Page 25 of The Plan

Talk about a fate worse than death. Spending even one night with Olivia would result in Ronnie committing a homicide. She knew herself quite well, after all.

George materialized out of nowhere. She had half-expected he would. The man had driven his truck right beside her the entire time she’d walked down the road from the office to the IGA. To make sure she was safe. Sigh. She just wasn’t going to escape him.

He had been driving her crazy—and he hadn’t even been around all day.

Damn hormones.

And damn the man causing them. She'd tried to escape him in the parking lot, planning a strategic retreat home... through the back streets... after buying food. Because apparently growing his alien offspring meant needing actual sustenance.Eat, pee, eat, pee, eat, pee…

How did anyone do this incubating thing more than once? Her mother had done it five times. Five. Insane.

"I can shop by myself." She navigated around a display of seasonal peaches, pretending she didn’t have a Hiller-shaped shadow following her everywhere. There was a look in his eyes—he’d come back from the courthouse that morning, with a look in his eyes she had never really seen before. And he’d refused to talk about what had happened in the courtroom today. But when he had turned to her she had known—George was intent on her now. Talk about giving a woman the shivers there. “I’m not plotting a daring escape between the lettuce and the tomatoes, you know. Though now that I think about it..."

"Can't help it." His voice held that new soft tone that made her stomach flutter—or maybe that was just their alien-baby doing somersaults. "I missed you today. Knowing you were back at the office waiting for me drove me insane.”

“You always know all the right words, don’t you, Georgiano?” Well, she had missed him, too. It was probably his alien-seed taking over her brain power. And…she’d had Giavonna drive her to Dr. Lewis’s office today. He’d had a cancellation that had coincided with her lunch break. An hour later and she’d confirmed it.

She had officially been taken over by an alien life form.

There was no question now. She was an alien-baby incubator. And…there were the pickles she was looking for right there. She reached for them—and found herself almost chest-to-chest with her baby daddy.

Oh, he smelled so much better than chocolate.

Damn it. Ronnie didn’t even like pickles that much. And weren’t pickles such a cliché? She could do better than this.

She was not going to be a walking cliché.

Then again, getting pregnant by her boss—wasn’t that a cliché itself?

He had infiltrated her life in every way. The thought made something twist in her chest. She added bread-and-butter pickles because... well, because. Alien-baby apparently wanted what Alien-baby wanted, and right now Alien-baby wanted all the pickles.

This kid was probably all Hiller through and through. Probably wouldn’t even look like her or anything. Alien-baby would be all George everything through and through and eat nothing but pickles. Her kid would smell like a pickle constantly!

George reached past her for fancy olive oil, his chest brushing her shoulder. His cologne wrapped around her—spice and hot and pure male. The same scent that had driven her crazy that night in the conference room. The night that had changed everything.

Oh, he still smelled so good…

Much better than pickles. And she was a total idiot here.

"I'm making you dinner tonight." He just looked at her, with that look in his eyes.

Like they were the only two people in the store. Which was ridiculous—there were tons of people in the store right now, from Mrs. Fields in the lettuce all the way over to sexy-as-sin Deputy Addy getting himself some frozen burritos.

Lots of people. Lots of them. Ronnie was seriously going to have to behave herself here.

“Are you?” She knew he could cook—he’d fed her his leftovers before. He’d started after she’d said money was a bit tight one night early in their…career association.

The words had just slipped out that night. She’d still been paying off that paralegal program she’d just finished, and money had gotten really tight.

He’d had fajitas in a Tupperware container the next day. And he’d fed her. Taken care of her. Damn him. Maybe that night was when things had first changed between them? She’d called him Georgie for the first time that night, too. And…started working more overtime.

Damn him. He’d tricked her with fajitas, hadn’t he? He’d been seducing her all along. She was apparently a bit slow on the uptake here.

“Real dinner, not takeout.” His fingers played with her hair, almost like he wasn’t aware of it. She shivered, remembering those fingers in her hair as he’d held her still for his kiss that night. “And we can look at paint samples for the house. Make a list of updates you want me to make, and in what order. It still needs work, but it’ll be a beautiful house when I’m finished with it.”

She was going to end up wedded and bedded and tucked in tight here while Georgie nested all around her, if she didn’t do something. Of course, he’d already taken care of the pregnant part. She still had on her shoes—but barefoot and pregnant seemed to seriously be in her future. Fast.

And damn him, he was warm and tempting and made it all sound so perfect.

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