Читать книгу His Secret Baby: The Agent's Secret Baby - Carla Cassidy, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

Adam. Here.

How?

Stunned, the first coherent thought that shot through Eve’s mind was to somehow cover up the rounded expanse of her belly so that Adam wouldn’t notice that she was pregnant.

But it was far too late for that.

Those emerald-green eyes of his that she’d once loved so much slid down, taking in the swell of his child.

Her mouth felt as dry as cotton as she struggled to access her brain. The organ became temporarily paralyzed by the sight of the man whose very touch had once been able to move the earth beneath her feet.

Then, as she watched, to her utter amazement Adam dropped down to his knees right in front of her. For just the tiniest fraction of a second, she thought he was going apologize profusely, swearing by everything he held dear that he’d completely reformed and had been frantically searching for her these last eight months. She knew it was just a hopeless fantasy on her part. Adam would never beg for any reason. It would have been completely out of character for him.

As out of character as a supposed scholar dealing in drugs to provide himself with a lucrative sideline, she thought with no small touch of sarcasm.

As her mind came back into sync, it still took Eve more than a moment to draw in enough air to form any words.

“What—what are you doing here?” she finally managed to ask, addressing the question to the top of his thick, black hair.

“Right now, picking up a bunch of broken glass and several tiny bags of Halloween candy,” Adam answered. The bowl had smashed into almost a dozen pieces, too many for him to hold in his hand at one time. Looking up, he asked her, “Do you have a bag or something that I can put this mess into?”

The question sounded so casual, so natural, as if they had never been apart. As if this was just another evening in their lives, following scores of other evenings exactly like it.

But it wasn’t just another evening, and they had been apart. Moreover, if she’d been successful in her escape from Santa Barbara, they would have remained that way forever.

Despite everything, just looking at him intensified the longing she’d struggled against almost daily. Eve vaguely remembered a lyric she’d once heard, part of a song whose title she’d long since forgotten. Leaving him was a lot easier than staying away.

Truer words were never uttered.

Seeing Adam now, Eve wanted to throw herself into his arms. To hide there, in the shelter of his embrace. In effect, she wanted to hide from the man she’d discovered Adam to be by seeking refuge in the arms of the man she’d thought Adam was.

How crazy was that?

Very.

Her head hurt and her heart ached.

“Or,” Adam went on when she continued to stand there, making no reply, “I could just go get it myself if you tell me where you keep your bags.”

She needed to regroup, to stop feeling as if she was on the verge of hyperventilating and tell him in no uncertain terms that he had to leave.

The words wouldn’t come.

Buying herself some time, struggling against yet another wave of pain emanating from her belly, Eve turned on her heel and went to the kitchen. She braced her hand on the counter and opened the bottom drawer situated just to the right of the sink. It was stuffed with plastic grocery bags waiting to be pressed into service. After taking one out, she made her way back to the front door and prayed she was hallucinating.

She hadn’t imagined it.

Adam was still there, crouching with his hands full of broken glass, watching her. Waiting for her to come back.

Adam’s very presence mocked the notions that had filled her head such a short time ago. Notions that comprised the happily-ever-after scenario she’d once woven for herself, thinking that finally she’d found that one special someone she wanted to face forever with.

Until there was Adam, she’d never been in love before, never even experienced a serious crush. At twenty-nine, she’d begun to think that she was destined to face life alone. But then she’d walked into the secondhand bookstore and lost her heart. Just like that.

She’d even joked with her father when she saw him shortly thereafter, gifting him with the first edition Mark Twain book she’d bought in Adam’s store, that she’d never believed love at first sight was anything but a myth—until she’d fallen victim to it.

Victim.

Now there was a good word. Because she really was the victim here. She and this baby. A victim of her own stupidity and her far-too-trusting nature. Otherwise, maybe she would have noticed some things that were awry, things that she should have scrutinized more closely. Warning signs. They had to have been there if she hadn’t been so blind, so willing to love.

She bit back a sigh. She wasn’t up to this. Wasn’t up to dealing with seeing Adam, especially not now, when she felt as sluggish as an elephant that had been hit with a giant tranquilizer dart.

Eve held out the plastic grocery bag. Adam took it from her, murmuring “Thanks,” and smiling that lopsided, sensual smile of his she discovered she still wasn’t immune to.

She stood there, trying not to think, not to feel, as Adam gathered up the last of the glass and disposed of it in the bag.

Just then, as if suddenly hearing the sound of his voice, Tessa came charging out of the office to investigate. Seeing him, she immediately dashed toward Adam, wagging her tail like a metronome that had been set at triple time.

“Hi, Tessa,” Adam said with a laugh, petting the excited dog and trying not to let her knock him over. “How’ve you been, girl?”

In response, Tessa licked his face.

So much for allies, Eve thought.

