The Millionaire's Pregnant Wife

It was a cinch. She placed each foot with care, wrapping her fingers around the stout branches, the exercise warming her, the little adventure lifting her spirits. Her life had been too dull for too long. She should add adventure to the list. Near the top, with a capital A.

The window slid open on its hasp. Kelsey levered herself over the sill, landing with a small thud on the floor.

She was in a bedroom. Luke’s bedroom.

He was fast asleep on the double bed, his face buried in the pillows, the sheets twisted around his waist. He was also naked, the light falling over the long curves of his spine.

Her dream had collided with reality. Except the sheets were white, not purple.

Kelsey crept closer across the worn floorboards. His torso was rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing; his hair lay dark on the pillow. He had, she thought unwillingly, a most impressive set of muscles.

Clearly he wasn’t sick. She should go straight downstairs and get to work. Then her heart leaped into her throat as he stirred, muttering something under his breath. She froze to the spot, watching in dismay as he turned over. He rubbed his eyes, their vivid blue focusing on her. As she opened her mouth, with no idea what she was going to say, he said, in a voice still blurred with sleep, “I was dreaming about you—come here.”

She gave a startled yelp as he seized her wrist and tugged her toward him. Losing her balance, she fell on top of him, her hands splayed on the sheet, her breasts crushed to his bare chest. He looped one thigh over hers, pinning her down, and buried his hands in her hair, pulling her head down to his. She had time to think, I’m in bed with a man who’s tall, dark and handsome. Then his lips were locked to hers, moving slick and hot until she dissolved into a pool of longing. She moaned his name in helpless surrender, assaulted by the heat of his body, the shock of bone and muscle and sinew.

With strong fingers he dragged her sweater up to her waist; a shudder rippled along her spine as his palms stroked her back, warm and very sure of themselves. “Your skin,” he muttered. “I knew it would feel like silk.” Then he was fumbling with the clasp on her bra, freeing her breasts.

As his fingers, those clever fingers, found her nipple, teasing it to the hardness of stone, she closed her eyes, drowning in pleasure and a raging hunger she couldn’t possibly have denied. She leaned forward, finding his mouth with hers, greedy to taste, frantic to give.

So she was generous, Luke thought in a rush of gratitude. Hadn’t he known she would be? Hadn’t he known how perfectly her breast would fit his palm? How the scent of her hair would envelop him?

He had to have her. He’d been a fool last night to think he could walk away from her without a backward look.

Rearing up, carrying her with him, he covered her with his body. His kiss deepened until he could scarcely breathe, his heart hammering in his ears. Or was it her heart? Swiftly he hauled her sweater further up, baring her exquisite breasts, all ivory curves and pink tips in the pale light. As he flicked her nipples with his tongue, desperate to taste her, she arched to meet him, her eyes wide-held, shining dark with desire. Her hips moved beneath him, nearly driving him out of his mind. He thrust once, twice, against the denim of her jeans, and heard the tiny cry as her breath caught in her throat.

He had to have her, Luke thought again, striving to breathe past the tightness in his chest. But not here. Not in this joyless house, in a bed not his own, where he’d been visited by nightmares.

He said jaggedly, “Kelsey, we’ve got to stop. God knows I want you. But this isn’t the time or the place.”

Had he ever done anything so against every instinct in his body? So contrary to his own impulsions?

Kelsey was clutching him by the shoulders, her nails digging in his flesh. His voice seemed to come from such a long way away that she had to struggle to take the words in. Stop, he’d said. We’ve got to stop…

Her body, so lissom, so wanton, was a stranger to her. And it was he who’d brought that about. His skillful mouth, his roaming hands, had changed her into a woman she scarcely knew.

She pushed hard against his chest, shaking her hair back, yanking at her sweater to hide her nakedness. Swiftly Luke brought a hand up to still hers. “Wait,” he said huskily, “let me look at you.”

