From Paradise...to Pregnant!

by Kandy Shepherd

  One night—that was all it was ever going to be. Mitch had made it very clear that there would be nothing more than that between them. An interlude with no future.

  After a week she’d made a conscious decision—for her sanity’s sake—not to check up on him, never to read the sports pages of the newspapers or watch the sports reports on television.

  For all that, she hadn’t been able to stop the dreams of him, of them together, that came to haunt her sleep. But she had nearly succeeded in putting him behind her—their time in Bali had been relegated to a bittersweet memory. And now he was here. It hardly seemed real.

  Her hand went automatically to smooth her hair, and she pressed her lips together to ensure her lipstick was smooth.

  ‘Don’t worry about that. You look great,’ whispered Louise, her eyes alight with curiosity.

  Zoe hadn’t confided in Louise or any other friend what had happened between her and Mitch in Bali.

  ‘I wasn’t worrying—’ Zoe started to say, then stopped. Of course she was worrying about how she looked. Mitch was here.

  Zoe wanted to sprint into the waiting area but forced herself to a sedate pace. She shouldn’t read anything into this. Not after two months. Maybe Mitch was seeking some help with a double tax agreement with Spain. Or some other accountant-type advice.

  She pasted a professional smile to her face. But her smile froze in stupefied admiration when she saw him. Mitch. Wearing a stylish tailored charcoal suit that emphasised his broad shoulders and strong, graceful body. He looked as if he’d stepped down off one of his billboards. The sexiest man alive was here in the waiting area of her company. And after the night they’d spent together she knew only too well how much he deserved that label.

  Warm colour rushed into her cheeks when she realised it was the first time she’d seen him with clothes on—or more clothes than a pair of checked swim shorts.

  Mitch seemed to freeze too, and she was conscious of him taking in every detail of her appearance. Thank heaven she’d taken extra trouble to look her best for the meeting. She was wearing a fitted deep pink designer suit—on sale at a bargain basement price but still designer—with slick black accessories. And she’d been up at the crack of dawn to make sure her hair and make-up were perfect.

  She thought she’d got close to the image she wanted to portray to the management of the bigger firm—professional, but with a creative edge. To Mitch she hoped she appeared self-assured and independent. The kind of woman who took it completely in her stride when she was suddenly confronted by a man she had made love with two months ago. Without any communication whatsoever in between times. A woman who never cried into her pillow when she woke from her dreams of him.

  She started to speak but had to clear her throat in order for the words to come out. In truth, she wasn’t sure what to say. The last words she’d spoken to Mitch had been interspersed with sighs and murmurs of pleasure as they’d made love.

  ‘Mitch—this is a surprise,’ was all she could manage.

  ‘Zoe.’

  He took a few steps towards her and halted. She realised with a start that he seemed uncertain of his reception from her.

  Her first impulse was to fling herself into his arms—that was where she wanted to be more than anything. But she wasn’t a person who generally acted on impulse—unless an earthquake prompted her to do so, that was.

  Instead she greeted him with a polite kiss on the cheek.

  He held her briefly to him. Even that close contact was enough to send her senses skittering into hyper-awareness. Of his scent. His hard strength. The warmth of his body.

  As he released her she stepped back and almost tripped on her stiletto heels. So much for seeming nonchalant, as if his presence didn’t bother her at all.

  ‘I was in Sydney and decided to look you up,’ he said.

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘Know where to find you? It didn’t take advanced detective work to find an accountancy firm in a converted warehouse at Balmain.’

  ‘Clever you,’ she said, glad beyond measure that he had taken the trouble to track her down, uncertain as to his reason for doing so. ‘But why are you in Sydney? Is it your knee?’

  Mitch shook his head. ‘My father had an accident.’

  Zoe’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. Is he—?’

  ‘He’s fine. But I had to fly out to make sure for myself. I got here yesterday.’

  He’d been in Sydney a day and she’d felt no awareness of him, had no ‘Spidey-sense’ knowledge that he was nearby. But then why should she? He was a one-time friend who’d become a one-time lover. That was all.

