Caroline Anderson - Special Deliveries - A Baby With Her Best Friend - Rumour Has It / The Secret in His Heart / A Baby Between Friends

What was wrong with her, anyway?

When Nathan suddenly released her and took one long step back and away, Amanda swayed unsteadily and gasped for air like a drowning woman. Her mouth burned from his kiss and her body was trembling.

“See?” he practically growled at her. “This is why you shouldn’t have come back home.”

“What?” She blinked up at him and saw that, once again, Nathan’s expression seemed to be etched into stone. He looked hard, untouchable and about as passionate as a slab of granite. How did he turn it on and off like that? And could he teach her how to do it?

“I kissed you and you were all over me.”

A sudden spurt of ice water flowed through her veins and put out all the lingering fires inside. Maybe he wouldn’t have to teach her after all.

“Excuse me? I was all over you?” She took a step closer and stabbed her index finger at him. “Just who grabbed who, here? Who came to whose house? Who started kissing?”

His mouth worked and his lips thinned into a tight line. “Not the point.”

“It’s exactly the point, Nathan.” Furious now, more at herself for falling so easily into old habits than at him, Amanda said, “Just like before, you came after me . You started all of this, then and now.”

“And I’m going to end it.”

Hurt raged inside, but was soon swallowed by a wave of fury. He decided when to start things. When to end things. And she was supposed to go quietly along. Nathan Battle, Master of the Universe.

“Big surprise. You like ending things, don’t you?”

His eyes narrowed on her and his jaw muscle twitched so violently she was pretty sure he was grinding his teeth into powder. Well, good . She’d hate to think she was the only furious one in the room.

“I’m not the one who ended it seven years ago,” he finally said, his voice a low throb of barely leashed anger.

“Not how I remember it,” Amanda countered, the sting of that long-ago night still as fresh as if it had happened just yesterday. “You’re the one who walked out.”

“It’s what you wanted.” His gaze drilled into hers.

She met him glare for glare. “How would you know, Nathan? You never asked me what I wanted.”

“This is pointless.”

A long minute or two of tense silence stretched out between them. The only sound—the oven timer going off—rang out like a bell at a boxing match signaling the end of a round.

It worked to jolt both of them out of their defensive stances and a second later, Nathan was heading for her door. When he got there, he paused and turned back to look at her.

“This town chews on gossip every day, but I’m not going to be gnawed on.”

“Good for you!” She picked up her wine and took a swallow she didn’t really want before setting the glass down again. If he thought she was looking forward to being the topic of whispered conversations, he was nuts.

“The Battle family has a reputation in this town—”

“And the Altmans aren’t in your circle, are we?” she interrupted again and felt a small swift tug of pleasure, knowing it irritated him.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Walking toward him, Amanda glared up into his dark brown eyes. “I’m amazed you ever deigned to propose to me in the first place.”

If possible, she thought his eyes actually went black for a second or two. How twisted was she that she still thought him the most gorgeous man on the planet?

“You were carrying my child,” he told her flatly.

That statement, said with such frigid control, sliced at her like a blade and Amanda fought against the pain.

They hadn’t spoken about their lost baby since the night he’d walked out on her. For him to bring it up now…“That was low.”

He paused for a long minute or so, just studying her through narrowed eyes. “Yeah, it was.” He scrubbed one hand across his face. “Damn it, Amanda, we’ve got to find a way to live in this town together.”

She slid her hands up and down her arms. Funny—even with the hot, humid air of summer, she felt a chill. Maybe it was him being here, so close. Maybe it had been the loss of heat when their kiss ended. And maybe, she thought, it was because of the memories he’d brought up and waved in her face.

The memory of the child she’d carried and lost. The baby she had wanted so badly. Whatever it was, she wanted to be alone until that icy sensation was gone. She needed time to herself. To think. To regroup. And she couldn’t do that until she convinced Nathan to leave.

“I’m guessing you have a plan,” she said with a sigh.

“Damn straight, I do,” he told her. “We go about our business. We live our lives. If we see each other, it’s friendly, but distant. No more private chats. No—”

“Kissing?” she finished for him.

“Yeah. No more of that.”

“Fine. Agreed.” She threw both hands high. “Nathan’s rules of behavior. Will you print me out a copy? I’ll sign it. You want it notarized, too?”

“Funny.”

“Well, blast it, Nathan, you haven’t changed a bit. Still issuing orders and expecting them to be followed. Who made you the grand pooh-bah of the Western world?”

“Pooh-bah?”

She ignored that. “You come to my house. You kiss me. Then you lay down rules for me to live my life by and what? You expected me to just salute and say, ‘Yes, sir’?”

“Would’ve been nice,” he muttered.

She laughed. In spite of everything. “Yeah, well, not going to happen.”

“You make me crazy,” he admitted, shaking his head slowly. “You always did.”

His voice was softer, deeper, and his eyes held a heat she remembered too well. So she stiffened her spine, refusing to be swayed by the urges she felt deep within her.

“Good to know,” Amanda said, tipping her head back to look into his eyes. “That’s some consolation, anyway.”

He blew out a breath and muttered something she didn’t quite catch before saying, “Fine. No rules. We go along. Stay out of each other’s way.”

“Fine.”

“Eventually, people will stop talking or waiting for something to happen between us and—”

“You’re still doing it,” Amanda interrupted.

“Doing what?”

“Making rules. Setting down how things will be,” she said. Tipping her head to one side, she stared up at him in complete frustration. “You can’t regulate life, Nathan. It just…happens.”

Like losing a baby you had loved from the moment of conception. That familiar twinge of pain, muted slightly because of time and her deliberate attempts to bury it, twisted inside her briefly.

“Unacceptable.”

“You don’t get to make that call, Nathan,” she said softly.

“You’re wrong.” His eyes were hard, flinty chips of frozen chocolate. Whatever softness had been there before had completely dissipated. “My life moves just as I want it to. No exceptions.” He paused. “Not anymore.”

There it was, she thought. Once upon a time, she had been the exception to Nathan’s carefully laid-out life. She’d thrown a wrench into his plans, made him scramble for a new strategy and then it had all fallen apart again. This time, though, she was older—and wiser, she hoped—and she wouldn’t be sucked into Nathan’s tidily arranged world. She preferred her life messy. She liked the adventure of not really knowing what to expect.

Of course, then scenes like tonight would probably rise up again to torture her, but that was a risk she’d rather take. Better than having your life plotted out on a ledger sheet, with no surprises, no jolts of pleasure or pain.

“Royal’s a small town,” he was saying and Amanda pushed her thoughts aside to pay attention. “But not so small that we can’t comfortably ignore each other.”