Falling for the Pregnant Heiress Page 9

  He’d heard every word and when she’d started to walk out, he’d slipped a few feet to the left and then gotten himself into the middle of the crowd looking at Pierre’s paintings.

  He’d stopped just in time to see her stride out, take a long breath and then grin.

  She hadn’t bested Pierre. There was no win or lose in this situation. There was only control and she had kept it. With or without Pierre, she intended to raise this baby properly.

  She spotted Trent standing in the middle of the exhibit room and walked over.

  Her blue eyes shone. Her grin...yes, a grin on sophisticated Sabrina McCallan...lit her face.

  “Well, that was easy.”

  “I saw. Do you think he’s going to want to have anything to do with your little boy or girl?”

  “I don’t know. But if he does, I’ll set some ground rules, making him see the baby in New York, maybe even in my condo while I’m present until I determine what kind of influence he intends to have. And if he doesn’t...” She shrugged.

  Trent laughed. “You’ll give your child his name and address when he turns eighteen and let it be up to the kid if he wants to know his dad.” He laughed again. “That was perfect.”

  “No, that was fair.”

  He wanted to kiss her so bad he had a hard time controlling himself. Sabrina McCallan was strong, knew her mind, had been right about Pierre all along and would make a fantastic mother.

  She glanced around at the people milling about the exhibit. “I’m ready to go.”

  “I’ll have the valet tell your driver. But first—” He slid his hands to her waist and yanked her to him, planting his lips on hers out of sheer excitement.

  But when his mouth pressed against the softness of hers, longing shivered through him, his common sense disappeared and instinct took over.

  Kissing her was like his first taste of champagne, sweet and bubbly, but with a bite. That bite was his own need sliding through his blood. The scary thing was only a tiny bit of it was sexual. The need was more about the joy of sharing and connecting. To a man who made it a point to keep a safe distance to protect himself, tumbling head-first into an emotional connection was as sharp, as urgent, as anything sex could offer.

  And also as frightening.

  He tried to pull back, to save himself, to remind himself of everything at risk, but she caught his face and kept him right where he was, deepening the kiss by opening her mouth beneath his.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SABRINA GAVE HERSELF over to the kiss, curiosity urging her on. But when she realized what was happening, that this was Trent, the guy she’d wanted to kiss with a ferocity that confused her, she melted. Every cell in her body felt alive as if she’d awakened from a long sleep and was seeing morning for the first time.

  She swiped her tongue along his, reveling in the sensations that spiraled through her as she linked the great, humble, determined, sexy guy she was getting to know to the man kissing her. The muscular shoulders beneath her trembling hands stiffened. Jumbled thoughts vied for attention.

  She was just out of a bad relationship.

  She was pregnant with that man’s child.

  Her parents had shown her the worst example of love imaginable. She’d seen firsthand what happened when two people who shouldn’t have even become involved got married. Love was a plethora of intense emotions that caused people to make bad decisions. What she was feeling for Trent wasn’t merely out of character; it was also out of control. Like speeding down a highway in a car so big your feet can’t reach the brakes. Much like what her mother had described she’d felt for her father.

  Trent made another move to pull back, but hesitated. His warm lips moved ever so slowly, ever so gently, across hers again, building an ache in her chest. She wanted this so badly. Wanted him so badly. But this wasn’t just about her, her fears, her troubles. She also knew his history, knew he needed a woman who was softer, more in touch with the emotions currently making her heart feel like it would explode.

  She couldn’t be the woman he needed, and to get involved with him would only muddy the waters of his life.

  She pulled away, pretending great interest in straightening her skirt.

  After a few seconds he said, “That was a surprise.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. She might have finished the kiss, but he’d started it. How could he call his own action a surprise—?

  Unless his feelings for her had overwhelmed him, as well?

  It didn’t matter. He needed—no, he deserved—more than she could give. She suddenly wondered about her competency as a mom. Emotionally deficient as she was, would she also be unable to give her child everything she needed?

  She took a breath. Straightened her shoulders. Even in a bad situation, her mother had been the best mother in the world. She’d taught Sabrina everything she needed to know to assure that her child always felt loved, cherished, protected.

  * * *

  Trent watched her distance herself. He could have almost scripted the conversation in her head. She had a baby to care for. She didn’t need a distraction.

  That was fine. He knew all that, too. And he wasn’t here to find a new lover. He was here to support her.

  “I was proud of you back there.”

  She finished her imaginary straightening of her skirt. “Thanks. I felt empowered. Not doing what everybody would have told me I should do but doing what I knew was right.”

  Ah. And there it was. The reason she’d kissed him back, lured him into a deeper kiss when he would have ended it so much sooner. Standing up to Pierre, making a clear decision about her life, about her baby’s life, had given her courage or confidence.

  Which she would need to get through a pregnancy and raise a child.

  A man who messed with that process would be as much of a narcissist as Pierre.

