Dreams of Her Own Page 6

  She brought the bowl over, set it in front of him, and walked back to the stove to repeat the process. “I love to cook, but ever since I got pregnant I’ve been sick and the smell of food cooking . . . Well, let’s just say it wasn’t very appetizing.”

  After filling another bowl, she stepped into the hallway, “Millie! Come eat.” Setting the bowl on the table across from Ian, she circled back to the stove once more. For someone so pregnant, she moved with efficiency.

  “Why are you—” Millie stood at the kitchen threshold, mouth slightly agape. Today she was swathed in a thick brown sweater, the too-long sleeves hanging over her hands, her fingertips barely peeking out the end, and some nondescript brown pants.

  Come to think of it, it was the first time he’d seen her in anything besides a baggy dress, brown stockings, and brown orthopedic shoes. His gaze drifted lower. Check that, she still wore the orthopedic shoes.

  “Come eat while it’s hot,” Darcy reminded her.

  She closed her mouth and took a step forward, her brow furrowed in confusion as she stared at the empty chair across from him. He watched as several emotions crossed her face, indecision, insecurity, then resolve, before she finally decided to take a seat.

  Ian shoveled a spoonful of noodles into his mouth, closed his eyes, and released a low hum of pleasure.

  “Good, huh?” Darcy asked with a grin.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “I could give you the recipe.”

  At Ian’s skeptical expression, she continued, “It’s so easy even Josh can make it. And believe me, if Josh can make it, anyone can.” She slurped up a spoonful of noodles herself.

  He liked Darcy. Her cheerful energy always left him feeling a little brighter. She was going to make a great mom.

  Ian glanced at Millie, who’d yet to take a bite of her meal and looked as if she’d entered a snake pit.

  Millie watched Ian. When he had released that hum, she’d felt it all the way down to her toes, which had curled up in her shoes.

  Notwithstanding her factoid outburst in front of Darcy and Gloria yesterday, she had a sudden compulsion to check out the size of Ian’s feet. Letting her napkin slip to the floor, she leaned over to pick it up and surreptitiously inspected Ian’s work-boot-clad feet.

  “Millie? Why aren’t you eating? Aren’t you hungry?” Darcy asked.

  Millie sat up, replacing her napkin in her lap and casting a glance at Ian.

  His eyes sparkled as he mouthed, “Size thirteen.”

  Tristan and Isolde! He’d overheard her conversation with Gloria and Darcy? Heat flooded her face, and with shaking hands, she picked up her glass of water and took a gulp. She longed to hold the cool glass to her hot face.

  “Eat up, Millie, before it gets cold,” Darcy cajoled again.

  Obediently picking up her spoon, she studiously avoided looking across the table at her male lunch companion and took her first bite. It was delicious. Especially since she’d forgotten to eat breakfast that morning. She’d been so engrossed in Darcy’s latest manuscript, which had included a particularly instructive sex scene, that the next thing she knew Darcy was calling her to lunch.

  A wave of chagrin passed over her. She needed to pay more attention to Darcy. She shouldn’t have let her cook this lunch. Although she did appear to be feeling better, she thought, eyeing her boss. She had color in her cheeks and a good appetite if the way she was devouring the soup was any indication.

  Cutting her gaze back to Ian, she observed his disheveled hair, the day’s stubble covering his lean jaw, his gray eyes, and his mouth. Who would have thought a man’s mouth could be so . . . sensual. Ian glanced up, caught her staring, and the corner of that sensual mouth tilted up ever-so-slightly.

  Prying her eyes off him, she turned to Darcy, “You’re feeling better,” she blurted out.

  “Yes. I’m finally feeling human again,” Darcy said, wiping her lips with her napkin.

  “Good. Don’t forget your interview this afternoon.”

  “I won’t. My publicist scored an interview for me in Wine Enthusiast Magazine, since my latest series is set in Sonoma and Napa Valleys around winemaking,” she explained to Ian with a gleeful shrug.

