More Than One Night

chapter NINE



A WARM WEIGHT landed on the small of her back.

“Are you okay?”

As stupid questions went, it was right up there. She didn’t bother responding, simply remained hunched over, waiting to see if there would be a round two. Rhys seemed to get the message.

“Sorry,” he said. “Ignore me.”

Her stomach was still roiling, trying to decide if it was going to do another impersonation of Mount Vesuvius.

“Here. Give Charlie this.”

She recognized Holly’s voice, and the next thing she knew, a glass of cold water was pressed into her hand. She took it gratefully, rinsing her mouth out several times. Finally she felt able to straighten.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as her gaze found Rhys’s in the darkened yard. “That was…bad.”

His expression was inscrutable in the shadows. “Are you feeling better now?”

“A bit.” She didn’t sound very convincing, probably because she wasn’t one hundred percent certain that her stomach had finished torturing her for the evening.

“Maybe try some more water.”

She followed his suggestion, taking sips from the glass and actually swallowing them this time. Her stomach didn’t seem in immediate danger of exploding and she gave a small, relieved sigh.

“Better?”

“Yes.” Except for the bit where she’d humiliated herself by almost hurling in front of his entire family. Other than that, everything was just dandy.

“Sit down for a second,” Rhys said.

His gesture drew her attention to a low-lying lounger that was angled across the patio. She sank onto it cautiously, not wanting to excite the nausea again. Rhys sat beside her, his long legs bent awkwardly to accommodate the lounger’s low height.

“I thought you said you hadn’t been sick,” he said after a few seconds.

“Until two minutes ago, I hadn’t.”

“So that’s the first time?” He sounded incredulous. As well he might be.

“I was fine right up until I looked at that lasagna.”

He made a small, muffled sound. She glanced at him, and even though his face was poker straight she knew he’d swallowed a laugh.

“It’s not funny.”

“You feeling sick isn’t. But you’ve got to admit, the timing is awesome.”

Maybe tomorrow, or next week, she’d think it was funny. Right now she was too busy feeling queasy and embarrassed and miserable.

“God knows what your mother thinks of me.” And the rest of them. She could still see their shocked faces as she pushed away from the table.

“Kim and Becky both practically lived with their heads in the toilet bowl during their pregnancies. And Mum will tell anyone who sits still long enough that I gave her hell for the first four months of her pregnancy. Apparently they even thought about calling me Ralph at one stage.”

Charlie smiled slightly, despite her still-churning stomach. “No wonder your business is doing so well.”

“Sorry?”

“You’re too charming for your own good.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

She gave him a wry look. He reached out and encouraged the glass toward her mouth again.

“Drink some more water, and stop worrying about my family. You weaseled your way into their good books with that crack about me not being humble. You’re home free from here.”

“If only it was that easy,” she said ruefully.

“Trust me, it is. They’re a cheap crowd.”

She smiled again, very aware that he was working overtime to put her at ease—the way he had last week at the restaurant. Now that she was getting to know him, she suspected it was a purely instinctive reaction for him, as natural as breathing.

“I bet people don’t say no to you much, huh?”

There was a small giveaway pause before he responded. “Not often, no.”

“So I really didn’t have much of a chance that night, did I?” she said. “Once you’d engaged your tractor beam.” She’d been joking, but she could feel him tense beside her.

“You make it sound as though it wasn’t something you wanted,” he said. There was a question in his voice and she realized she’d thrown him off balance.

“I was joking,” she said. “Not very well, apparently.”

“So you don’t regret it, then?”

She turned to look at him. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, but he faced her. For a long moment their eyes met and held.

Suddenly her head was full of images from that night.

His hands on her breasts.

His weight pressing her into the bed.

The hard planes of his chest and back, smooth and warm beneath her hands.

Sitting in the dark with him with the faint, sour taste of bile in her mouth, it all seemed like a lifetime ago. As though it had happened to another person. But it hadn’t, it had happened to her. To them. For one night she’d thrown all her inhibitions, self-doubt and beliefs about herself and the world out the window and simply allowed herself to feel.

