Bride of Fortune

by Leanne Banks

  She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “Look at me,” he demanded, craving the ultimate connection with her. “What is it?”

  She opened eyes full of fear and forever, and he plunged inside her. She shuddered. “I’m not supposed to love you,” she confessed in a broken voice that wrenched at him. “But I do. I love you.”

  Her words rocked him. He wanted to give her everything she’d never had. He wanted to be every person she’d ever needed. On either side of her, he deliberately twined his fingers through hers and began a rhythm that took him higher and higher. He felt himself getting lost in her eyes as her body intimately massaged him.

  Nearing the crest, he hung suspended, as if one of his feet were on a cliff and the other off. She cried out his name, and the sound drew a primitive satisfaction from his gut, his heart, his loins. The pleasure whipped through him like a flame, like the flame in his dream. Just before he flew, it hit him that for all his taking, he had been taken, too.

  The next morning Jason awakened to the sensation of Adele’s curls brushing his shoulder and her hand resting over his heart. The knowledge that she was naked made him want to make love to her again. Glancing at his alarm clock, he sighed. He hadn’t been to the office in several days due to his trip to L.A., and he knew there were several minor crises waiting for his attention.

  He wondered when he would get enough of her. He wondered if he would get enough of her. She generated an odd combination of emotions inside him, contentment, desire, challenge and protectiveness. He didn’t want her to return to Minnesota. He would find a way to make her job permanent. The decision eased something inside him, and he reached over to gently kiss her forehead.

  Her eyelids fluttered, and the way she instinctively curled around him squeezed his heart. Again he wanted to make love to her. “You’re so beautiful you could make it very difficult for a man to get to work in the morning.”

  She looked at him in disbelief. “Beautiful? In the morning? I don’t even want to think what my hair looks like. How long have you needed glasses?”

  Jason chuckled. “My vision is better than perfect. It’s 20/15 in both eyes.”

  She buried her head in his shoulder. “Better than perfect. Why doesn’t that surprise me? The rest of us lesser mortals content ourselves with mere 20/20 vision, but not you, Your Highness.”

  “If I were truly a desert prince, you would have been in big trouble for your impertinence many times since you’ve arrived in Pueblo. I like the idea of being able to tell you what to do on occasion.”

  She glanced up at him with a dark look in her eyes. “I guess everyone needs a fantasy.”

  Jason chuckled again and slid his hand down her silky body to gently squeeze her bottom. “We need to get up,” he said regretfully. “I need to go to work early this morning.”

  “Not me. I have an appointment.”

  He sat up. “With who?”

  “Doctor.”

  Jason frowned and studied her. “Is something wrong?”

  Her face bloomed with color. “I’m going on the Pill.”

  A little rush of pleasure surged through him. He nodded in approval and reached down to kiss her. “Good. Stop by and see me after you arrive in the office.”

  “Won’t you be too busy?”

  He didn’t say that seeing her would make his day ten times better, but he thought it. “No. I’ll be looking for you.”

  “Miss O’Neil, I must tell you that according to the test we ran upon your arrival this morning, you won’t be needing birth control pills.”

  Gripping the leather upholstery of the chair in the doctor’s private office, Adele stared in confusion at the compassion on the woman’s face. She’d completed the exam and was ready to be on her way. “Pardon?”

  Dr. Carolyn Wingfield set down Adele’s chart and folded her hands. “Due to the dates of your last menstrual cycle and the fact that you’re late, we gave you a pregnancy test and it was positive.”

  The room began to spin. “Positive?”

  Dr. Wingfield nodded. “Yes, you’re pregnant.”

  “But I can’t—” She swallowed over a suddenly dry throat. “I—” They had always used protection, hadn’t they? There hadn’t ever been a time in the dark middle of the night when they’d forgotten, had there? Adele searched her memory, but everything seemed fuzzy. “I don’t know how…” she began, and closed her mouth. Of course, she knew how babies were made.

  Dr. Wingfield’s forehead creased in sympathy. “This is obviously a shock. You don’t have to do anything. It’s very early in the pregnancy. You don’t have to make any decisions just yet.”

  “Decisions!” Adele echoed, panic slicing through her.

  “I suggest you take the rest of the day and catch your breath. From a medical standpoint, the only thing I want you to start immediately is your prenatal vitamins, and we have some samples that will last a week.” She filled out a prescription and handed it to Adele. “Make an appointment for next month. If you need to see me sooner, don’t hesitate to call. You’re in superb health. We can make referrals to counselors if you need additional help. But today you just need to breathe.”

  Adele was still trying to breathe by the time she walked into her condo. Pregnant. Her breath caught in her throat for the hundredth time. Pacing through the kitchen and den, she racked her brain for when it could have happened. Did it really matter when? she asked herself. When it happened didn’t change the fact that it had.

  She was pregnant.

  Adele covered her face with her hands. She had never visualized this for herself, at least not since she’d been a very young girl. Long ago she had decided she hadn’t received the training necessary to be a mother, and she refused to inflict her ignorance on an innocent child. Now she was left with no choice.