“I—”

“You’re so lovely… Stroking you is like stroking a pearl, smooth and exquisitely shaped.”

Poetry was the last thing she would have expected from Luke Griffin. Dumbstruck, Kelsey watched his eyes wander from her shoulders to her peaked breasts, then lower to the gentle narrowing of her waist and the dip of her navel. The expression on his face brought sudden tears to her eyes. Had anyone ever looked at her like that? As though she was the most beautiful creature in the world?

It was he who then pulled her sweater down. Smiling at her, he patted her on the bottom. “Up,” he said. “We’re going to finish those boxes today if it’s the last thing we do.”

How could he switch so quickly from assaulting her with pleasure to everyday practicalities? This isn’t the time or the place… Did that mean he still wanted to make love to her? His words, those lyrical words that had melted her heart, they must have meant something…mustn’t they?

She still had her hiking boots on, she noticed distantly.

“Kelsey, are you okay?”

He was untangling himself from the sheets. He was, as she’d suspected, stark naked. Her eyes skittered away from him. “Fine,” she said in a choked voice.

“Coffee,” he said authoritatively. “An order from the boss.”

Kelsey stood up, her eyes flicking over the unmade bed, the tattered wallpaper. Anywhere but at him, in this dingy, too-small bedroom, where a man’s body had drowned her in desire. With a strangled gasp she fled the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Briefly she leaned against the panels, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. Her exit had been about as undignified as her entrance. Neither had been even remotely sophisticated.

She was beginning to hate that word.

Behind the panels she heard the floorboards creak as Luke moved around the room, and she took to the stairs as fast as she could. He’d better be fully dressed when he came downstairs, or she wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.

She could have eaten him alive, devoured him without a thought for the consequences.

For once, Kelsey was glad to be in the archaic kitchen, where she now had a small area clean enough that making coffee had become a comfortable routine. As the scent of Colombian blend teased her nostrils, she hooked her bra, patted her cheeks with cold water, and tried very hard to think.

Torrid sex. She now knew exactly what it felt like.

Wonderful. Overwhelming. Powerful. Frustrating. Oh, she could go on forever.

But was it what she wanted?

Freedom to be herself, to be on her own, was what she wanted. If torrid sex translated itself into an affair with Luke Griffin—even a short-lived affair—wouldn’t she lose something she’d craved for years?

Or would she berate herself for cowardice instead? Sex, so she’d read, was supposed to free the creative impulse, feed the artistic muse. Somehow she didn’t think what had happened upstairs in that gloomy bedroom had had much to do with her muse.

With a wry twist of her mouth, Kelsey decided caffeine was necessary for tackling such philosophical issues. But at least she’d distanced herself from that woman in the bedroom who would, in an instant, have begged for more, more, more…

She was seated at the table in the room down the hall, busily working, when Luke wandered in ten minutes later. “Great coffee,” he said absently, and sat down at the adjoining table.

Just as if he hadn’t kissed her senseless only minutes ago, she thought furiously, flicking through a pile of bank statements and subduing several shrewish replies.

“Did I forget to lock the door last night?” he added. “Is that how you got in?”

“I climbed the Virginia creeper up to your room.”

He gave a choked laugh. “A cat burglar—where did you learn to do that?”

“In the ivy on the old oak tree behind our house.”

“I must remember to keep the silver locked up when you’re around.”

“You do that.”

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

He was openly laughing at her, teeth gleaming, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Her own teeth gritted, she fought against his charm. “I’m glad I amuse you.”

“You do more than amuse me—that’s the problem,” he said. “But why did you bother climbing the creeper? Why didn’t you just go home?”

“I thought you might have broken your neck on the back stairs.”

“You were worried about me?” he said, taken aback.

She was scowling at him. “Yes.”

“Oh,” Luke said. He wasn’t used to anyone worrying about him; he wasn’t at all sure he liked the sensation. “Thanks,” he said shortly. “And now we’d better get to work. We’ll quit at noon for lunch.”

