“I didn’t mean right now,” he said. “I was thinking maybe later, when it’s dark and—” The teasing glint faded from his eyes when he saw the glimmer of tears in her. “What happened, Paige? What’s wrong?”
She hastily swiped at the lone drop that had slipped onto her cheek. “Nothing.”
“I realize I don’t know you very well, but I don’t think you’re the type of woman to cry over ‘nothing.’”
She sighed. “It’s your parents—”
She didn’t get any further than that before he interrupted.
“What happened? Did one of them say something to upset you?”
His willingness to immediately and automatically defend her against some imagined slight made her smile, though her eyes were still blurred with tears. “No, no one said or did anything. Your parents are…wonderful.”
He frowned. “Then what’s the problem?”
“That is the problem.”
“Okay, now I’m really confused.”
“Your whole family is wonderful.”
“Well, I’ve always thought so,” he agreed, a little hesitantly.
“And they absolutely dote on Emma.”
“She’s family.”
His response was both simple and heartfelt and she knew that it was true. From the minute both Kathleen and Justin had set eyes on the little girl, she had been theirs, completely accepted and unconditionally loved.
“It’s really that easy for them, isn’t it?” she asked, marveling over the fact.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not everyone places such high value on blood ties.” Certainly not anyone in her experience.
Her mother had walked out when she was seven, her father had turned her out when she was fifteen, and though his sister had taken her in, Paige had always worried that her aunt Lillian’s actions had been motivated solely by a sense of responsibility rather than any real affection.
“I’m guessing we’re back to your father again,” Zach said.
“My dad never made any secret of the fact that his first loyalty was to the military,” she told him, and hoped he would leave it at that.
But of course, he didn’t, asking instead, “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”
“When?”
“When you went to live in Pinehurst.”
“What makes you think anything happened?” she challenged. “Maybe my father just decided it was time I had a more stable environment and more structure in my life than he could provide.”
“Is that all it was?”
She sighed. “No.”
He waited, and his quiet patience gave her the courage to speak the words she’d never shared with anyone else before. “I was found in a compromising position with a second lieutenant. To put it more bluntly, we were caught naked together by his captain, who threatened to not only write up the officer for conduct unbecoming, but also to file criminal charges because of my age.
“Then my father stepped in. And he said he wasn’t going to ruin a promising career because I was a slut and a tease and not smart enough to know when I was letting things go too far.”
She pushed herself to her feet and went to retrieve her towel. She wrapped it around her body, tucking the end between her breasts. But she still felt exposed—not so much physically as emotionally. And even more so when she sensed Zach standing behind her.
“How old were you?” He asked the question through clenched teeth.
She ducked her head, staring intently at the tangerine polish on her toes. “Fifteen.”
He tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “How old was he?”
“Twenty-two.” Her response was barely a whisper.
Zach’s eyes shot furious blue sparks. “And your father blamed you for what happened?”
“I wasn’t an innocent bystander,” she told him.
“You were a child.”
In retrospect she knew it was true. But at the time, she’d thought she was both womanly and wise, and she’d been so high on the thrill of knowing that this sought-after twenty-two-year-old officer was interested in her.
“I was a rebellious teenager,” she told him, because it was true. And because she still hadn’t managed to shake the feeling that she was responsible for everything that had happened with Matt as well as the deterioration of her relationship with her father.
“Desperate for your father’s attention,” Zach guessed.
“Well, I finally got it,” she said.
“And then he sent you away.”
She nodded, the ache in her heart as real as it had been fifteen years earlier.
“What happened to the second lieutenant?” he wanted to know.
“After my father was satisfied that Matt understood the dangers of jeopardizing his career for a piece of ass—and yes, that’s exactly what he said—” though her cheeks burned with shame at the memory, she didn’t mince words “—he was promoted.”
“I hate to say it,” he said, not sounding at all remorseful, “but your father really was a bastard.”
“He is a highly decorated colonel in the United States Army,” she informed him.
“That doesn’t make him any less of a bastard.”
His assessment was so unequivocally supportive and his understanding so wholly unexpected that, to her complete mortification, Paige began to cry.
Not silent tears or quiet sobs—no, she started to bawl as she’d wanted to when she was fifteen years old and her father had followed up his verbal lashing with a sharp backhand. But she hadn’t cried then. She’d refused to give him the satisfaction of her tears.
She couldn’t stop them now. And Zach didn’t even try. He didn’t hush her or whisper useless platitudes. He simply held her until the storm of weeping had run its course.
“No one else knows what happened that day,” she finally told him. “Not even Ashley and Megan. I didn’t ever tell anyone. I couldn’t. I was afraid they’d think it was my fault, too. Or maybe I was afraid that it was.”
“And now?” he asked gently.
“Now…” She was relieved to have finally shared the story, to have unburdened some of the guilt and the grief, and weary from the emotions that had been weighing her down for so long. “Now I know that it was a mistake—no more and no less than that. But even if I could go back and change my actions, I wouldn’t. Because it was that final confrontation with my father that resulted in me going to Pinehurst to live with Aunt Lillian and Ashley and Megan.”
