Terms of Engagement

by Ann Major

  She had to talk to him, to at least try to make things right. Without remembering to grab a robe, she raced to the huge living room. It was empty, so she tiptoed back down the hall to his bedroom door, which he’d shut against her. She called his name, softly at first. When he didn’t answer, she knocked.

  His door swung open and he stood before her, his powerful, bare-chested body backlit by the lamp on his nightstand. He looked so glorious, she caught her breath. For a long moment, she could only stare at his bronzed muscles with bemused fascination. He was so fit and hard. If only she could throw herself into his arms and tell him she loved him and his baby.

  But she knew he didn’t want her love.

  “I want this baby, and I was going to tell you,” she whispered.

  She watched his magnificent muscles cord as he pushed the door wider. “When?” he muttered roughly, disbelieving her.

  “Just before I passed out at the party. I wanted to tell you in person, and… It was just that I was scared,” she continued breathlessly. “I—I…couldn’t believe you’d want my baby, too.”

  “Our baby,” he corrected in a tight tone. “Couldn’t the baby give us something more positive to build on?”

  “How? If you regret marrying me. And blame our child for trapping you into a permanent involvement with a woman you don’t want.

  “Quinn, if you’d planned to dissolve our marriage after your takeover of Murray Oil, you don’t have to stay with me because of this. I hope you know that. This doesn’t have to change the businesslike nature of our arrangement.”

  He sucked in a breath. “Damn it. Are you ever going to quit telling me what I feel?”

  “But isn’t that…how you feel?”

  For a long moment he was silent. “Would you listen to me for once, instead of being so sure you’ve got me pegged?”

  “Yes. All right.”

  After another lengthy interval, his expression softened. “I guess I’m a little scared by your news,” he said simply.

  “Because you know our marriage isn’t real?”

  His mouth tensed. “No! Because babies are a lifetime commitment. Because they are so little…and so helpless. Because they know how to turn their parents into doting sots—and they do it with charm, in no time flat. Anything could happen to a baby.” He caught her hand, and when she didn’t struggle, he pulled her into his arms. “Or to you…while you’re pregnant. I couldn’t bear it.” He kissed her brow.

  It was bliss to be in his arms.

  So he didn’t love her, couldn’t love anybody. But he cared. She was sure he cared, at least a little. He was holding her as if he did.

  “But nothing will happen because we’ll take good care of the baby…and me,” she said reassuringly.

  “My father was strong, and he died. We’re all only a heartbeat away from death.” There was so much grief and passion in his voice she felt hot tears sting the back of her eyelids.

  “Which is why we have to live each moment to the fullest,” she whispered. In a burst of tenderness, she raised her fingertips to stroke his temples in consolation. “We don’t have a second to waste. We might as well be dead if we’re afraid to live.” To love, she wanted to add.

  Quinn’s arms tightened around her. He lowered his face and this time it was her mouth he sought. When he found it, he kissed her long and deeply. She opened her lips and sighed. She’d wanted him to kiss her like this for hours, days. Maybe that was why she couldn’t help shivering in delight and giving him everything—all her love, even her soul—when she kissed him back.

  “Oh, Kira…” For an endless time, he couldn’t seem to stop kissing her. Then, suddenly, he let her go and jerked free of her embrace.

  “Forgive me. I forgot—you don’t want me pawing you. That’s what made you sick, earlier.” His dark face was flushed and his breathing ragged.

  “No… I told you… I’ve had morning sickness. Only sometimes it’s not just in the morning.”

  “Go to your own room. We can talk tomorrow.” Even as his harsh rejection wounded, his eyes continued to hungrily devour her.

  He wanted her. He was pushing her away because he desired her so much. And because she’d made him promise not to sleep with her.

  She’d been wrong, impossible from the first. She’d missed him while he was away. She was carrying his child.

  Everything had changed for them.

  If she had to beg, she would.

  “Don’t make me sleep alone tonight,” she pleaded. “Because I won’t sleep. I’ll just lie there…wanting you.”

  “I won’t sleep, either. Still, in the morning you’ll regret it if you don’t go.” His expression darkened. “Like you did before…on the island.”

  But she hadn’t regretted it. He had.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You did say we should focus on the positive…for the baby’s sake. Am I right?”

  His sensual mouth quirked ever so charmingly, and the heat in his gaze soon had her bones melting.

  “How do you make me break every rule that allowed me to survive during my long, dark years of grief?”

  “I get that you don’t want to love anybody ever again. Especially not me,” she whispered. “But I’m not asking for your love tonight.”

  When he would have protested, she sealed his lips with a fingertip. “I’m not asking for anything you can’t give. I just want to be with you.”

  “My father loved my mother too much, and…she destroyed him…when she left. I can’t help thinking you’re just waiting for the right moment to walk out.”

  Don’t you know how much I love you? Don’t you know that if only you loved me, I would never leave you?

  Her knees were so weak with desire, she could barely stand. No way did she possess the courage to voice her true thoughts. She was afraid they would only drive him further away.

  Her hold on him was tenuous, and only sexual. She had to accept that, use it and hope that someday she could build on that foundation.

