Teddy Bear Heir (13 page)

"Good. For if you think of it as love, both of you win. For the rest of your lives."

"He's told me he doesn't believe in love."

"Words, my darling girl. Words. He loves you. I saw it in his eyes. At the office. I'll have you know, you're the reason I came up with that foolish ultimatum in the first place."

"Truly?"

"Truly." Julian lowered his voice. "Oh, I was selfish enough to want a great-grandchild but above all else I wanted to see my grandson happy. I know it's not wise to meddle in your children's affairs but I couldn't help myself."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"And do you love him?"

"Oh Julian, from the first moment I saw him."

"I knew it. Well, I'm going to let you get back to sleep. Now, take your vitamins, drink plenty of water, and don't let that grandson of mine snarl at you too much."

"Julian?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

* * *

She woke to the sound of the sea and stepped out onto the balcony just off her bedroom.

Though she considered herself spoiled, living in a city like San Francisco with its incredible weather, restaurants, and culture, there was something to be said for an island in the Caribbean. The sea stretched far out to the horizon and the house, up on a hill, commanded a magnificent view of the sparkling water.

Rich people were so strange. They used simple words like "house" and "car" to describe things like mansions and limousines. This "house," as Julian had referred to it over the phone, was nothing short of a palace.

The garden was terraced and stretched down the hillside. Michaela caught a glimmer of blue, farther down, and assumed it was the pool.

She went back inside and explored her room, discovering that someone had carefully unpacked her bags. They'd arrived late at night. Cameron must have had them flown in because she hadn’t brought them with her.

She'd been asleep when their plane had touched down and not much more alert once she'd been awakened. Truthfully, she didn't remember much of her journey to this house. Now she realized that if someone had unpacked her clothing, then Cameron had to have some sort of staff living here.

It was tempting to contemplate behavior suitable to a Gothic heroine. She could swiftly dress, race down the stairs and demand to be taken off the island as soon as possible. She could convince the staff that their boss was a madman, terrorizing others with his various whims—

But she wasn't a Gothic heroine. And she wasn't terrified. Whatever was to go down between her and Cameron had to be figured out, for their child's sake if for no other reason. So she would act like the mature woman she was even if her insides sometimes felt like total mush.

She showered and sorted through her clothes. She'd packed some maternity outfits, as she'd been originally planning to schlepp around in the stuff on her vacation.

She'd ordered some sophisticated maternity clothes online and pulled out a pair of white shorts and a top with graceful, billowing sleeves. She dressed quickly, applied sunscreen, made sure she had her prenatal vitamins in her bag, and decided to try to find out where the dining room was.

Cameron was sitting out on the back patio at a charming breakfast table, reading the paper. Her heart sped up when she spotted him, then revved up a little more when she discovered he was wearing only a pair of faded cutoffs. He didn't look up as she sat down and she took that as a good sign.

Maybe they could get through this supposed holiday after all.

A competent-looking woman, her gray hair pulled back in a bun, approached the table and asked her what she wanted for breakfast.

"Just some toast. And juice."

"And eggs," Cameron muttered, never taking his eyes off the front page of the
Wall Street Journal.

And a good morning to you, Mr. Control.

She bit her lip to keep her temper in check and reconsidered telling Cameron to give it a rest. Julian was right. She had to look at this whole thing from a totally different perspective if she had any hope of remaining emotionally intact.

"Eggs would be fine."

That got his attention. He glanced up from the paper and studied her, his eyes coolly assessing. Apparently he wasn't used to her agreeing with him.

She smiled at him and wished she'd thought to bring a book to breakfast, or her tablet. She would tomorrow.

He set the newspaper down and she willed her stomach to stop its wild flip-flopping. This wasn't morning sickness. This was emotional unease. What was Cameron up to?

"What would you like to do today?" he asked.

She hadn't expected this from him. She'd thought he would drag her into his den after breakfast and they would immediately start pounding out the finer details of his damn contract.

He'd caught her off guard and she didn't like it. She didn't want him to be charming or—God forbid—understanding. She wanted him to be surly, to come out of the ring snarling, to be such an utter boor that her mind wouldn't drift back to that incredible evening at the Four Seasons –

Sex.

Her brain shifted into high gear. Sex. Of course, that was it. They were alone in this huge mansion – excuse me, in the "house" – and unless he had plans for a few other guests showing up, she was the only female entertainment for miles around.

Sex. What a stumbling block.

She smiled at him sweetly and was gratified to see he looked a bit nervous.

"What would
you
  like to do today?" she asked.

He knew what she was up to. She could tell by the slight grin that barely formed on his handsome mouth.

"Oh, I'll leave it up to you."

Great. Alphonse and Gaston, trapped on an island.

"Well," she said cheerfully as a plate of scrambled eggs and toast was set down in front of her, "I thought I might catch some rays out by the pool."

He nodded his head.

"Maybe swim a little – "

He agreed.

"Then perhaps go out and see a movie tonight."

He frowned.

Aha! He does want to keep me a prisoner!

"I don't believe there's a movie theater on the island."

"Oh."

"But I did install a private screening room and several friends of mine have been generous enough to give me rough cuts of their upcoming films."

The rich are different than you and me.

"That would be swell."

So it's humor her today, is it Cameron? Well, I'm just going to wait it out. Be as charming as you want, I'm not letting my guard down until you move in for the kill. I'm going to be ready for you. I'm going to—

"You've got some egg on your blouse."

She glanced down to where he was staring and noticed that her bustline—now more of a massive shelf than an actual part of her body—had caught a piece of egg she'd spilled. She dabbed at it with a napkin.

"Thanks."