If she was smart, Kelsey thought, she’d quit right now. She took another sheaf of papers out of the box and bent to her task.

She had a delightful profile, Luke decided, her nose straight, her chin with a decided firmness. She was certainly no push-over. Unfortunately, she was no sophisticate either.

He had to have her. That hadn’t changed. Even though he’d doused himself in a tepid shower and done his best to conjure up images of Clarisse and Lindsay.

His best hadn’t been good enough. They’d dropped off his radar. Kelsey was the one he wanted. And Kelsey wanted him. She was twenty-eight years old, he thought, old enough to know that affairs, by definition, didn’t last. Besides, after bringing up three boys, she must be all too ready to break out.

Remembering how she’d clambered up the creeper filled him with amusement at her skill, and sheer terror because she could have fallen.

First things first. Once the weight of these damned boxes was off his shoulders, he’d be able to concentrate.

By noon, he’d found school reports where Rosemary had been getting into far more serious trouble than talking in class, and Kelsey had turned up a newspaper report about Rosemary’s second appearance in juvenile court, this time for drinking and driving. Training his face to immobility, he put them to one side. At four-thirty, while Kelsey was in the kitchen brewing another pot of coffee, he came across three letters.

The first was from Rosemary to Sylvia, demanding money and making it clear Rosemary had been banished in disgrace from Griffin’s Keep in her third month of pregnancy, with less than a hundred dollars to her name. Sylvia’s reply, dated several weeks later, was cold and to the point: she would pay for admission to an addictions clinic, but nothing else. The third letter was Rosemary’s furious refusal, laced with invective. From the dates on the letters, he’d been about six.

Addictions clinic. With all his strength Luke fought back images merciless in their clarity. But amidst this turmoil one thing was obvious: at Griffin’s Keep the recipe had already been in place. A miserly, heartless mother. A rebellious young girl, full of spirit and hungry for life. An unplanned pregnancy, and exile.

And he, a little boy, caught between two generations.

He buried his face in his hands. How he hated being ambushed by the past like this! He’d overcome the past, or so he’d thought. Wasn’t his bank account proof enough?

“Luke! Are you all right?”

Cursing, he raised his head. “Yeah…tired, that’s all.”

His slumped shoulders, the defeated bend of his neck, had frightened Kelsey. If only he’d share with her what this all meant, she thought painfully. “I brought you a chocolate doughnut,” she said, trying to steel her heart against the tension in his jaw and his hooded eyes.

Secrets. She’d never liked them.

She sat down, took a bite of her own doughnut, and went back to work. Four hours later they’d emptied the last box, which yielded three more reports from juvenile court. Luke dumped them on his pile and ran his fingers through his hair. “Thank God that’s over.”

He looked exhausted, Kelsey thought, yet tense as a coiled spring. She said impulsively, “Luke, let’s get out of here. I hate this house.”

“You and me both.”

“Come to my place. I’ll cook supper—although it won’t be a gourmet meal like last night. Fish and chips. Glen always says I make the best fish and chips the length of the shore.”

Why am I doing this? she thought in horror. After what happened this morning, I’m inviting Luke into my home? Where there are four beds? That’s not just crazy, it’s suicidal.

Or is it freedom?

How was she supposed to know the difference?

CHAPTER FOUR

TRYING TO WORK the tension out of his shoulders, Luke said, “Dinner at your place? I’ll be right behind you, Kelsey, once I’ve taken a bottle of wine from the cellar. Sylvia Griffin owes me—I might bring two bottles. I tell you, if I never see Griffin’s Keep again, it won’t be a day too soon.”

“I’m with you on that,” Kelsey said with a grin, and hurried out to her car.

When Luke arrived, ten minutes after her, she had the curtains drawn against the snow flurries that were whipping past the window, candles were lit on the kitchen shelves, and a semicircle of candles flickered on the dining room table. She had laid the table for two: herself and a man who qualified in spades as tall, dark and handsome.

