Читать книгу In The Tycoon's Bed - Maureen Child - Страница 11

“You are completely out of your mind.” She took a halting step back, forgetting the couch was right behind her. She toppled onto the cushions, but it took her but a second to scramble back up.

Maybe he was. Rick could admit that getting married wasn’t something he had even considered until just a moment ago. Not that he was against marriage—for other people. But as a marine, he had never wanted to go off and leave a wife and kids behind for months at a time. Not to mention the hazards of his job. Why risk making a wife a widow? Sure, it worked for a lot of guys, but he’d seen enough marriages either dissolve or end in grief to not want to take the chance.

Now, though, things were different.

“It’s the only honorable thing to do,” Rick said, gaze following her as she pushed past him to hurry over to the front window.

“Honorable? You think marrying someone you don’t love is honorable?” She laughed, shook her head and pointed one finger at him when he started for her. “You just stay away from me, Rick Pruitt.”

“Not a chance,” he snapped. He’d been put through an emotional wringer in the last hour or so and damned if he was even seeing straight yet.

He was a father.

He had twin girls who had his eyes and their mama’s mouth and he hadn’t even known they existed a few hours ago. How was that even possible? A man should know when he’s created a life. When he’s got family in the world.

Until today, he had thought himself alone. With both of his parents gone now, he’d had no real reason to leave the Marines. The Corps was his family now, he had told himself. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted to come back to Royal on leave. Being in the empty ranch house was … lonely. Too many memories. Too much silence. Still, he had done his duty, come home to check on things, make sure the ranch was still operating as it should.

If he hadn’t come home … would he ever have learned of his daughters? Sadie claimed she would have told him, but how did he know that for sure?

“I think we both need a little space right now, Rick,” she said stiffly. “Maybe you should go.” At her side in a couple of long strides, Rick pulled her in close again and this time wrapped his arms around her to hold her in place.

“You just dropped a bomb on me, Sadie,” he ground out. “And if you think I’m gonna walk away from that, you’re the one who’s crazy.”

“I’m not asking you to walk away,” she argued, squirming in his grasp, trying to break free of him. “I’m just saying we should take a break. Get our thoughts straight before talking again.”

“I don’t need time to think,” he told her. “I know everything I need to know. You’re trying to keep my girls from me. Again.”

Her jaw dropped. “Didn’t I bring you here? Introduce you to the girls? I want you to be a part of their lives.”

“On your terms though,” he said, reading the truth in her eyes. “Come and go when you say? Show up for appointed visitation? Damn it, Sadie, I’m their father. I want more than weekends.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” she said softly.

“No, it doesn’t.” The very thought of being cut off from his children was like a knife in the gut to him. He’d already missed too much. He hadn’t seen Sadie pregnant. Hadn’t heard the first cries of his babies being born. Hadn’t seen that first smile or heard that first laugh.

A man alone treasured the thought of family. He wasn’t about to lose his chance at having one.

“We can be together.” Nodding, he took a breath. “We’re their parents. It’s only right we be married.”

“This isn’t a Victorian novel,” she argued. “We can coparent successfully even if we’re not a couple.”

“Coparent.” He snorted and looked down at her with a derisive half smile on his face. “Tidy words. Keeping each parent in their place. Is that it? Sounds like it came straight out of a self-help book.”

“What if it did?” Her gaze shifted from his. “It makes sense.”

“Not to me,” Rick said flatly, holding her close enough that her body heat slipped into his. She wriggled some more, but all she succeeded in doing was rubbing herself against him until he was as hard as stone and she was panting with her own needs.

As soon as she realized that he had noticed her reaction, she went completely still. Rick smiled. “I know you can feel what you do to me.”

She still wouldn’t look him in the eye, but her breathing was heavier and she had stopped trying to pull away.

“I know you’re feeling the same things I am,” he said, sweeping one hand down her spine to the curve of her behind.

She sighed, closed her eyes and whispered, “It doesn’t matter what we feel.”

He rubbed her bottom until she was nearly purring in his arms. Rick had discovered on their one night together that beneath the surface of the genteel, aristocratic Sadie Price, there beat the heart and soul of a very sensual woman. He had been thinking about nothing but her for three long years and now that he was holding her again, he didn’t want to let her go.

Ever.

All he had to do was convince her to marry him. How hard could it be?

“Baby, we’re good together. That’s more than a lot of people have when they get married.”

