The Pregnancy Contract

by Yvonne Lindsay

  As she slipped between the fine cotton lavender-scented sheets, she resolved to find out what she could do about furthering her studies. She fell asleep happy in the knowledge that she was finally on the right track with her life. And if she could make this thing, the constant simmering heat between her and Wade, into something real and lasting along the way, to build a real future for herself and Wade and their baby, then all the better.

  The days began to blur into routine. She’d wake and dress for work, always leaving the house after Wade, and usually getting home before him. She knew he was keeping an eye on her in the office but so far, aside from one invoicing incident, so good. Thankfully, Jane had picked up on the mistake before it had gone any further but Piper imagined that it otherwise would have resulted in a warning, and she didn’t want to give Wade any reason to end her employment.

  The prospect of earning her own wage was exhilarating. It was the first time in her life that she’d been gainfully employed. While she’d worked herself to exhaustion with her volunteer stints, and had gained a deep satisfaction in her achievements, this was quite different.

  It was Friday afternoon, at the end of her first week of work, when she was asked to join a group of the staff at a nearby pub for a quiet weekend wind-down drink. Wade had been out of the office all day with clients. No doubt he’d be wining and dining late into the night and since it was also the Dexters’ night off, Piper didn’t relish going home to an empty house. But when she joined her new colleagues, she also didn’t feel as if she fit in. They were full of gossip about boyfriends and mutual acquaintances. It left her feeling on the periphery of what her life should have been all this time. In the end she made her apologies after only half a glass of wine, and shot away home.

  There were a few lights on in the house, she noticed as she rolled along the driveway. Wade’s bedroom lights were among them. She parked her car in the garage and walked along the covered walkway that led to the back entrance of the house. More lights were on in the kitchen. Maybe the Dexters hadn’t gone out after all. But the instant she set foot inside she knew they weren’t home.

  There was a very strong male presence in the room, a very singular strong male presence. Wade stood at the stove top, dressed casually but all in black, and with a plain white apron slung around his hips. A rich aroma redolent with tomato, garlic and a hint of spice filled the air. Instantly her mouth watered.

  “What’s this?” Piper asked, deliberately pitching her voice to be light and airy as if his mere presence wasn’t enough to send her pulse racing. “Your take on MasterChef?”

  He looked up from the pot he was stirring and flung her a smile. “No, I wish. In fact you might wish so, too, when you taste it. I like to cook but rarely have the time.”

  “I imagine Dexie doesn’t let you over her threshold much, anyway, at least not to do anything but eat,” Piper commented dryly.

  Mrs. Dexter’s proprietary manner over her domain was legendary. Wade chuckled in response to her comment.

  “No, you’re right. I only get to play on her nights off. Why don’t you go upstairs and get changed. I’ll have dinner ready in about half an hour or so. Here, take this up with you.”

  He reached for an open bottle of wine on the kitchen table and poured her a glass of red. She sniffed the bouquet appreciatively before taking a sip.

  “Mmm, that’s lovely. Is it a new label? I don’t think I’ve seen that one before.”

  “You won’t have. It’s from a new winery down in the south island near Wanaka. I’ve been in meetings with the owner and winemaker most of today. We’ll be handling their exports into the South Pacific.”

  “Well, I sure hope they’ll be keeping some stock for domestic sale.” She took another sip. “You said half an hour. Any chance we can stretch that out a bit?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose so, why?”

  “I just thought I’d like to take a bath before dinner, help me get the kinks out after sitting at a desk all day.”

  “Regretting it, Piper?” he asked, his face inscrutable as he watched for her response.

  “No, of course not. I’m just not used to being in one place doing one thing all day long.”

  “Go on, take your time,” he said, taking a sip of his own wine. “Everything will keep.”

  She ducked her head in acknowledgment and left the room, full of surprising anticipation. This felt like a date. And she had to admit, she liked it.

  Wade watched her go, and wondered if she’d have been so relaxed if she’d known exactly what he had in store for her tonight. He turned the heat down on the pots on the stove and settled at the kitchen table absently swirling his wine in his glass as he played with the paper—the medical report—he’d left on the table.

  They were all systems go. The news had left him with mixed feelings. Gaining some sort of dominance over Piper, making her regret her actions when she’d left New Zealand, how she’d treated both him and Rex—those had all been driving motivations for him. But she’d surprised him since her return. Sure, she was still as feisty as ever, but it had a purpose now. While she hadn’t been above making her demands about him creating a job for her at Mitchell Exports, she had impressed him with her fight for independence over getting to work and starting from the ground up. Not to mention her aptitude in the workplace.

  Maybe Rex had been wrong about her. He’d often wondered why the older man had been so adamant that she be wrapped in cotton wool and never be allowed to experience the ugliness of the big wide world they lived in. He could understand the urge to protect her, to smooth away hardship from her path, but had Piper felt dismissed by her father’s unwillingness to let her into the business side of his life?

  Wade thought back to the first time he’d met her on a day when she’d come to the office to coerce her father out to lunch. Rex had refused, suggesting instead that she take Wade. He’d seen the flash of hurt in her eyes. Hurt rapidly followed by an equally swift flash of anger.