  Lord, she wished she had someone to talk to. But there was no one. Adele tried to think of one person with whom she could share this. Jasmine Fortune’s expressive, compassionate face floated into Adele’s mind, but she shook her head. In another time, Adele thought. In another situation, but not this one.

  The clock struck ten o’clock, and the panic closed in around her again. Jason was expecting her. Adele bit her lip. She couldn’t face him. She couldn’t imagine telling him. She couldn’t imagine not telling him. Her knees began to tremble, and she sank onto the sofa. She reached for the phone and punched out his number. A sliver of relief eased through her when his assistant answered.

  “This is Adele O’Neil,” Adele said.

  “Oh, Adele, I’ll put you right through. Jason said to send you in as soon as you arrive.”

  “Don’t do that!” Adele said, and winced at the desperate tone in her voice. She took a small breath. “I’m sure Jason is very busy today. Just please let him know that I’ll be in tomorrow, but I won’t be in today. Thanks so much. ’Bye now,” she said, and hung up determined to collect her thoughts during the time she’d just bought herself.

  After an excruciatingly long, busy day, Jason called Adele for the third time at 6 p.m. and frowned at the sound of continued ringing. He waited a few extra rings, then hung up the phone. He had an unsettling gnawing sensation in his gut that had nothing to do with his need for dinner.

  He couldn’t explain it, but he had a feeling about Adele. It was strong, almost supernatural, and it bothered the hell out of him. Although he’d successfully plowed through his work, she had hovered on the fringes of his mind. He’d expected her to walk through his office door throughout the afternoon even after his assistant had told him Adele wouldn’t be in today.

  A knock sounded on his door, and Tyler breezed in. “Want to go for a beer and steak? I can give you an update on the construction progress and the investigation. I think we’re in good hands with Link Templeton. That’s one sharp investigator.”

  Jason snapped the top on his Mont Blanc pen and stood. “Rain check on dinner, and I’ll take the update in the morning.”

  Tyler nodded with a specu
lative look on his face. “Dinner with the redhead?”

  “Nothing planned, just following my gut,” he said, shrugging into his suit coat.

  Tyler rubbed his chin. “You look worried. Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason said. “I just have a weird feeling about her.”

  “Adele?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sound like Dad. He gets those feelings sometimes.”

  “It’s probably nothing,” Jason said, even though he didn’t believe it. He was impatient to see Adele.

  “Yeah, well let me know if it’s monumental,” Tyler said with a skeptical expression on his face as he backed out of the office. “Later.”

  Jason nodded, but his mind was already five miles down the road at Adele’s condo.

  Adele pulled into a parking place in front of her condo and took a deep breath. It had taken a drive to Tucson and back, a light dinner and her first prenatal vitamin, but she was finally breathing almost normally. She glanced up at the moon and stars in the Arizona sky and thought again about the crazy turn her life had taken. She knew she was facing the biggest challenge of her life. Wrapping her arms around herself, she thought it would be nice if, this once, she didn’t have to face it alone.

  Getting out of the car, she walked toward her condo.

  “I missed you. Why did you play hooky?” Jason asked from behind her.

  Adele’s heart bolted. She stopped and bit her lip. “I needed a little extra time today, and I thought you’d be too busy playing catch-up to accomplish much on the hospital policies.”

  He stood beside her, and she felt his gaze but couldn’t bring herself to meet it. “But I wanted to see you.”

  She shrugged.

  She saw him shove his fists into his pockets. “So where did you go? How was your doctor appointment?”

  Adele’s chest tightened. She hadn’t decided how to tell Jason. She was just getting used to the idea that she was pregnant herself. “I had my appointment, then this afternoon I drove to Tucson, ate a light dinner and drove back.”

  Silence stretched uncomfortably between them. “Adele, there’s something going on, something you’re not telling me. I want to know what it is.” He paused. “Are you seeing someone else?”

  Surprise shot through her. She met his gaze. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, no!”

  His face was full of resolve. “Then what?”

  Adele sighed. “I’m a little tired. I think I could handle this better another time.”

  “This what?”

  Loathe to tell him, she shook her head. “Not now.”

  “Then when?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out. I’m still adjusting to—”

  “Dammit, Adele. Tell me what is going on. If it’s not another man, what is it?”

  He paused a half beat, and Adele would have sworn his gaze held the power of lasers, seeing straight through her. “You didn’t say how your doctor appointment was this morning.”

  Adele crossed her arms over her chest. “The doctor said I was in perfect health.”

  “So you got the pills,” he concluded.

  “No,” she reluctantly admitted.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  Adele was struck by the knowledge that she would never want to be on the opposite side of a fight with this man. He was relentless. “Come inside,” she finally said, and led the way into her condo. She felt frozen with fear and her own disbelief, but Adele knew she was going to have to tell Jason. She might as well get it over with.

  As soon as he closed the door behind him, she turned toward him. “The reason I didn’t get the birth control pills is because I’m pregnant.”

  Shock widened his eyes. “You can’t be.” He hesitated a sliver of a moment, and his gaze hardened. “Unless there’s another man.”