Instantly, her eyes flew open and she glared at him. Damn, Rick thought, the woman could turn on a dime and he was never ready for it.

“Do not call me ‘baby,’” she told him, then added, “I’m not marrying you just because we were good in bed together.”

“Fine,” he argued, “marry me because we have two children.”

“And I thought my brother was the most stubborn male on earth.”

Rick shook his head and tried to bite back his own frustrations. Most women in her situation would be leaping at the thought of marriage. Sure, she didn’t have to worry about money. He couldn’t dangle his own wealth in her face as a lure, because she came from the same kind of hefty bank account he did. But he didn’t care how much the world had changed, being a single mother was harder than having a partner to share the work and worry. Why couldn’t she see that?

“This isn’t about stubborn. This is about you and me and what’s best for our daughters.”

“And you think that the girls would be better off living with two people who don’t love each other?”

Scowling, he let her go when she pushed at him again. “This isn’t about love. It’s about duty. Our duty to our children.”

“Duty isn’t a reason for marriage, either. Trust me on this, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Fine. Leave duty out of it.” Rick shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her again. “If we’re married, we’ll love the girls. That will be enough to build a family.”

“No,” she said with a harsh laugh. “It isn’t enough. I’m not going to marry a man who doesn’t love me. Not again.”

She backed up a step or two, still shaking her head so firmly, Rick wasn’t sure which one of them she was trying to convince.

“If you’re talking about that moron you were married to for all of fifteen minutes …” he said.

“It was seven months and ten days,” she countered hotly, her blue eyes flashing with the kind of heat that could fry a man. “Seven months before I actually caught him cheating on me. I found out later from my ‘friends’ that he’d been cheating on me all along, but nobody wanted to tell me.”

“Don’t you compare me to that piece of—” He caught himself and broke off. Then he moved in on her again, stalking her like a cat would a bird. “I don’t cheat. And I don’t lie. If I make a promise to a woman, I keep it.”

“Good for you,” she snapped. “I’m still not going to marry you.”

Exasperated, he threw both hands high and let them drop. “Why the hell not?”

“I just told you,” she muttered, keeping her voice low enough that Hannah wouldn’t overhear their argument. “I married Taylor Hawthorne because it was expected of me. It was for the family. Good for business,” she said and her mouth screwed up as if even the words tasted bitter. “I did what I was told. My father wanted me married, so I married. I was raised to do the right thing. To take one for the team,” she said snidely. “To do my duty for the Price family. Well, no more. This is my life and I’ll do with it what I damn well please.”

She was shuddering by the time she stopped talking. Her breaths were coming fast and hard and there were unshed tears glittering in her eyes. Rick felt for her. He’d always known the Price family was far too interested in how things looked. When she married that no-account Hawthorne, Rick had assumed she simply had god-awful taste in men. But damned if he would have guessed that Sadie had laid herself down on a sacrificial altar for the sake of her father.

“I can understand how you’re feeling, Sadie. Pisses me off just hearing it, so I imagine living it was that much worse. But it doesn’t change a thing.”

Stunned, she simply stared at him in confusion. “What?”

“We had children together, Sadie. We should be married.” He moved closer, every step small and stealthy. Then he played his ace in the hole. He said the one thing he knew might sway her to accept his proposal. “I don’t want my girls being called bastards. Do you?”

“Of course not!” She shook her head and chewed at her bottom lip and he knew he’d gotten to her with that.

The thought of anyone calling his babies names was enough to make him see red. But he knew as well as Sadie did that life in a small town wasn’t always pretty. People would talk. Children would overhear it and they would repeat what their parents said.

He didn’t want his girls paying for his mistakes.

“But I don’t want to get married just for their sakes, either,” Sadie said, her voice hardly more than a sigh. “That’s not exactly a recipe for happiness, Rick.”

A more stubborn woman never drew breath, he thought and swooped in on her, unable to keep from touching her for another minute. If he couldn’t sway her to his point of view with logic, then damn it, he’d use whatever weapons he had in his war chest.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her so close she couldn’t help but feel again his body’s reaction to her. She wasn’t immune to the chemistry sizzling between them. He could feel her heartbeat racing.

She closed her eyes, sighed a little and still shook her head. “No.”

“Think about it, Sadie,” he murmured, dipping his head to run his lips along the column of her throat.

