Free Nameless Series Boxed Set by Claire Kent Page A

too.”
    She was almost
positive he meant it.
    It wasn’t until
she was home that she remembered how she’d felt, looking at the image in the
exam room.
    She had a
printout of one of the ultrasound images to take with her, but she didn’t need
to pull it out to remember what she’d seen.
    “Sorry,” she
said at last, alone in her apartment—out loud and a little self-consciously.
“You’ll have to get used to how clueless I can be, but I guess I never understood
you were real before.”
    She looked down
toward her belly. "Yeah. Sometimes I'm a little slow."
    ***
    The following evening, Erin went
out on a date.
    He lived a few
floors down in her building, and he’d always been friendly. Erin thought he was
cute enough, so she’d been extra nice to him one evening earlier that week as
they were in the elevator, and he’d ended up asking her out for Saturday night.
    She’d said yes.
She wasn’t sure how much potential they had for a serious relationship, but
she’d been surprised before. She liked him a lot, he was fun, and he was
clearly interested in her.
    No reason not
to go out with him. Especially since, in a few months, she’d probably not have
very many opportunities to go out with anyone.
    On Saturday, she
felt strangely giddy all day. Not from anticipation of her date that evening,
but from the new connection she’d made with her child the day before. Every
time she thought about the little picture or glanced down at her stomach, she
had to fight the urge to smile mushily or babble in giddy recognition.
    For a
no-nonsense, cynical woman, the impulse was almost embarrassing.
    But she didn’t
try to stifle it, but rather decided to enjoy it for however long it lasted.
    So she actually
didn't think much about her date, until she started to get ready for it. They
went to dinner, a movie, and then coffee afterwards—Erin got decaf—and she had
a pretty decent time. She was in a good mood anyway, and her date was friendly
and reasonably intelligent.
    Erin was quite
sure there wasn’t a future with him, but it had been a date worth having. She
laughed a lot that evening, and she was still laughing when he walked her back
up to her apartment.
    She could see
in his eyes where he was hoping this would go, but she didn’t think it was going
to happen.
    She wasn’t
opposed to sex on a first date. She’d certainly done so before, but things felt
a little different now, and it seemed kind of weird—not rationally, but
intuitively—to sleep with this guy while she was pregnant with her child.
    Not that she
would think it was wrong . Just that something inside her seemed to resist
it.
    Erin supposed
she should listen to her instinct in this matter. So, as the elevator rose to
her floor, she sighed in resignation.
    As much as her
body wanted to have sex tonight, the rest of her obviously didn’t want it.
    Which was a bit
of a disappointment.
    The elevator
doors slid open on her floor, and they both stepped into the hallway. Erin
laughed at another joke the guy made, not because it was really funny but
because she still felt like laughing. She took his arm companionably and tried
to figure out how best to tell him to go home.
    As soon as Erin
turned and took a step, she saw that someone was down the hall, knocking steadily
on her apartment door.
    Seth was
knocking on her door.
    Which was the
strangest thing.
    He must have
heard them get off the elevator, because he stopped knocking and turned toward
them. Stood perfectly still—tall, authoritative, and compelling in a dark gray
suit—and watched as they approached.
    Erin stopped
laughing and sucked in her breath. For no reason she could understand, her
heart started beating more quickly.
    Nothing was
really wrong here. At worst, it was simply awkward. But her stomach began to
jump as she got closer to Seth.
    His face was perfectly
composed, perfectly cool, but Erin could sense something else going on
underneath the façade.
    His eyes, when
she was close enough