For Richer or Poorer

by JoAnn Ross

  A tear escaped. Before he could brush it away, Lily had taken a swipe at it with the back of her hand, then squeezed her eyes tight.

  “Of course it wasn’t.” The fear she’d been living with all these months gripped her by her throat. “They want my baby, Mac.” Her eyes, her voice, were forlorn.

  Connor’s anger burned hotter. Brighter. With effort, he managed to keep his thoughts collected, his voice calm. “And you’ve been trying to deal with all this all by yourself?”

  Lily lifted her chin when she thought she detected a note of censure in his rough tone. “In the beginning I didn’t have anyone,” she said simply. “Since I’ve come to L.A., Blythe and Cait have given me wonderful support. And Gage...”

  Her voice cracked, but instead of the sobs Connor expected, a surprising giggle broke free. “He actually punched the Van Cortlandts’ detective in the nose.”

  Connor made a note to thank the former cop. “That’s a start.” The mood lightened ever so slightly by her breathless admission, he ran his palm down her hair. “Although I think I’d get a helluva lot more pleasure punching out the Van Cortlandts.”

  Lily saw the truth in his eyes and felt a wave of emotion so strong and sweet that she knew it could only be one thing. She lifted her palm to his cheek. “I love you, Mac Sullivan.”

  Later, when everything had fallen apart, he would tell himself that this was when he’d made his fatal mistake. If he’d confessed when Lily first admitted her feelings, she probably would have forgiven his charade.

  Her other hand was still pressed against her stomach. Taking time to choose his words carefully, Connor covered it with his own.

  And then it happened. The child she was carrying turned, moving against their joined hands, distracting him. Making him forget what he must do.

  “That’s incredible.” Entranced, he spread his fingers, rewarded by a series of somersaults.

  Lily smiled through misty eyes. “Isn’t it?” Only moments earlier she’d been on the verge of tears. Now she still felt like weeping. But from joy, rather than sorrow. “The first time I felt it, I understood what miracles were all about.”

  She glanced down at his dark hand and thought that the contrast between strength and tenderness had made her fall in love with Mac in the first place.

  “I still think that,” she murmured. “Every time.”

  “I can see why.” He wondered what it felt like from inside, but before he could ask, he was treated to another series of rolls that reminded him of a diver hurling off a towering platform. “Hey, a perfect 6.0. The kid’s definitely got Olympic Gold in his future.”

  She laughed, as she was supposed to. The tension she’d been feeling eased. Her sorrow faded. Despite all her problems, she was feeling remarkably carefree.

  Then their eyes met and she felt something else all together.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Connor said. It was time. Past time.

  His expression was so grave. So sober. Whatever it was, Lily didn’t want to hear it. Not if he was going to tell her that he couldn’t love her back.

  “Not now.” She framed his handsome face in her hands and brushed her lips lightly against his frowning ones. “I don’t want to talk any more.” Her warm, avid lips plucked at his, encouraging a response. “I just want to make love with you, Mac.”

  She drew her head back to meet his gaze again. In those remarkable cornflower blue eyes Connor saw faint seeds of doubt. “That is, if you still want to.”

  How could she ask? Didn’t she realize that was practically all he’d been thinking about since he’d pulled her out of the surf and seriously debated whisking her off to San Francisco with him?

  “Oh, baby.” He drew her back against him, gathering her close, inhaling the scent of her hair, the fragrance of the silky flesh behind her ear. “Let me show you how much I want to.”

  Lily sighed her pleasure as he brushed delicate butterfly kisses over her face. A soft, excited laugh slipped from between her parted lips.

  “I never knew,” she murmured as his mouth glided along her jawline. She’d never realized that wanting could be so sweet. Desire so exquisite.

  “That makes two of us.” She was so unbearably soft. And warm. And special. “I’ve never wanted a woman like I’ve wanted you, Lily.”

  He stroked her without hurry through the thin cotton of her flowered sundress, caressing her full curves, creating waves of glorious warmth. “I’ve never needed a woman like I need you.” He rubbed his lips over hers with more tenderness than he’d known himself to be capable of. Ran his fingers over the crests of her voluptuous breasts with more restraint than he’d known he possessed.