  She was aching to ask him why he had come to see her, but instead took refuge in polite conversation.

  ‘What happened to your dad?’

  ‘He took up cycling—became a MAMIL.’

  ‘You mean a Middle-Aged Man in Lycra?’

  ‘That’s the one. He went head over heels over his handlebars. Thankfully not in the path of any traffic. But he dislocated his collarbone, broke an arm and cracked a few ribs.’

  ‘Ouch.’ She shuddered in sympathy for the man she’d never met. ‘Poor guy. Is he in hospital?’

  ‘He’s back home now. Complaining about having to stay in bed and making my mother’s life hell.’

  ‘But she must be so glad he’s okay?’

  His eyes crinkled in fond amusement. ‘Of course she is.’

  ‘Do your parents still live in Wahroonga?’

  He nodded. ‘In the same house I grew up in.’

  The Bailey house was just a few streets away from her grandmother’s house, where she’d spent such a miserable time. Since her return from Bali, Zoe had checked up on her grandmother. She was still alive, also still living in Wahroonga. But Zoe felt no desire to get in touch. Her life there seemed such a long time ago. The only good thing about that time had been Mitch.

  ‘How long are you in Sydney for?’ she asked, and immediately wished she could drag back the words. She didn’t want him to think she was fishing for a chance to see him. But then again, he’d sought her out...

  ‘I fly out tomorrow.’

  ‘A short visit?’ Her carefully modulated words masked her disappointment.

  ‘Enough time to take you out to dinner.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘You mean tonight?’

  ‘Are you free?’

  Her pride didn’t want him to think she was immediately available for a last-minute date. But she didn’t want to play games. Especially not when the prize was an evening with Mitch. She couldn’t lie to herself. Pride lost the battle.

  ‘Of course I’m free,’ she said.

  * * *

  Back in Madrid, Mitch hadn’t been able to get Zoe out of his head. Her laughter, her passion, her vivacious face and gorgeous body had kept invading his thoughts.

  He’d thrown himself into training. But still he’d thought of her. He’d dated other women. But each date had been hours wasted as in his mind he compared the poor woman—no matter how beautiful and charming—unfavourably with Zoe.

  It had irked him. He didn’t want to be distracted by thoughts of her. He didn’t know why she’d slipped so thoroughly under his skin. Was it because she’d left him that morning two months ago? Left him and not made any effort to get in touch?

  Yes, they’d agreed not to contact each other. But women had a tendency not to believe him when he told them he couldn’t get involved. He’d had a few holiday flings before. With beautiful women who had recognised him and wanted to take whatever Mitch Bailey had to offer. He had always been the one to leave them to wake alone in their hotel room. And, when they’d tried to get in touch, to politely make it obvious that they were wasting their time.

  Not Zoe. She’d left a note for the maid, but not for him. Was it a sense of unfinished business that bothered him? That made him unable to forget her?

  He’d had no intention of seeing her when he’d unexpectedly come to Sydney. But he’d found him
self looking her up—just out of interest, he’d told himself.

  This morning he’d been on his way to a meeting with his Australian agent in the eastern suburbs. Somehow he’d detoured west to Balmain and down the narrow streets to this complex of converted warehouses. Now he’d asked Zoe out to dinner.

  It was insanity. He should not be nudging open a door that should be kept firmly shut. Nothing had changed since Bali. There was still no room for Zoe or any other woman in his meticulously planned life. Yet here he was. And regretting it already.

  Because the polished businesswoman standing before him wasn’t the Zoe he remembered from their time together in Bali. That uninhibited Zoe had had tousled hair, worn no make-up, and had looked quite at home in nothing but a plain white towel—or nothing at all.

  This Zoe—Corporate Zoe—was strikingly attractive in a very different way. The tailored, form-fitting suit and high heels, the shorter hair cut in an artfully layered style, the perfect make-up—all screamed candidate for Businesswoman of the Year. Not the girl who’d given as good as she’d got in a no-holds-barred water fight. Or in a big bed among tangled sheets under the slow flick of a ceiling fan on a steamy tropical night.

