Her stomach twisted harder as she realized what she needed to do. Liam would have to step up and take care of Grace.

  She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and went to find Liam. Luckily, he was still home — he was in the kitchen grabbing a bagel. Amelia’s stomach turned at the sight of the food, but she took a deep, calming breath.

  “Liam.”

  He turned, his eyes widening and his mouth opening slightly. He seemed beyond surprised that Amelia was speaking to him — and she couldn’t blame him. She was surprised herself.

  “Amelia. Are you okay? You look a little pale.”

  “Thanks.” The word came out more sarcastic than Amelia had intended, and she forced herself to calm down. “Look, I think I have the stomach flu or something. I need you to take care of Grace today.” She held up a hand before Liam could say anything in reply. “This isn’t about our conversation a couple of weeks ago — or about us at all. I just… I need your help.”

  She hated admitting that, but it was true. Amelia needed Liam’s help today.

  “Of course.” Liam nodded. “Go back to bed. I’ll get Grace up and bring you some mint tea or something.”

  Amelia was touched that Liam was thinking of her, but she shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Please just look after Grace.”

  Then she stumbled back to bed, where she promptly fell asleep.

  When Amelia woke, a now-cool mug of mint tea was sitting on her bedside table, along with a sleeve of plain crackers. Amelia wished that the sight didn’t make her feeling like crying all over again.

  CHAPTER 20

  LIAM

  Liam reopened the book about a caterpillar in search of food for what felt like the hundredth time. Grace was snuggled up beneath his arm, giggling and wiggling as Liam read her the story.

  “Again, again!” she shouted whenever he reached the end.

  A full day of taking care of Grace alone, while very nice, gave Liam a newfound respect for what Amelia had done during the last month. Grace was a delight, but she was also easily distracted and in need of constant entertainment.

  All the while, as he played with his daughter and made her lunch, part of Liam’s thoughts were with Amelia. He felt terrible that he was sick — and even worse for how they’d left things. How he’d left things.

  Last week, when they’d fought, Liam knew he’d gone too far. His work was important, and Amelia needed to recognize that, but he hadn’t needed to be quite so forceful. Since then, he had avoided Amelia as best as he could. He knew that his daughter needed Amelia, and he knew that the best thing he could do for Amelia was to give her space. There was no way she wanted him around — and Liam didn’t want to give her any false impressions.

  Now that she wasn’t feeling well, though, he had no choice but to be home with her. Plus, if they were going to be sharing space, they might as well try to be friends.

  Friends. The word felt wrong, even in Liam’s own mind. When he thought of Amelia, he couldn’t imagine her as just a friend. She was so much more than that, even though friendship was all he could offer her. The week they’d spent together had made it clear that if Liam opened his heart, he’d be giving up everything else — his work, his legacy, the financial security he’d spent years creating. He couldn’t do that. And being with Amelia only halfway wouldn’t be fair to her.

  As if his thoughts had summoned her, Amelia came into the living room. She was wearing pajamas and a messy bun, and her face was still pale. Liam felt a stab of worry. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten sick.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She shrugged and sank onto the sofa across from Liam and Grace. “I’m okay. Thank you.”

  There was a long pause. Liam wanted to cross the room and take Amelia into his arms. He wanted to give her tea and tuck her under a warm blanket and stroke her forehead to see if she had a fever. He cared about her with an intensity that he’d never experienced before — not even during the most important parts of his work.

  Liam shut that down. Amelia wasn’t his to care for. They had a business relationship, and they were friends, but that was all.

  “Are you hungry?” Liam asked. Amelia turned slightly green.

  “I ate some of the crackers you left. Thank you. But I think I won’t have anything else. I’ll go back to bed soon; I just wanted to check on you and Grace.”

  “We’re doing fine.” Liam tried not to bristle at Amelia’s comment. She probably wasn’t trying to imply that he couldn’t take care of his daughter for one day. Although perhaps she was — that was more or less what she’d said a couple of weeks ago.

