The Pregnancy Test (12 page)

She didn’t want to make any more mistakes. She didn’t want Damien, who wasn’t even the baby’s father, to have a better sense of what was happening to her body and baby than she did.

And most of all, she wanted to know why along with all the other sacrifices she had to make, she couldn’t even be allowed the pleasure of having Damien eat her out.

S
howered, dressed in a bikini, and armed with information, Mandy went off in search of Damien around lunch-time.

He had completely freaked her out, on so many levels, with his behavior that morning. He had brought back to the surface her doubts about her abilities as a mother, made her feel guilt for ignoring the textbook she really should have read two months ago, and he’d worried her that maybe she had done something sexual she shouldn’t have.

What kind of mother was she? She should be knitting booties like a proper mum, not having sex with her boss.

Unfortunately, being naked with Damien seemed much more appealing than laboring her way through the creation of a yarn sock.

Then added to all of that was the confusion over watching Damien Sharpton focusing in on her child. She supposed he wasn’t acting completely out of person, since he seemed to have taken a divide-and-conquer approach to her pregnancy. He had devoured all the information available to him, now was prepared to do everything by the book, literally.

He had sent her into the shower with admonishments about the water temperature not exceeding one hundred twenty degrees.

Like she even knew what that was just by turning the taps. She had never quite mastered the whole Celsius/ Fahrenheit conversion.

But no matter if the behavior fit Damien’s aggressive, assertive personality, it was unnerving. And his concern, no matter how thoughtful, coupled with the way he had opened up to her the night before, made her feel a strange, confusing longing that she had no business feeling.

They needed to keep this simple. They needed to keep this about sex.

But it was so hard when Damien had become her friend on this trip. He had shown her parts of him that were hidden from everyone else. She saw the humor and the caring and the worry. The loneliness.

He had made her feel so relaxed, so sexy, so capable. He didn’t doubt her abilities to raise her child. He didn’t look at her and see nothing but poor choices. Damn it, he liked her, respected her, trusted her, and that was so appealing.

And now he wanted to look after her unborn baby.

It couldn’t happen. She couldn’t let him in like that, couldn’t learn to lean on him, get used to him being in her life. He had said he didn’t want a relationship and she believed him. He hadn’t healed from his wife’s death, and his heart wasn’t his to give away, even if she were looking for that, which she wasn’t.

Was she? Mandy halted in the hallway outside Damien’s room, startled by her thoughts.

No, of course she wasn’t. She was still hurt and dealing with Ben’s rejection, and most importantly of all, she needed to focus on her job and her baby. There was no time for a relationship in her life, and it would only be a needless distraction. Plus she never wanted her child to become attached to a man who wasn’t its father and who could leave at any time. Bad enough Mandy would have to explain someday that the child’s biological father had no interest in seeing her or him. She couldn’t create a situation where her child could be rejected a second time.

So it had to be about sex, and nothing more.

That had been fabulous between them, so what in the hell was wrong with just leaving it at that?

Annoyed that Damien had complicated things, she pounded hard on his door.

“Come in,” he called.

Mandy flung open the door, determined to seduce him into a nooner. She’d spent the entire morning reading the
Everything Guide
, and there was absolutely no reason why they couldn’t be as sexually active as she wanted to. The book had even encouraged it as a way to keep you relaxed and alleviate stress.

Damien was sitting at the table trying to work on his laptop, a gigantic hamper taking up most of the space and leaving him dangling precariously on the edge.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know.” His fingers flew over the keyboard. “It’s for you. The front desk had it when I went to check messages and send a fax. It came on the flight from Heathrow.”

Mandy went to the table and leaned to read the label. Right in front of Damien. Dangling her breasts in front of him like really big carrots. It wasn’t subtle, but she had only two days to work with.

He made a strange coughing noise.

She would have turned to check on the promising sound, but the behemoth package was from her mother. Mandy laughed in comprehension. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s from my mother.” She untied the bow on top and let down the cellophane wrap. “It’s a food hamper from Fortnum and Mason.”

She lifted the lid as Damien shoved his chair back and stood up. He peered over her shoulder. “Food hamper?”

“Yes.” She grinned at him and pulled out some strawberry jam and Darjeeling tea. “Hungry?” There were biscuit tins and a variety of cheeses, crackers, marmalade, and lemon curd. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation. “Mother is worried I’ll starve or eat bad fruit in this heathen tropical country.”

“She sent this from London? I can only imagine what that must have cost.” Damien shook a tin. “Chocolate cookies. Good stuff.”

“Cost is no object when Mother thinks she’s right.” But for the first time, Mandy saw beyond her mother’s desire to maintain strict control over every aspect of her life. “But you know, I think I finally understand. A mother’s fears aren’t always rational, but they’re born of love. I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated just how my mother feels about me until right now.”

Damn it, she was going to get weepy. Just when she was trying to prove to Damien that her pregnancy was irrelevant to their relationship, she went and turned into a hormonal watering pot.

Damien didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. He just wrapped his arms around Mandy and pulled her into his chest. She gave a little sniffle and sank against him with a sigh.

His heart raced as he held her there, patting her back. He hadn’t held a woman like this in so long, hadn’t felt he had any comfort to give. And Mandy was so, so different from Jess. His wife had used tears to manipulate, to wrench guilty apologies from him, to gloss over her own transgressions.

Those very thoughts now—unkind, scrutinizing thoughts of Jessica’s flaws—made him feel guilty all over again. He hadn’t loved her well enough in life, and he couldn’t get it right in death either.

Mandy was looking up at him. He could feel the weight of her brown eyes studying him. But he looked over her shoulder as she spoke, unable to bear the openness she was wearing on her face.

“Love, no matter how it’s expressed, is still love. We all have flaws, and so our love will be flawed. But that doesn’t diminish it.”

