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‘That’s very reasonable of you,’ she managed, disturbed all over again by how accommodating he was being.
‘I thought so,’ he said. She huffed out a strained laugh, realising, however accommodating Brandon was, he would always want the last word.
The car drove past the park where she often took Ruby to play at the weekend. And the guilt came barrelling back.
Then he took another turn onto the street where she lived with their child.
‘Which one is yours?’ he asked as the GPS announced they had reached their destination.
She pointed at the Victorian terrace where her flat was situated, glad to see no small face at the window.
Ruby is still in bed. Thank God.
But as he braked and she unhooked her seatbelt, frantic to see her daughter and get away from the emotions threatening to overwhelm her, his warm hand landed on her knee.
‘I want to see you again, Lacey. And soon,’ he declared.
‘What?’ she yelped, the purpose in his gaze almost as terrifying as the blaze of heat at her core. And the elated leap in her heartrate.
‘Come on, you can’t be that surprised?’ he said, the quirk of his lips suggesting he found her shock amusing. ‘Given the intensity of our connection last night?’ His land lifted off her knee to stroke her cheek, the rush of sensation as devastating as it was shocking. ‘And the way we both went off like firecrackers five years ago?’
Just get out of the car, Lace. You have to get out of the car.
But somehow the instruction wouldn’t compute. Her emotions were in turmoil again—her guilt and remorse as volatile as the need and the strange, idiotic joy. Because he wanted her.
‘You excite me, Lacey, in a way no woman has for far too long,’ he said, cupping her chin to lift her face. ‘This kind of sexual chemistry is extremely rare.’ She blinked, aware of the pheromones firing through her system alongside the panic. And that desperate, bone-sapping need to have him kiss her.
Almost as if he’d sensed her need, her yearning, his mouth took hers in a punishing, possessive kiss. She responded—because of course she did. She couldn’t seem to resist him.
He tore his mouth free. ‘Once you have satisfied yourself your sister is well, we should speak. Soon. How about I call you tonight?’
She couldn’t think. Couldn’t respond. Her lips were still buzzing from his kiss. Her brain whirring in about a thousand different directions. The yearning in his eyes was almost as devastating as the responding yearning in her heart.
But, before she could come up with a coherent answer, his gaze shifted to something behind her. ‘Is that your sister?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t tell me she had a child.’
She shifted round to see Milly walking down the steps of the house towards them with Ruby in her arms, bouncing up and down.
Every molecule of blood drained from her head to slam into her heart as she scrambled out of the car.
No. No. No. Please no. Not now. Not like this.
As Milly and Ruby approached her, Milly’s words seemed to come from a million miles away.
‘Ruby wanted to come out and greet you. Her temp’s back to normal and she’s been waiting for you.’ Her sister’s gaze shifted to the muscle car parked at the kerb. ‘Oh. My. God.’ She whispered. ‘That’s him, isn’t it? He brought you home. That’s so romantic.’ She grinned. Lacey heard a car door slam and footsteps—firm, inexorable—hitting the pavement behind her.
She stood frozen, her whole body going hot and cold and then hot again, the panic reaching fever pitch. The guilt choked her. Her daughter’s arms lifted towards her, but it was as if Lacey were in the midst of a dream. A terrible anxiety dream, each awful aspect of which was unfolding in agonising slow motion.
Her daughter’s smile spread over her face, her mouth forming the first word she had ever learned to say as Lacey was wrenched out of the dream and plunged into cold, hard reality.
‘Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! You’re home.’
CHAPTER SIX
THECHILDISLACEY’S?
Brandon stared in disbelief as the woman he had just spent an incendiary night with, the woman he had been determined to make his mistress, scooped the round-faced little girl out of her sister’s arms.
Why didn’t she tell me she has a child?
