Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (33 page)

“You don't have to do this,” he said. He leaned in until the fact that they weren't kissing was a technicality. The warm air she expelled from her nose spread across his face. “Nothing I give you has a price.”

His heart pumped rationalizations in his ears.
You've already had sex with her. The damage is done. What do you have to gain by denying yourself the feeling of the delicate bones of her spine under your lips?

When she leaned in to kiss him, he had his answer.

CHAPTER SEVEN

V
IVIAN
HAD
ALWAYS
known Karl must be warm inside, despite his cold hands. His face might be frozen, without expression, but his small kindnesses and sense of righteousness had hinted at a fire burning within. It was the only explanation for his lips inflaming her.

He took her bottom lip between his teeth and nibbled. She made a wanting noise deep in her throat. Her nipples were hard against her blouse—had been since they sat together on the couch—and she was wet with desire. Pregnancy hormones made the tingle of his hand as it ran up the length of her body linger. Pregnancy kept the memory of his nip at her ear fresh, long after he moved on to kiss her neck.

She either had to blame the pregnancy or take responsibility for getting up off the couch and straddling him. But she wanted him. Wanted him despite the fact that the secrets she kept could come back and destroy the little bit of security she'd managed to find in Chicago. Could ruin the trust that she and Karl had developed.

She didn't want to think about that now, with his hands strong against her back while his lips were soft on her neck. All she wanted to think about was that when she pressed her hands against his chest it was solid, and his heartbeat was powerful and real. She could worry about her secrets tomorrow.

The pressure of his hands on her back released. Karl pulled away from her and watched her face intently as he slowly unbuttoned her blouse. Though his expression didn't change, she could feel the pulse of his thighs as each undone button revealed more of her skin. He didn't make a sound until the front of her shirt hung open and he smoothed it off her shoulders with a sigh.

He pressed his lips against the crest of each breast and this time it was her thighs that tightened in response. Then he looked up at her and she didn't know how she could have ever thought those eyes were cold. “I wish the night that got us here was clearer in my memory.”

Why did he have to talk? She didn't want to think about that night and the morning she'd woken up to his cold eyes. That night she'd been seeking solace and someone to take her mind off what her father had asked her to do—and she'd nearly done.

She was in Chicago because she would be burned by the consequences of what she
hadn't
done for the rest of her life.

He licked a line of skin along the edge of her bra and she pressed her hips into him, to lose herself in the present. “I intend to take my time tonight,” he murmured as he lifted her small breast closer to him and his tongue slipped under the fabric of her bra.

She moaned. Her body had wanted him since the first moment she'd seen him. In Las Vegas, she'd slid onto a bar stool next to him, felt the nip of his emotions radiating off his body and wanted to warm the chill of his eyes as she'd wanted him to cool her anger. She'd ordered a gin and tonic, instead, trying not to look at the sharp line of his profile.

She remembered the next gin and tonic, which Karl had bought her, and later the bottle of tequila he'd gotten for them to share. By the time they'd made it up to his room and noticed they didn't have any limes, neither of them had cared. She had wanted to forget how she had nearly allowed her father to sell her soul. What Karl had been trying to forget she hadn't known and hadn't cared.

“Why were you drinking?” Crystal decanters on a fancy bar cart by his dining table held whiskey and brandy, but she'd never seen him open one. He hadn't had so much as a beer since she'd arrived. “That night in Las Vegas, why were you drinking?”

He murmured a nonresponse as his tongue curled around her nipple, her head falling back in pleasure. When his fingers started working on the button of her jeans, she put her hand down to stop them.

“Does it matter?” He spoke to her skin as he pressed butterfly kisses around her collarbone. His fingers burrowed themselves between hers, a suggestion that she open herself up to him, and suddenly the reason he had been drinking mattered more than the aching between her legs.

“Yes.” She lifted herself up and off him so she sat on the couch again. She'd lived with him for two weeks and she knew no more about him than what she'd read in the Chicago papers.

“Do you have to know tonight?” His voice was rough with desire and, she was certain, frustration.

He didn't look at her, but she could see the throb of aggravation in his jawline. He reached out a hand to rest on her thigh, and her body pulsed in response. They were both going to be angry with her for stopping now, but she couldn't let the night go further.

Her questions had been a flash of sanity. Having sex with this man without thinking had gotten her into this helpless position to begin with. She couldn't get pregnant again, but she
could
lose what little independence and self-respect she had. He said this wasn't an exchange, but what if it became one?

“Yes.”

He made an incoherent growl and pulled his hand away from her leg. When he turned to look at her, the skin around his eyes was tight, but any other irritation had been smoothed out of his face. “We're not going to do this tonight, are we?”

