Читать книгу Reunited...with Child / One Month with the Magnate: Reunited...with Child - Katherine Garbera, Michelle Celmer - Страница 10

Becca found herself pressed close to Cam on the dance floor a short while later. He smelled good, like expensive aftershave, and she had to really struggle to keep from resting her head on his chest. But she wanted to. It had been so long since she had anyone hold her, and she’d spent the last two years feeling very alone. She didn’t need a man … she got on very well without one. But there was something about dancing with Cam to the slow bluesy song “Love Is a Losing Game” that Amy Winehouse had made popular a few years ago….

“You’re a good dancer,” she said.

“My mother insisted on lessons. She might not have been too involved in her sons’ lives, but she did make sure we were raised proper gentlemen.”

“What does a proper gentleman do?”

“He knows how to talk to a woman, how to romance her.”

“Romance? Is that what you are doing to me?” she asked. She hadn’t gotten a chance to know the real Cam Stern when they’d had their affair, and though she’d thought she loved him, she knew that had been based on sex and quiet moments in the dark of night. She’d never danced with him or really even seen him outside of that hotel bedroom.

“I am,” he said, pulling her close and spinning them around. Though the dance floor was crowded, she felt like they were the only two people in the room. His eyes were intense as he looked down at her. She felt as if they could bore all the way through to her soul and the secret she kept from him.

She should go. She should walk out of his arms and leave. She needed to remember that no matter how romantic the night felt, Cam wasn’t the kind of man who was interested in settling down or starting a family. And she came with a ready-made one.

He kept his arms around her, and she told herself she was Cinderella and this was for only one night. Even Cindy had gotten one night with her Prince. She knew that Cam wasn’t some white knight who could rescue her. She’d seen the chinks in his armor. But when he held her close like this, it was easy to forget about that all that. It was so easy for her to just pretend that for once she was going to have her cake and eat it, too.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, as she glanced up and found him staring at her.

“That you are the most beautiful woman in the room,” he said.

She flushed and shook her head. “I’m not.”

“In my eyes you are,” he said. He leaned down, and the warmth of his breath brushed her cheek as he spoke directly into her ear. “You are the most exquisite woman I’ve ever seen. You have haunted my dreams.”

“Then why did you wait so long to get back in touch with me?” she asked.

“I didn’t think you’d be able to forgive me. And I wasn’t sure if I had fantasized about you so much that I made you into someone you weren’t. But none of that matters now.”

But it did. He was talking to her as if nothing had happened except a bad breakup. But she knew there was so much more between them, and she had no idea how to tell him.

He wasn’t the evil ogre she’d made him out to be. She’d known that even back then, but she had pride. Some said too much pride was a bad thing, but Becca didn’t really know how to define “too much.” She had only understood that Cam wasn’t the kind of man who’d take the news of her pregnancy well.

She twisted and started to walk away from him.

He caught up with her and grabbed her arm as she reached the edge of the dance floor. “Where are you going?”

“I can’t do this, Cam. I am trying to pretend this is all just a nice night out, but every time I look in your face I see the past. And I’m just not ready to deal with that tonight.”

“I’m not asking you to,” he said. “I think we should forget about what happened between us—”

“I can’t. It’s way too complicated to go into now, but trust me when I say I could never pretend we didn’t meet.”

“That’s a good thing,” he said.

She shook her head and pulled away from him. “No, it’s not. There are things about me that you don’t know.”

“Tell me about them,” he said.

“Not here. Come to my house tomorrow morning.”

“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” he said.

She smiled up at him as he leaned in close. The hardness of his body was a remembered thrill. “We already did lust. Remember?”

“Yes,” he said. “I know you remember, too. It’s there in your eyes when I hold you. You still want me.”

She did still want him, but she liked to think she was older and wiser. Please, God, let her be wiser. She couldn’t fall for him again. Wouldn’t let herself be that weak where he was concerned. Cam Stern wasn’t the kind of guy she could have a one-night stand with and walk away from.

But that was what she wanted. She wanted to pretend they were strangers with no baggage or no commitments. That they could have one night of passion with no consequences. But it was too late for that. She was emotionally entangled with him, even though he wasn’t with her.

