by Karen Booth
She sucked in a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “Okay—”
“Wait.” He shook his head. “I’m really sorry, but the thing I have to say has literally been on the tip of my tongue all evening, and I just feel like I have to get it out or my head is going to explode.”
Joy stood there, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t like Alex to get flustered. “Yes. Of course.”
He cleared his throat and looked at her. As beautiful as the moon was that night, his eyes put it to shame. She would’ve said something if the look on his face wasn’t so pained and tortured. “You make me happy, Joy. Really happy. Are you happy?”
She almost laughed—wasn’t the answer obvious? “Yes. Extremely.”
“Okay, good.” He took her other hand and then he did the most inexplicable thing—he dropped down on one knee. Which was odd enough in its own right, but they were still in the water, which meant he was now kneeling in the South Pacific. “Dammit. I didn’t really plan this out very well, did I?”
Joy giggled nervously. Was this why he’d been so on edge? “It’s my fault. I suggested we get our feet wet.”
Alex shrugged and gazed up at her. “I’m down here, so I might as well just go with it.” The most sincere smile she’d ever seen crossed his face. “I love you, Joy. And I’m happy and you’re happy and I know that the world says we’re supposed to be together for a few years before you go off and do something crazy like get married, but I think we should. If you want to.” His vision narrowed on her. “Do you want to? Get married?”
Again, Joy wanted to laugh. Alex was so adorably out of his element right now. She also couldn’t believe the timing. His question certainly segued well into her announcement. “Alex. I couldn’t care less what anybody says about what we’re supposed to do. We met because you nearly hit me with your car. I feel like the universe was telling us we belong together. Of course I will marry you. I love you more than anything.”
Alex grinned like she’d never seen him do before, then let go of her one hand and reached into his pocket. “This is why I couldn’t wear shorts. I needed bigger pockets.” He opened the jewelry box and presented her with the sort of ring she never thought she’d get—a big sparkly diamond on a platinum band. Still, Alex was kneeling in the ocean and she could just imagine where this ring was going to end up if they weren’t careful.
“Can I get my ring on dry land? I think it would be better.”
“Yes. It’s weird being in the ocean with your pants on.” He clapped the ring box shut and stood, immediately planting a soft and steamy kiss on her lips. “You’re sure?”
The tears she almost never shed? They were starting up. “Yes, I’m sure. One hundred percent.”
Hand in hand, they walked up on shore, where he tried a second time with the ring. He took it from its velvet box and placed it on her finger. “Do you like it?”
She nodded, more fixated on him than on the ring, however beautiful it was. He was a miracle. And she was the luckiest woman in the world. “I love it.”
He sighed and the perma-grin on his face grew even wider. “So what were you going to tell me?”
She still wasn’t sure how to approach this. Alex had clearly been sweating the proposal. She wanted to give him his moment to bask in the sun. Still, there were no secrets between them anymore. She took his hand and flattened it against her belly. Not a word came from her lips as their gazes connected. The wonder that flickered in his eyes was everything she could’ve hoped for—such a pure and sweet reaction.
“You’re pregnant?”
She nodded, choking back the tears, overwhelmed by the beauty of their surroundings, their perfect moment, her unbelievable man.
“But when? How?”
“I’m pretty sure we got pregnant that night the condom broke. Not that we weren’t basically messing with the gods of contraception that whole time.”
“True. I think we destroyed the margin for error.” He laughed. “It’s such amazing news.”
She couldn’t contain her smile. “I’m only about six weeks along. It’s early. But I had to tell you as soon as I was sure.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead, then her cheek, and finally, her lips. “A baby. I’m going to be a dad. You’re going to be a mom.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You know what? You are going to be the best mom.”
Good Lord, she was going to perish from Alex’s sweetness. “And you’re going to be the best dad.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and they started walking back to their bungalow. Each step felt different now, like they were walking toward their happy future. “My only question is this,” he said. “At what point do we teach our child how to bake scones?”
* * * * *
If you loved this story of secrets and passion, don’t miss these other novels from Karen Booth!
THAT NIGHT WITH THE CEO
PREGNANT BY THE RIVAL CEO
THE CEO DADDY NEXT DOOR
THE BEST MAN’S BABY
Available now from Harlequin Desire!
And pick up the first
SECRETS OF THE A-LIST novel
from Joss Wood:
CONVENIENT CINDERELLA BRIDE
Available now!