“No. I'm sorry,” she offered. Now she was a tease, as well as being the suspicious pregnant woman who showed up unannounced on his doorstep. Better a tease than a woman who used sex now for permanence later.

He pushed off the couch. “Not nearly as sorry as I am.” His butt was now directly at her eye level, and she could imagine its hard muscles under her hands when her nails clung to him. She wanted to feel the strength of him between her thighs. It was her own fault for stopping.

“Make some coffee while I shower.” His “please” was an afterthought.

“Coffee?”

“I want you, Vivian. If this—” he gestured to the couch and her still gaping blouse “—won't happen until you get your questions answered, I'll answer your questions. All of them.”

“Tonight?” God, she sounded stupid, but of all the reactions she'd expected, this hadn't been one of them. Anger, maybe, so she could feel justified in denying herself pleasure. As it was, with her breasts exposed to the world through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she just felt awkward.

When he looked at her, Vivian felt stripped to the bone. “Yes, tonight.” He ran his hand over his face—as if he was a normal man who actually felt emotions like exasperation rather than the wax figure she preferred to imagine him to be. “I don't know what it says about me that I can't think of a single thing to ask you in return. When I get back from the shower...”

He looked from the door to his bedroom and back to her. “I keep thinking of the baby as a Trojan horse, delivered to ruin my life in a form I can't resist. But maybe you are my Helen, and my fate is to be brought down by a beautiful woman, instead. Even worse, I can't make myself care.”

She flinched from the disgust in his voice, even though it was self-directed, because he might be right. She'd left her secrets and her troubles back in Las Vegas, and she was only in his life until she could get back on her feet. She buttoned her shirt, still feeling unprotected. If she didn't get a job soon, Karl would wonder why she wasn't applying for any of the dealer jobs at nearby casinos. She could fob off his questions with “I want a change” for only so long.

Maybe she shouldn't have let her fears get in the way of sex. She could've kept his brain clouded with desire, and he wouldn't have realized he had questions about her still unanswered.

Who would've thought she'd rather play the siren than Helen of Troy?

Water started in his bathroom. She swung her legs over the side of the couch and got up to make the coffee before she could think any longer about the sanity of coming to Chicago. She was pregnant, broke and blacklisted in Las Vegas. Along with everything else, Karl provided her with time to find a new job in a new city with a married last name.

He might not see the baby as anything other than the ruin of his life, but he wasn't the one who had to pee every time he blinked, so what the hell did he have to complain about?

CHAPTER EIGHT

V
IVIAN
WAS
SITTING
on the couch, wrapped in flannel pajamas and a blanket, when Karl stepped from his bedroom into the living room. Her face glowed in the light of the full moon coming in through the windows.

“I made coffee.” She didn't look up.

“Why did you turn the lights off?”

“I keep hoping I'm asleep.”

At least he wasn't the only one upset with how the evening had turned out. He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup. “Would you like some?”

“No.” She sounded like someone had kicked her in the stomach, though he didn't know what she had to be upset about. The night may not have gone the way she wanted, but she wasn't the one jerking off in the shower because he had questions that could have waited until morning. “It will just keep me up.”

“It's decaf.” A stupid, mundane conversation for them to be having when he wanted her in his bed, naked and willing, not wrapped up like a nun and worried about getting enough sleep.

He'd never been the type of heel to be mad at a woman who changed her mind about sex. Of course, he'd never been kissing a woman's breasts when she hopped away from him and said, “I have a question first.” Vivian was full of surprises—most of them unpleasant.

And he still wanted her. He wanted her in his bed, and he wanted her on his couch, and he was willing to live with the stupid bird hopping on his dining table if it meant she was around when he got home from work.

If they weren't having this tedious conversation about caffeine, he'd be letting his anger get the better of him or trying to seduce her. Maybe both.

But soon she would get a job and find an apartment. They would agree to divorce and visitation terms, and he wouldn't be constantly surrounded by the scent of jasmine anymore. His life would return to normal.

He looked up from pouring his coffee to see Vivian sweep her hair off her neck. Until the moment she packed her bags, he would have to get used to a new normal of sexual frustration and bird shit.

He sat in the same armchair he'd sat in when she'd first arrived at his apartment with her bags, bird and baby. He hadn't wanted to sit next to her that day for fear she'd be real. Now he knew she was real and was afraid he would reach for her if he sat next to her. And he wanted to look at her. She was pleasant to look at.

“Well?” Her head jerked up in surprise at his words. “Despite having lived in my apartment for two weeks, you want to know more about me now.”

