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Anybody's Dad
Amy J. Fetzer
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'RE A… FATHER?!Tessa Lightfoot refused to share her long-awaited child with a total stranger, much less marry the man! True, Chase Madison had gotten her pregnant - courtesy of his unwitting sperm-bank deposit. And his tender touch did stir Tessa's blossoming body. But medical technology and a marriage license weren't enough to create a real family.Nothing was going to come between Chase and fatherhood - not even stubborn Tessa! Tessa carried his baby in her belly. And while he regretted that he hadn't put it there the old-fashioned way, he planned to change that the next time around!
“What Were You Going To Tell My Son When He Asked About His Father?” (#u56222af6-f007-5f1b-ab58-71994c8341e8)Letter to Reader (#u0e3a543e-7e98-53bb-ac52-b08cffcb7f86)Title Page (#u6d562528-8ace-5d1c-ace6-dd9911b1d51d)About the Author (#uf48aff72-290b-56f9-bd78-f7baee257e2c)Dedication (#u3e2042fd-281e-5bf9-9ffd-d60b7d09d215)Chapter One (#u6acc39ec-0867-569b-90d7-3f9bacf8a9a5)Chapter Two (#u8673262c-6152-5b68-9379-7d784b40ccd3)Chapter Three (#uce952d26-4fa9-562b-8aee-9aca137061ee)Chapter Four (#ufe280958-97b8-52d0-9cb5-82b2d983e603)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“What Were You Going To Tell My Son When He Asked About His Father?”
Tessa moved her shoulders restlessly as she poked at her food. “I’d decide when it was appropriate. And if she was old enough to understand, I’d tell the truth.”
Chase leaned close, hemming in the air, the moment. The man was so close Tessa could see the black flecks in his eyes.
“The truth? That he was made in a doctor’s office and not a bedroom? That his father was some man he’ll never know?”
His tone was intimate, husky and Tessa swallowed nervously. “That can’t be helped.”
“Yes, it can.”
“How—?” Her eyes widened instantly at the look of intent on his face. “Oh, no!” She shook her head, looking scared. “Don’t—” she wiped her lips “—don’t say it!”
“Many me....”
Dear Reader,
This month we have some special treats in store for you, beginning with Nobody’s Princess, another terrific MAN OF THE MONTH from award-winning writer Jennifer Greene. Our heroine believes she’s just another run-of-the-mill kind of gal...but naturally our hero knows better. And he sets out to prove to her that he is her handsome prince...and she is his princess!
Joan Elliott Pickart’s irresistible Bishop brothers are back in Texas Glory, the next installment of her FAMILY MEN series. And Amy Fetzer brings us her first contemporary romance, a romantic romp concerning parenthood—with a twist—in Anybody’s Dad. Peggy Moreland’s heroes are always something special, as you’ll see in A Little Texas Two-Step, the latest in her TROUBLE IN TEXAS series.
And if you’re looking for fun and frolic—and a high dose of sensuality—don’t miss Patty Salier’s latest, The Honeymoon House. If emotional and dramatic is more your cup of tea, then you’ll love Kelly Jamison’s Unexpected Father.
As always, there is something for everyone here at Silhouette Desire, where you’ll find the very best contemporary romance.
Enjoy!
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609. Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Amy Fetzer
Anybody’s Dad
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
AMY FETZER was born in New England and raised all over the world. She uses her experiences, along with bits and pieces of the diverse people she’s met, in creating the characters and settings for her novels. “Nobody’s safe,” she says. “There are heroes and heroines right in front of us, if we just take the time to look.” Married nineteen years to a U.S. Marine and the mother of two sons, Amy covets the moments when she can curl up with a cup of cappuccino and a good book. Published previously in historical and time-travel novels and novellas, she happily steps into contemporary category romance with her first Desire for Silhouette Books, Anybody’s Dad.
For my agent,
Irene Goodman
Thanks for tearing off my blinders and
seeing this one coming before I did.
One
“It’s too late, Chase.”
“What do you mean?” he said into the phone, an edge to his voice. Lawyers had an annoying habit of dragging out the details, especially for their friends.
“The procedure took. Six months ago.”
“What! You mean there’s a woman walking around with my baby inside her and I’ve never laid eyes on her?”
“That about sums it up.”
Chase Madison shielded his eyes from the sun blasting through his office window and rubbed his temples. Janis had done this. He just knew it. “God, if Janis wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her.”
“Oh, it gets better.”
Chase closed his eyes, tamping down his temper. “Let’s have it.”
“She believes you’re nothing but a sperm donor.” Something nasty twisted inside Chase just then. “And she isn’t going to let you near this child, nor give you the time of day.”
“We’ll just see about that.”
Chase hung up the phone and sank into the nearest chair, cradling his aching head in his hands. A sperm donor. Wonderful. If his marriage alone wasn’t the grand joke of the century, now he felt as if Janis were taking digs from the grave. Chase wasn’t mourning her. He’d done that briefly months ago, after the accident, with whatever little feeling he had left for her. Now he felt only anger and resentment. She’d used her job at the fertility clinic to get back at him. She’d had access, and God knows she’d had motivation. But this, he thought, was beyond even her. This was vicious.
It always came back to kids. He wanted them. She couldn’t have any. It hadn’t mattered to him at the time. He just wanted to be a father. Anybody’s father. He wanted to feel the sweet energy kids gave, their fascination for discovery, wanted to love them and feel loved. With secret dreams of his own son, he’d convinced Janis to go the adoption route—a seven-year wait for a newborn. But it was Janis, as administrator for the clinic, who’d introduced the possibility of a surrogate mother.
Chase hadn’t liked the idea of a strange woman having his child by artificial insemination. Even the sound of it was clinically impersonal. And he couldn’t imagine a woman going through pregnancy and childbirth only to relinquish her rights to her baby. But Janis had convinced him it was reasonable. Persuaded him with the fact that the child would at least have Chase’s blood in his veins.
You let her convince you, his conscience niggled. He’d wanted a child that badly, yet still he’d dragged his heels. He remembered the humiliation of entering a little sterilized room, staring at the specimen cup in his hand, the leather office couch, the stack of video tapes on the TV/VCR. Then he’d dragged Janis in with him. She was very accommodating about assisting him, as he recalled.
Two weeks later his world fell apart. Or at least what he thought was his marriage. Hell. It had been over before that, he knew. Just as he knew having children was the wrong reason to hold a marriage together. Yet he’d felt cheated out of something precious and wonderful when he’d found the birth control pills tucked in the glove box of her car when he’d taken it to the shop. Janis wasn’t infertile. She’d just never wanted children. Never wanted her career or her figure or her life interrupted. Let the baby machines do it, she’d said, unaware that he’d heard her bitter comments until he stepped around the edge of her office door. Oh, she’d stumbled through an explanation, but in that moment, he’d seen her for what she truly was. Selfish, heartless, a lousy example of impending motherhood. He’d told her to dump their files, their marriage and his donation.
Obviously she hadn’t. He’d known she was bitter, but this? Manipulating files and specimens? Why?
For a baby.
His baby.
An incredible warmth crept into his chest, seeping out to his limbs. Chase sagged back into the leather chair and savored the feeling, knowing it wouldn’t last, wouldn’t stay. Had she intentionally allowed the surrogate-intended sperm to go to a woman who thought she was selecting only genes and chromosomes from a bank? Was she bitter enough to see the child he longed for created, only to keep the baby from his grasp? He hated to think anyone was that horrible.
Leaning forward, he scooted the pad of paper closer and read the name. The woman wasn’t even one of the potential surrogates they’d interviewed.
Tessa Lightfoot.
She wanted a child, but didn’t want the father.
Well, Miss Lightfoot. You got both. And she couldn’t dump him down the drain with the rest of the liquid papas.
Tessa gripped the phone, praying she’d heard wrong. “This can’t be happening. Tell me it isn’t.”
“It is, Sis. Now stay calm.”
“I am calm!”
“Oh, sure.”
“Dia, please,” Tessa moaned, blinking back fresh tears.
“As your counsel, I advise you to meet with him.”
“No way.” She plucked a tissue from a lace-covered box and blotted her eyes.
“Tessa, listen,” Dia said in a calm tone that always soothed Tessa. One would think she was the elder sister. “He’s not an ogre.”
“Have you met him?” Warts and baldness immediately came to mind.
“No, just his lawyer.”
“You guys run like a wolf pack, so that doesn’t count.”