  Ian nodded, picking up his glass of water and draining it in one gulp.

  Millie noticed how his strong hand grasped the glass, and how his Adam’s apple moved with every swallow. Fascinated, she had this absurd desire to put her mouth there. Against his warm, unshaven skin . . . Giving herself a mental shake, she passed off her uncharacteristic preoccupation to reading too much about sex, between The Joy of Sex and Darcy’s scenes. Reciting the Constitution’s preamble to herself helped.

  Taking a deep breath to clear her mind of these images, she inhaled a noodle. Or a piece of meat. Something. It didn’t budge when she attempted to swallow. Gasping for breath, she reached for her water glass, but in her haste, knocked it over. Then the asphyxiation began in earnest. Spots appeared in her vision, just before it began to tunnel. Death by soup. Not the way she wanted to go.

  “Millie? You okay? Did it go down the wrong pipe?” Darcy rose with alarm, but Ian was faster. He hauled Millie out of her chair and performed the Heimlich maneuver on her. One squeeze, and out popped a chunk of ground beef, landing right back in her bowl of soup.

  Air filled her lungs as mortification filled her soul. She coughed again, her esophagus spasming, and tears ran down her face.

  Ian still held her against his lean, hard body. “Better?” His warm breath tickled her ear, his arms two steel bands around her. She longed to stay, yet longed to flee.

  She nodded. All she was capable of doing at the moment, as her esophagus continued to spasm.

  He finally released her, gently setting her feet back on the floor, then pulled her chair out for her. She shook her head. “Thank you.” Her voice came out in a raspy whisper. “Please excuse me.”

  Then she fled.

  Hiding in the powder bath, Millie splashed cold water on her face. Why? Why did these things have to happen to her? Wasn’t it enough that she wasn’t pretty? That she’d never had a boyfriend? Or sex? Did she also have to be a total loser? First the shoe-size factoid, now this.

  “Millie, you okay?” Darcy’s voice came through the door. “Honey, let me in.”

  Millie unlocked the door then collapsed onto the toilet seat, while Darcy squeezed past the door to face her.

  “There’s not enough room in here for both of us,” Millie said.

  Darcy snorted. “Gee, thanks.”

  Propping her arm on the sink, Millie buried her face in it, tears threatening.

  Darcy rubbed her back. “Aww, honey.”

  Millie sniffled.

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It could happen to anyone.”

  Yeah, but why did it have to be me? And why in front of him? “Has it ever happened to you?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  Of course not.

  “But, do you remember that blind date I had with, oh, what was his name? Sean? Sven? Anyway, he choked on a piece of steak the size of Texas and the waiter had to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on him. The piece of steak popped out like a cork out of a champagne bottle and landed in another diner’s wineglass, setting off a domino effect.”

  Darcy shook her head. “The force of the expectorated meat knocked the glass of red wine over, the diner jumped from her chair, tipping it over, hitting another diner in the back causing him to lunge forward so that he ended up with his face in the mash potatoes.” Darcy shook her head. “Used it in Her Last First Date.”

  “And did you ever go out with him again?”

  “No.”

  “And this is supposed to make me feel better, how?” Millie asked, glancing up at Darcy.

  “But that’s
not why I didn’t go out with him again.” At Millie’s raised eyebrows, Darcy continued with a sigh, “I didn’t go out with him again because he smelled like lutefisk.”

  Chapter 8

  Unsure what to do, Ian began cleaning off the table, mopping up the spilled water with paper towels he’d found on the kitchen counter.

  He hoped Millie was okay. Choking was scary business. Curtis had choked on a hamburger once on the job. Scared the life out of Ian who’d thought he was having a heart attack. Luckily one of the guys knew the Heimlich maneuver and was able to save him. After that, Ian had learned it in case he ever needed it. This was the first time.

  Funny thing, after the initial adrenalin rush, he’d again noticed how nicely Millie’s petite body fit against his. Beneath those oversized clothes lurked a dainty, but curvy frame. He’d also noticed how she smelled. Nothing floral or musky. Nothing perfumey. Just fresh. Clean.

