A Promise for the Baby

CHAPTER TWO

KARL RETURNED TO the apartment later than he’d planned. Her little convertible had been easy enough to find. It’d been parked exactly where she’d said it would be and the Nevada plates gave away that it was hers. So had the pile of fast food containers on the floor of the passenger side. The blankets and pillows in the backseat had been a surprise. As had the empty gas tank. He’d thrown the trash away when he’d filled up her tank. The blankets and pillows he’d left in the backseat, though he’d left them folded rather than in a heap.

Riding up the elevator with bags of Chinese food and a growing sense of unease, he prepared to face his wife.

Vivian had set the table he never used with the place mats, white cotton napkins and flatware he also never used. Jessica, his ex-wife, had bought them. She hadn’t taken them with her when they’d divorced. Neither had she taken the apartment nor the BMW. All were status symbols he was certain she’d considered more important than their marriage, but not important enough to possess after the divorce was final. An indication, he’d felt when he’d signed the divorce papers, of the low regard in which she had held their marriage.

Time allowed him to be more generous with his reflections. Marriage to him hadn’t given Jessica anything she’d really wanted, so why keep the trappings? Leaving the flatware, china and linens in the apartment with her ex-husband, she was free to start fresh.

He wondered if Vivian had been married before. Did she have an apartment, friends or a book club? Why had she estranged herself from her life to drive halfway across the country in search of an unknown husband? After setting the bags of food on the counter, he looked around the room for her. He could learn the answers to his questions later. Eventually, people always told him the information he wanted.

Just as he determined that the living room was empty, he noticed Vivian leaning against the rail on his terrace, looking north over the skyline of Chicago. With the room lit up against the dark night sky, Karl could only make out contours of her slim body. When he turned off the lights in the living room, her form gained substance. She reached up with her arm, pulling her hair off her neck and over her shoulder, exposing skin to the cold.

The night they’d spent together existed in a dream world, but his memories of the morning after were clear and sharp. He remembered waking up to find her sleeping, her black hair spread across the pillow and her neck exposed. He remembered looking at the knobs of her spine as they trailed from her nape down her back and under the covers. How kissable those knobs had looked. But then he’d gotten out of the bed to make coffee, found the marriage certificate and any thought of kissing her neck was gone.

Stepping outside into the cold pushed away those memories. They were married, she was in Chicago, and kissing the slim line of her neck had never been further away from possible. “Do you have a winter coat?”

She was standing outside in jeans, her sweater and pink argyle socks. “I’m not cold.”

Even in the hazy moonlight he could see goose bumps dotting her neck, but she didn’t shiver or tuck her hands around her body for warmth.

“I bought the apartment for this view,” he said, folding his arms on the railing of the terrace and leaning forward to look out over the city with her.

“What are the names of some of the buildings?”

He pointed out the Aon Center and Smurfit-Stone Building. “If you’re still here in the summer, maybe you can go on an architecture boat tour. Or they have walking tours year-round.”

“You don’t have curtains.”

“No.” Removing the curtains was one of the few changes he’d made when Jessica had moved out.

“Not even in your bedroom?”

“I value openness.”

“You should come west.”

“I’ve been to Vegas.” He slid closer to her on the terrace. Not so close that their arms touched, but close enough to feel her presence. She still smelled like jasmine.

“Not Vegas. Vegas is the flashy west. I mean southern Idaho, where you can see for miles in every direction and there’s nothing but sky and canyons.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“I graduated high school in Jackpot, Nevada. It’s right across the border.”

He’d married a blackjack dealer from a town called Jackpot. The world had an unfortunate sense of humor. “It would’ve been a shorter drive from Vegas to Jackpot.”

She turned her head to the side to look at him, the corners of her mouth turned up in a mysterious smile. “Shorter, yes, but there’s nothing for me in Jackpot. Plus, it would be wrong not to let you know you’re going to be a father.”

“A phone call would’ve sufficed.”

“Would you want to learn that you’re going to be a father with a phone call from a stranger?” She didn’t slip again and admit to not being able to go home, as she had when they’d been talking in the living room.

He didn’t have an answer to that question. If asked this morning, he would’ve said yes. Now, standing next to Vivian on his terrace, looking at the lights sparkle across Grant Park and smelling her jasmine perfume, he wasn’t so sure. Her neck was even more kissable up close.

“Dinner’s getting cold.” He pushed off the railing and walked back into the apartment, not looking to see if she followed.