  ‘Dinner tonight it is,’ he said.

  Though now he’d seen her he wondered if it was such a good idea.

  In Madrid, he’d kept thinking about the connection they’d shared. A connection that had gone way beyond the physical and was like none he’d ever felt with a woman. But had it just been a holiday fling spiced by peril, the urgency of danger? Would they now struggle to find common ground?

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she said in her characteristic husky voice.

  In any other woman he would find that voice an affectation. But Zoe’s voice had had the same deep timbre at seventeen. Then it had seemed at odds with her schoolgirl persona. Now she’d grown into it—a sensual adult voice that sent awareness of her as a woman throbbing through him.

  ‘Have you got anywhere in mind?’

  He didn’t. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to track her down. It would make him late for his meeting with his agent. Not that the agent would care. He made enough from his cut of Mitch’s local earnings to put up with tardiness from his star client. Still, Mitch had called ahead to alert him. He believed in professional behaviour at all times.

  He hadn’t got as far as thinking about a restaurant. To see Zoe again, to see if she was still the woman who’d haunted his thoughts for two months, was all he had thought about.

  ‘I’m going to be flat out all day so I’ll look forward to dinner,’ she said. ‘I have a really important meeting with a company that—’ She squealed. ‘The ferry! I’m going to miss it! Be late for the meeting!’

  Her face was screwed up in panic. Suddenly she looked more approachable. More like the Zoe he knew—or thought he knew.

  ‘Let me drive you,’ he said. ‘To the city?’

  ‘No. I mean yes. The meeting is in the city. But peak-hour morning traffic will be too heavy; I’ll still be late. A ride to the ferry stop would be helpful, though.’

  ‘Can do,’ he said. ‘I’m parked in your car park.’

  ‘How did you get past the security guard?’

  He grinned.

  Her lips lifted in a half smile. ‘Of course. You’re Mitch Bailey. Why did I bother to ask?’

  She turned rapidly on her high heels, dashed out of the room, and returned seconds later with a stylish leather satchel flung over her shoulder.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  Walking more briskly than he’d imagine anyone else could in those heels, she took off across the wooden dock at the harbourside front of the building, past the small marina and around to the car park.

  He pressed his key fob and lights flashed as the doors unlocked on the innocuous mid-range sedan he’d rented for the few days he was in Sydney. It wasn’t the type of car people would expect Mitch Bailey to drive, which was exactly why he’d chosen it. Choose a top-of-the-range European sports car like the one he had back in Madrid and he’d be inviting attention he didn’t want.

  So far he had evaded anyone outside his family and close circle of friends knowing he was back in Sydney. And Zoe too, of course. Where did she fit in? Friend? Lover? He found it impossible to categorise her.

  She broke into a half run to get to the car and flung herself into the front passenger’s seat after he’d opened the door for her. The car was suddenly filled with her energy, with her warm, heady scent—immediately familiar.

  As he steered the car out of the car park she apologised for the rush. ‘One of the bigger accounting firms has approached me to buy my business. My meeting this morning is with them.’

  ‘That sounds impressive.’ It didn’t surprise him at all to hear she was doing well in the corporate world.

  ‘It’s flattering—that’s for sure. They think I’ve tapped into a niche market they want a part of.’

  ‘You don’t sound one hundred per cent enthusiastic.’ Since when had he been able to read her voice?

  ‘I am and I’m not. They propose that my company would be absorbed by them as a specialised division, with me as the manager. But I worry that the vital personal touch might get lost if I lose control. My clients are an eccentric bunch and they could get scared off—even see my move as a betrayal. But I could help more people, expand the business to other states where there’s a need for it.’

  ‘It’s a big decision.’ He liked the way she was considering her clients—not just the potential gain for herself.

  ‘There’s pros and there’s cons. I’ll go in there this morning with an open mind.’

