A Pregnancy Scandal
Kat Cantrell
They married for the sake of the baby. Will they stay together for love?Widowed power player Phillip Edgeworth’s political ambitions demand he have a wife—they don’t demand he love her. It’s a good thing, too, because his heart belongs to the perfect wife he lost. But finding a woman who will say “I do” to his deal proves difficult. Until he meets Alexandra Meer—the sexy CFO he can’t resist. She doesn’t believe in happily-ever-after, even after their amazing night together. And now she’s pregnant with his child! A marriage of convenience should end the scandal and solve all their problems…as long as they don’t fall in love…
What was Alex doing in Washington?
It was almost as if she’d known he couldn’t stop thinking about their night together.
He stood as the door opened and Alex spilled into the room. Her face glowed and something seized his lungs as he stared at her. She’d stolen his ability to think simply by walking into the room. That was not supposed to happen.
Her eyes shone with unexpected moisture and he lost his place again. This wasn’t a social visit, obviously. “Is something wrong?”
“Maybe.” She hesitated, biting her lip in that way that said she didn’t know what to say next.
If only he could take her in his arms and kiss her hello, like he wanted to. He sighed. “I like you a lot, Alex, but I’m not sure we’re meant to continue our affair. It’s complicated. And not your fault. I wish things could be different. And not so complicated.”
She choked out a laugh that sounded a bit like a sob. “Yeah, I wish that, too. Unfortunately, things are far more complicated than you could ever dream.”
“What—”
“I’m pregnant.”
* * *
A Pregnancy Scandal is part of the Love and Lipstick series: For four female executives, mixing business with pleasure leads to love!
A Pregnancy Scandal
Kat Cantrell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
KAT CANTRELL read her first Mills & Boon novel in primary school and has been scribbling in notebooks since then. She writes smart, sexy books with a side of sass. She’s a former Mills & Boon So You Think You Can Write winner and an RWA Golden Heart® Award finalist. Kat, her husband and their two boys live in north Texas.
To Anne Marsh for about a million reasons but mostly because you’re always there on the other side of my chat window.
Contents
Cover (#u3cb6506e-db11-5542-bd0b-41f90eeea7e8)
Introduction (#u694d9cb4-c050-596a-abe0-db63ae16aed4)
Title Page (#u44000390-84db-5b00-9e81-a6bccca8dfc5)
About the Author (#ubaa1ca28-315e-53b8-867f-5e6d14895793)
Dedication (#u7f3c91de-46f2-5a6c-ae11-489f60da14ec)
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Epilogue
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#u88ba6195-cdac-5779-8e99-fb62f93bea29)
The third time Alex ducked behind the Greek statue, Senator Phillip Edgewood’s curiosity got the best of him. Yeah, he’d been watching her from across the crowded room as she chatted with her friends and coworkers. How could he not?
Alexandra Meer was the most beautiful woman in the room.
Surprisingly so. Phillip had half expected her to show up to his fundraiser-slash-party in jeans, which he would not have minded in the slightest because he liked her no matter what she wore. But this dressed-up, made-up, transformed version of the woman he’d first met a couple of weeks ago at the Fyra Cosmetics corporate office—wow.
Senator Galindo cleared her throat, drawing Phillip’s attention back to their conversation. Ramona Galindo, the other United States senator from Texas, and Phillip had a lot in common and they often socialized when they were both home in Dallas. But it was hard to focus on the senator with Alex’s secretive actions going on. He pretended to listen, because the whole point of this evening was to network with his colleagues outside of Washington, while he also strained to catch a glimpse of Alex.
Was she covertly dumping canapés before anyone figured out she wasn’t eating them? Or was she hoping to meet someone interesting in the shadowy recesses?
If it was the former, Phillip felt it was his civic duty to inform her that, while this was his party, he hated the canapés, too. If it was the latter, well, it might also be his civic duty to grant her wish.
Honestly, Phillip needed the distraction. Today was Gina’s birthday. Or rather, it would have been. If his wife had lived, she would have been thirty-two. You’d think nearly two years of practice being a widower would afford a guy a better handle on the designation. But here he was, still stumbling through it.
And that decided it. He could spend the rest of the evening morose and moody. Or he could fan the sparks that always kicked up whenever he was around Alex. When Phillip had agreed to help Fyra Cosmetics navigate the FDA approval process for a new product, he’d never expected to meet someone so intriguing, especially not when that someone was the company’s chief financial officer.
He and Alex had been developing a “thing” over late lunches and one-on-one meetings. She laughed at his jokes and made him feel like a man instead of a politician. And she’d come to this party stag when he’d been almost positive she’d decline. How much more of a hint did he need that their relationship might become more than two people working together?
“Excuse me,” he murmured to Senator Galindo as he skirted her expertly, tugging on the white shirtsleeves under his tuxedo as he beelined across his cavernous living room to catch the most interesting woman at his party in the act of...whatever she was doing.
He crossed his arms and stepped behind the statue, boxing her in. The scent of Alex overwhelmed him first...light, fruity...and then the woman did. He let both wake up his blood. Which didn’t take long.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said blithely. “I hope I’m not the bore at this party that you’re avoiding.”
Alex’s eyes widened and then warmed dangerously fast. Her eyes were the most fascinating shade of green with a little brown dot in the left iris that he couldn’t help but notice. She was easily the most distinctive woman he’d ever met, and that was saying something when he regularly mixed with the elite of both Dallas and Washington.
“No, of course not. You couldn’t pry that title away from the mayor with a crowbar.” And then she groaned, which made him grin. “I mean, I’m not avoiding the mayor. And he’s not a bore. Neither are you! I’m not avoiding anyone.”
Was it wrong that he enjoyed flustering her so much? It was so easy to do and she always said something outrageous that never failed to make him smile. He needed to smile, especially tonight. And she was the only person in attendance who had managed that feat. The only person he’d met in a long time who seemed unimpressed by his position or wealth. He liked that.
“But if you were hoping to avoid someone, this would be the opportune spot.” He leaned against the wall and crossed one ankle over the other. “No one would know you were back here unless they were already watching you.”
The shadows weren’t deep enough to cover her blush. “You were watching me?”
“Oh, come now.” He tsked. “When a woman wears a dress like that, surely it’s not a shock that a man would spend a great deal of time looking at her.”
She glanced down and scowled.
“It’s just a dress,” she mumbled.
No, it was anything but. The off-white dress had a hint of gold sparkle that caught the light when she moved, and the fabric draped over her curves in a way that announced she had some. That was news to Phillip and he’d call that a front-page story, because she was an amazingly beautiful woman already, even before this evening’s transformation.
But with the transformation...well, she’d captured his interest thoroughly, because he hoped it meant she wasn’t averse to the occasional dress-up event. Politicians attended a lot of those and Phillip had a huge void in the plus-one category.
Maybe he’d found a potential candidate.
“Yet I’ve never seen you in a dress.” He raised one eyebrow in emphasis, which she did not miss. “I’ve come by Fyra for FDA meetings, what, like three or four times? And you, my dear, have reinvented the concept of casual wear. Cass, Trinity and Harper always wear suits, but you’re most often in jeans.”
The other three cofounders of Fyra dressed well and without regard to price tags. Phillip appreciated a woman who knew her way around a stylist, and normally he would have said he preferred a sophisticated woman. Gina had never met a rack at Nordstrom she could leave untouched, and the small handful of women he’d preoccupied himself with after Gina died could only be described as high maintenance. He’d lost interest in them pretty quickly.
But Alex...well, Alex intrigued him. She’d instantly stood out from her three counterparts when his cousin Gage had introduced Phillip to the founders of Fyra Cosmetics.
