Kitabı oku: «Beginning with Their Baby»
Matt yanked open the door
Then froze as he came face-to-face with the woman who had haunted his dreams for three long months.
Camille stepped a little closer, leaned against the doorway, and her signature scent—lavender and brown sugar and sweet, ripe strawberries—wrapped itself around him. Still, he didn’t say anything. Didn’t touch her, though every instinct he had demanded that he grab onto her before she pulled another vanishing act.
“It’s good seeing you, Camille. You look great. But I’m a little busy. So if you wouldn’t mind—”
“I do mind.”
“Excuse me?”
“I should be in Florence right now, combing museums with a glorious man named Stefano and eating pasta on the patio of a little trattoria.”
“So, why aren’t you?”
“Because I’m three months pregnant.”
And just like that, his world imploded.
Dear Reader,
I’ve always been a sucker for stories where opposites attract because I believe the differences keep the sparks alive and the sparks are what make everyday living an adventure.
In Beginning with Their Baby, I bring back Matt Jenkins, the best friend and business partner of Reece, my hero in From Friend to Father. Matt is a stand-up guy. He plays by the rules and does the right thing. Camille Arraby is his polar opposite in every way—she’s capricious, refuses to settle down and flits from one temporary job to another as she travels the world. She’s so commitment-phobic that the idea of signing a six-month lease on an apartment makes her hyperventilate. Yet from the second I put these two in a room together, sparks flew!
Writing their story reminded me of my own marriage. My husband is an electrical engineer and I’m a writer. He’s an introvert and I’m an extrovert. He’s all about making a plan and I love to fly by the seat of my pants—and these are just the superficial differences. There are many more that go so deep that when we got married, no one thought it would last. Yet here we are three kids and fourteen years later, still going strong—and still striking sparks off each other.
I hope you enjoy reading Beginning with Their Baby as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please, visit me at www.tracywolff.com or on my blog, tracywolff.blogspot.com and let me know what you think.
Happy reading!
Tracy Wolff
Beginning with Their Baby
Tracy Wolff
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tracy Wolff collects books, English degrees and lipsticks, and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven she forayed into the wonderful world of girls’ lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten she’d read everything in the young adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mom started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, she knew she’d found her lifelong love. Now a writing professor at her local community college, Tracy is thrilled to be writing novels for Harlequin Superromance. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three young sons.
For the Pitts, the best group of women I know.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Wanda Ottewell, my wonderful and intrepid editor, for always knowing what my books need—even when I don’t.
And to my fabulous agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, who sticks by me no matter what.
You’re the best!
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PROLOGUE
“DO YOU HAVE TO GO?”
A twinge of uneasiness worked its way down Camille Arraby’s spine at the words, though she continued to load her overnight bag. “My flight leaves in two hours—I’ve got to get to the airport.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Matt Jenkins climbed off the rumpled bed where they’d just spent another incredible night, and walked toward her.
She watched him prowl across the room, his long, lean, nearly naked form a truly beautiful sight this early in the morning. His dark auburn hair had fallen over his eyes and his too-full lips were curved in the sexy grin she loved.
The twinge got a little more pronounced and for the first time that she could remember, Camille regretted the fact that she had to go. She wasn’t nearly as ready to leave Austin—and Matt—as she’d expected to be.
But Brazil—and Carnaval—were in full swing and they wouldn’t wait forever. Besides, it was better to walk away now, on a high note, than wait for things to sour as they inevitably would.
“So what did you mean?” she asked lightly, as he circled her waist with his hands and pulled her close.
“I was asking you to stay.” He nuzzled her neck and she sighed, letting her head fall back as desire moved through her all over again.
“I can’t.”
His mouth moved lower, to the hollow of her throat, and she actually felt her knees tremble. “You can.”
“Matt. You knew all along I was leaving today.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the problem?” Her voice hitched as he flicked open the first two buttons of her shirt, ran his tongue over the curve of her breast.
“The problem is that when we made the deal, I didn’t expect that I’d want you to stay.”
“And now you do?”
