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She jumped as Bram appeared. It took her a moment to reconcile the oversexed youthful jerk she remembered with the healthy, full-grown jerk walking toward her. He wore a matching hotel robe, and his hair was wet from his shower. More than anything, she wanted to avenge her eighteen-year-old self.
He looked uncharacteristically grim as he gave the robe’s sash an extra tug. The clock registered two, which meant this miserable day was already half over. “Did you happen to spot any condoms in the trash?”
Hot coffee splashed her hand, and her heart stopped. She rushed into the bedroom and began searching the trash basket, but she only found her panties. She dashed back out into the living room. He pointed his coffee cup at her head. “You better tell me you’ve been tested since the last time you slept with your scumbag ex-husband.
”
“Me?” She wanted to throw another shoe, but she couldn’t find one. “You’ll nail anything that walks. Hookers. Strippers. Pool boys!” Eighteen-year-old virgins with misplaced fantasies.
“I’ve never nailed a pool boy in my life.”
Bram was notoriously heterosexual, but considering his hedonistic nature, she figured that was merely an oversight.
He went on the counteroffensive. “I keep my engine in top working order, and I happen to be clean as a whistle. But then, I never slept with Lance the Loser and whatever candy-ass boys you replaced him with.”
She couldn’t believe this. “I’m the tramp? You haven’t seen single digits since you were fourteen.”
“And I’ll bet anything, you’re still in them. Thirty-one years old. Have you been to a shrink?”
Thanks to her father’s overprotection, she’d only slept with four men, but since Bram had been her first so-called lover, and, apparently her last, the overall total hadn’t changed. “Ten lovers, so you can keep the tramp trophy. And I’m also ‘clean as a whistle.’ Now get out of here. This whole thing never happened.”
But he’d been distracted by the food cart. “They forgot the Bloody Marys. Shit.” He began taking the covers off the serving dishes. “You were an animal last night. Your claws in my back, your moans in my ear…” As he sat, his robe fell open over a muscular thigh. “The things you begged me to do to you.” He speared a chunk of mango. “Even I was embarrassed.”
“You don’t remember any of it.”
“Not much.”
She wanted to beg him to tell her exactly what he did remember. For all she knew, he could have attacked her, but somehow that didn’t seem as horrible as the notion that she’d willingly given herself to him. She felt woozy and sank down at the table.
“You called me your wild stallion,” he said. “I’m sure I remember that.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” She had to figure out what had happened, but how could she get him to tell her what he knew? He began eating an omelet. She tried to settle her stomach with a piece of hard roll.
He reached for a pepper shaker. “So…you’re on the pill, right?”
She threw down her roll and jumped up. “Oh, God…”
He stopped chewing. “Georgie…”
“Maybe nothing happened.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “Maybe we were so out of it, we fell asleep.”
He shot out of the chair. “Are you telling me—”
“It’ll be okay. It has to be.” She started to pace. “What are the odds, right? I couldn’t possibly be pregnant.”
He’d started to look wild around the eyes. “You could be if you aren’t on the pill!”
“If it—If it happens, we’ll—I’ll—I’ll give it away. I know it’ll be hard to find a person desperate enough to take a baby with a forked tongue and a tail, but I’m sure I can find someone.”
The color returned to his cheeks. He sat back down and picked up his coffee cup. “A stellar performance.”
“Thanks.” Her small retaliation might have been juvenile, but it lifted her spirits enough so she could eat a strawberry. But a second berry was beyond her as she imagined the warm, solid weight of the baby she’d never hold.
Bram poured another coffee. Antagonism clawed away at her, the first time in forever that she’d had strong feelings toward anything except the collapse of her marriage.
Bram tossed down his napkin. “I’m going to get dressed.” His gaze drifted toward the open collar of her robe. “Unless you want to…”
“Not in this lifetime.”