***
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Baby in the Making
by Elizabeth Bevarly
One
Really, it wasn’t the gaping hole in the shirt and pants that troubled Hannah Robinson most. It wasn’t the bloodstain, either. She’d seen worse. No, what troubled her most was how little Yeager Novak seemed to be bothered by the six tidy stitches binding his flesh just north of the waistband of his silk boxers. Then again, as far as Yeager’s garments were concerned, this was par for the course. Such was life sewing for a tailor whose most profitable client made his living at cheating death—and planning similar travel adventures for others—then brought in what was left of his clothing after the most recent near miss to have them mended. Or, in the case of the shirt, completely recreated from scratch.
Yeager towered over her from her current position kneeling before him, tape measure in hand. But then, he towered over her when she was standing, too. Sho
ving a handful of coal-black hair off his forehead, he gazed down at her with eyes the color of sapphires and said, “I’ll never let a bull get that close to me again.” He darted his gaze from the stitches on his torso to the ruined clothing on the floor. “That was just a little too close for comfort.”
Hannah blew a dark blond curl out of her eyes and pushed her reading glasses higher on her nose. “That’s what you said last year when you ran with the bulls.”
He looked puzzled. “I did?”
“Yes. It was the first time you came to see us here at Cathcart and Quinn, because your previous tailor told you to take a hike when you brought in one too many of his masterpieces to be mended.” She arched a brow in meaningful reminder. “Except when you were in Pamplona last July, you escaped into a cantina before the bull was able to do more than tear the leg of your trousers.”
“Right,” he said, remembering. “That was where I met Jimena. Who came back to my hotel with me while I changed my clothes. And didn’t get back into them for hours.” His expression turned sublime. “I probably should have sent that bull a thank-you note.”
Even after knowing him for a year, Hannah was still sometimes surprised by the frankness with which Yeager talked about his sex life. Then again, his personal life sounded like it was almost as adventurous as his professional life, so maybe he had trouble distinguishing between the two on occasion.
“Or at least sent Jimena a text that said adios,” Hannah said, striving for the same matter-of-factness and not sure if she quite managed it.
He grinned. “Hey, don’t worry about Jimena. She got what she wanted, too.”
I’ll bet, Hannah thought, her gaze traveling to the elegant bumps of muscle and sinew on his torso. Yeager Novak might well have been sculpted by the hands of the gods. But the scar left behind by his latest stitches would be in good company, what with the jagged pink line marring the flesh above his navel and the puckered arc to their left. He had scars all over his body, thanks to his extreme adventurer ways. And thanks to his total lack of inhibition when it came to being fitted for clothes, Hannah had seen all of them.
“So you think you can fix the shirt and pants?” he asked.
“The pants will be fine,” she told him. “They just need a good washing. But the shirt is a goner.” Before he could open his mouth to protest, she added, “Don’t worry, Mr. Novak. I can make a new one that will look just like it.”
He threw her an exasperated look. “How many times have I told you to call me Yeager?”
“Lots,” she replied. “And, just like I told you all those other times, it’s Mr. Cathcart’s and Mr. Quinn’s policy to use ‘Mr.’ or ‘Ms.’ with all of our clients.”
Just like it was Cathcart and Quinn policy that Hannah wear the ugly little smock she had to wear while working and always keep her hair confined, as if the shop’s sole female employee was a throwback to the Industrial Revolution.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I learned pretty quickly to keep all of your patterns and cut enough fabric for two garments whenever I make one.”
He smiled in a way that was nothing short of devastating. “And I love you for it,” he told her.
She smiled back. “I know.”
Yeager told Hannah he loved her all the time. He loved her for making him clothes that fit like a glove. He loved her for mending them when he thought he’d ruined them. He loved her for being able to remove bloodstains, oil stains, pampas stains, baba ghanoush stains, walrus stains...stains from more sources than any normal human being saw in a lifetime. And, hey, she loved Yeager, too. The same way she loved cannoli and luna moths and sunsets—with a certain sense of awe that such things even existed in the world.
She went back to measuring his inseam, pretending the action commanded every scrap of her attention when, by now, she had Yeager’s measurements memorized. There was no reason he had to know that, was there? Sometimes a girl had to do what a girl had to do. Especially when said girl was between boyfriends. Like eight months between boyfriends. None of whom had torsos roped with muscle or smelled like a rugged, windswept canyon.
“Have you ever been to Spain, Hannah?” Yeager asked.
“I lived for a while in what used to be Spanish Harlem,” she told him as she penned his inseam measurement onto the back of her hand. She lifted the tape measure to his waist. “Does that count?”
He chuckled. “No. You should go to Spain. It’s an incredible country. Definitely in my top five favorite places to visit.”
