by Maya Banks
When they entered the bathroom, her eyebrows went up. While the rest of the house wasn’t remotely modern looking, he had a kick-ass bathroom with all the modern conveniences. Radiant-heated tile floors, granite countertops and what looked like a marble shower and separate huge soaking tub. Somehow she couldn’t picture Steele soaking in a bathtub. He didn’t seem like the type to just sit and boil himself like she was preparing to do. He was more the impatient type, in and out of the shower in two point three minutes.
“What’s that look for?” Steele inquired.
Her nose wrinkled. “The rest of the house suits you. Your personality, I mean. But the bathroom? I just can’t wrap my head around you ever using the huge tub. It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong. I dream of having a tub like this. Well, a bathroom like this. It’s perfect. But again, I just don’t see you dallying in the bathroom or indulging in the luxury of a hot bath.”
He shrugged. “In my line of work, I come home with sore muscles, bullet holes. I’ve been beat to hell and have gone without sleep for five straight days. Believe me when I say, sometimes the best medicine is to bury myself in hot water and stay there for a couple of hours.”
She winced. “Well, when you put it that way, it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately for me, I can’t actually boil myself or even stay in the tub for too long.”
“Why not?”
Her mouth opened but nothing came out. She’d very nearly given herself away by saying pregnant women shouldn’t submerge in hot water for extended periods of time.
“Well, you promised me food, and not even a hot bath prevails over food at the moment.”
“I’ll leave some clothes for you on the bed. Towels are in the cabinet by the shower. I’ll shut the bedroom door. Don’t worry about me coming in. I’ll stay out until you’re done.”
“Thanks,” she murmured.
He turned and walked out, shutting the bathroom door behind him.
She reached over to start the bathwater running and then quickly stripped out of her clothing. She grimaced when she took off her shirt and realized that in her haste to leave with Hancock, she hadn’t put a bra on, and she sure as hell didn’t think Steele would have that particular accessory.
For that matter, she didn’t have clean underwear, which meant she’d be going sans bra and panties until they could get to a store to buy them. Definitely at the top of her shopping list.
Twenty minutes later, she reluctantly left the orgasmic bliss of the hot water and stepped out to dry herself. She twisted her hair in a towel and piled it atop her head before wrapping the other towel around her body. Then she went into the bedroom, and as he’d promised, he’d laid out a pair of sweatpants and an oversized hoodie. Perfect. It would disguise her braless state.
Still wearing the towel on her head—she didn’t have it in her to comb out her hair yet—she wandered out of Steele’s bedroom and headed for the kitchen. Steele was standing at the island where the stovetop was inlaid and was tending to three different pots.
She sniffed appreciatively as she slid onto one of the bar stools at the U-shaped island.
“Smells wonderful. What’s cooking?”
“Spaghetti,” he replied. “Sorry it’s nothing fancier. I haven’t been home much in the last while and the groceries are in sore need of restocking. Hope you don’t mind deer burger in your spaghetti. It was all I had in the freezer.”
Her stomach rumbled. “I’m sure it’s wonderful. Anything that smells that good has to be delicious. And to be honest, I got really tired of all the fancy gourmet stuff that Caldwell always had prepared. I had no idea what I was eating half the time. I’m afraid my palate isn’t that refined. Give me a burger and some fries and I’m in heaven.”
Steele grinned. “You and I will get along just fine then. I can cook, but I’m no cordon bleu.”
A few minutes later, he drained the pasta and then ladled out the thick spaghetti sauce onto two beds of pasta.
“What would you like to drink?” he asked. “I quick-brewed some iced tea, but I wasn’t sure if you liked yours sweetened or not. To me, it isn’t tea unless it’s sweet tea, but if you’re not from the South, you aren’t likely to share that opinion. I also have a variety of sodas and bottled water.”
“Tea is fine,” she said. “Admittedly, the tea I drink is usually hot, but I’m not opposed to iced tea at all.”
“I’ll get you some tea when I restock the groceries. Make me a list of the kinds you like. I can’t guarantee my little grocery store will have a huge variety, but I can always order it for you.”
“You’re very sweet,” she said softly.
From the way he was talking, he seemed to take it for granted that she’d be staying longer than a few days. But then she’d have a better idea of whether he still felt hospitable after she dropped the bomb.
“I’ve been called a lot of things, but I don’t think anyone has ever called me sweet,” he said dryly.
“Then I’m glad I’m getting to see that sweet side of you. It’s definitely there!”
He slid her plate across the bar and then set his next to hers. He filled two glasses with ice, poured the tea and then walked around to sit beside her.
She stared down at the steaming plate of spaghetti and her stomach promptly rebelled. She sat completely still, willing the nausea to go away. But the longer she sat, the worse it got. Sweat broke out on her forehead and she inhaled sharply, realizing too late her mistake.
“Maren?”
Steele’s sharp inquiry reached her ears, but she was already bolting from the bar, stumbling toward the bathroom before she completely lost it.
She burst inside Steele’s bathroom, instinctively heading back where she’d just been a few minutes before. She’d just reached the toilet when the first dry heave hit her, the towel on her head tumbling to the floor.
