After the waiter cleared the table, Jason dismissed him, but not before handing him a hefty tip. Jason always tipped well, even if the service was less than stellar.
When he sat back down Holly was literally on the edge of her seat. Another inch and she probably would fall off the chair.
“Are you ready for your surprise?” he asked and she nodded. She assumed he would want to take a walk on the beach or at least get on one knee, but still sitting at the table he reached into the side pocket of his jacket and she held her breath.
“I know you’re not crazy about flashy jewelry,” he said with a grin, “and me spending a lot of money on you. But for this I hope you’ll make an exception.”
In his hand was a small black velvet box, the ideal size to hold a ring. He set it down on the table and slid it across to her, and for a second she just stared. Waiting for him to say something.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
Maybe he wanted her to open it and see it first, then he would get down on his knee to propose. That had to be it.
She reached out and took the box, noting that it felt pretty heavy, which could mean it was a huge rock, though she would have been just as happy if it was a chip.
Heart racing, she slowly lifted the top and on a bed of red satin sat...
She blinked. Then blinked again.
A pair of diamond stud earrings.
Huh?
Mouth hanging open, she looked up at Jason and he smiled, obviously thinking that she was stunned into silence by the beauty of his gift.
“Every woman should have a pair of diamond studs,” he said. “They go with everything.”
They sure did. And they were exquisitely beautiful, but they were not an engagement ring. Not even close. There had been no proposal, no confessions of true love. Nothing. Just a stupid pair of earrings that probably had cost him a fortune. But that sure didn’t mean he loved her.
This entire trip had been a farce. Her happily ever after another figment of her imagination.
“Holly, are you okay?”
She looked up at him and he was no longer smiling.
“If you don’t like the earrings—”
“Jason, do you love me?”
He sat back as if he’d been struck. “What?”
“You heard me. Do. You. Love. Me?”
He looked baffled, as if he hadn’t a clue how to respond or why she was shouting at him.
“It’s a simple question,” she said so loudly she was sure the people in the neighboring condos could hear her, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t have helped it if she had. “Do you love me? Yes or no.”
“Maybe this is something we should talk about.”
“Yes, let’s,” she said, her voice rising in pitch until she was shrieking. “Because I’m pregnant!”
His slack-jawed, bewildered look was more than she could take. The room went fuzzy and her chair began to sway beneath her, and the last thing she heard as she lost consciousness was the thump of her body hitting the floor.
Sixteen
Holly woke from a haze to find Jason kneeling over her, and for a second she thought she was back in her apartment in New York, passed out from seeing Jeremy’s ghost, and wondering if it had all just been some strange vivid dream. But as her vision cleared she realized they were still in the condo in Mexico, and it was all very real.
“Are you okay?” Jason asked, and she nodded, even though she was just about the furthest she’d ever been from okay. And she felt embarrassed and stupid and completely heartbroken. How could she have blown this whole thing out of proportion? How could she have been so presumptuous? And she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t merely informed Jason that she was pregnant, she had screamed it at him. He must have thought she was a loon.
He offered a hand to help her sit up and said, “You know, we really have to stop meeting like this.”
In spite of herself she laughed, because the only other option was to cry, and she didn’t want to cry. She just wanted to disappear. “I’m sorry I shouted at you.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“I guess this wasn’t the ideal way to break the news.” She didn’t know if there was an ideal way.
“How? I had a vasectomy.”
“That’s what I thought, but according to Miranda, they can magically reverse themselves.”
He shook his head. “No shit.”
She shrugged. “Who knew?”
“Well, thank God for small miracles.”
Wait? What? “What does that mean?”
“When I had the procedure done it made sense. Then I met you and fell in love with you, and I began to realize what a huge mistake I’d made.”
“You fell in love with me?”
“Pretty much from the minute I met you.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“What was I supposed to say? You made it pretty clear that you didn’t want to bury another husband. Whether I loved you or not, it didn’t seem to make much difference. And to be fair, you never said it, either.”
No, she hadn’t, but she would say it now. “I love you, Jason. I never knew I could love someone the way I love you.”
“Well,” he said with a grin, “I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”
“I’m so sorry that I freaked out like that.”
“It’s okay. And if you really don’t like the earrings we can take them back, or exchange them for something else. Like a diamond ring.”
She gasped.
