Her Best Friend's Baby by Teona Bell

Chapter One
     
    “Zai, mind if I come over right now?” Leith asked.
    Zaierra pried her eyes open to glance at the clock on her nightstand. Two a.m., and she had to be in the office early to prepare for the executive meeting. The big wigs were coming in from all over the country to strategize. They did it every year, and she knew the routine for ordering them breakfast, lunch, and dinner since they’d be at all day. She already had her handouts started, and no doubt her boss would have more and changes because he couldn’t let her enjoy the well-oiled machine she had going in his department.
    Of course Leith knew all of this because he was one of the junior executives, and he would be in on the meeting. She knew what he would eat and need even though she wasn’t his assistant, because they had been friends since high school.
    “You’ve never asked before,” she grumbled, “and you have a key. Why are you waking me up at this ungodly hour, Leith Stone?”
    “I’ll be there in half an hour.” The line went dead. She blinked at it and then hung it up, or attempted to. The receiver missed the base and crashed on the floor. Leith had been the one to bug her to get a landline since half the time at home she forgot to charge her cell. What would she do without him?
    “Sleep,” she muttered into her pillow and drifted off. The next time she woke up, it was to the feel of Leith’s big body crushing her when he dropped onto her bed. Zaierra shoved at him, groaning. “Get off, you big ape.”
    Leith didn’t move. She reached up to touch his head, her fingers tangling in his silky hair. He said something she didn’t catch, but they stayed there with him half on top of her, a thick comforter separating their bodies. Zaierra drifted off again with the sound of Leith’s quiet breathing above her.
    In the morning, she woke to the sound of the shower going and the scent of coffee brewing. This routine was nothing new. Often Leith came to her apartment unannounced, used the shower, and found clothes for himself already hanging in the closet. They were like an old married couple with none of the physical benefits. Not that Leith used her. He’d pulled her ass out of the fire more than once. They just came from two different worlds that happened to collide in the same school. Leith came from an upper middle class family, and his parents provided him with a top education in one of the finest universities. Zaierra worked her way through community college and later transferred to the cheapest university she could find. Circumstances forced her to drop to part time, and she had finally finished last year. She expected to move up in her career one way or another, whether it was at Hanson and Associates where she and Leith worked, or somewhere else. One issue got in the way of that plan, an issue that had grown larger over the last couple of years, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t shake the idea of it.
    Zaierra rose from the bed and shuffled into the bathroom. She didn’t bother putting on a robe. Leith had seen her down to skin plenty of times. Not on purpose of course, but it happened. She’d seen him too, and boy oh boy that man had a body. If he weren’t her best friend, she wouldn’t mind sampling the goods.
    At the sink, she began brushing her teeth. “So, what’s up?” she mumbled around a mouthful of paste.
    Leith didn’t answer right away, and she thought he didn’t hear her. She opened her mouth to speak louder, but he cut her off. “I ended it.”
    She stared at the reflection of the shower behind her. “You’re serious?”
    The shower door slid to the side, and Leith came into view. She forced her gaze to stay on his face, but her peripheral vision took in the big chest and broad shoulders. Water glistened on his taut skin, rolling downward. She shouldn’t be attracted to Leith, but damn if she wasn’t. That made her dilemma and the solution her crazy brain had come up with that much harder to