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      Ten

      Amongst a sea of talking and laughing christening guests, Rafe reluctantly took hold of the baby. He was happy to be godfather—Mark and Karen were good friends—but why did people always expect that he’d want to hold their children? Although maybe godfathers ought to want to. Lex would doubtless have an opinion on the subject. Lex, whom he did want to hold, but couldn’t and wouldn’t because she was leaving tomorrow, going back to her old life. It was for the best.

      They’d had yesterday, undoubtedly a mistake given the outcry in the media. But a mistake he couldn’t regret. He’d wanted it to last forever, wanted her smiles and her laughter.

      He looked into the clear blue and strangely alert eyes of the child in his arms, who appeared, much like Rafe, to be wondering why this strange man was holding her. Karen called to someone across the room and walked away, and Rafe had to stop himself from calling her back.

      “If you cry now,” he quietly encouraged the child whose name he’d already managed to forget, “your mother will come back for you.” In Rafe’s experience, that was how this scenario usually played out. Unfortunately, this child didn’t know the drill and merely blinked. He was fairly sure she was a girl, though that long gown she, or he, had worn for the cathedral ceremony wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of femininity.

      Conversation flowed around him, and the baby continued to study him. “I hold you responsible,” he said, and the baby smiled. “If it hadn’t been for this christening, I could have been in Vienna by now. Or maybe even Argentina.” And he wouldn’t have entangled his life and emotions with Lexie. Although he couldn’t bring himself to regret what they’d shared.

      The baby’s stare turned accusing.

      “Okay,” he admitted. “I stayed for her, too. But don’t you dare tell anyone.”

      He heard a bubbling, sexy laugh and followed the sound to Lexie, where she stood talking with Adam and Karen. She wore a silky red wrap dress. He’d been pleased to see her in it. Pleased and turned on, but he ignored the second reaction. She’d at least stopped trying to hide her vibrancy behind fiercely elegant clothes. No point now, he guessed, given that she wasn’t marrying his brother. She was leaving. Her hair was pulled into a twist at the back of her head, its lushness contained. That fact pleased him, too. He admitted to a proprietary attitude to her hair—it featured in so many of his fantasies.

      She caught him watching her. Her gaze dipped to the baby in his arms and her eyes widened in surprise. Yes, Lexie, he thought, I do know how to hold a child, it’s just not something I do voluntarily. And Lexie was exactly the sort of woman who’d want children, who’d be a natural, loving mother. Which was why he had to let her go.

      He looked around for Karen. Surely he’d done his godfatherly duty and could hand the baby back. And leave. “Okay, kid, where’s your mother?” Only now the child had closed its eyes and—he couldn’t believe it—gone to sleep in his arms. It was the strangest feeling. He held the warm bundle a little closer.

      “You’re in trouble now.” He heard a soft, smiling voice at his side.

      “Meaning?” he asked Lexie, wanting only to hand the baby away so he could fill his arms with this woman instead. Yes, he was in trouble all right.

      “I understood you have a policy of never falling asleep with a woman, and I’m figuring that extends to letting them fall asleep in your arms.” She spoke quietly, her words winding sensuously around him.

      “First time for everything.”

      She touched her fingertip gently to the sleeping child’s cheek.

      “You want children?” he asked, even though the answer was obvious in the softness of her smile, in the tenderness and longing that lit her face.

      “Someday. Doesn’t everyone?” The smile widened with secret thoughts and plans.

      “No. Not everyone.”

      “Like Everest?”

      “Exactly.” He smiled back, enthralled, held captive by what felt like an almost physical connection to her. The entire roomful of people could fade away and he wouldn’t notice. She felt it, too. This wasn’t one-sided. Which only made the situation worse.

      “But don’t you? Want children.” She searched his face.

      “It’s not something I’ve thought about.” And he was terrified that looking at her, children were something he could want. “Here, do you want to hold her?” He nodded at the soundly sleeping little girl. If Lexie was holding the baby, she’d stop looking at him. And the sight of her holding a baby would stop him thinking thoughts he СКАЧАТЬ