“It took you passing out for my dumb ass to figure out what was happening. The trip and the fancy dinner and the ‘surprise’ I kept talking about. You thought I was going to propose, didn’t you?”
Embarrassed, she nodded.
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “I am so sorry. If I had known that you wanted me to propose I wouldn’t have hesitated. But knowing the way you felt I thought that even earrings would be pushing it. I thought that if I hyped it you wouldn’t be able to say no. I guess I went a little overboard.”
“You know, it really doesn’t matter now. You love me.”
“Yes,” he said, stroking her hair back from her face. “I do.”
“And I love you, too. And I don’t care about what might happen in the future. I want to make the best of every minute, whether we have one year or fifty. I want us to be a family.”
“I want that, too.” He cupped her face in his hand. “You, me, the boys and the baby.”
“Out of curiosity, how would you feel if it were two babies?”
“Two?”
“Miranda seems to think that because you’re a twin, it’s a distinct possibility.”
He grinned. “Then we’re going to have a big family, I guess.”
“I’ve never been one to believe in fate or karma but look at us. I survived an unsurvivable car crash. You got a new heart just in the nick of time, while you were at death’s door. You had a vasectomy and still managed to knock me up.”
“A failed vasectomy,” he said, shaking his head and laughing. “The possibility never even crossed my mind.”
“Is it just me or do you get the feeling the universe is trying to tell us something?”
“Well, if the universe thinks we should be together,” he said, cradling her face in his hands, pressing the sweetest kiss against her lips, “who are we to question it?”
* * * * *
If you loved this baby story from
USA TODAY bestselling author
Michelle Celmer pick up
PLAYING BY THE BABY RULES
THE NANNY BOMBSHELL
PRINCESS IN THE MAKING
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THE BABY CONTRACT
from New York Times bestselling
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Available September 2015!
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SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
Isa disappeared six years ago, taking Marc’s trust with her. Now that he’s found her again, he won’t let go...
Read on for a sneak peek at
CLAIMED
The first of the Diamond Tycoons duet
by New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff
Isabella was somehow even more beautiful than he’d remembered. And probably more treacherous, Marc reminded himself as he fought for control.
It had been six years since he’d seen her.
Six years since he’d held her, kissed her, made love to her.
Six years since he’d kicked her out of his apartment and his life.
And still, he wanted her.
It came as something of a shock, considering he’d done his best not to think about her in the ensuing years.
All it had taken was a glimpse of her gorgeous red hair, her warm brown eyes, from the small window embedded in the classroom door to throw him right back into the seething, tumultuous heat that had characterized so much of their relationship. He hadn’t cared about anything but getting into that room to see if his mind was playing tricks on him.
Six years ago he had kicked Isa Varin—now, apparently, Isabella Moreno—out of his life in the cruelest manner possible. He didn’t regret making her leave—how could he when she’d betrayed him so completely?—but in the time since, he had regretted how he’d done it. When he’d come to his senses and sent his driver to find her and deliver her things, including her purse and cell phone and some money, she had vanished into thin air. He’d looked for her, but he’d never found her.
Now he knew why. The very passionate, very beautiful, very bewitching Isa Varin had ceased to exist. In her place was this buttoned-down professor, her voice and face as cool and sharp as any diamond his mines had ever produced. Only the hair—that glorious red hair—was the same. Isabella Moreno wore it in a tight braid down her back instead of in the wild curls favored by his Isa, but he would know the color anywhere.
Black cherries at midnight.
Wet garnets shining in the filtered light of a full moon.
And when her eyes had met his over the heads of her students, he’d felt a punch in his gut—in his groin—that couldn’t be denied. Only Isa had ever made his body react so powerfully.
One look into her eyes used to bring him to his knees. But those days were long gone. Her betrayal had destroyed any faith he might have had in her. He’d been weak once, had fallen for the innocence she could project with a look, a touch, a whisper.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Will Marc have Isa back in his bed, trust be damned?
Find out in
CLAIMED
the first of the Diamond Tycoons duet
by New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff
Available wherever Harlequin® Desire books and ebooks are sold.
www.Harlequin.com
Copyright © 2015 by Tracy L. Deebs-Elkenaney
ISBN-13: 9781460386651
Demanding His Brother’s Heirs
Copyright © 2015 by Michelle Celmer
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Demanding His Brother's Heirs Page 16
