Caroselli's Baby Chase (19 page)

“Carrie, you are the least clingy woman I’ve ever met.”

“I’m the opposite. When things get too hard, I bail. You might want to keep that in mind, seeing as how I’m the potential mother of your child. What if I am pregnant, and we have the baby, and I bail on you both?”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I do.”

“How?”

“Because you’re a hell of a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.” He held up the bag. “We said Monday. So let’s find out.”

“And if I am?”

“We’ll figure it out. Together.”

She took a deep breath and held out her hand. “Let’s have it.”

He handed her the bag.

She gestured down the hall. “You want to watch me pee on a stick?”

“Do you want me there?”

“Why not? If we’re going to do this together, we should do all of it together. Even this part.”

For the past five days he’d been pretty confident that Carrie was pregnant, and the test was just a formality. But as he followed her to her bathroom, a ball of nerves coiled in his gut. If she was pregnant, his entire life was going to change. It stunned him to realize that as scary as that was, he was okay with it. Maybe he really was ready. Maybe, more than being nervous, he was just…excited.

He sat on the edge of the tub while she went through the process, which was pretty simple. Pee, then wait five minutes.

It was the longest five minutes of his life.

“Ever done this before?” Carrie asked.

“Once, in college. How about you?”

“Never.” She rubbed her palms together. “So I’m pretty freaked out right now.”

“In this case, practice does not make perfect.” He looked at his watch and his heart started to beat faster. “It’s been five minutes.”

“Here we go.” After a slight pause Carrie very cautiously turned the stick over and peeked at the tiny display. She put it back down and exhaled, turning to him. “Negative.”

He was so prepared to hear positive that when she turned and said negative instead, he was sure he misheard her.

“Negative?” he repeated, just to be sure.

She nodded, looking relieved. “I’m not pregnant.”

“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what to say. “I really thought you were.”

“But this is good news, right? I mean, you must be just as relieved as I am.”

“You would think so.” So why didn’t he feel relieved?

“Rob, you are relieved, right? I mean, think about it. Sleepless nights, diaper rash, spit-up. College funds.”

“I thought about it. And no, I’m actually not relieved. I mean, I know the timing wasn’t great, but I’m still a little disappointed.”

“Oh, thank God,” Carrie said, holding up the test so he could see it. “Because I lied. It’s positive.”

* * *

“You
lied?
” Rob said, looking at Carrie as if he wasn’t sure what to believe. “Why would you do that?”

“Sorry, but I had to know.”

He took the test from her and checked it, then he shook his head, like he thought she was nuts.

He was probably right.

“You needed to know what?”

“How you really felt.”

“You could have just asked me?”

“No. It’s that nice guy syndrome.”

“Nice guy syndrome?”

“You’re a nice guy…a stand-up guy. So if I told you the test was positive you would have said you were happy, even if you weren’t. Right?”

He hesitated.

“The honest truth.”

“Probably,” he admitted.

“But if you were disappointed that it was negative, even a tiny bit, then I would know that you were okay with it.”

“That was risky.”

She shrugged. “It worked on
Friends
.”

“Friends?”
He laughed. “You stole the idea from a
sitcom?
”

“Yup.”

“Out of curiosity, what if I had been relieved? What would you do then?”

Good question. “I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. But at least I would know how you
really
felt.”

“Tell me what you need from me,” he said.

“How about a hug?”

Rob reached for her. She walked into his arms and he held her close, and she had the feeling that everything would be okay. She wasn’t nearly as freaked out as she thought she would be. Maybe she was less freaked about the actual pregnancy, and more afraid of Rob’s reaction. Not that she wasn’t still terrified.

“What if I’m a terrible mother?”

“Think about it. If you learned nothing else from your mom and stepdad, it was how
not
to be a bad parent.”

He had a point. Whatever they had done, she could just do the opposite. “What if I get scared and I bail?”

“I won’t let you get very far.”

“Really? Because I can be a very difficult person.”

“Really. And you won’t ever have to bail if you remember to communicate. If you just talk to me, I promise I’ll listen. And whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”

It sounded wonderful, like a dream relationship. He also made it sound awfully easy.

But what did she know? Maybe for normal people it
was
that easy. Maybe if she was lucky, some of Rob’s normal would rub off on her. Or maybe it was time she grew up and found her own normal. And stopped blaming all of her shortcomings on her crappy past. At some point she had to just let it go.

She could be anything she wanted to be. “It may take some time but I’ll learn. Just try to be patient with me.”

“I will.”

She closed her eyes, nestling up against his chest. “Five days away from you is way too long.”

He squeezed her. “I was thinking the same thing.”

She breathed in his aftershave. It was so familiar now.
He
was so familiar. Suddenly
wanting
him was starting to feel a lot more like
needing
him.

“So what do we do now?”

Grinning down at her, he said, “I guess we have a baby.”

Sixteen

F
ive seconds after he learned that Carrie really was pregnant, before he’d even had time to process it, Rob finally understood what Nick had meant the other day. It was one thing to think you might have a child, but to know it? There were no words. He and Carrie had a real shot at being a family. She could be the love of his life. Would he really jeopardize that for money?

Maybe
Nonno
was trying to do more than bribe them into having families. Maybe he was trying to teach them a lesson, too. Of what was and wasn’t important in life.

He and Carrie agreed not to say anything to anyone until she’d seen a doctor. And there were still all these unanswered questions. Like where would they live? And would they get married? Carrie wondered how she would work and take care of a baby. Would she have to quit, or was it socially acceptable to put kids in day care?

And shouldn’t they have at least a vague idea of what they planned to do before they started telling everyone? Before people started asking questions they didn’t have the answers to? And of course after the questions would come all the unsolicited advice.