“He has rights.” Dia’s voice was tight.
“No, he doesn’t. This baby is mine, all mine. Selecting sperm from a bank was supposed to insure that. If I wanted a father around I would have gone the conventional route.”
“And you selected his. Why?”
“Oh, that hardly matters now. It’s the clinic’s fault, let him sue them.”
“He’s not suing. He wants to be a part of his child’s life.”
Panic raced through Tessa. “Never. Do you hear me, Dia? Never!”
“Tessa, sit.”
Tessa sat, a soft plop onto a stack of floor pillows.
“Most men get the hell scared out of them when it comes to pregnancy and babies.” Like her ex, Tessa thought, flipping her braid back over her shoulder. “Perhaps he just wants to offer financial support?” Dia finished.
Tessa made a face, then glanced around her cozy little house. “I don’t need it.”
“I know, but give him the chance to do the right thing. If you don’t, this could get ugly.”
A judge, the media, she realized, her child given an initial like Baby M. “Okay, okay. I will, under protest. One meeting and that’s it.”
“Tomorrow morning at nine. My office.”
Tessa’s brows knitted softly. “You were so sure I’d say yes?”
“You pay me to know what you need before you need it.”
“Living in the same house for twenty years didn’t hurt either, huh?”
Dia’s laughter filtered through the phone, making Tessa smile as she said goodbye. Flicking off the cordless phone and tossing it aside, Tessa sank deeper into the mound of pillows, spread-eagle. Toeing off her sandals, she stared at the bordered ceiling, smoothing her hands over her belly. The baby moved in a slow, rolling wave, and she touched every ripple, smiling to herself, gaining strength. She wasn’t going to let this person, this entity she refused to give a face to, get to her. This baby was hers, extra special, extra loved and extra wanted, because when she was young and married to Ryan, she’d had her chance and lost it. Her ex hadn’t wanted to be a father, ever, and although he’d said often enough that she was all he needed, she chose not to believe him. Disillusionment and hard reality hit when her birth control failed and he gave her a choice—abort or divorce. The confrontation had ended her marriage and she realized her own naiveté had allowed it to happen. The foolishness of youth, she thought. But miscarrying in the middle of her divorce had devastated her the most. Tessa’s eyes burned suddenly and she stroked her belly, taking deep calming breaths. Just thinking about how Ryan had come rushing back when he’d heard about the miscarriage still upset her. She’d lived on her anger then, focusing on her career, on becoming financially independent enough to afford a child, without a father.
She’d almost waited too long.
But now, she was exactly where she wanted to be. And she’d fight this faceless enemy with everything she had before giving into the donor’s arrogant demands to be a part of her baby’s life.
“We’ll get through this,” she whispered to her unborn child.
This Chase Madison didn’t know what he was up against when he faced a mother protecting her child.
Two
Chase stood near the office window, his back to his lawyer, Tigh McBain, and stared out the spotless glass, watching the traffic move on the streets below. His breath almost made frost, it was so cool in the long conference room, and he checked his watch for the third time.
“She’s late.”
“Tessa’s always late,” a soft voice said, and he turned to see a small, slender young woman enter the conference room. She greeted Tigh politely, setting her briefcase on the long table as her secretary, a man for God’s sake, followed her, placing a coffee service and a pitcher of water on the table.
“And you tolerate it?”
She met his gaze, and Chase saw the shark beneath the impeccably tailored attorney. “Sisters have a tendency to tolerate a lot from each other.”
Sisters. Wonderful. Nothing like having her family forces joined against him.
“I’m Dia Lightfoot.” Chase looked her over thoroughly, and she seemed to expect it, an odd smile crossing her lips. She was attractive, severe in appearance, businesslike in a fitted Chanel suit, black hair whipped tightly into a twist. Everything about Ms. Dia Lightfoot spoke of a professional hardness he saw too often in women climbing the corporate ladder. But to Chase, every lawyer was a shark, including Tigh. God, was this what awaited him? A woman so unable to spare a moment from her demanding career that she chose a sperm bank instead of taking the time for a relationship? His stomach knotted and he returned his gaze out the window, hands braced behind his back. He rocked on his heels, flinching when a buzzer sounded. He glanced back to see Ms. Lightfoot flip a cellular phone and speak softly, then click it off and drop it into her briefcase.
“She’s on her way up.”
Chase didn’t think his stomach could clench any tighter. He wasn’t noticing the magnificent skyline, or his chilled skin. His imagination was too busy painting an unpleasant picture of Dia’s sister. A duplicate of the shark in heels, he thought. Gritty. Clinical enough to breed her baby in a doctor’s office.
A rap on the door sounded, and Chase turned as the secretary pushed open the heavy wood, then stepped aside.
Chase’s brows rose high on his forehead as a very pregnant woman moved gracefully into the icy room. His conjured images were instantly destroyed as she seemed to float to her sister, hugging her. Not a brief touch of cheeks, but a real, loving hug. The temperature rose, warming the room. And Chase couldn’t take his eyes off her or her rounded tummy. That’s my baby in there, he thought, then brought his gaze to her face. He noticed the small straw hat first, the rolled brim, fanned back over one ear, her long black hair tucked behind and falling down her back. Her obviously pregnant body was clothed in a flowing cream silk and lace creation reaching mid-calf. The dress was shapeless, yet the simple garment draped her like a mystery, showing curves and showing nothing. Bet she never strapped herself into suits and heels, he thought, pleased and wary. His gaze immediately dropped to her legs as if whether or not she wore high heels would make a difference, yet he found matching opaque stockings and shoes that looked more like ballet slippers. Even her feet were delicate.
Tessa Lightfoot was femininity at its finest.
And he was sunk.
How was he supposed to fight this? This ethereal image of motherhood.
She smiled, but he only caught half of it, her face turned away as her counsel introduced her to his. Tigh flashed her his easy grin, then offered her a chair, and she sat, clutching her tiny beaded handbag on her lap before she finally twisted a look at him.
Chase nodded.
Tessa nodded.
The air between them was charged with defiance before Tessa turned back to Dia, taking a calming breath. Oh, lord. Did he have to be so handsome? Where were the warts she spent half the night praying for? she wondered as his lawyer gestured to an empty chair and Chase rounded the back of the table, sliding in it. He adjusted his tie and let his gaze creep across the table and up to her face. She could feel it, like a fingertip under her chin, and she fought the urge to look at him. She kept her gaze locked on Dia.
Her lawyer racked papers and addressed Tigh. “Miss Lightfoot wants to know what rights you believe you’re entitled to.”
“I don’t believe I am, I know.”
Tessa looked at him sharply, briefly, and in a heartbeat, Chase was snagged in those vivid green eyes.
“Miss Lightfoot feels this is the clinic’s problem.”
Ignoring Tigh’s prior warning to let him negotiate, Chase went on. “It’s our problem. Because that’s our baby. And does Miss Lightfoot,” he growled, “even have a voice?”
Tessa cocked a look at him. “As a matter of fact I do, though not as loud as yours.”
Chased stared, then grinned suddenly, and Tessa was startled, her cheeks warming.
Dia and Tigh exchanged a glance.
“Surely your client will agree this is an unusual situation,” Tigh said. “We would like to know how this mistake was discovered.”
The lawyers exchanged copies of paperwork. “Lab techs were updating records, a periodic checking of log numbers against donors, making certain no donor is used more than once.” Chase felt his skin tighten. “The donor’s—” Dia cleared her throat, making Chase squirm “—Mr. Madison’s —sperm was incorrectly listed.”
“Then how do they know he’s the one,” Tigh asked, “if he was just a number in a registry?”
Dia glanced at Tessa and she nodded.
“When this matter arose, Miss Lightfoot underwent amniocentesis to be certain.”
That she would go through such pain and risk told Chase more than he wanted to know and he leaned across the table, his gaze flicking between Dia and Tigh, then to Tessa:
“And?” His breath locked in his lungs.
Tessa knew this should come from her and lifted her gaze from her lap, her eyes glossed with unshed tears. She put just enough resentment into her tone as she said, “It was your donation, Mr. Madison.”
The wind went out of Chase then. There had been the shadow, the sliver of a chance that this was just a mix-up in paperwork. But now that warm feeling came again, spreading to his fingers this time, seeping into his heart and burrowing deeper and stronger with each passing moment. A dad. He leaned back in the chair, so damned pleased. And he hoped it showed, hoped this woman realized that he wasn’t giving up any rights to his child, without one hell of a fight.
