Kate Carlisle - Pregnant By The Ceo

It didn’t make sense.

“What are you hiding?” Rafael said, his eyes searching her face. “You never mention family or friends back home. Why? Why do you never want to go home?”

He saw her eyes widen, heard her intake of breath. Then she smoothed her oversize gray woolen skirt beneath her trembling hands. “It doesn’t matter.” She turned away. “If there will be nothing else, sir, I will leave you now—”

“No, damn it.” He crossed the room in two steps, blocking the doorway so she could not leave. “I won’t let you go. Not until you answer me. I…” I need you, he almost said, but the words caught in his throat as sharply as a razorblade. He hadn’t said them to anyone for years. He’d created his whole life to avoid saying them.

Through the open window, he could see the lights of Istanbul flickering in the dusk. Black silhouettes of minarets plunged like daggers into the dying red sunset. He could hear a muezzin’s broadcasted call to prayers echo across the sea.

His eyes locked with hers in the shadowy room. The tension between them changed. Electrified. Desire for her swept through him, negating all else.

“Get out of my way, Mr. Cruz,” she whispered.

He could hear the quickness of her breath, see the rise and fall of her chest. “No.”

“You can’t keep me here!”

Rafael almost shook with the force of his need for her.

“Can’t I?” he said softly.

He wanted to bury himself in her so deeply that he would forget everything—everything that threatened to break him apart. He heard the quick pant of her breath. He took a deep breath of her, smelling her fragrance, soap and clean cotton and freshly cut roses.

If he were smart, he would let her go. He would find a different woman to fill his bed. The pouting French starlet he’d been flirting with for the last few days. Her. Anyone.

Anyone but Louisa Grey.

His eyes fell to her mouth. Her beautiful bow-shaped lips were pink and bare of makeup. Something about Louisa intrigued him beyond his understanding. He wanted her in a way that almost felt against his will. He craved the mind-numbing pleasure he’d felt making love to her. The best sex of his life.

The pleasure of her body would help him forget his pain. She would be the drug to distract him from his grief and despair. He would ravish her in his bed, hard and fast, until the fire in his blood was sated. Until the pain in his heart was obliterated into ash. Then, and only then, would he let her go…

Rafael looked at her from beneath heavily lidded eyes. He saw the tremble of her body in the shadows.

She wanted to escape him—to deny them both what they both wanted.

But this inexperienced girl was no match for his will. She’d been a virgin when he’d first taken her in Paris. She would not be able to resist him now. He would possess her until he was utterly satiated, until he felt her writhe and shake beneath his body.

Slowly, implacably, Rafael pulled her into his arms.

She tried to resist, but he would not let her go. She trembled, tilting her head back to look up into his face. Tall as she was for a woman, he still towered over her. Her beautiful brown eyes glistened in the faint golden light.

“Please,” she said in a low voice. “Let me go.”

His hands tightened on her. “Are you so afraid?” he said quietly.

She drew a shuddering breath. “Yes.”

He cupped her face. “Of me?”

“No,” she said in a low voice. “If you kiss me again, if you take me to your bed, I’m afraid…”

“Afraid of what?”

She blinked fast, her full lashes black against her pale skin.

“Afraid I’ll die of wanting you,” she whispered.

He nearly gasped.

Reaching up, Louisa put her hand on his rough cheek. “I’ve missed you,” she said in a voice full of anguish. “I’ve missed you so…”

He shook beneath her touch. Taking her hand in his own, he fervently kissed the palm, then pulled her into his arms. Lowering his mouth to hers, he kissed her. Deeply. Hungrily.

He kissed her with all the repressed desire of the month they’d been apart—and of all the wasted years before that.

Louisa trembled.

Rafael’s touch burned her. It frightened her. Seduced her.

He kissed her, his powerful lips moving over hers. Guiding her. Giving her such explosive pleasure, causing electricity to sizzle down her limbs beneath her gray woolen suit until she thought she might die of this ache like fire.

Too many years of repressed desire could no longer be contained. It was all she could do not to blurt out the two devastating secrets that would destroy everything.

She was completely, irrevocably in love with a man who never wanted to be either husband or father. And she might be pregnant with his child…

Rafael’s hand on the back of her head, stroking through her hair and the bare skin of her neck, created a spark that seared up and down her body. Her breasts became heavy, her nipples tight. She tingled with painful awareness all over her body. She wanted him so much it drove her to despair.

“Forget I’m your boss,” he murmured against her skin. She felt the warmth of his breath, the roughness of his jawline against her cheek. “Stay with me tonight.”

She was overwhelmed by the sensuality of his hands on her body, his fingers stroking her back down to her hips.

He pulled back from her and golden light flickered in his dark eyes like the hot flames in hell. “Stay with me,” he commanded.

Her gaze fell to his lips. She could barely breathe. She wanted to say yes. Wanted it so badly she thought she’d die. But…

“I can’t,” she gasped, even as her fingers tightened on his black shirt. She licked her lips. “If the rest of the staff ever found out I’d been your mistress…they’d lose all respect for me.”

“It’s no business of theirs—”

“I’d lose all respect for myself!”

For answer, he touched her hair. Pulling out the pins that held her hair in a tight bun, he let it tumble down her shoulders. “So beautiful,” he whispered, moving his fingers through the long chestnut waves. He looked into her eyes. “Why don’t you ever let it down?”

Her hair? Or her guard?

His fingers felt so deliciously light moving through her hair. She held her breath. Her scalp tingled as he stroked whisper-light touches against her earlobes and neck then cradled the back of her head in both of his hands. He looked down at her.

“You work miracles.” He looked around the newly remodeled bedroom with wonder. “No one could ever feel anything for you…but respect.”

She exhaled. His words were balm to her.

But she knew how the world truly worked. Her spine snapped straight.

“Reputations are destroyed by affairs like this. No one would ever hire me for a respectable job again.”

“Why would you ever leave me?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “No woman ever wants to leave.”

He spoke the words as a joke, but Louisa knew they were true. She also knew that she couldn’t possibly remain his housekeeper as his discarded mistress. That she’d already given him her body once was bad enough—it had forced her to flee to Istanbul.

She was still able to work for him, barely. But she did have some pride. If she gave herself to him completely, if she admitted that she was in love with him, she knew she’d never recover from his scorn. She’d never survive loving him, working for him—and seeing him move on to another woman.

Especially if she was pregnant…

I’m not pregnant, she repeated to herself, but the words had become hollow and metallic. She gritted her teeth. All right, fine. She would take the test. Tonight. As soon as she was alone. Then she would know for sure that she had nothing to fear. Or else she’d have some shocking news for Rafael Cruz—the heartless, ruthless, charming playboy—and she’d have to tell him she was going to make him a father against his will.