by Nicola Marsh
‘And if it’s a boy?’
He chuckled. ‘Okay, you got me. I really want you to have the charm. Maybe one day you’ll let me buy you the bracelet to go with it?’
‘Don’t push your luck,’ she said, sending him a mock-scathing look that withered under the intensity of his stare.
‘How about a charm for every milestone of the baby’s life?’
‘Yeah, that sounds good. I can see it now. A dummy for the first month, a teething ring for the sixth, and a potty around two?’
Actually, she liked the idea. It was sweet and thoughtful and totally Nate.
‘Though I draw the line at miniature gold forceps to commemorate the birth, okay?’
He laughed and slipped an arm around her waist. ‘Come on. We have some serious schmoozing to do.’
‘And later?’
His hand felt way too good resting on her hip, its warmth branding her skin through the thin chiffon, sending a powerful wake-up call to those crazy hormones which had dozed off for the last few minutes.
‘I promise we’ll talk,’ he said, dropping an all-too-brief, too-chaste kiss on her cheek before guiding her out the door.
Resigning herself to an interminable evening of back-slapping and fake smiles at equally fake people, she focussed on what really mattered about this evening: Nate by her side, their baby nestled safe within her belly, and the conversation with the potential to make or break her future.
‘Are you having a good time?’
Kristen nodded, and tried for the umpteenth time that evening not to get lost in the dark depths of Nate’s eyes.
‘Actually, I am. Usually these functions are kind of dull, but with lemon-meringue pie for dessert, it’s taken the evening into the next realm.’
Nate chuckled and pushed his dessert plate across to her. ‘And here I was, thinking I was the reason you were having such a good time.’
‘Now why would you think that?’
She batted her eyelashes at him, loving every minute of this unexpectedly enjoyable night as he laughed and pointed to the plate.
‘Eat up. It’s good for you,’ he said, dropping his voice low as he sent a pointed stare at her belly.
‘Okay. If you insist,’ she said, needing little encouragement to devour a second serving of her favourite dessert.
However, she almost choked on the first mouthful as Nate’s gaze stayed riveted to her lips, his expression hungry, though she had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t for food.
‘Do you want some?’
His gaze stayed focussed on her lips a tad longer before slowly drifting upwards. ‘No thanks. Besides, it’s much more fun watching you enjoy it.’
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, taking her time with the next mouthful, savouring the sweet tart exploding on her tongue, her pulse racing at the hungry gleam in Nate’s eyes.
Looked like her boss wanted to have his cake and eat it too!
‘So, what’s your favourite dessert?’ She needed to say something, do something to break the sexual tension which had enveloped them in a cosy cocoon, before she did something crazy like offer him a taste of the pie…from her lips!
‘Tiramisu.’
‘Not bad. But not as good as this.’
‘I’m starting to believe it,’ he said, reaching across to dab at a meringue crumb which clung to the corner of her lips.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, expecting him to deposit the crumb in his napkin, shocked when he lifted his finger to his mouth and ate it.
‘You’re right. Delicious,’ he said, his hypnotic stare never leaving hers for an instant as his lips curved into a knowing smile.
Kristen didn’t know how long they sat there, staring at each other like a couple of moonstruck teenagers, but if it hadn’t been for the band starting up she knew without a doubt she would’ve leaned into him and kissed him.
It had been that kind of night.
A night for flirting, for chatting and for learning new things, like favourite desserts.
A night for growing closer, for fighting a losing battle with the escalating attraction sizzling between them.
A night for doing crazy things, like throwing herself at her boss.
‘Would you like to dance?’
She shouldn’t.
If sitting next to him was sending her body into meltdown, what hope would she have wrapped in his arms?
‘I’d love to,’ she said, happily ignoring her own logic and placing her hand in his.
They strolled hand in hand to the dance floor, or, more precisely, Kristen floated alongside Nate, grateful for his strong grip. The way her knees trembled, she wouldn’t have made it two feet without his support.
‘It’s been ages since I’ve done this,’ Nate said, taking her into his arms and cradling her close, while she struggled not to kiss the pulse point in his throat beating at her eye level.
It was so tempting…the rhythmic throb, throb, throb a beacon to her overstimulated imagination.
It would be so easy…
‘Let me guess. Favourite song?’
She tore her gaze away from his throat and tried to focus on what he was saying.
‘This song? You were humming it under your breath.’
Kristen had been oblivious to the music till now. In fact, they could’ve been dancing a polka and she wouldn’t have known, wouldn’t have cared, as long as she was wrapped in this incredible man’s arms.
‘It is a favourite. It’s an Elvis classic—Are You Lonesome Tonight.’
His eyes widened ever so slightly. ‘Is that an offer?’
She held her breath, wondering how far she could tease him, wondering if she could handle the fallout.
And there would be—she had no illusions about that. They hadn’t discussed the baby yet. In fact, this evening was a mere prelude to the main event, and she shouldn’t get caught up in the romance of it.
So Nate was flirting a little.
It probably didn’t mean anything, and she’d be better off recognising that.