He couldn’t ignore the demure, brown-haired woman clad in a T-shirt, hair scraped back into a ponytail. It was baffling to walk into a meeting with Fyra’s executives and see the chief financial officer’s face bereft of makeup. It would be like introducing himself to someone as Senator Phillip Edgewood and then claiming he had no interest in the laws of the United States.
He was intrigued. He wanted to know her better. Understand why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Why she was so different from any woman of his acquaintance. But he had to tread carefully with the opposite sex for so many reasons, not the least of which was his aversion to scandal. And then there was the other thing: he was on the lookout for a permanent plus one. Only the right woman would do for that role and his criteria were stringent.
No point in getting a woman’s hopes up unless she filled them. He didn’t know if Alex fell in that category or not, but he planned to find out.
“Don’t you have guests?” she asked and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m keeping you from them.”
“Seventy-eight, if I recall.” Yes, he should be doing host-type things, definitely. He didn’t move. “And you’re one of my guests, as well. I’d be remiss if I didn’t see to your welfare as you skulk about behind this very large statue.”
“My dress is...uncomfortable.” She waved at her torso. “None of this stays in place like it’s supposed to.”
Naturally, his eye was drawn to the area in question. “Looks like everything is in order to me.”
“Because I just adjusted it all,” she hissed fiercely.
The image of Alex ducking behind his statue to dip her hands under her dress to adjust things flooded through his senses, unchecked. He couldn’t unsee it. Couldn’t unexperience it. And now this small space in the corner wasn’t nearly big enough to hold a senator, a CFO and the enormous attraction sizzling between them.
He stopped himself from asking if she needed help adjusting anything else. It was right there on the tip of his tongue. But United States senators didn’t run around saying whatever they felt like, no matter how badly he wanted to flirt with her. Among other things.
Phillip’s life was not his own, never had been, nor would he have it any other way. He was an Edgewood, born into a long line of statesmen, and an even longer line of Texas oilmen, and his family was counting on him to be the first one to make it to the White House.
To accomplish that, he needed a wife, plain and simple. A single president hadn’t been elected in the United States since the eighteen hundreds. The problem was that his heart still belonged to Gina, and he’d met few women willing to play second fiddle to another woman, even one who’d passed away.
The catch-22 was brutal. Either he’d marry someone in name only and make his peace with loneliness for the next fifty years or hope that he magically stumbled over a woman who was okay with his ground rules for marriage—friends and lovers, sure. But love wasn’t on offer. It would feel like a betrayal of the highest order.
It wasn’t fair; he knew that. But Phillip didn’t believe in second chances. No one got lucky enough to find their soul mate twice. But if Alex was the right woman for him, she’d understand.
Instead of the dozens of other offers he’d have rather issued, he asked, “Would you like a glass of champagne?”
“Do I look that much like I need a drink?” she asked wryly. “Or are you a mind reader?”
He grinned. “Neither. I thought it was a shame you were stuck back here in the corner with your dress problems and couldn’t enjoy the party.”
Tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear, an escapee from her upswept hairdo, she rolled her eyes. “It’ll take a lot more than champagne to get me to enjoy a black-tie party.”
There she went again with her outrageous statements. He smiled. “Should I be insulted that my party isn’t up to par?”
A horrified light dawned in her expression. “No! Your party is perfect because, well...you’re you and your house is amazing and the guests are great. I’m just clumsy with small talk. Obviously.”
She blinked up at him from under her lashes. On any other woman, that look would have been coquettish, designed to convey blatant invitation, and he would have walked away without regret. On her, it was a hint of vulnerability, of uncertainty. And together, they unexpectedly whacked him in the heart.
Hadn’t seen that coming. His attraction had deepened over a simple look.
“Not clumsy,” he corrected smoothly. “Honest. That’s refreshing.”
“I’m glad someone thinks so.” She scowled, but it was cute on her. “Numbers people like me are not usually sought out by party hosts. We tend to skulk about behind statues and embarrass ourselves with wardrobe problems.”
“Why did you come to the party if you don’t like dressing up?”
Obviously she hadn’t morphed into someone who liked black-tie affairs, which was a shame. She was looking less and less like a candidate for his permanent plus one. The problem was, the more he stood here with her, the more he wanted to chuck all his marriage rules.
“You know why.”
The undercurrents between them heated as their gazes locked. He couldn’t have walked away from Alex if his ancestral home caught fire. He was close enough to see the brown fleck in her eye and it was oddly intimate. His attraction to her was ungodly strong and a colossal problem.
“You came for me?” he asked, but it wasn’t really a question. Her smile answered affirmatively anyway. “I’m flattered you’d put on an uncomfortable dress and wear makeup just for me.”
“Call it a rare burst of spontaneity. Totally unlike me. But hopefully worth it in the end.”
He almost groaned. She was killing him. Why couldn’t they be two normal people meeting at a party, with no agenda other than to spend time together? “I’m a fan of spontaneous women.”
Especially since he didn’t have nearly enough opportunity to indulge in spontaneity. It was the enemy of someone eyeing the presidency. His life consisted of carefully worded statements and planned appearances, strenuously vetted acquaintances and photo ops. The chances of, say, happening across an intriguing woman in a shadowy corner were nearly nil.
Yet here he was. They shared an inability to be spontaneous. Just this once, he wanted to indulge in spontaneity alongside her. Maybe they could be two people who met at a party and had fun with no expectations.
His grin widened. This was probably the most he’d smiled without being ordered to in...a long time. “Let’s do something totally impulsive, then. Dance with me.”
As vigorously as she shook her head, it was a wonder it didn’t roll off her neck. Brown, glossy strands floated from her hairdo, drifting down around her face. “I can’t dance with you in front of all these people.”
“You can so. Your dress is appropriately adjusted. You’re over the age of eighteen and not married.”
That was the trifecta of scandal potentials and the three he always checked off the list automatically within the first half a second in a woman’s company. After his uncle had lost his Senate nomination over some risqué pictures starring a woman who was not his wife, Phillip had vowed to stay on the straight and narrow.
His career wasn’t just about the election but about making a difference. Changing the world. He refused to allow his star to be snuffed out early for any reason, least of all a woman. His life was privileged, no doubt, but with that privilege came great responsibility.
“This dress doesn’t have magical powers, Phillip. I’m clumsy with words and feet.”
“You don’t seem to realize that you’re a successful executive who cofounded a million-dollar company. You should be out on the dance floor, intimidating the hell out of all the people here because you are Alexandra Meer and you don’t care what they think.”
He held out his hand. There was no way he would let her spend the night in the corner. They were going to honor her spontaneous impulse to attend this party. Of course, that was just an excuse. He couldn’t help but steal a few more minutes of her company.
* * *
Alex hesitated, staring at Phillip’s outstretched hand.
She’d been hiding behind the statue for a reason. Other women must have some kind of special sticky skin that allowed them to wear strapless dresses without falling out of them. Alex didn’t. Dancing would make everyone else aware of it, too.
“Come on,” he pleaded in his deep voice that made her shiver tonight as much as it had the first time she’d heard it. “I can’t leave you back here, and if you don’t dance with me, I’ll be an absentee host at my own party. This is my house. It would seem weird.”
Alex glanced at the very large, very ugly statue she’d taken refuge behind. “You weren’t supposed to see me.”
No one was; that was the point. The statue was a great place to hide but still allowed her to sort of be in the midst of things. Parties always reminded her of why she didn’t attend them. Social niceties were a confusing, complex set of rules that she could never seem to follow. Alex liked rules. But only when they made sense, like in finance. Numbers were the same yesterday and today as they would be tomorrow.
Normally, she followed her own number one rule to the letter—stay out of the spotlight. But she’d developed a fierce attraction to Phillip and, well...parties seemed to be his natural habitat. Thus she had to attend one to see if things might heat up between them outside of Fyra. Because there were sparks between them, but he’d yet to make a move. She wanted to find out if his glacial pace had to do with lack of interest or something else.