She nearly fell with the force of the retch. Her stomach lurched painfully as it tried to offer up something, but there wasn’t anything there to get out.
And then Steele was there, holding her up and preventing her from collapsing. He anchored her to his side and bent over with her, holding her hair back from her face. He didn’t say anything, thank God. He just stood there with her, patient and gentle as her body convulsed over and over.
When her heaves finally calmed, he loosened his hold but remained there, seemingly uncertain of what he should do next. She was horrified that this had happened in front of him. Her humiliation knew no bounds.
“Can you stay right here for just a second? I’ll get you a cool cloth for your face, but I don’t want you to fall. Can you sit, or do you still need to vomit?”
She weakly shook her head. “I’ll be fine. Sorry.”
He cursed under his breath. “Don’t be sorry. Here, let me close the lid and you sit.”
He kept hold of her while he shut the toilet lid, and then he helped her ease down onto it. When he was satisfied she wasn’t going to fall over, he backed away to the sink and quickly dampened a washcloth.
He returned and pressed it to her forehead. “Take deep breaths through your nose. Just take it easy and don’t rush anything. When you feel like you can stand, I’ll help you to the couch in the living room, unless you’d prefer to lie down on the bed for a while.”
She nodded, closing her eyes while he gently wiped her face and mouth. Though nothing had come up, her mouth felt like yuck, and she really wanted something to drink, but she was afraid it would only come right back up.
“Better?” he asked softly.
She nodded again and then opened her eyes to look up at him.
“What the hell is going on, Maren? Are you sick? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
She sighed. “Nothing that five more months won’t cure.”
He gave her a puzzled look.
“I’m pregnant, Steele,” she said. “This wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you, but that’s what’s wrong. I’m pregnant and I’m still in the everything-makes-me-queasy stag
e.”
CHAPTER 26
STEELE’S mind went utterly and completely blank. He stared back at Maren, took in the anxiety written in clear lines all over her face. Her pale, drawn features. The fear in her eyes. The longer he remained silent, the more afraid she looked, and yet he couldn’t find his damn tongue to save his life.
Rage billowed through him like a storm. He was afraid to say anything for fear that she’d think his anger was directed at her.
“What did he do to you?” he finally demanded in a hoarse voice. “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch, Maren. I swear it. Did he force you? Does he know you’re pregnant with his child?”
If Caldwell knew, his obsession with Maren wouldn’t likely end. He would pursue her relentlessly and Steele would never let the man touch her again. If he died trying, he’d protect her with his last breath.
Maren looked gray and very much like she would vomit all over again. She swayed precariously, her eyes shadowed as she looked anxiously at him.
“Steele, he didn’t . . . I mean he isn’t . . .”
She closed her eyes, looking more ill than ever. Steele gathered her gently into his arms and stood, carrying her with him.
“The bathroom isn’t the place for a conversation like this,” he muttered.
He walked out of the bedroom and back into the living room, where he tucked her onto the end of the couch, bunching pillows around her so she’d be as comfortable as possible. Then he reached for a blanket because she was shaking like a leaf.
After ensuring her comfort and that she was warm, he sat next to her, purposely remaining close to her, their bodies touching. He took her icy hands in his, rubbing them gently between his palms.
“Maren, look at me,” he said in a gentle voice. “No matter what happened, you can talk to me about it. Unless that’s not what you want. If you’d prefer to talk to someone else, I’ll get them for you. Maybe your mom? Maybe we should call her now.”
She shook her head and a tear squeezed from the corner of her eye, alarming him. Oh shit. He didn’t do crying females. And Maren crying? Panic paralyzed him as he scrambled to try to think of what the hell he should do.
“It’s not what you think,” she said. “He didn’t hurt me. Didn’t touch me. As prisons go, his was rather opulent. He provided everything I could possibly need, spoiled and pampered me. Lavished gifts. No, I wasn’t there of my own free will, but he didn’t mistreat me in any way other than keeping me under lock and key 24-7.”
Steele’s eyes narrowed in confusion. Surely she didn’t mean what he thought she did. “So what are you saying? That you were with him willingly?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m not pregnant with Tristan’s baby, Steele. He never touched me. He was growing bolder. I think if I had been there much longer, he would have . . . Well, I’d rather not think about where things were headed if I hadn’t gotten out when I did.”
Steele’s mouth dropped open in bewilderment. That wasn’t at all what he’d expected her to say. His mind was screaming what the fuck. This wasn’t making any damn sense at all.
“Then who the hell is the father?”
She pulled her hands from his grip and eyed him with huge, blue eyes, wide with anxiety, fear written clearly in her features. She looked like she was afraid of . . . him. The thought gutted him. He never wanted her to be afraid of him. Did she expect him to go off the rails because she’d gotten pregnant by some other guy?
“I’ve only been with one man in the last eighteen months,” she said quietly. “You. I’m pregnant with your baby, Steele.”
He stared at her in complete silence as he processed what she’d just dropped on him. There were so many conflicting emotions ranging from what-the-fuck to absolute relief and elation. And a whole lot in between.