But Tessa knew, by his expression, his eyes, warming to a wonderful cobalt blue. She looked away suddenly. Oh, Cod, what have I done? Acknowledging him offered him rights. Parental rights. No. He’s just the donor, a test tube of defrosted fluid.
“The difficulty lies in how your sperm was even registered,” Dia was saying. “As I understand it, you and your wife—” Tessa looked instantly horrified and Chase interrupted sharply.
“Ex-wife. Dead ex-wife.” Bitter, a quick slap of fury before it was gone.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Madison,” both women said, but Chase had eyes only for Tessa, his gaze burning over her golden skin as he stared and stared, until she lifted her eyes to his. A small smile curved his lips, half there, half not, and it made her wonder what was hatching in his brain.
“You were going to use a surrogate,” Dia finished, and Tigh agreed for him. “Well, while Mr. Madison’s specimen should have been destroyed at the termination of his marriage, my client was listed as a surrogate.”
Tessa jerked her gaze to her sister. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Chase interjected.
She turned on Chase. “Yes, I would never have a child only to give it away, not for anyone.” Her voice rose. “And Dr. Faraday knows this, knows exactly what I’ve been through!” Dia clasped her hand and Tessa fell into silence.
Chase’s heart suddenly skittered. Was there a problem with the pregnancy? Though he wanted to know, needed to know, he didn’t think she’d tell him if he asked.
“I will never give you my baby,” she asserted, her beautiful eyes sparking with barely checked fury.
“Our baby,” he countered across the table.
“No. Mine. The donor signed over rights when he donated sperm to the bank. That’s why I chose it.”
“Don’t like men, do you?”
Tessa looked appalled and Chase had his answer.
“Regardless,” their lawyers interrupted, sending their clients an I’m-supposed-to-do-the-talking look. Chase and Tessa settled back, stiff, their anger sizzling across the polished table.
“You both have rights. Suing the clinic will not change anything,” came from Dia.
“I don’t want to sue,” Chase said.
“Then we can set up visitation rights when the child is born.”
Chase’s gaze jerked to her attorney’s. “No way. I’m not visiting my own child. I want him.”
Panic, absolute and undeniable, sent Tessa leaning forward, her hand gripping the table ledge. “I don’t want you in my life, Mr. Madison, father or not!” She stood abruptly. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and until this child is born, you have no rights.”
“I have the same as any father.”
“Then go off and be anybody’s father. We don’t want you.”
Dia rose and settled Tessa back into the chair, glaring at Chase. “It isn’t wise to upset her,” she remarked.
“Oh Dia, be serious,” Tessa murmured under her breath. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”
“Use any weapon you can,” her sister whispered, and Tessa scowled.
“I think the court should decide this,” Tigh suggested.
“No!” came from both parents, nearly bringing them out of their chairs.
Dia and Tigh glanced at each other, then their clients. The lawyers leaned their heads together, speaking softly, and Chase gazed at Tessa. She was fuming mad and he liked it. Even though she was going to fight him in every way she could, he liked it. She was protecting her baby, their baby. But he was just as determined to get what he wanted. His gaze lowered to her fingers drawing slow circles over her tummy, and Chase suddenly wondered what those fingers would feel like on his skin.
Damn.
Where did that come from?
Yet he watched her, the slight tremble in her breath, the way the force of the air conditioning fluttered the delicate fabric of her dress against her breast. She was truly a radiant woman, and he wondered, as any normal man would, what she looked like without his child growing so beautifully inside her.
“Have lunch with me, Miss Lightfoot?”
She blinked, stunned, then her green eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Don’t you think it would be better for all three of us—” he nodded to her stomach,“—if we came to at least a cease of friendly fire?”
Caught in indecision, Tessa let her gaze linger over him, his rugged features, his dark brown hair, short and cleanly cut, his eyes, blue as a kid’s crayon and penetrating. But mostly, aside from the body in the dark suit, she noticed the lines around those incredible eyes, tanned and crimped and showing Tessa that this man, gruff and angry, smiled. A lot.
“All right.” She nodded almost regally. “Cease-fire agreement. I promise not to throw food at you, at least.”
Chase’s lips tugged at the corners and he folded his arms over his chest, briefly glancing at the floor to hide a smile, but all Tessa noticed was the straining fabric, the muscles hiding beneath the tailored coat. Too sexy for his own good, and she imagined he knew it.
“I’ll meet you at noon at—” she paused, looking thoughtful. “Golden—”
“Arches?” he teased.
“No, Dragon. I want dim sum.”
Chase eyed her, her wonderful belly, then her face. “Cravings, Miss Lightfoot?”
“No. Hunger. Humor me, I’m pregnant,” she said, then stood, kissed her sister’s cheek, and nodded to Tigh before she left. Chase looked from Dia, who was smiling royally, to Tigh, who smiled consistently, then to the empty chair. He bolted for the door and the lawyers dropped back into their chairs.
“I feel as if I’ve cheated my client,” Tigh said.
“Me, too.”
“We didn’t do anything.”
Dia sent him a sly glance. “Oh, I think we did.”
At the elevator Chase caught her, pressed the down button and grinned.
“I said noon.”
“Where are you going?”
“If it’s any of your business, back to work.”
“Work?”
“What? Did you think I was independently wealthy? That I could have a baby when I felt like it?”
He shook his head, jamming his hands in his trouser pockets and ruining the fine lines of the suit. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Good.”
His lips thinned. “Try not to fire on a white Hag,” he said through gritted teeth.
Tessa sighed heavily. “Look, Mr. Madison—”
“Chase.”
“Mr. Madison,” she stressed. “You may have contributed to the gene pool, but that’s it.”
“Are you going to hold the fact that I can’t give birth against me?”
She reared back. “Of course not. But we don’t have anything to say to each other, and I’d like to keep it that way. Lunch is a compromise.”
“You mean a concession to the lowly father, huh?”
God, it sounded so insensitive and spiteful when he put it like that.
“I’m meaningless to you, aren’t I?” he continued. “You couldn’t care less if I spend the next ten years trying to gain my rights.”
The elevator chimed and the door sprang open. She stepped inside and Chase stood still as she faced him and punched the lobby button. The moments between gave her a chance to forget his hurt look and retrieve her determination. He didn’t want to simply help financially as Dia suspected. Chase Madison wanted her baby and he was planning to make her life miserable.
“Forget about me, Mr. Madison. The last thing I want is you in my baby’s life.”
The door closed and Chase jerked his tie loose, then shoved his fingers through his hair. Not the baby’s life, he thought angrily, or yours?
Tessa watched him from a distance, gathering her nerve. He’d changed into more casual clothes, and she remembered how he’d kept tugging at his tie earlier that morning. He either didn’t wear suits often or just didn’t like them, she decided. She watched him as he stared off into the street. The sidewalk café was a good spot, open, crowded. They couldn’t argue here. Yet it struck her that he looked lonely, forgotten, relaxed in the chair, one arm slung over the back. Women paraded past him, hoping, she didn’t doubt, to catch his attention. But he didn’t spare them a glance, his gaze so distant she felt a pang of sympathy. He was divorced, his wife dead, and he lived alone. That’s all Dia had been able to find out in such a short time, other than that he owned a construction company.
And you want to take his child away from him. a voice pestered. She moved her shoulder as if to nudge it away. He wants to take my baby. Mine. This child had been all hers, until last week, until his lawyer called, until computer glitches and the damn clinic made it his, too.
Liar, the voice cried. Liar. He is the biological father.
Tessa rubbed the space between her eyes, willing back the threat of a headache, and straightened her shoulders. Nodding to the mître d’, she followed him to the table. As if sensing her presence, Chase turned his head, then leapt to his feet, pulling out a chair. She sank into it gratefully, working off her shoes. Pregnancy and happy feet did not coexist.
She smelled like cinnamon, Chase decided as he tucked her chair and took his seat. They ordered, and when the waiter left, Chase turned his attention to the woman across from him. He’d positioned her chair at a safe distance, sensing she didn’t want to be too close, and he didn’t want to scare her off. The stakes were too high. She could vanish, taking his unborn child with her, and Chase would be left alone. Again.
“Are you just going to stare at me or what?”
His gaze lingered over her dress. It was the same one she’d worn earlier that morning, and he was glad she hadn’t changed. He liked the antique look. It suited her.