He lifted his head so that his warm brown eyes met hers and Camille shuddered with unfulfilled desire. She’d never met a man like Matt, who could make her respond so effortlessly—and powerfully—to his lightest touch.
“Now I do.” He stroked the back of his hand down her cheek. “Stay, Camille. Please. I’ve never felt like this before and I want to see where it goes.”
“I’ve already given up my room and my job, already have my flights booked to Rio and then on to Italy.”
“You can stay with me for a while—and getting another one of those temp jobs of yours can’t be that difficult. You’ve been through three in the two months I’ve known you.”
For one long second, Camille let his words sweep over her. Let herself imagine staying here with Matt indefinitely—spending hours and days and weeks together, in bed and out.
Doing all those wonderful things couples did when they were falling in love.
The images that flashed through her mind didn’t send her running for the hills as they normally would have, and that—more than anything else could—had her taking a cautious step back.
Pulling free of Matt’s embrace, she turned back to her bag. Rearranged the items in it, once, twice. Made sure her favorite brushes and palette were safe from shifting during travel as she struggled for the right words to say. But nothing came and silent minutes dragged by as Matt waited patiently for her answer, not pushing her but not backing down, either.
As she slid her makeup case to the bottom of the bag, Camille wanted nothing more than to run—as fast and as far as she could.
Wanted nothing more than to fling herself into Matt’s arms and stay until this thing between them burned itself out.
But doing that was only asking for trouble, only asking for entanglements. Already Matt had sneaked through a crack in her defenses and taken up residence in an untouched spot in her heart. If she stayed, his presence inside her would grow until she was no longer complete without him. And that was something she would never, could never, allow.
When she finally looked up at him again, Camille made sure none of her doubts—none of her longing—showed on her face. “I can’t stay, Matt. I was perfectly clear about the fact that I was leaving when we hooked up.”
“I know. But plans can change.”
“Not mine.”
“Bull.” This time when he grabbed her, his hands weren’t quite as gentle as they had been. Somehow, the edginess was just as arousing as the care. “Your plans change all the time. They change with the wind, with your whims. Why can’t you change them now? For me?”
“My plane tickets are nonrefundable.” Her answer was flippant, but her heart was pounding hard and fast.
He cursed. “I’ll pay for the stupid tickets. I’ll pay for a hundred tickets if you’ll stay for just a little while longer.” His hands slid up her arms and neck until he was cupping her face. “Please, Camille.”
“Matt.” She shook her head, fought against the lump in her stomach that was growing with every word he said.
“Damn it, do you think this is easy for me? I’m not used to having to beg a woman to spend time with me.”
Of course he wasn’t used to begging—he was gorgeous and smart, and if not rich, certainly well-off from his partnership in one of the city’s leading architectural firms. He was a prime catch—just one more reason she was determined to throw him back before he could do the same to her.
Before she broke her own rules and forgot why she couldn’t settle down.
Before she was the one pleading with him to stay.
“I don’t want this.” The words came out sharp, stilted.
“So what do you want?”
“To see Carnaval. To dance in the plaza and run through the streets with the parades. To visit the art museums and hang glide through the hills. I want to stand on the beach at dawn and watch the tide roll in.”
“Okay. All right.” He closed his eyes, ran a hand over his face. “Give me a couple days, let me rearrange my schedule and I’ll go with you. You’ll still see plenty of Carnaval.”
The twinge turned into a full-blown panic attack as she slung her bag over her shoulder. “Come on, Matt. It’s been fun, but we both know it’s time to move on—before things get messy and predictable.”
“They don’t have to—”
“Sure they do, sweets.” With a sassy grin, Camille reached up and patted her soon-to-be ex-lover’s cheek. “That’s the way of relationships. Short and fun turns long and nasty, until both people wish they’d gotten out when the getting was good.”
He clenched his jaw. “Do you really believe that?”
“I do. And so do you—at least you did two months ago, when we first met.”
“That was different.”
“Baby, it’s always different.” She started to say more, but a car horn sounded from the street in front of his house. “I’ve got to go. My cab’s here.”
“I thought I was taking you to the airport.”
