Proving His Worth

by Cari Quinn

  “I think you could do anything you set your mind to.” She did, unquestionably.

  “You’ve never seen me out of the suits. I think you’d be surprised that I’m not all flab under this jacket.” He tugged at the sleeve of his pin-striped suit and flashed her a slice of his wide, tanned, Rolex-adorned wrist.

  Down south, her pulse quickened. Way down south, where she had no business quickening.

  Okay, apparently, the drawbridge on Sex Boulevard was still accepting passenger vehicles. More specifically, his. She’d wanted him so long—in an off-limits, he’s older than me and good friends with my father manner—that evidently his presence superseded her absolute lack of interest in sex.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re not. I’ve seen your Ab Flex DVDs.”

  He laughed. “Nice save. I prefer the pool at the gym and the cross-trainers, but I suppose I should look into DVDs. Have any you can recommend?”

  “Ha. My abs are currently buried under—” She broke off and rubbed the piercing above her lip. Technically the baby was under her muscles, not over, but she hadn’t stopped talking because of her anatomy gaffe. “So, about the bodyguard agency. You’re really acting as hired muscle? That’s kind of yummy.”

  Eyebrow-wrinkling time. “Yummy? How so?”

  She leaned her head on her swing and grinned at him. “You’re a strange duck, Sterling Vance.”

  “No, I’m serious. Take pity on me, Ang.” He wound his long, blunt fingers around his swing, and the quickening in her nether parts turned into a throb. “Do women really find men that muscle other men into line attractive?”

  “Think about what you just said.” She couldn’t help rolling her eyes at him good-naturedly. “That’s a yes.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Besides, bodyguards don’t only muscle around men. Unless they’re discriminatory bodyguards. Women get out of line too.” Personally, she was feeling damn feisty at the moment. If she’d been in a position to receive some field tackling, she might just have tested his reflexes.

  But probably not. Sterling was so far out of her league, she could practically wish on him like the Big Dipper.

  “No man should ever lay hands on a woman in a violent manner,” he said, voice clipped.

  “I happen to agree,” she said quietly, fighting to keep her mind a nice blank slate. “But there are nonviolent ways to herd disruptive women too, aren’t there?”

  “I suppose. I’m taking my first martial arts classes this week, so I’ll find out firsthand.” He narrowed his eyes. “You never explained why you’re no longer in school.”

  “There are a couple of reasons.” She preferred to think about the money rather than the reality that she’d mostly dropped out of her life, first, to avoid contact with her old world for as long as possible, and second, to make it harder for Pete to find her. Being threatened in subtle—and not so subtle—ways that she needed to end her pregnancy “before anyone found out” didn’t have the best effect on her desire to get out and mingle.

  “Such as?”

  She gave him a smile that almost felt genuine. She really had missed him. “Honey, you really don’t want to get involved.” She risked her suddenly burgeoning libido and patted the back of his hand. Like a friend would. Not like a preggo chick on the prowl for a new baby daddy. “Trust me.”

  “I am involved. We’re friends. That makes your business mine.” The fierceness in his tone nearly unwound her at his feet like a spool of ribbon. The discount kind that had seen better days and no one would buy because it had frayed edges.

  “I appreciate—”

  “Ang, talk to me. Don’t make me beg. I want to know.” He leaned forward into her line of sight. No matter how she tried to avoid looking at him, he was making it impossible. “No, I need to know. Please.”

  Oh God. He was going to make her cry. She hadn’t in all these weeks, not since her late period had clued her in to the fact that somehow she’d gotten knocked up despite taking precautions. Her ill-fated three-week relationship with Pete had already been over by then, but his sperm was the gift that kept on giving.

  “You might not agree if you knew how my life has changed since the last time we saw each other.”

  His gaze dropped pointedly to her stomach, hidden by her protective arm. Yet again she’d taken to huddling over her finger-sized baby as if she expected it to be ripped away bodily by any one of the numerous people who wouldn’t want her to have it.

