“That the caveman wants his woman.” His dark eyes were wickedly intent as he threw aside the quilt and came down beside her, his mouth plundering his way to the valley between her breasts, right through the soft ivory sweater.
Her giggles died as she wrapped herself around him.
But what didn’t die was the wistful thought that one day she might actually be his woman. For no other reason than that he wanted her.
Chapter Twelve
“Pretty swell invitations.” Sitting across from Lisa two weeks later at the dining-room table in her town house, Sara Beth held up the engraved parchment. “As fancy as a wedding invite.” She tucked the invitation carefully into its envelope, added the RSVP card and its little envelope, then handed it off to Lisa.
“Nothing but the best for my mother.” Forcing a wry smile, Lisa crossed another name off the list, and started addressing the next envelope, only to have to toss it to the side with the other mis-starts when she began writing the same name that she’d just done. “If she knew I was already a week late getting them out, she’d want to skin me alive. Thanks for giving up your Sunday afternoon to help me, or I’d be even later getting them done.” So far, thanks to Sara Beth’s help, she’d gotten a quarter of the way through the hundred that were going out.
They’d be going even faster if she could get her mind actually on what she was doing.
“Ted’s in the lab today anyway.” Sara Beth tucked and sealed again, and set the finished envelope down. “It’s not like you to procrastinate, though. Even when it comes to your mom. I’m guessing that’s because Rourke has kept you pretty busy.”
“And even after being back for three weeks, I’m still playing catch-up at the office.”
“Again, I’m thinking…Rourke’s fault,” Sara Beth added dryly. “Good thing he had to make a business trip and give you a break. Where’s he off to this time?”
“London. He leaves from New York tomorrow morning.” He’d be gone for the week, returning the morning of the awards gala. She was to meet him in New York.
Sara Beth was wagging an invitation between her thumb and forefinger. “Well, I imagine when he gets back, he’s going to prefer that your skin is intact.”
Lisa managed a smile, but knew it was a miserable effort, particularly when Sara Beth dropped the invitation and reached over the stack of them to pluck the pen out of Lisa’s hand.
“All right,” she said, no-nonsense written all over her face. “You’ve been acting weird since I got here. Did you and Rourke have a fight?”
“No.” She quickly shook her head and her hair slid over her shoulder. “Rourke’s been…fine.” Attentive. Passionate. Surprisingly good company even when they weren’t in the bedroom.
“Then what’s wrong?” Sara Beth nudged the neat stack of invitations and they slid sideways. “Surely you’re not letting this stuff really get to you? I know she’s your mother, but stressing out about getting these things in the mail a few days late isn’t going to accomplish anything.” Her lips twisted a little. “Whether they have two weeks’ notice instead of three, everyone important enough to be invited is going to be there at Dr. G.’s party.”
The invitations weren’t Lisa’s problem. She pressed her forehead to her hands. “I think I’m pregnant,” she blurted.
And had to hold back the sob that wanted to follow on its heels.
She swallowed hard and finally looked up at Sara Beth.
She was watching Lisa with a crinkle between her eyebrows. “Think? Have you had a test? How late are you?”
“Well over two weeks, and no. I haven’t done a test.”
Sara Beth’s eyebrows shot up. Not surprisingly. “It’d be pretty easy to run one at the institute,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, if I wanted everyone to know my business.” Lisa also could have done a test at home if she’d had any privacy in which to do so.
But until that morning when Rourke had flown back to New York, she hadn’t had a private moment.
“Does Rourke know?” Sara Beth was still clearly trying to gauge the situation. And failing. But how could she not when she didn’t know Rourke’s real reason for marrying her in the first place?
“No.” Her teeth worried the corner of her lip. “I don’t want him to until I know for certain.”
Sara Beth immediately stood up, and began pulling on the jacket she’d left tossed over the back of Lisa’s sofa. “All right, then. Come on. You’ve got a drugstore nearby. Let’s find out for certain.”