  And Trent wasn’t. He was a man in a weird situation. Attracted to a woman with a child on the way, when he was a guy who knew the realities, the difficulties, of step-parenting. Even people who tried often failed, and some of his scars from being left out still pinched sometimes. For the first seven years of his life, he and his mom had nearly been inseparable. Then she’d remarried and he’d gotten left behind.

  The truth he’d always avoided crawled out from a far corner of his brain. If his mom hadn’t remarried, he and his mom would have remained the team they’d become when his father died. Because she’d remarried, the older Trent had gotten, the more he’d understood that he couldn’t begrudge his mom companionship, or more children, so he’d been the collateral damage.

  He’d always looked at his genius, his success, as fate’s way of making that up to him, and he accepted that and didn’t reach for more. Actually, he’d never wanted more—hadn’t wanted to test the waters of real love. He was okay with knowing he was an outsider, a loner.

  Until that kiss.

  He’d say he was a good kisser or she was a good kisser, except he knew the explanation wasn’t quite that simple. It was more that they were a great combination.

  But they were the wrong two people. Or maybe it was an accident that they clicked. Because they could not follow through on this. Not with her pregnant and him very aware of the troubles, the heartache, when a man couldn’t accept a stepchild.

  Their situation sucked. If she wasn’t pregnant, they’d date, and he could analyze if their clicking meant something or not. As it was, his decision had to be made immediately. They couldn’t test the waters. They couldn’t play around and see if anything would become of what they felt.

  He had to decide right now if he was willing to risk hurting her, risk her child’s happiness. Or worse, risk the possibility that he could take away the opportunity of her and her child forming a great bond that would last a lifetime.

  And right now the answer had to be no.

  In the back of the c
ar, returning to the hotel in Dublin, awkwardness ruled. A man could make up his mind that doing something was wrong, but that didn’t mean a kiss won’t haunt him.

  After the strained first half hour of the forty-minute drive, his brain scurried to think of a neutral topic of conversation and all he could come up with was, “So how would one go about starting a mutual fund?”

  His face hurt from holding back a wince. What was he doing? He had no intention of starting a mutual fund.

  She faced him. “I’d probably let an investment firm do the heavy lifting on the setup.” She shrugged. “Your name would carry the fund and you’d have to pick the stocks or bonds your company supported.”

  He held her gaze. She was dangerously smart and very easy with her knowledge. Even the way she phrased things spoke of casual understanding of finances. He saw her father’s influence. All those dinners where he’d grilled her brothers, she’d been paying attention.

  “But I know you don’t want to start one. You were tired of the silence in the car, groped for something to talk about and picked a topic you knew I couldn’t resist.”

  In some ways he loved her honesty. In others, he wanted to run from it.

  “I also noticed that you didn’t ask about volunteering to mentor or lecture at my nonprofit. It’s okay. I know that mentoring or lecturing for me would mean we’d see each other again. And I don’t think either one of us wants that. Since Seth’s wedding, we’ve been feeling something for each other.” She sneaked a peek at him. “And we don’t want to.”

  He’d been so gobsmacked over her admission that she’d felt something for him that he almost didn’t hear the “And we don’t want to.”

  When it sank in, he took a breath. He understood why he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hurt her, to hurt Seth’s little sister, or to hurt the relationship she would form with her child.

  But all this time he’d leaned on the fact that she didn’t believe in love to keep himself from taking what he wanted.

  Now she was telling him she felt things for him? Making him want to forget all the reasons he had to stay away from her?

  She might be brilliant about finances, but she knew nothing about shutting down an attraction. Because what she’d just said rippled through him like a challenge.

  “Yeah. I’m not a very good risk for a ready-made family.”

  She shook her head. “Or maybe you are, and you just haven’t found the right woman? Someone soft and sweet.”

  He would have snorted at that, except he remembered the way she’d kissed him. So hungry. So greedy. And he couldn’t believe she didn’t see herself as the right woman. But her expectant tone of voice, as if the strategist in her knew exactly what he needed, told him that she didn’t see herself in that role.

  Even after their powerful kiss should have clued her in that she really could be.

  He rolled all that around in his mind and the only conclusion that made sense was that this might have been the first time she’d ever kissed someone she had genuine feelings for.

  It humbled him.

  And scared the hell out of him.

  But if they talked about this any more, she’d be in his arms again that night and this time he wouldn’t pull away.

  “So I’d contact an investment firm—”

  She laughed. “Don’t want to talk about the attraction, huh?”

  “Hell, no. My best friend’s baby sister? We might be having some feelings but we both know they’re wrong. I’m not a good candidate to be anybody’s stepdad and if I hurt you, I’d lose my best friend. Now that you’ve talked to Pierre, we have, at best, twenty-four more hours together. Eight of those we’ll be sleeping in separate rooms at the hotel. We can sleep on the plane or work on the plane. And once my driver drops you off at your condo in New York, we’ll only see each other at parties Seth hosts. No one has to know any of this.”