‘You know it’s the song title,’ she said, reluctantly disengaging from his arms as the song came to an end and heading back to the table.
‘My favourite’s It’s Now or Never,’ he said, falling into step beside her, the laughter in his voice audible.
She rolled her eyes and smiled as he pulled her chair out and she sat down, feeling every inch a princess yet aware her Prince Charming could well turn into a frog by the end of the evening.
‘I’ve had a good time tonight.’
Nate captured her hand, the tender expression in his eyes bringing a lump to her throat, and in total contrast to the suave, confident guy who’d been teasing her all evening.
‘Me too,’ she said, trying not to get too caught up in the moment, but fighting a losing battle when he interlaced his fingers with hers.
‘Want to get out of this place and go have that chat?’
‘You bet.’
However, as they left the Grand Ballroom with their hands intertwined, Kristen wondered if she’d have been better off living the fantasy a little longer.
After all, reality had a funny way of letting her down.
‘Where are we?’
Nate turned into his street, pulled into the first house on the right and killed the engine, turning to face Kris.
‘There are advantages to you not being a Melbourne girl. I can take you anywhere and it’s like an adventure every time,’ he said, smiling as her eyes widened with curiosity, their dazzling blue a more muted midnight in the dim car.
‘Right now, this intrepid adventurer needs to use the bathroom desperately, so unless this is your house or the house of a very good friend who’ll let a crazy woman bash their door in I suggest you get me to a convenience store pronto.’
He smiled, enjoying her sense of humour. It was one of the things he remembered from their brief liaison in Singapore, her dry sense of humour and the ability to laugh at herself even in the face of adversity.
‘Rath
er than have you terrorise the good folk of Middle Park on a Sunday night, I’ll let you use the bathroom. Come on.’
She almost ran all the way to the front door and he unlocked it, disarmed the alarm and pushed it open in record time, barely having time to say, ‘Down the hall, last door on the left,’ as she pushed past him and dashed down the hallway, her heels clattering along the boards.
Wondering what she’d think of his place and hoping she’d go for his plan he flicked on the lights, illuminating the lounge, his favourite room in the house. With its soaring ceilings, elaborate cornices and marble fireplace, the room captured the period feel of the house perfectly, and he often spent his limited own-time in here, working from his laptop in front of the fire or reading a book while stretched out on the Chippendale sofa.
Julia had loved this room too. In fact, they’d both walked into the house and known this place was perfect, making an offer to the surprised estate agent on the spot.
Battling the wave of sadness which swamped him whenever he thought of her, he picked up a picture, his favourite, depicting the two of them in the Whitsundays: smiling, joyous, without a care in the world.
Life had been pretty simple back then—work, play, live for the moment. Buying this house had been a big step towards their future, and now maybe it was time to start thinking about a future of a different kind.
‘Who’s that?’
Kris had slipped off her shoes and come up behind him, her eyes fastened on the picture frame.
‘My wife,’ he said, replacing the photo on the granite mantelpiece and quashing his old memories, knowing it was time to explain, and eager to get to the point of this evening.
However, before he could say another word, Kris paled and slumped onto the sofa, her mouth a surprised O, before her eyes clouded in confusion and flicked between the photo and his face.
‘Your wife?’
She shook her head, bewilderment etched across her beautiful face.
CHAPTER TEN
KRISTEN struggled to process Nate’s revelation, knowing there had to be a perfectly logical explanation behind this.
Nate couldn’t be married. She’d worked with him for months and he spent all his time at the office. Besides, he wasn’t that sort of guy, the sort that played around on his wife, having one-night stands in foreign countries, getting other women pregnant…or was he?
She knew next to nothing about him, and coming to his house accentuated the fact.
Though her knowledge of Melbourne wasn’t extensive she knew Middle Park was an upper-class suburb and period homes like this cost a small fortune.
Throw in the fact that the house was the epitome of a family home, with a sprawling front lawn complete with rope and tyre hanging from an old oak tree just waiting for some child to swing from it, and the sheer size of the rooms she’d seen to date, and she knew that Nate had some explaining to do. Big-time.
‘Julia died three years ago,’ he said, sitting next to her on the sofa and reaching across for her hand before thinking better of it.
She scuttled away from him to the furthest corner of the sofa and folded her arms. She needed to absorb his words and touching him, indeed any kind of proximity, didn’t help.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, her trite words echoing in the cavernous room. She felt ashamed for jumping to stupid conclusions a moment ago but still annoyed she knew nothing about him.
Admittedly, it wasn’t his fault. They’d agreed to forget their one night of passion, to move on to a professional footing once she’d started working at RX, but the game plan had changed thanks to the little life inside her, and the closer they’d grown at work despite all intentions otherwise.
‘We were the clichéd high-school sweethearts,’ he said, studying his hands clasped in his lap as if they held the answers to the world’s problems. ‘We dated for an eternity, taking a break once to see other people before realising we were meant to be together.’
She remained silent, biting on her inner lip to stop crying out from the pain lancing her heart. Sure, she’d wanted to know more about Nate, but this wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind—listening to him offload about the love of his life.