  That lunch had been interesting. Piper had been equal parts amusing, tempting and terrifying. And underneath it all he’d sensed a vulnerability in her, almost a need for approval. He’d laughed often at her clever conversation and couldn’t fail to notice how she’d bloomed at the attention he gave her. Looking back, it was as if she hadn’t trusted that her intelligence would be enough to snare him, so she’d had to use her physical wiles to ensure she had him where they both wanted to be. How had he never noticed that before? Of course, he’d been younger then, and he’d have been blind and stupid not to have been attracted to her on a physical level, or to have ignored her blatant flirtation. A flirtation that had rapidly led to other things. “Things” that he hoped to resume tonight.

  He still wanted a child, wanted all he’d demanded when he’d laid out their agreement. But he was finally allowing himself to admit how much he’d missed having her in his bed.

  Piper soon returned downstairs. She topped up his glass and refilled hers before taking a seat at the table.

  “Is there anything I can do to help? Set the table, maybe?” she asked.

  “No, everything’s all ready. You can take our glasses through to the dining room, though. I’ll bring the tray with our meal.”

  “We’re eating in the dining room?”

  “Sure, why not? Why? Don’t you think my cooking will be worth it?”

  May as well aim for offhand, he thought, because the evening was going to get serious before very long.

  She flicked him a glance but grabbed their glasses and the bottle and did as he suggested. He quickly took a pair of covered dishes from the oven where they’d been warming and placed them and a bowl filled with freshly tossed salad onto the large butler’s tray and followed her.

  He heard her gasp as she entered the room, and smiled a secret smile. The scene was set, and he wanted her to enjoy it. Wanted to make this night so much more than just fulfilling an agreement.

  “This looks amazing,” Piper commented as he laid the tray on i
ts stand and transferred the dishes onto protective mats on the mahogany table.

  Wade cast a glance at the highly polished silverware, the ornately embellished candelabra gleaming under the glow of tall crimson candles and the sparkling crystal.

  “Thanks,” he answered simply as he crossed to where he’d laid her place setting and pulled out her chair.

  “You’ve gone to a lot of bother,” Piper said.

  “I think the end of your first week at work calls for a celebration, don’t you?” he asked as he settled into his chair at the head of the table.

  “Yes.” She nodded, as if surprised to be reminded. “It does. Thank you.”

  Wade gestured to the hot dishes in the center of the table. “Would you like me to serve or would you prefer to help yourself?”

  “Oh, let me do something. I’ll dish it up for us.”

  She leaned forward, the action exposing the curve of one breast inside the deep V-necked top she wore. The color, a deep blush pink, suited her but he thought the color better matched the tip of the one pink nipple he’d glimpsed as she’d moved. Instantly he was rock hard for her. His mouth dry and his skin stretched taut across his body. He wanted to dispense with the formalities. To forgo the niceties of dining together, of slowing wooing her, but he’d promised himself he’d take it slow.

  “Wade?”

  Piper’s voice dragged him back into the present. She gestured to his plate. She’d served him and he hadn’t even noticed, he’d been so wrapped up in his reaction to her.

  “Thanks,” he said, although his voice sounded strained even to his ears. He reached for his glass and lifted it in her direction. “Let’s make a toast. To your first week at Mitchell Exports.”

  “And to many more,” she amended as she clinked her glass with his. She sipped her wine before putting down her glass and lifting her fork. “This is beef stroganoff, right? Did you make it from scratch? It smells divine.”

  Wade pretended to be mortally wounded that she would think he’d resorted to a packet. “Of course, I made it with my own fair hands,” he insisted. “What do you think?”

  He watched as she lifted the fork to her mouth and tasted the rich mixture of beef and sauce. She chewed slowly before closing her eyes on a moan of pure pleasure. He swallowed. This evening wasn’t going to get anymore comfortable any time soon. He’d better hunker down to weather it out.

  “This is fantastic. And you really made it from scratch?” She gave another appreciative moan. “No wonder Dexie keeps you out of the kitchen. You’re fierce competition.”

  He felt his cheeks heat a little under the compliment. “She’s got no fear of me treading on her toes. I have a few dishes I do well, that I enjoy preparing, but for the rest I’m quite happy to be fed by someone else.”

  “Well, at least you’d never starve if you were on your own. I’m hopeless in the kitchen.”

  “Maybe you just need someone to take the time to teach you,” he remarked.

  For a minute she looked pensive. “I often wonder what my life would have been like if my mother had lived. Whether I’d have had the chance to learn things like cooking, keeping house properly. Dexie is so capable at everything but she doesn’t tolerate fools. She’s always been inclined to shoo me away when I’ve wanted to help her.”

  Piper had been so much younger than him when she’d lost her mother. At least he’d still had memories to cling to when the going got tough. It couldn’t have been easy for her—a distant father and older family retainers meant no loving arms to welcome her each and every day.

  “Do you remember your mother?”