She went up on her tiptoes and rubbed her lips over his and then slowly opened her mouth and kissed him.

She held on to his shoulders and felt his mouth move against hers. He parted her lips with his own, and his tongue snaked over her teeth into her mouth.

His thrusts were light and teasing, making her crave so much more of him. She opened her mouth wider, held on to his shoulders and let everything drop away. She didn’t think about the past or her secrets. She didn’t think about the glittering people at this charity ball. She didn’t think of anything except Cam Stern and his mouth.

That oh-so-talented mouth that was moving over hers and making her forget everything except the way he tasted and the way he felt.

His lips were firm but also tender against hers. His hands smoothed their way down her spine. One sprawled in the middle of her back and the other dipped lower to her hips, drawing her closer to him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Cam said. “We need to go someplace private.”

Confused for the first time in a very long time, Becca really didn’t know what to do. So she followed Cam out of the ballroom and onto the street as he hailed a cab.

Cam wasn’t ready to let the night end. Seeing Becca again wasn’t at all what he had thought it would be.

The April sky was clear, the night air a little cool but not cold when they left the club. Cam had said his goodbyes to Russell earlier and Russell had offered the car, but Cam had turned him down. He liked to do things his own way. He wanted to be in control.

Cam hailed a cab for them and asked to be taken to his hotel, the Affinia Manhattan, which was a suite-only hotel. Though he’d only been in town for a few days, Cam liked to have room to be comfortable. At six-five, he was a big man, and he didn’t like to be in a room crammed with a bed and a dresser.

“I thought you said you only wanted someplace private,” Becca said, arching one eyebrow. “Why do we need to go to your hotel? “

“I don’t know any other quiet place we can talk.” He wanted her to himself. That was one thing he’d done right during their affair. They had spent all of their time together in her hotel room. Having sex and lying in each other’s arms. Despite the fact that they were both working hard during the day, the nights had been filled with only each other.

She tipped her head to the side. She studied him, and he wondered what she was searching for. When he looked at her, he saw the same beautiful, sexy woman he’d known two years ago. But she had changed. There was something mysterious about the woman sitting next to him now.

“Okay, we can go to your hotel, but we are getting a drink in the lobby bar.”

“Fair enough. I want to take my time and really apologize for the way things ended.”

“Apology accepted,” she said.

She was a graceful and charming woman, and as she sat next to him during the cab ride, he surreptitiously studied her. Her heart-shaped face was framed by her hair, and her eyes were dark and mysterious in this light.

He wouldn’t have thought to look into his romantic past to find a woman to move forward with, but it made sense to him now that Becca was here.

He stretched his arm out behind her and toyed with the soft tendrils of hair at the base of her neck. “Thank you. But I know you like me so I have that in my favor.”

“How do you know this?” she asked.

“The way you smile at me,” he admitted. “And the way you kissed me.”

“That wasn’t about you,” she said.

“It wasn’t?”

“No. It was a gift to myself. A chance for me to taste the forbidden fruit of the past and then move on.”

“Why are you in this car with me now?”

“I wanted to hear what you had to say,” she said. “I really don’t know much about you.”

“Or I about you,” he said.

“I think men like it that way,” she said.

“Men? I hope I’m a little different than every other man out there,” he said. “I think I want to know everything about you.”

She shook her head. “I doubt that. As long as I have secrets then I will be mysterious and just a little more attractive to you.”

“You couldn’t be anything less than you are right now, Becca. I want you.”

She shook her head again. “I know you do, but we aren’t going down that path.”

“I can’t think of anything except you in my arms,” he said, watching her blush.

“Why are you here? You said Justin is helping his fiancée move.”

He laughed. “Fine. I will stop talking about your sexy little body for a few a minutes, but I can’t stop thinking about you naked in my arms.”

“Cam.”

“Okay.” He knew he was pushing her, but he only had this night before he had to return to Miami. And apologizing for the way things had ended between them wasn’t enough to repair the damage he’d done. He wanted her back. He hadn’t realized how much until he’d danced with her. Kissed her.

“I’m here visiting Justin and to attend this charity ball tonight. The African Children’s Fund was one of my mother’s pet charities,” Cam said as the car started moving.

