
She refused, however, to give up her frog clock or her small Tiffany lamp. She deliberately left her lamp turned on while she left to meet one of the couples she was interviewing for her baby article.
By the time she returned to the office, she was starving, but she wanted to type notes from the interview. Submerged in work, she had to force herself to answer the knock at her door.
“Sorry, I’m busy,” she called. It didn’t matter who it was. She needed to get down these last thoughts.
“Free gourmet food,” Gannon called through the door.
Her stomach growled loudly. “Give me two minutes,” she said and hurriedly