Harlequin Presents--June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  “Great. Consider me informed. I’ll escort you to your room.”

  It was a bluff. She could tell he was testing her resolve to see how she would react to such a callous dismissal.

  She wanted to cry. Everything about this was going exactly as she had expected—except for the fact he had the power to cut her in half with a few dispassionate words. She wouldn’t beg him to believe her, though.

  “I’m not staying here.” She spoke with as much poise as she could muster, biting back pointing out his hotel was way beyond her budget.

  “I’ll ask the doorman to cover your taxi fare, then.” He waved at the stairs.

  “That’s not necessary,” she murmured, hesitating.

  She wanted to ask one more thing, but it was such a blood-chilling worry, she could barely give voice to it.

  His brows went up with exaggerated patience. A muscle pulsed in his jaw, betraying he was finding this interaction disturbing. He was probably already thinking he ought to take a test to be sure and probably annoyed with her for making him think it.

  “These things are very easy to disprove, Ivy,” he said, but she didn’t take any comfort in having read him correctly. “Even if you go to the press, I’ll be vindicated very quickly. There’s nothing for you to gain. We had a nice time. I’d like to remember it that way.”

  “They are,” she agreed. “Easy to disprove.” The sting of adrenaline in her system intensified as her head whirled. All she’d been thinking for three weeks was a replay of, I have to tell him. He won’t believe me. But I have to tell him...

  “And that’s what you want?” he asked in a clipped voice. “For me to do a pointless paternity test? I’ve had a vasectomy,” he reminded.

  “So you said.” It was a petty retaliation to let her skepticism hang in the air with such disdain. She added lofty, skeptical brows out of pure malice.

  He snorted, and a brief flare of outrage in his expression warned her it was unwise to provoke such a powerful man.

  With a shiver of apprehension, she looked to her unpainted nails. “All I’m saying is, if you’re having sex, you should be careful.”

  “I am careful,” he shot back. “I always wear a condom.”

  “Do you?” Because after the first one had broken, they hadn’t bothered using one the second time.

  He swore under his breath. “You want me to believe the one time I had unprotected sex, my vasectomy spontaneously reversed itself and I made a baby?”

  “Believe what you want. I’m telling you there’s a baby inside me and there’s only one man who could have put it there. But listen—” She held up her hand, striving to remember what she’d told herself when she had made her plans to seek him out. “It’s obvious you had the procedure so you wouldn’t become a father.”

  It took everything in her to speak with equanimity. In the space of a single night, he had changed her life irrevocably, and yes, on some level she felt betrayed by his assurance she had nothing to worry about. She was pregnant, overwhelmed and frightened of the future. His disbelief crushed her, but—

  “I’m not here to obligate you. I felt you should know the risk you’re taking with future partners. That’s all.” She conjured her hard-truth smile, the one that said, I know it sucks, but this is the law of the land.

  He stood very still, sharp gaze picking her apart as though he was trying to find her ulterior motive because there was no way she could be telling the truth.

  “I also want to know...” Her quavering voice trailed off. This was so hard. Her hands were so cold and numb, she nearly dropped the handbag she’d forgotten she was holding. Her heart was in her throat. “Why did you have a vasectomy?”

  “My body, my choice,” he threw back at her.

  “It wasn’t a concern about...birth defects? Or anything medical that could affect a baby?”

  His brows slammed together. “No.”

  She let out a shaken breath, one she’d been holding since she’d learned she was pregnant by a man who had taken a drastic step while seemingly young and fit. His reasons were his business, but a grave health concern had seemed a strong possible motive. She hadn’t been able to sleep, wondering what she and her child might face.

  Her knees wanted to sag as that weight of apprehension lifted. Exhaustion was catching up to her. She nodded, all of her feeling as though she more floated than stood.

  “Okay. Thank you,” she said faintly.

  It was done. Her chest felt hollow, but tears of reaction were gathering in her throat. Definitely time to leave. She would go back to her hotel and blame pregnancy hormones for her breakdown, not her own poor judgment in getting involved with another man who was leaving her feeling used and unworthy, but at least she had done what she thought was right.

  “Enjoy your party.” Moving to the stairs was a walk across hot coals into an unforgiving shower of icicle daggers.

  She didn’t listen for him to call her back. He didn’t believe her and was leaving her to raise their child alone.

  It was exactly how she had expected this to go and exactly what she wanted.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT WASN’T POSSIBLE. It couldn’t be.

  That was all Jun Li could think. He’d been in this position before, and it had turned out to be false alarms. He’d made sure after the first time that it would never be possible again.

  But her question about birth defects and her profound relief at his answer dragged cold fingers of apprehension down the insides of his rib cage.

  Jun Li didn’t know one way or another if he was a carrier for anything. He’d had the procedure to ensure he would never conceive any children, healthy or otherwise.

  The sound of the door opening above him snapped him out of his stasis.

  “Ivy.”

