Читать книгу One-Amazing-Night Baby! - Heidi Rice - Страница 17

SOPHIE woke the next morning feeling awful. She’d barely managed any sleep. Her mind had been a tumult of revolving conversations from the previous night. Most particularly those final moments with Cooper.

Dragging her feet, she showered, dressed in a baggy jumper and jeans, and for the hundredth time contemplated how best to handle the scene that would no doubt confront her this morning. She was not prepared to bow to Cooper’s demands. She’d been crazy to accept this challenge in the first place. Never again would she be made to feel as if her opinion didn’t count. As if she didn’t count.

She opened her bedroom door, her heart physically aching. She would remain strong. This was over. Hell, it had been over before it began. And, no matter how much Cooper wanted to control the situation, there was nothing he could do to make her stay. She’d been here less than forty-eight hours, and already the shells were falling. This house would turn into a war zone if she stayed any longer. And what about her unborn child? Playing house and pretending things could be different were not conducive to maintaining a healthy pregnancy. The baby’s well-being must come first.

Before she tracked Cooper down, she smelled pancakes—fresh, hot, baking now. The aroma, and her empty stomach, tugged her straight into the kitchen. By the hotplates set in a huge island bench stood Cooper, dressed in worn jeans, and an unbuttoned white shirt, and with bed hair that looked ten times sexier than his usual neat style.

In the middle of flipping a pancake, he must have sensed her there and glanced over. Their eyes met and his Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘Hi.’

Sophie swallowed hard. She’d had every intention of telling him this was over, that she was going now and calling a cab. How dared he pull this on her? How dared he look so vulnerable, yet more masculine than she’d ever seen him?

He nudged his bristled chin at the bottle of sauce on the counter. ‘Chocolate,’ he said. ‘Hope you’re hungry.’

A lump swelled in her throat. ‘If this is supposed to be an apology, it won’t work.’ Hell, she almost meant it.

He left the pancake cooking and moved towards her, his gait fluid, his broad shoulders rolling. Her skin flashed hot and her stomach tied in one big aching knot when he didn’t stop until his body touched hers and his large hands cupped her face. God, he smelled good. She’d take his musk over pancakes any day.

She shook herself back.

No! She had to leave before this overpowering attraction crushed her spirit totally.

She tried to weave away from him. The muscles in his arms and chest bunched and flexed as he held her firm. His skin was steamy, his exposed torso uncompromisingly hard.

He tipped her chin up to have her look into his eyes. ‘I’m going to say something.’

She wanted to block her ears against the hypnotic rumble of his voice. ‘We said all there is to say last night.’ He’d embarrassed her, then ordered her to obey his demand that she sleep where he saw fit. Suffocating emotion burned her throat. ‘I’m not a child, and I won’t be treated like one—not by anyone, not for any reason.’

She almost saw it … the former Sophie waving goodbye and stepping back for ever. No matter how much she wanted Cooper to overwhelm and kiss her—and, yes, beg her to stay—she simply couldn’t.

‘I won’t apologise,’ he said, in the rich deep timbre that sent ripples lapping up her spine. ‘Not about you moving downstairs. You don’t want to hear it, but I’m right. If you slip and lose the baby you’d never forgive yourself, and I would never forgive myself for not protecting you both.’

Somewhere through his speech she’d stopped struggling. She hated to admit it … Could she admit it?

He was right.

Unshed tears stung behind her eyes. She wanted to run away, hide. Wake up when everything was sorted and she and her baby could live happily ever after.

Her voice was a strangled whisper. ‘You hurt me, Cooper.’ Through telling Evangeline about the baby as much as anything.

His thick sooty lashes lowered as his hand combed back her hair. She felt his heartbeat booming through his body and against her. ‘Forgive me.’

Her heart squeezed. Oh, God. Did he have to look at her like that?

‘Tomorrow you’ll be asking me to forgive you again.’

His jaw flinched as his gaze lowered to her lips. ‘I’m not perfect.’

She hesitated, then somehow, somewhere, found a small grin. ‘Can I get that in writing?’

The tension bracing his frame seemed to ease. He took half a step back to search her eyes more deeply. ‘Does that mean you’ll stay?’

He was insufferable, boorish.

Dangerously close to irresistible.

She set her jaw and tried to look fierce. ‘It means you’re on probation. That’s your one and only Get Out of Jail Free card.’

As he groaned with relief, drew her in and pressed an almost chaste kiss to her brow, she didn’t know if he realised, but in her heart she knew it was true. She owed it to her baby to give him one more chance. She owed it to herself and the baby to stick to that and not give in again.