Plan B (Best Laid Plans #2) - Jana Aston Page 0,27

I imagine you must be very close, so why haven't you shared this with her?"

"It's not really any of your business."

We play the staring game for another round.

"She worries about me, okay? My sister has always sort of looked out for me even though we're the same age and I don't want her to feel responsible for worrying about this. For this baby. I'm going to tell her, and our parents. Of course I will. I just wanted to get myself organized a bit first."

"Organized." He repeats the word slowly and I'm not sure what he's thinking exactly.

"It's a better plan than pretending to be married."

"To be clear, it would be a real marriage. Legally speaking."

"Are you nuts? Do you fancy yourself some kind of royalty from the Victoria era in which we must marry because I've been compromised with your child? Newsflash, Kyle, it's the twenty-first century and I'm a grown woman. We don't need to do this. I don't even have your phone number and you're talking about some kind of legal marriage of convenience?"

"Yes." He says it calmly, firmly. One simple word. "Yes, I do need it. I need for this child to have my name. You've made yourself clear that you don't need me, but I need you. You're the baby's mother and thus a package deal because I want to be involved. And I want a legal heir. For a legal heir, I need a wife. And a marriage would suit you as well, I believe."

"How is that?"

"You'd seem quite... organized for your family, wouldn't you? If you were married. Settled."

"Does this arranged marriage include sex? Will you want me to lie back, open my legs and think of England whenever you have need?"

He stares at me for a full five seconds before laughing. "I don't believe anything we've done together involved you lying back and thinking about anything but screaming my name."

"Fair enough," I agree with a nonchalant shrug, because I was joking. I think. I mean, I am curious about the arranged marriage sex but I was joking about England.

I stare at the view of Philadelphia while I think. "I have a conference to go to this week."

"I'm not suggesting that I'll keep you here as a captive. Or expecting you to give up anything for me. Other than moving in. I'll need you to move in with me. Here."

"Oh."

"And I'll give you my phone number. I can even add you to my plan if you like."

"I have a phone plan. I told you, I'm not broke. Or helpless. I can take care—"

"Of yourself," he finishes. "I know."

We stare at each other for another long pregnant pause. Pun intended.

"You could add me to your Netflix account though, if you wanted to be helpful. I've been using an ex-boyfriend’s account since like, college. It's probably not appropriate anymore, considering."

"Agreed," Kyle says. And I don't miss the narrowing of his eyes at the mention of my illicit Netflix account. At least I assume that's what annoys him. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't even his Netflix account, it was probably his parents’ account. Either that or Kyle's having some kind of prehistoric reaction to planting his seed, but caring about some loser I dated in college is a real waste of his time.

"You can't even be sure this baby is yours. We don't even know each other. You don't know anything about me."

"We'll get a DNA test. I know a guy."

"You know a guy? Do you hear yourself? How many women have you knocked up that you've got a guy on standby to run paternity tests?"

"Just you. And relax, the guy is my cousin."

"That's not actually reassuring in any way." I drop my head onto the dining room table. "This is quite possibly the worst plan ever created. Ever, ever. And I'm the queen of making bad plans."

"Have a little faith, Daisy. I'm an expert at making good plans."

I grunt at the table.

"We have nothing in common," I protest.

"We have one great big thing in common, and we're going to have it in common for the rest of our lives."

Well, he has a point.

"We have chemistry. You know that we do."

I'm aware. It's how the thing we have in common came to be.

"Try to remember when you liked me," he adds.

"I don't dislike you now," I tell the table, then raise my head to glare at him a little. "But that doesn't mean that I like you, either. Just so you know."

"That's fine," he agrees,