The Secret Baby Scandal(23)

The pride in his voice made a laugh escape Carrie in spite of herself. Sitting up straight against the pillow, she reached out her hands. “Give him here.”#p#分页标题#e#

Théo handed the baby to her where she sat on the bed in her oversize T-shirt. She was making no effort to be pretty this time. She wasn’t trying to impress him anymore, as she had last year with sexy clothes and elaborate hair and makeup. This time it was strictly casual, with no makeup, sundresses by day and ratty old T-shirts by night. And yet he seemed dazzled, intoxicated by her. Just as she was by him.

As Carrie started to nurse the baby Théo watched for an instant. His black eyes seemed to devour her. Then he abruptly turned away. “I’ll be right back.”

Some of the warmth drained out of the room with him. A sigh escaped her lips as Carrie stared after him.

With Théo around there was no such color as gray. He brought vibrancy to her life. He’d taken her from a drizzly life of clouds and rain and made her whole world a summer in Provence, with blue skies, and lavender waving in the hot wind beneath a yellow sun. After a year of winter, she’d opened to him like a sunflower in spring.

She looked down at her blissfully suckling child.

Only two days until they’d get the results of the paternity test, and they could leave. Two more days to keep silent about her feelings.

If she could hide her love for two more days, she and Théo might come to an arrangement. Henry would live with her in Seattle, but often visit his father in France, or Théo would come visit them. And somehow, eventually, when she didn’t have to see Théo every single day, her love for him would slowly die.

It was her only hope.

She heard a noise and looked up to see Théo in the doorway. Her eyes unwillingly traced the hard curves of his upper body, his wide shoulders, thickly muscled biceps and flat belly. Even the way he walked toward her caused a sensual shiver across her body.

He set down a breakfast tray near her on the bed. “Your breakfast, milady.”

She saw orange juice, coffee with cream, fresh fruit, toast and jam, and an assortment of breads and buttery French pastries. His kindness took her breath away. “You made breakfast?”

He gave her a crooked half grin. “Lilley made it.”

“Of course.” Carrie smiled up at him, still grateful for the thoughtful gesture, then looked back at the luscious tray. “I should have known it wasn’t you,” she teased. “It’s not burned black.”

He sat down beside her on the bed. His dark, half-lidded eyes seared through her. “I would burn toast for you every morning if that would win you, Carrie,” he said in a low voice. “I’d burn it morning, noon and night.”

Her heart thudded in her throat, but she tried to smile. “Sorry,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “The ability to burn toast is not the top item on my list for a prospective husband.”

“So what is?” he asked, stroking back a tendril of her hair. He leaned forward, his eyes intent. “Tell me how to win you,” he whispered against her skin, and she shivered. “Tell me.”

Carrie closed her eyes. Love me. Just love me.

But she shook her head over the lump in her throat. “Forget it. I’m not going to lose this battle.”

He looked down at her. “We’ll see.”

A shudder went through her. She had to resist. Her fingers gripped the top of the white quilt. She had to!

Théo looked down at the baby’s downy head with a tenderness that made her heart leap to her throat. “Is he finished?”

The baby had unlatched, and now pushed his head away from her breast. “I think so,” she said drily.

Picking him up, Théo cradled his son in his arms. “I’m going to teach you everything,” he told the baby. “How to play football, how to ride a bike…”#p#分页标题#e#

“How to buy a company and break it up for parts?” she teased.

Théo flashed her a sudden grin, and the way his smile lit up his darkly handsome face took her breath away. “Ben, oui.”

Still smiling, he sat down on the handwoven rug, holding the baby in his lap. Putting his large hands over his son’s feet, he played a French version of patty-cake, clapping Henry’s little feet together lightly. They were quite the pair—Théo so muscular and powerful, sitting bare-chested in pajama bottoms, with their tiny son cradled in his arms. A moment later, he was reading to Henry in French from a picture book about Babar the Elephant that she’d purchased from a bookshop earlier that week. Carrie drank creamy coffee and watched them as she ate pastries in bed, as a beam of golden sunlight hit against the bare skin of Théo’s muscular back.