Reunited for the Billionaire's Legacy(17)

Lucie set their salads down in front of them. The scowl disappeared from Diana’s face long enough for her to give the cook a smile. It disappeared when she left. “I need to think about it. It needs to be somewhere central for me for work.”

“You don’t have a job. And you won’t for a few years to come.”

“You’ve decided that, have you?” She picked up her fork and pointed it at him. “I have a career, Coburn. I’ve spent fourteen years studying to become a surgeon. Maybe you should stay home and I should work.”

“And that would make sense since you just quit your job, you’re the one having the baby who’ll need the recovery time and I just took the job as CEO of a multibillion-dollar company.”

“You’re the one preaching sacrifice.”

“Not on this. Yes you will go back to work, but the early years for a child are crucial. You know that better than anyone. You can go back to work when they’re in grade school.”

“Grade school? That would kill my career. Who’s going to want to hire me after five years away from the knife?”

“What’s the alternative? Do you want our child to be raised by a nanny?”

A flush filled her cheeks. “I don’t know. I need more time to think about it.”

“I do. I was raised by a succession of nannies. My father worked every waking hour of the day and my mother spent all her time laying the charitable groundwork to be a politician’s wife. I will not have our child raised like that. We will be emotionally and physically present for him or her.”

Her hand fisted on the table. “Me working doesn’t preclude that.”

“Yes it does. Your job is all consuming and you know it.”

“I can work part-time.”

“And how does that work out for most of the surgeons you know? Then comes the phone call at two in the morning and you’re out the door. You need to be realistic here.”

“Coburn—”

“It’s not happening. You have to start acknowledging your limits, Diana. Now.”

She blinked hard and stared down at her plate. He watched her in astonishment. Were those tears? Tears of anger or real tears?

She looked up at him. The stormy expression in her ebony eyes gave him his answer. “I found out a week ago that my life as I know it is going to change irrevocably. I gave up my dream in Africa because of it and have agreed to give this marriage a shot for the sake of this baby. But if you continue to push me like this, I will walk the minute we set foot in New York and you will be talking to me through our lawyers.”

He took in the defiant angle of her chin. The fierce glitter in her eyes. She meant it. “All right,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’ll back off, I promise. But we need to make these decisions soon. Finding a house in New York is going to take time.”

“Wrapping my head around all this is going to take time. Give me some space.”

He proved he could by making small talk throughout the rest of the meal and ensuring she put food in her mouth, albeit a small amount. By the time they got to dessert, she looked as if she was going to fall asleep in her seat. When her eyelids closed for the third time in a minute, he pushed back his chair and stood up. “Bedtime.”

Her eyes flew open.

“For you,” he drawled. “Although you know I am available whenever you have the urge.”

She scowled at him and stood. Swayed slightly. He stepped to her side with a lightning-quick reflex and slid an arm around her waist. “What’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed in a far-too-pale face. “I just stood up too fast.”

He frowned as she leaned into him. “Does this happen a lot?”

“It’s my cardiovascular system catching up.” She took a few more breaths, then stepped away from him. She didn’t look much steadier on her feet. He cursed and slid an arm under her legs and back to pick her up. Her protests ringing in his ears, he carried her inside and up the stairs past a wide-eyed Lucie, who probably thought they were destined for a night of hot sex. He wished.

“This is unnecessary,” Diana muttered as he shouldered his way into her room and nudged on the light. He set her down on the carpet, keeping his arm around her because she still looked far too pale for his liking. She extracted herself and looked expectantly toward the door. “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “I want you in bed first. Otherwise I’ll have visions of you keeling over in the bathroom.”

“Coburn, I’m fine.”

He sat down on the bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go brush your teeth.”

She marched off to the bathroom and shut the door with a loud thump. He turned the bed down and waited. When she came back a few minutes later, her cheeks had recovered a bit of color. “You can go now.”

“Get undressed first and into bed.”

