“Wrong. You’re the only woman I want in my bed. I know it’s been a while since we made love—”
“Oh, shut up.” His stunned look pleased her immensely. “We’ve never made love. Four months ago, we had sex. Bad sex.” Crossing to the closet, she welcomed the heat of anger leaping into his light eyes. At least the emotion was an honest one. “I agreed, when you insisted we continue to go out, because I considered you a friend.” She ripped down the dress her mother had no doubt paid a fortune for, stomped to the bedroom door and jerked it open. “But you aren’t the friend I thought you were. I’ve given you my answer. I don’t need any more time to think, and I’m not interested in any more of your bullshit. I want you out of my life. I don’t want you contacting my family. I don’t ever want to see you again. Is that clear enough?”
He stepped forward. She slapped the dress to his chest. Lifting her chin, she dared him to continue the conversation. She’d scream the house down.
Without a word, he brushed by her into the hall. She slammed the door with a resounding crash.
Dropping her forehead to the door, she followed the din of heated conversation drifting up from the hall downstairs until the raised voices ended in condemning silence. She rubbed at her temples. Though the chaos on the first floor was not of her making, the result was the same.
Calamity Jane strikes again.
****
Gabe spotted the scrap of black lace sticking out from beneath the bed. He crossed the room, scooped up the bit of cloth, and grinned. “Forgot something in your race to leave, didn’t you, little cat?” He rubbed the silky material between fingers and thumb, his grin broadening at the thought of Shae fleeing back to her hotel bare-assed beneath her sleek skirt.
He dropped to the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. When he’d awakened to find her gone, he called Michael and got the name of her hotel. The satisfaction in the older man’s voice be damned. This thing between them was too powerful to let her walk away without a word.
If she’d taken a cab instead of walking the streets of her beloved Paris, she would have reached her room by now, but she didn’t answer. Disappointed at not hearing her voice, he left a message. “Shae, it’s Gabe. You should have taken a cab. Now I’ll worry. I’d hoped to convince you to extend your stay, but perhaps I’ll see you back in the States.” He brought the panties to his nose. Her subtle scent wafted through his nostrils, just as memories of the night they’d shared drifted through his mind. “I can’t thank you enough for leaving behind your little memento, especially since you slipped away before I had the chance to say”—he dropped his voice to an intimate croon—“good morning, beautiful.”
Chapter Five
With Christmas just around the corner, New York and its citizens were full of good cheer. Colorful lights twinkled on every lamp post and throngs of seasonal entertainers descended on the city streets. Jane stretched on tiptoes to see past the stalled pedestrians clogging the sidewalk two blocks from her apartment. She shivered, eyeing the group of eight scantily clad street performers. Joyous music suddenly blared, and the eight maids-a-milking twirled into motion, dipping, spinning, and bowing, to the delight of their impromptu audience.
Christmas spirit sadly lacking, Jane pushed past the appreciative crowd, anxious to be home. Her feet dragged when she finally arrived at her building and climbed to her fifth-floor studio. God, was it the eighth day of Christmas already? Where had the time gone? It seemed like yesterday she’d snuck from Gabe Sutton’s Paris hotel room.
She paused in front of her apartment door and dropped her forehead to the cool wood. She’d tried to cling to the flu theory for her lingering illness, but doubt kept shoving aside various acceptable explanations to make room for a single, much more ominous reason she wasn’t getting better. Pregnant.
No! Women like Jane Whitmore didn’t get knocked up. They graduated from college and spent a few years enjoying the life of a young, carefree New Yorker. They traveled, dated, and built their careers before meeting a man to settle down with to live a happy life.
She straightened, unlocked the door, and rammed a shoulder against the wood to aid in opening the sticking upper corner. Kicking the panel shut, she headed straight for the miniscule bathroom in the far corner of her tiny studio. Unwanted pregnancies didn’t happen to women like Jane Whitmore…but to Calamity Jane Whitmore?
Slumped onto the closed toilet seat, she shrugged out of her heavy coat, tore the gloves from her hands, and tossed both to the floor. With shaking fingers, she dug into the plastic pharmacy bag and lined three boxes on the chipped porcelain sink. They stared at her like taunting cardboard soldiers. Nausea threatened, and she snatched up the first.
The instruction sheet shook as she read the directions. Pee on the stick and wait five minutes. No change, no baby. Blue line…