She should have gone with what she had rehearsed. She had just made a mess of things. She shook her head and decided to just be honest with him.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Maybe atleast a year or two. I loved being pregnant with Kian and I don’t want him to be an only child. And I don’t want to start over with someone new. Dating has sucked. And you…you’re such a good father to Kian. You’re dependable. Amazing, and he loves you so much.”
Vic’s stare deepened as he took her in.
“So you want us to have another baby together.” He paused and glanced away again.
Kian was running around kicking his soccer ball.
Vic turned his blue eyes toward her again. “Without us being together.”
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds bad,” she muttered. Tachina secured her hair behind her ear. She reached for her Diet Coke and took a sip of it.
“How else should I say it?”
“I don’t know. In a way that doesn’t make me sound crazy.” She placed her glass down and looked across the table at him.
His lips twitched. Amusement flicked through his eyes.
“How are you talking about getting pregnant? In vitro?—”
“The old-fashioned way,” she admitted. Her heart raced at the thought of the two of them together again.
“This is a lot to take in, Tachina.”
“I know.” She wrung her hands. “I shouldn’t have blurted it out. I meant to bring it up in an easy way. I had rehearsed everything I was going to say, but then you cookedfor us, were smiling and smelling like—” She stopped and held up a hand. “Never mind.”
“Smelling like what?” His gaze sharpened on her.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me.”
“Like you always do,” she whispered. She hated to tell him that she always remembered what he smelled like. From that first night they were together, she’d remembered. It had been intoxicating.
His eyes darkened as he watched her.
It reminded her of their first night. She closed her eyes and couldn’t help remembering the first night they had slept together.
The night where Kian had been conceived.
It had been late, nearly midnight, and she was still in the renovated office building. She stared at an accent wall and was trying to figure out how to make it seem less like a bank vault. Mr. Maxwell—Vic— had came down the hallway in his business suit looking too expensive and too damn handsome.
“Hey, Tachina. You’re still here?” he asked.
She had been given the job of renovating the lobby. His company, Maxwell & Sons Development Group, was one of the distinguished real estate groups in the city. Her bosses had been thrilled they had won the contract of designing for the Maxwell group. With her talents, they had assigned her to lead.
“I am.” She smiled at him.
“You hungry?” He came to stand by her in front of the wall she’d been staring at.
She wasn’t, but she nodded.
They walked down to a pub that was located a block away. It was a dive with sticky floors and greasy bar food. She’d been shocked that he would want to go to a place such as this. But Vic was strangely comfortable and relaxed there. He removed his jacket, rolled his sleeves up, had his drink in his hand while he listened to her vent about suppliers and impossible deadlines.
Two drinks became three.
Three became laughter.