  ‘You can tell me all about it tonight. I’ll be interested to see what happens.’

  As they spoke Mitch drove as fast as he could around the steep, narrow streets of Balmain, one of the oldest inner western suburbs of Sydney. The streets were lined with quaint restored nineteenth-century terrace houses and historic shop fronts. The area suited Zoe.

  He turned into Darling Street and headed down towards the water. Ahead was the ferry terminal, framed by a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the other side of the harbour.

  ‘Thank heaven,’ Zoe breathed when they saw the ferry was still docking. ‘I wouldn’t have made it without you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been late if I hadn’t distracted you.’

  ‘I’m glad you distracted me,’ she said, tucking her satchel over her shoulder.

  Mitch didn’t know whether to read that as flirtatious or as a mere statement of fact. She was giving nothing away. Was she happy to see him or not? Had Bali meant anything to her?

  She started to open the door before the car was completely stopped, then scrambled out. ‘Gotta dash.’

  She paused, half out and half in the car, revealing a stretch of slender leg that Mitch could not help but appreciate.

  ‘I live on the floor above the office. Pick me up at seven-thirty tonight.’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  He reached out and put a hand on her arm. She stilled, and for a moment he thought she might shake his hand away from her.

  ‘Good luck with the meeting,’ he said. Had she thought he was going to say something else?

  ‘I might need it,’ she said, moving away. ‘Thanks for the ride. See you tonight.’

  She headed down to the ferry, which was now loading people across the gangplank. Commuting by ferry was an attractive part of Sydney living, he’d always thought.

  The sight of her shapely back view in the bright pink suit as she broke into a half run down to the ferry was very appealing. She might be a different Zoe from the one he remembered from their time together in Bali, but she was just as hot in that subtly sexy way he’d found impossible to forget.

  Which Zoe would he see tonight?

  CHAPTER NINE

  MITCH SAT ACROSS from Zoe at the harbourside restaurant he had booked for their dinner. He was not usually a man who found himself tongue-tied in conversati
on with a female companion. But tonight he was scraping around for something to say.

  He and Zoe had already exclaimed over the spectacular view—the restaurant was situated on the north side of the harbour, right near the north pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge—and together they had marvelled at the sight of the lit-up ferries and pleasure boats criss-crossing the darkened waters of the harbour. They’d commented on the swimmers braving the winter to do laps below them, in the black-marked lanes of the Art Deco-style North Sydney Olympic Pool. And they’d each said how fond they were of the big grinning face that marked the entrance to Luna Park, the harbour-front amusement park next door.

  Trouble was, that elephant was back. It was sitting below them, in the pale blue waters of that big swimming pool, looking up at them, taunting them. He and Zoe had spent the night together two months before, had shared the fear of possibly losing their lives, and yet neither of them had mentioned it. They were just acting as though they were old acquaintances catching up, skimming the surface with dinner table talk.

  This morning he’d seen Corporate Zoe. Tonight he was with Sophisticated Zoe, stylish in a simple purple lace dress that covered her arms and chest but revealed glimpses of her creamy skin, the enticing curves of her breasts through the gaps in the lace. Her hair was slicked back smoothly to her head and she wore long drop earrings that moved when she turned. She was striking, elegant, self-assured.

  Heads had turned when they’d walked in to the restaurant together—and they hadn’t been looking at him. But he wanted the Zoe who’d turned his head wearing nothing but a skimpy white towel.

  He remembered the flower he had tucked behind her ear that night in Bali—a prelude to the intimacy that had followed. Next morning he had found it, crumpled on her pillow. Never would he admit to anyone how he had scooped it up, wrapped it in a tissue from the bathroom and taken it back to Madrid with him.

  He picked up the menu. ‘Perhaps we should order?’

  ‘Good idea,’ she said.

  ‘The menu looks good. Are you hungry?’

  How inane was this conversation? He was flying back to Madrid the next day. The way this was going it didn’t seem likely he would get a chance to talk to Zoe about anything important—let alone anything intimate.