  Another wave of guilt washed over Liam. Perhaps that wasn’t what Amelia had been saying. Yet every word she’d spoken during their fight had felt like a jagged barb through Liam’s life and values.

  “Okay. I’ll go back to bed.” Amelia got up, brushed imaginary dust off her pajama pants, and hurried out of the room.

  “Meel,” Grace said as Amelia left. Her tone was sad.

  “It’s okay,” Liam said. “She’ll be back soon.”

  There was that guilt again. If Grace had been this sad — or even sadder — about Liam being gone, he would have been upset with himself for leaving too. The thought of Amelia comforting his tearful daughter because he’d left for work instead of going to the zoo was painful.

  It didn’t change anything, though.

  The best way forward, the only way forward, was for him to earn enough to support Grace financially without getting more involved on a personal level with either his daughter or his fake wife. Keeping his distance was easier said than done, but it was necessary.

  As evening rolled around, Liam realized that his chef wasn’t coming today and that Amelia definitely wouldn’t be up for cooking. He could handle breakfast, but dinner was a bit more complicated.

  Liam went into the kitchen, Grace following him like a happy puppy (the opposite of thirty minutes earlier when she’d cried bitterly because Liam wouldn’t let her eat toilet paper from the roll).

  “What should we make?” he asked.

  “Pizza!” Grace did a happy wiggle. “Meel make pizza.”

  “I’m sure she does. But we might have to settle for something a little simpler. Do you like spaghetti?”

  “Pasghetti,” Grace said happily. “Meel make pasghetti.”

  Liam did his best not to sigh. It made sense that Grace wanted to talk about Amelia a lot — she loved her, after all. Yet each time the child brought Amelia up, it only reminded him of how difficult it was to keep his distance.

  “Meel does make spaghetti,” he agreed. “But today, Daddy’s making the spaghetti.”

  “Daddy make pasghetti?” Grace’s face furrowed into a confused frown, and Liam had to stifle a laugh. She had no confidence in his cooking abilities — which was fair, since Liam didn’t either.

  Twenty minutes later, Amelia emerged from her bedroom.

  “I smelled food,” she said as she stepped into the kitchen.

  “Daddy make pasghetti,” Grace announced proudly.

  “It looks great.” Amelia turned her radiant smile towards Liam, but her expression faded as she seemed to remember that they no longer had the kind of relationship in which they shared stolen glances.

  “We’ll see,” Liam said. “Please, have a seat, if you feel up to trying to eat.”

  Amelia went to the kitchen table where she helped Grace into her high chair before sitting down. Liam carried a bowl of spaghetti with red sauce (spaghetti from a box and sauce from a jar, of course) and set it in front of Amelia and Grace. Amelia, he knew, would probably have made a side dish or two — salad or garlic bread or something like that.

  Amelia didn’t seem to mind that there weren’t any side dishes. She just smiled and held up her plate. “It looks great.”

  Liam dished up food for Amelia, then for Grace, and finally for himself. They all took bites at the same time. Amelia was the first to react. She jumped to her feet, one hand clasped over her mouth, and ran to the bathroom. Grace spat out the mouthful she’d taken and made a betrayed face. For his part, Liam managed to chew and swallow his bite of spaghetti, though it wasn’t easy. The spaghetti was crunchy in places and so soft as to be soggy in others. The sauce was strangely sweet and somehow very watery.

  “Ew,” Grace said. She stuck out her tongue.

  “Sorry, princess.” Liam made an apologetic face. “I’ll order something.”

  Yet his gaze was pulled to the hallway, where Amelia had disappeared with her hand over her mouth. She was clearly going to be sick. She’d had some kind of stomach bug anyway, but Liam’s terrible meal must have pushed things over the edge.

  It was yet another piece of evidence that Liam wasn’t a family man. Even the simplest task, making an edible dinner, had proven impossible for him. He should stick to what he knew, which was business, and not get mixed up in Grace and Amelia’s lives any more than he had to.

