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

by Dani Collins

  “I can’t tell if we’re inside or outside,” she said as he guided her past a fireplace with a cozy lounge before it.

  “This is outside.” He walked her out to a backyard that was mostly water with a small strip of lawn at the base of the property’s enclosure walls. The pool was for swimming, but the surface picked up the surrounding gardens and soft lights to become a reflecting pond. It was so serene, she could have cuddled into a corner on a lounger and fallen asleep right here.

  “There’s a dining room that way, and I use the guest room at the end as a home office.” He led her up a flight of stairs.

  Ivy felt as though she had climbed into the most luxurious treehouse ever built. Covered breezeways surrounded the courtyard. More greenery spilled off the ledges around her. When she went through a guest room to the balcony, she saw only a slope of trees and the boat lights on the dark sea beyond, giving the illusion they were the only house for miles.

  He showed her two more guest bedrooms before waving her into the master bedroom.

  “Help yourself to the jet tub if you want to relax.” A huge bed dominated the center of the room, and an oval-shaped window over the sunken tub looked onto the treetop in the courtyard.

  In her day job, Ivy often spoke to billionaires and powerful banking executives about wealth and investments and assets. She always told herself it was just numbers, but this was not numbers. Jun Li lived a life beyond anything she had ever conceived.

  “I knew you were rich, but I thought you were... Kevin’s friend,” she said, shell-shocked, as she moved back into the bedroom and onto his private terrace, where he likely ate his breakfast at that teak dining table and read reports on that cozy outdoor lounge. More jungle greenery muted the noise of the outside world, and blossoms perfumed the humid air.

  “Technically, Kevin is a consultant on retainer, but I consider him a friend.” Jun Li joined her at the rail.

  “You were the opportunity, weren’t you?” she realized.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The one that made Kevin leave Hong Kong. He said a friend asked him to oversee some investments. That was you, wasn’t it? That’s why Kevin can afford a house in Point Grey.”

  Jun Li started to say something and seemed to change his mind before settling on, “My parents invested in several businesses and properties while I was schooling in Vancouver. I managed them when I lived there, but once I moved back to Shanghai and took over from my father, I needed someone I trust to look after things in Canada. Kevin wanted to return home. It was all done legally. I hope you’re not suggesting—”

  “No. Nothing offside, just...” She touched between her brows, starting to feel like even more of an idiot for those fantasies she’d had. “He introduced you as his former roommate.”

  “We did live together. In the Point Grey house,” he added after a very brief hesitation. “He was commuting from Surrey. He was sleeping in his car when he had to stay late then be on campus early. I was rattling around in that big house alone.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for parents to buy a house for their child when they were schooling overseas. Most children were lucky to get a studio condo, not a sprawling property worth millions, but that wasn’t unheard-of, either.

  “Since I rarely visit Vancouver and your government frowns on houses sitting empty in that market, I made the house part of his compensation package.” The way Jun Li spoke as though choosing his words carefully told her there was more to the story than Kevin’s lab schedule.

  “But—” She’d spent way too much time remembering him naked and not enough time looking at him now. She should have already noticed the subtle details like the fact his suit was tailored to his perfect frame at a cost that had to be in the high five figures, maybe six. “I overheard some of Carla’s girlfriends talking about the house being a wedding gift, the kind you don’t have to return. I thought Kevin bought it for her. You gave it to them, didn’t you?”

  “Again. All legal,” he said crisply. “They already considered it their home, and they want to start a family.”

  “You gave them a house as a wedding gift. A Point Grey mansion.” She couldn’t help the scoff of laughter. Her voice broke with a creak of hysteria as she added, “I bought them a smoothie bullet.”

  “I’m sure they’ll use your gift every day as well. What point am I missing?” His tone of thick boredom got her back up.

  “That there’s no mystery as to why you were so adamant we would only have the one night together!” Heat pressed behind her eyes. She was such an idiot.

  “We were both leaving town,” he reminded her stiffly. “You were moving back to a city I dislike. There was no point in trying to date.”

  “You don’t like Vancouver?” Her indignation at his extreme wealth hit a wall.

  “Not particularly.” His mouth curled. “I have no happy memories there.”

  “Wow.” She dropped back a step, pain emanating from her breastbone as though he’d kicked her there.

  He put up a hand. “Let me rephrase that.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m well aware you’re not happy about conceiving a baby. That’s certainly not going to endear you to the place! Or me. I don’t care if I get swarmed by paparazzi. I’m going back to my hotel.” Her blood was sizzling with a need for flight as she looked for the bag she’d absently dropped on a lounger. She snatched it up, then remembered. “Give me my phone.”

  “You’re shivering.” He waved toward the open doors back into the bedroom. “Let’s go inside. Warm up.”

  “I’m upset. I have a right to be, Jun Li!”

  “Because I brought you here instead of the hotel? Because I gave Kevin a house? Because you think I’m a snob who doesn’t date women in a lower income bracket than my own? You asked me to be your rebound. I didn’t take advantage of you,” he snapped.