* * *

KARL WASN’T MUCH for words, Vivian thought, as she picked up the plates after dinner. They were strangers, sure, but they were married strangers who were having a child together. Even after they finalized the divorce, they would still have a child to raise together. The least they could do during the next eight months was to get to know each other.

But based on his terse responses over dinner, he didn’t agree. She heaped the utensils on the stacked plates and took them into the kitchen. When she turned, he had followed with the cups and trash.

“I’ll get those.” She took the glasses from his hand and loaded them into the dishwasher. “Don’t worry about the plates,” she said when he started rinsing them. “Go sit down. I’ll clean up.”

“I’m not letting you stay here so you can clean up after me.” He didn’t stop rinsing the plates, but did let her load them into the dishwasher. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves before turning on the water, and light brown hair dusted his forearms.

She blinked, uncomfortable after catching herself staring at his arms. The plates clinked against one another as she used a little too much force to close the dishwasher.

“I know, but...” She didn’t want to finish that statement.

“But?”

But I’m here because we had a one-night stand and I got pregnant, and we were drunk when we got married and I now need help and you’re giving it to me and I don’t know how long I’ll need the help and I don’t know how long you’ll offer the help and I wish you’d let me clean up after dinner. Her insecurities nearly pushed her down as they flooded over her, but all she said was, “I’m happy to help out.”

He nodded before grabbing a sponge and leaving to wipe down the table. He wasn’t nodding because he knew she was happy to help out. She could feel in his intense hazel eyes that he knew what she had left unsaid. He knew she would act as maid in a poor attempt to make up for invading his life. He knew and he still went to clean the table.

She knew very little about her husband. Their night together had been his last day in Vegas, and their conversation over breakfast had been about the details of a divorce. The next day she’d received a phone call from a lawyer saying he represented Karl Milek and they would pursue a divorce according to Nevada laws. When could she come by his office? Did she have her own lawyer? No? Did she need time to find one?

Like all things in Nevada, getting out of the trappings of your sins was far more complicated than getting into them.

Karl’s efficiency had intrigued her enough that she’d done an internet search on him. After reading newspaper articles, exploring his office’s website and watching snippets of televised news stories, she’d felt as though she had a sense of who this man was. But now she realized every movement he made, everything he said, was carefully constructed to give the illusion of revelation without actually revealing anything. Not that any of that had been important to her at the time.

Then she’d gone home to an apartment emptied of anything of value and a note containing an apology from her father folded on the kitchen counter. When she had checked her bank account she’d found every penny she had carefully saved was gone. Then she had missed her period, and by that point it had been too late for Plan B. She hadn’t even had enough money for an abortion, if she had decided to go that route, anyway. Then she had been fired, and suddenly the most important thing in the world was that her husband seemed to be the kind of person who fixed problems.

Their marriage had been a problem, and he was going to fix that. Now her pregnancy was the problem, and his magical fix had smoothed away the practical, immediate problems of that, too. She didn’t want to have to rely on him, but she couldn’t predict what help she would need after the baby was born—or what he would be willing to provide.

Once the activity of cleaning up after dinner was done, they were left with nothing to do but face each other and feel awkward. At least, Vivian felt awkward. She had the sense that Karl could have a fox eating out his stomach under his shirt and his face wouldn’t reveal any pain. How drunk had he been to indulge himself in a feeling as human as lust? What else had been going on in his life that he’d allowed himself to get that drunk?

“Well—” she clapped her hands together “—I’m beat.” She was no such thing. Wired and punchy would be a more accurate description of how she felt right now. “Do you have a book I could read before I fall asleep?”

“I thought you said you were beat.”

She opened her mouth to respond but he’d already left the kitchen. He returned with Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, as well as Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works and a military history of World War I.

“A selection,” he said, holding them out to her. Not a muscle had changed in his bland expression, but Vivian was pretty sure he was amused with himself for his offerings.

“Thank you.” She’d hoped for a mystery or thriller, but lying in bed with one of these books would help her fall right to sleep. “I’m sure I’ll learn something.”

* * *

KARL WOKE EARLY the next morning to a dark, silent apartment. Not even the ridiculous bird was making any noise. He pulled his boxers on and went into the kitchen to make coffee. When he didn’t hear any noise in his guest bedroom after the coffee grinder whirled, he cracked the door open to check on his guest. She was lying on her side, facing the door, the Keegan book on World War I flopped over her hand. The down comforter covered any rise and fall of her chest and he was about to check her pulse when she snorted and twitched before settling down again. Vivian wasn’t dead, and she hadn’t run off.