  “It’s true that things have changed, but friends don’t make judgment calls. There isn’t anything you could say to me that would change my mind about you, Thumbelina. Not one bloody thing.”

  A tear snuck free and she laughed, wiping it away. He’d been calling her Thumbelina instead of Angelina for years. It was so reassuring to have that one part of her life be the same that she nearly lurched across the space that separated them to curl into his chest. But if she did that, she might never let go.

  “You know, maybe I should just hire you. Officially.” She thought of her meager bank account and sighed. “If we could work out a payment plan, that is.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

  “I think I need a bodyguard.” Saying it out loud made it all more real somehow, just as she’d known admitting she was pregnant to more than her new doctor would change things as well. She wasn’t hiding from reality, just from discussing it.

  “Why would you need a bodyguard? Is someone bothering you?”

  She choked on her laugh. Her emotions were dangerously close to the surface, and having a sympathetic ear would make them boil right over. “You could say that.”

  “Don’t play games with me. Tell me what’s going on. Now.”

  It was simply a matter of forming words into sentences. Nothing more, nothing less. Needing a confidant didn’t make her weak. It made her human.

  “I’m pretty sure my ex-boyfriend is having me followed,” she said in a low voice, glancing around reflexively. They were still alone, thank God.

  “Why would he do that?” His jaw tightened. “Is he having a hard time moving on?”

  “No. He wants me to move on, and I refuse to.” She made herself meet Sterling’s intense gaze. He could bore holes in her with those eyes. “He’s determined for me to get an abortion and I think—” she exhaled unevenly, “—I think he’s willing to hurt me if I won’t.”

  Chapter Two

  Sterling jerked to his feet and paced a figure eight around her swing, caging her in unintentionally while he worked out his fury.

  “Sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”

  That probably wasn’t good for pregnant women. He sat on the edge of the swing, no longer lazily kicking off with his feet as he listened to the lovely lilt of her voice. Despite all her years in and around the city, she didn’t have an accent. She sounded like music: soft, husky, accidentally sensual.

  And she’d given all of that to that asshole who was threatening her.

  He wasn’t a man of wild passions. Some of the criticisms levied against him in the dating arena were valid, and his unwillingness to put himself on the line emotionally was one of them. He’d never felt enough to bother getting worked up.

  Except, evidently, when it came to Angelina McFee.

  “Who is this guy?” he questioned, balancing his fists against his knees. “Give me a fucking name and I’ll bury him by close of business today. Metaphorically,” he added at her horrified look. “I’m not only a bodyguard. I’ve made some limited forays into the field of private investigation and I’m going to get my license. But even without it, we can nail him to the wall.”

  “I…I’ve never seen this side of you before.”

  “You think I’m all kittens and rainbows. I’m not.” Especially when it comes to those I care about. He didn’t say it though, because she looked unsettled enough.

  “No, I don’t. But you’re a businessman, not a—”

  “Hired muscle? You’d be surprised. I can hold my own. You’ve had no reas
on to know that part of me.” He’d also never had quite as much motivation to bring it out before.

  “No.” She gripped her throat and tipped her head back to stare at the sky. “I don’t want you to do anything with what I tell you. You have to promise. Not until I’m sure what’s what. Until we’ve figured out a plan.”

  The way she said we warmed him to his soles. He hadn’t been part of a we in eons.

  Too bad he wasn’t now either. He wasn’t the most adept at pushing the feminist agenda at the best of times, but when an already vulnerable woman he cared for was put in an even more vulnerable state, he lost all concern for her feminine pride. He’d be damned if he’d tiptoe carefully around her feelings at a time like this. He wouldn’t see her hurt. That was one thing he could never abide.

  “I have a plan. We study the facts, and if they line up against this bastard, we cripple him financially and with the law until he’s unable to worry about anything but pulling his head out of the hole he’s in. All perfectly legal and ethical.”

  Her soft, sexy mouth curved. “Even when you’re bragging about your muscles, you always fall back on your biggest organ.”