“It’s still early—go back to bed.” Standing on tiptoes, she brushed her lips against his once, twice. Then gasped as his mouth turned frenzied on hers.
He kissed her like no one ever had—hard and hot and with a desperation that nearly overwhelmed her.
That nearly had her dropping her bag and following him back into bed, where he was so sure they belonged.
That nearly had her saying to hell with Rio and Italy and the world—she was more than content to stay right here, in Austin, Texas.
But then the horn sounded again and she was pulling away. Smiling at him. Walking out the door and reminding herself, with every step, of all the reasons she was doing the right thing.
After all, there was a big, bright world out there, and in her thirty-two years she’d only managed to see about three-quarters of it. It was time—past time—to get started visiting the last quarter.
CHAPTER ONE
MATT SMILED AS HE SLID his homemade lasagna onto the table, alongside the crusty loaf of garlic bread and fancy tossed salad that were already there.
“Would you like some wine?” He dropped the oven mitts and reached for the bottle of red he’d picked out to go with the meal. Like his dinner companion, it was rich and voluptuous and very easy on the tongue.
“I would love some.” Ariane smiled as she held up her glass.
He filled it to the halfway mark, then did the same for his own before settling into his seat. It had been a long time since he’d cooked dinner for a woman, but he’d planned tonight carefully. Ariane was the first woman he’d been interested in since Camille, and after four dates, he was pretty sure she was amenable to his anticipated ending for the evening.
And if he wasn’t nearly as excited as he should be about that ending, then he needed to get over it. Camille was gone, and after spending the first few weeks leaving messages on her cell phone and several more weeks moping around, he’d finally figured out that she wasn’t coming back.
Even then, after he’d accepted that Camille was out of his life for good, it had taken him a while to move on. But he’d finally done it. He’d found a woman who was interested in him—as both a person and a good time. And now he was convinced this was for the best. His time with Camille, while lovely, had been an aberration, a step outside his comfort zone into chaos and insanity.
It had been a bad move and one he had no desire to repeat. All he’d gotten from trying something different was a bruised heart, a battered ego and a headache the size of Texas.
No, it was better all around if he stuck to his regular, controlled agenda from now on. And tonight, that agenda included taking his relationship with Ariane to the next step.
“This was so sweet, Matt. It’s been a long time since a man cooked me dinner.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve cooked a woman dinner. I hope I haven’t lost my touch.”
“I’m sure it will be delicious.” She smiled warmly at him.
As he dished up the lasagna, he asked, “How’s that case going? The one that was giving you such trouble?”
“It’s an absolute disaster. I’m defending this corporation and it’s obvious to everyone but them that they’re guilty as hell of violating state and federal sexual harassment laws. I start presenting my case on Monday and I can only hope I can pull some magic out of my hat to confuse the jury about what was really going on in that factory.”
A curl of unease started in Matt’s belly at her words, but he ignored it. It was her job to defend corporations against lawsuits like this, he reminded himself. Of course she would do whatever she could do help her client win—even if they were guilty.
“Mmm, this is wonderful.”
“Thanks.”
“So how about you? How’s that design going?”
“I finished it—and it is brilliant, if I do say so myself.” He grinned over his glass of wine. “The clients are flying in tomorrow to see it, so I’ll know for sure then. But Reece thinks we’ve knocked it out of the park.”
“That’s fabulous.” She took another bite. “And really, so is this lasagna. How did you learn to cook like this?”
“I grew up with three sisters and my mom always believed that I should learn whatever the girls learned, and vice versa. So when she taught them to cook a few recipes, she made sure I was in the kitchen right along with them—even if I would have preferred to be playing football or basketball.”
“I can just see you—a cute little boy with big eyes peering into his mother’s spaghetti-sauce pot.”
He snorted. “More like a surly preteen whining about how I’d never need to know how to cook because when I grew up I was going to live on pizza and hamburgers.”
“Well, I’m glad your mother didn’t listen.”
Their eyes met across the table. “So am I.”