Lisa didn’t budge from her chair.
“Lis?” Sara Beth slowly sat back down. “What’s going on? Don’t you want to be pregnant?”
“The only reason Rourke married me was to get me pregnant.” It was such a dizzying relief to actually say the words that she barely noticed the tears blurring her vision.
“I’m sure that’s not true.” Sara Beth’s voice was gentle. Calm. “He’s crazy about you. Everyone knows that. Even the reporter from that magazine knew that. You’re probably just freaking out a little about getting pregnant so quickly. If you’re even pregnant at all.”
“He didn’t invest in the institute because he is crazy about me,” Lisa corrected. Her voice was thick. Her throat tight. “He invested in exchange for me giving him the child he wants. Period.”
Even with the futile tears burning her eyes, she could see the shock settle over Sara Beth’s face. “And you agreed to that?”
“How could I not? The institute would have gone under.” Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Sara Beth the rest. That Rourke would have seen to it that no other investor would touch them. “Derek’s embezzlement went too deep. Rourke knew how precarious things were.”
“But nobody at the institute would have expected you to sacrifice yourself to save it!” Sara Beth pushed to her feet and paced the short distance between the dining room and the living room. “I knew something wasn’t right,” she muttered, pacing back again. “I should have listened to my instincts.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered what your instincts said. I knew what I was agreeing to and I’d…I’d do it again.” Lisa wiped her cheeks with the cuff of her sweater, only to realize the sweater wasn’t even hers at all. It was Rourke’s. She’d pulled it on that morning when she’d gotten out of bed. She hadn’t taken it off since.
A fresh wave of tears burned past her lashes.
Sara Beth crouched down next to Lisa’s seat. “Then why are you crying?”
“Isn’t that what pregnant women do? Cry over nothing?”
“This doesn’t feel like nothing to me.” She hesitated. “So what is going to happen once you’re pregnant?”
Lisa drew in a shuddering breath. “Once the baby’s here, we…we can go our separate ways.” That was what they’d agreed to.
“And the baby?”
“Joint custody,” she admitted huskily. “If I want to be involved, he won’t protest that.”
More shock paled Sara Beth’s cheeks. “You do, don’t you?”
Lisa’s arms crossed over her belly. A dim portion of her mind recognized the protectiveness in the gesture. “Yes.” She wasn’t sure when she’d realized it. But she knew, unquestionably, that she wouldn’t be able to hand over her child. Their child.
“Oh, Lisa.” Sara Beth sighed. “I hate knowing you’ve been going through this alone. I wish you’d have told me.” She pushed back her thick hair as she rose and paced some more. “Actually, what I wish is that Ted had never set up that first meeting between you and Rourke.”
“We would never have found another investor like Rourke.”
“If I didn’t know better, it would sound like you’re defending him.”
“He’s a good man. We…each had something the other wanted. And he’s been m-more than fair.”
“Oh, my God.” Sara Beth stopped next to Lisa’s chair. Realization dawned in her eyes. “You’re in love with him!”
“I’m…not.” But her throat was closing up so tightly
, all she could manage was a whisper.
“You are. You’re in love with him, and you think once he finds out you’re pregnant, that’ll be the end of it. That’s why you’re so upset!”
She opened her mouth to deny it, but nothing emerged.
“Oh, honey.” Sara Beth leaned over, wrapping her arms around Lisa in a comforting hug. “It’ll be all right. Everything will be okay.”
Hadn’t Rourke told her that on their honeymoon?
Lisa’s tears only came faster. “I don’t see how.”
Sara Beth looked teary herself when she straightened. She went into the kitchen and came back a moment later, handing Lisa a wad of napkins. “Wipe your eyes.” Then with long familiarity, she went to the coat closet by the front door and retrieved Lisa’s coat. “You can’t hide from this. First thing we need to know is whether or not you are even pregnant. Maybe your period is late because you’ve been so stressed.” She exhaled. “Heaven knows you’ve had reason to be. First the problems at the institute. Then Derek. Now this.”