Still petting the dog, Adam looked at her. “I think I got it all,” he told Eve. “But to be on the safe side, I’d suggest you vacuum the area.” Standing up, taking care not to let the excited dog overwhelm him, he decided to augment his statement. “Better yet, tell me where you keep your vacuum cleaner and I’ll vacuum the area for you.” Anticipating an argument, Adam added, “It’s the least I can do—seeing as how the sight of me made you drop the bowl in the first place.”

Eve squared her shoulders. Don’t let him get to you, damn it. Don’t!

“I can do my own vacuuming,” she told him in a voice that had a slight tremor in it.

He eyed her dubiously, his smile fading and becoming a thing of the past. “You sure? Pushing something heavy around like that might cause you to go into labor prematurely.”

She wanted him out of here—before she wound up caving. “Did you get a medical degree since I last saw you?”

His eyes remained on hers. It took everything she had not to let them get to her. Not to just give up and hold on to him the way she couldn’t seem to hold on to her anger.

“A lot of things happened since I last saw you,” he told her, his voice low, “but my getting a medical degree wasn’t among them.”

It was the same tone that used to ripple along her skin, exciting her. Well, it didn’t excite her anymore. It didn’t, she fiercely insisted.

“I’m just passing on some common sense,” Adam concluded.

She did her best to make him leave. “Always a first time,” she answered sarcastically.

Adam waited for her to continue venting. When she didn’t, he raised an eyebrow.

“That’s it?” he asked. “Nothing more? No more slings and arrows and hot words?” He knew it was baiting her, but the way he saw it, she deserved to be able to yell at him, to put her anger into words. God knew she had the right.

But she just looked at him, the light leaving her eyes. That hurt him more than anything she could have said, because he knew that he’d done that to her.

“What’s the point?” she countered sadly, half lifting her shoulders in a careless shrug.

“The point is that it might make you feel better,” Adam told her. “It might help restore some equilibrium in your world.”

She was a long way from having that happen, she thought. A long way. “The only thing that would do either would be if I’d never met you.”

He had that coming and he knew it. He regretted their time together only because it had placed her in jeopardy and it ultimately had hurt her. That had never been his intention.

In an absolute, personal sense, he’d never, not even for a moment, regretted having her in his life, no matter how short the time they had together had been. But, even though she didn’t know it, she’d had her revenge. Eve had upended his world, showing him everything he’d given up to do what he did, to be what he was. She’d showed him everything he could have had if his life had gone differently.

At least he had a life, he reminded himself.

Which was more than Mona had.

Mona, his kid sister, had been bright, beautiful and blessed with the ability to light up a room the moment she entered it. Her family and friends were all certain that she could have had the world at her feet just by wishing it.

Instead, she opted to keep it at bay, losing herself in the dark, forbidding haze of heroin and meth until no one who loved her could even recognize her. Despite his alternating between pleading with her and railing at her, his sister had continued using even as she made him promise after promise to stop.

When she finally did stop, it hadn’t been voluntarily. He’d found her lying facedown on the floor of the apartment he’d been paying for, a victim of a drug overdose. No frantic attempts at CPR on his part could revive her. His sister was gone, another statistic in the increasingly unsuccessful war on drugs. His crusade against drugs began that morning.

And the way he viewed it, it hadn’t cost him anything. Until he’d met Eve.

“Where do you keep the vacuum cleaner?” he repeated, his voice a little gruffer.

“I said I’d take care of it,” Eve insisted, holding her ground.

He let her win. Maybe she needed that. With a shrug, Adam bent down to pick up the spilled candy. Cradling the small bags, bars and boxes against his chest, he rose to his feet again.

“Where do you want me to put these?”

The answer flashed through her head, but it wasn’t her way to say things like that, no matter how tempted she was or how warranted her flippant remark might have actually been. Adam might not have any honor left, but she still did.

Was that why she was carrying the drug dealer’s baby? a taunting voice in her head mocked.

“Over there will be fine,” she told him, nodding toward the coffee table.

Adam crossed over to it and let the candy rain down from his arms onto the table.

His back was to her. An image flashed through her brain. The way his back had looked as he moved to leave his bed after they’d made love. She felt her stomach tightening.

She had to stop that, stop torturing herself. He wasn’t the answer to a prayer, he was the personification of a nightmare.

A nightmare in pleasing form.

Eve passed her tongue along her lips, trying to moisten them. They were so dry, they were almost sticking together.

“Why did you come?” she forced herself to ask, making it sound like an accusation.

He turned from the table and looked at her. Had she always looked so delicate? he wondered. “I heard you were pregnant—”

Eve widened her eyes. They had no friends in common and their worlds certainly didn’t overlap.

“How did you hear?” she demanded. He just looked at her. “Who told you?” she pressed.

He waved her question away. “Doesn’t matter. But I came to see for myself.”

She drew herself up to her full five-foot-four height, then spread her arms, giving him an unobstructed view. After a minute, she dropped her arms again. “All right, you saw. Now please leave.”

