have some kind of clarity over their situation and how they planned to move forward.
And all over dinner at some new restaurant next county over.
Wear whatever you want.
Easy for him to say, she thought with a frown. Men could throw on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and they looked good to go for pretty much any occasion. But women? God, they had to decide between a dress, or tights or jeans. Dressy or casual. Boots or heels, with the right purse to match.
She frowned and shook her head. She was making too much of this. Ethan literally wouldn’t care if she wore pajamas to dinner, because he’d never been the guy to pay attention to that kind of stuff. On prom night, he’d shown up without a date, dressed in pair of neon-pink board shorts, straw hat, flip-flops, and the loudest Hawaiian button-up she’d ever seen. All because Carly Sandivol had kept their limo waiting, and after thirty minutes, he’d had enough. He’d sent her and Rick on their way, ditched Carly, and gone home to change into something he decided was way more comfortable than a tuxedo. She was pretty sure every single guy at prom was low-key jealous. She smiled at the thought.
Though it faded as her trip down memory lane took a turn.
Rick was not that kind of man. He cared about those things, about appearances and impressions. How many times had he sent her back to the room to change because her top was too revealing and he didn’t want the guys staring at her breasts? Or he preferred a dress over jeans even though she preferred the opposite?
With a sigh, she reached for a pale pink sweater that still had tags attached to it. She’d bought it the previous winter and had never worn it. Glancing toward the mirror on the wall beside the closet, Emily held the sweater up to her face, liking the color next to her skin. It made her cheeks seem rosier, her skin softer. She’d left her hair long, and it was curlier than normal because she hadn’t blown it out straight. Her makeup was subtle, though she’d taken the time to add smoky shadow to her eyes along with liner, and soft pink gloss to her lips.
I don’t get out much, she thought, a gentle smile crossing her face as she cranked her head for a better look, and she turned to the side. Her breasts were tender, fuller than they’d been only a week before, and maybe her eyes were lying, but it seemed as if her stomach was rounder. She tossed the sweater on the bed and turned a bit more, hands on her belly. Her fingers traced the softness there, below her belly button and then up her abdomen to her breasts.
It was barely there, but she could see a difference.
I want this baby.
The thought was like a secret that exploded in her mind and was accompanied by a wall of heat and emotion. In that moment, with all the uncertainty in her life and the upheaval waiting ahead, this one thing she was sure of. As straight and true as an arrow shot down from heaven.
This baby was the miracle she hadn’t known she’d needed. And she’d created this miracle with her best and oldest friend.
An ache so intense it brought tears to her eyes bloomed in her chest, and she bit her lip in an effort to stem them. God, when were the hormones going to settle?
“We’re going to be okay, little one,” she whispered softly, eyes on her stomach.
“Emily.”
Startled, she turned to find Ethan standing just inside the door to her bedroom.
Her first thought was damn, he looks good.
Her second was I’m half naked.
His dark eyes glittered, their depths alive with something she couldn’t name. And as her gaze collided with his, the air crackled with the kind of electricity that made the hair on her forearms stand on end and the air catch in her lungs.
His hair was still damp from the shower, the long ends curling over his ears and neck, a dark shadow of stubble on his square jaw. Dressed casually in a black leather jacket over an oat-colored Henley and faded jeans, his tall frame and dark good looks shouted danger, and that didn’t help with all that air stuck in her lungs.
Ethan Caldwell had always been a devastatingly attractive and charismatic man, but tonight, as his eyes moved from hers down her half-naked body to rest