“Where do you work, Tessa?” he asked
She thought about saying nothing, but with Tigh McBain for a lawyer, Chase likely knew the shade of her bathroom by now.
“I have a shop about four blocks from here, Mr. Madi-son, ” she enunciated, hoping he caught her meaning.
He did, but ignored it. “Let me guess, a dress shop.”
“No, an everything shop. Tessa’s Attic.”
He frowned.
“I design and manufacture period clothing—Victorian, Gatsby.” She gestured to her own clothes. “Along with the proper accoutrements,” she added.
She works with her hands, too, he thought, his gaze shifting to her long, carefully manicured fingers, then to the dress again, skimming the delicate grape lace worked with pearls and tiny ribbons. It looked as if air held it together, and it made him think of all those wonderful sexy bits of lingerie women wore to drive men insane. No wonder it suited her so well. He found himself wanting to see her before she was pregnant or after, without the huge tummy. He wanted to see Tessa without anything at all.
Tessa felt his gaze, saw it darken and deepen, sending an unfamiliar heat through her already warm blood. Hot flashes, that’s all, she thought. The waiter came and placed food before them. Tessa, caught in Chase’s gaze, still didn’t realize their lunch had arrived until she nearly dropped the dim sum in her lap.
“Who hurt you?” His words came softly, like a warm caress.
She didn’t like it. “I beg your pardon?”
“Who hurt you so badly that you don’t want a man in your life?”
A lie would have done nicely right now, but Tessa couldn’t get it past her lips. “It’s not that I don’t want one. Rather I’ve found it...unnecessary. I do fine alone, with an occasional date.”
“Why didn’t you just sleep with some poor schmuck and walk away? You’d have exactly what you wanted then.”
“No. I wouldn’t,” she replied tightly. “I wasn’t going to risk a disease or anything else. What should I have done? Ah, excuse me—” she poked the air with her chopsticks “—could you be tested for diseases so I can get pregnant? Hurry though, I’m ovulating.” He smiled at that. “I couldn’t do that anyway, at least not and keep it from him.”
“But you would from me?”
She put down her chopsticks and rubbed her temple. “It’s different. I went into this with the assurance that the donor would never know. Donors sign away their rights.”
“Unless the kid wants to find them.”
She shrugged.
“What were you going to tell my son when he asked about his father?”
Again, her shoulders moved restlessly as she poked at her food. “I’d decide when it was appropriate. And if she was old enough to understand, I’d tell the truth.”
Abruptly he leaned close, hemming in the air, the moment. The man was so close she could see the black flecks in his eyes.
“The truth? That he was made in a doctor’s office and not a bedroom? That his father was some man he’ll never know?”
His tone was intimate, husky, and Tessa swallowed nervously. “That can’t be helped.”
“Yes, it can.”
“How—?” Her eyes widened instantly at the look of intent on his face. “Oh, no!” She shook her head, looking scared. “Don’t—” she wiped her lips “—don’t say it!”
“Many me.”
She stood abruptly, throwing down her napkin. “That never fixes anything, especially this.”
Chase rose slowly. “Tessa, calm down.”
“I am calm,” she insisted. “I said lunch. Talk. Not a damn proposal that isn’t warranted.” She left the table, angry, stomping, then froze, looking down at her stockinged feet. Chase watched her shoulders sag as she turned back. Dropping into the chair, he fought a smile as she stepped into her shoes and grabbed her purse.
He caught her and a tingling sang up his arm. “Tessa, wait. Talk to me.”
“No.” She wiggled free. “Talk is doing—” She gasped suddenly, gripping his shoulder and clutching her belly.
Chase tensed, his gaze shooting between her face and the baby. In a heartbeat he realized she wasn’t in pain, but that his child, his baby, was moving wildly inside her. Without thought, he pulled her onto his lap, his hand covering the rolling pokes and ripples.
The audacity of the man, Tessa thoughts, struggling to get up, but he held her down. Then Tessa went still as glass, watching his expression—awed and happy. Deliriously happy. And she felt it like a sweet fragrance on the breeze, almost tangible.
“Chase,” she whispered, and he lifted his gaze. Her heart nearly broke. His eyes, dark, haunting eyes that could almost pierce through her, were damp and soft and so unbelievably vulnerable she thought she’d drown in them. He looked helpless and his fingers flexed on her belly, following the motion lower. A burning, familiar and sensual and heady, spilled through her body. She shifted on his lap and he dropped his gaze to her tummy.
“That’s incredible,” he whispered, a catch in his voice, and it hit her that he hadn’t understood exactly what he was fighting over. A human being. Genes and syringes aside, there was life inside her and he was just recognizing how very real it all was. That this wasn’t a battle for rights and territory, but a battle over a baby. A tiny, helpless baby.
Tessa was fast losing perspective. The heat of his touch and the savage look in his eyes chiseled at the courage she needed. In the space of a few moments, the man fought with her, proposed to her, then showed her a side of himself she never imagined he possessed. And she felt as if she’d just stepped off a roller coaster—dizzy, unstable. It scared her, this jumble of feelings, and as Chase applied pressure to her back, urging her close, she recognized want and hunger and need in herself. She was pregnant; she wasn’t supposed to feel this way, was she? Yet still she leaned into him, still she let him touch her belly, still she ignored the customers whispering around them.
When Tessa covered his hand with hers, Chase felt emotion stir in him, a thick heaviness in his chest he hadn’t experienced in all his thirty-five years. Unborn life poked at his palm. It was his child, letting him know he was there, involved, yet a separate entity from the mother. This child is a living, breathing part of me too, he thought. Me. And the baby needed him. His gaze moved over Tessa’s belly, then up her body to her face, and she smiled tenderly. God, she was beautiful. And she was doing things to him, intoxicating things, with her buttocks tucked into his lap, the scent of her perfume and her skin, the look in her eyes. For an instant, Chase saw her in his bed, naked and damp and wanting. His hand at her back spread, moving upward, drawing her closer. His breath brushed her warm lips. So sweet.
Her eyes blinked open and she jerked back. “No. No, no, no.” She pushed off his lap, scrambling for her purse, ignoring his help and repeating “no” over and over as she left him and the restaurant as quickly as she could. Chase watched her go, sinking into the chair. She couldn’t have moved any faster if her life depended on it, and he smiled, silly and sappy. Several customers joined him.
“My baby,” he said, gesturing, then leaned forward and braced his arms on the table, catching his breath. She felt it. God, he prayed she had experienced that electricity, because he felt fried down to his socks. And the only reason he didn’t follow her was that the entire restaurant would know exactly what her squirming had done to him.
Three
Tessa slipped the purchase into a bag and handed it over to her customer, forcing her smile to remain in place as Miss Dewberry called out in her singsong voice from the dressing room.
“Coming,” Tessa sang back, her shoulders drooping.
“I’ll take care of her, Miss Lightfoot,” one of her salesgirls, a college student, said.
“Thank you, but Miss Dewberry will only make you miserable, Dana,” Tessa whispered. She’d find fault with everything the girl did, and Tessa didn’t want her best clerk upset enough to leave. She needed her. Dana looked great in Tessa’s designs and had a marvelous eye for window displays.
Dana conceded with a sour glance at the dressing rooms and turned away to assist another customer. Tessa snatched three more outfits off the rack and headed to the back of the store. She soothed the older woman’s complaints and suggested another style. Tessa wouldn’t put up with her moods if she didn’t spend nearly a thousand dollars every time she walked through the door. Besides, being unmarried and childless at fifty must be hard. Though Tessa could understand why the woman was alone. Her aura was brown, as Tessa’s mother would say.
“I think we should try a larger size,” she suggested. “This pattern may run a touch small,” she added, for the woman’s expression was viperous. Tessa handed over the garments and leaned back against the papered wall. She wanted a nap. She wanted to put her feet up. And she almost cried when the door chime sounded again.
Sleep had eluded her last night, her mind constantly slipping to Chase, remembering the look in his eyes when he felt the baby move and the wonderful scent of him just before he kissed her. No, nearly kissed her, she reminded herself.
She couldn’t let him seduce her. Not that she believed for a moment he was attracted to a pregnant woman with swollen ankles. He just wanted his baby. My baby, she corrected, refusing to be lured by his smiles and charm.
When Miss Dewberry popped out of the dressing room, displeasure evident in her pinched expression, Tessa prepared herself for the criticism. Pushing away from the wall, she inspected the fit, adjusting the delicate fabric over the woman’s ample figure.