  “I’ve never loved a woman like I love you.” And that, Connor considered as he savored the taste of her soft moan beneath his mouth, made all the difference.

  He undressed her slowly. Tenderly. His fingers slowly unfastened each button from the scooped, scalloped neckline to the lace-trimmed, petticoat hem. Then he slowly folded the rosebud-sprigged cotton back, exposing her to his warm and sensuous gaze.

  Amazing. He hadn’t even known it was possible for pregnant women to wear bikini panties. As for her breasts, Connor had once dated an actress who’d paid a fortune to plump up to measurements nature had provided Lily. The room had grown dark. When Connor reached out to turn on the bedside lamp, Lily caught hold of his hand.

  “It’s okay.” His lips touched hers, muffling her soft protest. “I want to see you, Lily. All of you.”

  She shook her head, even as her lips clung to his. “I’m fat.” It was a whisper, muffled by his mouth, but Connor had no trouble hearing it in the hushed stillness of the bedroom.

  “Not fat.” His fingers dispatched the clasp of her white bra with a clever touch. He scattered a trail of kisses across the slope of her full and aching breasts. “Beautiful.”

  Wanting this to be perfect for her, Connor was willing to forego the lamp. But he refused to make love to Lily for the first time in the dark.

  Without ceasing his caresses, he reached out with his left hand and snagged the book of matches from a local restaurant lying beside a fat beeswax candle on the bedside table. He bent one of the cardboard matches, struck it against the flinty strip and lit the candle, bathing her in a warm yellow glow.

  Her heavy breasts were the color of porcelain, but so much, much warmer. Her flesh was drawn tight against her belly, outlining the child she’d been fighting so desperately to keep. The child Connor swore she would keep.

  He bent his head again and kissed a faint white stretch line that represented a physical and emotional sacrifice that Connor found overwhelming.

  “Absolutely beautiful,” he said huskily.

  “You don’t have to lie.” When his tongue skimmed her navel, Lily arched her back in wordless pleasure.

  “I’m not.” Not about this. Never about this. He ran his tongue over a taut nipple. The hot wet caress drew an incoherent moan.

  “There’s a very good reason fertility figures are so lush and round.” Wallowing in the delight of the soft damp flesh, enjoying each delicate tremor, he treated the other nipple to a torment just as prolonged. “It’s because men find pregnancy a real turn-on.”

  “Is that true?” she asked on a breathless, fractured sound.

  “Absolutely.” When his hand moved between her thighs, slowly, with infinite care, Connor felt her body go lax with pleasure. “There’s something amazingly sexy about a warm, ripe woman.” Even as he enjoyed the sense of absolute control, he kept his touch gentle. Unhurried. “And you, my sweet Lily, are the sexiest pregnant lady on the face of the earth.”

  The amazing thing, Lily thought, was that he meant it. Unlike Junior, who could not open his mouth without telling a lie, Mac was staunchly truthful. It was the most important of the many reasons she’d fallen in love with him.

  Lily’s blood swam, rich and warm in her veins as he continued to treat her to a languid pleasure so glorious it made her want to weep.
He ran his fingers up her inner thigh, drawing a soft, shimmering sigh. When he caressed the gilt triangle between her legs, she moaned and pressed against his hand in a silent plea.

  Aroused by her absolute, unguarded response to him, Connor slipped his fingers into her. “You are so warm,” he murmured wonderingly in her ear. “So wet.”

  Having wanted her from the beginning, he would not apologize for possessing a normal man’s needs. It may have been desire that had first attracted him to Lily, but as he forced himself to concentrate on her fragility rather than her strength, what was happening here tonight had everything to do with love.

  There was no storm. No flare of fireworks. The earth did not move.

  Instead there was flickering candlelight. Sweet, whispered words. Tender, murmured promises. Fingers linked, lips melded, legs entwined as he slipped into her.