Adam remained where he stood, making no move to do anything of the kind. Tessa was nuzzling his leg and he stroked her head as he took a breath, fortifying himself.

“Is it mine?” he asked.

“No.” The denial automatically rose to her lips and shot like a bullet through the air, primed by a she-bear’s instincts to protect her unborn cub.

He didn’t believe her even though part of him would have really wanted to. It would have made everything so much simpler. It would have taken away not just his sense of guilt, but of responsibility, too. Not to mention that he wouldn’t need to feel obligated to protect the baby or her if she wasn’t bearing his child.

The hell you wouldn’t.

The other part of him fiercely rejected even the suggestion that the seed growing in her belly had come from anyone but him. Even if he never saw Eve again—and until that anonymous e-mail had turned up on his computer he never planned to—Eve was his soul mate in every sense of the word. He knew that no matter how many women he came across, how many he took to his bed, this one would stand out. This one would always mean more to him than all the others combined.

And he knew her well enough to know that the child was his no matter what she said to the contrary.

“I don’t believe you,” he told her quietly.

Panic began to form within her. Why had he shown up? Why couldn’t he just let her go? And more importantly, why did the sight of him make her yearn like this? She weighed a ton, for God’s sake. Women who weighed a ton weren’t supposed to suddenly want to have their bones jumped, especially not by someone they knew dwelled with the dregs of society.

Eve did her best to sound distant. “I don’t care what you believe,” she told him coldly. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she ordered, “Now go, get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

This was where he should retreat. She’d given him the perfect out. He’d come, he’d seen for himself that Eve was pregnant, now it was time to go. He was still undercover and the stakes were now larger than ever. The person he was after was the main player, the head of the drug cartel. The center of the drug trafficking that was filling the local colleges with heroin.

He couldn’t jeopardize that. Eve had made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want him around. And she’d heatedly denied that he was the father. That meant that he could walk away with a clear conscience.

But he couldn’t leave.

It didn’t matter what he wished, the fact remained that Eve had been with him a little less than nine months ago. With him in every sense of the word. He knew in his gut the baby was his. If he could do the math, someone else in the organization would do the same. The time to back away, to pretend she’d never been part of his life, was over. Eve and her unborn child were at risk. They needed his protection. He was not about to have them on his conscience.

He frowned, then calmly told her, “The calendar doesn’t back up what you just said.”

“Then get a new calendar,” she retorted. “This is not your baby.” Her voice rose in anger. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want anything from you. You’re free to walk away. So walk,” she ordered.

Instead of leaving, he pushed the door closed. The click echoed in her head. Nerves rose to the surface even as she struggled to at least look calm.

“Is this why you left?” he asked, his eyes indicating her swollen abdomen. “Because you found out you were pregnant?”

She took offense, although she didn’t even know why. Her hormones raged, playing tug-of-war with her emotions.

“No,” she retorted hotly, “I left because I found out that you were a drug dealer.”

He needed for her to be safe. Needed to watch over her. He knew that he couldn’t just post himself on her block indefinitely. This was the kind of neighborhood where an unknown car would attract attention if it was seen lingering for more than a few minutes—and that would inevitably result in a call to the police.

The last thing he wanted was to get involved with the local law enforcement agency, at least not until he could bring down the leader of this little high-class operation. Otherwise, he and a lot of other people would find themselves throwing away two years on a failed mission. And another drug lord would find himself with a free pass.

He owed it to Mona not to let that happen.

In order to do what he needed to do, he knew he needed to lie.

To Eve.

Again.

“Then you’ll be happy to know,” he told her, “that I’m not part of that world any longer.” His eyes held hers and he hated himself for what he was doing, but at the same time, he knew he had to. “I’m just a simple used book dealer.”

For just a moment, Eve’s heart leaped up in celebration. She was ready to seize the information and clutch it to her chest like an eternal promise. But he had lied to her before—who knows how many times—and once that sort of thing happened, trust was badly splintered if not shattered. Rebuilding the fragile emotion was not the easiest thing in the world.

“How do I know you’re not just lying?” she challenged, praying he had an answer that would somehow satisfy her.

“You don’t,” he admitted simply, surprising her. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

And that, Eve thought, was the problem in a nutshell. More than anything in the world, she wanted to believe him. But at the same time, she knew that she just couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he proved himself to her and gave her a concrete reason to believe him.

Just then, she thought she felt the baby begin to kick her again. Kick her harder than it had ever kicked before.

Caught off guard, immersed in this new drama, Eve gasped as tears welled up in her eyes.

Sensing both her mistress’s anxiety and her pain, Tessa began to pace nervously about before her as Eve clutched at her belly.

Adam reacted immediately. His arms closed around Eve as if he was afraid that she was about to sink down to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, concern weaving itself through his voice. His eyes searched her face. “What can I do to help?”

Just hold me, Adam, the little voice in her soul whispered to him. Just hold me and make everything all better again.