  What would Jax say at a moment like this? “Not my biggest,” he said, mainly to see how she’d react.

  Her eyes went wide. “Did you just—are you referring to—”

  “I count my portfolio as a body part,” he said smoothly before she went into apoplectic shock.

  “Oh. Oh. Thank God. I thought you meant your penis.”

  Someday maybe he would when he made a statement like that. But not tonight. She didn’t need a man throwing around ego-saving innuendoes when she was clearly on an emotional precipice. He wasn’t Jax Wilder, and now wasn’t the time to pretend.

  “Would I ever say something like that?”

  “No, I didn’t think so, but you never used to throw around threats with impunity either.”

  “It’s not a threat if you intend to follow through. Then it becomes a promise, and I don’t break those.”

  She rubbed the knee of her pants. “I was mostly joking about hiring you. I wouldn’t want to bring you into my situation.”

  He cocked a brow. “Perhaps we haven’t met. I’m Sterling Vance, and I don’t back down. Ever.”

  “Okay, okay. Duly noted.”

  “Your situation is mine now. If you wanted to toil alone, you shouldn’t have opened your pretty mouth. I’m happy you did,” he added softly when her big gray eyes clouded. “But words have power. With yours, you’ve invoked mine.”

  “You sound like Darth Vader.”

  “I don’t wear a mask and I have no hidden goody-two-shoes sons.” Only when her cheeks paled did he realize that talking about hidden children hadn’t been the best tactical move. “Besides, I’m an old family friend. I have a responsibility to your parents.”

  “No, you really don’t. I got myself into this mess and I need to get myself out. Leaning on you right away was a crutch. I have to stop falling back on those.”

  “You impregnated yourself, did you? Tell me how that works. I’m truly fascinated.”

  She flushed and shifted away, twisting her swing until it creaked. Her waistband slipped down, exposing a hint of her lower back and the top of her bottom.

  It was his turn to shift on his swing. Her bottom mattered little now.

  “Thinking you have to do everything alone is the real crutch,” he went on. “You don’t.” You won’t, he reaffirmed silently. “What do your parents think?”

  She bit her lip and twisted her swing, sending herself in a spiral until she groaned and clutched her stomach. “Ugh, remind me not to do that again.”

  He barely repressed a sigh. “Your parents don’t know.”

  “No.”

  “About being harassed or the whole thing?”

  “I should get back inside.” She started to rise.

  Moving quickly, he stood and seized her swing. Holding her in place whether she liked it or not. “They don’t know you’re pregnant either.”

  “No. No one knows except my advisor at NYU, my ob-gyn, my friend Brandy and now you.” She grimaced. “Oh, and Pete.”

  “So your plan, such as it was, was to pretend none of this was happening until your belly popped over your pants and you couldn’t deny it anymore? Was that what Europe was about?” He shook his head. “Trying to outrun your life never works. It always catches up with you.”

  Meeting his stare, she lifted her chin defiantly. “Pete paid my way to Europe so I could get a discreet abortion. I took the trip and skipped the other.”

  Dull horror curdled in Sterling’s gut. “The baby’s father paid for you to get an abortion you didn’t want?”

  “Actually, he paid for me to get a fancy-ass baby bag decorated with frogs wearing tiaras, but yes, the abortion was his intention. Luckily I don’t give a shit about Pete’s intentions. It’s bad enough that I’m going to have to think about him every time I wear a halter top for the rest of my life, but I’ll be damned if he colors my feelings for my baby.”

  “Good for you,” Sterling said faintly, though he was still stuck on her halter-top comment. He was tempted to pursue it but figured now wasn’t the time. “You’re making a brave choice. Your child will thank you someday.”

  She shrugged. “I’m making the only choice for me. It’s not heroic.”

  “Says you.” His opinion differed vastly.

