how we did it. The center has a confidentiality agreement. Nobody else ever has to know.”
“And how do you explain this baby? Say we had a wild fling? And then we decided it wouldn’t work, but there’s a baby on the way, so what the hell, you’ll just go ahead and have it?”
“Why not?” she challenged. “People try to reconcile all the time, and it doesn’t work out. One of us got careless, I got pregnant. I wanted another child, so I had it.”
“Good Lord,” he said from between his teeth. “You’re something, you know that?”
“Isn’t it better?” she asked. “It’s a white lie, it’s not meant for an evil purpose. It’s just to protect us—all of us, the whole family.”
He picked up his glass and took a deep drink. “You should have been a lawyer. Your powers of equivocation are wasted on tomatoes.”
She ignored the gibe. “If the truth got out, it’d be a media circus. Other people have done this. They ended up being national news stories. Do you want that? Do you want it for Nealie? Or the baby?”
Suddenly he looked older, and more tired than she’d ever seen him. He rubbed his forehead. “The baby. You talk about this kid like he’s real.”
“He could be a she,” she said.
“Don’t change the subject.” He turned his back to her. He put his elbow on the mantel and leaned his forehead on his hand. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know if I can go through with this.”
Panic flooded her. “But you said—”
“I was in shock. I’m still in shock. None of this seems real.”
“Oh, Josh,” she said, her throat tight. “It’s too real. You’ve seen her. How little she is. How frail.”
He made no answer.
She said, “We have two choices. We can do nothing for her. Or we can do—this.”
He swore.
Desperate, she said, “It’s hard to accept, I know. It’s taken me two months to come to terms with it.”
She knew immediately she’d said the wrong thing. She saw the tension seize his body. For a moment he was as immobile as if turned to stone.
Then he dropped his hand from his eyes, straightened and turned to face her. “You’ve known about this for two months?”
“I—I guess I was—in denial.”
“Oh, please,” he said with contempt, “spare me the psychobabble.”
“If that’s the wrong word, I don’t know the right one.”
“My child’s seriously ill and you waited two months to tell me?”
“I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t believe it. I had to think about what to do.”
He glared at her. She knew she deserved it. Tears welled in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. Be as angry as you want. But take it out on me. Not her.”
He put his hand to his forehead again. “Look, I’m still on Moscow time. I’ve got jet lag. Denial’s a lousy word. But I understand what you mean. Maybe I can’t forgive, yet. But I understand.”
She knew what he felt—grief, fright, anger and a terrible sense of isolation. He was full of the same roiling welter of emotions that had overwhelmed her when she’d first learned. And he was clearly exhausted, as well.
“Oh, Josh,” she said. “you need rest. Let me give you the keys to the truck.”
He said nothing, just stood there with his eyes covered.
She rose from the chair, then stood behind it, clasping its back, unsure what to do. “I’d drive you, but I can’t leave Nealie alone. I—I could call Poppa. It’s still early. You could just walk over there.”
He shook his head no. “I don’t want the keys. I certainly don’t want Poppa.”
“Then…”
He dropped his hand and met her gaze. He moved to her with a quickness that belied his fatigue. His hands gripped her shoulders. “What I want,” he said, “is you.”
Then his arms were around her, and hers were around him.
They clung to each other so desperately it was as if they were trying to forge their two bodies into one. She wanted to be as close to him as possible.
“Briana,” he said, “oh, Briana.”
Then his mouth was on hers, as hungry and seeking as her own, and she was lost in her need for him.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE WANTED HER. He had always wanted her. But never this much and never this badly.
She was the only one who understood—who could begin to understand—what he felt for his child, the depth of it, the complexity, the pain, the fear. To hold Briana meant he was not alone, that there was one person who shared the unspeakable emotions that tore him.
Yet it was more. She was not just a person, she was Briana, and he loved her. Together they had created a child, and together, God willing, they might save her.
But it was all tangled together in his head, the looming terror of loss, the wild desire to fight for his daughter’s life and his sheer, aching physical need for not any woman, but this woman.
She felt the same for him. He knew she did. He could sense the need and yearning coursing through her body.
He took her face between his hands. Her skin felt soft and flawless as the finest silk. He kissed her so deeply it dizzied him. Behind his closed eyes, lights danced and exploded, dying into darkness, then exploding again.
“Don’t—” she whispered against his mouth.
“Yes,” he said, and when she turned her face away, he kissed the smooth spot beneath her ear.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t—please. Please.”
“I need you,” he said, his lips against the throbbing vein in her throat. “I need to hold you. Hold me. Be with me.”
She struggled to pull away. The movement seemed tinged with both reluctance and determination.
“Don’t,” she said for the third time, and to his despair, she seemed to mean it.
He gripped her shoulders. “We need each other. You know it. I know it. Let it happen.”
He tried to kiss her again, but she drew back, shaking her head. “We can’t. That’s
