The CEO's Baby Surprise. Helen Lacey

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СКАЧАТЬ at him, suddenly mesmerized by his bronzed skin and lean, muscular frame.

      And then, in stunning Technicolor, it came rushing back.

       The party.

       The kiss.

       The one-night stand.

      Her first. Her last.

      She needed to get up. To think. She shimmied sideways but quickly stopped moving when he stirred. She wasn’t quite ready for any kind of face-to-face, morning-after awkwardness. Not with him. She took a deep breath and tried again, inching her hips across the cool sheet so slowly it was agonizing. Finally one leg found the edge of the mattress and she pushed the cover back. He moved again and she stilled instantly. He made a sound, half groan, half moan, and flipped around, the sheet draping haphazardly over his hips as he came to face her.

      But still asleep.

      Mary-Jayne’s breath shuddered out as she caught sight of his profile. He was ridiculously handsome. No wonder she’d lost her head. The straight nose, chiseled cheeks and square jaw was a riveting combination. And she quickly recalled those silver-gray eyes of his...just too sexy for words. As her gaze traveled lower her fingertips tingled. His body was incredibly well cut, and she fought the urge to touch him just one more time. She spotted a faint mark on his shoulder. Like a love bite.

       Did I do that?

      Heat surged through her blood when she remembered what they’d done the night before, and again in the small hours of the morning. No sweet wonder her muscles ached and her skin seemed ultrasensitive. She’d never had a night like it before, never felt such intense desire or experienced such acute and mindboggling pleasure.

      It was like a dream. A fantasy.

      And she needed to wake up from this particular dream. Quickly.

      She managed to ease off the bed and quickly looked around for her clothes. Her underwear was by the bed, and she snatched it up with guilty fingers and then quickly dressed into the thong and bra. The shoes were easily spotted—one was by the window, the other under a chair in the corner of the room. But the black dress was nowhere to be seen. The smooth fabric had clung to her curves, and the man in the bed had told her how beautiful and desirable she’d looked. No one had ever said those words quite that way to her before. She found her purse on the chair and continued looking for the dress, keeping a mindful eye on him.

       Please don’t wake up...

      He didn’t, thankfully, and a few moments later she found the dress, scrunched in a ball and hidden beneath the quilt that had fallen to the foot of the bed. She stepped into it and slipped it up and over her hips, settling her arms through the bodice before she twisted herself into a pretzel to do up the zipper. Breathless, she cast another look toward the sleeping man.

       I’m such a fool...

      For weeks she’d stayed resolute, determined to avoid crashing into bed with him. But the moment he’d touched her, the moment he’d made his move she’d melted like an ice cube in hell.

      Mary-Jayne pushed her feet into her patent pumps, grabbed her purse and ran.

Chapter One

      Pregnant.

      Not a bout of food poisoning as she’d wanted to believe.

      Mary-Jayne walked from the doctor’s office and headed for her car. Her head hurt. Her feet hurt. Everything hurt. The snap on her jeans felt tight around her waist. Now she knew why.

      She was three months and three weeks pregnant.

      She opened the door of the borrowed Honda Civic and got inside. Then she placed a hand over her belly and let out a long, heavy breath.

      Twenty-seven. Single. Pregnant.

       Right.

      Not exactly the end of the world...but not what she’d been expecting, either.

      One day she’d imagined she’d have a baby. When she was married and settled, not while she was trying to carve out a career as a jewelry designer and wasn’t exactly financially stable.

      She thought about calling her older sisters, Evie and Grace, but quickly shrugged off the idea. She needed time to think. Plan. Sort out what she was going to do, before she told anyone. Especially her sisters, who’d want to know everything.

      She’d have to tell them about that night.

      She gripped the steering wheel and let out a long, weary sigh. She’d tried to put the memory from her mind countless times. And failed. Every time she walked around the grounds of the Sandwhisper Resort she was reminded. And every time she fielded a telephone call from him she was thrust back to that crazy night.

      Mary-Jayne drove through the gates of the resort and took a left down the road that led to the employees’ residences. Her villa was small but well appointed and opened onto the deck and to the huge heated pool and spa area. The Sandwhisper Resort was one of the largest in Port Douglas, and certainly one of the most luxurious. The town of Port Douglas was about forty miles north of Cairns, and its population of over three thousand often doubled during peak vacation times. Living and working at the luxurious resort for the past four and half months hadn’t exactly been a hardship. Running her friend Audrey’s boutique was mostly enjoyable and gave her the opportunity to create and showcase her own jewelry. Life was a breeze.

      Correction.

      Life had been a breeze.

      Until she’d had an uncharacteristic one-night stand with Daniel Anderson.

      CEO of Anderson Holdings and heir apparent to the huge fortune that had been made by his grandfather from ore and copper mining years earlier, he owned the Sandwhisper Resort with his two brothers. There were four other resorts around the globe—one in Phuket, another along the Amalfi coast in Italy, another in the Maldives and the flagship resort in the San Francisco Bay Area.

      He was rich, successful, uptight and absurdly arrogant.

      Everything she’d always abhorred in a man.

      He was also reported to be kind, generous and honest.

      Well...according to his grandmother.

      Eighty-year-old Solana Anderson adored her grandsons and spent her retirement flying between the east and west coasts of Australia and America, living at the resorts during the spring and summer months in alternating time zones. Mary-Jayne liked the older woman very much. They’d met the first day she’d arrived at the resort after the desperate emergency call from her old school friend Audrey had sent her flying up to Port Douglas with barely a packed suitcase. Audrey had moved into Mary-Jayne’s small house in Crystal Point so she could be close to her ill mother while Mary-Jayne moved into Audrey’s condo at the resort. Once she was in residence, she read the scribbled note with instructions her friend had left and opened the boutique at an unrespectable eleven o’clock. It was meant to be a temporary gig—but Audrey insisted her mother needed her. So her planned three weeks ended up being for six СКАЧАТЬ