Harlequin Romance September 2013 Bundle: Bound by a BabyIn the Line of DutyPatchwork Family in the OutbackStranded with the Tycoon

by Kate Hardy

  Poppy was staring at him now, the photo forgotten. “I know it’s not my place to say anything, but I just don’t get how a woman can leave her kids. I mean, to completely walk out on your own flesh and blood seems...”

  “Cold?” he finished for her. “Cruel, unbelievable?”

  Her expression was sad. “Exactly.”

  A moment earlier he’d been feeling exhausted but happy. Now he was just annoyed that they’d somehow ended up talking about his past when for once he’d forgotten about it.

  “When I said to you the other day that I wasn’t ready for anything, that I couldn’t take what I started with you any further,” he told her, forcing himself to meet her eye, “that’s why. Because I don’t trust that someone else won’t hurt my children again. No matter who that person is. And that means I can’t let anyone into my life. It’s why I’m so protective.”

  Poppy sighed. He couldn’t read her expression, but he could tell she disagreed with him about something.

  “Believe me, I have trust issues, too. But maybe we have to move forward in order to let go.”

  No, she was wrong. “Or maybe we have to hold on to it,” he said, anger starting to thump through his body. “Instead of making the same mistake all over again.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I’M NOT YOUR ex-wife, Harrison, so you don’t need to speak to me like I am.”

  He glared at her, so angry she could feel it. His jaw was clamped so tight she could see a flicker in his cheek.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he growled. “I’m trying to be honest with you, not pretend that you’re her, but you don’t seem to get the reality of what happened.”

  Now it was Poppy’s turn to glare, to be furious with him, because she did get it, and it was about time he listened to her.

  “I know that she left you, and I know that you’ve raised your children alone. If you want to elaborate, then by all means,” she said, refusing to raise her voice. He could get as angry and loud as he liked, but she was not going to get into a yelling match with him, any more than she was going to let him speak to her like that. “All I’m saying is—”

  “My wife left me as if our marriage vows meant nothing,” he interrupted, his voice a low hiss. “I don’t care that she left me, but I do care that she left our children. Don’t get me wrong, I cared plenty at the time, but seeing the pain in their faces, seeing the confusion in their eyes when I had to explain to them why she didn’t want anything to do with them anymore... It doesn’t matter that I’ve made peace with raising them on my own because they’ll never understand what she did.” Harrison shook his head and strode away before turning and pacing straight back in Poppy’s direction. “How do you think your husband feels? Did you just walk out on him, too? What would he think if he knew...” Harrison’s voice trailed off.

  How dare he turn the conversation around like that and try to make her into a villain? This was about him, not her.

  “If he knew what?” she asked, knowing full well what he was going to say.

  “If he knew that you’d been unfaithful? That we’d kissed?”

  She laughed—a weird, evil laugh that she’d never heard come from her own mouth before. “You think I’ve been unfaithful?” Oh, if only he knew the half of it.

  Harrison was staring at her hard, his eyes never leaving hers, almost as if he was trying to set her on fire with his gaze. She had no idea why he was taking so much of his anger out on her, why he’d somehow made all this her fault.

  “Unfaithful is finding your husband in bed with another woman,” she said, refusing to back down now she’d started, not prepared to let him think that what had happened to her was her fault. Not when she’d finally managed to believe the truth herself. “Sorry, in my bed,” she corrected. “Naked and in bed with another woman, and only discovered because I decided not to stay late and mark term papers but went home instead. So if you wanted to hear about unfaithful, now you have.”

  The look on Harrison’s face had changed. Gone was the anger, the wildness in his eyes that had taken over his entire expression only a minute earlier. But he’d asked. He’d accused her of being, what? An adulteress? Just because she hadn’t received her divorce papers in the mail yet?

  “My marriage is over, Harrison. And you’ll find that it was my husband’s choice to ruin things between us, not mine.”

  Poppy watched as he swallowed, almost enjoying how uncomfortable he looked after the way he’d spoken to her.

  “Poppy, I’m sorry. I never should have said anything when I had no idea what you’d been through.” His voice was deep, commanding.

  She shrugged. “Your wife hurt you, badly. I get that. But it doesn’t mean that every other woman who walks away from a marriage is at fault.”

  Harrison stood so still he seemed to be carved from marble, a statue in the room facing her.

  “My husband not only cheated on me, Harrison, he took everything from me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Poppy looked up at the light, staring at it, forcing her emotion away. Refusing to succumb to the tears that were threatening, so close to the surface she didn’t know if she had the strength to fight them.

  “I’ve worked so hard all my life to have somewhere nice to live, to afford the little luxuries I wanted, and when my dad passed away, he left me half of everything he owned. My sister and I received equal shares of his estate, and I didn’t waste a cent because I know how hard he had worked for everything he had.”

  Harrison just stared at her, but now his gaze was soft and caring, as if he was feeling every flash of the pain that was going through her body and truly regretted his burst of anger.

