“Okay, I did it again.” Becca held up both hands, palms forward in surrender. “Stop me, please.”
“Okay, Britney Spears. I wish there was some way I could rig your computer so that every time you check your email Britney would sing, ‘Oops!...I Did It Again.’ That would make you think twice, wouldn’t it?”
“And how,” Becca said.
“Of course, I could always come in here and sing to you every few minutes. A couple of rounds of Britney therapy will probably work like touching a hot stove. After you experience it, you just know better.”
Becca laughed. “Darn, I wish I would’ve brought in the karaoke machine. I knew I was forgetting something.”
“I’m happy to sing a cappella. That would probably have the biggest impact.”
“Do you make house calls?” Becca asked. “I could’ve used you last night.”
“Why? It was a little early to start the test result watch last night, wasn’t it?”
“No, it wasn’t that. I wasn’t actually looking, but I was anxious about it. To take my mind off things, I let myself binge-watch classic movies. Turner Classics was having a James Dean film festival.”
Kate narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to one side. “Sorry, hon, I’m not following you. Why is James Dean bad?”
Why? Becca shrugged.
“I know this sounds crazy, but there’s something about Nick that reminded me of James Dean—with a modern spin and maybe with shades of Adam Levine and biceps and tattoos.
“But more rugged, though, less metrosexual,” Becca added.
They paused for a moment of quiet appreciation, slow smiles spreading over their faces.
Actually, Becca had drawn the James Dean-Adam Levine parallel the first time she’d set eyes on Nick Ciotti. Well, actually, that’s what she’d thought the second time she’d seen him. The first time, she hadn’t really seen him. She’d been distraught over Victor’s accident and the way Rosanna was trying to ice her out. She’d needed answers. But then when he’d walked into Bentleys, that’s when she’d seen him.
After noting the James Dean comparison, her next thought had been that he had to be one of the best-looking human beings she’d ever laid eyes on. Bad-boy dangerous and take-your-breath-away gorgeous, with that shock of dark hair that was just a tad too long.
Sigh.
“I can totally see it,” Kate said. “Did you sit and brood over James Dean last night?”
Becca tried to shrug it off. “I did and it’s so stupid. I just need to get Nick out of my head. I keep going back and forth between being furious with him for pushing this paternity test issue and thinking that this guy and I are going to be irrevocably connected because of the baby. And despite it all, I want that. I really want it. But what he must think of me to insist on this test.”
Kate looked at Becca for a long moment, and Becca could see the wheels turning in her friend’s head.
“What?” Becca asked. “Just say what you’re thinking. I’ve already admitted I’m a hot mess.”
“I know it was hard for you to go get the test done. It probably felt as if he was questioning the very core of your character. I know that must’ve felt really crappy. But there are some women who—” Kate paused and winced. “How do I say this? Just don’t hate me for it, okay?”
“Just say it.”
“There are women out there who might try to trap a man like Nick.”
“A man like Nick? What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“He’s a good-looking guy with a nice income and secure job. You know, a doctor.”
“You sound like Jane Austen.” In her best high-pitched British accent, Becca said, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Kate laughed. “Well, not exactly. I was trying to say that there are certain women who think a man in possession of a good job, especially a doctor, would make a good husband. Okay, I guess that did sound a little Austen-ish. Remember Liam’s neighbor Kimela Herring, and how she set her sights on him after his first wife passed away? That woman was shameless. She would’ve done anything—and I mean anything—to get her hooks in him. She’s the reason I ended up bidding ten thousand dollars for him at that bachelor auction that funded the new pediatric wing at Celebration Memorial Hospital. Remember how she drove up the bid?”
Becca sat back in her chair and squinted at her friend while she tried to ignore the annoyance sparking in her solar plexus. “I remember, but I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this trip down memory lane. Because surely you’re not comparing me to Kimela Herring.”
Kate looked genuinely surprised. Becca knew she sounded defensive, especially when Kate burst out laughing.
“Hardly,” Kate said, a broad grin commandeering her face. “But what I am saying is, even though you are far from being a Kimela Herring and I know this is tremendously hard for you, you might want to cut Nick some slack. Women like Kimela throw themselves at men like Nick and Liam, and that might be one of the reasons Nick is so wary.”
Becca wasn’t quite sure what to say. She could always count on Kate to give it to her straight, but she was having a hard time swallowing what Kate was dishing up. Okay, so Nick was a doctor. That didn’t make him better or worse than anyone. Even if certain women had a tendency to fling themselves at men like Nick. It certainly didn’t absolve him of his responsibility.
Kate must’ve read that on her face, because she waved her hand as if she were erasing her words. “That didn’t come out right. I feel like I just set back womankind two hundred years.”
Becca cocked a brow. “Maybe three hundred years.” But she smiled to let Kate know she wasn’t taking it personally. She couldn’t. Because even though Kate’s words rankled her, Becca could step back and see that there was some truth to the matter. Gold diggers were real. They weren’t the stuff of urban legends. She didn’t like it, and she certainly didn’t like the thought of Nick thinking of her that way.
“You’re right,” Becca said. “He doesn’t know me.”
“So please don’t be too hard on him, or on yourself, for that matter, okay?” Kate said.
Becca offered a one-shoulder shrug but nodded. He’d see the truth soon enough. She wasn’t trying to force his hand. Even if they were having a baby, she didn’t want to marry a man she didn’t love or a man who didn’t love her.
For a moment her heart tried to eclipse logic with quiet protestations. How did she know she couldn’t love Nick? She didn’t even know him beyond that one earthmoving night, which proved that there had certainly been plenty of raw material to work with then.
And, oh, how it had worked.
As if the heavens were seconding that motion, a notice that she had a new email popped up on her computer screen.
She clicked over to her inbox.
The results were in.
* * *
After working the 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. shift the night before, which he would repeat tonight, Nick’s days and nights were mixed up, but such was the life of someone employed in emergency medicine.
His schedule was as unpredictable as the cases that presented themselves each night in the ER. Some weeks he worked the graveyard shift, others he pulled the more civilized 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. one. Even though Celebration Memorial usually scheduled attendings four days on and three days off, sometimes the workweeks were