Cass had bullied her into a makeover and pried Alex’s credit card out of her fingers to purchase this dress. It all felt very surreal and a little like trying too hard. Alex didn’t have a glamorous bone in her body, but the resulting image in her mirror had turned out pretty good, if she did say so herself.
And here she and Phillip were, flirting and having fun, and he’d just asked her to dance. This dress did have magical powers.
Maybe she could dance with him. Just once. Then she’d slink back to her hiding spot before someone else tried to talk to her. Someone who wasn’t as understanding as Phillip about her permanent foot-in-mouth syndrome.
Slowly, she reached out. It was almost harder to do that than it had been to walk through Phillip’s palatial double front doors, knowing he was on the other side, divinely, devastatingly handsome. Actually, just about everything she’d done in the name of advancing her relationship with Phillip had taken a huge amount of bravery.
Maybe the stars had finally aligned to alleviate the loneliness Alex had been feeling lately—a by-product of both social awkwardness and a firm belief that romance was a myth perpetuated by the retail market. She dated here and there. Not often, for obvious reasons. But she liked companionship as much as the next girl, and Phillip was the first man in a long time that she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Tonight was about seeing where things might go between them.
Except, this hundred-year-old house was overwhelming—with a grand foyer the size of a public library, flanked by two curved staircases reaching toward the second floor. It was a visual reminder of his elite status and that men like him lived a whole different kind of existence, one that was ill-suited for a quiet wallflower like Alex.
But when her flesh connected with Phillip’s, it was a shock to her system. Need lanced through her. Hello. Been a long time since those muscles had a workout, yes sirree.
Their gazes collided and his hot blue eyes spoke to her, saying without words that he wanted her, too. Well, how about that?
She let it sing through her because men never noticed her. Alex had perfected the art of fading into the background, but Phillip had never overlooked her. Her reaction was powerful and visceral.
“Alex,” he murmured and tightened his grip on her hand. “We have to dance now. Otherwise, something very bad might happen.”
“Like what?” she asked curiously. His gaze was on her lips as if he might lean forward at any moment and take her mouth with his.
That sounded very good to her.
Maybe he’d even back her up farther into the corner and do it properly. His hands were smooth and strong, and she’d fantasized about them as they’d sat through long meetings together.
It wasn’t a crime. Just because she didn’t buy into the fantasy about love and romance didn’t mean she had an aversion to sex.
She’d been dreaming of kissing him for weeks, ever since the first time he’d walked into Fyra. The sparks between them had been instant and deliciously hot. And their connection was more than just physical. He was thoughtful, well-spoken, listened to her ideas and had a wicked sense of humor. She genuinely liked him. The insane gorgeousness attached to his personality was just a big, fat bonus.
“Bad, like I might show every last person at this party to the door,” he said. “And focus on no one but you.”
Heat kicked up in her midsection. Oh, yes, to have all that delicious focus on her. He had this way of making her feel like the only person in the room, even when there were a hundred present.
It was an invitation. And a question. Where did she want this evening to lead?
Where did he want this evening to lead?
Were they on the same page about what their association might look like afterward? They were working together, after all. Not everyone could do that and become personally involved. That was where the romantics messed it all up. Relationships were black-and-white and easy to navigate as long as you didn’t let yourself get bogged down in unquantifiable emotions. Her parents’ divorce had been nasty enough to prove that love was one of the worst illusions ever invented.
She should probably feel him out about their future interaction before letting him do bad things to her. Also, he’d thrown this party for a reason, which would not be accomplished by allowing him to throw everyone out. It would be terrible of her to force him to end it early because she was a giant chicken about dancing in public.
More bravery needed, stat. “Let’s dance.”
“This way, Ms. Meer.”
He led her to the dance floor and pulled her into his arms.
The crowd dynamic shifted instantly as people checked out the woman dancing with the senator. Alex’s back heated with the scrutiny. The only friendly faces in the crowd were her boss, Cassandra, and Cass’s fiancé, Gage, who was Phillip’s cousin.
Self-consciousness turned Alex’s feet into lead.
“Right here, Alex.” Phillip tapped his temple and let his hand drift back to her waist. “Keep your eyes on me. Don’t worry about them. They don’t exist.”
Ha. If only that were true. Of course, she’d had her chance to make that a reality when he’d offered to kick everyone out. She had no doubt that if she’d taken him up on his invitation, the crowd would already be in their chauffeured limousines heading for home.
Why hadn’t she taken him up on it, again?
She did as instructed, locking her gaze to his molten-blue eyes. He swirled her around the hardwood floor to the tempo of the classical music piping through his expensive, invisible sound system. The crowd faded away and she became so very aware of his hands on her body, exactly as she’d envisioned them. Well, not exactly. In the majority of her fantasies, they were both naked.
Heat flushed her skin, arrowing straight to her core as he watched her closely.
“See?” he murmured. “Better.”
Yes. This night, this man holding her in his arms. All better. It wasn’t the dress, but Phillip who held the magical powers. She was someone else when she was with him, someone who didn’t have to fade into the woodwork to avoid making a fool of herself. Someone who could be with a man like Phillip and it made sense, even though they were social opposites.
And she very much wanted to take advantage of the magic while it lasted. Maybe she could, just for tonight.
Two (#u88ba6195-cdac-5779-8e99-fb62f93bea29)
Phillip didn’t leave Alex’s side all night.
It was both sweet and intoxicating. She lost all track of time and place, forgetting about the judgmental audience as Phillip had entreated her to do. He was an amazing man who made her feel special. Her starving soul ate up the attention and begged for more.
She could get used to being the center of Phillip’s world. Used to how the focused glint in his blue eyes pulled on strings deep inside. Used to how her heart seemed lighter when he—
A tap on her shoulder startled her. She glanced backward. Cass. Alex had nearly forgotten her friend was at the party.
“Ms. Claremont.” Phillip nodded to Cass without missing a beat. “My apologies for failing to tell you how stunning you look this evening. Gage is a lucky man.”
“Yeah, you’ve been way too busy to notice me,” Cass said, tongue in cheek. “I’ll be sure to let Gage make it up to me later.”
Alex thought about smacking her but that would mean removing her hands from Phillip’s shoulders.
“I need to borrow Alex for a minute,” Cass explained, and Alex nearly sobbed as Phillip’s arms dropped from around her.
Cass dragged Alex to the powder room, nodding and making nice to a couple of Hollywood types who were leaving as they walked up. The glitterati lived in a world she wasn’t a part of and Alex had no idea who the glamorous women were. Cass not only knew them by name, she belonged in a roomful of beautiful people who never said the wrong thing.
Not that Alex was jealous. It was just fact. She loved the CEO of Fyra like a sister. After all, Cass had insisted on Alex taking over the financial joystick of Fyra despite full knowledge of the teenage rebellion that had landed Alex in a courtroom, staring down the barrel of jail time.
That ledger in her head would never balance. She owed Cass for taking a chance on her and she’d gladly bury herself in Fyra’s numbers until the day she died, if necessary.
But that didn’t mean Alex forgave the interruption.
“What was so important?” she muttered as soon as the door to the powder room closed, affording them a measure of privacy. “I was dancing.”
Cass raised her perfectly penciled eyebrows. “Yes, you were. But Gage and I are ready to go.”
“Already?” Alex had caught a ride with them since Gage had insisted there was plenty of room in his chauffeured town car. On the drive over, she’d been contemplating how she would get home when she sneaked out early from the party. She’d been sure attending Phillip’s shindig would go down as the worst idea she’d ever had. Funny how that had turned out.
“It’s midnight.” Cassandra pointed at the ornate wall clock for emphasis. “We have a son who can’t tell time and will be up at 6:00 a.m.”