It looked like she’d made it halfway through the book before finally falling asleep. Despite its appearance, the Keegan book was unlikely to bore someone to sleep. He eased the door shut and went to get himself a cup of coffee. In the kitchen, he found a travel mug for Vivian to keep her coffee warm and poured her a cup, as well. Last night, before bed, he’d read a little about pregnancy—he was glad he’d had decaf in the freezer—and he remembered how grateful she’d been when he brought her coffee that one time in their Vegas hotel room. But when he went back into the guest bedroom to put the coffee on the nightstand, she still didn’t stir.

When he had awoken in the hotel room a month ago to find himself married, he’d assumed her deathlike sleep had been due to alcohol. She hadn’t seemed hungover—God knew he’d been too bleary-eyed and angry to notice if she had been—but she’d slept until he’d yelled her name and shaken her awake. This morning she seemed on course to do much the same. The bird stirred in its cage behind a cover, but Karl ignored it. Even if the bird was awake, he had no idea what to do with it unless it also wanted a cup of coffee.

It. The bird had a name. Luck, only not luck. Whatever was Chinese for luck. He still didn’t know if the bird was male or female.

And the bird was probably easier than a baby. Not that he hadn’t planned on having children. He had. One day. He’d just expected a little warning and time to read every baby book the Harold Washington Library had on its shelves before hearing the words, “I’m pregnant.”

He turned his attention back to the mother of his child. Though he believed she was telling the truth about who the father was, he’d still insist on a DNA test. He believed her, but he wasn’t stupid. Yet looking at her sleeping, the test felt like a formality. The mother of his child slept on her side and snorted in her sleep.

Karl was surprised how much her sleeping in his guest bed pleased him. He thought he’d been pleased when his divorce lawyer had confirmed she didn’t protest the divorce or the terms. That feeling was nothing like the warmth in his heart at seeing the contrast of her black hair against the primary colors of the duvet cover.

Before he left for the gym and office—both to work and to investigate his wife—Karl checked his laptop to make sure she wouldn’t find anything personal on it, and then he wrote her a note.

* * *

VIVIAN WOKE UP to sunlight, though the west-facing room wasn’t as bright as she’d expected with the lack of curtains. The gray clouds pressed as heavily on Chicago today as they had yesterday. The travel mug on the nightstand next to a note that said “decaf” was full of lukewarm, black coffee, which she drank anyway. At the sound of the mug hitting the table, Xìnyùn started shuffling his feet and whistling, “Deal, deal, deal.” When he finally squeaked out, “Deal, goddammit,” Vivian swung her feet out of bed to face the day and her father’s parrot.

In the kitchen she found a laptop and another note. Karl’s first two suggestions seemed reasonable, the third she was going to ignore completely. After showering and eating a small breakfast of leftover egg roll and cold, hard rice topped with honey, she opened the laptop and prepared to look for a job. A résumé was something she’d always planned to create, once she finally graduated from college. Middle Kingdom had only required a desperately prepared job application when it had opened in grandeur before the big economic downturn.

Her job history was easy enough to write, but what name should she put at the top? There were riverboat casinos around Chicago, but they would call Vegas and learn Vivian Yap was unemployable. Yet, as Vivian Milek, she didn’t have ID.

When Karl got home, Vivian had prepared a draft of her résumé and notes of jobs to apply for—none of them at a casino. She was also ready with her arguments about the third point on his note. “You are not going to buy me a winter coat.”

“Do you have a winter coat?” He unloaded take-out containers of Middle Eastern food on the counter without turning to face her.

“No.”

“Do you have money to buy a winter coat?”

He knew the answer. Did he have to make her admit to it? “No.”

“It is February in Chicago. I can buy you a winter coat or you can sit in my apartment until spring. If you’re lucky, spring will come early this year.” He handed her two plates, as tranquil as if they were talking about the weather and not how increasingly indebted to him she was.

Of course, they were talking about the weather. Next time she married a stranger, she was going to pick one from Florida or San Diego—someplace that didn’t require a winter coat.

She took the plates and flatware to the table, her back stiff with the worry of what accepting a winter coat from a stranger implied. “I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and I don’t like it.”

“Are you a prostitute?”

The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The other thing she was going to keep in mind the next time she married a stranger was to pick a man who didn’t feel the need to ask her if she was a prostitute more than once. “The first time you asked me that question was one too many times.” In case he didn’t get the point, she let the plates drop to the table with a clang.

He waited until he’d filled his plate with hummus and tabbouleh before responding. “Stop implying I’m a john and I’ll stop wondering if you’re a prostitute.”

“I don’t want you to spend money on me.”