Which just went to show you shouldn’t tempt fate, she thought, or you might get what you asked for. And discover that nothing was quite as simple as you’d expected. She passed Luke the corkscrew. The wine was delicious, full-bodied and fruity; letting it run down her throat, she decided in a rush of rebellion to enjoy herself. Sure, she was out of her depth. But so what? She’d managed to field everything that life had thrown at her so far. Why should Luke be any different?

Swathing herself in an oversize apron that made her feel minimally safer, she began mixing the batter for the fish.

Too restless to sit down, Luke prowled around the kitchen, letting its warmth and friendliness envelop him. There was a calendar from a charity organization on the wall over the phone. He said absently, “That’s a very fine orphanage.”

Kelsey glanced up. “How do you know? Have you been there?”

“Yeah,” he said, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. “On my last trip to Hong Kong.”

“In between real estate deals, you just happened to drop into an orphanage in Cambodia?”

“I told you I was in Cambodia when Sylvia was buried—it’s why they couldn’t reach me in time.”

“Do you support the orphanage?” she asked, frowning at him.

Her big brown eyes precluded easy lies. “I paid to have it built,” he said. “The charity runs it.”

Her hands stilled. She said shrewdly, “How many other orphanages have you built, Luke?”

“A few. Here and there.”

She waved a wooden spoon at him. “How many?”

“Twenty-four. And don’t try and make me into some kind of saint.”

“There’s already a St Luke,” she said dryly, “the position’s taken. You’re not a saint; you’re a rich man who cares…and puts the caring into action and cold hard cash.”

“Drink your wine,” Luke said, then changed the subject. “Can I peel some potatoes?”

She passed him a knife, her eyes velvety warm with approval; she’d donated to that charity for years, her heart wrung by children who by circumstance and violence had been robbed of parents. “The bag’s in the end cupboard.”

Her apron was shapeless, her sleeves were rolled up and there was a dab of batter on her chin. He wanted to kiss her, Luke thought. Another of those devastating kisses into which he sank and lost himself.

Hastily he located the bag of potatoes in the cupboard and began peeling one. The homely task was oddly relaxing; the ghosts who had been haunting him ever since he’d arrived at Griffin’s Keep were gradually receding.

Domesticated, he thought. Undemanding. Not his usual scene.

Kelsey’s wrists were slender, blue-veined. If he lowered his head, laid his lips to that little hollow in her ivory skin, he’d be able to feel her pulse, the very voice of her blood.

Even the words he was using were changing, he thought in exasperation. When had he ever felt the urge to spout poetry to any of his female companions?

The short answer was never.

Was he going to take Kelsey to bed tonight, in her own home, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of the three boys she’d raised?

He’d be back in Manhattan tomorrow. Would he then forget about her?

With vicious swipes Luke began slicing the potatoes. Ten minutes later, when they were sizzling in the hot fat, Kelsey said, “Ketchup and tartar sauce in the refrigerator—you could put them on the dining room table. Vinegar, salt and pepper on the counter.” Expertly, she flipped a fillet in the pan.

There were two colored photographs held to the refrigerator door by magnets. In one, three husky young men surrounded their sister, all four of them laughing into the camera. In the other, an older couple, also laughing, stood with their arms around each other on the porch of Kelsey’s house.

“My parents,” Kelsey said. “It’s silly, but I still miss them.” Her face softened. “They’d been married over twenty years when they died, and loved each other more with each passing day. In a way, it was a good thing they went together…”

Wincing away from all the implications of what she’d just said, unable to think of anything to add to it, Luke took out the sauces and left the kitchen. The living room was still in a state of chaos. Her three paintings drew him like a magnet; gazing at them, he was assailed by a sharp pang of conscience. Take Kelsey to bed and then abandon her without a second thought? He couldn’t do it. She wasn’t a manipulator, like Clarisse, or all on the surface like Lindsay; Kelsey was pure emotion and sensitivity. Each brushstroke proved it.