Dismayed, Alex stared at the clock, willing it to be a few hours earlier. The hands didn’t change position. Why did it have to be midnight? This night should never end because in the morning, she’d go back to being invisible.
“You just hired a nanny,” Alex reminded Cass with a touch of desperate logic. “Can’t she get up with Robbie?”
This was a bizarre conversation. Robbie was Gage Branson’s son from a previous relationship and never would Alex have taken Cass for the type to willingly enter a relationship with a single father. But she and Gage were deliriously happy. It was so optimistic of them to fall in love despite all the complications. Alex hoped they’d defy the odds and have a long, happy life together.
Cass shook her head with a laugh. “I like to get up with him when I can, since Gage and I still live in different cities for the time being. If you want to stay, just say so and catch a cab later.”
That was Cassandra. A problem solver. “I can’t stay.”
Fyra’s newest shade of lipstick appeared from the depths of Cass’s sparkly bag. She slicked it over her lips and puckered before asking, “Why not?”
Because the thought of staying without the safety net of her friend induced a swirly feeling in Alex’s stomach that could easily turn into full-blown panic. This was a party. The place where Alex was the least comfortable.
And while she’d danced with Phillip, she still had no idea how he intended the evening to end. What if she’d misread his signals? It wasn’t like she had a lot of practice.
Then there was the soft gush inside every time he laughed at one of her jokes or did something gallant. Those were things she could never get enough of. The fact that she liked them so much was probably the best reason of all to disentangle herself before things progressed. When a man got that far under her skin so quickly, it could only lead to trouble.
“Phillip and I have no business getting involved,” Alex explained lamely.
“Honey, you and Phillip are already involved.” Cass accompanied the word with exaggerated air quotes, an impressive feat considering she still had the tube of lipstick in her hand. “Whether you like it or not. He is the whole reason you came. You like Phillip and want to see where it goes. Right? Otherwise, why did I spend all that time coaxing you into that dress?”
Alex could hear herself being ridiculous. “I do like Phillip, but—”
“Is this about your mom again? Because, honey, she’s not you. Just because your dad was a weasel doesn’t mean all men are.”
Alex closed her mouth. Yeah, her parents’ divorce had a lot to do with her caution, but Cass never seemed to understand how deeply it had hurt Alex. How it had driven so many of her decisions, then and now. After all, Alex had a juvenile arrest record thanks to a pathetic attempt to get back at her parents for splitting up. Later, after her mom had patiently straightened Alex out, she’d realized things weren’t as black-and-white as she’d assumed. That was why it never paid to get emotional over a relationship. Love was too messy and complicated.
It was much better to fade into the woodwork and focus on the numbers parading across Fyra’s balance sheet.
A wave of sensation sloshed through her stomach. Definitely panic.
“Do you want to stay?” Cass asked point-blank. There was no mistaking what she was really asking.
Staying meant she was giving Phillip the green light. He’d been eyeing her all night like a gentleman, never pushing her, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the senator wanted more than a dance. Alex was being silly even questioning that.
If it had been anyone other than Cass, she’d lie. “I do. But I’m not—”
“Yes, you are.” Firmly, Cass took Alex by the shoulders. In heels, she and Cass were almost the same height. “You’re making this too hard. No one is asking you to marry him. This is about right now, that man and what you want. Go after him.”
Alex’s insides settled a bit.
It sounded so simple. Don’t worry about things she couldn’t control and just enjoy the attention of a man she’d been salivating over for weeks. Don’t assume he cared about anything other than sex—better yet, make it hot enough that he lost all interest in anything other than how good they could make each other feel. What would be the harm in a brief fling with a man she had a not-so-secret crush on? The magic didn’t have to end at midnight.
A shiver rocked her shoulders. It had been a long time since she’d had sex that didn’t require batteries, and Phillip would do just fine as reintroduction to the pleasures of a flesh-and-blood man. After all, he was a prime member of the species.
“Tell Gage I said good-night,” Alex said decisively. “I have a senator to seduce.”
* * *
Alex had been gone for five minutes and already a line of people had formed with Important, Pressing Matters to discuss with Phillip. One of those people was his father, whom he hadn’t seen outside of Washington in over a week. Rarely did their paths cross anyway since his dad was a member of the House. They’d been discussing a secret energy project, but frankly, he couldn’t concentrate on anything Congressman Robert Edgewood was saying as Phillip strained for a glimpse of the woman whose company he wasn’t nearly finished enjoying.
That shimmering dress appeared in his peripheral vision. About time. A humming sense of anticipation kicked up, the same sense he’d had all evening as he immersed himself in Alexandra Meer. What had started out as a way to get to know her better had grown into something more. Something with teeth, which had clamped onto him.
He extracted himself from his dad with a very polite “Excuse me.”
He drew up beside Alex, far too close. All of the other guests vanished. He tilted his head toward her ear and the scent of sweet pears made him hungry. Would it be awful if he tasted her?
He resisted. Barely. This woman had been in his arms all night, exactly what he’d needed to quit dwelling on Gina, and now he wanted Alex back against him, even if all they did was more socially approved dancing. He liked being around her, liked the way she made him feel. Of course, he’d be okay with whatever she dictated for the night’s conclusion, but the sharp ache in his midsection reminded him that this woman could ease it, quite well.
“You’re right,” he murmured and eyed a spot he’d like to nuzzle, right along her jaw. “The mayor is a bore.”
“I tried to tell you.” She laughed softly, leaning into his space.
“Come with me,” he said. “I have something I want to show you.”
Suddenly eager to have some privacy, he led her upstairs to a balcony that overlooked the living room. His grandfather had given him the Edgewood ancestral home in Old Preston Hollow as an engagement present with many of the original furnishings intact. An antique love seat hugged the back wall, far enough away from the wrought iron banister to hide them from prying eyes below.
Phillip had never appreciated the decor as much as he did at that moment. Hand to her back, he settled in next to her on the cushion. “You can see the whole bottom floor from here. But they can’t see us.”
“Handy.” Then she cleared her throat. “Gage and Cass are leaving. They’re my ride.”
Disappointment walloped him. That sounded decidedly final. Had he misinterpreted the long heated glances? He’d just got her where he wanted her. Well, closer to where he wanted her, anyway.
“You’re ditching me already?” he asked and tried to keep his voice light.
Probably for the best. What could possibly happen between them? A brief but satisfying interlude where he’d eventually have to say goodbye? A woman like Alex deserved promises he could never make. He would treat her well, of course, but if a woman got intimate with a man, she eventually wanted to fall in love and get married and have the whole heart of her mate. Phillip couldn’t do that, didn’t want to do that.
Gina had been enough for him. Sometimes the sadness of losing her overwhelmed him. Like it had today. Alex had distracted him and he was grateful.
But once the party ended, the cavernous house would seem even emptier. He was not looking forward to it.
Alex glanced up at him through her lashes, and her lips parted slightly. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d mind giving me a ride home. Later.”
Later was a word he liked a whole lot. It held all sorts of interesting possibilities. A smile tugged at his mouth. “My car is available to you at any hour.”
“Looks like the party is breaking up,” she commented, and it took him a second to tear his gaze from her beautiful face to register what she meant.
He glanced down through the spindles. His living room had grown surprisingly empty. What time was it? He’d lost track of everything—the hour, his guests, the people he should have been entertaining. And now he was going to kick out the stragglers in under a minute like a bad host. Even worse, he was going to have his butler do it.
Phillip signaled to George, who’d been ushering guests out the door and coordinating with the valet. His butler had worked for the Edgewoods for over forty years, largely owing to his singular talent of being able to read minds. George nodded and began moving to the remaining groups of people, herding them toward the double front doors.
Phillip should probably care about that more. “Perfect timing, I’d say.”
“I agree. I was looking forward to having you all to myself.”
A current of awareness passed between them, zigzagging through his groin, waking up his body.
