Audra Adams - The Bachelor's Bride

Reid cradled the receiver. He remained stone-still, staring at Rachel as if she were a phantom. Rachel stared back. Trudy coughed. “Maybe I should introduce you,” she said. “Rachel Morgan, Reid James.”

“Hello,” Rachel said softly.

“Hello? That’s all you have to say to me? After what you’ve done?”

Rachel looked to Trudy then back to Reid. “I—I don’t understand. What have I done?”

Reid stood for a moment, mouth agape. He realized what he must look like and purposely shut it.

“This is a joke, right?”

Rachel shook her head slowly. “No.”

Turning to Trudy, Reid said, “Would you mind leaving us alone for a little while?”

Trudy hesitated. “I don’t know if I should. She’s not used to your rages, Reid. You look like you’re ready to kill someone.”

“Go along, Trudy, and don’t worry. I gave up killing women years ago.”

Trudy shook her head and gave him a patronizing grin. “Maybe I should stay.”

“No. There are things I need to say that are private.”

“I think I know what they are,” Trudy said.

“Do you?” Reid said with an arch of his brows. “That’s interesting, because I don’t.”

His fury was simmering, evidently close to the surface. Trudy glanced at Rachel. She was shaking.

“It’s all right,” Rachel said to her friend, her voice trembling. “Go. Please.”

Trudy walked to the door. “All right. But I’m waiting right outside. Scream if you need me.” She paused with her hand on the doorknob and turned to look at Reid. “That goes for either one of you.”

When she was gone, Reid stepped from around his desk. He walked over to the sitting area and placed his hand on the back of a Queen Anne chair.

“Sit,” he said softly, and when she didn’t move right away, added, “Please.”

It was not a word he used often, if at all, and it didn’t roll off of his tongue easily, but he didn’t want to scare her away. Not again. If that’s what he had done the first time. He didn’t know, and that was the problem. He had to know who she was and what had happened. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he wasn’t about to blow this opportunity, this tremendous stroke of good luck, and lose her again.

“Please,” he repeated, and this time she complied, moving toward him, then around him before sitting in the chair.

He sat on the couch across from her with only the width of the coffee table separating them.

Rachel placed her hands on her knees, palms down. “Can you tell me what happened that night?” she asked.

Reid arched his brows. “I was going to ask you that question.”

Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought it was all a dream up until now.”

“A dream?”

“Yes... You see, I became quite ill after. The flu or some such virus. Whatever the case, I was in pretty bad shape. I passed out the night of the party, and I’m afraid I don’t remember very much about it. Trudy said you were the host.”

“Yes... Our new perfume launch party at the armory. We met there,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “We talked...”

“Yes?”

Was she for real? Did she actually think that he would believe she didn’t remember any of this?

“We left together.” Rachel’s eyes widened. She leaned forward, urging him on with a nod of her head. “We walked for a while,” he continued, “and ended up by my place. Do you remember any of this?”

“No,” she said softly. “What happened then?”

“And then you came with me upstairs.”

“To your apartment?”

“At first.”

“And after?”

“To my bedroom.”

Rachel’s gaze dropped to her hands. She felt the heat rise to her face.

“Look at me,” he said, and she lifted her eyes. “You really don’t remember?”

“No. I was on antibiotics. I had something to drink. The punch, I think—”

“The punch was almost all vodka.”

“That’s what Trudy said. I don’t know if the combination of the two had something to do with it, but I blacked out the rest of the evening.”

“You seemed perfectly all right.” He paused. “More than all right.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“You don’t remember making love—”

“No...yes...but only afterward. I thought it was a dream.”

“You said that. What made you change your mind?”

Rachel blew out a breath to steady her nerves. She was trembling so badly she had to sit back in the chair and grip the armrests to stop herself from visibly shaking.

“Something’s happened.”

“What’s happened?” he asked.

“I’m pregnant.”

Reid stared at her. He didn’t think anything could shock him more than her unexpected appearance. But she’d topped that. And then some. He kept his expression neutral, no easy feat when his heart was thumping so hard in his chest he thought the buttons on his shirt would pop.

“And you’re here to claim that I’m the father?”

“There’s no other explanation,” she said.

“I could think of a few.”

Rachel’s hands formed into fists. She had to remain in control. This was difficult enough without her losing it. Of course he would be skeptical. Who wouldn’t be? Yet he had a right to know, whether he believed her or not.

She licked her lips. “I know what you’re thinking—”

“You haven’t the faintest idea what I’m thinking,” he said with a raw politeness that bordered on contempt.

“Yes, I do. You think I’m after money or something. Well, I’m not. I don’t want anything from you.” She stood. “When Trudy and I finally figured out what must have happened, I asked her to bring me here. I thought you had a right to know. No more, no less.” Rachel eased herself away from the chair and headed for the door. “I won’t bother you anymore.”

“Stop right there,” he said.

“I’m not one of your underlings, Mr. James, you can’t order me around.”

“Come back.” When she didn’t move, he gritted his teeth and added, “Please...”

Rachel looked across the room into crystal green eyes. The intensity of his gaze was overpowering and it propelled her forward. She stopped a few feet from him. “I have nothing else to say to you,” she said.

“Well, I have some things I’d like to say to you, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead.”

Reid moved away from the couch. His mind was reeling. With the ease and grace of a man used to getting his own way all the time, he walked over to his desk. He lifted a gold cigarette case off the mahogany top and flipped it open, extracting one and slipping it between his lips.

“Cigarette?” he asked, then added, “No. I forgot. You don’t smoke. Tried it once when you were sixteen and made yourself sick.”

Rachel’s chin came up as a chill ran down her spine. She had told him things about herself. Details about her life. Yet all she had from him came through Trudy and what she’d read in the papers. All secondhand.

Except, that is, for the child she carried.

A wave of weakness overcame her and she swayed. “I’d like to sit down,” she said in a small voice, and moved toward the leather chair in front of his desk.

“How about some coffee? Or tea?” he asked.

“Tea would be wonderful.”

Reid pressed the intercom and placed the order with Charlotte.

“You don’t look well,” he said, concern in his voice.

“I’m fine. Just a little dizzy.” She looked up at him. “Normal, I’m told, under the circumstances.”

He gave her a curt nod and lit his cigarette. He took a long drag into his lungs as Charlotte brought in a cup of tea on a tray. She carried his finest china service, the one reserved for important guests, foreign dignitaries and the like. Reid caught his assistant’s eye and questioned her with a glance. She smiled, a Mona Lisa smile that said she knew too much.