Pursued(16)

A big guy with a camera hanging around his neck finally stopped him  when he was halfway through the room. But when Nic told him he had  something to deliver to D. E. Maddox, the guy waved him toward a desk in  the back corner. It was, surprisingly, one of only three desks in the  cavernous space that actually had someone sitting at it.

Which was even more perfect. He'd prefer to confront Maddox and get this over with as quickly as possible.

As he approached, she had her back to him, which gave him a perfect  view of what looked like miles of platinum blond hair. The sight tugged  something inside of him, making him think of Desi and the night he'd  spent with her hair fanned out on his pillow. He shoved the memory  down-the last thing he needed right now was to be distracted by thoughts  of her-but for some reason she just wouldn't leave his head. It was  only when he got closer to the woman that he understood why that was.

As he approached her at an angle, he could see her profile clearly.  Could see her high cheekbones and lush full lips. Could see her  sun-kissed skin and the dimple low on her right cheek. Suddenly it  didn't seem so far-fetched that she reminded him of the woman he had  spent the past eighteen weeks trying to forget.

"Desi?" He hadn't meant to say her name out loud, hadn't meant to  attract her attention until he'd had a second to deal with the shock of  finding out that D. E. Maddox, hated reporter and company annihilator,  was none other than the woman he'd taken home for one unforgettable  night.

But she turned toward him as soon as he said her name, her eyes  widening as she realized who it was standing only a few feet from her  desk. He expected her to look guilty, or at the very least, apologetic.  Instead, her eyes burned with a fury that made the anger in his own gut  look like nothing.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded as she pushed to her feet. "Slumming it?"

Slumming it? He couldn't even figure out what she meant, let alone how  he was supposed to respond to the bizarre accusation. How could he  understand when he was still reeling from the realization that Desi had  been investigating him for weeks? That she'd been right under his nose  for the past few days and he hadn't had a clue?

"Well?" she asked, and it was the impatience in her voice that finally kick-started his brain into gear.

"I'm here to deliver this to D. E. Maddox," he said, brandishing the  folder like the weapon it was. "But I have to admit I'm a little  surprised to see you sitting at her desk."

"I don't know why you would be." She had the audacity to shrug. "It's not like you know anything about me."

"So you're really going to do this?" he demanded as the fury inside him  kindled into ugly rage. "Pretend that nothing happened between us."

"Nothing did happen between us," she answered coolly. "At least, nothing important."

"So that night was what? A setup for this, then? A way for you to get  to know your assignment before you ruined his business and his life?"

"I didn't ruin your life or your business. You did that all on your own when you decided to trade in conflict diamonds."

"I told your managing editor the other day and now I'm telling you.  Bijoux does not deal in conflict diamonds." He dropped the folder on her  desk. "I've got the proof that we don't right here."

She didn't even bother to glance down at the file. "And I have proof that you do."

"So show it to me."

"I'm not going to do that."

"Of course not. Who cares if you run a fake story as long as you get the attention you need, right?"

"I don't fake evidence," she said as she stood up and started around the desk. "And I didn't fake this story."

"Well, someone sure as hell faked evidence. Maybe it wasn't you. Maybe  you're not inherently dishonest. Maybe you're just a sloppy reporter."                       
       
           



       

"Who do you think you are?" she demanded as she went toe-to-toe with him.

For a second-just a second-he was distracted by her flashing eyes and  flushed skin. By her honeysuckle-and-vanilla scent. By her warmth. But  then her words sank in and he found his temper flashing from dangerous  to boiling point in the space of one breath and the next.

"Who do I think I am?" he repeated. "I don't think anything,  sweetheart. I know exactly who I am. I'm the man whose career-and  hundred-year-old family business-you set out to ruin on a whim. I'm the  man you have accused of the vilest crimes and human rights violations  imaginable. I'm the man you slept with to get a story and then dropped  the moment you realized I wouldn't be useful to you."

"I didn't accuse you of anything you haven't done. And I didn't drop you. You dropped me."

He stared at her, speechless. For a moment, he honestly feared his head  would explode. "Is that how you do it?" he wondered aloud. "Is that how  you justify the lives you ruin? You just rewrite history to fit  whatever version you need it to fit? You need a big story to break your  career wide open? No problem. It's easy to manufacture evidence. You  want to forget that you slept with me to get a story? That's easy. Just  pretend I didn't text you for weeks trying to get you to talk to me." He  threw his arms wide. "You've missed your calling, Desi. Oops, I mean  D.E. You shouldn't be a journalist. You should be a fiction writer.  You'd probably top the charts with your very first book."

She didn't answer him for long seconds. Instead she just stared at him  with her jaw locked and her eyes as cold and blue as the Pacific in the  middle of a midwinter temper tantrum.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she finally said.

"You know, you're going to call me a liar one time too many and then … "

"And then what?"

He was too stunned by her brazenness and her sheer lack of remorse to answer.

"That's what I thought," she sneered. "You've got nothing."

Rage exploded within him, mixed with disbelief and confusion and more  attraction than he wanted to admit to, and Nic finally snapped. Taking a  step forward, he crowded her against her desk before closing the last  inches between them. But the second his body brushed against hers, he  knew he'd made a mistake. Because with that first touch, the low-grade  attraction that had hummed between them from the moment he'd said her  name exploded into a conflagration of fiery want and desperate need.

He wasn't the only one affected. He could see Desi's awareness in her  flushed skin. Could hear it in her ragged breathing and feel it in the  not-quite-steady hands she pressed against his chest.

"What are you doing?" she whispered as he pressed even closer.

"I don't have a clue," he admitted.

"Then maybe you should stop."

"Maybe I should. But if you want me to do that, you probably shouldn't  hold me quite so tightly." He glanced down to where she had tangled her  fingers in his dress shirt.

She gasped then, started to pull back. But he didn't let her. Instead,  he held her in place with one hand on her hip and the other between her  shoulder blades.

Time stopped as they stood there, bodies locked together in a  too-intimate bid for dominance-of the situation and each other. He  didn't know what he was doing, didn't know what he was pushing for. All  he knew was that part of him wanted to punish her for what she'd put him  through but the other part of him wanted nothing more than to take her  back to his house and make love to her until she screamed his name.  Until she couldn't even think of defying him again.

They might have stayed there forever in their oddly intimate standoff,  except just as Nic shifted to make sure she was comfortable, he felt a  small but very definite kick against his abdomen.

"What was that?" he demanded, jumping back.

"That," she said, looking pointedly down at her gently rounded stomach, "is why I left you a voice mail."





Eight

She couldn't tell if Nic looked more stupefied or stupid as he gazed  down at the firm curve of her stomach. "Close your mouth," she told him  after a minute, "or you'll end up catching flies."

"You're pregnant?"

"Sure looks like it, doesn't it?" She didn't mean to be flippant, but  come on. How long was he going to keep up this charade? After trying to  get him on the phone three different times, she'd finally given up and  broken the news to him in a voice mail. And she hadn't been delicate  about the information, either. She'd told him, straight up, that she was  pregnant and that she'd very much like it if he'd call her back.