“It scratches, and this isn’t the French lace I like,” Miss Lila Dewberry sniped.
And the style is for a younger slimmer woman, Tessa thought. Or hadn’t the woman noticed the deep braless-cut back?
“But what do you think of the color?”
Pink dress, red hair? Get a clue, Tessa thought.
“It doesn’t do you justice,” a masculine voice said, and both women turned.
Tessa’s heart did a strange flip at the sight of Chase propped against the wide doorway, arms folded over his flat stomach. His slight smile, so very masculine and seductive, practically simmered in the air. God, he looked good, she thought, even in a simple blue T-shirt and very worn jeans.
“I beg your pardon?” Miss Dewberry said waspishly, and Tessa’s gaze shifted between her source of sleeplessness and her immediate source of a headache.
“The color, I mean.” He leaned back slightly and pulled a darker, more somber shade of the same dress from the rack and handed it to the woman. Tessa noticed it was a larger size. “This was made for you.”
Miss Dewberry smiled, for the first time in centuries Tessa imagined, then swept into the dressing room.
Chase’s gaze shifted to Tessa.
“Thank you,” she said, then lowered her voice. “She was really beginning to wear on me.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I am.” She collected the discarded garments, righting them on the hangers.
“Is that because of me?” he said with a grin.
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes. You and your imagined rights. What do you want, Mr. Madison?”
“For you to take it easy, for one thing.”
“Me and my baby were doing just fine.”
Until you, she was saying. His gaze slipped over her, the dark beige top and cleanly pressed slacks, but it was her face that showed her fatigue. Wisps of hair lay damp at her nape where she’d pulled the dark mass back in a wide bow. Shadows clung beneath her eyes, and a grayish pallor tinted her skin.
“Please leave my shop,” she said, suddenly uncomfortable. She bent to retrieve a box of shoes, yet when she straightened, she staggered. Chase lurched, catching her, taking her weight.
She sagged against him, drawing her breath slowly, blinking, and Chase lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the dressing room area.
“I’m quite capable of walking,” she said, squirming.
“You can hardly stand,” came in a warning tone, and she scowled at him. Her assistant looked up and raced to them, opening the door to her office and letting him inside.
“Can I get a doctor?”
“No.” Tessa was annoyed that Dana addressed Chase, waiting for his command. The interfering man.
“Just water,” Chase said, laying Tessa on the stuffed couch. He tugged off her shoes as Dana filled a glass from the cooler and brought it to him, then left, closing the door.
“I have to see to Miss Dewberry.”
“That crabapple can wait.”
“This is a business, Chase Madison, and I need hers.”
She started to get up, but he pressed her gently back down, handing her the glass before pulling a chair alongside the sofa. He sat. “Drink.” When she looked as if she’d rebel, he tipped the glass to her lips. She drank obediently. “Are you hungry?”
“I never had the chance to eat it,” she said, gesturing to the meal on her desk, her breathing a little fast. Chase stood and scooped up the sandwich and fruit, bringing it back and setting it beside her on the sofa. “Eat.”
“Eat. Drink,” she grunted lowly. “Can’t you do anything but bark at me?”
“Yes.” His gaze swept her leisurely. “But I’ll get to that later,” he said in the sexiest voice God could create, and Tessa had to smile. He really was too handsome.
She bit into the sandwich half, moaning with pleasure, and Chase wanted to hear more of it, when he kissed her someday. The sandwich was gone in seconds, and as she reached for the other half. Chase leaned back in the chair, stretching out his legs. It amazed him how much he enjoyed just watching her. She was totally focused on her food, devouring it in minutes, drinking water, popping bits of fruit into her lovely mouth. He didn’t think she remembered he was there until she frowned at the empty wrappers and looked around as if searching for crumbs. He chuckled and her gaze flew to his, a dull red creeping into her face.
Tessa wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and shrugged. She wasn’t going to make excuses for her appetite.
“Want me to get you more?”
“No, thank you. We’re satisfied.” She patted her stomach.
We. A package deal. Chase had racked his brains for a solution to their problem, but late last night, when only her fiery green eyes filled his mind, he realized that first he had to get to know her. Then they could do something about their child and the opposition they had.
Sitting here with her, taking care of her, felt so natural he wanted it to go on. However, the uncomfortable look on her face said she didn’t want him around, ever. It stung, he admitted, and abruptly stood to refill her glass.
A rap on the door and Dana popped her head around the panel. Chase looked up, glancing between the girl and Tessa.
“I’m sorry, Miss Lightfoot, but Miss Dewberry is asking for you. I tried to explain, but I think she’s going to leave.”
Tessa straightened, swinging her legs off the couch.
“You stay put,” Chase commanded, pointing at her, and Tessa froze. He looked at the salesgirl. “Tell Miss Dewberry to keep her shorts on. I’ll take care of her.”
“You?” both women squeaked, stunned.
“Yes, dammit, me.” He waved Dana on, then turned to Tessa, lifting her legs back onto the couch.
“I have to get back to her.”
His gaze darkened. She looked more ready to sleep than work. “Let her wait.”
“Chase Madison, this is my shop, my livelihood, and that woman—” she pointed to the door “—no matter how finicky she can be, is a very good paying customer.”
He towered over her, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. His body blocked the light, blocked any escape, and she felt like a prisoner before an armed Marine.
“Don’t try to tell me what to do,” she warned. “Just because there’s a child between us does not give you rights over my life.”
Chase’s shoulders drooped and he knelt beside the couch, looking her in the eye. “I deal with people like that woman all the time.” Her expression was doubtful. “I can’t tell you how many of my customers have decided what they wanted only to insist my crew rip it out and start over a week later.” When he realized she wasn’t buying the comparison, he tried another route. “You’re tired, Tessa. Your feet are swollen.”
She looked at them, wiggling plump toes. “I’ve learned to live with it.”
Chase sighed and snatched up a pillow, stuffing it beneath her knees, then pushing her back into the cushions. “I’m not trying to take over. God knows, I don’t know squat about women’s clothes.” He flashed her that devastating grin. “Except maybe taking them off.” Her eyes flared. “But,” he warned, “you’re pushing yourself too hard.” She opened her mouth and he put up his hand. “I swear I won’t let that old biddy leave without buying at least one of your creations.”
“She usually buys two, with shoes.”
Chase smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and Tessa felt the warmth of his honest feelings down to her sore feet. How had he wiggled his way into playing concerned lover? No, he wasn’t after her, she reminded herself, but his child, and she refused to believe he was interested in her, the woman. His marriage proposal was a path into her baby’s life. The baby obviously meant more to him than she had first imagined. Suddenly, Tessa hated him for trying to get close and she hated herself for getting comfortable.
Chase’s lips thinned as her expression suddenly hardened. He didn’t think someone so soft and lovely could deal such a loathsome look with that much power. He sighed tiredly, took the glass and set it on the desk.
“Rest, Miss Lightfoot,” he said tersely, then moved to the door.
“Chase?”
He stilled, his hand on the knob, his back to her. “Yeah?”
“This doesn’t change anything.”
He glanced back over his shoulder, looking her over. “If you say so.”
Tessa did not like the sound of that.
Not at all.
“He actually came in here and sold dresses?” Dia said when she arrived twenty minutes after Chase had left, and Tessa wanted to pinch her. It wasn’t that big a deal. Yet when Dana nodded, Dia squealed with laughter. Tessa gave her sister a thin-lidded glare, and Dana, impressionable creature that she was, gushed.
“He’s so cute and Miss Dewberry was just drooling over him. She bought the dresses you tried to get her to try on,” Dana said to Tessa. “You know, the ones that actually fit.” The salesgirl turned back to Dia. “He even sold her shoes and a hat! God—” Dana fanned herself, sighing dreamily “—he fills out those jeans sooo nicely. For a man his age, of course.”
“Of course,” Dia agreed, her smile quivering.
Dana looked at Tessa suddenly. “How do you know him?”
Tessa’s skin fused with heat and she glanced at Dia. “He’s ah—um—” How was she supposed to explain this? It was all getting so complicated. She looked at Dia, her expression pleading for help.
Dia let her squirm for a few seconds, then said, “He’s just a friend...of the family, you could say.”
Dana nodded, obviously satisfied, and excused herself to collect the remnants of Chase’s whirlwind sales victory.
“Where is he now?”
“How the hell should I know!”