Lisa slowly took the coat and put it on. She scrubbed her cheeks with the napkins and left them balled-up on the table. “You’re right.” She hauled in a deep breath. Let it out. She wouldn’t know anything until she at least knew that.
“And, you know—” Sara Beth tucked her arm through Lisa’s once they were on the sidewalk outside “—even if you are pregnant, who is to say that Rourke will still want you to go your own way? All right, so maybe you didn’t go into the marriage with love in your heart, but look where you are now. You won’t know unless you talk to him. You’re going to New York next weekend for that award thing, right? His feelings could have deepened just as easily as yours.”
“That’s the romantic in you talking,” Lisa said. Even though she’d become guilty of wishing that very thing.
“I just want you to be happy.”
“And that’s the friend in you talking.” Lisa blinked hard, holding another spate of tears at bay. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re the best friend I could ever have, and all this time, I’ve been hiding the truth from you. You’d never keep a secret like this from me.”
Sara Beth’s nose reddened. “Great,” she mumbled. “You had to go and say something like that, didn’t you.”
“What?”
She stopped on the sidewalk and faced Lisa. “You know I love you, right?”
Bewildered, Lisa nodded. “Of course.”
“And you know I’d never want to hurt you.”
“I know. That’s what I was just saying—”
Sara Beth caught Lisa’s gloved hands in hers. “My timing stinks.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. “I’m not just your friend, Lisa. I’m…I’m your sister. Your half sister, I mean.”
Lisa stared at Sara Beth blankly. A whining siren sounded in the distance. “What?”
“Dr. G. is my father.”
Pinpointing, dawning horror closed in on her. She tugged her hands out of Sara Beth’s. “Why would you say such a thing?”
Sara Beth looked tormented. “Because I didn’t want that secret between us, either!”
“No. Why would you claim you’re my father’s daughter!”
“Because I am.” Sara Beth lifted her gloved hands. “It’s not like I planned it. Not even my mother planned it.”
“You always said your mother used a sperm donor.” It had always made sense. Sara Beth’s mother, Grace, had practically been her father’s first employee. She’d been the head nurse at the institute from the beginning and hadn’t retired until Lisa’s father had retired.
Grace had never married, but had had a child, thanks to the work of the institute. Lisa knew being the child of artificial insemination had never sat well with Sara Beth, but Lisa had always admired Grace O’Connell’s independent style. She’d had a career. A home. A child. She’d lived her life to suit herself.
“Are you saying my father was the donor? God, Sara Beth. Hasn’t the institute been through the wringer enough? Now you, of all people, are saying he would do something so unethical as switch his own sperm with a donor’s?”
“He didn’t have to switch anything. He and my mother had an affair. A brief one.”
Her entire body tightened with denial. “I don’t believe you.”
Sara Beth looked as if she wanted to cry. “You’ve been my best friend our entire lives. Why would I lie about something like that?”
“I don’t know.” Lisa shook her head, backing away. “My father wouldn’t—he wouldn’t have done that. You’re only a month older than I am, for God’s sake. That would mean that—”
“I know how bad it sounds.”
“Really?”
“I wasn’t even planning to tell you,” Sara Beth admitted. “To tell any of you. I told your mother I wouldn’t and I meant—”
“My mother!” Lisa felt like she had the first time she and Sara Beth had ridden a roller coaster at the fair. Sick. And heading for the edge of a rail that would never contain them. “My mother knows?”
“Since I turned fourteen.” Tears were on Sara Beth’s cheeks now. “That’s when your mother stopped liking me.”
It made a horrible, awful kind of sense. Until she and Sara Beth had been young teens, Emily had been practically a second mother to Sara Beth. They’d even shared the same nanny when they’d been babies.
