“I’ll walk you to your trailer so you can pack your things.”
Lily jerked back. “Pack my things?”
“You’re coming to stay with me.”
Lily completely removed herself from his touch and crossed her arms over her chest. “Stay with you? Why on earth would I do that?”
“So I can take care of you.”
Laughing, Lily shook her head. “I’m not dying, Nash. I’m having a baby.”
“My baby,” he corrected. “I want you with me, Lily.”
“How am I going to explain why I’m living with you and not in my trailer? Nobody knows about our affair.”
Nash shrugged. “I don’t care what they think. I care about your health and our baby.”
“Well I care,” she all but shouted, throwing her hands to the side. “The media is just waiting to publish something juicy on me. Don’t you understand that I have a career, a life, and I can’t throw it away because you want to take charge? I’ve worked too hard to overcome the reputation Hollywood first gave me. I’m no longer the wild child of the industry. I’m respected and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Fine, so he was thinking selfishly, but still, he refused to let her go through this alone. Just the thought of his mother being in this position once upon a time had his stomach tightening. Besides, this was Lily. She was a drug in his system and having her close by at all times would only feed their sexual appetite even further.
Maybe he needed to rein in the testosterone. But only for now and only because he refused to back down. He would still find a way to keep her close whether she liked it or not. Yes, he wanted the sex, but now that there was a child involved...he wanted to be right there every step of the way for his son or daughter.
“Fine. I’ll come stay with you.”
Lily raised a brow and tilted her head. “Seriously, Nash. I’m fine. I’m not going to do anything but sleep and work.”
“That’s what concerns me,” he retorted. “You’re getting tired and you’re pushing yourself because the film is almost finished. You passed out, for crying out loud.”
“I can’t stop working.”
Moments ago he’d been ready to take her up to the loft. Now he was struggling with how many more lies he would have to tell before this was all over.
Horses shifted in their stalls behind him, the sunset cast a bright orange glow straight through the wide-open stable doors. The setting epitomized calm and serenity...too bad the storm inside him was anything but.
“What about after you’re done filming? What will we do about the baby?”
And there it was. The ultimate question that wedged heavily between them, but he had to throw it out there. He had to know what her plans were. He wasn’t ready for a family by any means, but considering he and Lily lived on opposite sides of the country, they needed to figure out how they could both be in this child’s life.
Lily smoothed her hair away from her face, turned away from him and sighed. “I don’t know, Nash. I truly don’t know.”
They had time to consider how to deal with the baby. For now, Nash needed to stick with his original agenda and nothing could get in his way. He’d done enough spying, enough eavesdropping to calculate his next move.