And it had been good. It had been wonderful.

“No. I don’t regret it. Not the going-home bit, anyway.” Maybe she was crazy, but despite everything, she didn’t have it in her to regret the hours she’d spent in his bed.

She swept her hand in front of her in an all-encompassing gesture. “This bit—the bit where we’ve been forced into a relationship with each other for the rest of our lives because of a faulty piece of latex—I could do without.”

“It could have been worse, you know.”

She gave a small snort of disbelief.

“It’s true,” he insisted. “You could have been a psychotic bunny boiler without a single sensible thought in your head, and I could have been a slacker, stoner loser on unemployment with a killer marijuana habit.”

She shook her head. “No. There’s no way I would have gone home with that guy. Even if I was a bunny-boiling head case.”

“You wouldn’t have had a choice. I would have trapped you in my tractor beam, remember?”

“I don’t think slacker, stoner Rhys has a tractor beam.”

“No?”

“No. I think the tractor beam is all yours.”

“I wasn’t sure I liked the tractor-beam idea at first, but it’s growing on me. I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

She huffed out a little laugh.

“How’s the nausea?”

She did a swift body check. “Better.”

“Good.”

She glanced over her shoulder toward the house. “We should probably head inside.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll be wondering what’s going on.”

“It’ll give them something to talk about. Besides, it’s nicer out here. Quieter.”

She peered at him in the darkness. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“Not. But we can go inside if you really want to.”

She gauged her own wants and needs against what she knew was the polite thing to do.

Rhys sighed theatrically and pushed to his feet. “Come on, then, if you insist on doing the right thing.” He offered her his hand. His fingers were firm around hers as he helped her to her feet.

“I hope I haven’t ruined your sisters’ birthday party,” she said.

Now that she was standing she could see through the kitchen window to where the Walkers were still gathered around the table.

“Are you kidding me? You made it a red-letter event. This will go down in the annals of Walker family history as the night Charlie nearly tossed her cookies on the table. You’re officially a legend, immortalized forever.”

She smiled, mostly because she knew she was meant to. Rhys wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“It’s not a big deal. Honestly.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” He looked at her, a warm light in his eyes.

Something tightened in her chest as she gazed into his handsome face. Not because he was good looking, but because he was so nice.

Nice—and funny and quick and smart. He smelled good, too, and the arm around her shoulder was hard with muscle. The rest of him was, too, she knew. His thighs and his belly and his chest…

She shrugged out from under his arm. “Better not keep them waiting.”

She didn’t look at him again as she headed for the back door.





IT WAS ONLY WHEN Charlie slipped out from under his arm that it hit Rhys that he had no right to touch her so familiarly. That they didn’t have that kind of relationship.

Yet all night he’d been fighting the need to touch her, to protect her, to literally shield her with his body.

Clearly, there was more than a little caveman blood running in his veins.

He was half a second behind Charlie as she reentered the kitchen, in time to witness his smart-ass family offering her a rousing round of applause.

For a long beat Charlie’s face was a study in shock then her mouth curved into a slow, appreciative smile. She glanced at him, checking to see what he made of his family’s antics, and he rolled his eyes.

“They think they’re funny,” he said.

His mother ushered Charlie to her spot at the table, minus the plate of lasagna. He resumed his own seat, watching with satisfaction as his parents refused to accept Charlie’s apology for something that was clearly beyond her control. If anyone was to blame, they said, it was the person who’d created this situation in the first place. At which point all eyes turned his way for the second time that night. He was about to defend himself, when Charlie beat him to it.

“It wasn’t Rhys’s fault,” she blurted.

All eyes swiveled to her. Rhys watched, fascinated, as color climbed into her pale cheeks.

“I mean, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Or maybe it was both our faults. But really it was an accident. It’s the twenty-first century. Condoms are supposed to work, right?”

The moment the word condoms slipped out of her mouth her eyes widened and her gaze shot to the children’s end of the table. Meg snorted wine out her nose while Rod choked on a piece of garlic bread. The rest of the table erupted into laughter—which was almost loud enough to drown out Garth’s youthful, carrying tenor.