She shook her head. “Out.”

“I don’t take orders from fainting pregnant women.”

“I didn’t faint.”

He set his jaw.

She muttered an expletive under her breath, raised her arms and stripped off her dress. His gaze drifted down over her lacy white bra to her flat stomach. “When will you start to show?”

“Not for a while.”

She reached past him for her nightshirt. He caught her hand with his, bringing it to the curve of her stomach. Her breath hissed from her throat as his fingers flattened across her warm, silky skin. His baby was in there. His baby. A surge of emotion passed through him, almost blinding in its intensity. Up until this point, he had felt only anger and frustration, but this, this was something else entirely. Elemental. Powerful.

He raised his gaze to Diana’s. Something passed between them then—the knowledge that they had created this together. That no matter how mixed up they had been when they had made this life, it was about to transcend them both.

He moved his gaze back up over her breasts, straining against the lace of her bra. They were swollen, larger than the handful he’d always coveted, the tips of each peak stained a darkish red-brown.

“Your body is already changing.”

Her nipples hardened beneath his gaze. Her cheeks were filled with a rosy color when he lifted his eyes to hers. She curled her fingers around his hand on her stomach and pulled it away, confusion darkening her eyes to inky black pools. “Leave, Coburn.”

“Why?” A husky note infiltrated his voice. “You know how much easier this would be if you let me get under your skin.”

“Easier how? So you can have your way?”

He immersed himself in the hazy, conflicted desire shining in her eyes. “Because of all the things we’ve screwed up, this has always been right.”

“No.” Her denial pierced the air between them, an iron edge to her vehement tone. “This is what we do, Coburn. We use sex to cover up all the other things that are wrong with us. If you truly want this to work, it has to be about more than that.”

“See, that’s where you and I see it differently.” He reached up and tucked a wayward chunk of her hair behind her ear. “For me, sex is part of the solution.”

She turned and reached for her nightshirt. Stripping off her bra with maximum efficiency, she pulled on the short, less than feminine cotton shirt he’d always hated, hiding her curves from view. But not before he got a perfect silhouette of her ripe, swollen breasts, which woke his frustration from that afternoon up in a hurry.

“How about,” he offered silkily, dropping his gaze to her bare, delectable thighs, “I just take care of you? The way you like it best? It would put you to sleep...get all that frustration out. We don’t even have to call it sex.”

Her face turned the color of a ripe tomato. “Get out of my room.”

He shrugged and strolled to the door. “Call me if you change your mind. I’m just around the corner.”

The bad word she uttered under her breath made him smile. “Oh, and, Diana...?” He turned around, absorbing her mutinous stance, hands clenched by her sides. “I’m expecting us both to bring things to the table this week. Things that will help us bridge this divide between us. So use the time between now and tomorrow to think of what you want to address. Questions you have for me, things you hate about me... This is your chance. But be ready by nine. I’m taking you for a sail.”

“A sail?”

“Arthur has a beautiful sixty-five footer. Assuming you still remember how to man a boat?”

“I’m rusty, but yes. What does this Arthur do if he owns million-dollar islands and beautiful yachts?”

“Airlines. Railroads. He’s an old friend from my cycling days.”

She eyed him. “So this is what we’re going to do? Address our marriage like a grocery list?”

He lifted a shoulder. “You took sex off the table. I’m just following your lead.”

He left then. She needed rest. And if he wasn’t going to spend his night buried in his wife’s delectable body, he had a handful of pressing emails to address.

He took a glass of brandy into the library, sat down at the desk and flicked on his computer. But he couldn’t seem to focus. His head was too busy processing the raw and unabridged version of his marriage according to his wife. She had chosen to call out “irreconcilable differences” on the divorce papers sitting in his office, which would have made sense to him given their different philosophies on life. But unbeknownst to him, she had also apparently spent their entire marriage waiting for him to call it quits and walk out the door. Just as her father had.