Сандра Хьятт – The Magnate’s Baby Promise / Having the Billionaire's Baby: The Magnate’s Baby Promise / Having the Billionaire's Baby (страница 7)
The silence stretched until the need to fill it with something, anything, became unbearable. Cal finally broke it.
“If they ask, you can just say we met over cocktails at the Shangri-La, kept in touch and met up again recently.”
“But isn’t a sudden engagement out of character for you?” she pressed.
“Trust me, they won’t ask. At least, my mother won’t.”
“And Victor?”
He paused, twirling the glass in his hand. “It’s none of his business whom I chose to marry. Let me handle him.” As his firm command lingered, their gazes clashed, one curious and bright, the other shadowed and dark.
Ava severed it and reached for her glass. “So we’re going to fake it.”
The unintentional double entendre curved his mouth. “That a problem?”
She looked discomforted by his scrutiny. “I’m not good at deception.”
He could’ve kicked himself when an injured shadow passed over her face. But then she turned back to the view and it vanished.
What was with him? He preferred women who understood the demands of his lifestyle, women who were polished, sophisticated, who weren’t looking for promises or commitment. Women who could elegantly fake a parental inspection with ease. They’d graced magazines, television, catwalks. They met his needs sexually, socially and mentally, although not one woman had met them all.
But Ava…what was it about her and just
Sure, she was a hot package. Their one encounter still haunted his memory. His eyes dipped to her neckline, to the silky material stretched taut across her breasts. Ava Reilly was also stubborn and proud, qualities that alternately fascinated and frustrated him.
That should be enough to extinguish his craving, but inexplicably, it still simmered. And below that, an unfamiliar urge to know more about her, to unravel the pieces of what his brief report had missed, surged up.
“How long have you been at Jindalee?”
His sudden question snapped her gaze back to him.
“Pretty much my whole life.” At his frown she added, “Don’t you have all this in a report?”
“No.”
She held his gaze, as if trying to work out if he was telling the truth or not. Finally she gave a small sigh. “Jindalee used to be a sheep station, built by my father in the late forties.”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty in December. My parents tried for ages to have kids, then they had two girls barely a year apart.” She clicked her mouth shut and looked away, indicating that line of questioning was closed.
He frowned. When they married, he’d get sole control of VP Tech, everything he’d ever wanted. He should be focusing on that and only that, not sharing intimate details of their lives. She was just a convenient means to that end. He’d done the right thing, the
“So when is the happy day?” Ava said.
For a second, Cal remained wrapped up in his thoughts, in the remnants of anger still clinging to him like ethereal cobwebs. That anger was a constant confirmation never to fully trust anyone, never to let his guard down. But when he snapped his eyes to Ava’s, he felt those spidery webs slowly evaporate.
Quickly he gained control. “As soon as possible. How long does it take to organize a wedding?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Isn’t it something women always obsess about?”
She gave him a look. “Sorry, I missed the memo.”
She took a slow sip of her drink and his attention zeroed in on those cherry-painted lips as they met the rim of the glass, the small ripple under her smooth skin as she swallowed.
“Money’s no object,” Cal added with more calm than he felt. “If you want a particular place, a certain church—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He studied her with interest. “If you could get married anywhere, where would you choose?”
“I haven’t given it much thought.”
“Okay.” He placed his glass on the table with firm decisiveness. “St Mary’s Cathedral for the ceremony,” he said, naming Sydney’s most prominent historical church. “Then my private cruiser on Sydney Harbour for the reception. How does August the first suit you?”
“That’s less than…” she calculated in the pause, “two months away. Why the rush?”
“You have a problem with that?” He eyed her stomach, then nodded. “You’ll be five months pregnant, obviously showing…”
“That’s not the point,” she said tightly. “Aren’t there waiting lists?”
“Probably.” He quirked up an eyebrow. “I can organize a wedding planner.”
That threw her. “No! Okay, August the first it is,” she finished lamely. “So, getting back to tonight. Tell me more about your parents.”
He let her change direction without comment. “My mother, Isabelle, lived in the Hunter Valley. She met Victor when I was eleven and they married a year later.”
“You have a brother,” she said.
“Stepbrother. Zac.” With all traces of amusement gone, he felt the sudden need for distance. He rose, went to the railing, then turned to face her, his back against the cold metal. “He’s three years younger than me and Victor’s real son.”
She smiled tentatively. “I’m sure your stepfather thinks you’re just as—”
“Don’t.”
Her smile slowly faded. “I’m just trying to—”
“You don’t read the tabloids, do you?”
Mutely she shook her head.
“Zac left VP Tech a few years back,” he said less harshly. “From what I hear he started up his own company on the Gold Coast.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“What?” He shook his head, trying to dislodge the remnants of bitterness.
“Have you spoken to Zac since he left?” She studied him way too closely, a thread of concern in her bright blue eyes. “You’re brothers. Don’t you—”
“No. We need to get going if we’re to make our reservation,” he said gruffly, glancing away with an odd sense of guilt.
Ava hesitated for a brief second as he held out his hand. When she finally took it and he gently pulled her to her feet, she sucked in a breath. There it was again—the jolt of heat, the quickening of her heartbeat, the low ache of desire in her belly. When she instinctively placed a hand on her stomach, his eyes followed.
“Can you…feel anything?”
The sudden flash of wonder in his face was a low, primeval blow, leaving her breathless. What she felt had nothing yet everything to do with the life growing inside her. Her body was changing, growing, and hot, dark need throbbed through her veins. Her skin itched to be touched, to be kissed. By this man.
And there was no way she’d admit that, not when it’d taken all the control she possessed to recover from that near kiss.
“Just a few…flutters,” she managed. “It’s normal in the first trimester.”
“Do you need anything?”
Ava swallowed thickly as he placed a hand on her back, guiding her into the apartment.
“Do you have a special diet?”
She closed her eyes briefly as the warm brand of his palm seared through her thin dress. “No caffeine or shellfish. Lots of greens, water. And sleep. I’ve been spending a lot of time in bed…”