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“Handy.” Then she cleared her throat. “Gage and Cass are leaving. They’re my ride.”
Disappointment walloped him. That sounded decidedly final. Had he misinterpreted the long heated glances? He’d just got her where he wanted her. Well, closer to where he wanted her, anyway.
“You’re ditching me already?” he asked and tried to keep his voice light.
Probably for the best. What could possibly happen between them? A brief but satisfying interlude where he’d eventually have to say goodbye? A woman like Alex deserved promises he could never make. He would treat her well, of course, but if a woman got intimate with a man, she eventually wanted to fall in love and get married and have the whole heart of her mate. Phillip couldn’t do that, didn’t want to do that.
Gina had been enough for him. Sometimes the sadness of losing her overwhelmed him. Like it had today. Alex had distracted him and he was grateful.
But once the party ended, the cavernous house would seem even emptier. He was not looking forward to it.
Alex glanced up at him through her lashes, and her lips parted slightly. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d mind giving me a ride home. Later.”
Later was a word he liked a whole lot. It held all sorts of interesting possibilities. A smile tugged at his mouth. “My car is available to you at any hour.”
“Looks like the party is breaking up,” she commented, and it took him a second to tear his gaze from her beautiful face to register what she meant.
He glanced down through the spindles. His living room had grown surprisingly empty. What time was it? He’d lost track of everything—the hour, his guests, the people he should have been entertaining. And now he was going to kick out the stragglers in under a minute like a bad host. Even worse, he was going to have his butler do it.
Phillip signaled to George, who’d been ushering guests out the door and coordinating with the valet. His butler had worked for the Edgewoods for over forty years, largely owing to his singular talent of being able to read minds. George nodded and began moving to the remaining groups of people, herding them toward the double front doors.
Phillip should probably care about that more. “Perfect timing, I’d say.”
“I agree. I was looking forward to having you all to myself.”
A current of awareness passed between them, zigzagging through his groin, waking up his body.
“Unless,” she continued, “you’d rather I go?”
“Why would you think that?” It might have come out a little too forcefully.
She bit her lip, drawing it between her teeth. A habit he’d noticed she fell into when she was trying to decide what to say, not that he spent an inordinate amount of time staring at her mouth. Okay, probably more time than he should spend on it, but the meetings they’d had about the FDA approval process had been interminable and she’d been right there across the table.
“Just checking. I’m not the best at reading people.”
All at once, he realized what she was fishing for.
He cupped her face. Her green eyes blazed with something warm, hopeful and slightly hungry. Even the brown dot seemed extravibrant under his scrutiny. For some reason, that sent a shaft of unadulterated desire through his gut.
“Tonight is about being spontaneous,” he told her. “Neither of us is good at that. That means no expectations. Make it about what you want.”
And he meant that seriously. If she wanted to talk all night, that was okay. Of course, he wouldn’t turn down a willing woman in his bed. But he just wanted to spend time with her, realizing it was selfish. Realizing he couldn’t offer her much. Realizing he should definitely aim his search for a wife of convenience in another direction.
But no expectations meant he didn’t have to think about any of that, either. Not tonight.
“No expectations,” she repeated and her smile grew. “I like that. I like that you get I have a hard time with being spontaneous. But I want to make it about what we both want. You know, assuming we both want the same thing.”
His own smile widened. “I hope so.”
A great, no-strings evening together. In whatever form that took.
“It won’t be weird? Tomorrow? We are still working together,” she reminded him. “Some people find it difficult to face each other over a boardroom table after getting naked together.”
Okay, then. Now there was no question about whether they were on the same page. The burn in his loins flared hotter as he slid his hand to the back of her neck, drawing her close so he could feel for the pins.
He extracted one and let it fall. He’d been thinking about doing that since their first moment on the dance floor. Now he could.
“Not weird,” he murmured. “What happens at Phillip’s house stays at Phillip’s house.”
With a shiver, she shook her head, loosening the pins under his questing fingers. He found them one by one, flicking them free. She tipped up her chin to pierce him with her gaze, and he fell into it as her hair rained down around her shoulders.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Her voice had gone husky.
He loved that he could affect her. “Anything.”
“I sometimes lose track of the discussion in those meetings because I’m thinking about kicking everyone out and letting you kiss me. Maybe up against the table.”
He groaned as that image slammed into his mind unencumbered because there was no blood left in his head to stop it. He understood her problem perfectly. “I generally lose my place because I’m thinking about what you taste like. Here.”
Tracing the line of her throat starting from her ear, he slid a finger to her collarbone and replaced his finger with his mouth. Her flavor filled his senses as he fulfilled the fantasy of savoring it. Straining closer, she moaned and it was better than music.
He needed more. More contact. More music. More Alex. He drew her closer, nearly into his lap, and her dress came up over her hip as his palm gathered it. She pressed into his touch, arching into him.
