looked into his eyes and felt a connection deeper than she could have ever imagined. He’d held her so tenderly, so passionately, she was sure she’d found…her soul mate.
She’d been wrong.
She swallowed hard. “I’ll have it on your desk first thing tomorrow.”
He regarded her steadily for a moment, dark gaze drifting over her face. Could he see she was exhausted? Barely able to function?
Did that give him satisfaction?
She could read nothing in his stern features.
As his fingers wrapped around his gold fountain pen, she couldn’t help but remember the way they’d circled her waist, his hands so broad and strong he could lift her as if she weighed no more than a grain of sand.
“Thank you,” he said. Her dismissal. He turned back to the report he was reading.
She stood her ground. You won’t break me.
She stared at him for a moment, daring him to look back up at her. Did she imagine it, or did his fingers tighten around the pen? He paused in his reading, tugged at his collar, then glanced at her.
Their eyes met. “Will that be all?”
Sir.
She wanted him to know she saw the game he was playing.
“Yes, Sara.” He said her name slowly, emphatically, his dark eyes unblinking. Her stomach flipped and she held herself steady.
His full lips straightened into a hard line.
Lips that had kissed her with force and tenderness she could never have imagined. Lips that had teased and tempted her into a frenzy of passion.
Lips that held the power to fire her, as she’d invited him to do on her first day.
Yes, she’d failed once, and she wanted him to know it would never happen again.
Elan leaned back in his chair and let out a long, hard breath as the door closed behind her. The woman was stubborn as a camel and twice as tough. Any normal person would have thrown in the towel, but Sara?
Nooo.
He couldn’t help the smile that sneaked over his lips. This small woman had the courage of ten men. Unfortunately, she had the intelligence and aptitude of ten men, too, so no matter how much work he threw at her, somehow she managed to get it done. He was beginning to wonder if a little man called Rumplestiltskin visited her apartment in the evenings.
No. There was no time for any man in her evenings. He’d seen to that.
He wiped the smile of satisfaction from his face. Her evenings were no concern of his.
He’d made an error of judgment—once.
She’d touched something inside him he’d thought buried and forgotten. Reopened old wounds he was sure had scarred over. She’d seen past the strength, past the power, past the money—to the man within.
He’d felt, that night, that he needed her.
He rose from his chair, anger flaring in his chest.
He needed no one, and he would never let that happen again.
Bent over the sink in the office bathroom, Sara suffered another sudden surge of nausea. She was exhausted, drained, run-down.
And more than three months pregnant.
Until her visit to the doctor that afternoon, the possibility of a pregnancy had never crossed her mind. She’d bled after all, just not as much as usual, and the bleeding never really seemed to go away. She’d felt ill from time to time, but she’d put it down to stress and lack of sleep. After what seemed like a few weeks of intermittent on-and-off period she went to her gynecologist.
Diagnosis: Pregnancy.
The bleeding was abnormal and her doctor’s concern showed in her face. Sara had no idea what showed on her own face: astonishment, disbelief, possibly horror.
She was bustled into an ultrasound room and unceremoniously stripped and smeared with gel so the bizarre events taking place inside her could be examined in scientific detail.
All disbelief vanished when she saw it on the ultrasound monitor. My baby. Its little heart pumping visibly, its tiny limbs already distinguishable, curved under its big head.
Her panicked gasping had frightened the ultrasound technician.
“Don’t worry, dear,” the nurse said softly. She was soft all over, from her gloved hands to her fluffy blond hair. “The uterine environment looks quite normal. Some people do continue spotting for some weeks with no known cause. There’s no apparent danger to your pregnancy.”
Her reassuring words penetrated Sara’s consciousness, but they only made tears rise in her throat. A turmoil of unfamiliar emotions racked her body. Guilt that she hadn’t spared a thought for the “uterine environment.” A fearful recoil at the alien life secreted in her belly for so long without her knowledge. And—even more alarming—a fierce tug of intense affection for the tiny person growing inside her.
She stumbled back to the office to prepare a report for a meeting the following morning. It hadn’t occurred to her to do otherwise. That was before the reality of the situation sank in. Before she found herself sitting at her desk, unable to focus her eyes, confused thoughts crowding her brain and terror twisting her gut. Before she sprinted into the bathroom, overwhelmed by nausea and the horrifying reality that everything in her life was about to change.
Had already changed.
She couldn’t keep working this hard. She was endangering not only her health, but that of her baby. The report for tomorrow’s meeting would have to wait. She’d apologize, say she was ill. But she’d sneak out and call in her regrets from home because she just couldn’t face Elan right now.
She wasn’t sure if she could ever face him again.
All his cruel assumptions about her on her first day had proven horrifyingly accurate. She had lusted after him and seduced him. She’d risked the career opportunity of a lifetime for a few hours of pleasure.
Gambled with her life for one night in his arms.
And I am carrying Elan’s baby.
The thought hit her for the first time like a splash of icy water. Somehow in the terrible excitement of discovering she was pregnant she’d managed not to think about the other person responsible for the life growing inside her.
How would he react? With shock, most likely. With horror, no doubt. Her disgrace was total.
She quickly stripped off her suit and put on her cycling clothes and sneakers, then shoved her suit into her backpack with far less care than usual. It wouldn’t fit for much longer anyway.
She