  “Not really, just hints of things. Like the smell of her perfume or the sound of her laughter. Sometimes I wonder whether they’re real or if they’re just related to other things and people from when I was growing up. I know Dad loved her dearly. Sometimes I wonder if he didn’t die inside when he lost her.”

  “It certainly can’t be easy losing a partner.”

  “You lost your mother, too. Do you remember her well?”

  “Sure, and I count myself lucky for that if nothing else. Life was different when she was around. She made every day fun.”

  His voice trailed into silence. The fun had irrevocably ceased when his mother had passed away suddenly from an undiagnosed heart condition. Life after that had become very dark indeed, especially when the Family Court and Children’s Services had become involved. He shook his head.

  “Listen to us, we’re supposed to be celebrating, not getting all maudlin.”

  Piper smiled back at him, but he noticed her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. Wade devoted himself to ensuring the rest of the meal continued in a far lighter vein. It was important to him to chase the shadows away for her, for reasons that no longer involved his agenda for their evening.

  Nine

  They’d cleared the table and put the plates in the dishwasher. Piper was amazed at how comfortable and domestic it all felt with just the two of them, alone. Wade had been fabulous company throughout the evening, showing a side of himself that she’d missed from their earlier months together—the months before she’d ruined everything by setting herself in total competition against her father for Wade’s attention. She’d loved Wade with a passion that had frightened her at times with its intensity and she hadn’t known how to handle it, or him. And to her shame, she’d resented anyone else who’d had a place in his heart.

  She’d been so immature. She could have had them both, instead she’d ended up with neither. And now, she had Wade in a legal contract that had nothing to do with emotion or love.

  Sometimes she wished she could simply turn back the clock and make better choices. But then she’d temper that with what she’d learned along her journey. It was a rite of passage she’d had to, needed to, go through on her own to really learn what was important in life.

  “Do you feel like a nightcap?” Wade asked as he straightened from loading the last of the plates in the dishwasher.

  “What were you thinking?” she asked.

  “How about a twenty-year-old tawny port?”

  “Sounds lovely. In the library?”

  “No, I was thinking about in my sitting room.”

  Piper raised her eyebrows. “Your sitting room? I didn’t know you had one.”

  “When the property was signed over to me I did some remodeling of the guest suite upstairs.”

  The guest suite. That had originally been her parents’ suite until her mother’s death, at which time her father had relocated farther down the hall.

  “I’d like to see what you’ve done,” she said, even as anticipation mingled with unease curled in the pit of her stomach.

  It was one thing having an intimate dinner together in neutral territory, but being in an area that was solely Wade’s domain, that really was something else.

  “Come on, then,” Wade said, holding the kitchen door open for her and gesturing for her to precede him.

  They ascended the stairs together and as they walked the length of the landing that led to his suite, Piper felt her apprehension develop even further.

  “Have a seat and make yourself comfortable,” he said as he opened the door for her.

  Piper was taken aback the moment she stepped foot inside the door. The room wasn’t as she’d expected. Somehow she’d imagined he’d have gone for dark, heavy furnishings, similar to what her father had done in his rooms. Yet there was a comfort and lightness about the room that made it instantly welcoming. Welcoming, and yet there was also something else. An ambience that suggested a very particular kind of welcome. She sat down on one of the comfortable caramel-colored leather sofas arranged in front of the fireplace.

  Even the air in the room suggested an atmosphere of sensuous luxury and well-being. Wade stepped forward and lit a series of candles that decorated the wide mantelpiece over the fireplace. Behind the antique fire screen, embers glowed warm and inviting in the grate. He added another log to the fire, sending a shower of sparks f
lying up the chimney.

  “I had the fireplace redone and the chimney cleared when I took over these rooms. It seemed a great pity not to make the most of it, especially on cooler nights like this,” he said, dusting his hands lightly.

  Piper moved to the end of the sofa, closer to the fireplace, and put out her hands to the warmth from the flames that were already licking the log. To her surprise her hands were trembling. She clenched them into fists and thrust them back into her lap. She was just here for a nightcap, so why was she so nervous? Behind her she heard the clink of crystal against crystal as Wade poured a measure of port into each of the glasses he’d had prepared on a tray.

  She hadn’t missed seeing them there as they’d entered the room, as if he’d known all along he’d be sharing a drink with her, here, tonight. She turned to face him, accepting the drink he’d poured her and fighting to ignore the quiver of awareness that sparked up her arm at the casual touch of his fingers against hers.

  “Wade? Is there something else behind tonight? Something you’re not telling me?”

  “What makes you ask?” he answered, his gaze meeting hers unwaveringly.

  “It’s just…oh, I don’t know. I just feel as if you have some kind of agenda going on here.”

  “Agenda,” he repeated, as if testing the word on his tongue. “I suppose you could say that,” he admitted.

  She froze as he shoved one hand deep into his trouser pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. He handed it to her. Piper put her drink on a side table and took the paper, smoothing it out on the arm of the chair. Her eyes blurred a little as she attempted to read the words printed upon the sheet. She blinked and tried again. This time they made total sense.