No Ring Required. Laura Wright

      “I didn’t even know you were interested in a twosome.”

      Gritting her teeth, Mary stared at him. “Ditto.”

      He took a moment to process her meaning. “If you think I don’t want to go to bed with you again, you’re wrong.”

      “Who the hell could tell?”

      “What does that mean?”

      “You hardly looked at me tonight,” she said with a scowl. “Then the cover of Sluts-R-Us magazine walks in and your eyes pop out of—”

      “I see you, Mary,” he interrupted hotly. “I remember every damn detail.”

      “But?”

      “Weren’t you the one who said that what happened those nights at the lake would never happen again?”

      She hated when the truth was tossed in her face. “Yes.” She wrenched open her car door.

      “And it’s complicated, isn’t it?” he continued. “What we did? What we made? Who I am.”

      “Who you are? I can’t figure it out.”

      “The bastard who blackmailed you…basically.”

      His words shocked her. The easy admission of something so base and vile. She got in her car and slammed the door. “So, what? You feel guilty?”

      “No.”

      “Of course not. You see nothing wrong with what you did.”

      “I don’t feel guilty, that’s true. But I do feel…” He cursed. “Conflicted. Protective.” He shrugged, as if the truth surprised the hell out of him. “Isn’t that the damnedest thing?”

      “Protective? Of whom?”

      “You.”

      “You’re protecting me from you?”

      “Maybe. I don’t know.”

      “Well, stop it,” she said caustically, gunning her engine. “Sex doesn’t have to be any more emotionally significant than a really charged football game.”

      The words exploded into the air like fireworks, but she didn’t believe them, and she knew that he knew she didn’t believe it. What was she trying to do? Why couldn’t she abandon this idea of him and her, one more time, or two or three? What was she? A masochist?

      “Mary—”

      “Go prove my point to Allison in there,” she said bitingly before shoving the car into Reverse and taking off down the quiet, wooded drive.

Four

      Mary sat in Little Bo and Peep’s baby shop, up to her eyeballs in terry cloth, stretch cotton, bouncy seats and black and white mobiles. For the past twenty minutes, she hadn’t been able to pick out a single thing for the nursery. She knew exactly what clothes she loved, what crib and bassinet she wanted, she even knew the drawer pulls she would pick out if this were all real. But designing a nursery for a child that didn’t exist was next to impossible. She felt like a total fraud and she wanted to give up.

      The doorbell over the shop entrance jangled merrily, and Mary watched a young couple come through the door with excited grins. They oohed and aahed as they moved from one quaint set of nursery furniture set to the next, hands clasped tightly, the woman’s round stomach looking like a sweet watermelon. She wanted that. A real relationship, a real baby…something impossible to have with Ethan Curtis. Mary’s mind rolled back to the party and how it had ended. For the past two days she’d thought of nothing but him and that blonde, and her own irrational need to be with him again. She’d wondered what had happened after she’d left. Had Ethan met her by the pool? Did they go for a swim together? Allisonn—two Ls, two Ns—hadn’t seemed like the kind of woman who thought swimsuits were all that important.

      Beside her, the young mother pointed at a tiny Minnesota Twins baseball cap and squealed with delight, catching Mary’s eye in the process. Mary forced a smile, then moved on to look at bathtubs and safety accessories. Why the hell did she care what Ethan did? Or who he did, for that matter? She had to get over this.

      The saleswoman walked by her again with that look all salespeople give a person when they think you’re lingering without purpose.

      Are you stealing or just indecisive?

      “Right, I get it,” Mary grumbled under her breath as she abandoned the bath supplies and headed to the front of the store. Nothing was going to happen today. She wasn’t about to do any work on the nursery in her state of mind. If Ethan asked her how she was progressing, she’d just have to stall and—

      “Mary?”

      Coming into the shop just as Mary was exiting was a very elegant woman in her midseventies, dressed in a thin crepe navy blue suit, her white hair swept off her mildly wrinkled face in a tightly pinned chignon.

      “Grandmother? What are you doing here?”

      Grace Harrington surveyed her granddaughter, her perfectly arched brows lifting at the sight of Mary’s plain black pantsuit and slightly scuffed heels. To Grace Harrington, clothes were like Ziplock baggies, only good for one use.

      “Pearl Edicott’s granddaughter is expecting twins,” her grandmother said in a pinched tone. “Pearl has the most horrific taste. It’s a very good thing she knows it.”

      “Very good thing,” Mary repeated, smiling in spite of herself. Grace Harrington was an over-the-top snob, and if Mary had any sense, she’d probably detest her. After all, Grace wasn’t all that warm either, more days than not she found something wrong with Mary’s clothing or hairstyle, and she treated her help like they didn’t breathe the same air as she did. And then there was the fact that she had cut Mary’s mother out of her life when she’d married Hugh.

      Yet, with all of that, Mary felt a connection with her, a strange admiration that went far beyond her wealth. Grace was smart, well-read and a stickler for speaking her mind. Mary could really respect that. She and her grandparents were rarely simpatico, but they were her blood, and had always wanted to be a part of her life, and strangely Mary’s mother had never discouraged her from seeing them.

      Grace picked up two twin chenille baby robes that cost a hundred dollars each and eyed them closely. “And what are you doing here, my dear?”

      “Designing a nursery for a client.”

      “Ah, yes, your business. How is that going?”

      “Great.”

      Grace forgot about the robes for a moment and focused on Mary, her lips pursed. “This isn’t for one of those two-father homes, is it?”

      “Not this time.”

      “A couple, then?” She didn’t give Mary a chance to answer as she clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “A mother who doesn’t want to create her own child’s room. How modern.”

      Mary was about to ask her grandmother if she herself had actually designed her own daughter’s nursery or if she’d hired three or four interior designers to make it happen, but she knew she’d probably get an answer that resembled something like, “It was my vision. As usual, the help was only there to execute it.”

      “The nursery is for a single father actually,” Mary told her.

      “Anyone I know?”

      Mary’s brow lifted. “Now how many single fathers do you socialize with, Grandmother?”

      Grace gave her a blank look. “None…that I know of.” Spotting a beautiful pink-and-blue blanket draped over one of the handcrafted armchairs, Grace turned her back on Mary. “Well, this chenille is lovely. It reminds me of the very one your mother carried around for years.