Candace held his gaze bravely. “Of course it’s my business. I gave you both my baby on the assumption that Jennie was going to a loving family.” Her naïveté made her want to cry. She should’ve taken more care…
Rather than accept Jilly’s logical explanation that Nick wanted to pretend the baby was his wife’s, Candace should have insisted on meeting him. Instead, she’d been satisfied by a pile of newspaper and magazine cuttings—all of which had deified him as an eco-friendly tycoon. She’d let her worries be soothed.
Dumb.
Nick rose restlessly to his feet. “I did receive a call confirming that you’re Jennie’s birth mother. But you must be aware by now that I didn’t even know about your decision to give your baby up—you made that all by yourself.”
Pain stabbed at her. Then anger flared and she gave a snort of disgust. “You’re going to heap all the blame on me?”
“Don’t expect me to believe you did it out of the kindness of your heart. What was in it for you?” he badgered.
Candace bent her head and studied the rich colors of the Persian rug. Why was nothing ever simple? “In terms of New Zealand law, all I was entitled to recover were the expenses I incurred.”
Nick waved a dismissive hand. “I’m aware of that, but there are any number of ways around the legalities.”
At the cynical note in his voice Candace glanced sharply up at him. How could he suspect? She couldn’t read his expression, but his lips were curled into an unpleasant sneer.
“So what did my wife offer you for the gift of Jennie?” There was an icy inflection on the word gift. “What price did you put on your baby?”
It hadn’t been like that. “Nothing!”
Although that wasn’t strictly true. But the financial assistance had come later—once she and Jilly had become friends. That had made the arrangement acceptable, one of friendship.
It had been an unlikely friendship, but during her pregnancy Candace had grown to feel an incredible sympathy for Nick Valentine’s wife. Jilly had appeared to have everything most women dreamed of. A husband she adored. Plenty of friends. Yet she had seemed lonely, her life empty. The baby she’d wanted more than anything in the world had been an impossible dream…until Candace had come to her rescue.
“You’re sure?”
“Why do you think your wife would’ve had to pay me for a baby?” Candace countered desperately. “Are you so devoid of human kindness that you can’t believe it’s possible for anyone to be selfless?”
A strange expression crossed his face.
He came closer. Candace’s pulse picked up speed as he leaned forward and placed his hands on the sofa back, trapping her inside the curve of his arms. “Are you telling me you’re the real deal? A true angel?”
Her breath quickened. She couldn’t look away. “I’m no angel. I’m all too human.”
“Are you?” His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Candace’s heart thundered in her chest. She felt dazed, disoriented. “I’m just like a million other women out there,” she managed breathlessly.
“I don’t think so.” His head came closer still. “I must’ve met almost a million women in my life and you’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”
It hurt to breathe. “A million women?” she asked skeptically.
The side of his mouth kicked up. “Maybe that’s an exaggeration.”
“What’s so different about me?”
One hand dropped away from the sofa back to cup her cheek, his gaze intense. “I thought it was only Jennie who had skin as velvety as a Queen Anne peach.”
He hadn’t answered her. She didn’t press him. Maybe it was for the best not to know.
“Genetics.” Candace tried to laugh his intensity off. “My mother’s skin is soft, too.”
The back of his hand brushed down the side of her throat to the top button of the fine cotton-knit cardigan she’d donned with jeans after she’d hurriedly gotten out the bath, fearful he might make good on his threat to return.
His index finger rested on the pearly button, above the hollow between her breasts, and her breath quickened.
The button popped loose.
Candace’s heart stopped.
When Nick bent forward her lips parted. There was a moment before his mouth touched hers, a time when she could’ve told him to stop, that she didn’t want this awful complication. Candace didn’t utter a sound.
Instead, her eyelids fluttered down.
His lips were unexpectedly cool as he kissed her. Heat ignited, wild and raging. The hand on her jaw pressed her closer and the angle changed. Nick let out a hiss and his touch gentled, the kiss becoming increasingly intimate. Candace burrowed against him with small, hungry movements of a cat.