  Darcy toddled back into the kitchen. “Oh, Ian. I can’t thank you enough for saving Millie!” She laid her delicate hand on his forearm. Unlike Millie, Darcy never seemed intimidated by him.

  “Is she all right?”

  “She will be. She’s just . . . composing herself.” She turned to pick up the empty bowls, then eyed the wet paper towels in his hands. “And thanks for cleaning up the water.”

  “Sure.”

  She set the bowls on the counter. “Hey!” Darcy said to her stomach, making Ian jump. “Watch it, Peanut.” Then the next thing Ian knew Darcy had his hand in a death grip and was dragging it toward her soccer ball-sized belly. For a little thing, she sure was strong. “He’s frisky today.” She grinned up at Ian as she held his hand in place.

  “Uh . . .” Can you say awkward? “Oh!” Then Ian felt it. A flutter of movement. “Wow.” He gazed into Darcy’s shining eyes and thought that movement was the most incredible thing he’d ever felt.

  “Pretty amazing, huh?”

  “Yeah. Yeah it is.” And it was. After another moment waiting with no more activity, he withdrew his hand. “I’ll, uh, just go get the new drill bit and be back.”

  “Stay warm,” Darcy called after him.

  His heart would stay warm thinking about the feel of the little life inside Darcy’s belly. His body would stay warm thinking about Millie’s body pressed against him.

  Later that evening, still smarting from the Heimlich debacle, Millie soothed her wounded pride with a cup of tea and a good book. Curling up on her loveseat, she promised herself just one chapter, then she’d pick up her own manuscript and get to work. But first, a little inspiration from Jude Devereaux and A Knight in Shining Armor.

  In middle school, Millie had resorted to books for companionship, reading everything in her parent’s personal library. From Tolstoy to Kant, Darwin to Pythagoras, and Edith Wharton to Dante. She’d picked up her first romance novel when she was sixteen—the very book she held in her hands—at the Forest Hills Public Library where it had been lying abandoned on a table. And she’d fallen in love. With beautiful heroines and handsome heroes. With happily-ever-afters and the idea that true love could conquer all. Even if she couldn’t find love for herself, she could find it in the pages of the books she read.

  She’d earned a bachelor’s degree in literature with a focus on the Middle Ages from Sarah Lawrence College. But when she’d seen the job listing for a personal assistant to a best-selling romance author, she’d jumped at it, and never looked back.

  A half hour and one chapter later, Millie sighed and set aside her dog-eared copy of the novel.

  Booting up the second-hand laptop she’d found on eBay, her one concession to technology, she opened up the file for her latest chapter. She might be a Luddite, but she had no desire to draft her manuscript as Jane Austen had—in long hand.

  She’d taken a booklet she’d discovered in the library about courtship in Regency England and used each chapter as the basis for her own chapters. While she might be mousey and shy, her heroine, Lady Georgina Spencer, was not, and she broke every rule in the book. Which is how she ends up falling for a rake of the first order.

  Last she’d left her heroine, she’d been in a drawing room alone with her rake. First mistake. Then, they’d been caught by society’s most notorious gossip. Second mistake.

  She’d set a word count goal of eighty-five thousand words, and was well on her way, but for the dreaded sex scenes. Cursing her inexperience, she focused on getting her heroine in as much trouble as possible sans sex.

  Her mind drifted to Ian and the way his lean hard body felt against hers when he’d held her. That was after the all-too-humiliating chunk of meat popped out of her throat and landed in her bowl of soup.

  At least it had been her bowl of soup, and not his. Small favors, and all that.

  Closing her eyes, she recalled Ian’s sinew and muscle, his breath in her ear, the tight band of his arms around her rib cage. The clean, fresh smell of him. Yes, she could write that authentically enough. But without the choking part.

  She didn’t want to think about what it would be like when she saw Ian again. Would he bring it up? Or would he pretend it never happened? She hoped for the latter.

