Кристин Морган – Having Gabriel's Baby (страница 2)

Joelle’s glare wavered momentarily. She felt vulnerable… naked…and mortified to the bone to have this man she hardly knew staring down at her and probably making snap judgments of her character— or, rather, her lack of it. Certainly he had no right to do that. After all, he hardly knew anything at all about her, other than the fact that she’d obviously made a huge mistake last night in thinking that he was a decent enough guy to have dinner with. Nonetheless, if he thought she was going to fall to pieces right there in front of him as if she was some weak little woman with no backbone, he was in for a big disappointment. She no longer gave her father the benefit of seeing her tears. Therefore, humiliated, or not, she wasn’t about to let this man see them, either. Instead she conjured up her best poker face and glared at him.

But, regardless of what she hoped was an Oscar winning performance on her part, the following moments grew increasingly difficult for Joelle. She stared in surprised defiance at Gabriel Lafleur…at his bare, lean, muscled chest, and at the way the dark curly hair at its center lay damp and matted against his tanned skin. Finally, having a will of their own, her eyes began following a drop of water as it slid downward, only to have it eventually soaked up by the hotel guest towel wrapped tightly around his slim waistline. Her throat felt suddenly dry…parched, and swallowing in that moment became difficult. Her eyes lifted to his and what she saw there made her realize that he was aware of her every thought. Finally, unable to deal with this reality for a second longer, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that when she opened them, again, he would be gone.

Obviously her father had been right about her all along. Obviously there was a part of her that was too soft…too womanly, to hold up under the pressure of a man’s world. Surely, if she had any strength of character at all, she wouldn’t be in such a humiliating situation.

Joelle knew her prayers weren’t going to be answered when she felt him touch her arm and say, “Hey, are you going to be all right?” The feel of his warm fingers on her flesh startled her. Her eyes sprang wide open, and they stared at each other as if they were two cat burglars who were suddenly surprised to discover themselves on the same rooftop.

Eventually Joelle found her voice. “Of course, I’m going to be all right,” she snapped.

“Thank goodness for that,” he replied. “About all I need this morning is to find myself at the mercy of a woman in tears.”

“What are you doing in my room?” Joelle demanded, although, in truth, she feared she already knew the answer to that one. She was just hoping like everything that her gut instincts were wrong. But, one thing she knew for sure. He wasn’t going to find this woman in tears.

“Well…” Gabriel Lafleur said, now grinning down at her with white, even teeth and the most clear brown eyes she’d ever seen. He had wide, full lips that, even in the stark brightness of morning reality, beckoned to be kissed. He had high prominent cheekbones and a squared-off jawline, and a nose that flared slightly wider at the end. In essence, he was six feet of pure, unadulterated male. “I was…uh…just making myself at home,” he said, politely. He acted as though being in her hotel room was seemingly of no consequence to him. At least, not like it was to her. “Look, I hope you don’t mind that I used your shower,” he continued. “But under the circumstances, I didn’t think that you would.”

Joelle swallowed. “Uh…And what circumstances might that be?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes flicking back up to his handsome face after lingering far too long on a lower, more private part of his anatomy. Thank goodness he still had that towel on. As much as some wanton part of her liked looking at every follicle inch of him, she wished that she could’ve just snapped her fingers and have him disappear from her hotel room.

His grin widened. “Don’t you remember?”

Joelle blinked. Twice. “Remember what?”

“What we did?”

Joelle’s heart hammered against her breastbone. “What did we do?”

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember, do you?”

Joelle gripped the ends of the sheet covering her breasts and pulled it up to the base of her throat. “O-of course, I do. W-we had dinner together.”

“And…”

“And…uh…we stopped in at some lively little cantina for a nightcap.” Joelle felt quite pleased with herself for having been able to recall that much. At least he wasn’t going to think her a complete idiot.

“And then…” he said.

She stared at him blankly.