  Calling her back was an instinctive reflex. A man in his position developed enormous cynicism. He had learned to always be on guard against people looking for an angle to take advantage. Despite one night of intimacy, her claim was outrageous and not something his logical brain wanted to give credence to.

  Even so, a barbed hook seemed caught in his flesh, one that was being tugged as though it was attached to her. He couldn’t let her leave. Not yet.

  Not now that he’d seen her again.

  What was this disturbing reaction he had to her? He’d been warring with himself for the last two weeks, ever since his PA had told him she’d reached out, asking him to get in touch.

  He’d been tempted. Very tempted. They’d had an incredible night four months ago, the kind that had burned to the ground all his previous experiences. But they wanted different things. She was moving to Vancouver, and he hated the place. There hadn’t seemed any point in returning her call.

  Maybe it had been arrogant to assume her call had been an attempt to rekindle their brief romance, but what other reason would there be? He’d had a quick screen for STIs, and all his results were clean.

  A pregnancy hadn’t occurred to him because it wasn’t possible.

  The silence above had gone on so long, he reached for the house phone, lifting it with the intention of asking the concierge to stop her in the lobby.

  As the phone gave a beep, he heard the door click closed upstairs. She came to the rail of the loft, very pale and looking at her hands, not at him.

  He could taste her defensiveness from here. It made his chest itch with premonition, the kind that warned of an approaching danger. All his sinews felt taut, as though they pulled his organs out of place.

  It’s not possible, he kept insisting, but there she stood, waiting for him to tell her how futile this was. He couldn’t make himself say it. The knowledge that she’d been about to leave without asking him for anything was pounding in his head.

  Maybe she’d realized it was a lost cause?

  He never wasted words, but he was never at a loss for
them, either. He didn’t know what to say to her, though.

  “I need to use a bathroom,” she murmured.

  “There’s one up there.”

  She disappeared, and a tiny part of him relaxed at having space to think while she remained within reach.

  He replaced the phone and pushed his hand through his hair, forcing himself to drink in oxygen as he tried to make sense of this.

  He was normally unshockable. Even the news that Ivy had turned up here hadn’t been much of a surprise. Women went to ridiculous lengths to pursue him. Not because he was some sort of player who led them on. He had been very clear to Ivy that he was only offering one night. She could have turned down his invitation to come to his room. He loved sex, but he never pressured women into it. Too many wanted the one thing he would never give them.

  But he possessed a stupid amount of money and knew how to groom himself into something women found attractive. Tsai Jun Li was a catch. All the headlines said so.

  He didn’t wish to be caught. He had enough responsibilities without a wife and child. As such, he was judicious about when and where and with whom he had affairs.

  Ivy had been a spontaneous few hours outside his normal caution. He hadn’t even wanted to be in Vancouver, the city where he’d spent much of his youth, none of it happy. One of the few people he trusted had become engaged, though. Jun Li knew he wouldn’t make it to Kevin’s wedding, so he’d attended the engagement party and used the visit to check in on some investments and sew up a few loose threads of his old life there.

  Like him, Ivy had been slipping away early. She’d emerged ahead of him, so she hadn’t been trying to run into him. In fact, she’d flushed with surprised pleasure when he’d appeared.

  She wasn’t the most glamorous or fashion-forward woman, more fresh-faced than conventionally pretty. Her curves were subtle and her height average, but she had projected an innate confidence that appealed to him. She had amused him with her little asides.

  But even before she’d asked if she could use him to get over a breakup, he’d blown off meetings and other obligations to drive her up the highway that skirted Howe Sound. He never shirked his duties. That had been the tipoff that she was dangerous to him, but they’d wound up necking in a gondola and the passion that had flared between them had emptied his head of his usual guardedness.

  When they broke apart, breathless and heavy-lidded, the tone of their day had shifted. The slow-burn sensuality was a tangible entity that had imbued every word and glance. He had touched her as he drove, setting a hand on her knee and playing with her hair. She had traced patterns on the back of his hand and sent him smoky looks of anticipation.

  They’d gone to his hotel for dinner, and the walk to his room afterward had felt natural. Inevitable. By then, Jun Li had told her he was leaving early the next day and wouldn’t be back. Ivy confessed to recently ending a difficult relationship. She was nervous to be with someone new but wanted to move on from her ex.

  He’d done his best to ensure that night was the best sex she’d ever had. If he was honest, it had been the best of his experience, too. He recalled it far too often and in far more detail than was comfortable. It had taken every ounce of discipline he had to slip away in the early hours as scheduled, the image of her naked body burned into his retinas.

  He’d been tempted to stay. He’d been tempted every single day to go back to her. Tempted to turn his back on his family and duties and contracts so he could immerse himself in the pleasure she gave him.

  That’s why he hadn’t called her back. He couldn’t afford those sorts of distractions.

  Now he wondered if his night with her had been a gross misjudgment. Had he involved himself with an obsessive person who chased a onetime lover around the world to make an absurd accusation? Because if she wasn’t that...

  His chest tightened. He’d rather think that’s exactly what she was.

