Merline Lovelace – The Executive's Valentine Seduction / Valente Must Marry: The Executive's Valentine Seduction (страница 2)

The gruff command triggered the survival instincts Caro had been forced to develop in the aftermath of that long-ago night. She couldn’t quite stop the trembling, but she clamped down on the waves of dizziness and dragged in a breath that cut like jagged glass.

“How…? When…?”

“When did I find out I got you pregnant?” he finished for her. “Three months ago.”

His gaze swept the lobby, came back to her.

“This isn’t the place to discuss the result of our one-night stand. Let’s take it somewhere private. Am I preregistered?”

“I…Uh…” She swiped her tongue over dry lips. “Yes.”

“You have the room key?”

She could only nod this time.

“What’s the room number?”

“Five…” She forced herself to breathe, to think. “Five oh eight.”

He waited to relay the number to the bellman wheeling in his luggage before steering Caro toward the elevators. His hand remained locked around her upper arm. His body crowded hers in the claustrophobic cage.

She didn’t say a word on the way up. She was still numb with shock, still fighting desperately to suppress the emotions that bombarded her.

She’d thought she’d put her past behind her. Was so certain she’d wiped out every remnant of her paralyzing fear when she finally realized she was pregnant, her shame at having to drop out of high school, her despair of being bundled off to a haven for pregnant teens.

She’d never gotten over the heartache of delivering a stillborn, seven-month-old baby, however. That stayed with her always. The experience had molded her into the woman she was today. Quiet. Contained. Careful.

And strong, she reminded herself grimly. Strong enough to survive. Strong enough to endure. Certainly strong enough to deal with Rory Burke.

Rory Burke. The name fit the man he’d become, but in no way could she connect it to the cocky, T-shirted eighteen-year-old who’d worked in her uncle’s garage for a few weeks that long-ago summer.

“I never knew your real name,” she got out through frozen lips as they exited the elevator. “My uncle and cousin always called you Johnny. Or Hoss.”

Short for Stud Hoss, her shamefaced cousin had admitted later. By then it was too late.

“John—Johnny—is my middle name. I stopped using it when I went into the army. The military isn’t big on calling recruits by their middle names. Or any name except some that can’t be repeated in polite company.” He stopped at a set of double doors. “Five oh eight. This is it.”

She fumbled in the leather folder for the key card. All her careful work—the agenda, the layout, the support setups—went unnoticed as Burke slipped the card into the lock and stood aside for her to precede him.

She’d checked out the lavish four-room suite just a half hour ago. The welcome basket still sat on the slab of polished granite that served as a coffee table. The handwritten note from the resort manager was still propped beside it. The minibar was stocked with single malt scotch, Burke’s reported drink of choice. Yet Caro was too numb to absorb any of the details she’d checked so meticulously.

She dropped the leather folder on the coffee table beside the basket. With her arms wrapped around her waist, she turned to the man she’d never expected to see again.

“You said…”

She stopped, cringing at the ragged edge in her voice. She wasn’t a frightened seventeen-year-old, dammit! She’d survived the angry recriminations her parents had thrown at her. All those lonely weeks at the home. The wrenching loss of her baby.

In the process, she’d discovered a strength she didn’t know she had. That inner core had pushed her to finish high school by correspondence, work her way through college and attend grad school on a full scholarship. During her junior year in college, she met the two women who would become her closest friends and, ultimately, her business partners. She’d built a life for herself. She owed no explanations to anyone, least of all this man.

But he sure as hell owed her one!

“You said you just found out three months ago I got pregnant.”

“That’s right.”

“How?”

He tossed the key card on the coffee table and yanked at the knot of his tie. “I had dinner with a prospective client. Turns out his wife’s from Millburn.”

Millburn, Kansas. Population nine thousand or so. The town where Caro had spent the first seventeen years of her life. The town she’d returned to only once in the years since she’d left—for her father’s funeral.