  “So we’ve got what? Twenty more minutes of painful silence?”

  “Not counting the hour-and-twenty-minute drive to the airstrip tomorrow morning.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t we talk about favorite TV shows?”

  “I don’t watch television.”

  “Good. Then I’ll tell you about all my favorite TV shows.”

  * * *

  He babbled on for ten minutes about everything from half-hour comedies to full-blown sagas on platforms he paid to access. To keep her brain from going in directions she didn’t want to go, she paid close attention.

  “So there are knights?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it’s present day?”

  “Well, sort of. It’s an alternate reality.”

  “Interesting.”

  “It is! It’s interesting to think about how different life would be if one little thing in history hadn’t happened or had happened differently.”

  Their gazes caught.

  She didn’t have to wonder why he’d stopped talking or where his thoughts had jumped because hers had tumbled in the same direction. What might have happened if they’d met under different circumstances? If she wasn’t pregnant. If he wasn’t someone who needed a woman more like Avery or Harper. Someone who knew how to love.

  Because she didn’t. Up until a few days ago, she hadn’t even believed love existed.

  Holding his gaze, she quietly said, “I wasn’t talking about the show. I was talking about the fact that you’re so enamored with television.”

  “Ah.”

  The car pulled up to the hotel. Trent opened the door, got out and extended his hand to help her.

  “My brain likes to be busy. What does it hurt if it’s rummaging around deciphering an industry or enjoying an alternate reality?”

  She stepped out onto the sidewalk. “I guess none.”

  Still holding her hand, he led her into the well-lit lobby. Working to keep their attention on something that made no difference in either of their lives, he appeared to have forgotten he still held her hand.

  But Sabrina hadn’t. No one had ever done anything so simple, so romantic. Not that he’d taken her hand, but that the gesture had been natural as if his subconscious couldn’t resist her.

  They got into the elevator and rode first to the floor of her room. He walked her to her door and stopped. As if he just noticed he held her hand, he looked at their entwined fingers and then into her eyes.

  The connection was so electric, it hurt to hold his gaze. His dark orbs kept secrets, made promises.

  “You know I want to kiss you right now.”

  “Yes.” Because she wanted him to kiss her, too. She wanted to pick up where they’d left off at the castle. Before they’d ruined it in the car by talking about reality—

  Reality? That was three thousand miles away, across an ocean. Technically, they were alone in a hotel on another continent.

  And as he’d said, no one needed to know about any of this.

  If she looked at this the right way, that statement in the car was like an unspoken pact not to speak of anything that happened on this trip—

  Including what happened right now.

  The moment stretched out between them. A choice. Kiss him. Maybe even make love with him. And then—

  And then...

  Go home and pretend nothing had happened?

  Have her face turn red every time they said hello at one of Seth’s parties? Feel awkward if they met at a coffee shop or passed on the street?

  Or create a bond? Maybe fall in love the way her mom had and pine for him when he dropped her off at her condo tomorrow and then disappeared into the noise of Manhattan. After all, he was the one who’d said their feelings were wrong. Acting on the sexual attraction aspects would only confuse a time in her life that should be about the joy of pregnancy and preparing to become a mom.

  She had a responsibility to the little life inside her. That was
where her focus should be.

  Turning away wasn’t easy, but nothing about this situation was easy. That was why she avoided feelings. Getting hurt? Disappointing others? Those were things she didn’t do.

  So maybe not all the lessons she’d learned from dealing with her dad were useless?

  She waved her key card across the lock to activate it. Turning the knob, she said, “Good night.”

  The door opened, and she stepped inside her room without a backward glance, her heart splintering with pain. The price of keeping her focus and her dignity was a wave of loneliness the likes of which she’d never felt before.

  In bed an hour later, after a long bath, she wondered if he was thinking about her and knew he was. She had no idea what hummed between them, but if it was anything like the emotions that her mother had felt, it wasn’t reliable.

  And that was what she had to keep telling herself. She’d seen love firsthand and knew it frequently hurt people.

  She forced her eyes closed. Quieted her mind. And eventually fell into a deep sleep. She had no dreams about Trent following her with a dog on a leash that kept getting tangled in the wheels of her twins’ stroller. Her mind went totally blank, totally black.

  Her phone woke her hours later. She answered with a groggy, “Hello.”

  “This is the front desk. The extra luggage ordered by Mr. Sigmund is being brought to your room now.”

  Instantly awake, she scooted up in bed. “Extra luggage?”

  “He said something about a ball gown.”

  “Oh.” A ball gown wouldn’t fit into the carry-on she’d been stuffing with clothes for days. His remembering that, ordering the bigger case, could have caused her to swoon at his consideration, but they’d talked about this the night before. He’d said what they felt was wrong. And she’d cemented that belief when she’d walked away from a kiss, maybe even a one-night stand. She couldn’t let her thoughts go backward.