Damien squeezed her tighter to him, swallowing hard, unable to speak. How did she do that? How did she manage to get inside his head and find his thoughts, anticipate them, refute them, offer him a comfort that he wasn’t sure he deserved.

One of the walls of defense towering around his emotions and heart had a good hole in it. About the size of Mandy’s foot, where she inadvertently was kicking down the fortress that had protected him for three years.

“I’m not sure I agree with you, Mandy. Just because we’re flawed doesn’t mean it’s okay to let those flaws bleed into our feelings.”

“Do you think there is a perfect love, then?”

“No.” That he was sure of. And he wasn’t even sure there was love.

“I think perfect love is any time you love unconditionally, without selfish intent, without concern for personal gain.”

He wanted to scoff. Call her hopelessly naïve and begging to be taken advantage of. But he couldn’t. Maybe because he wanted so desperately to believe that she could be right. “And do you think people really do that?”

“I do, Damien. I really do.”

Her hands wrapped around his waist, her hair tickling his chin, and he knew that she meant what she said. That she would love her child that way. That she had bits and pieces of her that alone were greater than the sum whole of his soul.

He knew that he didn’t deserve whatever she had to offer him.

That he couldn’t resist her.

That he wanted to believe.

That he didn’t want to be alone anymore.

That while the court had dismissed the charges of murder against him, he had effectively been living in a prison of his own making for the past three years.

And that Mandy was helping him turn the key.

Damien wasn’t taking the hint that she wanted to make love to him. Mandy lounged on the bed, the contents of the hamper spread out all around her, stomach happily full, while every trick she tried was ignored.

He was either exceptionally dull witted, or he was choosing to ignore her. Knowing him like she did, she was forced to conclude the latter. Damien was no dummy.

But Mandy had done everything short of a striptease to get his attention. Instead of jumping her bones, he just looked pained. As though he had indigestion.

He hadn’t done a thing when she had brushed her chest against him. Hadn’t made a move when she’d tossed her hair and given him a smoldering look. Hadn’t even blinked when she had spread out lunch on the bed, claiming the balcony was too sunny this time of day.

No, he had pulled up a chair instead of climbing on the bed with her and was sitting there devouring biscuits. If he did have indigestion, it wouldn’t surprise her. He’d worked his way through a whole tin, after eating a cheese wedge and an entire cracker sleeve.

“Do you want to go sailing this afternoon?” he asked.

“Sure.” Right after they had sex. “I’ve never been.”

She purposely let marmalade dribble from her cracker down onto her chest. Her barely contained in a bikini, newly burgeoning chest. The sticky orange jelly slid down into her ample cleavage. Damien’s fist closed, crumbling the cracker he was holding to bits.

But he didn’t do a damn thing, not even when she leaned over for a napkin and started delicately blotting herself inches from his nose.

“Oops.” She gave him ample opportunity to come to her assistance with his hand or tongue, whichever method he preferred, but he just shoved another hunk of cheese in his mouth.

Exasperated, she dropped the napkin, marmalade still clinging to her breasts. “Damien, I think in your case, too much knowledge is a bad thing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked around a mouthful of Brie.

“You read that pregnancy book and now you see me as some kind of vessel for creation. You’ve lost all sexual interest in me.”

It was gratifying to see his mouth drop completely open, Brie clinging to his tongue, though not as gratifying as him reaching over and untying her top would be.

“You’re kidding, right?” He swallowed the cheese.

A cracker crumb clung to the corner of his mouth, and she wanted to lick it away. “Well, maybe I sounded a little overdramatic, but no, I’m not kidding. I dropped marmalade on my breasts and you didn’t even blink!”

“You did that on purpose?” He looked shocked.

Hello. Of course she did. “Yes. I was trying to entice you, for all the good it did me.”

Damien rubbed his forehead and laughed, his shoulders shaking. “Oh, my God, you’re killing me. You know that? Here I’ve been trying my damnedest not to touch you all day and you’ve been trying to
entice
me? I’ve only got so much self-control, Mandy, and you’re coming close to using mine up.”

Why was he laughing? Why was he resisting her? “I’ve missed something…Why can’t you touch me? I don’t want you to resist. I want you to get on this bed with me and shag.”

He stopped laughing and gave a strangled groan.

“You don’t find me attractive anymore, do you?” She didn’t mean to say that, but it slipped out. She didn’t want to sound needy or emotional, but she was puzzled and hurt that he didn’t seem to want her anymore. When they got back to New York he was supposed to stop wanting her.

But here in Punta Cana he could want and he could have all he wanted.

Damien lifted the napkin off his lap and tossed it on the bed. He pointed to his pants. “Does it look like I find you unattractive? I almost bit my tongue off when that jelly slathered over your chest.”

He had an erection, which the napkin had masked. It was a big one. Her breath came faster, her body tingling with awareness. “What am I missing here? Why can’t we have sex?”

“I want you so much, Mandy, that it shocks me. I mean, you’re pregnant, you’re going to be a mother—I should treat you with respect. But all I can think about is how luscious you are, how good you taste, and how much I want to be inside you. That makes me a pig. I’m racking up perversion points on the sexual scoreboard here.”

Thank God
, he wanted her. “That’s a lovely sentiment, and I’m glad you feel the need to respect me, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to a pregnant woman.” At least she hoped there wasn’t, considering he hadn’t been the one to impregnate her.

“Oh, I know that. Trust me, if anything, it makes me more attracted to you. But the thing is, there is still a baby inside you, and that needs to be taken into consideration.” Jaw clenched, eyes burning with desire, he balled his hands into fists. “I just don’t think I can trust myself if I get near you. I don’t think I can stop myself from doing things we shouldn’t.” He looked at her, desperate.