Come A Little Bit Closer (The Sullivans #7)(27)

“Jo. I don’t have an appointment.” She lifted her chin. “But he’ll see me.”

The guard studied her for a long moment and she stared back as calmly as she could. Finally, he picked up the phone. “Angie, I have Jo here to see Mr. Hughes.” Whatever the receptionist said had a flicker of surprise finally crossing the man’s face.

He put the phone down and stood. “I’ll escort you up personally, Jo.”

She worked to keep her cool as they rode up, then higher still, in the elevator. And when he said, “Congratulations,” she was the one lifting her head in surprise this time.

Her hands automatically went to her stomach. She was so upset with Graham over the stroller—and the fact that he’d gotten into her apartment—that she’d started to feel a little sick. Well, not sick exactly, but the twinges she’d been having in her back had definitely gotten worse.

It was yet another reason she needed to make him back off. She didn’t want anything to distract her from the baby.

And Graham was definitely a distraction.

“Thank you,” she said, and then it was time to step off the elevator and onto the plushest, cleanest carpet she’d ever seen. Even in a showroom, she mused, it couldn’t look so brand new.

Struck with the irrepressible urge to kick off her shoes and bury her toes in the soft fibers, she was stunned to see shiny black shoes come to stand right in front of her scuffed silver ballet flats.

“Jo.”

Every time he said her name, it sent a shiver through her. Today, the lie she told herself was that it was fury that caused the trembling.

She didn’t care who heard her say, “I asked you to stop giving me things.”

She expected him to herd her into his office, to close the door and make sure what was said between them stayed private.

He didn’t move an inch. “You need them.”

She wanted to yell at him. But she found herself lowering her voice as she hissed, “You broke into my apartment.”

“The stroller and seat would have been stolen if they’d been left outside. And I didn’t want you pushing them all the way home from work.”

The fact that he was right about both of those things did little to mitigate her fury.

“Look,” she began in as patient a voice as she could muster, “I know you still feel bad—”

A sharp pain to her midsection turned her words into a cry.

For the first time since that first day on the sidewalk in Union Square, they touched each other, her hand flying out to his arm to brace herself against the brutal pain.

Jo’s eyes were closed too tightly for her to see the panic fly across Graham’s face.

“Tell Ellis to be outside with the car in sixty seconds,” he told one of his assistants without ever looking away from Jo. To the other he said, “Call California Pacific Medical Center and tell the doctor to have the birthing room ready for us in fifteen minutes.”

The pain finally having broken, Jo finally realized his hand was on the small of her back as he moved them into the elevator.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you to have your daughter.”

She opened her mouth to argue, to tell him she could take care of herself, when another pain hit her, even worse this time.

Graham’s voice was low, soothing, and incredibly gentle. “Breathe, Jo. In first, slowly.” She managed to suck in a breath, though it felt as though her small frame was being torn in two. “Good. Now let it out, just as slow.” She did as he directed, and he praised her again. “You’re doing great.”

When the elevator opened on the ground floor, she was actually glad for his strong arms around her.

“Not too much farther until you can lie down in the backseat of my town car.”

Her eyes widened with alarm at the idea of going anywhere with him, but she was still weak from the last contraction and had a feeling the next one was going to be even worse.

He slipped her hands into his as he helped her gently onto the seat and barely flinched as she rode out yet another wave of pain by gripping his hand so hard his fingers cracked.

His encouraging murmurs helped her until she collapsed back against the soft leather, just lucid enough to ask, “How do you know just what to say?”

His strong, hard mouth trembled as he said, “My sister.” Just as quickly as the grief had come, it went.

She wanted to ask him more, but before she could push the question from her lips, a new shock of pain ripped through her. While her wail reverberated off the walls of the town car, Graham tugged her closer and held her tightly against him as if he could take her pain into himself instead.

Sweat soaked through her clothes as he gritted out a harsh command to his driver. “Faster. We need to get to the hospital faster.”

“Yes, sir.”

When they finally arrived at the old stone building, he lifted her out of the backseat as if she weighed nothing and pushed carefully in through the front hospital doors. He didn’t stop at the front desk, just walked through with her to the room that he’d insisted be held ready.

Two nurses and an obstetrician entered the private birthing room and began to take blood pressure and other vitals, while the doctor asked Jo in a gentle, very calm voice if she could examine her to see how far along she was.

Throughout it all, Graham held her hand.