Hot Finish (Fast Track #3)(51)
Author: Erin McCarthy

The truth was, she didn’t know what she was doing when it came to relationships. She never had. Her grandparents had been great people and had loved her, but there had always been a part of Suzanne that had resented being abandoned by her mother. So she had kept her emotions in check and hidden in private.

It was easy for her to say whatever she was thinking, unless it was an emotion. That might make her vulnerable, and she wasn’t having any of that.

Suzanne glanced at the pregnancy test resting on the vanity, figuring it wouldn’t be ready yet.

But it was.

Pregnant.

Her stomach did a flip.

It looked like she was going to have to accept vulnerable and learn to live with emotional, because she was having a baby.

Ryder’s baby.

Again.

“What’s going on in there?” Tammy pounded on the door.

Forcing herself to stand up on shaky legs, Suzanne swung the door open. “I’m pregnant and I think I’m going to faint.” The whole room was starting to spin and she was seeing spots. That wasn’t good.

“Oh, Lord!” Tammy reached out and grabbed her arm.

But Suzanne was already sliding down the wall, her legs going out from under her like they were made of clay. She was vaguely aware of Tammy screaming for her husband and Imogen saying something about water, but mostly she was focused on getting the blackness dancing in front of her eyes to recede and her saliva to stop multiplying in her mouth.

When she hit the floor with a thud, sitting hard on her butt, a hand shoved her head between her legs, which didn’t help, and only made her jeans cut into her waist.

“I’m fine,” she managed weakly, swatting at the hand holding her down. “Let me up.”

The blood all rushed into her face and she had a precarious moment where she thought her stomach had mistaken itself for a trampoline, but she held it together and took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking. “Well, that was embarrassing. That was such a girl thing to do.”

“News flash, you are a girl.” Tammy smoothed her hair back off her forehead.

Suzanne realized her bangs were damp from sweat. Sexy. “I guess there’s truth in that. I’m a girl. A stupid, idiotic girl who has learned nothing in the past six years.” She started to laugh, feeling more than a little hysterical. “I mean, I got knocked up in a car! How high school is that?”

Imogen tried to hand her water but she waved it away as she dissolved into a high-pitched laugh that occasionally turned into a sob. She sounded crazy, she knew it, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt just a little bit crazy.

Elec came around the corner and said, “What’s going on—”

His eyebrows shot up when he saw Suzanne on the floor rocking from her laughter. “Um . . . everything okay?”

“Yes,” Tammy said.

“No,” Suzanne told him.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Not unless you’re volunteering to be the target for all my man hating.”

“Hmm. I think I’ll pass.” Elec started to back up in the hallway. “Enjoy your girl time.” He darted into the kitchen.

“You’ve terrified my husband.”

“Hell, I’m terrifying myself.” Suzanne forced herself off the floor, taking the hand Tammy offered.

Tammy reached out and hugged her. “This is fine. We’ll figure it all out.”

“Thanks.” She accepted a hug from Imogen, too. “I know it will be fine. I do believe that a baby is a blessing, I want this baby. I may have to sell everything I own to survive, but I’ll manage.”

Imogen squeezed her hand. “But you won’t have to do anything that drastic. This is Ryder’s child, too, and he’ll be more than willing to give you child support. Given his income, it will be a substantial amount of money.”

Suzanne wrinkled her nose. Why did that feel about as good as going on the dole? “I’m still going to law school. I want to be proud of who I am, not raising a kid on the father’s charity.”

“This isn’t something you need to worry about right now,” Tammy told her.

No. What she needed to worry about right now was telling Ryder he was going to be a daddy.

“SO you’re telling me there’s nothing I can do?” Ryder glared at Bill, his PR rep. They’d been having this argument for a week since he’d gotten back from Vegas, smarting from being dumped by Suzanne and furious that some anonymous online blogger was making him look like a smarmy playboy. But even worse, the blogger had made Suzanne look . . . not good. And that made him see red. Whether she ever spoke to him again or not, he didn’t want her thinking he didn’t have her back.

“No. Tuesday Talladega has the right to say whatever she wants, and it was the truth. Can you just let it go? Nobody cares if you’re sleeping around. You’re divorced.”

Technically, no. But no one needed to know that. Hell, he hadn’t even known that until a month ago. “I don’t really care what they’re saying about me. But she had no right to drag Suzanne into this.”

Bill was in his mid-twenties, a fresh-faced wonder boy straight out of college, with a clean-cut look and a hairline that was already starting to take a step back. “I feel obligated to point out that you dragged the former Mrs. Jefferson into this when you took her to Champions Week with you.”

Little know-it-all. Ryder leaned back in his office chair, feeling the walls closing in on him. He hadn’t been sleeping well, and he was ragged out. He hated being in the office on a good day, and there had been no good days since Suz had walked out of that suite in Vegas. “You’re not obligated to say anything. Mind your own damn business.”

But with the confidence of a twenty-four-year-old, Bill just cleared his throat and straightened his navy tie as he stood in front of Ryder’s desk. “On the contrary, that’s what I’m paid to do. So I’m also obligated to tell you that it’s time for you to shave. Your image is rock star driver, not weird mountain man.”

Ryder scratched his suddenly full beard and scowled. “There’s no rule that says I can’t have facial hair. Next you’ll be telling me I have to shave my balls.”

“Since the cameras don’t pan in on your balls, I have no opinion on what you do or don’t do to them.”

See what he had to put up with? “Let me ask you this since you’re so full of opinions—why does it matter to a woman that you might have happened to take her to the same hotel that you had been to with a previous woman? One a lot less important than her, too, I might add.”