“Um...” She looked out the window and he wondered if the questions were just a ruse to cover up another reason she didn't want to have sex. The woman could really bring out the worst, most suspicious thoughts in him. “Why were you in the bar that night?”

“I'll answer your questions if you'll answer mine.” The shower hadn't been as pleasurable as the woman sitting across from him would have been, but it had cleared his mind.

Her shoulders dropped in resignation, but she didn't look surprised. “Why were you in the bar that night?” she repeated.

“It was my birthday. I was celebrating.”

She blinked. “That's it?”

He sighed. It was the truth, but it wasn't the whole truth. “I turned thirty-nine years old that night. My father was thirty-eight when he died and I still can't believe I'm older than he will ever be. You're in this apartment because I'm not enough of a louse to turn a pregnant woman out onto the streets. But the only reason I'm not a louse is because I measure my actions against what my dad would think. And he's dead.”

“I'm sorry.”

The dark made it easier to be honest. “My father always wanted me to get married and have a big family. When I bought you the first drink, I was thinking about how I was divorced with no kids.” By the time he'd bought the bottle of tequila, he hadn't been thinking of his father or kids at all. His father would definitely have been disappointed in what happened that night, especially the misguided attempt to solve his problems with marriage to a stranger because she was good-looking and he didn't feel maudlin when she smiled.

“Am I a Trojan horse or a blessing in disguise?”

“The jury's still out.” Karl didn't apologize for his earlier comment. He'd meant every word. “Why were
you
at the bar that night?”

“I work—worked—at the hotel.”

He supposed her flippant answer was his reward for being honest. “You weren't in the habit of having a drink after work.” She cocked her head at him again and he gave into her curiosity. “I wasn't so drunk I didn't notice how surprised the bartender was to see you there.”

“You are two completely different men. At home, you barely say a word and act like you don't know how to use the muscles in your face. Out in public, you shake hands and smile at people.” She pursed her lips, and he waited to see what she would say next. “Of course, even out in public, if someone asks a question you don't like, nothing in the movement of your face gives away a smidgen of answer. I fell into the trap of thinking you're two different people, when really the public face is just a mask over the private, listening and watching one.”

“You're not the first to have made that mistake.”

“You say that like it's a damnation of the entire city of Chicago. How many people have been in your apartment long enough to notice the private man behind the very sincere fake smile?”

His ex-wife, but it had taken her years to realize that the Karl who shook hands with strangers was the fake one. It wasn't until Jessica asked for a divorce that Karl realized she'd been mistaken. His first marriage had been full of misunderstood beliefs and poorly conceived, even if sincere, attempts to fix the missteps. This second marriage was still unbelievable.

“You assume it's a fake smile. But I'm very sincere.” He had a duty to each and every citizen of Chicago.

“Why do you do it? The shaking hands and greeting people? You don't like it.”

Jessica had never been perceptive enough to notice that. Thankfully, most other people weren't, either. “You still didn't answer my question, Vivian.”

“Sure I did. I was there to get a drink.” Despite looking right at him as she talked, her voice lightened to a ridiculous pitch for anyone telling the truth. Still, she was becoming a better liar.

He ignored her evasion. If she was so determined to lie, the reason she was at the bar must be pretty damning, and there was probably evidence he could find if he dug deep enough. And he would. He just didn't want to—not quite yet.

Despite the lack of full satisfaction he'd gotten from his hand in the shower, and his unaccountable interest in the curve of her lips, he was glad she'd stopped their lovemaking. It was bad enough to
want
someone with deep secrets.

“I smile and shake hands with everyone I meet because I want the city of Chicago to know who I am. I want them to realize there is an independent city office dedicated to investigating and prosecuting corruption, fraud and waste. If they know or suspect something, I want them to pull out my business card and give my office a call. If they are taking money under the table so an inferior building passes inspection, I want them to know I'll find them and they'll go to prison.”

Pressure was building up in his chest and he stopped before he exploded. In a world with starvation, war and disease, one city employee taking a bribe so a building passes inspection probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but government corruption prevented the Mexican government from being able to prosecute drug dealers. Government corruption nearly brought down Kabul Bank and made the United States's exit from Afghanistan more difficult. And in the city of Chicago, it was a big deal to the family that lost their lives when their house burned down because shoddy electrical work had passed inspection when money changed hands.

One small employee in a huge organization—what harm could it cause? After all, bribery was supposed to be a victimless crime.

He sank back into the depths of his chair. Among the forty thousand people who died in car accidents every year, three may not have seemed like so many, except to the five people left to mourn.