  What did that make him, though? He hadn’t stopped thinking of her and was fighting a resurgence of lust now that he’d seen her again.

  Does this look like a full-term pregnancy to you?

  No. It had looked like breasts straining against silk, a hint of voluptuousness across her stomach and hips. Legs that went on for miles. Oh, he’d enjoyed those legs. His groin was prickling and twitching as he recalled how her knees had hugged him. Her thighs had been hot and soft against his lips when—

  Stop it.

  He gave his hair another rumple as perspiration rose on his scalp. This was the reaction she was looking for—off balance and distracted by carnality.

  Was she that conniving, though? Kevin wouldn’t have introduced them if Ivy was an opportunist. That meant Ivy had come all this way to tell him she was pregnant, and she genuinely believed he was the father.

  “It’s not possible,” he insisted aloud.

  He would have to prove it. To himself and to her. Muttering imprecations, he called his physician.

  “Failed vasectomies aren’t common, but the human body can heal itself in surprising ways,” the doctor said, not reassuring him at all.

  Jun Li made arrangements for a test and ended the call.

  In a rare fit of temper, he shouted a profanity that echoed back at him from the vaulted ceiling.

  * * *

  Ivy heard Jun Li release a loud, blunt curse and continued to cower in the powder room.

  When he’d called her back, tears had been pressing at her eyes. She’d barely managed to face him again and had been trying to regain her composure since. Everything was catching up to her, though. One train car of emotion was piling onto another until the pressure in her chest was threatening to explode.

  From the moment she’d learned she was pregnant, she’d thought only about informing Jun Li. Getting herself into a room with him had required concentration and strategy, and maybe she’d used the challenge so she could focus on that instead of the reality of being pregnant by a stranger.

  It was hitting her now though. Like a wrecking ball. Her pregnancy. His doubt. The fact she was on her own when she had allowed herself the most ridiculous fantasies, ones where he greeted her warmly and claimed this was what he’d always wanted.

  What a silly fool she was!

  And even though she had known he would have trouble accepting what she had told him, she felt deeply scorned by his skepticism.

  “Ivy.” A double rap of knuckles hit the door, sending a zing of adrenaline through her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Liar, she accused her reflection. She was ghost-white, skin going hot and cold. She was trembling in reaction and barely able to speak because her mouth was so dry. “I’ll be right out.” She dabbed a wet facecloth beneath her eyes, erasing the mascara leaking from the dampness that kept gathering on her lashes.

  “I’ll wait for you at the door.” He wanted to escort her out after all, probably to ensure she didn’t sneak into any more parties uninvited.

  Her sinuses pooled with unshed tears, and she tried to swallow away the lump in her throat. There was no reason to be this upset. She would be fine. Other single mothers were in far worse circumstances than she was. Once she got home and told her father, she would be able to put her life in order.

  She ruthlessly pushed her emotions into a knot behind her breastbone and walked out.

  Jun Li’s brows came together as he looked up from his phone and saw her. He’d thrown on a suit jacket with a silvery sheen to it, making him seem all the more armored against her.

  “Jet lag is catching up to me,” she said to excuse her wretched appearance, even though she’d already slept off the worst of it and had only been awake for about five hours.

  His mouth tightened briefly, and his gaze raked her as though her pregnancy bump was the size of a watermelon. “Will you allow a blood draw?”

  “For a paternity test?” Her heart lurched. She ha
d thought there was a reasonable chance he might ask for one. “I signed a release form with my doctor at home.”

  “My doctor will do it.” He opened the door. “He’s on his way back to his clinic.”

  “At this hour?” She’d lost track but thought it must be around nine o’clock.

  “This can’t wait. I need to know.” He was watching her closely, giving her the impression he was offering her one last chance to change her story.

  She nodded agreement, and his expression grew even more remote.

  They rode the elevator in silence. A car was waiting as they exited the revolving doors of the hotel lobby. The tropical night air slid across her bare arms and legs like cool silk, then the quiet of the luxury sedan closed around her as she settled into the leather seat beside him.

  As it pulled away, she tried to reassure him. “Jun Li, I was serious when I said I’m not asking you to be a fath—”

  He held up a hand. “One step at a time.”

  He sounded so grave, she clenched her numb hands on her handbag and let her mind empty. Gold and blue and red and purple lights flashed by. It might have been five minutes or an hour later when they were let out in front of a skyscraper. A security guard put them onto an elevator, and they were whisked up to an eerily silent foyer, where they were greeted by a man and a woman.

  “Ah-Pei is our lab technician,” the doctor said to Jun Li. “She’ll show you where you can provide your sample.” As Jun Li followed her down the hall, the doctor waved Ivy toward a lounge. “May I offer you tea?”

  “I’m sorry, I thought we both had to—?” Comprehension struck. Jun Li was not providing a blood sample. Not yet.

  Don’t laugh. None of this was funny. But hysteria was ballooning outward from the emotions she was suppressing, trying to find release in one form or another, tickling and leaking between her ribs.

  “Tea. Yes, please. Thank you,” she accepted in a strained voice.