“Unless,” she continued, “you’d rather I go?”
“Why would you think that?” It might have come out a little too forcefully.
She bit her lip, drawing it between her teeth. A habit he’d noticed she fell into when she was trying to decide what to say, not that he spent an inordinate amount of time staring at her mouth. Okay, probably more time than he should spend on it, but the meetings they’d had about the FDA approval process had been interminable and she’d been right there across the table.
“Just checking. I’m not the best at reading people.”
All at once, he realized what she was fishing for.
He cupped her face. Her green eyes blazed with something warm, hopeful and slightly hungry. Even the brown dot seemed extravibrant under his scrutiny. For some reason, that sent a shaft of unadulterated desire through his gut.
“Tonight is about being spontaneous,” he told her. “Neither of us is good at that. That means no expectations. Make it about what you want.”
And he meant that seriously. If she wanted to talk all night, that was okay. Of course, he wouldn’t turn down a willing woman in his bed. But he just wanted to spend time with her, realizing it was selfish. Realizing he couldn’t offer her much. Realizing he should definitely aim his search for a wife of convenience in another direction.
But no expectations meant he didn’t have to think about any of that, either. Not tonight.
“No expectations,” she repeated and her smile grew. “I like that. I like that you get I have a hard time with being spontaneous. But I want to make it about what we both want. You know, assuming we both want the same thing.”
His own smile widened. “I hope so.”
A great, no-strings evening together. In whatever form that took.
“It won’t be weird? Tomorrow? We are still working together,” she reminded him. “Some people find it difficult to face each other over a boardroom table after getting naked together.”
Okay, then. Now there was no question about whether they were on the same page. The burn in his loins flared hotter as he slid his hand to the back of her neck, drawing her close so he could feel for the pins.
He extracted one and let it fall. He’d been thinking about doing that since their first moment on the dance floor. Now he could.
“Not weird,” he murmured. “What happens at Phillip’s house stays at Phillip’s house.”
With a shiver, she shook her head, loosening the pins under his questing fingers. He found them one by one, flicking them free. She tipped up her chin to pierce him with her gaze, and he fell into it as her hair rained down around her shoulders.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Her voice had gone husky.
He loved that he could affect her. “Anything.”
“I sometimes lose track of the discussion in those meetings because I’m thinking about kicking everyone out and letting you kiss me. Maybe up against the table.”
He groaned as that image slammed into his mind unencumbered because there was no blood left in his head to stop it. He understood her problem perfectly. “I generally lose my place because I’m thinking about what you taste like. Here.”
Tracing the line of her throat starting from her ear, he slid a finger to her collarbone and replaced his finger with his mouth. Her flavor filled his senses as he fulfilled the fantasy of savoring it. Straining closer, she moaned and it was better than music.
He needed more. More contact. More music. More Alex. He drew her closer, nearly into his lap, and her dress came up over her hip as his palm gathered it. She pressed into his touch, arching into him.
And then somehow, she rolled and landed in his lap, straddling him. Wordlessly—because he couldn’t have spoken if his life had depended on it—he cupped her rear, nestling her so their bodies aligned, and then her mouth crashed into his. The kiss ignited inside him, pounding adrenaline through his body, pumping euphoria along all his nerve endings.
More. Somehow she heard him or he communicated it telepathically because her mouth opened over his as she rolled her hips in a sensuous rhythm against the fiercest erection he’d experienced in recent memory. Maybe ever.
Heat broke over him like a blast from a detonated bomb, coalescing at the point of contact between their bodies, nearly finishing him off before they’d scarcely started. He tore his mouth from hers, panting.
“Wait,” he murmured and stood with her in his arms. She clamped her legs around his waist and he stumbled to his bedroom blindly as she fastened her lips on his throat, sucking with erotic pulls that drove him insane.
“That’s not the definition of waiting,” he told her hoarsely and let her slide to the ground as he slammed the door shut with one foot.
“I’m not very patient.” To prove it, she half turned and presented the zipper to her dress.
He reached out and pulled it. That glittery fabric snaked from her body and landed in a heap around her ankles as she spun back to face him. She was naked, and her high, peaked breasts called to him.
A curse worked itself loose from his mouth. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“No, I’m trying to get you into bed. Apparently I’m doing it wrong since you’re still dressed.”
Laughing around the raging desire clogging his throat, he stripped and scooped her up, then complied with her directive, depositing her gently on the bed. He rolled into her, and that fragrant, fruity scent encompassed him just as completely as the woman did.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this moment for a long time,” she confessed. Her honesty tripped something inside him.
Honeyed warmth spread through his chest as they stared at each other. This wasn’t supposed to be anything other than two people connecting with no expectations. Guess that wasn’t even possible with someone as unique as Alexandra Meer. She pulled things from deep inside that he’d have sworn were frozen. Things he didn’t want to feel for another woman. But it was hard to shut down.
He liked her. She was smart and successful with a touch of vulnerability that set her apart from other women in his path. That had been true from the first moment he’d met her.
He might as well admit the same. “Me too.”
Phillip kissed her and she slid a long, smooth leg between his, teasing, tempting and torturing all at once, and that was it. This wasn’t going to happen slowly. He wanted her as badly as she seemed to want him.
He fumbled in the nightstand for some condoms he was pretty sure were still in there from the last time he’d brought a woman home maybe eight months ago. A year? He had a bad moment when he couldn’t find them and then his fingers closed around one.
He tore it open and somehow got it on in one shot and then she was back in place against him, her gorgeous, sweet body aligned with his. After an eternity, he pushed inside and they joined in a clash of bodies that felt so right, Phillip could hardly stand it. She was unbelievably lush and sensuous.
They moved in a timeless rhythm that somehow became new and electrifying. She gave as much as she took and his mind drained of everything except returning the pleasure. Higher and higher they spiraled as her moans spurred him on. Their simultaneous climax was like icing on an already lip-smacking cake.
He held her quaking body tight against his as the release blasted through him. And then he couldn’t let go. She smelled like pears and well-loved woman, and he craved her heat, even in the aftermath. Usually he preferred to recover on his own, but he still couldn’t get enough of this amazing woman.
Sure, he’d wanted her, but sex wasn’t the be-all, end-all. He’d wanted to explore the connection they’d both felt from the very first. It had been just as amazing as he’d hoped. But he’d anticipated burning off that attraction and moving on. Epic fail in that regard. He wasn’t close to done and that felt like a problem.
He had to get her out of his bed before he started rehearsing a pretty speech designed to convince her to spend the night. Which was enough of a warning to scramble from the sheets. He had never slept with a woman other than Gina. Tonight was not the night to start.
Later, he drove Alex home in his Tesla instead of sending her with his driver, Randy, like he’d planned. He couldn’t seem to let her go. The night had ended far too soon.
And though he couldn’t give her everything she deserved, he didn’t want to let Alex walk out of his life.
Just because they’d said no expectations didn’t mean he couldn’t ask to see her again. After all, he didn’t really know what she was looking for in a relationship. How could he say what he had to offer wasn’t enough if they didn’t talk about it?
At the door of Alex’s house just north of Dallas in University Park, he kissed her good-night and then pulled back to gorge himself on the sight of her beautiful face. Tomorrow, she’d go back to T-shirt-and-jeans Alex.
He wanted to see her again, no matter what she was wearing.
“Can I call you?” he asked hoarsely and cleared his throat. “Let me take you to dinner.”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
Phillip mentally flipped through his calendar and then cursed. He’d fly to Washington tomorrow and hadn’t planned to be back in Dallas for the foreseeable future. “I can’t set a firm date. But please know it’s not because I don’t want to. I have to be in Washington. Duty calls.”
“Phillip, no expectations.” She cupped his face with both palms and held it. “I like spending time with you. But I’m not going to wait by the phone for you to call. I have a company to run. I’m busy, too. Call me when you’re free.”
