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“Old man?” Natalie laughed, took his hand back into hers and gave him a little squeeze. “You aren’t an old man. Admittedly, it’s a bit kinky, but I’d be happy to oblige if that’s what you want me to call you.”
His smile was real. “As long as you’re calling me, I won’t complain.”
Her gaze searched his. “For the rest of the weekend, right?”
“Right,” Matthew agreed, but suddenly found it difficult to keep his smile in place. “For the next three days, I’m all yours.”
Then he’d fly back to Memphis, stay at his mother’s for a night, then he and Carrie would drive back to Boston because the little girl was terrified of the thought of getting on a plane, and he hadn’t forced the issue.
Back to trying to figure out life without Robert and Carolyn.
Back to him struggling to raise their precious daughter in a way that wouldn’t disappoint them, which seemed impossible for a sworn bachelor who still couldn’t even put Carrie’s hair up without missing handfuls of it from the bun.
Too bad the position in Memphis hadn’t worked out so his family would be close to shower Carrie in their love and guide him in the right direction as he got this parenting thing all wrong time and again.
What did he know about raising a kid?
Nothing. His friends had been foolish leaving Carrie’s upbringing to him. Robert had known Matthew had no plans to marry or have children. Truly, they couldn’t have chosen a worse guardian for Carrie.
“Your hand is getting tight again,” Natalie warned.
He loosened his hold. “Sorry.”
“Want to talk about whatever keeps bothering you?”
He couldn’t blame Natalie for asking. She’d let it go more than once, but he kept going back to places he didn’t need to let his brain go.
“It’s not important.” Which was a lie. Everything about Robert and Carolyn was important. How he was going to handle fatherhood was important. Part of him wanted to tell Natalie, to spill everything out to her, to tell her what a screw-up step-in parent he’d been so far and that he wished he could give Carrie to a couple who knew what they were doing so the kid wouldn’t turn out messed up. But losing his best friends, and his failed parenthood, weren’t decent conversation for a three-day affair.
For the next three days, he was just Matthew. The dedicated heart surgeon and researcher, the fun-loving man, the devoted short-term lover.
CHAPTER FOUR
NATALIE MADE IT to breakfast just before the hotel wait staff cleared the buffet trays.
Having gone earlier to his hotel room to shower, Matthew had arrived before her and was at a table with two other men and a woman, eating breakfast. Wearing his khaki pants and blue button-up shirt with the sleeves folded to mid-forearm, a smile on his handsome face, he stole her breath.
She could hardly believe she’d had sex with him. Hot, needy, carnal sex.
Natalie lingered, overfilling her plate with sliced fruit. There was no reason she couldn’t join Matthew and the others at his table, but she procrastinated, toying with toasting a slice of wheat bread.
She’d seen and touched every part of his body. With her hands, her mouth. They’d done things that just recalling was enough to make her blush and wonder who that wanton woman in bed with him had been. After all that, was she really hesitating to sit down beside him to eat breakfast?
When she’d finally gotten her plate and headed in his direction, Matthew rose from his chair.
“There’s a seat at our table, Natalie. Join us.”
He’d made it easy. As if he were inviting an old friend or colleague to join his table. No big deal. Only, when their gazes met, his unusual eyes held a warmth that conveyed that his smile was for her alone. Nothing had changed from the time he’d left her room. He had no morning-after regrets.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she fought the urge to lean over and plant another good-morning kiss on his magic lips.
Those lips had kissed her all over. More than once. Places she’d never been so thoroughly kissed. Those hands had held her, touched her, coaxed responses she’d not known her body able to give.
Natalie gulped back the emotion looking at him filled her with. Pride, pleasure, passion. Maybe they should skip the conference and go back to her room? No, they’d decided they would both attend morning classes to earn their continuing-education credits. As much as she’d like to drag him back to her room, she’d restrain herself.
At least until morning break.
A little giddy at the thought, she smiled at the others as she joined the table.