And then somehow, she rolled and landed in his lap, straddling him. Wordlessly—because he couldn’t have spoken if his life had depended on it—he cupped her rear, nestling her so their bodies aligned, and then her mouth crashed into his. The kiss ignited inside him, pounding adrenaline through his body, pumping euphoria along all his nerve endings.
More. Somehow she heard him or he communicated it telepathically because her mouth opened over his as she rolled her hips in a sensuous rhythm against the fiercest erection he’d experienced in recent memory. Maybe ever.
Heat broke over him like a blast from a detonated bomb, coalescing at the point of contact between their bodies, nearly finishing him off before they’d scarcely started. He tore his mouth from hers, panting.
“Wait,” he murmured and stood with her in his arms. She clamped her legs around his waist and he stumbled to his bedroom blindly as she fastened her lips on his throat, sucking with erotic pulls that drove him insane.
“That’s not the definition of waiting,” he told her hoarsely and let her slide to the ground as he slammed the door shut with one foot.
“I’m not very patient.” To prove it, she half turned and presented the zipper to her dress.
He reached out and pulled it. That glittery fabric snaked from her body and landed in a heap around her ankles as she spun back to face him. She was naked, and her high, peaked breasts called to him.
A curse worked itself loose from his mouth. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“No, I’m trying to get you into bed. Apparently I’m doing it wrong since you’re still dressed.”
Laughing around the raging desire clogging his throat, he stripped and scooped her up, then complied with her directive, depositing her gently on the bed. He rolled into her, and that fragrant, fruity scent encompassed him just as completely as the woman did.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this moment for a long time,” she confessed. Her honesty tripped something inside him.
Honeyed warmth spread through his chest as they stared at each other. This wasn’t supposed to be anything other than two people connecting with no expectations. Guess that wasn’t even possible with someone as unique as Alexandra Meer. She pulled things from deep inside that he’d have sworn were frozen. Things he didn’t want to feel for another woman. But it was hard to shut down.
He liked her. She was smart and successful with a touch of vulnerability that set her apart from other women in his path. That had been true from the first moment he’d met her.
He might as well admit the same. “Me too.”
Phillip kissed her and she slid a long, smooth leg between his, teasing, tempting and torturing all at once, and that was it. This wasn’t going to happen slowly. He wanted her as badly as she seemed to want him.
He fumbled in the nightstand for some condoms he was pretty sure were still in there from the last time he’d brought a woman home maybe eight months ago. A year? He had a bad moment when he couldn’t find them and then his fingers closed around one.
He tore it open and somehow got it on in one shot and then she was back in place against him, her gorgeous, sweet body aligned with his. After an eternity, he pushed inside and they joined in a clash of bodies that felt so right, Phillip could hardly stand it. She was unbelievably lush and sensuous.
They moved in a timeless rhythm that somehow became new and electrifying. She gave as much as she took and his mind drained of everything except returning the pleasure. Higher and higher they spiraled as her moans spurred him on. Their simultaneous climax was like icing on an already lip-smacking cake.
He held her quaking body tight against his as the release blasted through him. And then he couldn’t let go. She smelled like pears and well-loved woman, and he craved her heat, even in the aftermath. Usually he preferred to recover on his own, but he still couldn’t get enough of this amazing woman.
Sure, he’d wanted her, but sex wasn’t the be-all, end-all. He’d wanted to explore the connection they’d both felt from the very first. It had been just as amazing as he’d hoped. But he’d anticipated burning off that attraction and moving on. Epic fail in that regard. He wasn’t close to done and that felt like a problem.
He had to get her out of his bed before he started rehearsing a pretty speech designed to convince her to spend the night. Which was enough of a warning to scramble from the sheets. He had never slept with a woman other than Gina. Tonight was not the night to start.
Later, he drove Alex home in his Tesla instead of sending her with his driver, Randy, like he’d planned. He couldn’t seem to let her go. The night had ended far too soon.
And though he couldn’t give her everything she deserved, he didn’t want to let Alex walk out of his life.
Just because they’d said no expectations didn’t mean he couldn’t ask to see her again. After all, he didn’t really know what she was looking for in a relationship. How could he say what he had to offer wasn’t enough if they didn’t talk about it?
At the door of Alex’s house just north of Dallas in University Park, he kissed her good-night and then pulled back to gorge himself on the sight of her beautiful face. Tomorrow, she’d go back to T-shirt-and-jeans Alex.
He wanted to see her again, no matter what she was wearing.
“Can I call you?” he asked hoarsely and cleared his throat. “Let me take you to dinner.”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
Phillip mentally flipped through his calendar and then cursed. He’d fly to Washington tomorrow and hadn’t planned to be back in Dallas for the foreseeable future. “I can’t set a firm date. But please know it’s not because I don’t want to. I have to be in Washington. Duty calls.”