Her smile turned soft, intimate. It was one of the things that had attracted him to her when they’d met a few weeks before—that and her softly rounded curves. Camille had been all angles and mile-long legs and it was nice to hold on to a woman who wasn’t so…sharp. Add in Ariane’s sense of order and dedication to the University of Texas’s football team—she was a Longhorn, too—and he’d been sold.
“You know, Matt, I really like you.”
“I like you, too, Ariane.” His heart beat a little faster in anticipation. “Very much.”
She pushed her plate away. “Then maybe we should skip dessert…”
There they were, the words he’d been waiting to hear for weeks. He’d expected his body to respond right away, but now that she’d extended the invitation, he wasn’t nearly as interested as he’d expected to be. Still, she was a beautiful, intelligent woman and would make a great girlfriend.
Without giving himself any more time to think, Matt slid his chair back and reached for her plate. “And what would you like to do in lieu of dessert?” he asked, making sure to keep his voice low and teasing.
She stood, as well. “Oh, I’m sure we can think of something.”
He reached for her hand, but a knock at his front door stopped him before he could pull her against him. “Why don’t you go into the family room? I’ll join you as soon as I answer that.”
“Don’t be long.”
“Believe me, I won’t be.” He strode to the door, pulled it open with a yank. Then froze as he came face-to-face with the woman who had haunted his dreams for nearly three long months.
For a minute, the whole world stood still while he soaked in the vision that was Camille. Her black hair was shorter and sassier than it had been when she’d left, but everything else was the same.
The flawless expanse of golden skin her halter dress showed off.
The wicked curve of her sexily uneven mouth.
The killer legs that had had him waking up hard and sweaty and frustrated as hell for weeks after she’d left.
She’d come back, he told himself as his traitorous body responded to her proximity. Even after everything she’d said, after ignoring his text messages and phone calls for months, she’d come back.
How pathetic did it make him that he was excited by that fact?
She stepped a little closer, leaned against the doorway, and her signature scent—lavender and brown sugar and sweet, ripe strawberries—wrapped itself around him. He went from semiaroused to rock hard in an instant.
Still, he didn’t say anything. Didn’t touch her, though every instinct he had demanded that he grab on to her before she pulled another vanishing act.
The thought had the same effect as a freezing shower, and the connection between them shattered. He couldn’t hold her tightly enough to keep her from leaving again—she was like the wind, blowing from one place to another with little thought to the destruction she left in her path.
He wasn’t going to be part of the fallout again.
“What are you doing here, Camille?” he demanded, forcing a calm into his voice that he was far from feeling. But she was an expert at power games and there was no way in hell he was revealing a weakness. Not when she was so good at drawing first blood.
“I was in the neighborhood.” Even the slow, honeyed drawl was the same. “Thought I’d drop by.”
“Long walk from Italy.”
She shrugged, unconcerned. “Yeah, well, Florence is overrated.”
“Really?”
“No. But you know me. I get bored if I stay in one place too long.”
“I remember.” He kept his voice cool, made sure none of the confusion—or desire—he was feeling leaked through.
“Can I come in?”
“Now’s not really a good time.”
Uncertainty flashed across her face—was there and gone so quickly that he told himself he’d imagined it. “It won’t take long. I just wanted to talk for a few minutes.”
“Talk?” This time he let her see his skepticism—and a little bit of the anger he thought had dissipated in the weeks since she’d walked out. “Since when do you want to talk about anything? I thought action was more your thing.”
As soon as the words were out, he wanted to call them back. Her smile had turned predatory, those amethyst-colored eyes running over him from head to toe. It was as if she was cataloging each one of his flaws and weaknesses, and he’d never felt more vulnerable. “Bitter much?”
“I wouldn’t call it bitter.”
“No? Then what would you call it?”
“Smart.” He grabbed the edge of the door, made as if to close it. “Now, if you will excuse me—”
“I really do need to talk to you.”
“Yeah, well, I really needed to talk to you all those times I called you.” Shit. He did sound bitter.
She sighed heavily, as if he was just too high maintenance for her. It was like setting a match to dry kindling and all the emotions that had been seething in him for the past few months came roaring out.
“Look, Camille, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but count me out.”
