“You have other criteria, don’t you? Other than the color?”
“No.” She sighed. “Okay, fine, yes, safety, but red. Red, red, red.”
“I’m going with you,” he muttered. “You aren’t allowed to go on a car lot alone.”
“Mr. Bossy Pants. Just like I said. Do you have any kids?”
He’d been swallowing and nearly choked on a piece of chicken. “No. Why do you ask?”
She drank more wine. “Kids are great. The unlucky-in-love thing is a serious drag, but just because I can’t have romantic love doesn’t mean I can’t have children, right?”
He cleared his throat against an imaginary tight collar. Somehow the conversation had gone in a direction he hadn’t expected. “Ah, sure.”
“Your family is pretty healthy. There aren’t any big diseases in every generation, are there?”
The question touched a sore spot, but Ronan kept his face emotionless. “Not as far as I know.”
How could he know?
“You’re athletic—I’ve seen that. Did you do well in school?”
“I guess. Math was easy. I didn’t love history. Why are you asking all these questions?”
“Practice.” She reached for her wineglass, then put it down. “Can you keep a secret?”
He could but he had a bad feeling that, in this case, he didn’t want to. But instead of saying no, like a man with a working brain, he found himself nodding.
“I have a new app.”
Not the secret he would have expected. “Congratulations.”
She giggled again. “No. That’s not the secret. It’s what the app is for. It’s called Baby Daddy.” She frowned. “Or maybe Daddy Baby. I can’t remember. It’s for finding a sperm donor. You know, so I can have a baby.”
He was on his feet before he realized he was moving. “Are you—”
“Asking you?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “No. You can sit down. The app comes with a list of questions and I was trying out a few. Don’t panic. I’m sure you have great sperm but you can keep it to yourself. Or not. I mean, I don’t need it. Or them. I don’t need a donation.”
He lowered himself back onto his chair. “No more wine for you.”
“MBP,” she whispered.
It took him a second to realize she meant Mr. Bossy Pants. Well, hell.
* * *
BY MIDNIGHT NATALIE was sober, slightly chagrined and wide-awake. It made sense that half a glass of wine would metabolize quickly and she’d always been a night owl. Working a job with traditional hours had been a challenge. Given the choice, she would be up all night. She loved to create when the rest of the world was asleep. The quiet, the darkness, seemed to fuel her creativity. As for chagrined, well, she had no one but herself to blame.
In retrospect, she had to admit that maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to test her find-a-sperm-donor app on Ronan, only she’d just downloaded it the day before and she was curious about how it worked. There were tons of questions—she’d barely started with Ronan and now she doubted he would be willing to answer any more.
Not that she wanted him to donate sperm. Sure, he was good-looking and smart and gifted and funny—in fact, nearly everything she would want in the father of her child. But he was someone she worked with and kind of knew. Having his baby would be awkward, to say the least. No, if she went the baby daddy sperm donor app route, she was hooking up with a stranger.
She paused on the landing outside her bedroom. Not hooking up, she corrected. Making medical arrangements with. She had no interest in sex with a stranger.
The house was dark and quiet. She could hear rain and wind outside, but with the thick stone walls, the weather seemed to be at a safe distance. She was itching to work—her fingers practically trembled with the need to do something, only she didn’t have any supplies with her. Just her usual stash of origami paper and she’d already left little animals, flowers and shapes all over the house. She wasn’t in the mood for TV, so maybe she should try reading. There was a whole library of books in Ronan’s office. She would creep downstairs, collect one and return to her bedroom to wait for elusive sleep.
She grabbed the waistband of the baggy sweatpants—she’d hung up her dress for the night—and tiptoed down the staircase. When she reached the foyer, she paused to get her bearings in the dark, turned toward what she assumed was the hallway and ran smack into something big, solid and warm.
She screamed and the big, solid, warm thing grabbed her arms.
“It’s me,” Ronan said in the dark. He released her and clicked on a light. “You okay?”
She blinked in the sudden brightness. Ronan had changed his clothes, or pulled on new ones. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt. They were both barefoot, which felt oddly intimate or weird, depending on one’s perspective.
“Did I wake you?” she asked. “I was trying to be quiet. I wanted to get a book.”
“Can’t sleep?”
“I’m a night owl.”
“Me, too.”
He gave her a slow smile. It was one she hadn’t seen before, or if she had, she hadn’t been paying attention. Or maybe it was different because of the time of night. Regardless, the curve of his mouth was unbelievably sexy and totally caught her off guard. She suddenly felt breathless and young and intensely aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
He pointed down the hall. “Go find a book. I’ll make us hot chocolate and maybe that will help you sleep.”
“I, ah, thank you. Hot chocolate would be nice.” She wanted to say something to make that smile return, but honestly, her mind was totally blank, so she headed down the hall, only to stumble when she stepped onto the rug, which was just so typical.
Ten minutes later, book in hand, she walked into the kitchen. Ronan had a small pot on the stove and two mugs on the island. There was a blue oval tin, trimmed in gold, sitting on the counter.
“What did you pick?” he asked as she settled on one of the stools.
She waved a hardcover thriller. “Nazis, missing gold treasure and genetically modified twins. I’m not sure it can get better than that.”
He chuckled. “You have unexpected reading tastes.”
“Given my choice, I would much rather sink into a steamy romance novel, but you don’t seem to have any of those on your bookshelves.”
“My apologies. I’ll order several first thing in the morning.”
“I doubt that, but thank you for offering.” She pointed to the tin. “First, let me say how impressed I am that you have hot chocolate in your house.”
“I don’t have it often, but every now and then you gotta indulge.” He measured out several tablespoons of the dark powder, then handed her the container. “It’s my favorite. It’s German, from a little shop in what was East Berlin.”
She studied the label and tried not to laugh. “And they ship it to you?”
“Not just me. They’ll ship to anyone.”
“Uh-huh. You can’t just get the stuff from the grocery store like everybody else?”
“It’s an indulgence. Why not have what I really want?”
A philosophy she planned to emulate just as soon as she had an extra nickel or so, she promised herself. For now, her indulgences were things like meat and paying her light bill.
He