Sandra Field - Pregnancy Of Convenience

She shut the bathroom door smartly in his face. He re-made the bed, stoked the fire, and went back to his book. Considering the disruptive effect a black-haired woman was having on his life, he was getting quite interested in the doings of Pierre, Natasha and Prince Andrew. He’d have to tell Lenny. She’d be impressed.

The door opened again. As Cal glanced up, War and Peace fell from the arm of his chair to the floor with a resounding thump. Dieter was a big man: his pajamas were far too large for Joanna. Even though she’d buttoned them to the very top, her cleavage was exposed, a soft shadow in the V of the neckline; the blue cotton hinted at her breasts. The sleeves fell over her fingertips, and she’d turned up the cuffs of the trousers. Cal found himself staring at her bare feet, which were narrow and high-arched. Then his eyes of their own accord found her face again.

She had freed her hair from its braid, so that it rippled down her back. Under his scrutiny, she was blushing as though she were as innocent as his own daughter.

Which, of course, she wasn’t.

Slowly Cal got to his feet.

AS JOANNA took a nervous step backward, Cal stopped dead in his tracks. He’d been going to kiss her again; that had been his intention. A repeat of a less than clever move.

He said roughly, “Will the light bother you if I read for a while?”

“No,” she stumbled, “no, of course not.”

“I’ll probably wake you up a couple of times in the night—that’s standard practice after a bump on the head.”

“Oh.” She swallowed, the muscles moving in her throat. “I don’t think that’s necessary, I feel much better.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

For a moment he thought she was going to argue with him. But then the flare of temper died from her eyes. She got into bed, pulled the covers up to her chin and turned her back to him. Within a very few minutes, Cal could hear the gentle rhythm of her breathing, and realized he’d been reading the same paragraph over and over again.

Swearing under his breath, he forced himself to read on. Before he made up a bed on the couch at eleven-thirty, and again at two in the morning, he checked her pulse and the dilation of her pupils, both times without waking her. But at five, when the beam of his flashlight fell on her face, her eyes jerked open, full of terror. Like those of a rabbit who sights the talons of an owl seconds before they strike, Cal thought, and said with swift compassion, “It’s okay, I’m just checking to see you’re all right.”

She sank back on the pillow, her pulse hammering at the base of her throat. “Is that the wind I hear?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got to get out of here today!”

“It’ll die down soon,” he said without much conviction; if anything, the storm had increased in intensity in the night.

“I can’t stay here any longer.”

She’d spoken in such a low voice he had to strain to hear her. She looked at the end of her tether, as though at the slightest provocation she would start to weep and be unable to stop. “I want to leave here, too,” Cal said dryly. “But unfortunately neither one of us can influence the weather.”

“To be here,” she faltered, “don’t you see, it brings it all back, all those terrible, wasted years. And the baby…I can’t bear to think about the baby.”

The fire had died down; he and Joanna were isolated in the small circle of his flashlight, darkness and the cry of the wind pressing in on all sides. Cal had never seen such desolation on a woman’s face; it cut him to the heart. Clumsily he sat down on the bed and put his arms around her.

For a few seconds she yielded, her forehead burrowed in his shoulder, her spine a long curve of surrender. Through the thin cotton of his shirt, he felt tears dampen his skin, and realized she was weeping without a sound. “Did you really abort the baby?” he asked with sudden urgency.

“I didn’t! I swear I didn’t. It didn’t matter that I no longer loved Gustave, I’d have loved the baby…I already did love it.”

He wanted to believe her—God, how he wanted to! So what was holding him back?

Her hair smelled enticingly of hyacinths, and the soft weight of her breasts against his chest—bare where his shirt was open—filled Cal with a fierce surge of desire. He fought to subdue it. Was he about to take Gustave’s widow to bed in Gustave’s house? What kind of a man would that make him? In a harsh voice he scarcely recognized as his own, he said, “I don’t know who the hell to believe—you or your dead husband’s parents.”

She flinched as though he’d physically struck her. Then she pulled free of him, swiping at the tears on her cheeks with the back of one hand. “You can keep your sympathy,” she said stonily, “I as good as killed Gustave and I certainly killed the baby. Oh, and I was promiscuous, let’s not forget that.”

“I’m not sure sympathy’s what this is about,” said Cal, and kissed her hard on the mouth.

It was as though the flames suddenly rekindled in the hearth, lapping him in their fiery dance. He’d never felt such raw, basic hunger in his life. His arm tightened around her waist. Her ribs were a taut curve, her hair tumbling over the hand that was pressed to her back. Then her lips, warm and soft, yielded so suddenly and so ardently to his kiss that he’d have sworn she was enveloped in the same fire. He thrust with his tongue and fumbled for the buttons on her pajamas.

She struck him hard on his bare shoulder with her bunched fist and yanked her head free. “Don’t!”

His arms aching with emptiness, Cal snarled with no subtlety whatsoever, “You kissed me back.”

“All right, so I did. So what?”

“You’ve been widowed three months and you kissed me as though it’s been three years.”

“For the space of five seconds, I kissed you.”

“Franz said you were promiscuous.”

“Franz? I’d hardly call him a reliable witness.”

She had a point, Cal thought reluctantly. He knew nothing about Franz. Had never met him before that day on Mont Blanc.

“Anyway,” Joanna went on, “what about you? Why would you want to kiss me? You’ve made it all too clear you don’t believe a word I’ve said. Which means you think I’m responsible for Gustave’s death, and—” momentarily she faltered “—the loss of the baby, as well.”

Cal had no answer for her. When he was blinded by lust, how could he possibly discern the truth? But if he really did disbelieve her, he was kissing a woman he should despise.

He’d loved Suzanne when he married her, he’d never been unfaithful to her, and anyone he’d taken to his bed since her death he’d at least liked. He pushed himself up from the bed, noticing with one small part of his brain that Joanna’s cheeks were still streaked with tears and that the bruise on her forehead was now a lurid mix of purple and yellow. “Let’s just call it temporary insanity,” he said tersely. “On both our parts.”

“It’s not going to happen again!”

He could see the hard jut of her nipples beneath her jacket. “You don’t have a worry in the world,” he grated. “I’m going back to sleep. Alone. And we’d better hope the weather improves.”

“It’s got to,” she said with an edge of real desperation.

He felt exactly the same way. Although he was damned if he was going to tell her that. He’d already made enough of a fool of himself, no point in adding to it. “Are you warm enough?” he asked curtly.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He flicked off the flashlight and lowered his body onto a couch that was at least eight inches too short for him. He didn’t care what the weather was doing, he was out of here once it was daylight. And he wasn’t taking Joanna Strassen with him.