But then the day had come when, suddenly, Emily claimed that Lisa needed new friends. More suitable friends. Friends of their same class. She’d been hideous and Lisa had snuck out more than once to see Sara Beth. But not until she’d gone to college and had some real freedom had they been able to renew their friendship in full.
“And have you known since then?”
“No!” Sara Beth’s hands lifted to her sides again. “I only found out earlier this year.”
Lisa felt as if she was having an out-of-body experience, watching herself shake her head and back away from the girl who went back to diaper-days with her. She didn’t know whether to laugh, or to cry.
How could her father have done such a thing?
“I can’t deal with this right now.”
“You don’t have to deal with anything. Nothing has changed, Lisa. I’m not chomping at the bit to be recognized as an Armstrong. I just…when you talked about secrets…I just wanted you to know. I love you—”
Lisa held up her hand. “Not now.” She turned on her heel, running back up the short distance to her front steps.
“Lisa!”
She fumbled with the lock and darted inside, locking the door again behind her.
She heard the pound of feet on the steps, followed by the rap of Sara Beth’s knuckles on the door.
“Lisa, come on. Please don’t do this!”
It was the coward’s way out and Lisa knew it. But just then, she felt incapable of anything else.
She left Sara Beth—her sister—knocking on the door and went upstairs. There, she closed herself in her bedroom and she didn’t come out again until she was certain that Sara Beth had finally given up.
And gone away.
Rourke stared into the cut-crystal glass of Scotch he held, no closer to drinking it than he’d been when he’d poured the damn thing in the first place.
The New York view that he’d never before tired of was spread out in front of him. The sound system that was the best money could buy was silent. He had a stack of material tossed on the couch beside him that Cynthia had gathered for him, and which he needed to go over before he left for London in the morning, but even that held no interest.
All because of the woman who was his wife.
He sat forward, shoving the drink onto the coffee table, and pushed to his bare feet to pace the length of his living room. The floor here sure in hell wasn’t cold like the floor at Lisa’s. But after the two weeks he’d just spent there in Boston with her, he’d gotten used to that shocking contact every time he left the warmth of her bed.
Now, he had one of the bi
ggest international deals of his life to prepare for, and all he could think about was getting back to that warmth.
He raked his fingers through his hair. Pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.
It wasn’t even just the sex. It was her.
But they had a deal. A deal of his own freaking making. And even if he had the guts to change the terms of the deal, why would she want to once she knew the whole truth about him and her sacred institute?
He muttered an oath, returned to the couch and snatched up the top file. But when the doorbell chimed a short while later, he was no more interested in the contents than he’d ever been.
He tossed it aside and went to the door. Cynthia was supposed to deliver one more report from his legal department, but he’d figured she wouldn’t get it to him until morning. He yanked open the door.
It wasn’t his wholly efficient and cantankerous assistant at all. It was his wife. As if he’d conjured her there by his thoughts, alone.
He frowned. She had circles under her eyes and her lips were practically colorless. “Lisa. What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
The admission sent a jolt through him. He took her arms and pulled her inside. “You’re not even wearing a coat.” Just a familiar-looking ivory sweater that nearly drowned her to the knees of her narrow blue jeans.
She looked down at herself, as if surprised. “I…I guess I forgot it on the plane.” Then she chewed the inside of her cheek and warily looked around him. “Are…are you alone?”
His jaw tightened. She knew his body almost as well as he did; and he, hers. But she trusted him so little that she had to ask such a question? “It’s nearly midnight. Who would I be with?”
Her lashes fell. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She shook her head and the strands of hair falling out of her messy knot clung to her cheek. “I found out today that my father had an affair,” she said baldly.
He swallowed an oath, his frustration fizzling. “No wonder you look shell-shocked.” He steered her from the foyer into the living room. “Sit.” He shoved aside the mountain of paperwork on the couch. “I’ll get you something hot to drink.”
The Billionaire’s Baby Plan Page 16