‘We got married eight years ago. That picture with Jules was taken on our honeymoon.’
Kris’s folded arms tightened as she tried to give herself a comforting hug, trying to ignore the tender expression on Nate’s face at his cherished memories, hating herself for being insanely jealous of a dead woman.
Right then, it hit her.
She could never compete with a ghost and, as much as she’d tried to deny that having Nate in her life wasn’t an issue, she’d been lying to herself since the moment she’d walked into his office and discovered the guy she hadn’t been able to forget had re-materialised in her life.
‘You must miss her very much,’ she said, needing to fill the growing silence, desperate to say something before she let out an anguished groan.
He nodded, finally lifting his gaze to meet hers, and what she saw there shrivelled up any last residual hope she might have harboured of being anything more to him than his child’s mother.
‘I loved her like nothing else,’ he said, his gaze bright with adoration. ‘But she’s gone, and I’ve had to move on.’
Kristen didn’t want to dwell on how much Nate had obviously loved his wife, but she needed to know what had happened, if only to satisfy some weird curiosity to discover everything that made this enigmatic man tick.
‘How did she die?’
Nate’s expression hardened, his dark eyes turning glacial. ‘A haemorrhage.’
‘How awful,’ she murmured, aware that sudden, unexpected brain haemorrhages were on the rise in young people, often with no preceding signs or symptoms.
Little wonder Nate wore an invisible cloak of sadness wrapped around his shoulders, and had since the first minute they’d met. Losing his wife so quickly, so tragically, must’ve really hurt and hurt deep.
Suddenly, a light bulb flashed in her head. The guilt she’d sensed after they’d slept together, the way he’d flirted with her one minute then pulled back the next, his swinging moods when they’d first started working together—it all made sense now.
He loved his wife despite the years since her death, then she’d entered the picture and thrown him for a six. Sleeping with her must’ve really been a big deal for him, and he’d probably tried to put it behind him only to have his night of guilty pleasure rubbed in his face when she’d walked through the doors of RX.
Trust her to fall for a guy still wrapped up in the memory of his beloved dead wife.
‘It’s over. It’s in the past.’
He spoke softly, as if reassuring himself, and she waited, knowing that whatever she had to say next would sound inadequate.
‘But that’s not relevant to what I want to discuss with you tonight,’ he said, louder this time, and back in control. ‘Before we get into any of that, would you like something to drink?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said, wishing he’d get to the point so she could high-tail it out of here with what was left of her tattered dignity intact.
If she stayed a minute longer in this elegant room, with pretty Jules smiling down on her, she’d start bawling.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, scooting closer to her, invading her personal space with his powerful body. ‘This place is too big for one person. It’s designed for a family. So what do you say to moving in? Let me take care of you during the pregnancy, and when the baby comes we can take it from there.’
She shot bolt-upright, her lower back twinging as it had been for a while now—more of those hormones, apparently, softening her spinal ligaments.
‘You’re kidding, right?’
He shook his head, his expression deadly serious, and she wondered if the hormones were affecting her lucidity too.
‘It makes sense, Kris. Your place has all those steep stairs, and the larger you get the harder it will be to drag your
self up and down them. There’s a master bedroom on the ground floor here, with a sitting room attached which would make a perfect nursery.’
‘Master bedroom, huh?’
He had this all figured out.
Up until that instant she’d assumed his offer had stemmed from concern for the baby and doubts in her ability to care for it, but now he’d drawn another picture, one which involved the two of them reneging on their deal to remain platonic, and for one ridiculous second her traitorous body leaped at the idea.
‘My room’s upstairs, so you’ll have use of the whole ground floor if you want.’
Okay, so he didn’t want her body. Not that she could blame him, what with her expanding waistline, thickening ankles and the first hint of cellulite dimpling her previously toned thighs.
But that still didn’t make his offer any more appealing.
It didn’t make sense.
Why would a workaholic, successful guy at the top of his game want to take care of her? She wasn’t exactly helpless, far from it, and though she wanted to tell him where he could shove his offer a small part of her loved him for making it.
Loved him?
Like the sun rising slowly over the horizon and bathing the earth with an illuminating glow, the first rays of realisation filtered through her, creating warmth and amazement and havoc.
She loved him?
How could that be possible when she’d never experienced the nebulous emotion first-hand, let alone knew what it felt like?
Besides, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
They were supposed to be two ships passing in the night, colliding for one brief interlude before moving on. However, it looked like not only had their ships docked but they’d taken on an extra passenger, one who made them both contemplate crazy things.
He wanted her to move in, and she suspected she felt more for him than the crazy crush she’d previously harboured.
Time to cast away and set sail for destinations unknown before her ship along with her dreams sunk like a stone.
‘So, what do you think?’
‘I think you’re nuts,’ she said, resisting the urge to reach out and comfort him when his face fell. ‘First you ask for more time to absorb the fact you’re going to be a dad. Then you give me presents which hint at your intentions to be involved but don’t actually spell it out, and now you jump to this? It’s crazy.’