“In the dining room.”
“Sure,” he agreed.
“You didn’t even look at the price.”
He shrugged again. “If you want it, the price is irrelevant.”
She shook her head. “What I want isn’t a dining room rug.”
“What is it?” he asked, aware that he might not want to hear her answer.
But she only shook her head again. “You had a professional decorate your home. Who am I to change anything?”
“You’re my wife,” he reminded her. “And it’s your home now, too.”
She didn’t say anything, and he couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking. He always thought she was one of the most open and honest people he’d ever known, but lately he hadn’t been able to get a read on her at all. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t Penny who was making the reading difficult but the distance he was deliberately keeping between them.
“And there is one room that definitely needs some work,” he prompted her.
“The nursery?” she guessed, and seemed to brighten a little.
And that was how they ended up at Baby World.
If Jason was to make a list of his top-ten favorite things to do on a Saturday, Penny couldn’t imagine that shopping would make the cut. That he was happily browsing the aisles of Baby World left her speechless.
It was Jason who pointed out, logically, that they needed to get some things so they would be ready for the babies’ arrivals. Although they still had several more months before then, Penny agreed. Besides, she thought it might be fun to shop with him, to pick out cribs and playpens and high chairs, and it was—but Jason wasn’t ready to stop there.
He picked up an enormous stuffed dog with big floppy ears and a ridiculous bowtie in place of a collar.
Penny shook her head. “We have to fit two cribs, a change table, and probably a rocking chair in that room. There is no room for that ridiculous dog.”
Jason frowned at her disapproval but put the dog back on the shelf.
As they browsed through the clothing aisles, a little sleeper caught Penny’s eye. It was white velour with tiny yellow ducklings marching across the front, and it was absolutely the sweetest thing she’d ever seen. Unable to resist the impulse, she lifted the hanger off the rack and touched a fingertip to one of the fuzzy little tails.
“Is a baby really supposed to fit into that?” Jason asked. “It’s tiny.”
“Babies are tiny,” she told him, and, with a last glance, replaced the hanger on the rack.
“Why did you put it back?” Jason asked her.
“It’s too early to be buying outfits,” she said, though she couldn’t deny that she was tempted. “Besides, we don’t know if we’re having girls or boys or one of each.”
“It’s white and yellow,” he pointed out, taking not just one but two of the sleepers off the rack again and tossing them into the cart. “Do you want to find out?”
“Find out what?” she asked, her attention on the sleepers he’d added to the rapidly growing pile of items in the cart.
“If the babies are girls or boys or one of each.”
“I don’t know.” She’d been thinking about it, considering the pros and cons, but was still undecided. “Do you?”
“Yeah,” he answered without hesitation, obviously having given the matter some thought himself. “I think it would be more fun to plan and prepare. And it would definitely be easier to pick out names.”
“Do you have a preference?”
“For names?”
She shook her head. “Gender.”
He considered. “I know I’m supposed to say I don’t, that so long as the babies are healthy nothing else matters. And that is the most important thing,” he agreed. “But if I could choose, I think I’d really like at least one girl.”
“You want a girl?”
“Why does that surprise you?”
She shrugged. “I just figured…I mean, most men want boys to continue the line and carry the family name.”
“A lot of women keep their family names when they marry. You did.”
There was something in his tone—disappointment, maybe—that caught her off guard. “Does that bother you?”
“It shouldn’t,” he admitted. “But in some ways, it seems as if it’s not legal, not real. I’m still Jason Foley and you’re still Penny McCord.”
“You could change your name.”
“Yeah, that would go over big with my family.”
She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t changed her name when they married, unless it was for the reason that he’d guessed—because their marriage didn’t feel real.
Or maybe because she hadn’t been sure it would last.
She was an optimist by nature, but only a week after their exchange of vows, she was already wondering how long they could go on with the way things were between them—and she was slowly driving herself crazy trying to figure him out.
She knew he was still attracted to her. Maybe if she’d been farther along in her pregnancy, she might have doubted that, but though the changes in her body were obvious to her, she had barely begun to show. And she’d caught that look in his eyes—the heat, the desire, the need—when he thought she didn’t see him looking.
For goodness’ sake, they were married. She was his wife, soon to be the mother of his children, and all those pregnancy hormones racing through her body—not to mention the effect of his proximity—were combining to drive her insane with wanting.
So why was he holding back? Why was he so determined to maintain this charade of friendship? What was going on with him?
What was going on with him was that Jason had figured out the only way to keep Penny from mattering too much was to compartmentalize their relationship and his feelings for her.
First she’d been his lover, then she’d become his wife, and somewhere in between, they started to be friends. In just a few more months, she would also be the mother of his children. And the more time they spent together, the more the lines between the titles and roles became blurred. But there was still one line that he had not crossed.