  “Pizza?” Grace asked hopefully as she shoved the plate of congealing spaghetti away.

  “Of course, princess.” Liam cleared the table, threw away the spaghetti, and loaded the dishwater. Then he placed an order from his favorite local pizza place — quattro stagioni for himself, a cheese pizza for Grace, and a salad for Amelia, just in case she felt brave enough to try to eat again later.

  Over dinner, take two, Liam played a children’s movie about bears that sang and danced for Grace, who ate her pizza while bobbing her head happily. Liam wasn’t so easily distracted. He kept hoping that Amelia might appear. Every shadow drew his gaze to the door. He wanted to apologize for the terrible spaghetti incident. He wanted to try to be friends.

  Amelia never came back out of her room, though. Liam handled bedtime alone, then made a cup of mint tea and knocked on Amelia’s door. She answered, still pale, but managed a smile for Liam.

  “I made you tea. Sorry about the spaghetti.”

  “Thanks for the tea. And don’t worry about the spaghetti. Everyone has a cooking disaster story or two.”

  Liam hesitated. “Do you want to watch a movie or something? It might help distract from your nausea.”

  Amelia sucked in a breath, then let it out in a puff.

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” she said finally. “But thank you for the invitation.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Liam hesitated a moment longer, wanting to say something to break this terrible tension between them, but knowing there was nothing he could say. “Good night, Amelia.”

  “Good night.” She closed the door gently, and Liam went to his own bed, alone, wishing that things were different. He still cared about Amelia, but he couldn’t be with her. It seemed that she understood that now, which was a good thing.

  So why didn’t it feel like a good thing at all? Why did Liam want nothing more than to run down the hall and tell her he’d made a terrible mistake and that he loved her, stomach flu and all?

  CHAPTER 21

  AMELIA

  Amelia sank onto her bed and felt tears spring to her eyes. Again.

  She had always prided herself on being levelheaded. At work and in her personal life, she’d always considered things carefully and made logical decisions.

  Or at least, she’d tried to.

  This last week, though, Amelia had been the opposite of her usual calm self. She’d found herself crying in the bathroom more than once while Grace was napping. She’d even reached out to Katie in tears and spilled part of the story — namely how she had fallen head over heels for Liam. Katie had been supportive, though she’d also pointed out that she’d warned Amelia of exactly this issue.

  Now, again, Amelia was in tears. Probably part of it was because of her stomach flu, which always made her feel very low. Not being able to eat and being nauseated took a toll on her.

  But it was more than that, too, and she knew it. Having Liam home with her was a comfort, since he could take care of Grace while Amelia rested. It was a good sign that he was still going to be in his daughter’s life, too. Liam’s closeness also reopened Amelia’s wounds, though, which had just been starting to heal. How was she supposed to move on from Liam when he was right down the hall, finger-painting with Grace?

  Amelia flopped back onto the bed and wiped her eyes. She knew there was no use crying over Liam. It wouldn’t change anything. Yet the tears continued to spill.

  Maybe she was due to get her period. She was always a little extra sensitive right before she got it. She counted back on her fingers to her last period. It had been one, two, three, four… Amelia’s eyes widened… five, six weeks ago.

  Amelia sat bolt upright with the urgency of someone who’d forgotten about a very important exam. She was two weeks late. She’d been nauseated. She was crying a lot and was more tired than usual. Her mouth fell open. Was it possible that the night she’d spent with Liam had resulted in… pregnancy?

  Don’t get ahead of yourself. She took a calming breath. Her period wasn’t exactly regular, and she had plenty of reason to be a little sad after what had happened with Liam. She might not be pregnant.

  Yet, if she was… Amelia skimmed a hand over her flat stomach. She loved children and had always wanted to be a mother. This wasn’t exactly the circumstance in which she’d imagined getting pregnant, but maybe it wouldn’t be all bad.

  Amelia shook her head. She was getting ahead of herself again. She didn’t even know if she was actually pregnant.