A bit blindsided, he stared at her. Most women—all women he’d ever met—wouldn’t have considered giving him a pass like that. Alex was something else. “That’s very gracious.”
She shrugged. “You’re worth waiting for.”
Something turned over in his heart. This was crazy. Instead of exploring their attraction and getting it out of their systems, he was trying to figure out how to juggle his schedule so he could see her again. He should be running back to his car and driving away very fast in pursuit of someone who was much better suited to being the wife he needed.
The wife he needed would understand he couldn’t be disloyal to Gina. The wife he needed would stand by his side as he navigated the Washington social scene, wearing couture and cosmetics with ease. The wife he needed would understand that his career might require sacrifices to her own career.
Above all, the wife he needed would not generate all of these unexpected, confusing emotions. Alex was not what he needed.
His career was everything to him. It had saved him from drowning in grief two years ago, and with his eye on the White House, Alex would only complicate his life. No, she wasn’t what he needed—but she was everything he wanted. And that made her very dangerous indeed.
Three (#u88ba6195-cdac-5779-8e99-fb62f93bea29)
Four weeks later...
The packaging on the pregnancy test was too slick for Alex’s shaking fingers to grip. Gracelessly, she stuck the end in her mouth and tore it open. The slim stick fell out and tumbled end over end into the toilet bowl with a splash. Of course.
This was surreal. The walls of the company she’d cofounded surrounded her. Fyra was a multimillion-dollar cosmetics powerhouse that she’d worked tirelessly to manage alongside her friends and partners. Every single dollar of revenue and every dime of expense had passed through her fingers from day one. She was responsible for hundreds of employees’ paychecks.
And she couldn’t do a simple thing like open plastic packaging.
“What happened?” Cass’s voice rang out from the other side of the bathroom stall.
“I’m nauseous and clumsy,” Alex shot back. “The stupid test made a break for it and landed in the water.”
This was not the way Alex wanted to spend her lunch break.
She was pretty sure the test would only confirm what she already knew in her heart to be the truth. The upset stomach she’d been battling for over a week had nothing to do with the seafood she’d eaten last Friday and everything to do with the night she’d spent with Phillip.
“Can you get it out?”
“I’m working on it.”
Liar. Staring at the little white stick down in the water wasn’t solving the problem. Alex thought about just flushing the thing and avoiding the whole question of why no amount of prayer had started her skipped period. She and Phillip had used protection. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
“Just pee in the toilet,” Cass suggested. “You don’t have to be holding the stick for it to work.”
Alex sighed and gave in to the inevitable. “Fine. It’s done. Now, how long do I have to wait?”
“I don’t know.” Cass rustled the paper instructions she’d been holding when Alex had locked herself in the bathroom stall. “Three minutes.”
Might as well be three hours. Alex shredded her nails in under a minute and a half, not that it mattered. No one was looking at her nails. Phillip had gone back to Washington the day after his party, as promised, and they’d conversed a few times via email. He’d called twice to say hi, but so far, they hadn’t connected for dinner. She wasn’t upset. He’d let her know when he was free and that obviously hadn’t happened yet.
It was exactly what she’d signed up for. A night of passion with an amazing man who paid attention to her. She still dreamed about the way his mouth felt on hers and how gorgeous that man’s body was. Sure, she’d have liked to see him again, but that might mean having a conversation about what dating meant for them and she didn’t want to ruin the magic with real-life fears and hang-ups.
If the test came back positive, they’d be having a hell of a conversation about dates, that was for sure. Due dates, birth dates, playdates. It was mind-boggling.
She peered into the toilet. Nothing. Or maybe something. Did the results window look a little pink? Her stomach flipped over and back again. “What do the instructions say about how to read this test? What does it mean if it’s pink?”
She’d read them herself but panic drove the information from her brain.
“One pink line is not pregnant. Two pink lines is pregnant. You’ve never taken a pregnancy test before?” Cass didn’t bother to keep the incredulity from her tone. “Not even in college?”
“No,” Alex muttered. “You’d have to have sex to need one.”
She’d been just as awkward and clumsy in college as she was now. Men shied away, for the most part. Phillip was a rare exception.
Please, God, do not let that exception have irreversible consequences.
More pink bled into the window. A distinct line appeared. One line. That meant not pregnant. Except the pink was still wicking through the window, spreading its impersonal message about huge, life-alerting events.
“Why are you making me do this?”
“Because you clearly weren’t ever going to do it yourself. It’s been four weeks since Phillip’s party,” Cass reminded her, as if she needed reminding. “If you are pregnant, you’re a third of the way through the first trimester. Denial is not a good health-care plan for you or a baby.”
Baby. Oh, God. Alex had staunchly refused to even think that word. And then...a second line appeared in the window, pink and vivid and final.
“Hand me the second test,” Alex demanded hoarsely. She’d wondered why they’d included two. Obviously so people in her position could make absolutely sure.
Cass did so without comment and they waited in silence for the second confirmation.
“How accurate are these things?” Alex whispered, as again, two pink lines materialized in the window.
“Pretty accurate,” Cass confirmed. “Sometimes it says you’re not pregnant when you really are because you’ve taken the test too early. But if it says you are pregnant, that’s like 100 percent. I’m guessing it was positive. Both times.”
And now it was a reality, an undeniable, unfixable reality.
Alex was pregnant with Senator Phillip Edgewood’s baby.
Flipping the latch to unlock the wide door, she stumbled from the bathroom stall—how, she didn’t know, when everything was numb. Except her mind, of course. That was on full speed in a Tilt-a-Whirl of thoughts, none of which were cohesive.
She was going to be a mom. A life was growing inside her through the miracle of procreation. It hardly seemed possible.
Cass took one look at Alex’s face and engulfed her in a hug, holding her tight as if the sheer pressure might keep Alex together. “It’ll be okay.”
“How?” Alex mumbled into Cass’s shoulder. “How will it be okay?”
She was going to be a mom. The idea terrified her. Deep inside, she knew she could do it. She had her own mom to fall back on and look to for guidance. Alex was smart—present circumstances excluded. She had her own money and house. Maybe it would be okay.
Phillip. She had to go see him. For one brief, bright second she envisioned him opening the door, seeing her and breaking into a wide smile that she’d feel all the way to her toes. He’d confess he’d missed her, had been thinking about her and was glad she’d come by. She’d smile back and something meaningful would pass between them. She’d admit she’d thought about him, too. That she wished he’d called even though she knew why he hadn’t.
And then she’d tell him he was going to be a father. She had no idea how he’d react. Because she didn’t really know him at all.
“It’s a mess.” Alex pulled from Cass’s embrace.
“It’s a wonderful, joyous event to be celebrated amongst friends,” Cass corrected brightly. “You’re the first of us to get pregnant. Harper and Trinity will be thrilled.”
“About what?” Harper asked as the two women in question joined Alex’s nightmare right on cue. Fyra’s chief science officer’s red hair was down today, framing Harper’s lovely face, and she’d got it cut, but Alex was too shell-shocked to comment on it.
Trinity’s keen gaze zigzagged between Cass and Alex as she crossed her arms over a chic suit in a vivid shade of blue that matched the stripe coloring the right side of her dark hair. “Something’s going on. Did something happen on the FDA approval front? What did Phillip say?”
His name was like a knife through Alex’s heart, especially since she hadn’t thought about Formula-47’s FDA application one time over the past week. That was what she should have been focusing on, not her stupid crush on the man helping Fyra with the approval process.
This was the absolute worst timing. Fyra was poised to hit the billion-dollars-a-year mark in revenue with Harper’s revolutionary new skin-care formula, and Alex couldn’t do a simple thing like working with the senator on the FDA approval process without messing it all up.