“What’s a condom, Mum?”

Charlie dropped her head into her hands as the laughter cranked louder. Rhys waited until he spotted the smile hidden behind her hands before allowing himself to grin.

“Let me get you some salad, sweetheart,” his mother said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. She patted Charlie comfortingly on the back as she went to fetch a clean plate.

The rest of the evening went smoothly—or as smoothly as any Walker family gathering ever did. Charlie managed to eat a little salad and a handful of crackers, then they cleared the table and dimmed the lights before bringing out Kim and Becky’s birthday cake. Gifts were offered and accepted, and soon the table was covered in torn wrapping paper and discarded envelopes.

Rhys kept checking in with Charlie, catching her eye across the table to gauge how she was doing. Her color remained good and she seemed to be enjoying herself—although he had to admit that sometimes it was hard to tell with Charlie. She was adept at keeping up appearances. But her laughter and smiles seemed genuine to him, and there was no doubting her sincerity when she pulled two small, beautifully wrapped boxes from her handbag and offered one each to the twins.

“Just a little something,” she said as she handed them over.

“You shouldn’t have—but that doesn’t mean I’m giving this back,” Kim said, her fingers already untying the colorful ribbons.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Becky agreed.

Almost in unison they unwrapped their boxes and each extracted a bracelet, silver with intricate beading, Kim’s in dusky-blue tones and Becky’s in sea green. Rhys could tell by the way the other women of his family oohed appreciatively that Charlie had made good choices.

“The woman in the shop said the artist lives in the Blue Mountains,” Charlie said. “There were other colors, so if these don’t suit I’d be happy to swap them—”

“It’s lovely. Beautiful,” Kim said. Standing, she walked over to kiss Charlie’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Becky followed suit. Rhys watched as Charlie fussed with her handbag, making a big deal out of hanging it over the back of her chair again to cover her self-conscious pleasure at his sisters’ reactions. Her cheeks were very pink and she ran a hand over her hair as though checking to make sure all was in order. Then, while he watched, she settled herself and took a steadying breath and slowly but surely composed herself.

It was an impressive feat of self-control. He’d already noted how self-contained she was. How disciplined.

She hadn’t been self-controlled in his bed that night, though. She’d been wild and willful and passionate. Abandoned, even. So much so that it had taken him weeks to get her out of his head.

“Who wants coffee or tea?” his father asked.

Rhys realized he was staring at Charlie, so he stood. “I’ll take care of it.”

The small domestic task kept him busy for the next several minutes. The coffee mugs had barely been drained when his siblings started making leaving noises. While they gathered their children, he made eye contact with Charlie and cocked an eyebrow, asking if she was ready to go. She shrugged and nodded, which he took to mean she was happy to leave when he was.

He turned to his mother, ready to say goodbye.

“Can you help me take the rubbish out before you go?” she asked before he could get a word out. She had that look in her eye again. The one that said she had something to say to him.

“Sure.” No point trying to put off the inevitable. His mother was as ruthless as the KGB when she wanted something.

“Won’t be a second,” he said to Charlie.

He collected the bulging bag from beneath the sink and made his way outside. His mother followed him, carrying a token juice container to justify their joint excursion. Rhys dumped the garbage in the bin and turned to face his mother.

“What’s up?”

“Why does anything need to be up?” she asked.

“Mum. Please. Subtlety was never your thing. Play to your strengths.” He watched as she tried to decide whether to pretend to be offended or to simply cut to the chase and start the inquisition.

“Charlie’s waiting,” he prompted her.

She gave him an exasperated look. “You know, I can’t wait till this baby of yours is old enough for you to understand how I feel right now.”

“My child will never have sex,” Rhys said. “I’ve already decided that. So he or she will never be in this situation.”

His mother’s smile was nothing short of patronizing. “Of course not. He or she will be perfectly polite and obedient, too, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“She’s not what I imagined, you know.”

The smile faded from Rhys’s lips. Finally, they’d come to the point.

