The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011(144)

By the time Holly had dried herself and wrapped the soft terry cloth robe around her frame, all she craved was unconsciousness. She didn’t want to think anymore. She didn’t want to feel. Tomorrow would be soon enough to face her demons.

Some time in the night a sound penetrated her sleep, rousing her enough to open her eyes.

Connor.

She’d left the drapes open, to give her some sense of contact with the familiarity of the city she’d left behind. Now she could see him clearly as he stood, framed in the window, naked. Her body clenched at the beauty of him as moonlight caressed his form. His muscles, like sculpted marble, were thrown in deeper definition by the silver light cast through the window.

Holly squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t bear to look at him and not want to mould her fingers over each perfect line. To touch him as she’d always dreamed of doing. Yet she knew her hopes and desires were futile. He would no more welcome her attentions than he’d allow her the freedom to return to her house. She was ensnared by her own foolish love. A love that lay in tatters—barren of hope.

She held her breath as she heard him move across the floor and slide in between the divinely soft and faintly scented cotton sheets. All her senses screamed to full alert as he moved across the wide expanse of no-man’s land in the centre of the bed, to where she’d curled up far on one side.

His arm, hot and heavy, hooked around her, pulling her to him until, through the towelling robe, her back was infused with the hard heat of his body. She felt the tie at her waist slide loose and the fabric part as he gently pushed his hand past the cloth barrier to her skin.

Her nipples tightened and tingled as his fingers stroked her, cupping the almost nonexistent curve of her belly as if cradling the new life that grew deep inside of her. He was aroused; she could feel the pressure of his erection cradled by her buttocks. Flames licked from her core, setting a hot throb of desire through her. Would he make love with her? Did he know she was awake? Wanting him? Feeling him want her? All she had to do was shift her hips and the short robe would ride a little further and she’d feel him against her.

His hand at her stomach stilled. No longer stroking. Just there. She felt his body relax against hers and heard his breathing settle into a deep even rhythm. He was asleep?

Her nerve endings shrieked their disbelief. Her body was on tormented full alert and he’d gone to sleep. It was another slap in the face. Emphatic proof that his interest lay in the baby, and only in the baby.

Gently, then with a little more pressure, Holly tried to push his arm away from across her waist. His breathing didn’t alter but she felt the corded muscles in his arm bunch beneath her fingers as he pulled her harder against him.

He wasn’t letting go. His strength should give her comfort. She tried to rationalise her fractured thoughts in an attempt to calm the need that spiralled in coils of tension throughout her body.

Instead, pain carved to the depths of her soul—it wasn’t her he wanted.





Nine


Connor straightened his tie and slipped into his jacket. The rustle of the lining didn’t even disturb Holly as she lay sprawled across the bed.

It was a week since she’d made her outrageous demands reducing herself to nothing but a surrogate bearing his child. A week since he’d learned he’d be a father and watched his child’s mother sign away all rights to her natural state. It had sickened him to his heart to see her do so. He’d given her every opportunity that night to argue for her position in their baby’s life. But she’d been almost thankful to accept the terms he’d stated, never believing for a minute that she would rescind all rights to him like that or that she’d be just as driven by money as his ex-wife had been.

Once he’d discovered Holly’s financial problems were based in her obligations to Andrea, he’d relaxed a little on pressuring the investigator. The dearth of information had been frustrating, anyway. It was as if she’d been born at the age of fifteen, when she’d finally been placed with the family where she’d met Andrea.

Connor reached out his hand and touched Holly lightly on the shoulder. “We have an appointment with an obstetrician this morning. It’s time you got up.”

She sat upright, her disoriented state lending a charming dishevelment to her normally aloof air. Then the expression on her face, at first slightly puzzled, changed as her skin paled. Her eyes were deep-blue lakes in their sockets. She muffled a tiny moan of dismay behind fingers pressed to her mouth, and he watched, helpless, as she bolted for the bathroom. What had started as afternoon sickness, now dominated her whole day, and he worried incessantly that she wasn’t getting enough nutrition.