I can't stand this! We've slept together, talked together, argued contract law together, made a baby together, and we can't even talk like two normal human beings! I can't endure day after day after day of this—

Wait! It's exactly what he wants. He wants you to get all upset and lose your cool and then you'll be at his mercy, exactly where Mr. Control wants you—

Not a chance, bud.

She smiled sweetly at him and it felt as if her lips were going to calcify and fall off. He studied her for the briefest of seconds. Her intuition told her he didn't have the slightest idea what she was up to.

Excellent.

She finished her breakfast and pushed her chair back.

"How about meeting me down by the pool in, say, forty-five minutes?"

He didn't look up from his paper. "Fine."

* * *

Pregnancy, to her way of thinking, had not exactly improved her body.

She'd never been one of those women who yearned for enormous breasts. She'd been quite content with what had been doled out genetically. Now, though the function of those same breasts didn't bother her, she did wish there were times when they were a little less obvious.

She loved to sleep on her stomach. That was getting harder and harder.

She liked looking like a sleek panther in her black maillot, lying by the pool and waiting for her prey. Now, struggling with her solid-colored maternity swimsuit, she realized her afternoon by the pool with Cameron was going to resemble the opening act at Sea World.

"He's driving me insane," she muttered as she struggled with the straps. "No one's that calm and controlled all the time unless they're dead."

Her mind flashed back to that one evening when Cameron hadn't been in control at all.

She ran a brush through her hair, flung it down on the bed, and eyed herself in the full-length mirror that someone had so thoughtfully put in the large bedroom. One thing that could be said for only looking at yourself in the medicine cabinet mirror was that you could delude yourself into thinking at least your face didn't look too fat.

This sunning by the pool was not a good idea.

Mr. Bronze God looked good in anything. A bathing suit would show off his obvious masculine charms. While she, instead of looking like a fertility goddess, looked more like Willy of
Free Willy
  fame.

And she was only four months along.

Breathe, breathe. Calm, calm. Think calming thoughts.

She calmed down, just slightly, and headed toward the pool.

* * *

He wasn't there yet, so she threw her towel on one of the lounge chairs and headed toward deep water. She paddled around for a while and the sensation of being off her feet was fabulous.

Ah, you're not that huge. Not yet, anyway. And what does he expect, for God's sake? You're pregnant!

The pool was located on one of the terraces that got the most sunshine and she enjoyed it, floating in the water, letting the tension seep out of her body, feeling relaxed for the first time in a while...

Then she opened her eyes and saw him.

His swimsuit couldn't have been any smaller if he'd simply taken a can of black spray paint and applied it to himself. Normally she didn't like such brief swimsuits on men, but on Cameron, the effect was—

Devastating.

Part of what made it so sexual was that he was totally at ease with his near nakedness. Part of what made it so incredible was that she hadn't had a chance to look at his body that night in the hotel room.

Now she could look all she wanted. As much as she hated to admit it, she liked what she saw.

It wasn't fair, that one man should have such a criminal advantage in the battle of the sexes. There wasn't an ounce of fat on that body. Muscles rippled in all the right places. He even had the perfect amount of body hair.

She did a surface dive and sank into the water.

She felt the water shift as he dove in.

She moved away from him, thinking she would've preferred sharing the swimming pool with the shark from
Jaws.

You're in control here, you're in control, you're in control...

He touched her arm and she surfaced with a yelp.

"What!"

He backed off and she saw genuine concern in his eyes.

"You looked like... you were struggling."

She pushed wet hair out of her eyes and, as unobtrusively as possible, put a little distance between them.

"No, that’s just the way I swim."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

She was dying to scream at him, almost trembling with the need to demand a less superficial interaction between them but she wasn't going to be the first one to break. If he could be sophisticated, so could she. If he could look on this as a cross between a vacation and a business trip, so could she.

But she didn't want to.

A business trip – a deal negotiated to define three lives that should've been bound together by love.

Her eyes stung and she dived back into the water before he could notice.

* * *

He noticed.

And he thought she was one of the bravest women he’d ever met. Michaela had spirit, she had courage – and he was increasingly afraid she had his heart.

He'd been so angry that she'd kept her pregnancy a secret for so long. To his way of thinking, she should've called him the minute she found out. That lack of trust had, in his mind, done a lot of damage to the friendship they'd built up over the months they'd worked together.

Now he wasn't sure what he wanted.

He knew, deep in his heart, that he didn't need any sort of contract with Michaela. The words he'd said had been meant to hurt, meant to take away the sting of his own rage. But the funny thing was, they hadn't. He'd seen the hurt he'd inflicted and only felt worse.

In some ways he regretted the impulse that had led him to practically kidnap her and force her to come to his house in the Caribbean. In retrospect it seemed a childish, almost stupidly macho thing to do. Just plain dumb.

But maybe he could still salvage things. God knows they'd both needed time away from their jobs and Michaela's firing had provided that opportunity. They were, by nature, workaholics. It seemed as if this baby had come into their lives partly as life's way of getting them to look at the way they were living, to slow down. Enjoy each other. Take some time for the all too human elements of existence.

Work couldn't sustain a person indefinitely but it was so damn seductive. Work was safe. Work was a controlled area of his life. Work gave him a certain comfort because it was so predictable and pleasurable.

Michaela would be astonished if she knew how out of control he felt around her.

Though she hadn't come out of the pool yet, he'd already visually assessed her body and found it beautiful. Memories of that first night they'd spent together had haunted him, for once he'd known the woman in his arms hadn't been Nancy, he'd tried to remember her by touch.

Her body had been delicate but strong. Her breasts were neither small nor large but exquisitely sensitive, her skin so smooth and hot. Her stomach had been flat but her muscles had quivered as he'd kissed his way down her body...