Mindy Klasky - The Mogul's Maybe Marriage

His mouth on hers was unexpected. She felt the power within him, a coil of energy. Her body reacted before her mind could parcel out a well-reasoned response. She leaned toward him, drawn to his touch like a starving woman to a feast. His tongue traced the line between her lips, and she yielded without any conscious decision. Her fingers fluttered from the shelter of her lap, tangled in his hair, pulled him closer to her.

The motion of her hands seemed to free his own; his fingers were suddenly hot as they slipped beneath her T-shirt, searing as they danced across her still-flat belly. He cupped one sensitive breast with his hand, rasping the lace of her bra against her flesh. Her body had never been so responsive, and she gasped in surprise. She folded her fingers over his. “Just a moment.”

Ethan dropped his head to her shoulder, cradling his cheek against the pulse that pounded by her ear.

This was madness. He’d come here, planning on being the perfect gentleman. He’d intended to wind back the clock, to give them both time to get to know each other, space to explore their true potential together. He’d meant to build on the amazing foundation they’d established back at the Eastern, that endless night of talking and loving and talking some more.

He couldn’t help himself, though. Even knowing that she was carrying his baby. Especially knowing that.

He tensed his arms and pushed himself away just enough that he could look into her eyes, into a blue so deep that he felt like he was drowning. He spoke before he even knew that he was going to say the words. “Sloane. Marry me.”

“What?” Sloane couldn’t believe that she had heard him right. He reached out to trace a finger along her lips, but she turned her head aside. How could he have read her daydreams? How could he have known the secret stories that she told herself, just as she was drifting off to sleep?

“Marry me,” he said again, as if those two words made all the sense in the world.

He couldn’t mean it.

Sure, she’d imagined him proposing, once he found out the truth about their single night together. She’d pictured red roses and dry champagne, a sparkling diamond ring fresh out of some teenager’s fantasy.

But in her dreams, they had known each other for longer before he proposed. They had indulged in a thousand conversations, countless discoveries of every last thing they had in common. They had filled days —and nights—with laughter, with secrets. They had built a flawless base for their future. He had left behind his reputation for womanizing, finally content to stay with one true…love?

That was all a wonderful dream. But dreams never did come true. Certainly not her dreams, not the dreams of a foster kid who’d spent a lifetime being shifted from unloving home to unloving home. Her old defensiveness kicked in just in time to save her, to remind her that she had to protect herself and her baby, that no one else would ever do that as well as she could. She tugged her shirt back into place, willing her flesh to stop tingling. Roughening her voice, she demanded, “Are you insane?”

His eyes flashed as he drew himself to his feet, and she tried to read the expression on his face. Guilt. Or embarrassment. “I’m trying to do the right thing,” he said, his voice strained.

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to think that this could really be happening to her. But seriously. Ethan Hartwell? Hartwell Genetics billionaire? Bachelor of the Year?

Her silence seemed to feed something within him, something angry and hard. His jaw tightened. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sleek wallet. Two fingers scissored out a business card, a perfect white rectangle. He crossed to her kitchen table, and she tried to read what he was thinking from the tense lines of his back.

His eyes were hooded when he turned around to face her. “Think about it, Sloane. I want to do what’s right. A paternity test, and then a proper wedding. You won’t get a better offer.” He didn’t wait for her to reply. Instead, he let himself out the door, closing it with a crisp finality.

He truly must be nuts. One minute, he was the astonishing, charming man she’d met at the Eastern, the man who had convinced her to spend the night with him, all because of his easy smile, because of the instant kinship that had sparked between them.

The next minute, though, he was a cold professional. A doctor and a businessman, driving a hard corporate bargain. Demanding a paternity test! He didn’t believe her. He thought that someone else could be the father, that she made a habit of picking up random men in hotel bars.

She’d show him. She’d take that business card and tear it into a hundred pieces. She’d flush it down the toilet. She’d grind it up in the garbage disposal. She stormed into the tiny kitchen.

Her tirade was cut short, though, drowned by the sight that met her astonished eyes.

Ethan’s business card was centered on her dead laptop. Beneath it were five crisp hundred-dollar bills.

Five hundred dollars. More money than she’d seen since AFAA had kicked her out the door. Money that Ethan had no obligation to leave. Money that he could have made conditional, could have held out to demand her submission.

In one heartbeat, Sloane’s anger turned to shame. Really, what reason did Ethan have to believe her, about paternity or anything else?

Sure, they’d shared the most intimate night two people could share. She was carrying a baby as proof. But had she found the courage to contact him in the intervening ten weeks? Had she summoned the internal strength to reach out to her baby’s father, to tell him the truth? What if Ethan hadn’t come to her that morning? How much longer would he have gone on, not knowing? Weeks? Months? Years?

All things considered, Ethan had actually reacted quite well.

What had he just said? He wanted to do what was right . Even after she had shut him out. Even after she had kept him from learning the truth. His first instinct had been to take care of her. To take care of their baby. He’d acted nothing like the playboy she’d read about, nothing like the man-about-town who was splashed across the gossip sheets.

Tenderness blossomed inside Sloane’s chest, unfolding like a snow-white rosebud. There was something between them, some emotion stronger than all the halftruths, deeper than all the avoidance and uncertainty.

The corners of her lips turned up as she heard his earnest tone. Marry me .

Could he really mean it? Did she dare say yes?

She didn’t have any model in her past for marriage . She hadn’t grown up with a happy mother and father, with the sort of easy family life that she dreamed about after watching movies, after reading books. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to trust someone enough to want to spend the rest of her life with him.

To love someone that much.

Oh, it was far too soon to say that she loved Ethan. She knew that. But she could say that she was powerfully drawn to him. That he made her feel safe. Protected. And, more than that, he made her feel desirable. Desired. He made her feel more alive than she ever had before.

Biting her lip, Sloane picked up the five crisp bills and folded them lengthwise, creasing them between her thumb and index finger. The sleek business card continued to glint its challenge from the table’s surface.

Did she have the courage to make the phone call? Did she have the strength to reach out to Ethan, to tell him what she was thinking? After a lifetime of tamping down any strong emotion, of shutting down her feelings to protect herself, could she possibly take the next step?