He had to have her; every cell in his body impelled him to that end. But at what cost? And on whose terms?

As he turned away, a piece of paper on top of a pile of newspapers caught his eye, partly because the writing was in bright red ink. It was headed THE FREEDOM LIST. Quickly his eyes skimmed the page. Go to art school. Travel. Paint a masterpiece. Have torrid sex.

He jolted to a stop. This last directive had been crossed out. Have an affair had been printed above it.

His pang of conscience vanished in a surge of relief. So Kelsey wanted an affair; perhaps she had left the list out so he’d read it. If the few kisses they’d exchanged were anything to go by, the sex would indeed be torrid.

Paint a masterpiece. His brain made a lightning-swift leap. His good friend Rico was a world-renowned artist.

“Dinner’s ready, Luke,” Kelsey called from the kitchen. “Come and get it.”

Come and get it… Oh, yes, he thought, and went back into the kitchen.

The fish was tender and flaky, the batter crisp and the French fries, drenched in vinegar and salt, delicious. Luke said soulfully, “Why haven’t any of the men in Hadley snapped you up? You’re gorgeous and you’ve got a body to die for—and your fish and chips are the nearest thing to heaven.”

“There was the small matter of three boys underfoot, and a dearth of eligible men.”

No wonder torrid sex had been written in red ink. Luke said, squeezing lemon juice over his fish, “I noticed your list in the living room—”

“My list?” she squeaked, blanching. “Where? I didn’t leave it out, did I? Luke, you didn’t read it!”

“You did, and I did.” He gave her his most charming smile. “It was difficult not to—the ink’s eye-catching. So I have a proposal for you. For both of us, actually. A joint venture.”

From ivory-pale, her cheeks had flushed as red as the ink. She said in a rush, “I meant to take it upstairs. But then I must have gotten distracted sorting Glen’s old hockey gear. You didn’t really read it?”

Do a sales pitch, Luke. Fast. “I own a resort on a little island in the Bahamas,” he said with another big smile. “My good friend Rico Albeniz is flying down there later this week to spend a few days—have you heard of him?” When she nodded, he went on, “I’ll call him tonight. You and I will fly down there tomorrow, and you can have a lesson or two with him.”

“With Rico Albeniz? He wouldn’t even look at me—he’s famous!”

“He’ll look at you. If I ask him to.”

“Money talks?” she said coldly, forking up some chips.

“He’s my friend,” Luke said, an edge to his voice.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “But—”

“I haven’t finished,” Luke said patiently. “While we’re there, you and I will share a bed. Have an affair. Don’t you see? Travel, torrid sex, and the chance to paint—you can cross three things off your list at once.”

“How very efficient,” she said, in an unreadable voice.

“It’s called time-management,” he added with a touch of smugness, and took another mouthful of fish.

“Spoken like a businessman.”

He leaned forward. “You want me, Kelsey, and I want you—as I swear I’ve never wanted a woman before. You’re as far from my usual kind of lover as you can be, and I should be running in the opposite direction. I don’t normally babble on about pearls or orphanages or my mother, and I don’t know why I’m doing it with you. But I do know one thing—I won’t rest until I have you in my bed.”

He seemed to have finished all he had to say. He dabbed his last mouthful of fish in tartar sauce. Kelsey was gaping at him, her fork partway to her mouth, her eyes dazed. “I can’t have an affair with—”

“Why can’t you?”

“To start with, I can’t go away tomorrow. Just like that. I have…responsibilities.” Her voice died to a whisper.

“No, you don’t. The last one left for forestry school a few days ago.”

Kelsey swallowed a French fry that tasted like cardboard. She needed a haircut, she thought crazily, she couldn’t go away. “I have to sell the house.”

“You’ll be in much better shape to do so after a holiday.”

“I don’t have any—”

“—money? I’m writing you a check this evening for the last three days. The flight’s free, because it’s on my private jet, and I own the resort—no room charge.”

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