  “I’d been with my husband for years, had known him since we were at school together, and I’d never known he was a gambler,” she confessed, ready to tell Harrison everything. “It turns out that he’d slowly been getting us further and further into debt without me knowing. And because we owned everything together—” Poppy shrugged and took a deep breath “—he managed to lose our house, our cars, everything. He’d drained my bank account without me even knowing, all because I’d trusted him too much.”

  “Oh, Poppy, I’m so sorry.”

  She bravely tilted her chin up, blinked the tears away again and held her head high. “So that’s why I’m here, trying to start over and forget the last year even existed.”

  “I never should have been so hard on you. I’m sorry, I...” Harrison looked torn, as if he didn’t know what to say or how to go about comforting her.

  Poppy squared her shoulders. “So now you know all my dirty secrets,” she said. “I’m an almost-divorcee, I’m broke and I managed to spend all my married years not knowing my husband was screwing around behind my back, with my money and the woman who lived across the hall from us.”

  “I guess we have more in common than we realized,” Harrison said, his voice soft now, which seemed to soothe the thumping of her head and the shaking of her hands.

  “Yeah,” she muttered, crossing her arms.

  But it was too late. Harrison had already seen her hands shaking and he was stepping forward and reaching for them, interlacing their fingers.

  “You know what I’m wondering?” he asked, pulling her so slowly toward him that her body obeyed without her consent.

  “What?” she whispered, staring at his hands instead of his face.

  “How any man could ask another woman to his bed when he already had you to come home to.”

  Poppy didn’t believe him, not for a moment, but his words still put a smile on her face. “I don’t believe you, but thanks,” she said, braving his gaze and wishing she hadn’t, staring at him now as if she was stuck in the web of his eyes, hypnotized, with no chance of reprieve.

  “If you don’t believe me, then ho
w about I show you?” Harrison’s voice was so low, so husky, that she was powerless to resist him.

  His hand left hers and slowly reached for her face, his palm cupping her cheek, fingers tucking beneath her chin and raising it. Poppy complied, more because she couldn’t not than because she consented.

  Harrison dipped his head, eyes dropping to her mouth, and she did the same. Because his lips were moving toward hers and she wasn’t going to pull away.

  His mouth was inches from hers, his breath warm against her skin, but still he hesitated, as if waiting for her to accept, to make the final decision.

  Hell, yes. The words ran through her mind at the same time as she stepped toward him, just one step, but enough for their bodies to touch and their lips to meet in a kiss that stole her breath away and made her arms snake around the back of his neck. Her fingers found their way into his hair as his hands enclosed her waist, holding her still as their mouths danced, as his tongue so gently played against hers.

  So what if she’d promised to stay away from men? Harrison Black had been on her mind since her first day in town, and if she didn’t get this out of her system now, then she’d probably never get a good night’s sleep ever again. Besides, maybe she didn’t need long-term. Maybe one night was enough.

  * * *

  Maybe he’d gone mad. It was the only reason to explain why his lips were currently locked on Poppy’s and why he wasn’t capable of pulling away even if he’d wanted to.

  Her mouth was soft yet firm against his, her hips pulled in tight to his stomach, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her. They were skimming her waist, touching her hips, running down the curve of her—

  “Stop.” Poppy’s voice was breathless, but his hands froze at the same time his lips did.

  She said stop, he stopped. No questions asked. But...

  “You okay?” he managed to rasp.

  Poppy was nodding, as if trying to convince herself that she was okay. “It’s just...” Her sentence trailed off and she touched her fingers to her mouth, as if remembering what they’d been doing, touching where his lips had been. “I’m not sure... I mean, I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

  “Poppy, I don’t know if either of us is ready for this, not mentally,” he said, inching closer again, reaching out slowly to touch her arm. But he was sure ready physically.

  “Then why are we doing this?” she asked, her eyes connecting with his.

  “Because it feels so good?”

  Harrison was smiling; he couldn’t help it. Because it was the truth. Did he want to be with another woman again, theoretically? No. But the pull he’d felt toward Poppy, the amount of time he was spending thinking about her? That was telling him he didn’t really have a choice. If they kissed, they kissed, and he’d have to deal with the consequences later.

  Poppy was grinning now, and he started to laugh. She did, too.

  “How did we end up here?” she asked him, stepping into his arms and dropping her head to his shoulder.

  “I have no idea,” he replied truthfully, pressing a kiss into her hair.

  “How about something to eat?” she murmured.

  Harrison took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. “Sure, why not.”

  Eating wasn’t exactly what he’d had on his mind, but what else were they going to do? For now, the power hadn’t gone out, but they were stuck, and would be at least until morning.

  So he needed to get his head straight, forget about what had happened and go back to thinking of Poppy as a friend.

  She stepped out of his embrace and made for the kitchen, and he couldn’t take his eyes from her body. Her sweater was slung over the back of a chair, damp from the rain earlier, so she was just in her jeans and a skintight tank top. Everything clung to her body, showing off every single curve she possessed.

