The Billionaire's Reluctant Pregnant Bride: A BWWM Romance (2 page)

I was too ashamed to answer. Their fathers were senators, lawyers, doctors, and CEOs.

Tachell’s dad is a gardener! Are you really poor? Is that why you brought old bread to the class party?

I didn’t answer. I just looked straight ahead until it was time to go home to the quaint cottage just behind the High School dorms.

Every night, as my mother cooked dinner, my father would tend to the small garden he kept in our backyard. He grew practical things like leafy green vegetables, winter squash, berries and herbs. But there was a small part of the garden you could see from the kitchen window, and there he grew lavender for my mother.

Love, for me, had never been roses or lilies. It was a small, light purple color and possessed a calming scent so strong it could clear your head or fill a room. It was the way my father quietly smiled whenever my mother entered the room. It was the way she’d softly place her hand on his shoulder. It was the way you knew just by looking at them that there wasn’t a single thing they’d change about their lives, because all of the tragedies and heartache they’d faced had brought them together.

I’d wanted to paint
that
.

Instead, I’d defiled it.

I couldn’t think straight at that time. Love had broken me. Love had scarred me. And so I’d taken that sacred image of love and twisted it. The bouquet looked damaged, like it had been squeezed in a fist and then thrown to the floor. Dark, brutal lines filled the background, threatening to devour the delicate lavendar’s petals. The painting didn’t depict love, it depicted anger.

I remember how relieved I’d been when the coffee shop had accepted it into the show. It was a powerful painting, but not one I ever wanted to see again. Still, the day I walked into the coffee shop and saw a little red sticker by the label signaling it had been sold, I’d never been so happy. Someone had actually bought something I’d done.

So why did Preston have it?

Preston had no right to have this painting.

He was the
last
person I wanted to have it.

“I just love this painting,” the receptionist says.

I blink, suddenly back in the present. I look up to find her staring at me expectantly.

“Oh. Thanks,” I mutter.

“I’ve asked Mr. Easterbrook if he’d be willing to sell it to me. I don’t make enough to buy one of
your
paintings, of course…but I thought maybe he could gift it to me instead of a Christmas bonus. I’d even leave it up in the office. But he says it’s not for sale. I swear, he guards your paintings like a dragon guarding his gold.”

Painting
s
? As in, he had more than one?

I glare at the over sized red doors. They were so obnoxiously bright and big I just knew his office had to be behind them.

“Oh, I’m sorry to keep you,” the receptionist stammered. “You can go in now. Mr. Easterbrook is expecting you.”

Expecting? More like he’s lying in wait, ready to pounce the moment I open the door
. But that was alright. I was ready to fight back.

I storm through the doors into his office.

The doors close immediately behind me.

I rub my arms. It’s unnervingly chilly in here. I guess it’s apt. Hell
would
have to freeze over before I stepped foot in Easterbrook’s office. I squint in the dim light. Maps, bookshelves, and art adorn the dark wooden walls. And most of that art is
mine
.

I clench my hands into fists, grit my jaw, and look forward.

Preston wasn’t joking. Two of the walls in his corner office are floor to ceiling windows with a fantastic view of the city. It probably is breathtaking at night. Even right now, on such an overcast day, it’s breathtaking. I feel like I’m floating above the city. It would be wonderful if I wasn’t also floating with
him
.

My eyes still haven’t adjusted to the dim light, so I can just make out his dark, lean, muscular form lounging on the edge of his desk. There’s a dazzling flash of white as his sexy lips curl back into a devilish smile.

“Hello Tachell.”

Chapter 2

His blonde hair is tussled and the first few buttons of his shirt are undone. His tie is nowhere to be seen. Knowing his reputation, that’s probably for the best. I bet it’s next to a frilly pink thong on the floor behind his desk.

I try to be disgusted. Really, really,
really
try. But goddamn, it’s hard to feel anything other than my pounding heart and tightening stomach as a sickeningly sweet giddiness gallops through my core like a hundred wild stallions.

Yes, Preston Easterbrook is The Devil. And do you know what?
The Devil is hot as hell.

He’s got high, sharp cheeks and a chiseled body that belongs in a museum of
very fine
art. The man redefines the term
mind fuck
. He’s everything your mother would not even dare to warn you about because she knew it would put truly dangerous thoughts in your head. Thoughts like the ones in my poor head at this very moment.

Those dark, piercing blue eyes of his narrow on me. For a moment, I can’t breathe. I feel well and truly caught. It is then that his lips curl up into a smile, and I’m immediately transported to that night two months ago when I made the biggest, sweetest mistake of my life.

I was locking the door to my studio, drained and eager to go home, when I heard him speak.

“I heard about Clarence.”