“Phillip didn’t call,” she told Trinity, who she knew was chomping at the bit to get started on a new marketing campaign. “I’m pregnant.”
Harper and Trinity exclaimed happily and took turns hugging her. She had her friends, if nothing else. She breathed easier.
Cass smiled and rubbed her back. “See? We’ll hold your hand through it and be your village. Single women raise children all the time.”
Single mom. Oh, God. She hadn’t even got that far in her mind. It wasn’t just a pregnancy, but a child who needed nurturing and love.
The complexities nearly knocked her knees out from under her. She’d never intended to have children, never planned to expose a helpless child to pain and suffering at the hands of adults. Her own parents’ divorce had changed her, hardened her, driven her into teenage experimentation with drugs and alcohol, then ultimately a brush with the law. And now she’d done the one thing she’d sworn to never do—force a child to live with his or her parents’ mistakes.
This was what happened when she threw caution to the wind.
Cass had made a broad, sweeping assumption that Alex would be handling this without Phillip, but nothing could be further from what Alex had envisioned. Babies needed a family. A father. She hadn’t had one and knew that pain. Her child would have one come hell or high water.
Did Phillip even want kids? What if he would be happier washing his hands of her and the baby, perfectly fine with never seeing either of them again? How would she convince him otherwise if he hated the idea of being a dad?
And what kind of relationship would she and Phillip have? How could they be parents when they weren’t even a couple? Panic sloshed through her already nauseated stomach.
“When did you become an expert on motherhood?” Alex snapped, too freaked to temper her tone.
“Since Gage got full custody of Robbie,” Cass said simply. “Just because I didn’t give birth to him doesn’t make him any less mine. I wanted to learn.”
Cass had fallen in love with a single father and thus had to become a mother in short order. Looked like Alex would be doing the same.
A horrifying thought occurred to her then.
Maybe Phillip would want to raise the baby...without her. Oh, God. What if he tried to use his power and influence to take the baby away for some reason? Instantly, she cradled her still-flat stomach protectively. He wouldn’t do that. Would he? She bemoaned the fact that she didn’t know him well enough to guess.
It didn’t matter. No one was taking this baby from her. The child was equally hers and Phillip’s, and they were both going to have a role in its life. Period.
No child of hers was going to grow up without a loving mother and father. That started by talking to Phillip about how they would manage the next eighteen-plus years together and ended with honesty. She certainly didn’t need his money, but what she did need from him would require courage and fortitude to secure.
“I have to see a doctor. To confirm. And then fly to Washington,” she told Cass woodenly. “I know it’s the worst time to be gone, but—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Go. Take the time you need to figure out the next steps. We’ll be here.”
Yes. Next steps. If she took this in the logical order everything would be fine.
Trinity and Harper both nodded, throwing in their own versions of support and talking a mile a minute about nursery decor, breast-feeding and maternity fashion.
“Thanks.” Alex’s throat closed and she couldn’t say anything else. Just as well. She needed to save her voice for the long conversation with Phillip looming in her future.
* * *
Phillip typed his electronic signature and sent the email. One thing off his growing list.
Cherry trees outside his office window had burst into full bloom in the past week. Spring was Phillip’s favorite time in Washington, though he enjoyed the snowy winter, too. Winter in Dallas consisted of ice storms followed by seventy-degree days. The ups and downs were maddening.
He wished his grandfather agreed. The man had spent years and years living in DC while he’d held office, but as his health declined, Max Edgewood preferred to stay in Dallas. It was the one reason Phillip commuted back and forth as much as he did; he loved his grandfather and gladly split his time between the two cities. He didn’t like to think about how few days Max might have left on this earth.
In fact, they were overdue for a visit. He should go home soon. Except he was avoiding Dallas.
Linda buzzed him through the phone intercom. “Senator, Ms. Meer is here.”
A myriad of emotions flushed through his body at the mention of the woman he’d fled to Washington to forget. He’d failed spectacularly at the forgetting part, but he’d been trying to at least stay away. No matter how much he’d wanted to arrange that dinner they’d discussed, they were all wrong for each other and she’d given him the perfect out by telling him to call when he was free. If he was at the Capitol, he wasn’t free.
What was Alex doing in Washington? It was almost as if she’d known he couldn’t stop thinking about their night together. Or, more realistically, she was here about the FDA approval process. They were still working together.
This wasn’t the first time she’d stopped by his office. It was, however, the first time she’d come by without an appointment. It was a testament to his admin’s superior mind-reading skills that she hadn’t turned Alex away.
“Send her in immediately,” he told Linda.
He stood as the door opened and Alex spilled into the room. Gone were the makeup and fancy clothes, replaced by her typical ponytail and jeans.
Her bare face glowed and something seized his lungs as he stared at her. She was even more beautiful without all the trappings she’d worn to his party. Breathtaking almost, as if something inside her had suddenly become illuminated.
“Hi,” he greeted her inanely after a long moment of silence.
She’d stolen his ability to think simply by walking into the room. That was not supposed to happen. He’d expressly promised things wouldn’t be weird between them once he knew what she looked like under that formfitting T-shirt...and he was making it weird.
“Hi,” she repeated and shifted uncomfortably. “Thanks for seeing me on short notice. I’m sorry to barge in here without calling first.”
“I’m glad.” He smiled, feeling a bit more on even ground. “I’m happy to see you.”
“You might not feel that way in a minute.”
Her eyes shone with unexpected moisture and he lost his place again. This wasn’t a social visit, obviously. “Is something wrong?”
“Maybe.” She hesitated, biting her lip in that way that said she didn’t know what to say next. “You didn’t ever issue that dinner invitation.”
Not here to talk business, then. The uncertainty glinting in her eyes put a cramp in his stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely and cursed himself for being such an ass. “I could give you a bunch of excuses, but none of them would be the truth. I didn’t think it was fair to you to continue our relationship. So I didn’t.”
But he’d dreamed of things happening differently. A lot. If only he could take her in his arms and kiss her hello, like he wanted to.
“Because you got what you were after and now you’re done?” she whispered.
The simple question whacked him between the eyes. He’d hurt her feelings with his stupid rules and the loneliness that had caused him to act selfishly.
“That’s not it at all.” True, and yet nowhere near the whole truth. He was done, but not for the reasons she seemed to think. He sighed. “I like you a lot, Alex, but I’m not sure we’re meant to continue our affair. It’s complicated. And not your fault. I wish things could be different. And not so complicated.”
She choked out a laugh that sounded a bit like a sob. “Yeah, I wish that, too. Unfortunately, things are far more complicated than you could ever dream.”
“What—”
“I’m pregnant.”
His expression froze into place, a practiced mechanism to keep his audience from guessing his thoughts before he was ready to share them.
Pregnant.
The simple word bled through his mind and fractured into pieces as a thousand simultaneous thoughts vied for attention. Pregnant. It echoed, tearing through his heart painfully. The obvious question—whether she thought he was the father—clearly didn’t need to be asked. She wouldn’t be here otherwise.
Now would be a good time to say something. “That’s an unexpected development.”
Because he needed to do something with his hands, he pushed the intercom button. “Linda, can you bring Ms. Meer a bottle of water?”
Then he rounded the three-hundred-year-old desk that had been his grandfather’s, gifted to Phillip when his grandfather retired, and hustled Alex to the couch where he sometimes slept when he couldn’t face his lonely condo on 2nd Street. “Please. Sit down.”
She complied, sinking to the couch as if her bones couldn’t hold her upright any longer. He knew the feeling. Linda hurried in with the water and handed it to Alex with a friendly nod and then disappeared, as a good admin should.
“I’m sorry to blurt it out like that,” Alex said solemnly and drank the water. “I don’t phrase things well under the best circumstances and I’m still kind of in shock.”
