AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If only they were.
‘You’re early,’ she managed, instantly cringing at such a less-than-stellar opening line.
‘I might point out the same,’ he replied dryly, opening the passenger door and waiting for her to get in. ‘I would have preferred to come up to your apartment rather than hover out here like some adolescent waiting for his girlfriend to sneak out of her parents’ house.’
Girlfriend? Was that what she was? She tried not to let her body do funny things at his use of the term.
‘Funny,’ she threw back, as lightly as she could manage, not quite able to move. ‘But I’m telling you, my nosy neighbour is worse than any overbearing parents. The grapevine would have been positively shaking before we’d even left the building.’
‘Then I suppose it’s good that you came down at all.’
There was something in his voice which made her snap her head up. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’
He shot her a masked look which she couldn’t quite read. ‘I wondered.’
Her curiosity was piqued. ‘What would you have done?’
‘I’d probably have come up to your door and thrown you over my shoulder and made a scene in front of all your gossiping neighbours.’
‘Oh.’
There had to be something wrong with her, she thought, that the idea should appeal so much to some perverse part of her.
‘Or perhaps you might have enjoyed that,’ Malachi continued quietly, the gleam in his eyes spearing through her right to her core.
She tilted her chin up. ‘I most certainly would not.’
He grinned, a devastating smile that she could feel blooming though every inch of her body.
‘Then get in the car, or we’ll both find out how false that statement is.’
It was as if he had some kind of hold on her. The way her body was moving towards him—obeying him—even though her brain was bellowing its objections.
He closed her door and strode around the front of the car, powerful yet graceful, making it impossible for her not to gawk. When he slid into the seat beside her, his thigh too close to hers, and the heat from his body radiated over her, she pretended that a delicious shiver didn’t dance all the way up her spine. That her chest didn’t tighten as though he’d sucked all the air from the confined space.
Saskia could feel the pulse at her throat, her wrist, her groin, beating out a frantic SOS. Or perhaps it was tapping out a joyous jig.
If he’d suggested ditching the meal and going straight back to his apartment she knew she wouldn’t have objected. Heat suffused her, making her dress feel too scratchy on her skin, her body too tight for itself, her breasts too heavy.
Go
d, she really did need to get a grip.
‘You also mentioned that you didn’t want your friend to see me.’
His voice dragged her back to the present, getting closer to the heart of the matter. Unease washed through her.
‘Yet,’ she clarified. ‘I don’t want her to see you yet.’
‘Because...?’
‘Because I haven’t told her I’m pregnant.’
‘Maybe you don’t think it’s any of her business?’
Saskia shook her head slowly. Uncertainly. ‘No, we tell each other everything.’ Usually. ‘We’ve been best friends since we were kids, when our mothers were rivals in the same prime-time American soap opera. We’ve done everything together—including coming to the UK to become doctors.’
‘Yet she doesn’t know about the baby? About us?’