Dia reared back, eyeing her sister thoughtfully. “God, you are tired.”
“No, I’m not.” Tessa flipped through hung garments, checking the sizes. “I’m angry. You were no help in that meeting yesterday, Dia. None.”
Dia’s brows drew down and she pulled Tessa from the center of the store and into the little alcove behind the register. She gripped her sister’s arms, forcing her to calm down.
“Whether you think that or not is irrelevant. Chase Madison could have sued for custody, Tessa. He still could.” Tessa paled. “We’re damn lucky he has a heart, because if he didn’t, as soon as you gave birth, this baby could have been taken by the courts until an agreement was reached. Do you want someone else holding your newborn baby before you? Caring for her? Deciding your child’s future? Or would it kill you to be his friend?”
“Yes. It will,” Tessa cried dejectedly, the images her sister painted striking her hard. “It will give him leverage. I can’t trust him.”
Dia let her go and stepped back. “No one says you have to marry the man, for God’s sake.”
“No one but him.”
“Oh, get real.” Tessa arched a brow and Dia’s features stretched taut as she said, “You’re serious?”
“Don’t listen to the messages on your private line much, do you? I called you immediately after our lunch, all night and this morning.”
Dia’s gazed faltered. “I was...out of town for the evening.”
Tessa gave her sister the once-over, then smiled softly. At least someone was having fun, she thought, then explained their lunch date.
Dia folded her arms and propped her hip against the counter, looking very much the high-powered attorney. “Did he badger you?”
Arranging ribbons on a dowel rod, Tessa gave her a side glance. “No.”
“Would you consider his visit harassment?”
“No.” How could she? He’d helped her, saw that her best customer was satisfied, and had only her best health in mind, damn him. If he hadn’t forced her to rest, she’d have kept going and that wouldn’t have been good for her or her baby.
“If we put a restraining order on him, it might make him pursue custody.”
“Then don’t.” Tessa dropped her head back onto her shoulders, sighing long and slow. “I’m not due for another three months—let’s not look for trouble. Maybe he’ll lose interest.”
When Dia didn’t respond, Tessa looked at her sister. “Don’t hold your breath,” she finally said.
Tessa felt as if she were tottering on a peg with nothing to stop her fall, waiting for the shove that would send her into oblivion. “Go ahead, say it, I see it in your eyes.”
“I’ve never seen a man more determined to be a father, Tessa.”
“Me, either,” came dispiritedly.
Dia laid a hand on her arm, forcing Tessa to meet her gaze and listen hard. “Then perhaps for once in your life you ought to quit planning out every facet with annoyingly meticulous detail and just go with it.”
Tessa eyed her warily. “You like him, don’t you?”
Dia shrugged elegantly clad shoulders. “I’m not the one who matters, but yes. He’s charming, handsome, smart, a decorated ex-Marine, owns his own business, comes from a good family.” Her eyes sparkled suddenly, devilishly. “Has two drop-dead gorgeous brothers—”
“Great.” She rolled her eyes. “If he’s won you over, what chance have I got? And isn’t that conflict of interest or something?”
“Hey, I wouldn’t worry so much, Sis,” Dia said, slinging her arm over her sister’s shoulder and dropping a kiss to her temple. “He hasn’t met Mom or Samantha. They’ll make any man run for the hills.”
Tessa laughed softly at the picture of her eccentric mother and Chase in the same room. Even though she never wanted him that deep into her life, it would be something to see. She wondered idly what he’d say if her mother read his palm before ever speaking to him.
The door chime jingled and Tessa said goodbye to her, sister. Dia flipped open her cellular phone, thumb-dialed a call as she grabbed her briefcase and left the shop in a brisk walk. Dia needed to slow down, Tessa thought. She was always in a rush to be somewhere she wasn’t.
Tessa walked over to the customer, smiling and offering herb tea. The older, distinguished-looking woman smiled back, so warm and endearingly gentle that Tessa felt the tension in her wash away like a summer rain. This was the first person in a long time to look at her and not her tummy. As Tessa went to prepare tea, she decided that Chase Madison could be as charming and as likable as he wanted. Her guard was up, cemented into place, and ex-Marine or not, he wasn’t storming past it.
Chase’s gaze snapped up from the pile of tomatoes so. carefully arranged in the bin. “Are you following me?” he asked hopefully.
“Hardly.” Tessa’s eyes narrowed on him, her hand on her hip. “I could ask the same of you.”
“Yes.” Unashamed, reckless.
“What?”
“I found out you shopped here, every Monday morning, at nine.” His forehead wrinkled a bit. “Are you always so predictable?”
“No.” She jammed tomatoes into a plastic sack.
“Careful, they’ll bruise.”
“I want to bruise you,” she hissed over the stack of red fruits.
Chase’s grin widened.
“Will you quit smiling!”
He didn’t. “Bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“Everything about you bothers me.” She dropped her selection into the cart and moved on.
Chase rounded the bin and dogged her heels. “What bothers you the most? That I’m the father of our baby or that you’re attracted to me?”
“Is your ego always so overblown, Mr. Madison?”
He caught the cart, keeping her near, and Tessa felt her insides shift and twist. And it had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with her baby. Those disgustingly sculptured shoulders of his looked bigger and more muscular than when he was in her shop on Saturday, his eyes a darker blue and unspeakably intimate as they traveled the line of her body, caressing it without touching. As if they weren’t in the middle of the produce aisle drawing attention, for heaven’s sake.
“Admit it, you feel this—” he inhaled through clenched teeth, his gaze simmering “—this assault on the senses, the blood, every time we get close.”
“Sexual attraction is hardly the basis for a relationship—” Oh, what made her admit that?
“Aha. So you have thought about it.”
He was grinning again, the rat. “No.” Her reddening cheeks contradicted her.
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying. Now, leave me alone.” She brushed him aside with the cart. He was right beside her, nodding to the eavesdroppers and interested customers.
“I’m here, Tessa, to stay. Get used to it.” Half threat, half coaxing.
“Not a chance.” She wouldn’t look at him, dropping item after item into her cart.
Chase knew he was getting to her. “God, you eat that?”
She looked to see what he meant and frowned, then snatched up the sardines, replaced them on the shelf and reached for tuna. Oh, just go away, she thought.
“Got you all confused, don’t I? Wondering where I’ll turn up next?”
She spared him a withering glance. “Amuse yourself with the idea, Mr. Madison. You have so far.”
“I’m going to do more than amuse myself with it,” he said with a long glance down her body. Those eyes were dangerous, she thought, and was about to ask him what he had planned in the let’s-rness-up-Tessa’s-life scenario, when someone called out.
“Hey boss, you’re needed on the site!”
Chase twisted, nodding to a man dressed in work clothes, a tool belt slung over his shoulder, a cellular phone in his hand.
Chase looked back at Tessa, loving her wide, puzzled eyes. He had her flustered nicely, he thought, and let impulse take him. He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her flush against him. His child kicked, as if joining its mother’s effort as she pushed at his chest.
“Let go.” She glanced around nervously, then looked at him, embarrassment blooming in her face.
He bent, inhaling the scent of cinnamon near her ear, and whispered, “I can’t. I’ve never walked away from a challenge.” His words burned her skin, sending gooseflesh down her throat to her breasts. “And baby or not, Tessa Lightfoot—” Her fingers flexed on his chest and she closed her eyes. “It’s you I want.”
Even though she would never believe him, his words sank into her heart like tiny arrows, weakening her resolve. She pushed at his chest. “No, Chase, you can’t,” she whispered back, then gasped as his lips ground against her neck in a hot, quick kiss before he pulled away.
They stared at each other for an instant and Tessa touched her throat, feeling warm and tingly all over. That was... was... delicious.
He smiled slowly, privately. Then he left her standing in the middle of the aisle between the cabbages and kumquats. Gripping the cart, Tessa watched him, his broad back, his indecently tight behind. Her heart pounding in her throat, her body awake and alive with sweet, quick passion. It had been so long she almost didn’t recognize the sensation. Not that it had ever been like that. And she wondered, hoped, she had at least some effect on him.
When he met up with his crewman and back-stepped to look at her, Tessa’s gaze dropped briefly to the well-worn mold of his jeans. She smiled, smug as realization played across his face. His skin darkened, his expression sheepish as he shoved his hands into his pockets.
She wasn’t without a little power.
And it made them even.