  And as the fragrant beeswax candle burned low and the pale moon climbed high in the sky, showering its silvery light over Bachelor Arms, Connor and Lily rose with it.

  * * *

  DAZED, CONNOR HELD HER against his chest as he waited for his mind and his body to return to normal.

  He could spend the remainder of his life in this bed, he decided as he pressed a kiss against the top of her head. So long as Lily was here with him.

  Pleased with that idea, pleased with himself, with her, with them together, Connor drew her closer. Hungry for another kiss, he bent a finger beneath her chin, coaxing her head his way, her soft, succulent mouth toward him. It was then he saw she was crying.

  Although he’d never known it to be physically possible, Connor felt his heart actually lurch. Then sink.

  “Lily?” Tears were streaming down her cheeks in silent silver ribbons. If he’d injured her, or the baby, he’d never forgive himself. “Sweetheart?” As he brushed at the moisture with his fingertip, he felt inordinately clumsy. “Did I hurt you?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, then apparently thought better of it. As Connor watched in horrified dismay, she pressed her love-bruised lips tightly together. A renewed flood of tears burst free.

  “That’s it.” He was out of the bed in a shot, grabbing up the telephone receiver. “I’m calling the doctor.”

  “No!” Her voice trembled even as the tears continued to fall. With more speed and grace than he would have thought possible, given the advanced state of her pregnancy, she left the bed to stand in front of him. “Really, Mac. I don’t need a doctor.”

  He looked down at her, unconvinced. Fear created a metallic taste in his mouth. “You’re crying.”

  “I know.” More tears. Hot and wet, they created a sheen in her wide blue eyes. Although she’d already laid claim to his heart, Lily’s soft wobbly smile strummed a hundred—a thousand—chords deep inside Connor. She went up on her toes and lifted a hand to his cheek. “It was so perfect.” She framed his frowning face between her palms. “So beautiful.” Emotion clogged her throat. She swallowed. She wanted to tell him, but as their eyes met, there was no need for words.

  “I’m sorry,” she managed on a voice that cracked. She sniffled. “I hardly ever cry.”

  He’d make her cry again, Connor knew. There was, unfortunately, no getting around it. He closed his eyes briefly and hoped that when she learned the truth about who—and what—he was, she would scream and throw things, and call him every name in the book, all of which he’d be the first to admit he deserved.

  Then, because he could not accept the alternative, Connor imagined, after her understandable display of temper, because she possessed a loving heart and generous nature, she would forgive him.

  Lily saw the dark emotion swirling in his eyes and misunderstood it for continued concern. “Tell me again.”

  The way she was looking up at him, with such uncensored love and absolute trust, gave Connor an idea of how Benedict Arnold must have felt. But Arnold had only betrayed his country. His crime, betraying the woman he loved, was far worse.

  “Tell you what?”

  “That you love me.” The dancing light was back in her eyes, her generous mouth widened into a smile that could steal a man’s breath, along with his heart, away.

  “I love you.” Overwhelmed by another surge of fear, this time of losing her, he dragged her tight against him. “Love you.” He rained hot, desperate kisses over her face, her neck, her throat. “There’s something I want you to promise me.”

  Her hands were gripping his shoulders. Her lips were as hot and avid as his. “Anything.”

  With an arm behind her knees, he scooped her up and carried her the few short feet back to the bed. Feeling some desperate masculine need to claim Lily for his own, for always, he braced himself over her.

  “Whatever happens,” he demanded, his hot eyes locked to hers, “promise that you’ll never forget that I love you.”

  Puzzlement at his intensity flickered briefly over her face. “Of course I won’t.”

  Before she could give voice to the questions he saw swirling in those remarkable eyes, he covered her mouth with his, and surged into her. This time the flight was hard and fast. Moving with him, Lily clung as they soared like a comet into the mists.

  * * *

  NOT FAR AWAY, in apartment 1-G, Gage paced the floor of his apartment, frustrated by the news he’d just received regarding Natasha Kuryan, Alexandra’s former makeup artist at Xanadu. When he’d first informed Blythe that the elderly woman had embarked on a cruise to Greece, she’d been understandably frustrated. Having finally located someone who’d actually known the former actress personally, she’d been anxious for a meeting.

