Plan B (Best Laid Plans #2)(26)

"What?" He glances at me quickly then gets his eyes back to the road. "God, no. Daisy, no. Of course not. Trust me, I had a plan for the next five years of my life and this wasn't it."

"So it was an accident, right? All of it? I was just a fling you were never supposed to see again?"

He pauses for a moment before asking, "What are you getting at, exactly?"

"I don't know," I admit. "I guess I just wanted to hear you say you're not a crazy person who tracked me down to impregnate me, but it was a stupid question. Why on earth would you impregnate some random girl on purpose? Never mind."

He pauses for a long second. "I don't like the word ‘accident,’ but no, it wasn't intentional."

"Okay. So knocking me up was an accident. Did you steal my camera by accident too?"

"Do we really need to talk about this? I gave it back. And stop saying ‘knocked up.’ It's disrespectful."

"Disrespectful to who? You did knock me up. Would you prefer I spend the remainder of this pregnancy referring to the incident as the time you inseminated me?"

"It's disrespectful to you, and no, I don't prefer that description. I'm sure you can think of something more appropriate. You're quite wordy."

"Wow. Way to lay on the charm, Kyle."

"Christ." He takes a hand off the wheel to rub at the back of his neck. "I meant you're good with words. You blog. You enjoy writing. You're creative and intelligent and funny. You can do better than referring to yourself like you were my accidental sidepiece."

Huh.

"Besides," he adds, "you're the one who stalked me."

"Only because you begat me with child."

"For fuck’s sake," Kyle mutters. He tries to hide it as an exhale, but I still hear him.

"I'm not normally a stalker, just so you know. You'd never have heard from me again if you hadn't accidentally spread your seed in my womb."

"You've made that painfully clear." His jaw twitches a bit. He's slipped on a pair of sunglasses to block the glare of the sun and he's focused on driving so I can't quite get a read on him but I like the jaw thing. It's kind of a clench. He needs to relax.

"Just tell me one more thing."

"Okay," he agrees, but he seems to be bracing himself for whatever the one more thing is.

"Do you have rental insurance?"

We've come to a stoplight so he turns to look at me, eyes still hidden by the sunglasses. "Rental insurance?" he deadpans in reply.

"I'm just trying to make sure you're the kind of guy who has insurance. It was on my vision board for the kind of man I should be with when I went on the dick diet."

He stares at me and I have no idea what he's thinking.

He's still staring at me when the light turns green and the car behind us honks in irritation.





11





Daisy





"Be ready by six," Kyle says as he drops me off at his condo. He's dropping me at his place because I basically live there now since he escorted me back to the hotel to pack up my things. I went along with it because I like Tubbs and I figured it wouldn't hurt to spend a little time with Kyle while I'm in town for the conference.

Also Kyle's place is nicer than the hotel.

But that's it. Those are the only reasons.

"Ready for what?" I ask, hand on the door handle ready to hop out of his SUV.

"Dinner."

"Whoa." I drop my hand from the door and turn to him. "Like you want me to have dinner on the table by six? That's really sexist, Kyle. Just because you put an imaginary ring on it and put a bun in my oven doesn't mean I'm going to quit my job and spend my days cleaning and putting dinner on the table every night at six like a 1950s housewife, just so you know. And I'm not ironing your shirts. I might make cookies every once in a while, though. If I stay. Which is still an if."

"Are you done?"

"Yes."

"Mrs Lascola comes daily Monday through Friday. She does the cleaning, shopping and laundry. My dry-cleaning is delivered to the concierge desk, from where she retrieves it and places it in my closet. She brings the mail from the lobby and leaves it on the desk in my study. She also prepares meals and leaves them in the fridge to be heated."

Oh.

"So no," Kyle continues, "I'm not expecting you to be my 1950s housewife, because Mrs Lascola is my 1950s housewife, minus your surly attitude problem. You, Daisy, are my twenty-first-century bride-to-be. What I expect from you is that you're doing everything you need to do to take care of the baby you're carrying. Besides that, I expect you to do whatever it is that you find personally fulfilling. I don't give a fuck if it's dusting, or knitting, or photography, or real estate, or running a goddamned empire. Are we clear?"

"Fine, yes." I huff. "Good Lord, you're dramatic."

He rolls his eyes at me. “Great. Be ready at six, because I'm taking you out to dinner," he says, stressing the word out. He could have done that to start with. "On a date," he adds.

"Why?" I stare at him, a million questions running through my mind.