Later that evening, Carole Anne Madison shifted to the edge of the Queen Anne tapestry settee, her hands poised on her lap as she stared up at her eldest son. Chase saw her gaze flick to his father, the pipe clenched in his teeth. Idly, Chase wondered if it was lit this time.
. “She’s a lovely woman, Chase.”
“You saw her!” Chase’s wide eyes narrowed suddenly. “She didn’t know it was you, did she? God, Mom, if she thinks we’re all ganging up on her, she might leave town!” He paced, wearing a path in the carpet. The last thing he wanted was to scare Tessa.
“Chase dearest, please.”
“You’re mother isn’t an imbecile, Chase, don’t treat her like one.”
“Carl, hush. He’s just concerned, as we all are.” She patted the space beside her, and Chase paced a bit more, then sank down beside her, rubbing his hand over his face.
“I like her, Chase. She’s poised, gracious. One can tell a great deal about a person when you’re in their territory.”
Though those were not the traits Tessa had shown him, Chase took his mother’s word for it. “And you discovered?”
Carole Anne looked thoughtful before she spoke. “She makes everyone feel welcome, instantly. Even offered tea and joined me to have it. She’s very honest about her designs and whom they suit.” His mother paused, her eyes unusually bright. “And your baby’s growing beautifully.” Chase enjoyed the happiness spreading across his mother’s face.
His father cleared his throat. “It’s just like you to do everything backwards, boy.”
Chase stiffened and left his chair in a lurch, wondering if his father would ever forgive him for not becoming a politician. As usual, his mother defended him with a sharp glare at his dad.
“Do you think Janis did this thing with the computer mix-up?” his mother asked.
Chase shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past her.” He didn’t want to address his suspicions, not when Tessa could use them to keep him out of his child’s life. Things were just too fragile right now. “But then we all know how she hated being excommunicated from the Madison clan.” The divorce settlement had nearly made Chase broke, and he eyed his father, all too aware that the man had never liked Janis, thought she was a gold digger, and had let him know it on a regular basis. Yet Chase had understood her need to feel part of a family. Of course, only Senator Madison’s family would do. His dad thought Janis had married him because of who his father was, and finally, Chase had been inclined to believe it.
“Oh, Chase,” his mother said suddenly. “But this is so wonderful.” He gazed at her and saw tears, tears she never shed in front of anyone. He sank to one knee in front of her. “I hoped that you or your brothers would find women to love like I love your father.” Beyond them, Carl Madison softened, in expression and posture, and he came to his wife, settling beside her and enfolding her hand in his.
“I’m not in love with Tessa Lightfoot, Mom.” In lust would be a better word. He couldn’t believe how turned on he was by this particular woman, pregnant or not: “And I can truthfully say she wishes I was never born.”
Carole Anne’s brow wrinkled softly. “She really is obstinate about your involvement?”
“She wants me gone. Trust me.”
Carole Anne smiled slightly. “But you like her.”
The corner of Chase’s mouth quirked. “Oh yes.”
“That’s all I needed to hear,” she said succinctly. “We’ll stand back and promise not to interfere. At all.” His mother looked pointedly at his father. “Won’t we, Carl?’ Though there was a softness in her voice, her sharp blue eyes warned his father there would be hell to pay if he so much as spoke to Tessa without Chase’s permission. His father finally nodded and Chase leaned forward, kissed her forehead and whispered, ”I knew I could count on you, Mom. Thanks.”
He left, glad his parents weren’t going to stick their noses into this. Chase wanted his baby in the worst way. But after spending several sleepless nights with Tessa Lightfoot’s image bursting across his mind, Chase wanted more. He wanted to see if he wasn’t fooling himself about this energy they shared, the way she could stir his senses into madness. He wanted to kiss her, really kiss her. But as he thought of her perfectly lush mouth, a mouth made for old-fashioned slow, wet kisses, Chase figured at this point, she’d just bite him.
Four
In her doctor’s office two days later, Tessa looked up from the magazine and frowned. The hint of a voice, a ma/e voice, pricked her attention and she strained to define it. When the receptionist called her name, she rushed past the partition and froze.
Chase. His shoulder propped against the wall, he was obviously receiving a thorough explanation of the birth process, via a wall diagram, from the pretty blond nurse. Tessa didn’t like that he was here, didn’t like that he’d used that oozing Madison charm to worm his way past the front desk of a women’s clinic, and she did not like the way Blondie was looking at him as if he could cure cancer.
Oh, you’re really keeping those emotions under control, aren’t you? She cleared her throat and something inside her leapt—she swore it was indigestion—when he dismissed the young nurse without a glance and came to her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the instant he was near.
“I saw the appointment on your calendar when I was at the store on Saturday,” he said absently as he sketched her quickly from head to toe. “God, you look beautiful, Tessa.”
She couldn’t help the flutter in her chest, and unconsciously smoothed her vest and slacks. Then she shook her head, dismissing his compliments and focusing her attention on why he was here. To invade her privacy, her life. To take her baby.
I’m not visiting my child, he’d said. I want him. It terrified her to think just how determined Chase Madison could be.
“Mr. Madison,” finally came through tightly clenched teeth.
Chase sighed dispiritedly. She was upset. Well, he didn’t expect her not to be. But after his great sales job the other day, he’d hoped she’d be just a little glad to see him. Tessa was a hard nut to crack; this wall she built around herself, for his benefit he knew, was like coming up against ice. For a time she thawed, then something triggered the quick freeze job and Chase found himself back at the beginning. But he wasn’t giving up.
“You can’t be here.” She glanced around at the personnel and patients listening.
“I’m the father, Tessa. I have the right.”
“No, you don’t. It’s my body.”
“Your body’s nurturing my baby.”
“Yours?” a feminine voice asked.
They turned and Chase found a statuesque older woman wearing green hospital scrubs. Faraday was stenciled across the pocket.
“Tessa?” She frowned between the two. “Who is this?”
Tessa cast Chase a superior glance and said, “Test tube number 3—4—6 dash whatever,” then ignored him and his narrowing look as she looped her arm with Dr. Johanna Faraday’s, drawing her away and whispering quickly. Dr. Faraday spoke calmly, glancing intermittently at Chase.
“Well, at least he doesn’t have the warts and baldness you wanted.”
“What he has is the ability to charm the socks off your staff, my sister and my employees. He shouldn’t even be here.”
“Calm down, Tessa. And you’re right. An oh/gyn clinic isn’t the usual male stomping grounds, but the test proved he is 346-1010, and that gives him the same rights as any other father. Especially since he didn’t sign them away.”
“No, he didn’t.” She had to admit that. He was a victim of a computer foul-up as much as she was. But that didn’t change the fact that Chase was here, trying to wiggle into her appointment like he was...what? The father? Concerned about her? Hah.
Johanna tapped her pen against her lips, then tucked it behind her ear. “You’ve acknowledged him as the father?”
“As the donor.” She couldn’t think of him as anything else. She just couldn’t. Where Chase and his rights were concerned, she had to keep her emotions out of it.
Johanna looked thoughtful, then sighed with that I’ve-come-to-a-decision look. “He doesn’t have the right to accompany you in the exam, but in all honesty I can’t make him leave. Fathers have rights.” Johanna leaned a touch closer. “Is he going to give you trouble, get violent?”
Tessa cast him a quick glance. Chase? Violent? She didn’t know him well enough to make that judgment. But the man smiled more than a kid at Christmas. “I doubt it.”
Tessa felt as if she were losing control of the situation the minute Johanna Faraday motioned to Chase, then indicated her office. She sent Tessa a behave glance before they disappeared inside. Tessa sat, then Johanna addressed the man standing behind the extra chair.
“I must think of the welfare of my patient first, Mr. Madison, and Miss Lightfoot does not want you here.”
Her patient, Chase noticed, wouldn’t look at him. Instead she twisted the silken cord of her purse into a hangman’s noose. “Miss Lightfoot would rather I vanish off the face of the earth,” he said with a half smile and a glance in her direction. “But I’m not.”
“Why did you come here, Mr. Madison?”
He felt Tessa’s gaze on him, but looked at the doctor. “Because my baby is growing inside her and I have the right to know how well.” He glanced at Tessa.
Something flickered in her eyes, so brief Chase almost didn’t catch it. He wished he knew her well enough to decipher it. “She’s supposed to have a sonogram today. I want to know if everything is okay, with Tessa and my child.”