“Well, that’s nice.” She would have liked to think that she’d made a clean break with everything Cam Stern, but she still read about him in magazines, and late at night when she was feeling very alone, she sometimes went on the internet and read about him. She should have realized he’d be here tonight, but honestly, she’d been busy with work, and having an eighteen-month-old kept her on her toes.

“What have you been up to?” she asked.

“I think I mentioned we are celebrating Luna Azul’s tenth anniversary. Even if you can’t take me on as a client, I would like you to come to Miami. My invitation earlier was genuine.”

“Um …”

“Think about it, Becca.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, but she knew the answer had to be no.

“Ten years is a long time,” she said.

“Yes, it is. Are you interested in redesigning the new marketplace?”

“Sounds like that will be a fun project. You can email me the details on that.”

“Are you really going to make small talk and pretend that a casual business acquaintance is all that we have between us? “

“Yup,” she said. “That’s all we have.”

“I remember,” he said. “But I never meant for those weeks to be the only ones we spent together.”

“I know you wanted me to be your mistress … I’m sorry I asked for more.”

He said nothing and the silence grew between them.

“You travelled a lot for business back then and I expected you to be back in Miami frequently.”

“I stopped working for Russell so I wasn’t making as many trips to Miami as I used to.”

She bit back a sad smile. To Cam she was just someone to have sex with. She’d seen that pretty early on, and while she enjoyed the white-hot passion that flowed so strongly between them, once she’d discovered she was pregnant, she knew she couldn’t be with him.

She had someone else to think of … Ty. Her little gift from Cam.

But talking to him made her realize why she’d liked him so much. The truth was, from the first moment they’d met she’d liked him. He was honest and fair and so damned handsome that she couldn’t stop staring at him.

Blue was such a nondescript word for the color of his eyes. They were deep blue, the kind of color that she’d seen in only one other place—the azure waters of Fiji. His jaw was strong and well-defined, but it was his mouth that captured her. Those strong lips that felt so soft and so right against her own.

“You’re staring at me,” he said wryly.

“I forgot how good-looking you are.”

That startled a laugh out of him. “Why did you start your own business? Do you like it?”

“I do,” she admitted. “More than I expected to. And being my own boss means I can control my workload. You know Russell is a complete workaholic, so if I’d continued at Kiwi I would probably be in the office tonight.”

“Very true,” Cam said, stretching his arm along the back of the seat. His fingers brushed her shoulder and she glanced up at him to see if he was trying to distract her. But he didn’t seem to notice the accidental touch.

Cam watched her carefully, and she hoped that he took her story at face value and let the topic drop. She knew that right now she had the opportunity to tell him about Ty, but she couldn’t find the words.

He tipped his head to the side, and she realized that this evening wasn’t going the way she wanted it to. She should be home with Ty.

She thought about how scared she’d been the first night she’d brought him home from the hospital. She had always been focused on her career, so she hadn’t had any girlfriends to come and stay with her. And every time little Ty had cried, she’d cried with him.

It had been the longest night of her life, and she’d missed her own mom so keenly it had hurt. But then morning had come, and she and Ty had found their own way.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. Seeing Cam again gave her a chance to let him know that he had a son. But she had no idea how he felt about family. She knew he didn’t believe in love and had two years ago wanted nothing more from a woman than sex.

“Have you ever thought about having a family? Not just your brothers. I mean a family of your own.”

This was it. If he said, Yes, I’d love to have kids, then she would say, Oh, that’s funny, you have a son.

“No.”

“Why not?” she asked. Already she had an inkling she wasn’t going to like the answer. Cam was too much of a workaholic businessman to want a family. He had only had time for the affair with her because it hadn’t interfered with his job. And she knew that.

“I had a paternity suit brought against me right as Luna Azul started taking off. The suit was false but we had to go to court and I think that made me realize that having a child was something I wanted to take very seriously. I didn’t want to have a child with just any woman.”

Becca’s stomach dropped, and she felt like she was going to be sick. She wrapped an arm around her own waist and knew there was no way she could just tell Cam that Ty was his son. In fact, she just wanted to get out of this car and return to her safe little home as quickly as possible.