“I’m still sorry that you had to go through hell to get there,” Zach said.
She managed to smile at that. “You know, when I first met you, I really wanted you to be a bastard, too.”
His brows rose. “Why?”
“Because then I could feel righteous and justified in my determination to maintain custody of Emma,” she admitted.
“You’re doing what you think is best for Emma—that is righteous and justified,” he told her.
She looked up at him, wondering if it was possible that he really did understand her motivations. “Even if that puts us on opposite sides of the courtroom?”
Every time Zach managed to take a single step forward on a personal level with Paige, she brought up the issue of Emma’s custody and set them back two. But this time, he wasn’t going to let it happen.
“Why don’t we forget about that for a while?” he suggested to her now.
Her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure that we can.”
“We can try,” he insisted. “In fact, I have an idea that should help.”
“What kind of idea?” she asked warily.
“It occurred to me that you haven’t had a chance to see anything beyond the gates of the estate since we got here.”
“We’ve only been here a few days,” she reminded him. “Besides, the purpose of this visit was for Emma to meet your family, not for me to play tourist.”
“Still, I’d like to take you out
tonight.”
“Out?”
She sounded so baffled by the offer, he had to smile. “For dinner,” he said. “Without the rest of my well-intentioned but undeniably interfering family and without Emma banging her cup and spoon on the tray of her high chair.”
“You mean—just the two of us?” She sounded a little less baffled now, a little more wary.
He nodded. “My mom and dad will be happy to watch Emma.”
“Why?” she asked cautiously.
“Because she’s a great kid.”
She rolled her eyes. “I mean, why do you want to take me out to dinner?”
“Because I think we both deserve a few hours to ourselves. And because I know of a really fabulous restaurant that I think you would like.”
“I can’t remember the last time I had a night out,” Paige finally admitted.
“Then I’d say you’re overdue,” he told her.
“I’d feel guilty about leaving Emma.”
“My parents want to spend time with her,” he insisted. “And they’ll take good care of her.”
“I know they will, but—”
“Let me do this, Paige.”
He took her hands, linked their fingers together. His touch was warm and strong and somehow reassuring even as tingles of awareness spread through her.
“To show my appreciation for everything you’ve done for Emma, for making sure she felt loved instead of abandoned when she lost her mother.”
“Everything I did, I did for Emma,” she reminded him.
“I know,” he agreed. “So let me do this for you.”
Still she hesitated. Not because she didn’t want to accept his offer, but because she was afraid she was starting to want so much more than what he was offering.
“All right,” she finally said. “What time do you want to go?”
Chapter Nine
Paige assessed the contents of the closet in which she’d hung her clothes and realized that her options for dinner with Zach were definitely limited. She had a pair of dark gray slacks and a wrap-style blouse that would be a distinct improvement over the jeans and T-shirts that had been her unofficial uniform since she’d arrived, but her gaze kept drifting to the lone dress hanging by itself.
She still wasn’t sure why she’d let Ashley talk her into packing it, but because she had and because it was there, Paige figured she might as well wear it.
Her heart was pounding hard inside her chest as she slipped the garment from the hanger. It had been a long time since she’d dressed for a night out with a man, and though both she and Zach had been careful not to refer to their dinner plan as a date, there was really no other word for it. And she was filled with both excitement and trepidation as she tugged the dress over her head.
It was a sheath style with a square neckline and a straight skirt that fell to her knees. Simple. Elegant. With just a hint of sexy.
She didn’t bother with pantyhose but slipped her bare feet into a pair of strappy sandals that Ashley had tossed into the suitcase along with the dress. Then she added a touch of makeup—a sweep of eyeliner, a hint of mascara, a swipe of gloss over her lips.
She came down to the foyer at ten minutes to seven. Her life was too tightly scheduled to worry about being fashionably late, and besides, she wanted to steal a few minutes with Emma before she left with Zach. When she saw him waiting for her with the little girl in his arms, she felt that flutter in her belly again. Was it apprehension about leaving Emma? Or being alone with Zach?
“Age!” Emma held her arms out, and Paige pushed her concerns aside to offer her a smile.
She reached for the child, who was squirming to get out of Zach’s arms. As he released her, the back of his hand brushed the side of Paige’s breast. The contact was both fleeting and accidental, but the accompanying punch of sexual awareness nearly buckled her knees.
“Sorry,” Zach mumbled.
She didn’t—couldn’t—respond. Her cheeks flamed, but the heat in her face was insignificant compared to the fire in her blood.
She wanted him.
There was no way she could continue to deny that simple fact. Maybe she didn’t want to want him, but apparently her brain and her body were in complete disagreement where Zach Crawford was concerned.
“Age pay?” Emma asked.
She shook her head. “Sorry, honey. Paige can’t play with you right now because I’m going out with Zach.”