  “You said it was okay that the condom broke!” The words came out of her like they were pushed by fire.

  His cheeks hollowed, and his nostrils flared as he drew a deep inhale.

  “Let’s take this inside. I have guards who patrol the grounds.” He gathered her in the strength of one arm and guided her inside as though they were dancing, half lifting her so she felt as though her feet barely touched the floor.

  She had forgotten he possessed such casual strength. It was unnerving to feel him so close again, surrounding her and awakening her to the feel of his touch. He’d given her such pleasure that night, but she’d been—what? Some final punctuation mark on his last night in a place he had hoped never to see again?

  As they entered the bedroom, she tried to brush him off, but he was already turning away to slide the door closed behind them.

  “What do you want?” he asked coolly. “An acknowledgment that I should have had myself tested more frequently? You’re right. I should have. I was overconfident and you’re bearing the consequence of that. Literally.”

  “At least try to sound sorry!”

  Emotion flashed in his eyes, quick and searingly bright. It was as if she’d glimpsed the spark of an arc weld or the belly of an incinerator. Something that had the earth-splitting power of lightning, but was gone just as quickly, leaving outlines behind her eyelids while she blinked and his expression became a blank wall.

  “Lamenting what should have been isn’t going to solve what is. Sometimes life happens. Literally.” He mockingly repeated himself. “And we’re forced to make other plans.”

  “I don’t want to make other plans! I was finally starting the life I wanted.” She tapped between her breasts. “Not the one I was living for some man who doesn’t care about me. I landed a good job in a city I love—” She hurled that at him.

  He only gave an impassive blink, but a muscle in his jaw pulsed, telling her he wasn’t as detached as he was trying to appear.

  “I was finally going to be near my
dad again and I couldn’t wait to—to see what other fish were in the sea.” She lifted her chin. “I wasn’t going to marry the next man I dated. I was going to figure out who I am without a man cluttering up my head and emotions and decisions. I was going to get a cat. And learn to windsurf. Now I’m pregnant and I can’t do any of those things.”

  He frowned with confusion. “Why can’t you get a cat?”

  “That’s what you heard?” She shook her head in amazement. “Women aren’t supposed to clean a litterbox when they’re pregnant.”

  “So the housekeeper will do it.” He shrugged. “Problem solved.”

  She wanted to scream; she really did.

  “Problem not solved. We’re strangers. I’m not going to marry you when we would only wind up divorced and I’ll have to take my baby home anyway.”

  “Our baby.” His lips thinned as though he was struggling to hang onto his temper. Jun Li wasn’t particularly tall, but she was on the shorter side of average and he had enough height to look down on her. “It’s unlikely I will ever consent to the baby living apart from me, so remove that option from your head right now.”

  “You’re saying that if I want to be with my child, I’m stuck with you?” She set her hand against her navel. “No. I refuse to be in a relationship with a man who doesn’t love me. Not again.” She had worked too hard to crawl out of that vast empty helplessness to fall back into such a void. “You don’t want me, otherwise you would have called by now. Did you know I’ve been trying to reach you?”

  The flicker of compunction in his face and the hideously rational way he said, “Ivy,” tore a gasp from her throat.

  “You did.” She moved her hand to put pressure over her heart, where it felt stabbed clean through. “You didn’t want to see me again. You wouldn’t be speaking to me right now if I hadn’t come all this way and given you this news. Would you?”

  “I was informed you’d left a message.” His tone was remote. “On a geographical basis, it didn’t seem like a practical relationship to pursue.”

  “Practical.” Was that supposed to spare her feelings?

  She squirmed internally, intensely hurt by his ignoring her message. He had been on her mind all this time, even before she’d learned she was pregnant. She had sworn to herself she wouldn’t let her heart play tricks and see more interest and caring from a man than was really there, but when her pregnancy had been revealed, she’d been relieved. She’d had a reason to see Jun Li again. To see if they had something.

  They had nothing. In fact, everything she had thought she was building for herself was also not likely to manifest.

  “This isn’t practical, either.” She could hardly see him through the tears of injustice that were gathering in her eyes. She was embarrassed he was able to hurt her so deeply and struck the dampness off her cheeks with impatience. “I won’t marry a man who doesn’t want anything to do with me. I won’t move to a country where I don’t know a soul. You can remove that option from your head. Right now.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHAT WAS HE supposed to say? That he had been tempted to fly back to Vancouver, where they could screw their brains out until nothing else mattered? That one night with her had been tripping him up ever since? That he couldn’t help thinking these swipes they were taking at each other tonight were the flip side of their sexual chemistry? An expression of something they were refusing to acknowledge?

  “This has ceased to be productive.” Jun Li moved to yank back the covers on the bed, needing to end this before it turned into something else. “You’re tired and—”

  “Call me emotional. I dare you.” Her throaty warning made him straighten and look at her. Really look at her.

  Jun Li had never seen anyone as overwrought as Ivy was right now. Blotchy streaks of red had come up against her bone-white complexion. Her lips were quivering, and the rest of her was trembling like a brittle leaf in the wind. She kept trying to sniffle back tears, but they were leaking down her cheeks in frayed tracks.