“When I heard how you met, I had a picture in my head. A cliché, I guess. Big hair, short skirt, platform heels, too much makeup—”

“Thanks, Mum.” As a comment on his taste in women, it wasn’t very flattering.

“But she’s nothing like that, is she? I can see now why you believed her when she said the baby was yours.”

“She’s not a liar.”

“No. She isn’t.”

His mother fixed him with a determined look. “You should know that I’m going to ask for her number and I’m going to stay in contact. Not just because I want to be a part of this baby’s life. She hasn’t got any family, and she might have questions and I want to let her know that we’re here for her if she needs us.”

Rhys frowned. “It’s a nice idea. But she’s a very private person, Mum.”

“I want her to know she’s not alone.”

“She already knows that. She’s got me.”

His mother patted his arm. “Not in the way that I had your father. I know you’re doing your best, but it’s not the same as knowing that you’ve got someone by your side who loves you and is as excited about the baby and what happens next as you are.”

He stared at her, wanting to deny her words while, at the same time, knowing she was right.

“Charlie will be wondering what’s taking so long.”

He entered the house, heading to the bathroom to wash his hands. The kitchen was empty when he returned, but he could hear voices in the adjoining room. Charlie, his sisters and sisters-in-law. He collected his coat and went to join them.

He arrived in time to watch his mother press a scrap of paper with her number on it into Charlie’s hand, which, of course, necessitated that Charlie offer up her own. He swooped in before the other women of his family could get the same idea.

“Time for us to hit the road. I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow,” he said.

Charlie focused on his mother. “Thank you for a lovely meal. And I’m sorry about the, uh, sickness. The lasagna really did look beautiful.”

“It was our pleasure, Charlie,” his mother said.

“Thank you for our lovely presents,” Kim said.

Charlie lifted a hand in an awkward wave, but his mother stepped close and gave her a warm hug.

“It was lovely meeting you. I hope we see you again soon.”

Charlie blinked rapidly a few times as she drew back from his mother’s embrace. A few more farewells, and then they were on the porch, the door closed behind them.

Charlie was quiet as they made their way to his car. He waited until they were both buckled in and the engine running before speaking.

“Well. We survived. Mostly intact, too.”

“You have a nice family.”

“I have a loud, overbearing, opinionated, rude family. But it’s nice of you to say so.”

She smiled faintly but didn’t say anything else. He thought about what his mother had said about Charlie feeling alone. It was almost impossible for him to put himself in her shoes. Frankly, he was having enough trouble dealing with his half of this situation. But he wasn’t the one who would be carrying a baby to full term, and while his life was about to change significantly, it wouldn’t change as profoundly as Charlie’s.

He tried to find something to say that would bridge the gap between them. But there were no words that could undo the child that was growing inside her, and there was no magic wand he could wave to change their relationship. It was what it was.

Imperfect. Inconvenient. Unconventional.

Beside him, Charlie yawned, one hand lifting to cover her mouth politely. “Sorry.”

He put the car in gear. “Let’s get you home.”





CHARLIE’S “EVENING SICKNESS,” as Rhys soon dubbed it, was not a one-off occurrence. As she entered her tenth week she became far too familiar with the queasy, uneasy feeling that gripped her like clockwork the moment the sun went down. It didn’t take her long to learn that from approximately 6:00 p.m. onward she was good for nothing but lying on the couch with one of her many baby books, nibbling on dry toast or a banana.

She told Rhys as much when she canceled their second get-to-know-you dinner and he insisted on swapping out for a lunch so she would have her evenings free to wallow in her misery—his words, not hers.

“That’s very generous of you,” she said.

“Thank you. I thought so, too.”

She didn’t need to see him to know he was smiling. She leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the corner of her desk.

“I think a really generous person would volunteer to swallow several tablespoons of syrup of ipecac, to show his true solidarity,” she said.

“An interesting idea. Let me think about it for a few weeks and get back to you.”

“Some women believe the human race would have died out long ago if men had to have babies, you know,” she said. “What with all the varicose veins and morning sickness and episiotomies.”

