“Yeah, don’t keep us in suspense,” Jake urged.
Taking another deep breath, she asked, “How do you feel about being uncles to twins in about six months?”
The silence that followed proved that this was not what her brothers had expected.
“I know this comes as a—”
The first to recover, Jake interrupted her. “You’re pregnant…”
“With twins,” Luke finished, sounding more formidable than she’d heard in a long time.
“Who’s the father?” Jake demanded.
“And how do we contact him?” Luke asked, sounding just as determined as his twin.
“Yeah, we’d like to have a little talk with the bastard,” Jake spat, going into “big brother” mode.
Before she could answer, Zach took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze of support. “I’m right here with your sister. The name’s Zach Forsythe. Arielle and I are getting married as soon as I get the arrangements made.”
“No, we’re not,” she contradicted, glaring at Zach. She tried to pull her hand from his, but Zach held it firmly in his much larger one. “I told you that marriage isn’t required to have a child.”
“And as I have told you, it is for me,” he vowed stubbornly.
“Sounds to me like things aren’t completely settled after all,” Luke spoke up.
“Don’t do anything until I get there, Arielle,” Jake advised quickly. “And for God’s sake, don’t sign any legal documents until I look at them.” The sudden sound of pages being shuffled came across the line and she knew her brother was checking his schedule. “I have a couple of discoveries to get through and a court date scheduled for Friday, but I’ll be there first thing Saturday morning.”
“Good idea,” Luke agreed. “Haley and I will be there, too. And it might not be a bad idea for you to draw up a prenuptial agreement and bring it with you, Jake.”
“I was thinking the same thing, bro,” Jake acknowledged.
“None of this is necessary,” Arielle insisted, wondering how something as simple as a phone call to tell her brothers she was pregnant had gotten so out of hand. “I’m not getting married and even if I was, I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”
“I think it’s great you are coming to Dallas,” Zach interjected as if she hadn’t said a word. “I’d like to meet my future brothers-in-law. After all, we’ll be family soon.” He gave her an I told you so grin as he added, “And since I have more than enough room, I’d like to invite everyone to stay at my place.” He gave her brothers his cell-phone number. “Let me know your arrival times and I’ll have my driver pick you up at the airport.”
“Sounds like an excellent plan,” Luke affirmed as if everything was settled. “And in the meantime, give him a chance, Arielle. Seems he wants to do the right thing.”
“We’ll see you on Saturday, little sister,” Jake added before he and Luke both hung up, ending the call.
“That went pretty well,” Zach announced, sitting back and looking so darned satisfied with himself she wanted to bop him. “I think your brothers and I are going to get along just fine.”
She stood up to glare down at him. “At the moment, I’d like to take all three of you and clunk your heads together.”
He looked taken aback. “Why? What did we do?”
“You’re all just alike. There wasn’t one of you who paid the least bit of attention to what I want.” She shook her head. “I told them I had everything under control. I even told them that I had no intention of marrying you. But did they listen? No. They’ll be here on Saturday in full ‘big brother’ mode, ready to tell me what they think is best and expect me to go along with it.” She wiped at the tears of frustration threatening to spill down her cheeks. “And you, you’re too stubborn to give up on your harebrained notion that we have to get married.”
“You’re getting way too upset about this, Arielle,” he noted, rising to his feet.
When he reached for her, she shook her head and, backing away, pointed toward the hall. “I’m going into my bedroom to lie down and try to forget that phone call ever happened. When I get up, I expect you to be gone. Please lock the door when you leave.”
Without waiting for him to respond, she spun around and marched into her bedroom, slamming the door as hard as she could. She should have known better than to call while Zach was with her, she thought as she kicked off her shoes and stretched out on her bed. He and her brothers were so much alike it was uncanny. All three were highly successful self-made men with take-charge personalities and it really shouldn’t have surprised her that they’d controlled the entire conversation.
Jake and Luke, she could understand. It had been an overwhelming responsibility for two twenty-year-old young men to finish raising their ten-year-old sister. And after all those years of making every decision for her, it had to be hard for them to admit that she’d grown up and could take control of her own life.
But Zach was an entirely different story. His insistence that they get married was just plain ludicrous. He didn’t love her and the way he’d left her behind in Aspen, it was a safe bet that he’d grown tired of her, just the way her father had grown tired of her mother all those years ago.
She turned on her side and hugged one of her pillows. Three and a half months ago, she’d wanted Zach to ask her to be his bride. And if circumstances were different now, nothing could stop her from committing herself to him for the rest of her life. But it was his desire to be a full-time father that was fueling his demand, not the fact that he cared about her. And that wasn’t enough.
A fresh wave of tears coursed down her cheeks. Closing her eyes, she vowed to remain true to her heart. For the first time in her life, she understood why her mother had fallen into Owen Larson’s web of deceit the second time. But she was going to be wiser, stronger, than her mother had been.
Unfortunately, Zach was a powerful force and one she was finding almost impossible to resist. Each time he touched her, held her, kissed her, she lost every ounce of sense she possessed. And it was becoming increasingly more difficult not to fall hopelessly in love with him all over again.
Turning on the television but lowering the volume, Zach propped his feet on the coffee table and settled back to wait for Arielle to wake up from her nap. The phone call with her brothers had gone well for him, but she’d become upset with all of them and he intended to put a stop to it right away.