  Reaching toward him, she splayed her fingertips against his massive chest. Flesh and bone and sinew felt solid and warm beneath her open palm. When she ran her fingers over his nipples and through the dark hair that matted his torso, he groaned, which pleased her.

  “Kira. Darlin’.” On a shuddering sigh, he pulled her close and teased her lips and jawline with his mouth and tongue.

  Lifting her, he carried her to the bed. There, he slid off his belt and slacks and pushed her nightgown down her shoulders. As it pooled onto the floor, he pulled her against him and pushed inside her slick satin warmth. Riding their mutual passion, they let it carry them like a charging black steed, faster and faster, until they soared together in torrid surrender. Afterward, as she held on to him, her sated body melted into his.

  “You’ve ruined me,” he whispered.

  “Whiner,” she teased.

  “Seriously. I’ll never be able to move again,” he said.

  She laughed. “Sure you will. And it better be sooner than you think. Because I’m going to be wanting more…very soon. You’ve neglected me…you know.”

  “Have I now? And whose fault was that, darlin’ Kira?”

  For an entire hour, he held her against his body as if she was precious to him. When she kissed his rough cheek, his throat, his nipples, he muttered huskily, “You weren’t kidding, were you?”

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “Slave driver.”

  But he smiled and ran his hands through her hair as he pulled her close.

  This time his love was sweeter, and slower, and afterward, when he kissed her belly gently, he showed her that his intense passion included their precious child.

  “So, you want my baby, do you?” he whispered.

  “So much, too much,” she admitted in a breathless whisper as she pressed his dark head against her flat stomach. “More than anything. In fact, I hope the baby’s a boy and that he looks just like you.”

  He laughed in husky delight and nuzzl
ed her tummy with his feverish lips. “Be careful what you wish for. He’ll be a handful, I assure you.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  When he held her close like this and was so teasingly affectionate, she could almost forget he didn’t love her, that he never could. She could almost forget how inadequate and uncertain she’d always felt.

  Almost…

  He was a handsome billionaire, who could have any woman he wanted. What could she do to hold him?

  Nestled in his arms, she fell into a restless sleep and dreamed. She was a child again, standing beside her parents as they cheered Jaycee and her basketball team to victory. Then she was sitting in her room alone. The house was empty because her mother and father had driven Jaycee to a slumber party.

  Older now, Kira was walking across the stage at Princeton where she’d graduated with honors. As she posed for photographs, she smiled brightly through her disappointment. None of her family was in the audience because Jaycee had a conflicting high school event. The picture was all they’d have to remember this huge milestone in Kira’s life.

  “Remember to smile,” her mother had commanded over the phone. “You never smile.” A pause. “Oh, how I wish I could be there to see you graduate!”

  “Couldn’t Daddy stay with Jaycee?”

  “You know your father. He’s no good at those high school functions without me.”

  The dream darkened into a nightmare. Quinn was standing in a shower of crimson light, holding Cristina against his long, lean body. “I have to marry her, don’t you understand? I don’t want to. You’re the one who’s special to me. Don’t ever forget that my marriage to her is strictly business. You’re the woman who really matters. Who will always matter. Nothing will change between us. You’ll see.”

  Then he kissed Cristina as those awful words repeated themselves in her mind. “Strictly business…”

  Kira woke up crying that phrase even as Quinn wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

  “Hush. It’s okay, baby. You were only dreaming.”

  Was she? Or were her dreams where she faced the harsh truths she denied when awake?

  “I’m fine,” she murmured, pushing him away. “You don’t have to comfort me. I can take care of myself—just like I always have. I didn’t ask you to love me—did I?”

  “No, you damn sure didn’t.”

  Strictly business.

  God, if only Quinn could feel that way, too, maybe then he’d survive this nightmare.

  As soon as Kira’s breathing had become regular again and Quinn was sure she was asleep, he’d tossed his own covers aside and shot out of bed.

  Groping clumsily for his slacks on the dark floor, he yanked them on and stalked out of the bedroom in bare feet. When he got to the bar, he splashed a shot of vodka into a glass.

  Strictly business.

  Damn her! Not that he didn’t feel sorry for her, because he did. Even now, her stricken cries echoed in his mind. She was no happier than he was.

  He’d been right to think she’d regret the sex. So, why the hell had she slept with him when he’d given her an out?

  He’d never figure her out. She might regret what had happened, but he couldn’t. She’d been too sweet, and he’d craved her too desperately. Hell, it embarrassed him to think of how needy he’d felt all week without her in London.

  Frowning as he stared into his glass, he remembered how he’d grabbed his cell phone at least a dozen times in his eagerness to call her, only to shove it back in his pocket. All he’d wanted was to hear her soft voice. Without her, he’d felt cut off, alone, alienated in a city he usually enjoyed.

  Once in San Antonio, he’d rushed home. And when he’d seen her, he’d wanted nothing except to sweep her into his arms and kiss her endlessly. But she’d been pale and withdrawn.

  Every day his obsession for her increased. If she could not reciprocate, they were shackled together on the same fatal course his own parents had traveled. He would not endure that kind of marriage.

