One-Amazing-Night Baby!: A Wild Night & A Marriage Ultimatum / Pregnant by the Playboy Tycoon / Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition. Heidi Rice

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      ‘Not the kind you’re thinking. The baby would be fine.’ Nodding, he moved closer still. She hurried on. ‘I want you to know I don’t believe our living together will change my mind that marriage is any kind of option. If we were any other couple you’d agree this is a hopeless cause.’

      He dismissed her with a flick of his free hand. ‘No need to go into that. Point is you’re giving us the chance our baby deserves.’ His thumb grazed the back of her hand and the smouldering swirl in her stomach spiralled lower. ‘To give us the very best chance there can be no question. Sex is in.’

      Her insides squeezed with longing, but she whipped her hand away. Face flushed with telltale heat, she shook her head. ‘I won’t back down on this. Making love will only muddy the issue.’

      ‘The issue being whether we can make a decent, happy home for our child.’

      Her heart thumped low in her chest. When he said it like that …

      Her hands clenched into fists on her lap. Hell, he was a lawyer—a master manipulator. If anyone knew how to work a topic, Cooper did. But she was up to the challenge. A lawyer might think he was omnipotent, but a teacher possessed the power to shape the future.

      Recovering her bearings, she shored up her line of defence. ‘You’re just trying to confuse me.’

      He undid a cuff and folded his sleeve up the strong bronzed column of one forearm. ‘Think about it,’ he said in a deep, tolerant tone. ‘We’re practically strangers, yet bonded in an irreversible way. Clearly we need to get to know each other better. What better way than to pick up where we left off … where we got along best?’

      Gradually she realised she was still looking at his arm, remembering how it had felt to have him tug her close and do exactly what he wanted with her, precisely the way she wanted him to.

      As her breasts swelled with awareness and their tips hardened and rubbed, she snapped back to reality. To argue now would do more harm than good. She simply had to remember that, and never allow any hazardous situations to escalate out of control. There were such things as locks on bedroom doors, after all.

      Close to okay with that scenario, she laid out her other provisos. ‘Paige is leaving for her trip to France in two weeks. Yesterday after class she asked if I would go to the airport to see her off. That would be a good time to start our “living together” clock. But no contact with each other till then.’ She added in an undertone, ‘I have a lot to organise and get my mind around.’

      His mouth slanted in a triumphant smile. ‘Agreed.’ He leant forward to seal their arrangement with a kiss.

      She inserted a hand between their mouths. ‘Did you miss the part where we haven’t agreed on the intimacy issue yet?’

      He captured her hand and eased it aside. ‘Kiss me—it might jog my memory.’

      Before she could find another barrier, he gently cupped her nape and pulled her close. His lips grazed over hers, lingering long enough for her heartbeat to hammer and her resolve to slip. When his mouth parted, and the warm, wet tip of his tongue touched hers, she somehow found the wherewithal to break away.

      She tried to tamp down the mesmerising heat drifting through her bloodstream. ‘Never forget that I’m doing this against my better judgement.’

      He flicked out his napkin and laid it in his lap. ‘Thank God your better judgement is wrong.’

      CHAPTER SIX

      TWO weeks later, Sophie smiled into Paige’s wide crystal-blue eyes and held tight to the teenager’s finely boned hands. ‘Don’t look so worried. We’re only a phone call away.’

      Paige swallowed, then spoke over the noisy international airport bustle. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited or frightened in my whole life.’

      More appealingly masculine than ever, big brother Cooper stepped into their circle. ‘Two months in France will be an adventure you’ll never forget.’

      Sophie dragged her gaze away from the strong planes of Cooper’s face to Paige, who was dressed in soft blue jeans and a comfortable yellow jersey knit for the long flight to Paris. She looked younger and more vulnerable than Sophie had ever seen her. Weird, but she even smelled like baby powder—although Sophie knew darn well Paige only wore fashionable fragrances, like the majority of seniors at Unity.

      Hormones. They were playing havoc with her mind and her body. Her breasts had already jumped from a C to a D, and suddenly everywhere she went she saw people pushing prams.

      Cooper cupped Paige’s shoulder. ‘If you have any problems with your host family, you know Madame Laurent will sort it out in no time.’

      Sophie added, ‘You must feel good, knowing your French teacher is chaperoning?’

      When other duties allowed, Sophie and Madame sometimes lunched together in the staffroom. To avoid questions or awkward moments today, she’d let Madame Laurent know in advance that she and Paige’s brother were on the verge of dating. Sophie had been a little anxious about letting the cat out of the bag, but Madame had seemed delighted.

      Of course lifting the lid on her pregnancy would be something else again, and it seemed people were already talking.

      Paige chewed her lip. ‘It’ll go quickly, right?’

      With a fond glimmer in his eye, Cooper grazed a knuckle down his sister’s cheek. ‘We’ve travelled abroad before. Believe me, those weeks will fly.’

      Sophie considered Paige’s hands nested in hers, then relaxed slightly against Cooper’s palm, which had come to rest low on her back. She had to concentrate to stop her eyes from drifting shut, the immediate heat of arousal was so intense.

      As agreed, she and Cooper hadn’t seen each other over the previous fourteen days. This morning, when he’d collected her from her apartment, as arranged via a phone conversation the previous week, the overwhelming sense of attraction and temptation had been so strong she’d imagined seeing sparks fly when they’d accidentally touched.

      However, although the warmth infusing her body now was mostly due to serious sexual chemistry, the other reason for her pleasure buzz was the feeling of being included in this family—a feeling she could no doubt get used to alarmingly fast.

      From a group of parents and their soon to be departed girls, Madame Laurent called over to Cooper. ‘Mr Smith, could I see you before we go through?’

      Cooper nodded, then assured Paige, ‘I’ll be right back.’

      Paige eyed the gate she would soon pass through. She sighed so hard she visibly shuddered. ‘I wouldn’t feel so bad if I wasn’t leaving Hallam for so long.’

      Hallam Gregson: first-year university student, Paige’s boyfriend, and, at her tender age of sixteen, the love of her young life.

      Sophie put on a brave face. ‘He’ll be here when you get back.’

      ‘I know you think it won’t last,’ Paige said earnestly, ‘but Hallam and I really are in love. Like Romeo and Juliet.’

      A shiver skated down Sophie’s СКАЧАТЬ