He stared back. A moment later he said, “See, it’s like I thought. You don’t remember, do you?”

Hesitating with her answer, Joelle continued to hold the ends of the sheet in a death grip while trying to force her memory from last night to come forward. But the only result was some additional pounding in her already throbbing head. “No, I don’t.”

“Well, don’t feel so bad. ’Cause I don’t, either.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“Well…I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious that we came back here and spent the night together.” He paused then, long enough to give the impression that he was waiting on her to make a comment.

But Joelle had no comment at this point. As it was, having her mistake said out loud made her feel sick to her stomach, all over again.

Staring down at her, Gabriel Lafleur used his fingers to comb back his damp hair from his forehead. “Look, to be perfectly frank with you,” he continued, “my memory of what we did from the time we left the cantina until I awakened this morning in your bed is a bit hazy. I can only assume that neither of us recognized the numbing effect of the tequila we were drinking, and it just slipped up on us.”

“In other words, you’re saying we both got drunk.”

“Yeah,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “That pretty much sums it up.”

Once again, Joelle squeezed her eyes closed. “Oh, God, how could I have done something so foolish?”

“Look,” Gabriel said, “I just need to know one thing.”

Opening her eyes, Joelle exhaled deeply. “Like I just said, Lafleur, I don’t remember anything. And, quite frankly, I’d prefer to leave it that way.”

His gaze was challenging. “Yeah, well, that’s fine with me, Ames, except for one thing.”

Once more, Joelle exhaled deeply. Leave it to a man, she thought, to want to recall every nitty-gritty detail of their night spent in bed together. “What’s that?”

“Did we get married first?”

Clutching the sheet against her breasts, Joelle sat straight up in bed. “What?”

He looked her square in the face. “Did we get married last night before coming back to the hotel?”

“Are you crazy? Why on earth would we have done something like that?”

Gabriel Lafleur scratched the side of his head. “Hell if I know. But we’re both wearing dime-store wedding rings this morning. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t wearing one yesterday.” Stunned, Joelle stared at him in awe as he suddenly tried to pull something from around his finger, but he seemed to be having a bit of difficulty getting it over his knuckle. “And,” he said, as he continued his efforts, “if I remember correctly, at some point last night you said that you wouldn’t sleep with a guy unless you were ready to have some kind of a permanent commitment with him.”

Dazed, Joelle lifted her left hand in midair and gazed at her ring finger as if it was a lighted firecracker ready to explode. But a moment later, she regained her equilibrium and simply slipped off the cheap-looking ring that she knew was sold by any street vendor in any vacation hot spot in the world. She placed it on the bedside table next to her as if it was no big deal. Which it wasn’t, of course. Still, her heart raced ahead like mad. As if she had just discovered herself running in a marathon and knew her life depended on her winning it.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Joelle looked back at him and tilted her chin a fraction higher. “Yeah— well, I can tell you right now, if you had the nerve last night to suggest that we sleep together, you can bet I said something like that to you. Look, I know what you must be thinking of me right now, but the truth is, I don’t happen to get drunk with men I hardly know. Nor do I sleep around.”

“Hey, you don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said. “But, regardless of what you say, it doesn’t change the fact that I remember us leaving the cantina together last night with the dumb idea in mind of finding someone to marry us. Hell, I just want to know if we succeeded.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Joelle grimaced. She, too, now vaguely recalled having done something of similar nature last night. But in the cold light of day, it was simply too farfetched an idea for her to actually believe it possible. Her memory was undoubtedly playing tricks on her. Or…or, maybe, Gabriel Lafleur had somehow set her up to make her believe what he wanted.

With renewed determination, she opened her eyes and glared at him.

“That’s ridiculous. I would never do such an inconceivable thing,” Joelle replied, stubbornly, butin spite of her efforts to convince herself otherwise— her heart was beginning to palpitate uncontrollably, because somewhere deep, down inside, the memory was growing stronger. “You’re making that part up.”