I stiffened, trying hard not to allow his low, dark voice to affect me. My keys jingled as I plopped them into my pocket. “Oh yeah?” I asked without turning.

My neck tensed as he rested his hand on my shoulders. Preston rarely touched me. Oh, he offered to plenty enough and he started early. I think the first time he asked if I wanted a free mammogram was when we were thirteen. (I declined. Then kicked his shin. Next time he came over to my house, he was wearing shin guards.)

Luckily, the guy did nothing more than offer. There were times when he almost made a move, but whenever he touched me he pulled away so fast that it left me wondering if it had even happened or if I was just imagining it.

But that night his hand lingered, and I stupidly didn’t pull away.

Slowly, his hand moved down to the small of my back.

I shut my eyes as an awareness that was both welcome and unwelcome at the same time flooded me.

He leaned in almost close enough to touch. “He doesn’t deserve you,” he whispered as his minty breath caressed my neck.

And you do?
I almost asked condescendingly. Clarence’s cheating ass definitely didn’t deserve all the time I’d given him…but then again, Preston definitely didn’t deserve me either. But sometimes when your heart is broken, you don’t think about mending it. That night, I didn’t dream of a fairy godmother coming down in a sparkling rainbow beam and magically making everything better. For a few hours, I just wanted to forget.

I leaned back into his hand. My eyelashes fluttered before I looked up into his deep blue eyes. I watched them darken as I ran my tongue over my bottom lip.

Oh, I knew it was a mistake before I led him down the hallway. Before we turned the corner and he pushed me up against the wall, unable to control himself any longer. I shivered as his teeth grazed my throat, moaned as his lips claimed mine. He whispered my name and my cunt throbbed. We were doing this—we were actually doing this. His hands gripped my ass hard and he growled with approval as he hoisted me up. I wrapped my legs around him as his massive cock strained against his pants, aching to break free.

“Preston,” I cried out, shivering. Saying his name thrilled me, like I was whispering a forbidden, dirty word for the first time.

A word like
fuck
.

Ten minutes later, Preston gave me the best orgasm of my life. And then, he did it again
five more times.

Frankly, I’m amazed his dick didn’t fall off. But no, the next morning, I’d woken up in the biggest bed I’d ever seen next to the most magnificent cock I’d ever laid eyes on.

And then, the owner of both gave me a cocky grin I’d unfortunately seen in my nightmares way too many times.

How about another round, Tachell?
he asked, wiggling his eyebrows like a cartoon villain who’d just finishing tying the damsel in distress to the train tracks.

Oh. Hell. No. I picked up the impossibly soft feathered pillow I’d slept on and threw it in the smug bastard’s face.

He just smiled.
You’ll be back.

No, I won’t.
I don’t think I’d ever gotten out of bed and dressed so fast.

He cocked his head to the side, refusing to listen to the truth.
Tell me that wasn’t the best sex you’ve ever had in your life.

I’d bitten the inside of my cheek.
I’ve had better.

Clarence didn’t give you better. How many other guys have you been with?

My cheeks had burned. Every part of me burned.

He sat up, exposing more of his perfect, chiseled,
naked
body.

You know those parts of me that were “burning” before? Yeah, all of a sudden a
motherfucking inferno
started blazing inside me.

You just say the words, and I’ll be there
, he’d whispered in a voice as sweet as sin.
I’ll be everywhere. Up inside you, in the hallway—

I slammed his bedroom door shut and stomped out of his apartment, ready to bury the entire fiasco and pretend like it never happened.

Unfortunately, that was impossible now.

“I told you you’d be back,” Preston says with a grin that would give Lucifer himself a run for his money.

I roll my eyes. “It’s inevitable that we’d run into each other again. You’re my brother’s boss.”
And you like to pop into my life at random and obnoxious times like a recurring nightmare zit
, but I didn’t say that because I
really
didn’t want to go there with him right now.

“That isn’t the only reason,” he drawls, “but I do partially agree with you. Certain things between us are…inevitable.”

“Are you talking about your uncanny ability to piss me off? Because, yeah, I’d say that’s pretty damn inevitable.”

“Is that any way to talk to an old friend and lover?”

“
Past
lover, if you can call a man you shared one night of sex with a lover. What we had barely even counts as a fling.”

His eyes darken as he slides off the front of his desk and stalks towards me.

As he does, I definitely don’t notice how tall he is. Or how good he looks in his expensive, tailored suit. Or how you can tell how strong and athletic his body is just from the way he moves.

Nope. I’m
totally not noticing
. And my heart isn’t pounding even though he’s towering above me.

He raises his hand as if to touch me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he runs his hand over his freshly shaven jaw. Still, my body reacts as if he’d put those hands on me—no, even worse—my body reacts as if it wishes he had.

“What would you call us then, Tachell?” he asks softly.