  If he allowed himself to acknowledge it, he would admit he was stretched to his breaking point as well. This news had rattled him to his very foundations. And because he was fighting his own existential crisis, he hadn’t realized she was in the middle of one herself.

  She looked as though she was facing a traumatic event. She was terrified, he realized. She was quite literally fighting for her life, and it set his heart on edge to see it.

  “I believed you when you said I was protected. Do you realize that?” She spat it at him, and her bottom lip quivered.

  The walls he was using to keep his own emotions at bay felt the impact of her fury. He knew that feeling of believing someone’s word and learning later that trust had been misplaced. It was sickening.

  “Everything inside me was going wrong. I thought I had the flu. I kept forgetting things. I was three months late and was starting to fear I would be diagnosed with something life-threatening. Because what kind of man would lie to a woman about something like that?”

  The punch of accusation in her voice knocked his head back. “I didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t know that,” she choked. “I sat there in that stupid paper gown and thought, Here I am again, suckered by a man. At some point you have to wonder, is it them or me? Was I that gullible? Had I slept with a man who gets his kicks running around getting women pregnant all over the world? The only way I could stomach how obtuse I’d been was to believe you didn’t know.” She threw that at him with a point of her finger. Then her shoulders slumped, and she seemed very small. “Which meant I had to tell you. So you wouldn’t do this to anyone else. But you wouldn’t even take my call. You were prepared to call me cab a few hours ago.” She flung out an arm. “Now you’re trying to force me to marry you? Please tell me you can hear how ludicrous you sound.”

  He ran his hand over his face. He wasn’t impervious to the distress she was showing, but one of them had to hold on to control. If he allowed himself to fall into a tailspin like the one she was on...

  No. He locked down his emotions with ruthless control.

  “I’m glad you went to all this trouble to tell me, Ivy. I am.” It was true. And maybe he sounded overly reasonable and patronizing as he held on to this even, factual tone. It was a symptom of his determination to keep a firm grip on all this. “But it sounds as though you knew immediately that you were going to keep the baby. That’s exactly how I feel. I want the baby. I want to do what’s right. I’m not trying to force you into anything.”

  “You’re trying to force me into your bed!” she cried.

  “Because you’re exhausted,” he snapped, then reined in his temper. “We both need to take a breather while we think this through. We won’t talk about this anymore tonight.”

  He could hear himself being more proprietary than he normally was. The buck stopped with him and he was always the final word on any decision, but he didn’t shut down a discussion purely out of convenience. He typically listened and considered other points of view before closing a topic and moving on.

  They were both at the end of their ropes, though. It made him do something else he normally wouldn’t. No one liked to be manhandled. He knew that, but Ivy was like a punch-drunk boxer, swaying before his eyes.

  He picked her up and felt her stiffen in surprise.

  As he rooted his feet, bracing for a fight, she released a whimper and threw her arms around his neck. She buried her face in his throat and, with a convulsive shudder, began to sob so hard, she made his heart lurch.

  It took everything he had to stay on his feet. He had intended to put her in the bed, but he sank onto the edge of the mattress with her in his lap, all his control wavering like a house of cards in a hurricane.

  He had done this to her. And well over a decade ago, he had felt exactly as sucker punched and overwhelmed as she did right now.

  He adjusted her s
o she was under the open edges of his jacket and tried to warm her. He wasn’t particularly affectionate, but instinct had him cradling her and rubbing her back, trying to offer comfort while the hard walls of his chest shook under the force of her anguish.

  That old tightness, the one he’d conquered long ago, wrapped around his chest and constricted his breath. He brushed it aside and focused on calming her.

  What could he say, though? She wanted him to say he was sorry, but it didn’t feel like a truthful statement. He wasn’t ready to examine why.

  He couldn’t promise her the life she had planned out for herself, only fragments of it. Everything had changed for both of them. That was harsh reality, and he was still reeling under that fact himself.

  He had to say something. She was crying uncontrollably; her shoulders were racking under the force of it. Her pained, keening noises bruised places inside him.

  “We are capable, intelligent adults, Ivy. We’ll find a way to make this work.”

  “How?” she choked out with despair.

  He didn’t know, but he could make nearly anything work. His degree was in economics, but he had the brain of an engineer. He could rescue billion-dollar megaprojects and work around incompetent officials from foreign governments. Once he had learned that cooking was chemical reaction and sex was biology, he’d never had a problem accomplishing either successfully.

  Her lack of confidence in him was an affront, but he hadn’t given her much reason to believe she could rely on him, had he?

  Don’t worry. I’ve had a vasectomy.

  She must have known he would distrust her news. She had planned to have his baby without his support anyway. That humbled him.

  But he was offended, too. “You really thought you had to face this alone?”

  “I want to,” she insisted between her sniffles. “I want to live my life, not someone else’s.” She must have seen the irony in clinging to him while claiming a desire for independence, because she pressed a space between them and lifted her head.