Entry-Level Mistress (22 page)

“My father did have an affair with your mother,” I said slowly, “and he’s ultimately the reason he went to jail. Not you.”

“But my father chose to kill himself.”

“And your mother chose her pills.”

His eyes closed. I wanted to throw myself around him and take it back, pretend everything was easy and light and I could be with him without all of this. Except the words were out there.

He took a deep breath that moved his whole body and then he opened his eyes. Met mine.

“Mark Anderson has paid for his mistakes, both financially and legally. I didn’t know anything about his new deal. In fact, I told my private investigator to stop looking into your family shortly after we started sleeping together.”

I took that in. Private investigator.

“You … investigated me?” It was like we were characters on a TV drama, all of the events in our lives so ridiculous and fantastical. Surely this wasn’t real life. Real people didn’t bankrupt themselves to seek revenge, have private investigators, go to work for their enemies, sleep with their enemies, get pregnant at twenty-one by their enemies.

I shook my head at my thoughts, not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry.

“I’ve had a file on you for years. Or rather, you were part of your family’s file.”

I nodded slowly. I could understand that he would have.

“So why did you stop?”

I searched his face for honesty, stared deep into his eyes as if that part of his body was actually a window to his soul instead of just a dense collection of molecules.

“Because it was pretty obvious that you weren’t a danger to my company.” He laughed. “To me and my heart maybe, but not my company.”

My lips quirked up at that briefly but I couldn’t give in yet.

We stood there facing each other. All of it between us. All of it so final.

“We’re not that different, Emily.” As he said the words, it felt right. Felt true. “And as ugly as the past is, we understand each other.” I nodded, reached out for him. When he grabbed my hands, drawing me closer even as he pressed them against his chest, I thought I might fall from the sensation of touching him again. “I want to be a father to our children. I want to be the man who goes to bed with you every night and wakes up with you every morning.”

My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t think. I wanted too much …

“All right,” I whispered finally, breaking my hands free of him and throwing myself against him, around him, glorying in the sudden freedom of being able to do so again. My chest was pressed against his and I imagined it desirous and opening like a flower, a meeting of our two hearts, surreal and wonderful, colorful and exuberant. “I want to be open. I want to give us another chance.”

I wasn’t certain that he understood, that he had that sudden melding vision too, but he breathed in deeply, his chest seeming to expand against mine.

In the next moment he was holding me tight, his breath ragged against my ear.

Then he pulled away, captured my face in his hands and closed the space between us.

Everything was different about this kiss. This was the kiss of a man who was really, truly in love with me. The knowledge was shattering, and terrifying,

This kiss, this love, was no game.

And I was twenty-one, pregnant with his child, just beginning to discover my own purpose in life.

“Wait—”

“Make me the happiest man,” he murmured against my lips. He sounded happy, lighter, the way I felt inside, but there was more I needed to say.

“I wanted revenge. I didn’t want to make you happy.”

He laughed, kissed my ear. I turned my head slightly.

Daniel dropped his hands, held them open to me even as I stepped back.

“Emily.” My name on his lips was almost a sigh, a plea. “If you want to make me the most miserable man on earth, that would be fine too. Just … tell me you love me and tell me you’ll marry me, and tell me, please tell me, if I’m really going to be a father.”

Marry
. That’s what he had meant by happy.

Marry
him.

Marry Daniel Hartmann, the man I had hated. The man I now loved.

I sucked in a sob, stared at him helplessly. His eyes were alight. As if he knew what I was trying to say but he was searching my face … waiting.

“Emily?”

“I—” I hesitated. “What if I’m too young for this?”

He paled. Sucked in a breath. “Every time I said you were too young, it was me looking for an excuse to run away. Is that what you want to do?”

No. I didn’t want to run, but I needed … something. More.

“If I tell you I’m not pregnant, would you still want to be with me? Still be asking me to marry you? Even though we met only five months ago?”

He looked away, down, ran a hand through his hair. He seemed agitated and barely in control. I wanted to reach out, soothe him, but at the same time my arms were wrapped tightly around myself. I needed him to say the right thing. I needed to know that this biological accident wasn’t the only reason he loved me. The human mind was a wily thing; it could make us think all sorts of notions to force ideals and reality to match.

“When your father came,” he started finally, his lashes lifting, his green eyes focusing fully on me. I hung on his words, desperate. “All I could think was, now I have a reason to go back to Barrows. Now she can’t turn me away.”

“It doesn’t really work that way,” I murmured. He needed to understand that I did have a choice. That
we
did. “I … I
am
pregnant.”

He lit up, started to reach for me and then stopped when I raised a hand. I watched him, trembling, needing to say this last thing.

“But that doesn’t mean we have to get married. Or even be together. I would have told you, eventually … ” I dropped off.

His gaze searched my face, his body tense. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t say no and I didn’t want to.

“Daniel, I love you,” I said helplessly.

“Thank god,” he whispered and then there wasn’t any holding back. He stepped forward, took me in his arms, against the wall, my lips under his finally again. He kissed me hungrily, everywhere, and I gasped under his touch, pulling him closer.

It was some time later, sated and warming ourselves in a patch of grassy sunlight, that I curled against his side, savoring the feel of his fingers running through my hair.

“Emily Hartmann,” I said softly, playing with the strangeness of the name on my tongue. “That is not something I ever in my life imagined I’d be saying.”

“It sounds right.”

It did and I laughed. All of it was so ridiculous. “I should just tell my father this was my plan all along. To ruin your life by making you fall in love with me.” As soon as I said it, I thought maybe it was too soon to be making jokes.

But he laughed, too, and the rich sound wrapped around me.

“I like your style of revenge,” he whispered against my ear, following the words with his tongue.

I smiled against his cheek, stroked my fingers down his loosened tie before I closed my fist around the length and pulled him even closer.

“That’s good,” I said, my voice light and teasing, “because I intend to spend a lifetime making you pay.”

Sabrina Darby has been reading romance since the age of seven and learned her best vocabulary (dulcet, diaphanous, and turgid) from them. She started writing romance the day after her wedding when she woke up with an idea for a Regency; she’s been back in the early 19th century ever since. Her debut book with Avon Red,
On These Silken Sheets,
was a Favourite Erotic Romance finalist in the Australian Romance Readers Awards and a Best First Book finalist in the National Readers’ Choice Awards. Her Regency novella,
The Short and Fascinating Tale of Angelina Whitcombe
, released from Avon Impulse in July 2012.
Entry-Level Mistress
is her first contemporary romance.

Website:
SabrinaDarby.com
Twitter:
@SabrinaDarby
Facebook:
SabrinaDarbyRomance
Blog:
TheBallroomBlog.com

ENTRY-LEVEL MISTRESS
Copyright © 2013 by Sabrina Darby

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