And if he crossed that line, if he gave in to the urge to make love to her—and there was no doubt about those urges—there would be no compartments. She would be his wife, his friend, his lover. His everything.
And if he lost her, he would lose everything. Just as he’d lost everything when Kara died.
That was a risk he wouldn’t take again.
So he ignored her signals. The way she touched him, or brushed against him, or looked at him. It wasn’t easy, but he managed.
He was in the den Tuesday night, not really working so much as avoiding his wife, when she tracked him down. He focused on the e-mail that was open in front of him, without really seeing the words, all too conscious of Penny hovering in the doorway, waiting for him to look up, to acknowledge her.
He’d always thought his penthouse was a little too big, that there was too much space. Since Penny had moved in, he felt as if the walls were closing in on him.
It wasn’t really as bad as that, and it wasn’t her fault. It’s just that he couldn’t go anywhere in the whole damn apartment without stumbling across some sign of her presence—a bouquet of fresh flowers in an old milk bottle in the kitchen, a glass vase filled with river rocks in the dining room, some scented leaves and flowers in a bowl in the bathroom. Everywhere he turned, he saw her, smelled her, wanted her.
The only rooms that bore no evidence of her presence were those she hadn’t stepped foot into since moving in: the master bedroom and bath. But they weren’t devoid of memories. Every night when he crawled into his king-size bed, he pictured her there, naked and rumpled and tangled in the sheets, a sleepy smile curving her lips. And every time he stepped into the shower, he remembered her there—her long, lean limbs slick with the soap he’d rubbed over her body.
He forced the tempting memories aside and glanced up from the computer screen.
“I don’t want to disturb you, if you’re in the middle of something,” she said.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” he said, unwilling to admit exactly how much she disturbed him—every minute of every day.
“I was just wondering if you knew where our marriage certificate was.”
“It’s in the filing cabinet. Why?”
“I need a notarized copy to register my change of name,” she told him. “I didn’t think too much about it before, or I would have done it automatically when we got married.”
“Why are you doing it now?” he asked.
“Because I want to prove to you that I’m committed to this marriage.”
Boundaries, he reminded himself.
He might have been a little annoyed, maybe even disappointed, that she’d remained Penny McCord after their exchange of vows. But then he’d realized that the name was a symbolic barrier, a confirmation that their marriage hadn’t blurred all of the lines, and he needed that barrier now.
“You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for us.”
That was what he was afraid of—that she was thinking in terms of “us” while he was still trying to keep their lives separate and apart as much as possible.
“Do you have a problem with that?” she asked, when he didn’t say anything.
“I’m just concerned that I pushed for too much too soon.”
“You’re not just talking about the name change,” she guessed.
“No, I’m not,” he admitted.
“It’s a little late to be having second thoughts, isn’t it?”
Much too late, he admitted to himself.
But what he said was, “We haven’t consummated our marriage.”
Penny glanced away, but not before he caught a glimpse of the wounded confusion that clouded her eyes, and he mentally cursed himself. He was doing this so as not to hurt her again, so that neither of them could hurt the other.
“So what happened today?” she finally asked, turning back to him again. “Did you run into an old girlfriend? Or a new prospect?”
“This has nothing to do with anyone else.”
“Two weeks ago, you didn’t want anything as much as you wanted to marry me and be a father to our babies, and now you want an annulment?”
“I don’t want an annulment,” he told her, though he wondered if it might have been better for both of them if he did. If he could cut all ties and let her go, to live her life with someone who could give her everything she wanted and deserved in a relationship. Someone whose heart wasn’t beyond reach. “But I thought you might.”
“I agreed to marry you of my own free will.”
“You agreed to marry me because you’re pregnant.”
She lifted her chin, met his gaze evenly. “And the action that led to that was also of my own free will.”
“You were a virgin.”
“So? My lack of sexual experience didn’t interfere with the working of my brain.”
“I took advantage of your inexperience.”
She actually laughed at that. “Do you remember our first night together?”
He did, in achingly vivid detail.
“I seduced you,” she reminded him.
“You think so?”
“I know I did.” Her lips curved in a smile of pure feminine satisfaction. “You didn’t even know what hit you.”
“Is there a point to this trek down memory lane?”
“I’m getting to it,” she assured him, but seemed to go completely off-track with her next question. “Why did you want to marry me, Jason?”
“I thought that was obvious.”
“So your decision was based on nothing more than the fact that I’m pregnant?”
“I want to be there for you,” he said. “And to be a father to our babies.”
“When we got married, when we were dancing at the hotel in Las Vegas, you said that we were good together. You talked about desire and attraction.”
“A man will say almost anything to get a woman into his bed.”
“And yet, you haven’t made any attempt to get me there since that night.”
“It didn’t seem right to take advantage of the situation.”