Hannah would have told him her top five were Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island, since she’d never ventured outside the five boroughs of New York. For fifteen of her first eighteen years, it was because she’d been a ward of the state, and even though she’d been shuffled around a lot during that time, she’d never landed outside the city’s jurisdiction. For the last nine years, she hadn’t had the funds to pay for something as frivolous as travel. What didn’t go to keeping herself housed and fed went toward funding the business she’d started out of her Sunnyside apartment. Things like travel could wait until after she was the toast of the New York fashion industry.
“What are your other top four favorite places?” she asked.
She was going to go out on a limb and say that, to a man who’d built a billion-dollar company out of creating extreme adventure vacations for other alpha types, Sunnyside and what used to be Spanish Harlem probably weren’t going to make the cut.
He didn’t even have to think about his response. “New Zealand, Slovenia, Chile and Iceland. But ask me tomorrow and it could be a whole different list.”
Hannah jotted the last of his measurements onto the back of her hand with the others, returned the pen to its perennial place in the bun she always wore for work and stood. Yep, Yeager still towered over her. Then again, since she stood five-two, most people did.
“All done,” she told him. Reluctantly she added, “You can get dressed now.”
He nodded toward the clothes on the floor. “Thanks for taking care of this.”
“No problem. But you know, you could save a lot of money on tailoring if you stayed in New York for more than a few weeks at a time.”
“There’s no way I can stay anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time,” he said. “And I won’t apologize for being an adventurer.”
Hannah would never ask him to. She couldn’t imagine Yeager sitting behind a desk punching a keyboard or standing on an assembly line screwing in machine parts. It would be like asking Superman to work as a parking attendant.
“All I’m saying is be careful.”
He flinched. “Those are the last two words somebody like me wants to hear.”
And they were the two words Hannah lived by. Not that she was a fearful person by any stretch of the imagination. You didn’t survive a childhood and adolescence as a ward of the state by being timid. But after nearly a decade on her own, she’d carved out a life for herself that was quiet, steady and secure, and she was careful not to jeopardize that. Oh, blissful predictability. Oh, exalted stability. Oh, revered security. She’d never had any of those things growing up. No way would she risk losing them now.
“Your pants and new shirt will be ready a week from today,” she told Yeager.
He thrust his arms through the sleeves of a gray linen shirt Hannah had made for him and began to button it. “Great. That’ll be just in time for my trip to Gansbaai. South Africa,” he clarified before she could ask. “I’m taking a group to go cage diving with great white sharks.”
“Of course you are. Because after nearly being gored to death by a gigantic bull, why wouldn’t you risk being bitten in two by a gigantic shark? It makes perfect sense.”
He grinned again. “After that, it’s off to Nunavut with a couple of buddies to climb Mount Thor.”
“I would love to see your
passport, Mr. Novak. It must be as thick as a novel.”
“Yeah, it is. Like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix size.”
And the stories it could tell were probably every bit as fantastic.
“Well, have a good time,” she told him. “I’ll be at home, inventorying my swatches and organizing my bobbins.”
He threw her one last smile as he reached for his charcoal trousers—also fashioned by Hannah. “And you say I live dangerously.”
The bell above the shop entrance jingled, making her turn in that direction. “Excuse me,” she said as she backed toward the fitting room entrance. “Your claim check will be at the register when you’re ready.”
* * *
The minute Hannah disappeared through the fitting room door, Yeager Novak’s mind turned to other, more pressing, topics. When your life’s work was creating extreme adventures for wealthy clients, you had to make plans, sometimes years in advance. In putting together vacation packages, he had a million things to consider—a country’s culture and politics, its potential safety, its seasonal climate, how many people needed to be bribed for all the requisite permissions... The list was endless. And he always tried out the travel packages he designed for his clients first, to be sure they were doable without risk to life or limb.
Well, without too much risk to life or limb. No risk kind of defeated the purpose.
He knotted his tie, grabbed his suit jacket and headed for the register. Hannah’s blond head was bent over her receipt pad as she wrote in her slow, precise hand, a few errant curls springing free of the prim little bun she always wore. Nice to know there was at least some part of her that wanted to break free of her buttoned-up, battened-down self. He’d never met anyone more straitlaced than Hannah...whatever her last name was.
As if she’d heard him say that out loud, she suddenly glanced up, her silver-gray eyes peering over the tops of her black half-glasses. She did have some beautiful eyes, though, he’d give her that. He’d never seen the color on another human being. But the rest of her... The shapeless jacket-thing she wore completely hid her gender, and if she was wearing any makeup, he sure couldn’t see it. He guessed she was kind of cute in a wholesome, girl-next-door type of way, if you went for the wholesome, girl-next-door type—which he didn’t. He liked talking to her, though. She was smart and funny. And, man, did her clothes make him look good. He knew nothing about sewing or fashion, but he knew excellent work when he saw it. And Hannah Whatshername definitely did excellent work.