“Vivian,” he said, setting his fork on his plate without making a clink like she would have. “A winter coat won’t cost me anything near your health insurance and child support. Take the damn coat.”

“I wasn’t—”

“The only one in the hotel room, I know. We share equal responsibility for everything that happened. But you are the only one without a winter coat. Unless you count the baby.”

She didn’t miss that he’d used the word baby this time. Baby and not fetus. He chose his words carefully enough for it to be deliberate.

“Pregnant women aren’t supposed to allow themselves to get overly hot.” Arguing with him was stupid. She needed a winter coat. She knew she needed a winter coat. She just didn’t want him to buy one for her.

“Then we’ll get you a jacket, as well.”

“It gets cold in Las Vegas, you know.”

“The low there yesterday was forty-four. Today’s high in Chicago will be thirty-two. Do you want to continue arguing about this?”

“No.”

“You’re a poor liar.”

Vivian was too irritated to talk to him for the rest of the meal.

* * *

KARL HAILED A cab to take them to Macy’s. The department store was close enough that he’d normally walk, but the cherry-red fleece Vivian came out of the guest room wearing wouldn’t keep her warm for a mere walk across the street. Fortunately, she didn’t argue about the coat once they were in the store, even when he bought her two—a dressy coat to wear to interviews and a casual coat to wear with jeans. Neither did she argue when he suggested she wear the casual coat over her fleece for the walk back home.

“What’s that?”

Karl’s gaze followed her pointing finger to the looming red building with green owls perched on the corners.

“The library.”

“Can we go in and get some books?”

“Didn’t like the ones I picked out for you last night?”

She rolled her eyes, and he suppressed a smile. “For someone who was, quote, ‘beat’ you read almost half the book.”

“I’ve always enjoyed history.” She stopped at the doors. “I don’t know anything about being pregnant, and I’d like to at least know what questions to ask the doctor.”

After seeing three people he knew at Macy’s, Karl was pleasantly surprised not to run in to anyone he knew while looking through pregnancy books. He hadn’t yet figured out how to inform people that he was married and expecting a child. Or, more accurately, he hadn’t figured out how to deal with the constant questions that would follow “I’m married and expecting a child” and still manage to get work done.

They had checked out several pregnancy books and Vivian was browsing the popular library when Karl heard his name. He turned to find his brother-in-law, Miles, and Miles’s daughter, Sarah, standing there.

“A little light reading?” Miles nodded his head to the book Karl had slipped into the department store bag—apparently too slowly, because Miles had seen what it was.

“Enjoying a trip downtown?” Karl ignored the question and gesture. With Sarah around, Miles wouldn’t press.

“We went to the Art Institute and then lunch,” Sarah explained. She either hadn’t seen the book or didn’t recognize it on sight.

“Go pick out some movies for us to watch tonight,” Miles told his daughter.

Stupid of Karl to think Miles would let this slide.

“You could just tell me to get lost,” Sarah said.

“Get lost.”

“I’m going to pick out something you’ll hate,” Sarah said with a flounce.

Miles waited until she was out of earshot before gesturing to the bag again. “The cover of that book hasn’t changed that much since my ex bought a copy seventeen years ago.”

Karl wasn’t in the habit of lying. When he didn’t want to admit to anything, he just didn’t acknowledge the conversation. “Is Renia working at a wedding today? Mom said her photography business has been in high demand for weddings lately.”

“Don’t think I’m not going to tell your sister about this.”

Just what he needed—his family to know about Vivian and the baby before he was ready to tell them. “The book is for research.”

Miles laughed loudly enough for the staff to stare at him. “You’re a lawyer. Your research books are leather bound and cause seismic events when dropped.” He at least had the forethought to look around before asking, “Who’d you get pregnant?”

“Karl,” Vivian said from behind him, “I’ll need your library card to check out.”

Miles didn’t bother to hide that he was peeking over Karl’s shoulder to find the source of the voice. “I’m definitely telling your sister about this.”

Karl shifted his body to include Vivian in the conversation. He couldn’t dodge this forever. “Vivian, meet Miles. He’s my brother-in-law. His daughter, Sarah, is over there. Miles, meet Vivian, my wife.”

“Nice to meet you, Miles.”

Relieved when Miles was too shocked to even offer his hand in greeting, Karl put his hand on Vivian’s back and led her to the checkout.

CHAPTER THREE

KARL AVOIDED VIVIAN for the rest of the weekend. He made sure there was food in the house for her to eat, left his laptop out for her to use and otherwise stayed away.