  That was why sex was so far out of her league. Who wanted to have sex with a woman who couldn’t even swallow her food? Who couldn’t walk across a street without almost getting run over? Who was an accident looking for a place to happen? No one, that’s who.

  That’s why her heroine was beautiful, and graceful, if not a little strong-willed. Hardheaded, even.

  Putting the day’s lunch disaster behind her, she sought to create a disaster for her un-Millie-like heroine instead.

  The next day, Millie poured a hot bowl of leftover soup for Darcy and placed it on a serving tray next to hers, while Darcy set the table. “I hope I don’t keep eating like this after Peanut is born. I’ll be bigger than Grand Central if I do.”

  “You should gain one to five pounds in your first trimester and about one pound a week after that.”

  “How’d you know that?” Darcy asked.

  Millie shrugged. “I read it somewhere.” She’d actually done some research, concerned over Darcy’s continued morning sickness.

  “Watch out for that—”

  Before Darcy got her sentence out, Millie’s foot slipped on something wet and soft. The next thing she knew, the tray tipped backward, spilling the hot soup down the front of her. Gasping as the hot liquid soaked into her sweater and hit her skin, she dropped the tray to the counter with a clatter and grabbed her sweater to pull it away from her body, burning her hands in the process.

  “Oh!” Darcy grabbed the hem of the sweater and jerked it over Millie’s head and off, dropping it onto the floor, leaving Millie standing in nothing but her bra and her noodle-splattered skirt.

  “Are you okay?” Darcy asked. “Did you get burned?”

  Millie just shook her head, peering down at the red splotches on her stomach. “No. I’m okay.”

  Darcy plucked a towel off the rack and ran it under cool water and began blotting Millie’s stomach, making her squeal.

  Just then, Ian rounded the corner and barreled into the kitchen. “Dar—”

  Millie yelped, turning her back on him while trying to cover herself, mortified that he should see her like that.

  “Sorry. What happened?”

  She glanced over her shoulder to see he had turned his back, then she reached around and snatched the wet kitchen towel out of Darcy’s hands and held it up in front of her chest. Why she didn’t know, since she had her back to Ian.

  “Millie spilled a bowl of hot soup,” Darcy volunteered. “I yanked her sweater off.”

  Great. First, he’d snatched her from the jaws of death on the street, then she’d nearly choked to death in front of him. Now this. What other lame, embarrassing things could Ian w
itness? She shuddered to think.

  That’s it. She and soup would never cross paths again.

  “Quick thinking.” Ian nodded. “Anything I can do?”

  “No!” Millie exclaimed.

  “No,” Darcy added more calmly. “Thank you.” Taking an apron out of a drawer, she threw it around Millie’s shoulders. “Let’s get you out of the rest of your clothes and into something clean and dry.”

  Millie couldn’t help but think she’d just heard Darcy’s mothering voice. At least what she imagined a mothering voice sounded like, since she’d never heard it from her own mother.

  On the way out of the kitchen, Millie sneaked another look over her shoulder. Ian still had his back to her, hands shoved into his jeans pockets.

  Upstairs in her bedroom, Darcy took out a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans and a soft turtleneck sweater in navy blue. “Here. You can wear these.” She stepped back as if assessing Millie’s size and nodded. “They should fit,” she said, laying the clothes on the bed.

  “Thanks,” Millie muttered, still embarrassed over her display.

  “Aw.” Darcy gave her a brief hug. “Could’ve happened to anyone.”

  “Yeah. And did it ever happen to you?”

  “Well, no. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t.”

  Millie grimaced.

  “I’ll just leave you to change,” Darcy said as she headed for the door. “If you want, you can throw your clothes in the wash.”

  “Can you tell me when Ian leaves? I think I’ll just stay here until he does.” Millie eyed the clothes on the bed, certain they were too small.

  “He won’t say anything. For all his rough appearance, he’s quite the gentleman.” Darcy sighed. “He turned his back immediately.”