Waking Up Pregnant(47)

                That dress she’d had on earlier—hell, it had been so damn sexy. Hugging the curves of her breasts, sliding around her hips and thighs, and there for the first time, he’d seen the barest curve of her belly. He’d wanted to put his hand over the little swell, rub his face against the silky fabric and whisper to the child they were sharing between them.

                The possessive impulse stabbing through him had been sharp and deep, and he’d nearly blown a gasket at the thought she looked like that for another man.

                But then the craziest thing had happened. She’d given him one of her placid smiles, the kind so bland, it wasn’t supposed to reveal a single thing about the thought process taking place behind it...and he’d seen exactly what she was thinking.

                She didn’t want to go. She’d wanted to stay with him, like he wanted to stay with her. Because they were becoming friends, and the lure of this mutual interest that went deeper than any he’d known before, was almost impossible to resist.

                Darcy’s eyes closed, her features falling into a gentle expression so soft and beautiful, Jeff couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop the words that came from his mouth next because he hadn’t even realized he was thinking them.

                “Why did you go?”

                Those gray eyes blinked open at him, so unguarded he knew right then she hadn’t understood what he was asking.

                He had the chance to take it back. Pretend at asking something other than the question haunting him for five months already. But he wanted to know. Somehow, he needed to, despite the fact it wouldn’t change anything.

                “In Vegas. Why did you leave the way you did?”

                Like he knew it would, the soft smile hovering over her lips evaporated into the air along with the ease and comfort that had been between them.

                Darcy’s arms crossed over the small swell of her belly. Defensive. Guarded.

                “I had to go. I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

                Damn it, he didn’t get it. “Why not? We met. We had fun. We had chemistry. What was so horrible about one night of giving in to it? It wasn’t like you made it a biweekly habit.”

                The look she gave him held shades of hurt he didn’t understand. “I know for you, one night is no big deal. You meet someone, have some fun, decide you want to take it back to your room for the night...and you go for it. You’re good with a few hours of giving in because you won’t walk away bruised. You won’t get caught up in feelings you don’t want to have. You won’t start building fantasies about a reality that has an expiration date of a couple hours from then. But it’s not like that for me. I’ve spent the past ten years being the only person looking out for me. So I’ve been careful. About my job. My time. My life. But then there you were, offering me a night to do a few of the things I’d never done. Tempting me to break the rules and live up Vegas like it was my last night to do it.”

                “And because it actually was your last night, you agreed.”

                “After all the years of saying no and doing the right thing, I couldn’t resist. I thought I had it all figured out. I was done with work. I wasn’t going to be around for any unwanted attention. You seemed safe enough—plus you seemed smart enough not to dump me in a ditch after six hundred video cameras captured us leaving the casino together.”

                The way her brain worked. He both loved and hated it.

                “So I figured, what was the harm? It seemed safe. No risk. Just a night of fun.”