The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011(156)

She raised her hands and pressed against his chest, vehemently emphasizing each word, and pushing him back a step. Connor caught her wrists before she wound up for another push.

“Stop! Holly, stop!”

“No! I don’t want to stop. I can’t live like this with you dictating everything I do. I can’t wait to get away from here—away from you!”

Her eyes washed with tears. They were his undoing. Maybe he’d been too dictatorial. But she didn’t understand what was at stake, or why this child was so important to him. But she was wrong, he realised with damning clarity. She was more than just an incubator for his baby. Somewhere along the line she’d inveigled her way into a crack in his heart. A crack that was opening to let her into a piece of him he fought to hold apart.

If he wanted to be totally honest with himself right now, his first thought had been about the potential danger to her. He hadn’t even been thinking about the baby when he’d seen Holly twist and begin to fall. Even now, just thinking about it—the startled look in her eyes, the position of her body—made him feel sick to his stomach.

As he held Holly’s hands and looked down into her face, tears pooled in her lower lids and one by one spilled over her lower lashes to track twin trails down her smooth cheeks.

He didn’t want to admit that he cared for her, nor the vulnerability it would leave him open to. Loving his unborn baby was simple. There could be no lies between them, no trust broken. Loving Holly was not an option.

Warily he let go her hands and took a step backwards. Anything that created some barrier between them had to be good, even if it was only a short, air-filled distance.

“Okay, I admit it. I overreacted. But I mean it about the contractors. I will get them in to do the basics.” He saw her stiffen, and rushed on before she could interrupt. “To do the basics only. The rest you can do yourself.”

“Define the rest.”

“Anything that you can safely reach without requiring assistance like ladders or that wretched scaffolding you put up. Is that completely clear?”

“Yes.”

He turned to walk away, pulling his jacket off and tossing it onto the bed. The evening sun glinted on the metal edge of the wallpaper scraper where it had landed on the floor. He bent to pick it up and turned to face Holly. “I believe this is yours?”

A wash of pink coloured her neck and upwards to her cheeks. She put out her hand to accept the scraper. “I’m sorry. I overreacted, too.”

Connor held onto one end of the scraper even as she held the other. “Truce?”

“Yes,” she whispered again, this time with her eyes fixed on the carpet between their feet, as if she was ashamed to meet his eyes. She’d caught her lower lip between her teeth, biting down hard enough that all colour fled their usual rosy fullness.

Connor tugged gently on the scraper, pulling her slightly off balance and into his arms. Her surprise at being pulled off centre made her let go her lip, and he watched as colour returned to the soft membrane.

He had to taste her.

He lowered his head and drew her more firmly into his hold. She tasted of a heady combination of salt and dust. But more than that, she tasted of her incredibly individual and enticing sweetness and spice that left him constantly craving for more.

Reluctantly he let her go. Any more of this and it would get to be a habit. He had to remember why she was here and how temporary it was. Remember who she was and the fact she was prepared to walk away from their child without so much as a backward glance. A man didn’t love a woman like that.

Love?

A wave of denial swamped him. No way. There was no way he’d let himself love Holly. His son or daughter, no matter how perfect or imperfect, would see the light of day. Would feel the warmth of its father’s arms, would know—every single day of its life—the love that was for his child and his alone. He had no room in his heart to love another.

He turned away abruptly, wrenched off his tie and yanked at the buttons on his shirt on his way through to the en suite. It had been a day of pure chaos in the office. Janet was good at her job, but she wasn’t Holly. The calm and controlled order he’d taken for granted each day had gone to hell in a hand basket, and it didn’t look as if it would improve anytime soon. He needed a stiff drink and dinner, and then enough work to ensure he’d fall asleep exhausted, immune to the temptation of wanting to slide inside her body and slake the hunger she set alight in him.

As he’d driven himself to the top of his field, he’d learned to recognise weakness in all its forms and to identify his opponent’s Achilles’ Heel. He’d honed the ability into a sixth sense and become a master at capitalizing on it, using it to his advantage, then driving home an unbreakable deal.