“You might have talked to me about it,” she said, reasonably. “Instead of making me feel as if you didn’t want me anymore.”
“I didn’t want to complicate things.”
“And a husband and wife sharing a bed, sharing affection, is a ‘complication’?”
“You were the one who wanted to sleep in the guest room,” he reminded her.
“Because I didn’t want you to assume I’d sleep with you just because we were married.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“But it wasn’t that I didn’t want to sleep with you.”
“Huh?”
She huffed out a breath. “Apparently, you didn’t get that.”
“Penny, it’s been a really long day and I don’t have the time or the energy to decipher some complex female code. If there’s something you want to say, just say it.”
“I love you,” she said. “Is that simple and straightforward enough for you?”
He shook his head, battled against the instinctive panic that rose up inside of him upon hearing those words. He didn’t want her to love him, and he sure as hell didn’t want to love her.
“You don’t love me,” he said. “You’re just romanticizing the situation.”
“For goodness’ sake, do you think I wanted this to happen? Do you think I wanted to fall in love with a man who obviously doesn’t want to love me?”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want a real marriage.”
He didn’t need her to spell it out any more explicitly. And he wouldn’t admit that he wanted the same thing. He wouldn’t risk blurring the boundaries he’d so carefully maintained.
“I care about you, Penny. You know that I do. But you want more than I can give you.”
“Maybe that’s true,” she said softly. “But why won’t you at least try?”
“I can’t.”
Even if he’d guessed that she wouldn’t accept such a vague answer, he still wouldn’t have anticipated her response.
“Tell me about her,” she said.
He frowned. “About who?”
“Whoever made you afraid to open up your heart again.”
“You have quite an imagination,” he said, but he didn’t quite meet her gaze when he spoke the words.
“And you built up those walls for a reason.”
She moved closer, deliberately invading his personal space, as if to push right up against those walls she mentioned and tear them down. But he was more determined not to let her.
“I’ll be a good father to our babies and a faithful husband,” he said. “But I can’t promise you more than that.”
“Faithful?” she challenged, taking another step until she was so close her breasts brushed against his chest. So close that when she tipped her head back, her lips—full and soft and tempting—were only inches from his own. “You’d have to actually be sleeping with me to be faithful to me.”
The challenge was in her eyes as much as her words, and if there was a man alive who could deny himself the one thing he wanted more than anything else when it was so blatantly offered, that man was much stronger than Jason.
“Is that what you want? Is that what will make it real for you, Penny? If I take you to bed, will that be enough?”
“I don’t know.” She met his gaze evenly. “But at least it would be a start.”
All the warnings of his brain were drowned out by the much louder and more insistent demands of his thoroughly aroused body. He grabbed her wrist. “Let’s go, then.”
Chapter Thirteen
Penny knew that Jason was trying to shock her into protesting, and that if she pulled back, he would only be too willing to let her go. But she had no intention of pulli
ng away when he needed her so much. Because she’d finally figured out that he did, that he’d been so intent on pushing her away because he was afraid to hold on, afraid to admit his feelings for her. She still didn’t understand what was behind that fear, but now that she recognized it, she was determined to help him overcome it.
Once they were in his bedroom, he turned to face her, his eyes dark and unreadable. “You’re sure this is what you want?”
“Positive,” she said, giving no hint of the knots in her belly as she calmly began stripping her clothes away.
His eyes followed the movement of her fingers, as she unfastened the row of buttons that ran down the front of her blouse, and the knots intensified.
What if this wasn’t what he wanted?
What if she’d been wrong?
But she’d come too far to back down now. She wouldn’t give up on their marriage without a fight.
As the silk top floated to the floor, his eyes dropped to her breasts, covered only by whisper-thin black lace. She hesitated only a fraction of a second before unfastening the clip at the front, and then, even that scrap of lace slipped away. His eyes flared, dark and hot.
The intensity of his gaze, the naked heat in his eyes, had her fingers fumbling as they worked the button at the back of her skirt, then the zipper. She pushed the skirt over her hips, let it pool at her feet.
Gone were the days when she worried that she didn’t have a model-perfect body. At fourteen weeks into her pregnancy, gone were any hopes of having a model-perfect body. But Jason had never seemed to mind that she was imperfect. In fact, he’d shown her time and again while they were dating that he loved her body—even if he didn’t love her. And since it was one of few weapons she had in her arsenal, she was prepared to use it.
As she stripped away the final scrap of lace, she knew she was baring not just her body but her soul.
“Now the question is…is this what you want?” she asked him.
He swallowed. “If you’re asking do I want to have sex with you, I’d have to respond with a very enthusiastic ‘Yes!’”
But he was still holding back, refusing to give her what she wanted, what they both needed. It was as if he’d dug in his heels so deep, he didn’t know how to take that first step.
The Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Baby Page 15