She shivered and, damn it, so did he. The taste of her filled him. Her scent clouded his brain and shot his body into overdrive. His brain was fogging over and his instincts were clamoring at him to toss her down onto that so-comfortable sofa and lose himself in her. As he’d dreamed of doing for too damn long.

This woman had been in his soul—his bones—for as long as he could remember. Even as a kid, he’d noticed her. Now, as a man, he could admit that though he wouldn’t love her, wouldn’t love anyone, he felt more for her than he ever had for anyone else.

That would have to be enough.

She moaned, a small sound sliding from her throat as she clung to him, arching into his body with a need that matched his own.

“Remember that night?” he whispered, mouth moving over her throat, up to the line of her jaw and back down again. “How good it was? How good we were? We could have that again, Sadie….”

She cupped his head in the palm of her hand and held him to her as she sighed in pleasure. He ran the tip of his tongue across her skin and nibbled at the throbbing vein at the base of her neck.

“I want you so badly I ache with it,” he admitted. “And you want me, too. I can feel it.”

“I do,” she murmured and he felt a flicker of hope rise up inside him.

“Just think about marrying me, Sadie,” he said softly, lifting his head to look down at her.

She swayed a little, opened her eyes, met his and stiffened. “That was so not fair,” she muttered.

“Fair?” he countered. “You’re the one holding all the cards here, Sadie. I’m just playing the hand you dealt me.”

“Oh, stop with the poor-country-boy act,” she told him, pushing out of his embrace to glare at him. “You knew exactly what you were doing. You were trying to seduce me into marriage and it’s not going to work.”

“Why the hell not?”

Sadie smoothed her hair, lifted her chin and said, “Good sex isn’t enough to build a marriage on.”

“It was great sex and it’s a lot better than bad sex.”

“I am not getting married.”

“You surely are.”

“You can’t force me.”

She had him there. He couldn’t force her to marry him. But that wasn’t saying that he wouldn’t do his damnedest to convince her.

Gritting his teeth, Rick took a breath. “You know how you said earlier that Brad was a hardhead? Well, honey, you could give lessons.”

“You’ve been back home one day, Rick. You told me yourself you’re only here for a month.”

True, he did have only thirty days’ leave. But if he decided to get out of the Corps, he could be back in Royal in no time. To stay.

“I’ll retire,” he blurted the words, surprising even himself.

“Rick, you love being a marine. You told me so yourself not two hours ago.” She stared up at him. “What about your duty to country?”

“I have a duty to my kids, too,” he argued.

“God, what am I going to do with you?”

“Easily enough answered,” he told her. “Marry me.”

“Well,” a voice said from the hallway, “it’s about damn time.”

Rick turned to face the man standing in the open doorway of the living room. Brad Price looked grim and his gaze was narrowed and fixed on Rick.

“Brad,” Sadie said with a tired sigh, “what’re you doing here?”

He came into the room, never taking his eyes off of Rick as he spoke to his sister. “I came to talk to you. Felt bad about our argument at the club.”

“Now’s not a good time,” Sadie said quickly.

“Yeah, I can see that.” He walked up to Rick, ignoring Sadie completely. “So you’ve seen the girls?”

“I have,” Rick said, stepping forward and sweeping Sadie to one side of him, keeping his body between her and her brother. This was between him and Sadie and he wasn’t about to let Brad push his way into the mix.

“You know,” the other man said, “I agreed with Sadie when she decided not to tell you about the girls when you were overseas….”

“Big of you to agree with her to keep my kids from me.”

“Brad,” she said.

“She did it for you,” Brad reminded him.

“Everybody’s so thoughtful,” Rick said, features hard and tight. “Doing me favors I never asked for. Hiding my children for my own good.”

Brad took a step forward. “You ungrateful—”

Rick took a step closer. “You expect me to thank you?”

“Stop it,” Sadie warned.

“What she did is between Sadie and me,” Rick told the man staring him down. “Just like this conversation is. You don’t get a vote.”

“I’m her brother.”

“Which is why I’m still being polite.”

Brad’s gaze narrowed, but Rick wasn’t intimidated. He’d been through firefights, walked down dark streets in enemy territory. He’d had friends die in his arms and been convinced that he wouldn’t live to see another sunrise. Nothing Brad Price could show him was going to throw Rick.

“I want to know what you’re going to do about my sister and her daughters.”

“Brad, honest to God, if you don’t get out of here …”

“I’m not going anywhere until he tells me he’s going to marry you.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve already asked her. Twice. You walked in on the second time.”