“For a man who offered no more than a few ounces of fluid, you’re asking for a lot.” Tessa glared up at him, hating that he looked so good, hating that he was being so reasonable. He didn’t give a hoot about her, just this baby and his, however small, part in its creation.
The fractured anger and fear in her words struck him hard, with insight and just enough frustration to want to shake her. “Yes, I didn’t have any part in this, and yes, I wasn’t consulted, but there is more than our feelings and rights at stake now. There is the child. Our child,” he gestured between himself and Tessa and out of the corner of his eye saw her shoulders stiffen. “And whether you like it or not,” he said, turning his gaze to Tessa and meeting her stare, “that infant—” he nodded to her tummy “—needs everyone who cares about him, protecting him and his rights.” God, Chase thought, he loved this baby already. He lowered his voice, speaking to Tessa as if they didn’t have an audience. “Think what you want, Tessa, but I didn’t come here to upset you. After what happened in the Golden Dragon, I realized how unbelievably miraculous this all is.”
Tessa felt a lump work in her throat, at the raw emotion playing across his features, lacing his voice with a tender roughness.
“And I only wanted some of the experiences I’ve already missed.” He held her gaze a moment longer, then looked at Dr. Faraday. “Take good care of her,” he said, then left without a word.
Both women stared at the empty doorway, then at each other.
Tessa’s eyes burned and she felt awful. “Oh hell, now what do I do?”
“He could stand beyond the curtain and listen.”
Tessa stared at her lap. This was so personal. And they hadn’t even really kissed, for heaven’s sake. But the look in his eyes, oh God, she felt as if she were cheating him. She was cheating him. Finally Tessa nodded and Johanna left the office to catch him. Outside the door she heard Johanna laying down the rules. She didn’t even look at him. God, she was being a coward, but every minute with the man had her feeling like a general losing ground in a battle. Still, the excitement in his voice hurt. Only the baby, she reminded herself. He wants this only for the baby.
The sonogram was under way when Tessa heard a nurse escort him in through the hall door. She glanced down and saw his shoes beneath the curtain, but even with Johanna talking louder than usual, he didn’t utter a word, didn’t move.
Then Chase heard the rapid, steady heartbeat. His breath caught in his chest, a violent surge of air that left him stunned. Alive. Alive, his brain shouted. His child. Flesh and bone and blood were growing, breathing in there, waiting to be born. Waiting to be loved and protected. And he rejoiced in the warm feeling racing through his body, pushing his pulse to match his child’s.
Then suddenly the heartbeat stopped.
“What happened?” Panic filled his voice.
Johanna’s was calm. “I just moved to a different area, Mr. Madison, wait. Listen? There it is again. Oh look, Tessa, her fingers.”
Abruptly, Chase whipped the curtain back and stared first at Tessa, her belly so round and smooth and covered with some slimy gel, then beyond her to the monitor. And Chase saw a tiny fist unfurl. His eyes burned and he leaned closer, scanning every detail.
“Do you mind?” Tessa said, but he wasn’t listening. He was awed. There was no other word for it. And Tessa thought right there that things could have been worse. He could have been like Ryan, who hoped never to see this sight. But Chase Madison was looking at her now as if she could spin straw into gold.
Dr. Faraday and she exchanged a glance, Johanna’s gaze dropping to the black-and-white printout. She tore it off and offered it to him. Hesitantly, he accepted it, his eyes searching the undefinable shades of gray for the unborn life hidden within. The doctor peered over the sheet and pointed. And Tessa realized that strong, handsome, ex-Marine, construction engineer Chase Madison was very close to tears. The sight left her stunned. He gazed down at her, then he bent and kissed her, quick and hard on the mouth.
Then he left.
And Tessa, though oddly delighted to see a man brought to his knees by the sight of an unborn child, realized just how much he wanted to be her baby’s father. And exactly how much she didn’t matter.
Tigh McBain raced forward and slammed the ball against the court wall, believing he had his racquetball partner in the clinch. But Chase dived out, sneakers squeaking as he skidded to a halt and smashed the tiny ball to the baseline. Tigh knew he’d never get the return in time and tossed the racquet to the floor.
“I give.” Bent over, breathing heavily, he braced his hands on his thighs before he fell flat on his face.
“You?” Chase tugged the tank top from his shorts and swiped the sweat from his face with the hem.
“Yes, me,” came back tightly. “God, where do you get the energy?”
Chase thought about Tessa and smiled to himself. “I don’t sit behind a desk getting fat.”
Tigh straightened immediately, scowling, and Chase noticed he couldn’t resist touching his stomach. Chase laughed.
“Come on, I’ll buy you one of those energy shakes.”
“I’d rather have a beer.”
“That’s your problem,” Chase told him. “Besides, it’s not even 10 a.m.”
“You can really be a sanctimonious pain sometimes, you know,” Tigh said as they left the court. Chase drained a bottle of water without stopping, then slung his gym bag over his shoulder and headed out to the car. Tigh was a little slower, stopping to flirt with a pretty woman whose only job was to hand out towels. She was helping him use one, Chase decided.
“That’s jailbait,” Chase said as Tigh caught up to him.
“Nah, she’s twenty.”
“And you’re thirty.”
Tigh looked at Chase and frowned, his features going slack as if he had just realized how old he was. He glanced back at the girl, smiled, then faced forward as they walked to the car.
“You were in Tessa’s doctor’s office yesterday morning,” Tigh said suddenly as Chase unlocked his car door.
Oblivious to the censure in Tigh’s tone, Chase’s face split into a smile. “It was incredible, Tigh, to actually see my baby moving around inside her. My heart was beating so fast I thought I’d pass out.”
Both men slid into the Jeep and buckled up. “You shouldn’t invade her privacy like that, Chase. She could put a restraining order on you. It’s damn close to stalking.”
Chase scowled as he pulled into traffic. “My intentions are very clear. And she knows it.”
Tigh eyed his client. “Is there something I should know about you and Miss Lightfoot? I don’t want her sister slapping you with a lawsuit that I know nothing about.”
“Dia would, wouldn’t she?”
“Hell, yeah. She’s a criminal lawyer first, pal. Everything to her is a fight to the last drop of blood, guilty or innocent.”
Chase stared at the windshield. “She seemed so reserved.”
“Reserved and a circling shark are often confused. Now, answer the question.”
“I can’t say, because there’s nothing to tell.”
“Bull.”
“Tessa doesn’t want to see this go to court and neither do I. We have our child’s best interests to think about. So far, she tolerates me and I lust after her.”
“You’re kidding.”
It was such a bland delivery that Chase glanced at Tigh as he pulled to a halt. “Crazy, huh?” He shut off the engine and left the car.
Tigh leaned over the gearshift and groaned. “For God’s sake! Why do you pay me for legal advice, then go and do this?” He gestured to Tessa’s Attic.
Chase leaned into the car window. “Because you’re my kid brother’s best friend and I used to protect you from bullies.”
Tigh flushed red at the memory. “That smacks of tremendous confidence in my abilities, Chase. And I advise you to back off from her.”
“Not a chance.” Chase gestured for Tigh to join him but Tigh waved him off, sagging into the car seat. Chase straightened and headed through the door. Someone whistled softly and he looked up to see Dana leaning out over the counter, her gaze running the length of his legs.
“Not bad, Mr. Madison.”
Somehow the compliment was lost with the mister tacked on. “Is she here?”
Dana inclined her head toward the rear of the store just as Chase heard a crash and a soft yelp of pain. He was in the back office in a heartbeat.
A blind was hanging precariously off the window frame as Tessa rubbed the top of her head. He strode to her, catching her by the arms.
“Are you all right?”
Tessa took one look at him in his shorts with brown muscles rippling everywhere and it set her teeth on edge. “Yes, dammit.” She shifted out of his grip, touching her scalp and inspecting her fingers for blood. “I’m fine, the baby’s fine and what are you doing here, again?”
He pulled the stepladder closer to the window and climbed up to reattach the blind. “I just came by to say hi.”
Mentally, Tessa groaned. His taut behind was at eye level. This wasn’t fair. Yet as much as he annoyed her by busting in, unannounced, the totally female side of her said, step back and inspect the hardware. She did. He had great legs and damned if he didn’t look sexy, even sweaty, his hair sopping wet, his tank top marked with dampness. And those skimpy running shorts with side slits, good God, they clung. “Do I look like I have time to chat, or don’t you work for a living anymore?” She managed to pull her gaze to a decent level when he hopped off the stepladder.
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