“I read on the internet about the death of your family,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“It was over twenty years ago.” Twenty-three years, but who was keeping track? Karl could recite the key dates in the scandal as if he had memorized them for a history test. Former Illinois Secretary of State George Ryan was elected governor in 1998. Twenty days later, two of his employees pled guilty to racketeering. On September 27, 1999, a trucking company official admitted to paying to fix licenses for his drivers, including the driver involved in the crash that killed Karl's family and one who was involved in the crash that killed six children in Wisconsin. It took Governor Ryan five months to apologize for corruption in the secretary of state office and it took until December 17, 2003, for Ryan to be indicted for taking payoffs. By that time, Karl was old enough to know justice was a slow and frustrating process.

He wanted Vivian to understand. This wasn't just about why his job was important, but also about who he was.

“Did you know that the inspector general for the state of Illinois at the time, a man named Dan Bauer, removed a briefcase full of cash and campaign fundraising receipts during a raid of a driver's license agency? He eventually pled guilty to obstruction of justice, but the raid happened almost a full year before the Willis children were killed. It was too late to save my family, but someone might have noticed in time to save the Willis children.” Bauer had had a responsibility to those children—and everyone who drove on Illinois highways—and he'd failed on the job. His failures had cost lives.

Karl didn't notice Vivian had stood up until she returned with his coffee cup, full and steaming. “Thank you,” he said.

They sat in silence for a while, the clock flashing on the coffeemaker in the kitchen, marking the time they were in each other's company. His anger cooled. Enjoying her company was too active a phrase for how he felt right now.

Content. He was content to have her in his apartment, even though they were in the living room and not in his bed. Content to feel her presence across the coffee table and know she would still smell faintly of jasmine if he sat next to her and gathered her into his arms.

If he was actively anything, he was being actively foolish for feeling this way while still not knowing her secrets.

She owed him an answer—a real one—to at least one of his questions. Karl picked something easy. “So, if—what was the phrase you used?—‘the last name and most of the blood's Chinese,' how did you end up in some town in the middle-of-nowhere Nevada for high school?”

The moment she smiled at him, he knew it was a stupid question. Blame it on the decaf, the late hours, or the woman. He was smart enough to know immigrants lived everywhere in the United States, not just in big cities and ethnic communities like Chinatowns—or Archer Heights, where he had grown up, for that matter.

“You're making the same mistake most people make, assuming that someone with Chinese heritage has parents who came in the 1970s and studied engineering. The first Yaps came to the United States in 1852, to mine for gold.”

Ah, his question had been even dumber than he'd realized.

“When the Yap men had enough money, they brought over women from China to be their wives. In times of poor fortune, or during the times immigration from China was banned, they married within the United States, if they could find a Chinese wife. In 1910, a Yap ended up in Idaho to fight the great wildfire and found love, but not with a Chinese woman. Because she was white, and intermarriages were illegal, I don't think he married the Sicilian woman he took to Nevada with him. But my dad remembers his grandmother's strange Sicilian-Chinese stir-fry. I have a Mexican grandmother, too, also on my dad's side. They were able to marry because my grandfather argued Mexican wasn't Caucasian.”

She smiled at him as if he was a child being taught a lesson, and he deserved it. He'd learned in history classes about the Chinese workers on the railroads and the Chinese Exclusion Act; he'd just never come face-to-face with the actual history of it.

“The Yaps may have been in the United States longer than the Mileks,” she said.

He chuckled. “The Mileks, yes, but please try not to compare notes with my mother, lest you get the great history of the Poles in the United States from her. It's much like the lecture you just gave me, only hers starts with Casimir Pulaski and the Revolutionary War. She conveniently forgets that Casimir Pulaski had no children and the only evidence of relation is a coincidence of dates, locations and last names.”

“They say men marry women like their mothers.”

This time his laugh was full and hearty, all residual anger gone in the enjoyment of being teased by a beautiful woman. “Next time my mother asks why I married you, I'll be sure to tell her that you remind me of her.”

“Just what every mother
and
daughter-in-law wants to hear.”

He lifted his hands in mock innocence. “Don't blame me. You said it first.”

Vivian's mouth opened to respond, but whatever she was going to say ended in a great yawn, which she tried to cover with her hands.

“It's late. We should go to bed.” He still had questions for her, but she would be here in the morning.

“I'm sorry about tonight,” she said behind another yawn.

“Don't be too sorry, or I'll think you've changed your mind.” He wanted her to change her mind.

She shook her head. “I kept telling myself I'm already pregnant and the horse is out of the barn, but it's not enough to make up for me being here and dependent on you.”