  She got up, grabbed a sweater against the evening chill, and tiptoed down the hall. Liam’s bedroom door was closed, as was his office door, and there was no sign of him anywhere in the house. Amelia breathed a sigh of relief when she made it to the elevator without seeing him. She didn’t want to talk to Liam right now, not while her heart was racing and her thoughts were focused on only one thing.

  Amelia rode the elevator down to the lobby and exited onto the streets of San Francisco, which were still bustling at nine p.m. Thank goodness Liam lived right in the middle of downtown. Amelia walked a couple blocks to the nearest convenience store, where she made a beeline for the pregnancy tests. Then, feeling self-conscious about buying a pregnancy test from a convenience store at night, she grabbed a few random items before making her way to the cashier.

  As Amelia unloaded her purchases onto the conveyor belt, she wished she’d made different choices. Along with the pregnancy test, her random selections included a pair of socks for people with diabetes, a can of cat food, bright pink hair dye, and a package of Coca-Cola-flavored potato chips — whatever those were. The cashier looked from Amelia to her shopping and back.

  “Did you find everything okay?” she asked, rather uncertainly.

  Amelia nodded. “Yes. Thanks.”

  “Okay. That’ll be twenty-eight fifty.”

  Amelia scanned her card, gathered her shopping into a brown paper bag, and hurried back to Liam’s apartment. She rode the elevator back up in tense silence, then tiptoed quietly through the penthouse once again to her bedroom. Not for the first time, she sent out unspoken thanks that she had her own private bathroom.

  She dropped the socks, cat food, hair dye, and chips onto the bed and went into the bathroom. She was so nervous that she had trouble figuring out the test. Maybe I should have bought Coca-Cola, not Coca-Cola-flavored potato chips. Amelia managed a weak smile at herself in the mirror at her lame joke.

  Finally, everything was ready. She set a timer on her phone for two minutes and turned the test so that she couldn’t see it. Then she waited.

  It was the longest two minutes of Amelia’s life. She swung from nerves to a strange kind of hope and back, her breath too fast, until the timer finally beeped.

  Her hand shaking slightly, Amelia flipped the test over — and there, clear as day, was a little blue plus sign. She was pregnant.

  Amelia knew she should be upset. After all, this couldn’t come at a worse possible time or in a worse possible situation. She was carrying the baby of a man who clearly didn’t have feelings for her and who was, for all intents and purposes, her employer. Once she left this job, which she would have to now that she was pregnant, she would be unemployed and alone.

  Yet, strangely, for a reason that Amelia couldn’t quite explain, she wasn’t upset. In fact, she was happy. She was excited. All she could think about was the child she would have: a little son or daughter. A bouncing, beautiful baby with Liam’s blue eyes who would grow into a spunky, spirited, smart toddler like Grace.

  Finally at peace, Amelia fell asleep that night with a smile on her face and hope in her heart.

  The next morning, though, reality came crashing back in with a knock on her door. Amelia dragged herself out of bed to answer and saw Liam standing there with a tray of toast and a cup of tea.

  “Good morning,” he said, holding out the tray. “I made you something to eat, in case you’re hungry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How’s the stomach flu?”

  “The stomach flu?” Amelia blinked. “Oh, right. I feel better.”

  The truth was that she didn’t feel much better, but knowing that the nausea was morning sickness changed her outlook on it. She knew from her sisters that morning sickness was best fought by eating small amounts of bland food frequently, so she was ready to try some toast.

  “That’s great. Try to eat something. I’m going to feed Grace breakfast and then we’ll go to the park. If you feel better, you’re welcome to come.”

  “Thanks.” Amelia accepted the tray and let Liam close the door behind him. Then she sat on the bed and nibbled on a piece of dry toast as her mind raced. Of course, she would have to tell Liam. There was no chance her pregnancy would change things between them — he had shown clearly where his loyalties lay, and it wasn’t with family. Even so, he deserved to know that he was going to be a father a second time over.