“I thought you liked games—at least, that’s what you told me the night we met.”
“I did—until you kept changing the rules without warning.”
“I wasn’t the one who changed the rules, sweets. You were.”
He started to snap back, but how could he when she was right? She’d told him up front that she was only in town for a few weeks, that the thing between them couldn’t go anywhere. He was the one who hadn’t listened.
He was the one who’d gotten burned.
But at least he’d learned his lesson—he was done playing with fire.
“I’m tired, Camille, and I have company. Either say what you came here to say or leave—I really don’t care. But I don’t have the time or the inclination to stand out here all night shooting the breeze. I’m letting bugs in.”
Her smile drooped a little at the edges, and she didn’t answer for long seconds. Guilt slinked through him. Maybe he’d been too harsh. He could have said things more nicely, could have—
No! Damn it, no. She was the one who had walked out on him. The one who had come back here after ignoring all his attempts to reach out to her in the hopes of picking up where they’d left off. And now, just when he’d started to move on, here she was. So why exactly should he make it easy for her?
Why should he have anything to do with her at all?
“Matt?” Ariane’s voice drifted down the hall. “Can you bring my wine when you come in?”
“Aah.” The hint of vulnerability was long gone, replaced by the party-girl mask he’d learned to hate during their brief affair. “You’ve got that kind of company.”
He felt himself flush at her words, at the look in her eyes. But he didn’t have anything to feel sheepish about, he reminded himself. She was the one who’d broken things off.
“Sure, Ariane.” He raised his voice a little, so Ariane could hear him. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then turned back to his most recent ex-lover.
“It was good seeing you, Camille. You look great. But, as you can see, I’m a little busy. So if you wouldn’t mind heading out—”
“I do mind.”
“Excuse me?”
“I should be in Florence right now, combing museums with a glorious man named Stefano and eating pasta on the patio of a little trattoria.”
Who the hell was Stefano? Matt bit back the instinctive spurt of jealousy that flared. It wasn’t his business what she did—or who she did it with. She’d made that abundantly clear when she’d walked out on him.
“So why aren’t you?”
“Because I’m three months pregnant.”
And just like that, his world imploded.
OH, GOD, HAD SHE REALLY just blurted it out like that? No finesse, no work-up? Just I’m pregnant, with you’re the father strongly implied?
No wonder Matt looked like he’d fall over if she breathed too hard.
She’d planned on breaking it to him much more calmly. Had figured he’d invite her in for a cup of coffee and she could work her way around to it. But he hadn’t invited her in, hadn’t wanted anything to do with her.
His reaction had hurt her, made her angry—and careless. Of course, now that it was too late, she would do anything to take back her hasty words. Matt hadn’t deserved to find out about his impending fatherhood so callously.
“Three months?” he finally asked, his voice low and hoarse.
“Yes.”
“As in twelve weeks?”
“Yes.”
“As in…”
“Yes. I got pregnant that last week in Austin.” To his credit, he didn’t ask if she was sure. Of course, that could be more from the shock than from any consideration for her. But somehow, she doubted it.
“I know this isn’t what you were expecting,” she began nervously. “And I’m sorry to spring it on you—believe me, when I first found out I didn’t look any better than you do. And I thought about ending it—a baby doesn’t exactly fit into my lifestyle—but when it got to be crunch time, I just couldn’t do it. Maybe that’s not fair to you, I don’t know. All I know is that I’m having this baby and I figure you have the right to know about it.”
“Get rid of it?”
She thought that sounded like a question, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe it had been an order. Taking a deep breath, Camille flipped her hair out of her face—she wanted to make sure she had a good look at his face when they discussed this—and said, “I can’t. I know it would make things easier and maybe it’s the best decision. But I just…can’t.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion. I was trying to decipher what you—” He swore, ran an unsteady hand over his face. “I wasn’t prepared for this, Camille.”
“Neither was I. Believe me. When I started throwing up in Florence I was sure I’d caught a bug—and not one of the nine-months variety.”