“The wife’s name is Evelyn Walker,” Burke said as he slid the tie from around his neck with a slither of silk on starched cotton. “Maiden name was Brown. Maybe you remember her?”

“Oh, yes. I remember Evelyn Brown.”

They’d never been friends. They’d rarely talked to each other in the halls at school. But Evelyn had led the chorus of smirks and snide comments when word leaked that prim, prissy Caroline Walters had gotten herself knocked up.

“I asked the woman if she knew you.”

His eyes held hers. Those compelling, dangerous eyes that had made Caro shiver every time he’d looked her over all those years ago.

“She told me you dropped out of high school at the start of your senior year. She also told me why.”

“Schools weren’t as tolerant of teenage pregnancies back then as they are today.”

She could say it without bitterness. She’d never blamed the guidance counselor who’d called her in and told her she had to leave. Never blamed her parents for shipping her off to live with strangers. She was the one who’d tossed aside every principle, every precaution drummed into her by parents, teachers and church pastors to climb aboard a motorcycle that sweltering summer night.

“When I heard what happened, I…”

A brusque knock cut into Burke’s terse explanation. With a muttered oath, he went to let in the porter with his luggage.

Caro grabbed at the interruption with relief. She turned to stare through the doors that gave onto a wide balcony. The spectacular views had mesmerized her when she was scouting locations for the GSI conference last month. Now she barely registered the medieval castle brooding high on a rocky promontory at the far end of a perfect, crescent beach.

Tourists strolled the wide seawall circling the beach, admiring the remnants of a walkway first laid by the Romans when Hispania was one of its farflung provinces. Several fishermen sat beside boats drawn up onto the sandy shore, mending their nets in close proximity to the few hearty sun worshippers stretched out on towels or blankets.

It was a picture-postcard scene, one Caro was in no mood to appreciate. But staring at the endless stretch of sky and sea gave her time to squelch her churning emotions before she faced Burke again.

“So Evelyn told you I was pregnant. Do you want to know what happened to the baby?”

“I know what happened. I ran a check of birth certificates.”

Birth and death. One and the same for the stillborn baby she’d buried; only the sympathetic manager of the home was beside her.

She fought to keep the bleak memory at bay, but Burke must have seen it in her eyes. He crossed the room and stretched out a hand.

Caro’s tight hold on her emotions left no room for touching. She jerked back, and he dropped his arm.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that all alone,” he said quietly. “If I’d known, I would have come back to Millburn.”

That surprised her. Even more surprising was the fact that he didn’t ask if he was the father.

Then again, he knew she was a virgin that night. He had to, given her inexperienced fumbling and surprised yelp when he penetrated her. Then, of course, there was the blood he’d wiped from her thighs with his wadded T-shirt.

“My uncle tried to contact you,” Caroline said stiffly, “but he’d always paid you in cash, under the table. He didn’t know your Social Security number. Or your real name for that matter. We had no way of tracking you down.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

She knew in her heart it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had come back. Chances were she still would have lost the baby. And she still would have had to live with her parents’ bitter disappointment in her.

“I’m sorry, too. I won’t lie to you. The experience changed my life in ways I could never have imagined back then. I was so young, so stupidly naive. But in the end, it made me stronger.”

She lifted her chin. This time it was her gaze that held his, direct and unflinching.

“I’ve put the past behind me. I suggest you do the same.”

“That might be difficult, seeing as it just caught up with me a few months ago.”

“Try,” she snapped. “Try very hard. We’re going to be working together for the next five days. I don’t want to…”

She broke off, her eyes widening.

“Oh God! I didn’t connect the dots until this moment.” Disgusted, she shook her head. “The conference…This job…It dropped in our laps just a little over a month ago. After you found out about me.”

“I checked you out,” he admitted without a trace of apology. “Saw you’d quit your job at the library to launch this business with your two partners. I also saw you sank your entire savings into start-up costs and nationwide advertising. That wasn’t real smart,” he added in an aside, “considering the three of you could have qualified for a small, woman-owned business loan and kept your personal assets intact.”