“How about you?” The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Of course she wasn’t seeing anyone—or else why would she need him for an escort tonight?
“I need to talk to you about something.”
The look on her face was weary, resigned, and a bit fearful. Rachel Backley, woman executive, fearful? It made him distinctly uncomfortable. In fact, it made him suddenly, inexplicablyill.
“Go ahead,” he said cautiously.
“I know this is something you’re not going to want to hear,” she began, looking down at her perfectly manicured fingernails, “but I felt it only right to be perfectly honest. We had an arrangement for years, and…well, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Yes?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Seventeen
Gideon silently openedthe door to his bedroom, stepping in with care so as not to disturb Fiona.
The last thing he wanted was for her to wake up and want to talk.
Like a wraith, he moved about the room without a sound, slipping his shoes off, unbuttoning his shirt, folding it and his tux trousers over a chair. He didn’t want to think, didn’t want to talk…he just wanted Fiona.
A very heavy sleeper, she lay unmoving in an embryo-like lump under the thick duvet in the middle of his bed. The faint scent of some pleasing fragrance hung in the air, and he noticed two candles that had burned low next to her side.
Gideon slid under the covers, reaching for her,needingher. She sensed him, turning in her sleep, and rolled into his arms. Her soft hair amassed under his chin, and he tilted his head to bury his lips and his nose in its warm comfort.
His body, his mind, his emotions—all were numb, stuck, frozen back in that moment at Rachel’s house.
He shouldn’t be here, with Fiona—that one thing was certain; he should sleep on the couch—but when he’d left Rachel’s, after downing a second whiskey, he found himself unable to keep away from the one thing he was clear about.
He needed her. And she was here, waiting for him.
Damn. Oh, God…
He squeezed his eyes closed tightly, trying to banish the knowledge, the reality…the truth.
Fiona sighed in her sleep, adjusting her warm body, brushing against the hair on his chest. He held her closer, breathing in her scent, staring into the darkness over her head. Trying not to think.
When he moved to drop a kiss onto her cheek, Fiona sighed and wriggled slightly in his arms. “Gideon?” she murmured, half asleep. “Mmmm.”
She stretched, shifting against him, brushing her breasts over his chest, and sliding her knee up between his legs.
Gideon pulled back, still holding her, but away so that he wouldn’t be tempted into the glorious web she spun. He swallowed a hard lump, throat convulsing against her head, and closed his eyes.
It was hell.
She rolled toward him, and her hand moved into the hair on his chest, then she smoothed slim fingers over his shoulder as she nuzzled against his throat. His body, numb though it was, began to respond to her touch and he couldn’t still his fingers from brushing over the mounds of hair and across her soft cheek. Fiona arched against him, sighing, still half-asleep, but with a small moan that sent a pang of arousal straight into his belly.
Even as he knew he shouldn’t, he did: he slid his hands to cover her breasts, one thumb brushing over a nipple that tautened beneath it like a flower awakening. He covered her mouth with his, he pulled her hips tightly against him. The moan from the back of her throat was louder this time, and he could see her eyes flutter in the dim light as she tipped her head back to leave her neck bare to him.
With a fierceness that still surprised him, Gideon bent to her, covering her body with his, sliding his fingers into and around the deepest, warmest part of her. He closed his eyes and coaxed from Fiona the deepest, most shattering response he’d ever done with any woman.
And when it was over, he felt, rather than heard, her lips move against him.
I love you, Gideon.
He closed his eyes and cursed his life.
* * *