Brad nodded. “Good. When’s the wedding?”

“Ask your sister.”

Brad looked at her. “Well?”

Sadie stood to one side, arms crossed over her chest, the toe of her shoe tapping frantically against the wooden floor. “There’s not going to be a wedding.”

“Are you kidding me?” Brad looked at his sister as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and Rick was glad to see that someone else was as frustrated with her as he was. “He’s finally home and wants to do the right thing by you and his kids and you tell him no? What are you thinking?”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “I’m thinking, Bradford Price, that this is a private argument and none of your business.”

“None of my business?” he shouted. “You’re my sister, how is this not my business?”

“Don’t shout at her,” Rick said, his own voice loud enough to command attention.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Brad demanded, crowding in on Rick.

“I’m the man who’s going to marry your sister and you’ll watch how you talk to her from here on out.”

“Is that right?”

“Damn straight,” Rick told him, bristling for a fight. He hadn’t come here looking for trouble, but he wouldn’t walk away from it, either.

“I don’t need you to defend me,” Sadie said, turning on Rick with the same vehemence she’d shown to her brother only a moment ago.

“What you need is somebody to talk some sense into you,” Brad snapped.

“Amen to that,” Rick acknowledged, hating to agree with Brad on anything.

Miss prim-and-proper Sadie Price reached up, and tugged at her own hair in sheer frustration. Letting her hands fall to her sides again a moment later, she shot a glare first at her brother then at Rick. “I’ve had enough. I’m done talking. That’s it. Both of you get out.”

Rick dug in his heels. “He can go. I’m not finished.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Why should I go?” Brad demanded. “This is my house, too.”

“Not anymore. Go away,” Sadie repeated. “Both of you.”

“Sadie, you’re not being reasonable,” Rick said stubbornly. “We’re not finished talking.”

“Thank God one of you is making sense,” Brad muttered.

“I’m with Sadie on this one, Price,” Rick said tightly. “Butt out.”

“Both of you butt out,” Sadie snapped.

“I swear the women in this town are ruining men’s lives.” Clearly disgusted with his sister, Brad shook his head. “Abby Langley’s driving me around the bend and here you are doing the same thing to this poor bastard.”

Sadie poked him in the chest with her index finger. “Don’t you swear at me.” When Rick grinned, she turned on him in a flash. “And I don’t want to hear one more word from you, either. Both of you … just get out of my house.”

A soft cry sounded and Sadie turned instantly toward the baby monitor on a nearby table. Another halfhearted sniffle and cry came through loudly. At least one of the girls was awake.

“I have to go check on the twins,” she said, heading for the doorway.

Rick was right behind her. Hearing that tiny cry had sent an arrow of something sharp and sweet shooting through him. “Are they all right?”

She stopped, looked up at him and put one hand in the middle of his chest to keep him from coming any closer. “They’re fine.” Then she shot her brother an irritated look. “They probably just heard their daddy and their uncle acting like jackasses.”

When she left the room, she never looked back, only called out as she went, “You two can see yourselves out.”

Rick looked over to Brad. “Well, that went well, thanks to you.”

“Don’t blame me if you’re fool enough to try to talk sense to a woman,” Brad shot right back.

Frustrated beyond belief, Rick grabbed his hat and tugged it on. He shot Brad another hard look and said, “This isn’t over between me and your sister.”

“I wish you luck with that,” Brad muttered. “But I warn you. Sadie’s changed since the twins came. Used to be you could predict how she’d react to something. Now …” He shook his head helplessly.

He had already noticed the changes in Sadie, Rick thought, and hadn’t needed her brother to clue him in. There was a time when Sadie Price never would have lost her temper. It wouldn’t have been ladylike. Her icy coolness had always attracted him for some reason. But Rick had to admit that the wild heat of her now was even more appealing.

A few minutes later, Rick was in his truck, looking up at the facade of the Price mansion. Everything in him urged him to stay. To batter away at Sadie’s arguments until they evaporated like shallow creeks in high summer.

But, he thought, as he turned the key and fired up the engine, he was already learning something about Sadie. She was a woman a man would have to sneak up on. She had already dug her heels in, refusing to marry him and she wasn’t likely to back down from that.

So, he’d have to seduce her. Charm her. Get her into bed and make love to her until she couldn’t think straight.

Then he’d get her to marry him.