  Harrison groaned. It was time he started being honest with himself, and the first step was admitting that he’d never, ever thought of Poppy as just a friend.

  In the beginning, she’d infuriated him because he’d needed someone to be angry at and she’d given him a tongue-lashing for being rude. Ever since then he’d been fighting something else entirely, and tonight, if he’d had his way, he’d be giving in to those desires in a heartbeat.

  “Are you coming?” Poppy called.

  Harrison marched out to the kitchen after her. Food was better than nothing, and she was a pretty good cook.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  POPPY WAS TRYING hard to concentrate on dinner, but it wasn’t easy. She could feel Harrison watching her, knew he was staring at her, tracking her every move, and it was making her feel...nervous. This man—this gorgeous, sexy-as-hell man whose house she was stranded in, and who she’d pulled away from earlier when all she’d wanted was to kiss him over and over again—was so tempting it was killing her. And the more she thought about how she’d pushed him away, the more she wanted him. Even though it went against everything she’d vowed not to do.

  “Where did you learn to cook like this?” he asked.

  “I love being in the kitchen, and I was pretty addicted to the food channel for a while.” It was true; sometimes she’d preferred to stay home, glued to the television. Although in hindsight, she might have been more sensible keeping an eye on her husband. “But don’t get too excited, it’s just a French omelet. I know you can do better.”

  “Well, it smells fantastic. I can only cook Thai, remember?”

  A sudden loud bang sent her sky-high, dropping the pan with a crash to the counter.

  “Crap!” Poppy’s hand was heating up already from where the pan had burned her, but she couldn’t see anything. The lights had gone out, leaving them bathed in darkness. A complete blackout.

  “It’s okay,” Harrison reassured her.

  She could hear him but couldn’t see him, and she was starting to panic. She was used to having streetlights, not this kind of midnight dark.

  “Just wait for a minute until your eyes adjust,” he said. “There’s a flashlight in the top drawer and I’ve got one at the back door.”

  “What the hell just happened?”

  “The storm has killed the power. Must have been a fuse blowing to make that kind of bang. I’m going out to check it, so you sit tight.”

  The last thing she wanted was to be left alone, but Harrison was right. Her eyes were slowly starting to adjust, enough for her to shuffle to the top drawer and find the flashlight. She flicked it on, took a deep breath and held the light to her hand. It was only a tiny patch on her finger that had burned, but it was stinging and she wanted to get it under cold water. At least doing that might take her mind off the fact that she was starting to feel like they were in a horror movie.

  Poppy pushed the pan away from the edge of the counter and held her finger under the faucet, shivering as the cold water touched her skin.

  “We’ve definitely lost power.”

  She turned at the sound of Harrison’s voice, making out his silhouette, then seeing him more clearly as he came closer.

  “So we’re stuck in the dark for the whole night?” she asked.

  She didn’t know whether it was not having any power or lights or the fact that she was stranded with a man who in equal parts terrified and excited her, but her skin was covered in goose pimples, and not just from the cold water.

  “This kind of thing happens out here more often than you’d think, so we’re prepared.” Harrison walked into the kitchen like a man on a mission, but he stopped dead when he saw her with her finger immersed in the water. “What happened?”

  “Burned myself when the lights went out,” she told him.

  Harrison put down whatever it was he was carrying and turned the faucet off. He held her finger up to the light and inspected it, so tenderly she could scarcely feel his touch.


  “How badly does it hurt?” he asked.

  “I’ve had it under water this whole time. It’s no big deal.” She couldn’t even feel the pain any longer. Although that probably had more to do with the proximity of the man standing in front of her than anything else.

  “Poppy?”

  The way Harrison said her name made the blood pump through her veins as fast as if she’d just finished a marathon. He’d said it as a question, as if he wanted something from her, only she wasn’t sure quite what he wanted, and all sorts of thoughts were racing through her mind.

  But he didn’t bother saying anything else.

  Instead, Harrison closed the gap between them and grabbed the back of her head, fisting his hand in her hair and kissing her so hard she could hardly breathe. But she had no intention of resisting, was powerless to.

  He grabbed her around the waist without breaking their kiss, hoisting her up onto the counter and pushing his body between her legs. His face was damp, his hair wet from being out in the rain, but she didn’t care.

  Instead, she obliged. Poppy tucked her legs around his waist, keeping him close and holding on to his shoulders, running her hands down his back and letting her fingers explore his muscles, the curve of his shoulder blades, the back of his arms.

  “Are you sure this time?” He’d pulled back just enough to murmur against her lips, was kissing her again before she had time to answer.

  Poppy tried to nod, but it was useless, and she was so focused on his tongue against hers, on the way his lips were moving softly one moment, then roughly the next, that she couldn’t even comprehend talking.

  Because that would involve putting distance between them, and she didn’t want that. Not at all. What she wanted was for Harrison to kiss her and kiss her until that was all she could remember.

  A crash outside sent her leaping off the counter and into his arms, legs knotted tightly around his waist.