“Phillip, no expectations.” She cupped his face with both palms and held it. “I like spending time with you. But I’m not going to wait by the phone for you to call. I have a company to run. I’m busy, too. Call me when you’re free.”
A bit blindsided, he stared at her. Most women—all women he’d ever met—wouldn’t have considered giving him a pass like that. Alex was something else. “That’s very gracious.”
She shrugged. “You’re worth waiting for.”
Something turned over in his heart. This was crazy. Instead of exploring their attraction and getting it out of their systems, he was trying to figure out how to juggle his schedule so he could see her again. He should be running back to his car and driving away very fast in pursuit of someone who was much better suited to being the wife he needed.
The wife he needed would understand he couldn’t be disloyal to Gina. The wife he needed would stand by his side as he navigated the Washington social scene, wearing couture and cosmetics with ease. The wife he needed would understand that his career might require sacrifices to her own career.
Above all, the wife he needed would not generate all of these unexpected, confusing emotions. Alex was not what he needed.
His career was everything to him. It had saved him from drowning in grief two years ago, and with his eye on the White House, Alex would only complicate his life. No, she wasn’t what he needed—but she was everything he wanted. And that made her very dangerous indeed.
Three (#u88ba6195-cdac-5779-8e99-fb62f93bea29)
Four weeks later...
The packaging on the pregnancy test was too slick for Alex’s shaking fingers to grip. Gracelessly, she stuck the end in her mouth and tore it open. The slim stick fell out and tumbled end over end into the toilet bowl with a splash. Of course.
This was surreal. The walls of the company she’d cofounded surrounded her. Fyra was a multimillion-dollar cosmetics powerhouse that she’d worked tirelessly to manage alongside her friends and partners. Every single dollar of revenue and every dime of expense had passed through her fingers from day one. She was responsible for hundreds of employees’ paychecks.
And she couldn’t do a simple thing like open plastic packaging.
“What happened?” Cass’s voice rang out from the other side of the bathroom stall.
“I’m nauseous and clumsy,” Alex shot back. “The stupid test made a break for it and landed in the water.”
This was not the way Alex wanted to spend her lunch break.
She was pretty sure the test would only confirm what she already knew in her heart to be the truth. The upset stomach she’d been battling for over a week had nothing to do with the seafood she’d eaten last Friday and everything to do with the night she’d spent with Phillip.
“Can you get it out?”
“I’m working on it.”
Liar. Staring at the little white stick down in the water wasn’t solving the problem. Alex thought about just flushing the thing and avoiding the whole question of why no amount of prayer had started her skipped period. She and Phillip had used protection. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
“Just pee in the toilet,” Cass suggested. “You don’t have to be holding the stick for it to work.”
Alex sighed and gave in to the inevitable. “Fine. It’s done. Now, how long do I have to wait?”
“I don’t know.” Cass rustled the paper instructions she’d been holding when Alex had locked herself in the bathroom stall. “Three minutes.”
Might as well be three hours. Alex shredded her nails in under a minute and a half, not that it mattered. No one was looking at her nails. Phillip had gone back to Washington the day after his party, as promised, and they’d conversed a few times via email. He’d called twice to say hi, but so far, they hadn’t connected for dinner. She wasn’t upset. He’d let her know when he was free and that obviously hadn’t happened yet.
It was exactly what she’d signed up for. A night of passion with an amazing man who paid attention to her. She still dreamed about the way his mouth felt on hers and how gorgeous that man’s body was. Sure, she’d have liked to see him again, but that might mean having a conversation about what dating meant for them and she didn’t want to ruin the magic with real-life fears and hang-ups.
If the test came back positive, they’d be having a hell of a conversation about dates, that was for sure. Due dates, birth dates, playdates. It was mind-boggling.
She peered into the toilet. Nothing. Or maybe something. Did the results window look a little pink? Her stomach flipped over and back again. “What do the instructions say about how to read this test? What does it mean if it’s pink?”
She’d read them herself but panic drove the information from her brain.
“One pink line is not pregnant. Two pink lines is pregnant. You’ve never taken a pregnancy test before?” Cass didn’t bother to keep the incredulity from her tone. “Not even in college?”
“No,” Alex muttered. “You’d have to have sex to need one.”
She’d been just as awkward and clumsy in college as she was now. Men shied away, for the most part. Phillip was a rare exception.
Please, God, do not let that exception have irreversible consequences.
More pink bled into the window. A distinct line appeared. One line. That meant not pregnant. Except the pink was still wicking through the window, spreading its impersonal message about huge, life-alerting events.
“Why are you making me do this?”
“Because you clearly weren’t ever going to do it yourself. It’s been four weeks since Phillip’s party,” Cass reminded her, as if she needed reminding. “If you are pregnant, you’re a third of the way through the first trimester. Denial is not a good health-care plan for you or a baby.”