  His father had given his mother everything, and it hadn’t been enough.

  He would not make the same mistake.

  Fifteen

  Quinn’s side of the bed was ice-cold.

  Nothing had changed.

  He was gone.

  It wasn’t the first time Kira had woken up alone in Quinn’s bed, but this morning, she felt needier than usual. Maybe because of what they’d shared the night before, or maybe because of her bad dreams, she wanted a good-morning kiss. And maybe breakfast together punctuated with a lot more kisses.

  But he’d left her for work, which was all-important to him. Hadn’t business been the sole reason he’d married her?

  To him, last night must have been about sex and nothing more. She’d known that, hadn’t she? Still, as she lay in bed, her body sore from making love, she felt lonely. Would it always be like this?

  Stretching, she rolled onto his side of the bed where his scent lingered and hugged his pillow. Then, realizing what an idiot she was, she hurled his pillow at the wall. It struck an etching, which crashed to the floor.

  Footsteps in the corridor brought a quick blush to her face.

  “Mrs. Sullivan? Is that you? Do you need my assistance?” Jason sounded so stiff and formal, she cringed. She wanted her husband, not some uptight houseman with high-class British airs.

  “I’m fine,” she cried.

  How was she going to get from Quinn’s room to hers in her sheer nightie without Jason seeing her wrapped in a blanket? Such an encounter would be embarrassing for both of them.

  When five minutes passed without another sound, she cracked the door. There was no sign of him, so she ripped a blanket off the bed, covered herself and shot down the hall on flying tiptoes. Once inside her bedroom, she bolted the door.

  As she dressed, taking her time because it was hours before she needed to be at Betty’s, she turned on the television. Murray Oil and the EU deal were all over the news.

  Both the local news channels and the national ones were full of stories about Quinn’s heady successes. In too many shots, a beaming Cristina stood so close to Quinn the pair seemed joined at the hip. Why hadn’t Quinn told her that Cristina had gone to London with him?

  Cristina worked for him. Surely he’d taken other executives. It was no big deal.

  But in her fragile mood, and after her dream last night, it felt like a big deal to her.

  You can’t blame a man for something you dreamed!

  Maybe not, but she still had to ask him about Cristina and his reasons for taking the woman to London. So, when the phone rang, she rushed to pick it up, hoping it was Quinn.

  “Hello!” she said a little too brightly.

  “Kira? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  The critical male tone was very familiar. Still, because she was focused on Quinn, it took her a second to place the voice. Then it came to her: Gary Whitehall, her former boss.

  “Hi, Gary.”

  “Are you still looking for a job?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “Even though you’re Quinn Sullivan’s wife?”

  “Yes, even though. He’s a very busy man, and I love doing what I’m trained to do.”

  “Well, Maria is retiring because she needs more time to help her daughter. The minute she told me she wanted to play grandmother, well, naturally, we all thought of you.”

  She lifted a brow. And Quinn.

  “You could have your old job back… Although, like I said, I wasn’t at all sure you’d be interested now that you’re the Mrs. Sullivan.”

  “Well, I am, so…this is wonderful news.”

  “Then you’ll make yourself available for a meeting? No hurry, though. Don’t want to pressure you.”

  “I’m available. In fact, I’m free for an hour or two this afternoon.”

  They agreed upon a time and hung up.

  The call boosted her mood until she remembered how Quinn had rushed off to work this morning without eve
n a goodbye. Until she remembered what a gorgeous couple he and Cristina had made on television. They were both so stylish and good-looking. They had business concerns in common, too.

  With an effort, she quit thinking about Cristina and refocused on Gary’s offer. She was glad Gary had called, even if it was her marriage to Quinn that had made her more attractive as a job applicant.

  On a whim, she decided to call Quinn and run the job idea by him just to see what he’d say.

  Oh, be honest, Kira, you just want to hear his sexy voice and distract him from Cristina.

  Kira made the call, only to be deflated when his secretary told her, “I’ll have him return your call. He’s in a meeting.”

  “With whom?”

  “Cristina Gold. They’re taking a last look at the contracts for the EU deal before everything is finalized.”

  Don’t ask a question if you don’t want the answer.

  “Would you please tell him…that I’ll be on my cell.”

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Sullivan?”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered as she hung up.

  Perfectly fine.

  Clutching the phone to her breast, she sank onto her bed. She didn’t feel fine. She felt more uncertain than ever.

  Leave it alone. Cristina works for him. That’s all there is to it. Go to Betty’s. Do the interview with Gary. Forget your stupid nightmare.

  But being pregnant had her feeling highly emotional. She couldn’t leave it alone. She had to see him. After last night, she had to know how he felt.

  Dressing hurriedly, she was in his office in less than an hour. The same beautiful blonde secretary who’d greeted her on her first visit greeted her again, more warmly this time.

  “Mr. Sullivan told me you two are expecting a baby. He sounded so happy about it. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you like coffee? Or a soda?”

  “I just want to talk to my husband. He didn’t call me back, and since I was in the neighborhood…”

  “I’m afraid he’s still going over those contracts.”

  “With Miss Gold?”