“No need to apologize,” said Mick. “We’re the ones who changed our appointment at the last minute.” They’d been scheduled to meet with her in the afternoon.
“It didn’t occur to me that this might overlap. We have a new legal consultant at the hospital.” At a tap on the door, Melissa started to rise. When her abdominal muscles protested, she put a hand on the desktop for support.
“Please don’t exert yourself. I’ll get it.” Uncoiling from his chair, Mick crossed the floor. Since he was closer, she yielded without protest.
Melissa braced for this encounter with Edmond. They’d run into each other occasionally since he’d arrived in town and they’d exchanged polite how-are-yous. He’d represented one of her housemates in a divorce, and another, briefly, on a custody issue. She’d assured her friends that he was an excellent attorney, which was true. But this was her home territory.
Just say hello and it’ll be over. For now. And if she remained seated, she might be able to save her startling news until they were alone.
Mick opened the door. “Don’t mind me. I’m the butler,” he joked to the imposing administrator, Dr. Mark Rayburn, a large man with black hair and power eyebrows.
“Pardon the interruption,” Mark said. “We have a new attorney on staff and today’s his first chance to meet everybody. We’ll just be a sec.”
“No problem.” Extending his hand, Mick introduced himself and his wife.
The slim, strong man Melissa had once loved moved past Mark, and cool brown eyes met hers from behind steel-framed glasses. It was lucky that her clients were comfortable chatting with the newcomers, because her voice got stuck in her throat.
As always, her ex-husband was impeccably groomed—even in July, he wore a jacket and tie. Being in the same room made her keenly aware of his light, spicy scent and the breadth of his chest.
And it also made her aware of how much she missed curling against him at night, missed talking over the day’s events and missed his logical insights. Once, she could have tracked his reactions to people and events as easily as her own. It was disorienting, to have no idea what he was thinking right now.
What was wrong with her? It must be the emotional effect of maternal hormones. She’d long ago resolved any lingering sense that she belonged with this man.
“Good to see you, Melissa.” He sounded slightly hoarse.
“You, too,” she managed. She ought to rise, but if she did...
At Mark’s subtle prompting, Edmond greeted the Landrys and handed them his business card. “If you have any legal questions, I’d be happy to schedule a free consultation here at the hospital. I have office hours Monday mornings and Thursday afternoons.”
“Maybe later,” Mick said. “We’re still in the early stages.”
The administrator indicated they should move on. Just when Melissa figured the encounter was over, Edmond swung toward her. “Okay if I stop by in a few minutes? There are a few matters we should discuss.”
“Certainly.” All very professional, although everybody in the office—plus the cheerily nosy receptionist lingering outside the door—must be aware of the undercurrents.
When he held out his hand, there was no avoiding it. Melissa stood up, big belly and all.
Edmond’s jaw dropped and his body went rigid. His double take might almost have been comical, had she not felt his shock so keenly. Melissa had prepared herself for his disapproval or anger, or perhaps indifference. To her surprise, she caught a glint of pain.
His gaze went to her left hand, to her ringless third finger. But he could hardly draw conclusions from that. Pregnant women often removed their wedding rings to accommodate puffiness.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll talk to you later, then. Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Landry.”
As Mark ushered Edmond out, he regarded Melissa with concern. He didn’t miss much, she reflected, and she smiled in an attempt to reassure him.
With a nod, the big man closed the door. She hadn’t fooled him. She wasn’t fooling anybody these days, except maybe herself. Oh, quit overthinking this.
The Landrys resumed their seats and Melissa did the same. Returning to their discussion, she said, “You might try listing the qualities that are most important to you in an egg donor and a surrogate. That will guide your choices.”
Her suggestion had the desired effect of pushing the interruption from their minds. When the clients departed a quarter of an hour later, Melissa had recovered her equilibrium.
She reached for her cup of tea, to find it empty. Although an hour remained until lunch, she was starving, and she’d already finished off the crackers in her desk. These days, she found herself eating more than enough for four. Her doctor insisted her weight gain was healthy, but Melissa had trouble adjusting to her rotund body shape. At five-foot-eight, she’d always been tall and slender.
Well, she was still tall.
The slightly open door swung wider, and she forgot to breathe. Then she saw with relief that her visitor wasn’t Edmond.
Karen Wiggins, the fertility program’s financial counselor and occupant of the adjacent office, handed her a cup of white liquid. “It’s almond milk—fifty percent more calcium than cow’s milk.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Melissa teased. Ten years her senior, Karen was a nurturing friend as well as her landlady.
“How’d it go with the ex?” Karen lingered near the desk. This month, she’d dyed her shoulder-length hair reddish-brown, which Melissa preferred to some of her friend’s more flamboyant choices.
“Smoothly. Oddly. I don’t know.” Staying alert for approaching footsteps, Melissa added, “He’ll be back any minute.”
“I’ll talk fast. Did you pay attention to the guest list for Saturday?”
“No. Should I?” Melissa and three other coworkers rented rooms in Karen’s large home. This weekend, one of their group, nurse Anya Meeks, was getting married there. “As long as we have enough food, who cares?”
“You don’t mind that Edmond’s invited?”
That was a less-than-welcome surprise. “I had no idea. I wasn’t aware he knew Anya and Jack that well.”
Karen shrugged. “Anya posted on her wedding website that he’d brought them together. You’ll recall she hired him to arrange for Jack to waive his paternal rights after she found out she was pregnant. That set off a whole chain of events leading to...” She hummed a few bars of “Here Comes the Bride.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Several months ago, Anya had asked about a lawyer to help her explore giving up her baby for adoption and Melissa had recommended Edmond. “That hardly qualifies him as Cupid.” She sipped the milky liquid, enjoying its slight vanilla flavor.
“She led me to believe she’d already told Jack about the pregnancy.” Edmond peered through the doorway, his brown eyes alight with amusement at slipping into the discussion. “I dropped off what I assumed was routine paperwork to Jack and—bam! Fireworks.”
Despite an instinctive tensing at his appearance, Melissa had to smile at the image of her normally unflappable ex-husband facing Jack’s outrage. “You smoothed things over.”
“Not entirely. It was among the more awkward moments of my career,” Edmond said. “But all’s well that ends well.”
“And you’re coming to my house on Saturday?” Karen asked.
He gave a start. “The wedding’s at your house?”
“The address is on the invitation,” Karen pointed