  Adele gasped. “Absolutely not. There’s been no one but you. How could you think that? I’ve been consumed with you. I—” She swallowed over her indignation. “You have been the only man to make love to me in over a year.”

  “You can’t be pregnant,” he insisted. “We used protection every time. I made damn sure of it.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Adele said. “I’ve spent the afternoon racking my brain, remembering every time we—” Her voice faltered and she looked away. “That first night, in the middle of the night, I wondered if I had dreamed it. Now I don’t think I was dreaming. We weren’t all the way awake. It was all instinct and need. I don’t remember using protection.”

  Silence hung thickly between him. Jason swore and turned away. His reaction hurt, even though Adele knew she had felt the same way. “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to keep the baby?”

  Adele instinctively covered her abdomen. She had thought about her choices. After all, she had been the result of an unwed affair, and her childhood had been less than ideal. She had been committed to not having children of her own, but now that she was pregnant, she could not imagine not doing everything in her power to protect and love this baby.

  “Yes, I’m going to keep the baby. I don’t have everything figured out, but you don’t need to worry that I’ll ask anything of you. I can handle this on my own,” she said in a voice that sounded much stronger than she felt.

  Jason didn’t pause. “We’ll get married immediately.”

  Adele’s heart stuttered. In her heart of hearts, she had wanted to belong to Jason, but not this way. “It’s not necessary. There are much, much worse things than having a well-educated single mother who tries her best.”

  He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “In various ways I’ve watched my family suffer from the results of illegitimacy. No child of mine will ever have to bear that burden.”

  Adele didn’t hear an ounce of give in his voice. “I’m not sure raising a child with parents who felt forced to marry each other is the best option.”

  “You’re already pregnant, so the best option,” Jason said bluntly, “is not available. Getting married as quickly as possible will provide the best protection for the child. What if something happened to you? You have to think beyond today, Adele. A child needs two parents. You wouldn’t want your child to end up in a children’s home the way you did, would you?”

  The very thought of it sickened her. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, not that.”

  “Then we’ll be married,” Jason said, his voice ringing with finality.

  Adele looked at his hard face and felt as if someone had closed her inside a steel vault. He was clearheaded, as if this were a contract negotiation. A business deal. Her stomach turned again. Their marriage would be a business deal.

  Twelve

  Three days later Adele struggled with a foot problem. Her toes never seemed to get warm. Cold feet. Every time she thought of marrying Jason, her feet grew colder.

  He hadn’t touched her since she’d told him about the pregnancy. She wondered if he blamed her. She certainly blamed herself. She should have been more careful. Now his life was turned upside down, and so was hers. Funny, though, she wasn’t nearly as concerned about the havoc having a child would wreak in her life as she was concerned about the idea of the business marriage. In fact, with each new day, Adele was filled with the peace that she would do whatever it took to love and protect this baby. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for the baby; although, sometimes at night she wondered if marrying Jason in these circumstances was the best choice.

  Today was diamond day, she thought as Jason drove her to the finest jeweler in Pueblo. Courteous as ever, he held the door for her and escorted her inside the exclusive shop. “You should choose something you like,” he told her. “You’ll be wearing it a long time.”

  Adele tensed. His words sounded more like a sentence.

  The jeweler led Adele and Jason to the back of his shop. “Congratulations to both of you,” he said, and pulled out a tray of diamond rings. “These are our
finest.”

  Adele felt a chill as she looked at the stones. They looked so cold. She shook off the thought and lifted her lips in a small smile. “They’re beautiful.”

  The jeweler pulled out a platinum ring with a large emerald-cut stone and baguettes. “What do you think of this?” he asked, and slid the elaborate ring on her finger.

  “It’s too big,” she murmured.

  “It can be sized,” Jason said.

  “No, that’s not—” She tried for a smile again, but it was harder this time. She returned the ring to the jeweler. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t think it’s me.”

  “What about this one?” the jeweler asked, eager to please. He pulled out a brilliant diamond, set in yellow gold encrusted with pearls and diamonds. The setting was elaborate, almost to the point of being gaudy.

  Adele shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  And so it went for the next twenty-five minutes. Adele could feel the growing exasperation shared by both the jeweler and Jason, and the tension inside her pulled tighter with each passing moment. “I think we need to try this another time,” she finally announced. “Perhaps you have a brochure and I could look at the pictures. That way I might get a better idea of what I truly like.”

  The jeweler sagged with relief. “I’ll get one for you to take with you.”

  Within moments Jason thanked the jeweler for his time, and he and Adele left the store. As he joined her in the car, he looked at her as if his patience was stretched. “You didn’t like any of them?” he asked in disbelief. “The first one was four carats.”

  “The man had some beautiful stuff, Jason,” she said, lifting her chin. “But it’s still just stuff,” she told him, thinking of the story she’d told him about her childhood.

  “You need an engagement ring,” he said.

  She laughed. “No, I don’t need a ring. I need shelter, clothing, food, self-respect, a sense of purpose and a few good friends.” And I would like to be loved, a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered, but Adele snuffed it out. She refused to dwell on a wish that was clearly going to remain unfulfilled.