High-Society Secret Pregnancy / Front Page Engagement: High-Society Secret Pregnancy. Laura Wright

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СКАЧАТЬ bristled from copper baskets hanging from the ceiling, and soft jazz drifted through the overhead speakers. Julia placed her order, then carried her iced decaf drink and scone with her to a chair in the far corner. Then she curled up in the shadows and tried to be inconspicuous.

      Max Rolland’s apartment was just down the street from the Park Café and he usually hit the trendy but convenient coffee spot at least once a day. In fact, it was here he’d first met Julia Prentice, the woman currently making him crazy.

      He remembered his first sight of her with absolute clarity. She’d looked so cool and elegant, sitting by herself in a corner chair, watching the comings and goings of the other patrons as if she were in a box seat at a Broadway play. Her shoulder-length white-blond hair had been loose in soft waves around her face and her big blue eyes had fixed on him the moment he’d walked in.

      He’d felt her gaze right down to his bones, and when he met it for the first time, he’d experienced a bloodburning heat that had forced him to approach her. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have. He wasn’t looking for the kind of relationship a woman like her no doubt wanted and needed. But that night, it was as if all bets had been off.

      They’d met, talked, touched and ended up in his bed for a night like nothing he’d ever had before. Just the memory of her body moving beneath his, the soft silk of her skin, had him hard and aching again.

      Which only fed the anger that continued to churn just beneath the surface of his steely calm. Damn the woman. Why wasn’t she answering his phone calls? And why the hell was he acting like some moonstruck teenager with his hormones in overdrive?

      He picked up his black coffee—no designer crapola for him—and turned to leave. That’s when he felt it. The power of her gaze. Just like that first night two months ago.

      Max shifted his gaze to the chair in the far corner and there, in the shadows, he found her.

      Again.

      And this time, he’d be damned if she’d get away so easily.

      Two

      Max headed across the crowded room, his gaze locked with Julia’s. He could feel the tension building in her body even at a distance. Her studied, cool mask of indifference wavered a little as his gaze bored into hers, and he actually enjoyed knowing that he made her nervous.

      What man wouldn’t?

      “Julia,” he said, his voice pitched low enough that no one but her would hear him.

      “Hello, Max.”

      One black eyebrow lifted. “Hello? That’s it? You’ve been avoiding me for two months and all you’ve got to say is hello?”

      She broke off a tiny crumb of her scone, lifted it to her lips and chewed as though it were a chunk of beef jerky. Stalling. He recognized the signs. Well, she could delay their talk as long as she wanted. But now that he had her cornered, so to speak, she wasn’t leaving until she explained why the hell she’d been so studiously avoiding him.

      He pulled the chair beside hers even closer, then sat down, perching on the edge of the seat. Cradling his coffee between his palms, he stared at her, drinking in the sight of her. So many nights he’d woken up with her image drifting through his brain. He’d told himself he was remembering her wrong. No woman was that beautiful. No woman could be such a stirring mix of both innocence and sensuality. He’d almost believed his own lies.

      Until now.

      Now that night with her came roaring back, and he saw that not only was she everything his memory had promised, she was more. The scent of her alone—something light and floral—was enough to tempt him. As if he needed tempting.

      “I was going to call you tomorrow,” she was saying, and Max jerked himself back to the present. With a woman like Julia Prentice, it only made sense to pay attention.

      “Were you.” It wasn’t a question. More of a statement, letting her know that he didn’t believe her for a minute.

      She got the message, he told himself, since a slight flush colored her cheeks and had her dropping her gaze from his.

      “Look, I know you’re angry,” she said, and a muscle in his jaw twitched.

      “I passed angry a few weeks ago.”

      Lifting her gaze to his again, she shook her head and said, “We had one night together, Max. And when it was over, you made it perfectly clear you were only interested in a sexual relationship.”

      He laughed shortly and glanced around, reassuring himself that no one was listening in. No one was. Everyone here was huddled with a group of friends or sitting solitarily behind a computer, the glow of the screen reflecting off their faces. He and Julia might as well have been on an island.

      “Didn’t seem to bother you that night,” he pointed out.

      “No, it didn’t,” she admitted, and licked her dry lips. An action that had his body tightening to the point of actual pain. “We both got carried away that night. We did things that—”

      “I’ve been thinking about ever since,” he interrupted her neatly, making sure she was filled with the memories that had been haunting him.

      He’d never been with a woman so controlled on the outside and so completely uninhibited in bed. She’d gotten to him despite his efforts to maintain a safe emotional distance. And that infuriated him. Max wasn’t stupid. He knew her type.

      The society woman. Born into a world he’d only entered through years of hard work and persistence. She carried a pedigree and he was a junkyard dog. Their differences were blatant. But in bed, those differences hadn’t mattered. In those hours together, they’d each found something in the other that they hadn’t anywhere else.

      At least, that was what he’d thought.

      “Believe me when I say,” she told him, “that I’ve been thinking about that night, too. A lot.”

      “Then why are you dodging me? We both enjoyed ourselves.”

      “Oh, yes…”

      “So what’s keeping us from having another night—and more—just like it?”

      Her gaze drilled into his. “I’m pregnant.”

      If she’d pulled the chair he was sitting on out from under him, Max couldn’t have been more stunned. Her simple statement. Her clear, steady gaze. The grim determination of her mouth. All made it clear she was telling the truth. But if she expected him to believe that it was his baby, she was in for a big surprise.

      He knew something she didn’t and because of that one fact, he had no doubt at all that he wasn’t the father of her child.

      “Congratulations,” he said tightly, pausing for a sip of his coffee. The hot, strong liquid burned his tongue and he hissed in a breath, relishing the sting because it gave him something else to concentrate on besides the unspoken plea in her eyes. “Who’s the lucky father?”

      She drew her head back, widened her eyes and said, “You are, of course.”

      He СКАЧАТЬ