“I would imagine so.” Blearily, he scrubbed his face with his hands and breathed deeply. For fortitude. It didn’t help. “How do you feel? Okay? Do you need a paper bag? I’ll get you one as long as you share it with me.”
She flashed a brief smile. “Are you having sympathy morning sickness?”
“No, I was thinking about breathing into it.” Because he felt like he might pass out. “It’s my baby, right?”
“Yeah.” Her smile disappeared. “I’m not all that good at luring men into bed. Look how long it took for me to get you there. But we can do a paternity test while I’m here, if you want.”
The sooner, the better. He trusted Alex, but he couldn’t afford mistakes.
This could not be happening. Phillip had lived his life carefully for nearly two decades. Even as a teenager, he’d been mindful that political aspirations could die easily with the wrong decisions, and he’d never had a reason to conceal his actions. While other politicians paid off former mistresses and employed spin doctors to get them out of hot water with the media, Phillip preferred honesty—after all, if you never did anything questionable, you didn’t have to cover it up.
This was all his fault. The condoms must have been older than he’d remembered. And now they’d both pay the price.
Pregnant. Alex was pregnant.
He couldn’t repeat it enough times for it to stick in his brain as a fact, like the way he knew the sky was blue without looking at it. Alex was a great person, a businesswoman he was helping navigate the bureaucracy of the FDA approval process. Thinking of her like that was easy. She was also a sexy woman whose company he’d enjoyed at a party a few weeks ago.
And now she had a third designation: the mother of his child.
It changed everything.
They had to get married. His heart squeezed painfully once, and he shut it down ruthlessly. There was so much more to consider here than how he’d always thought he’d have a baby with Gina. So much more to consider than Alex’s lack of credentials as the perfect wife to fit his needs.
If he planned to be honest with his constituents, there was no other solution than to surround Alex, his child and his career with the protection of marriage. No man with Phillip’s political platform could ascend to the Oval Office with an illegitimate child any sooner than he could as a single man. The press would eat him alive, gleefully portraying his family values as hypocrisy.
Except all he could think about was Alex spread out on his bed, underneath him, as he made love to her. What would it be like to wake up to her in the morning? He couldn’t lie to himself any more than he could to his supporters; marrying her meant they could continue that part of their relationship.
The pregnancy meant he could have Alex and keep his emotional commitment to Gina, because of course Alex wouldn’t expect him to be in love with her. He could raise his baby with his child’s mother. The rest of the complications were a huge compromise, but one he was willing to make for the benefits.
He had no clue whether Alex would marry him under those conditions, but he had to try to convince her.
She cleared her throat. “We need to talk about next steps.”
“Agreed.” His mind raced through his calendar, rearranging appointments and projects. He could carve out time for the flurry of activity that was about to become both their realities. He had to. “My mother will want to plan a huge splashy ceremony, but I can probably talk her off the ledge if you’d rather have something a bit simpler.”
His parents would be thrilled he’d finally moved on. His mom had bemoaned never having grandkids twice a week for over a year, and at least this development would make her happy.
She stared at him. “Your mother will want to have a ceremony to announce the pregnancy? Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s very strange.”
Flubbed that up, moron.
When he’d asked Gina to marry him he’d gone the distance with a surprise trip to Venice, a hired violinist and a ten-carat diamond that had once belonged to a Vanderbilt. But he’d had considerably longer than ten minutes to plan it and a huge gaping hole in his life that only Gina could fill.
Yet he was about to start a family with Alex instead. Yes, he liked her, but the biggest decision he’d thought he had in relation to her was whether he’d break his promise to himself about not calling her. It was numbing how quickly everything had turned on its head.
This woman was going to be his wife if he had anything to say about it. He needed to start acting like it.
“I’m sorry. Let’s back up.” He took her hand and held it, though why he thought that small bit of contact would help, he couldn’t say. “Alex, we have to get married.”
And that wasn’t much better as proposals went.
Her face went white and she snatched her hand away from his as if he’d scalded her. “Married? Why would we get married? That’s insane. We don’t know each other.”
The note of desperation in her voice didn’t sit well. “We don’t know each other well enough to be parents either, but facts are facts. As the baby’s father, I want to consider what’s best for him or her. Unless the paternity-test results might offer another reason for your denial?”
Something broke open inside him as he thought about Alex with another man. Irrational, to be sure, especially since he was the one who hadn’t called. He didn’t own her.
But he had never stopped thinking about her, or her sweet fire as they’d connected—her skin, her eyes, all of it. He wouldn’t apologize for having a strong attraction to a woman who’d just announced she was carrying his child, nor for the fact that marriage meant he was the only one allowed the privilege of sleeping with her. Fidelity was as much a part of his makeup as statesmanship. There was no denying that she still affected him, and if they were living together, it was a natural conclusion that they’d continue their physical relationship. He certainly wanted to.
“No, of course not,” she said. “This is your baby.”
In DC, the first thing you learned was how to tell if someone was lying. She wasn’t. Regardless, he needed to make sure. The test could be done relatively quickly and would only confirm what he already knew in his gut.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” The plan rolled through his head. “I’ll clear my schedule for the day and we’ll get the test. Then will you agree to talk about what comes next?”
Hesitating, she blinked and met his gaze, vulnerability and fear in her expression. It prompted him to fix whatever was wrong so she’d smile again. He ached to take her into his arms. For comfort, not to kiss her, though he’d have sworn a minute ago that sparks were the only thing between them.
Even that was too much.
The way Alex affected him clashed with the place inside that belonged to his first wife. That unsettled him nearly as much as the idea of Alex being pregnant. But if he wanted to have a family—and he did—not only would he have to convince Alex marriage was the best option, he would have to convince himself to stay strong against the tide of emotions she elicited.
No second chances in life or love. That meant he would never have feelings for another woman. This compromise might be harder than he’d envisioned.
“Okay,” she said, her voice low. “We can talk. But you’ll have to rethink the idea of marriage. I’m not a member of the cult of love and romance.”
She wasn’t? He stared at her as his argument for marriage shifted gears and fell into place.
Four (#u88ba6195-cdac-5779-8e99-fb62f93bea29)
The results of the paternity test didn’t take long. With Phillip’s connections, he had paperwork in his hand before lunch proving the baby Alex carried was 100 percent his.
Like she’d told him. It stung a little to hear him question her, as if Alex might have tried to pass off another man’s baby as his. Who did something like that?
Okay, it stung a lot. But she tried not to fume about it as Phillip’s driver navigated the enormous limousine through Washington, DC, traffic. Her baby’s father sat next to her on the long bench seat, still clutching the results from the private physician’s office they’d visited to perform the test.
“Are you hungry?” Phillip asked, his tone polite but distant, as it had been since the moment she’d uttered the word pregnant.
She secretly called it his Senator Mask, and she’d noted he pulled it on when the circumstances dictated he be tolerant and friendly without inviting too much familiarity. He’d put on the mask in meetings and at the party a couple of times but always toward others. She’d never thought he’d direct it at her.
“I don’t think I could eat, no,” she murmured. Her stomach wasn’t in any condition to accept food and not just because of the morning sickness that should be renamed 24/7 sickness. “But if you want to find a quiet restaurant where we can talk, you’re welcome to eat. I wouldn’t mind a cup of hot tea.”
It was time to make some decisions. Unfortunately, she feared neither of them liked the choices all that well. And she had a feeling the subject of marriage was about to come up again.
Alex and Phillip were not getting married under any circumstances. Marriage was for other people, foolish people who believed love could last forever. Who believed in happily-ever-after. There was nothing he could say to convince her. Besides, marriage didn’t make any sense.
“Maybe we should drive around. This car is about as private as it gets.” Flashing her a distracted smile, Phillip hit the intercom to speak to the driver. “Randy, would you mind stopping at the next Starbucks and purchasing Ms. Meer a cup of hot tea?”
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