Emma’s little brow furrowed. “Age pay Ack?”
Yeah—in her dreams. But even that thought was enough to make her cheeks flame even hotter, so she kept her gaze focused on the little girl in her arms and hoped that Zach couldn’t guess what was going through her mind.
“No, honey, we’re going for dinner.”
Emma’s lower lip jutted out, and Paige braced herself.
But before the tears could start, Zach’s mom came in and told Emma that she needed her help to make ice-cream sundaes before they could watch a movie together, and Emma happily trotted off to the kitchen with her.
“Crisis averted,” Zach noted, then smiled at Paige.
But that smile did crazy things to her pulse, and as Paige walked out the door beside him, she wasn’t sure the crisis had been averted at all.
Zach sensed that Paige was a little apprehensive about being alone with him, so he kept the conversation casual and he noticed that gradually, during the course of the exquisite meal, she began to relax. So much, in fact, that by the time their dessert dishes had been cleared away, she was tapping her fingers in rhythm with the music that was playing.
When she saw him watching her hand and realized what she was doing, she curled her fingers into her palm. “Emma loves this song,” she explained.
“Emma loves it?”
She flushed. “I have it on my iPod,” she admitted. “And when she hears it, Emma dances around until it’s over, then she says, ‘Again. Again.’”
He smiled. “Do you dance with her?”
The color in her cheeks deepened. “Sometimes.”
“Will you dance with me?”
She seemed both wary and startled by the question. “What?”
“I said, will you dance with me?”
“Why?”
“Because the way you’re tapping your foot to the music suggests you’d rather be moving out there—” he nodded toward the dance floor “—than sitting here.”
“Maybe,” she allowed, “but—”
“No buts.” Zach pushed his chair away from the table and reached for Paige’s hand.
She let him draw her to her feet and lead her to the dance floor, thinking that as long as it had been since she’d been out for dinner with a man, it had been a lot longer since she’d kicked up her heels.
“But the song’s over,” she told him, just as the last notes faded away.
“So we’ll stay for the next one,” he said, and pulled her closer as the soft strains of an Aerosmith ballad floated over the dance floor.
She shouldn’t be attracted to him.
Every logical and rational cell in her brain warned Paige of the folly of falling for someone who could break her heart—as Zach would do if he took Emma away from her. But while her brain clearly understood the dangers, her body didn’t care about anything but the yearning that stirred inside whenever he was near.
And he was very near to her now.
His arm was around her waist, and he was holding her close, and she suddenly couldn’t imagine why something that felt so good could be wrong.
And so she gave up trying to figure it out and gave herself over to the exquisite sensations that poured through her system like a drug, making her yearn for so much more.
The minute Paige had stepped into the foyer of his parents’ house, Zach had wanted to touch her—to hold her close, just like he was doing now.
She fit into his arms, as if she was meant to be there. And her steps matched his effortlessly, as if they’d danced together a thousand times before. And he fo
und himself wondering if they would find such a perfect and easy rhythm if they were naked together in his bed.
Because that was where he wanted to be with her. He wanted to get her away from the crowd, to take her somewhere that they could be alone together and slowly peel away the dress she was wearing.
It wasn’t surprising that he felt such a distinctly sexual attraction for Paige. She was a beautiful woman and he spent most of his time in the company of men, so his reaction to her was hardly unexpected.
But his attraction to her was still, he knew, unwise. Because Paige was his daughter’s legal guardian, the woman who intended to fight him to maintain custody of Emma—yet that knowledge failed to negate his response to her.
Another couple, obviously too wrapped up in one another to pay attention to anyone else, bumped into Paige as they moved past. She stumbled against him, her breasts pressing against his chest, nearly making him groan aloud. Well, if she hadn’t realized how aroused he was before, there could be no mistaking his body’s response now.
Her gaze locked with his, and he saw surprise flicker in those dark-chocolate-colored eyes, then awareness, quickly eclipsed by an answering desire.
Then she looked away. “It’s getting late.”
“It’s not that late,” he told her.
“But it’s a long drive, so we should be heading back.”
“If that’s what you want,” he agreed.
She looked at him again, and he could see the indecision warring inside of her. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Zach.”
“And why do you think ignoring the attraction between us is the right thing?”
“Because I don’t want this,” she told him.
“I think it would be more accurate to say you don’t want to want this.”
“Same thing.”
He drew her nearer. “Is it?”
“Zach.” Once again, she’d meant to speak his name as a warning, but the breathless tone made it sound more like a plea. Although not even Paige was certain of what she was pleading for.
After a moment, Zach said, “Let’s go home.”
Neither of them said much on the drive back, but the sexual tension was thick in the air between them. When Paige finally got out of the car, she wanted desperately to put some distance between them. But as they made their way toward the house, she carefully kept her pace steady. She didn’t want him to know that she was running. She didn’t want him to guess that she was scared—not of him, but of her own feelings.
The Baby Surprise Page 12