  At the time he’d counseled patience. The cruise was only for two weeks, he’d reminded her. By the time Blythe returned from her honeymoon, Natasha would be back from Greece.

  Knowing that Blythe was waiting for news of his interview with Natasha, Gage decided that since she was going to have to learn the truth sometime, it may as well be now.

  Assuring himself that his only motive was to report this latest twist in the complex case to his client, Gage picked up the phone and dialed the Maui Marriott.

  “I don’t believe it!” Blythe had taken the phone by the pool, where she was working on her tan while Alan pursued birdies and eagles on the resort’s emerald green golf course. She did some rapid calculation. “The woman must be in her eighties!”

  “I’d say that’s a good guess,” Gage agreed.

  “You know, I really hate it when you stay so calm when I’m not,” Blythe complained.

  “Sorry.”

  She heard the repressed humor in his tone over the long-distance telephone line. “It’s not funny!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Dammit, Gage.” His drawled, easygoing tone amused even as it frustrated. Blythe found herself smiling in spite of her pique. “It was bad enough when she took off on that cruise. But now you tell me she’s having some wild affair—”

  “I don’t know how wild it is. But she’s definitely jumped ship and moved into Kyriako Papakosta’s home on the island of Naxos. He’s a popular novelist, practically lionized in the country. Anyway, my contact says they were seen dancing cheek-to-cheek in a village taverna.”

  “How nice,” Blythe said dryly.

  Natasha Kuryan may be in her twilight years, but it appeared she had more of a social life than Blythe was currently experiencing. For all Alan’s alleged need to “get away,” he was spending the majority of his time doing exactly what he did in Los Angeles—playing hospital politics.

  “Don’t worry, if she’s not back in a couple of weeks, we’ll track her down.”

  “We?”

  “You were the one who wanted to talk to her. If you want to go to Greece alone—”

  “No.” Blythe cut him off. “I wouldn’t even know how to get to Naxos, let alone find Natasha when I arrived.” Across the pool, a couple—honeymooners, the concierge had informed Blythe with a knowing grin the other day—were standing in the shallow end, sharing a kiss.

  Th
e prolonged embrace reminded Blythe all too vividly of that stolen kiss she’d shared with Gage. Knowing she was in trouble when the mere memory of his firm lips pressed against hers could make her blood warm, she told herself that to run off to some sun-drenched Mediterranean island with a man who’d been playing the starring role in too many of her dreams lately, was horrendously risky.

  “Blythe?” His deep husky voice slid beneath her skin, triggering dangerous emotions. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes.” The single word came out soft and fractured. Blythe dragged her hand through her hair. “Yes, I’m still here. And yes, I think your idea of going to Greece is a good one.”

  Dear Lord, she was going to do it. As a significant little silence settled over them, she realized that she was not the only one who realized the significance of that decision.

  “Oh, one more thing before I hang up,” Gage said. “About Lily.”

  “Lily?” Any lingering desire instantly disintegrated. Blythe sat bolt upright. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Actually, it seems as if, for the first time, something might be going very, very right for the lady. She and Mac Sullivan appear to be an item.”

  “Really?” So Cait had been right about Mac.

  “They’ve been spending a lot of time together. And Cait tells me he took her place as Lily’s birthing coach.”

  “Gracious.” Blythe frowned. While she wanted Lily to be happy, she certainly didn’t want her jumping into another unhappy relationship. “That is fast work.” Too fast, perhaps.

  “It may seem that way,” Gage allowed. “But sometimes, things just click between a man and a woman.”

  His voice dropped to its lower registers. Once again he was no longer merely a private investigator reporting to a client, but much, much more. His intimate tone told Blythe he was no longer talking about Lily and Mac.

  “Well.” Blythe forced a breezy smile into her voice. “I’m sure she’s in good hands.”

  “I’ll break the guy’s face if he does anything to hurt her,” Gage promised. “You know, maybe I should check him out. Just in case.”