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A shivery awareness filled her. How far did he intend to take this idea of giving Dylan a stable home? She thought about the frank woman at the zoo. Don’t do what I did. Make sure you have another kid to keep yours company. Would Connor want to provide Dylan with siblings? Would he expect her to make love with him? Past experience had proved that he only had to touch her for desire to ignite into burning heat.
She turned her attention away from the baby and back to the man who’d taken over her thoughts, her life. “Connor—”
He held up a hand. “Wait. Before you reject the idea, you need to know that I’m committed to this. I won’t pull out in a year or two and want a divorce.”
She tried to read the expression in his eyes, but the night-light was too dim.
To put a little distance between them she rose to her feet and gently deposited the snoozing Dylan in his cot. Tugging at the cord that hung near the baby’s cot, she flooded the room with soft light and turned to face the man who had put her world into uproar.
“How can you possibly be so sure? You might fall in love and want a real marriage.” Would she be any good at marriage? Her parents had married because she was already on the way. Would marrying for Dylan’s sake be any different?
“I’m not looking for love.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Let’s just say that Dana forever killed any desire I had for a ‘real’ marriage.”
Sadness unexpectedly seeped through Victoria. No woman would be able to steal that cold, shriveled heart. He’d shut himself up behind high, impenetrable walls.
Deeply disappointed for some reason she couldn’t fathom, she found herself shaking her head. “I can’t marry you.”
He seemed to take root and a stillness overtook his large frame. “You don’t think it would be a good idea for Dylan?”
What was she supposed to say to that? Tell him about her own parents’ failures? And let him realize how poor a mother she might be? Definitely not! “Of course, Dylan would benefit.”
“So why not marry me?”
She shifted restlessly. She thought of her father…ever drifting, never home. Of her mother’s unhappiness. “There’s more to marriage than Dylan.”
His eyes gleamed. “Are you referring to sex?”
Her skin went all tight.
“You don’t want to have sex with me? Is that it?”
Oh, dear God. He’d misunderstood. But sex…
She couldn’t stop staring at him. At the depth of his chest. The large, capable hands. The hard mouth that could smile so gorgeously. Her skin grew tighter. “No…no, I don’t.”
He smiled. It wasn’t a very nice smile. “May I ask why not?”
Damn him.
She wriggled like a bug on a stick. “Because I don’t make love with every conceited, arrogant jerk who comes along.”
He shook his head and laughed. “That puts me in my place.”
“And I don’t like you,” she said, seized by a burst of unreasonable anger, “and I’m quite sure you don’t like me much either.”
“Liking has nothing whatsoever to do with sex, Victoria.” He drawled her name out slowly, deliberately, making her feel utterly Victorian and positively puritanical.
At the pale-silver gleam in those dangerous eyes she grew itchy, but forced herself to sit unmoving. “I need to actually like a man to make love with him.”
“So naive. You can’t have liked a great many men then.”
The implication took her breath away. “I’m not a misanthrope—I’m discerning. And it’s only you I’ve never liked. I’ve made love to enough men to know that I don’t do casual encounters.”
She’d even dated a guy for two years before breaking it off when he’d asked her to marry him. She’d gotten scared. It would never have worked—not even if she’d been more confident—he’d been easygoing and fun loving. A tumbleweed. He’d constantly nagged her to relax, to slow down, unable to understand that she was driven for reasons of her own to make a success of her life. Whatever the cost.
At least that was one thing she had in common with Connor—he’d worked hard to get where he was. Even though he’d expected her to take extended leave at the drop of a hat.
Shadows flickered in the silvery depths. “There will be nothing casual about our encounter. I can promise you that.”
She shivered deep inside. “You make it sound dangerous.”
He stalked closer. “We’ve always struck sparks off each other, and this will be no different.” He stared into her eyes, searching for something she was equally determined never to concede. “It will blow your world apart.”