“Matt? Are you coming?” Once again, the female voice floated down the hallway and Camille was glad to realize she didn’t feel quite so sucker punched this second time. Not that she had any right to complain—and she wasn’t. But still, knowing Matt was with another woman was…disconcerting.
He swore again, a little more loudly. “Uh, yeah, Ariane. Give me a minute.”
He looked so flustered that she couldn’t help feeling contrite. Blurting it out like that had been a ridiculous thing to do, especially when Matt was obviously on a date. But she’d given herself a pep talk all the way over here and she hadn’t been able to hold the words in any longer. She’d wanted to say them—to somebody.
Saying them made the baby real, certainly more real than it had been since she’d stood in the middle of her small Italian flat and tried to decipher the pregnancy test directions, which had been written in Italian.
Despite the language barrier, the fact that the little window had turned blue had left her with little doubt as to whether or not she was pregnant. As she’d stared at the small, slender wand she’d been scared. Shocked. And more than a little horrified. But as the minutes and hours and finally days passed, she’d managed to wrap her mind around the concept of being pregnant. The baby was still a mystery—one she had no idea what to do with—but she figured she had six months to learn. After all, she had an entire pregnancy to get through before she had to worry about an actual baby. Thank God.
“Look, I’m sorry to just barge in here like this. I guess I didn’t think this thing through as well as I could have. I’ll come back later, when you’re not…entertaining.”
She started to turn away, but his hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist. “You’re not getting off that easily.”
“What does that mean?” She felt her own back go up.
“It means, you can’t just breeze in here and drop a bombshell like that and then turn around and walk back out.”
“I know that,” she snarled, trying to extricate herself from his painless but nevertheless firm grip. “But I figured you had other things to do right now. Call me on my cell when—”
“Yeah, because that works so well.” He thrust his free hand through his thick fall of auburn hair. “I’m not letting you out of here until we settle some things—”
“Matt?”
At the interruption, Camille glanced over Matt’s shoulder at his date. Her stomach sank at the first glimpse of the tiny but voluptuous blond woman. Exquisitely dressed and exceptionally beautiful, she was everything Camille wasn’t. Suddenly she felt like the tall, ungainly elephant in the room, even though she was still a couple of months from showing.
But still, how could she compete with Ariane? If this was Matt’s regular type, then Camille—with her normal attire of jeans and tank tops and paint-splattered skin—didn’t stand a chance.
The thought brought her up cold, had her backing out the front door without even bothering to glance behind her to see where she was going.
Not that she wanted a chance with Matt, she assured herself viciously as she teetered on the edge of the first step. He wasn’t her usual type any more than she was his. And she didn’t want to get tied down to any one man anyway. That was just asking for trouble.
Nothing had changed since she’d left here twelve weeks before. It just felt like everything had.
“Camille, look out!” Matt had followed her out onto the porch and now he reached for her a second time, stopping her from falling down the stairs. She wondered if she should feel grateful that he’d saved her from looking ridiculous as well as stupid. One thing was for certain—she was making one hell of a second impression.
Taking a deep breath, she met Matt’s warm, brown eyes for the third time that night. “Thanks. Another guy would have let me fall—at least then all your problems would be over.”
She watched as his face turned from concerned to angry, the little laugh lines at the corners of his eyes getting deeper as he frowned. “That’s an awful thing to say. I would never—”
“I know, I know.” She backed down the steps, this time keeping a hand on the railing and glancing behind her to make sure she didn’t stumble again. “That’s what I was trying to say. Not all guys are like you.
“Do you still have my cell number? If not, I can call you tomorrow sometime and we can get together for coffee and—” she darted a look at the petite blonde, who was looking more and more confused—and annoyed—by the minute “—talk about the project,” she improvised wildly, not wanting to ruin his evening any more than she already had. “I’m sorry for bothering you at home. This can definitely wait for a better time. I’ll just—”
“Camille, stop.”
Matt’s voice rang out and she froze, shocked at how quickly he’d gone from easygoing to authoritative.
“We need to talk.”
She swallowed nervously, wondered how on earth she’d managed to get herself into this predicament. “I know and we will. Later.” She was almost at her car, almost free.
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