So, the day the doctor gave them final confirmation, Rob knew they had to have a plan. And first things first. As soon as they got back to his place, he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him. It wasn’t as romantic as he’d hoped, but effective, because after asking him three times if he was really sure, she said yes. They decided that until they were married they would stay in their own places, but they would start looking for a bigger place that was a bit more kid-friendly than his loft, and unlike the condo, something with a fenced backyard. There was no mention of the L-word from either of them, but that was something he was sure they would both get to later. He didn’t see any hurry, as long as they were on the same page.

After all of that planning, they decided to announce their marketing plan first. So no one could accuse her of being biased.

With everyone from the first meeting there, plus the entire marketing department, the conference room table was filled to capacity. “Well, let’s have it,” Rob’s dad said, and Al passed out the folders.

It didn’t take too long for the grumbling to begin.

“I’m getting old, son, but my memory is still pretty good,” his dad told him. “Which is how I know that besides a few variations, this is the same plan you proposed last year.”

“It’s not.” He gestured to Al to pass out the second set of binders. Personally, he didn’t see the need to be so dramatic, but Carrie insisted that everyone see the difference between the two proposals. “This is mine.”

“The first was mine,” Carrie said. “And I did it with no knowledge of the first plan.”

“Which means what?” Uncle Tony asked her.

“It means that I’m not the only marketing genius in the room. And I’m sorry, gentlemen, but you’ve wasted your money on me. Rob doesn’t need me or anyone else to tell him what’s good for this business. And you would all be fools not to listen to him. I know some of the ideas are a bit radical, and it’s always nice when you can stick to tradition, but to survive in business, you also have to learn to change with the times.”

His dad steepled his hands, looking to his brothers, then finally to Rob. “Well, son, it would seem we owe you an apology. We should have trusted you, listened to what you had to say. But we didn’t and we paid the price.”

“And now?” Rob said.

“I want to see a combined report on my desk by Wednesday.”

“We anticipated that as a possibility,” he said. “Al, number three.”

Al passed out the third round of binders.

“Here’s your combined report.”

“Give us a day to look these over, and we’ll meet again Thursday.”

As everyone was piling out of the room, Rob pulled his dad aside.

“While you’re feeling so forgiving, there’s something I need to tell you.” Carrie cringed a little as he gestured her over. Rob slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. “I’m not sure if you know, but Carrie and I have been seeing each other. Socially.”

“Should I act surprised?”

Meaning he—and Rob would bet a lot of other people in the family—already knew they were a couple.

“Well, Carrie is pregnant.”

“Okay,” his dad said. “
Now
I’m surprised.” He looked back and forth between the two of them. “I don’t like that I have to ask this, but can you both assure me this had nothing to do with the proposal you just presented us?”

“He didn’t show me his until I showed him mine,” Carrie said, then cringed when it sank in what she had just said. “That did not come out right.”

“I understand what you meant,” his dad said. “And don’t worry, you’ll fit into the family just fine. Assuming that’s the plan.”

“She’s staying in Chicago, we’re getting married, we’re going to buy a kid-friendly house or condo and we are going to put the kids in day care because even though we love them to death, we both love our jobs and neither of us wants to give them up.”

“When is the baby due?”

“Around Halloween,” Carrie said. Which they both found a little creepy considering the basement door and cradle incidents.

Since the day they’d brought the cradle up to the living room, the door stopped opening by itself. The cradle hadn’t rocked again either. At least, not as far as he, Carrie or Alice had seen. It was almost as if someone or something knew they were going to be needing it.

It was creepy, yet comforting in a strange way to know that whatever it was, it had their back.

Within twenty-four hours, everyone in the family
knew
Rob’s dad was going to be a
nonno,
and then his mother made sure everyone knew it was actually Rob’s baby that would give him the title, because no one was clear on that point.

Everything was falling into place, almost too smoothly, but there was one more thing that he had to do. He called
Nonno
and told him he didn’t want the money.

“I’m proud of you” was all
Nonno
said, as if that was the reaction he’d been expecting all along. And while giving up fifteen million wasn’t too tough, Rob wondered if Tony would be able to resist the draw of the entire thirty million for himself.

After Mrs. White left for lunch, Nick poked his head into Rob’s office. “So you’re really going to do it?”

“Do what?”

Nick leaned in the doorway. “Tie the knot, have a baby. It’s worth the fifteen million?”

“You’re forgetting I don’t get a penny if it’s not a boy.”

Easygoing as Nick was, it took a lot to rile him. Now he was riled. “You’re seriously going to take the money?”

“What reason do I have not to?”

“Dude,
seriously?
Where should I start?”

“How about, I love her. That would be a good reason.”

Nick narrowed his eyes at him. “Are you screwing with me?”

Yeah, and it was awfully fun. “I called
Nonno
and told him no deal. I’m not taking the money.”

“When?”

“A little while ago. You were right. No amount of money is worth screwing this up. I can live without the money, but I can’t live without her.”

“What did
Nonno
say to you?”

“That he was proud of me.”

“He said the same thing to me. I got the distinct feeling that he counted on us not taking the money. Like that was part of the plan.”

“That might not work with Tony.” While Nick and Rob both loved the satisfaction of doing their job well, Tony lived by the philosophy that he who dies with the most toys wins.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Nick said. “He seems pretty smitten with Alice, and it looks as though the feeling is mutual.”

Rob shrugged. “Maybe
Nonno
will actually manage to get us all married off before this year is over.”

“And there’s a fifty-fifty chance that one of our kids will be a boy.”

So there was hope that the Caroselli name would live on for at least one more generation. Rob also didn’t doubt for a second that even if there had been no baby, no accidental pregnancy, they would have eventually wound up in the same place.