And when he did finally manage to open his mouth, he shoved his foot right in.
“I used condoms,” he ground out. “I’d never take such a risk with you, Maren. I’d never not protect you.” And then it hit him. “That last time. We didn’t use a condom. It had to have been then. God, I’m so sorry. I knew better.”
Before he could continue, she shook her head, biting into her bottom lip. “I was already pregnant then.”
She sounded defensive, but there was also a quiver in her voice that knotted his stomach. Fuck it all, he didn’t want her afraid of him. He wasn’t going to freak out and start denying responsibility. But this was huge on the what-the-fuck scale. Life-alteringly huge.
He ran a hand raggedly through his hair and exhaled in a long whoosh, and then what she’d said finally registered. His eyes narrowed as he looked back at her.
“You were already pregnant? You knew that? And you didn’t tell me? What the hell, Maren?”
He was horrified. Not that she was pregnant. But that she’d been pregnant. If he’d known, he would never have left. Nothing would have been more important to him than her and his child. She would have never been kidnapped and held for weeks, terrified out of her mind and worried over the safety of herself and their unborn child.
He would have been there, even if it had meant relocating to fucking Costa Rica to be with her during her pregnancy. Or better yet, she would have been with him here, in his house, not in an isolated part of another country.
Tears rose in her eyes. Her hands shook and she looked so damn scared that he couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly as she shook against him.
Her words were choked out, muffled by his chest, but he didn’t loosen his hold on her.
“I didn’t know for sure then, Steele. You have to understand. I suspected, but I couldn’t imagine that it could be true. As you said, we used condoms. The day you came back was the same day I drew my own blood and sent it off for testing. Before you arrived, I was going to wait for the results and then contact you through Sam. But then you got there and you planned to stay a while, so I figured when I got the results I could tell you face-to-face and we could go from there. But then you left, and I didn’t want to lay that on you when you were leaving on a mission. I didn’t think it was fair. What if I wasn’t pregnant? You would have gone on your mission and been thinking about whether I was pregnant or not. You would have been distracted and in your line of work, distractions can be deadly.”
He breathed into her hair and then stroked one hand down the length and then back up again, tangling his fingers in the strands.
“You should have told me,” he said quietly. “Whether you were or weren’t isn’t the issue. The possibility that you were is. I would have never left you if I’d known there was even the possibility. If you’d told me, I would have stayed, Maren, and you would have never been kidnapped.”
“I did what I thought was best,” she said, a sob catching her voice and cracking it midsentence.
She reared back, pulling from his embrace, and then she reached up to touch his face, her fingers fanned out over his skin. Her gaze was earnest and beseeching.
“I was freaking out myself, but you have to believe me, Steele. Never once did I intend not to tell you. I got the results three days after you left and I was going to tell you the minute you came back. But then when I was leaving the clinic, Carlos, Tristan’s hired man, was waiting for me.”
She stared up at him, silver trails sliding down her cheeks.
“Please believe me, Steele. I’d never keep something like that from you.”
“I believe you,” he said quietly.
Her eyes lit up and she looked so damn hopeful that he regretted the way he’d all but attacked her. He had no excuse other than the blame he felt for leaving her. If he’d been there, she would have never been taken. Never suffered what she’d suffered for the last months.
And close on the heels of his words came self – recrimination.
“Christ, I’m sorry, Maren. This can’t be what you wanted. It’s my fucking fault. The goddamn condom must have broken or leaked. That’s on me. You have to know I
would have never placed you in this position on purpose.”
She stroked over his face, soothing him with her touch.
“I know that, Steele. It’s both our blame and neither at the same time. We’re adults. We both know that birth control isn’t foolproof. We both played with fire and we both got burned. But now that I’ve had time to take in the news, I’m not sorry about the baby. I hope when you’ve had enough time to digest it all, you won’t be sorry either. Our child may not have been purposely conceived, but he or she is there now. Inside me. A part of me. I love our baby already. The last several weeks have been so horribly stressful. I was afraid to eat or drink anything because I feared that Tristan would try to harm our child or make me miscarry.”
Anger surged through him all over again. He reached out to cup her jaw, rubbing his thumb along her cheekbone, trying to wipe away the lines of fatigue and stress. He chased away the tears that dampened her cheeks and then he leaned in, softly kissing away the moisture.
“I failed you, Maren, and I’m sorry for that. It seems I have a lot of experience in failing people who matter to me in the last year. First P.J. Now you. I should have been there sooner. If I had, you wouldn’t have spent the last months in hell, worrying that the son of a bitch would force himself on you or cause you to lose your child. My child,” he said forcefully.
His child. God, he couldn’t even wrap his mind around the fact that he was going to be a father. He was so ill prepared for parenthood, it was ludicrous. Children had never been in his game plan. Ever. With the job he held and never knowing where he’d be from one day to the next, and worse, not ever knowing if he’d make it back from a mission? It was no way for a child to live. It was no way to be an effective parent.
He wanted to be the kind of father his own dad was to him. Even though he’d never planned to have children, now that it was inevitable, he wanted to give his child two loving, stable parents just like his own had been.