  “That’ll teach me to stay out of Shooters Bar. And the alley next to it.” At Sterling’s look, she shrugged with obvious disgust. “The first time we hooked up was next to a couple of trash cans. Not exactly the classy lifestyle you’re used to, huh?” A quick glance at her watch had her rising. “I really do need to get back inside. I’ve only been working here for a few days and I’ve gone way past my break. Plus I need to swallow some gasoline to get rid of the sick taste.” She made a face. “Sorry. Not very sexy.”

  He took her elbow and guided her toward the entrance, pretending he didn’t see the amused glance she tossed his way. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to be sexy with me.”

  She stiffened and stopped, proving once again that he did not understand women. He’d been trying to be comforting, and yet she was looking at him as if he’d just told her that her baby was ugly.

  A fact he knew would be patently impossible, because Ang was gorgeous. Long hair or short, markered or chalked or whatever she did to it, with makeup or without, even with fatigue lines bracketing her normally clear gray eyes. He found her stunning regardless.

  Pete must need to get his eyes checked. And his brain analyzed.

  “What is it?” he asked when she didn’t move forward.

  “Nothing.” She shook herself and kept walking, directing a pointed look at where he cupped her elbow. “I’m steady as can be. I can make it back inside okay.”

  “Indulge me.”

  “Sure you want the nonsexy preggo to do that?” Her overly bright tone lay at direct odds with the sudden flash of her stormy eyes.

  Maybe her annoyance was a natural pregnancy-related occurrence. Or maybe he needed to stop talking to women at all. Jax had suggested a more physical-based plan to rid himself of his recent curse with the fairer sex, and he was beginning to see the appeal. A quick screw to relieve tension—

  “Sorry.” Big doe eyes drilled into his, catching him in a tractor-beam gaze he couldn’t drag his focus from if he tried. “I know I’m being obnoxious. It’s hormones or stress or just…I don’t know, tension.” She rubbed the small of her back as if it ached. “I need to chill. I’m turning into an überbitch.”

  He tried to breathe past the obstruction in his chest. The angle as she leaned slightly backward made her body appear more lush than he’d ever seen it. Which made sense, now that he thought about it. But he’d never before been confronted with the pronounced swells of her breasts. Not that he paid attention to them as a rule. And even her stomach had a slight—so slight as to almost be indistinguishable—curve outward. Emphasizing h
er vulnerability and her beauty, both of which now seemed capable of knocking him flat on his ass if he didn’t watch his step.

  His mouth opened. Words pounded in his skull. Urgent, vital ones. None completed the circuit to his lips.

  “Sterling?” She blinked up at him, all innocent confusion. Perhaps not that innocent in light of recent confessions. “Are you okay? You’re breathing funny.”

  Unsurprising, since he feared he’d soon be walking funny. The insistent press against his zipper evidenced that well enough.

  It had been a year since he’d been in a relationship. Or had sex. As much as he saw physical release as a biological imperative, he wasn’t the type to have dalliances based merely on the whims of his loins. He believed in sex within the bounds of commitment. Some called him old-fashioned. He figured it was practical. He had no time for pleasure-seeking flights of fancy. A stable, long-term union called to him in more ways than he could name. He liked the familiarity of a known partner. Shared jokes, shared routines. The deeper intimacy that could be reached when involved with someone for more than the time it took to shed his pants and belt them on again.

  But since Tricia had left him, he’d found himself looking at women more often. Not in a creepy fashion—he hoped—but in a curious one. From his reading, most men had a type. Long legs, big breasts, redheads, blondes. A particular combination that instinctively spun their cranks.

  He’d been unable to decipher such a discernible pattern in himself. All of his exes looked different. Some short, some tall, some brunette, some not. He simply liked women. Their smells, their smiles, their softness against him. He’d begun to believe he had no particular thing that flipped his switch.

  Until now. Now he knew the undeniable, vaguely disturbing truth.

  Pregnant women made him hot.

  Ang stepped closer and lifted her hand to Sterling’s shoulder. It required a bit of stretching, since he was a good half foot taller. “Are you okay?” she repeated. “Are you ill?” She had lots of experience with that nowadays, though she was willing to bet his sickness wasn’t caused by the same reason.