“I would totally be up for it if it was possible. But, sadly, it isn’t.”

She liked the way his voice got a certain note in it when he was teasing her.

“You’d better hope they don’t make a huge leap in reproductive science in your lifetime,” she said.

“No kidding.”

She was still smiling when she ended the call a few minutes later, and the next day he made her smile some more when they met in Surry Hills to try the Mexican restaurant she’d read about. They discussed the biography of Steve Jobs she was reading over bowls of fresh guacamole and crispy corn chips, sharing a pitcher of fruity nonalcoholic punch. Conversation shifted to his family as they shared a platter of fajitas, with Rhys filling her in on the various romances and courtships that had led to his siblings’ marriages.

“I still think it’s weird that you’re the only one who isn’t married yet,” she said as she used the last of her tortilla to mop up her plate.

“Just as weird as you not being married.”

Her response was out of her mouth before she could think it through. “It’s not the same. Not by a long shot.”

“Why not?” His gaze was direct and questioning.

She shifted, regretting her unthinking words. “I’m really thirsty. Do you want some more punch?”

Rhys cocked his head. “Am I missing something here?”

“No.” He didn’t need her to point out how good looking he was and how average she was and how that affected their respective chances for attracting the opposite sex. The man had eyes in his head.

The topic changed and she heaved a silent sigh of relief and made a mental note never to discuss Rhys’s marital status again. It was none of her business, anyway.

Still, she found herself wondering about his love life as he settled the bill at the bar. Probably because the waitress was pouring on the smiles as she served him.

There was no way that a man like him didn’t have a woman in his life, even only on a casual basis. Every time they’d gone out together he turned female heads—yet he’d never mentioned another woman in her presence.

So what? He doesn’t have to offer his whole life up to you on a platter. And you don’t have to offer everything up to him, either.

Not that there was much to hold back. But the principle was sound.

The following week Rhys couldn’t make lunch, so he compensated by coming to her place on Friday night with a bunch of bananas and a DVD. She was more touched than she should have been that he’d remembered bananas were one of the few things she could stomach.

They wound up talking through the DVD and eventually she turned it off so they didn’t have to do battle with the sound track. She told him about the coffee date she’d had with his mother, an event that could have been awkward and horrible but had been thoroughly enjoyable. Rhys warned her that his mother had a sixth sense for anything remotely private. Charlie put on her best poker face and told him that she’d already told Holly all the juicy details about their one night together. Rhys fixed her with a knowing eye and refused to rise to the bait. As the evening wore on he told her all the choice exploits he and his brothers had gotten up to when they were younger and she reciprocated with hair-raising tales from recruit training.

“I don’t know how you stuck it out,” he said when she’d finished telling him about how she’d had to complete a ten-kilometer hike—with a ten-kilogram pack—twice in order to accomplish it in under the required time limit. “I would have told them where to stuff their stupid requirements.”

He was lounging in the Eames chair, feet propped on the ottoman, his shirt open at the neck and pulled out from the waistband of his trousers. His shoes lay unlaced on the floor beside his chair. He looked big and rumpled and supremely at ease sprawled across her vintage furniture.

“If you want in, you have to pay the price of admission.”

He made a derisive sound. “Who told you that bull? One of your sergeants?”

“My father, actually.”

He winced. “Open mouth, insert foot. Sorry.”

“It’s all right. I can understand how it might sound a bit slogany to someone who didn’t know him.”

“He was in the army, too, right?”

She nodded. “He was in the engineers corps. Right up until when I was born. Then he had to take a compassionate discharge.”

“Because of your mum.”

“Yes. There wasn’t anyone else to take me.” She stirred, swinging her legs from the couch to the floor. “Would you like a coffee? Or a cup of tea?”

He eyed her steadily. “It’s all right. We don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind talking about him.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t like the idea that he thought she was running away from something or avoiding a difficult topic. She’d offered him coffee because she’d thought they’d exhausted the subject of her father.

“Ask me anything. What do you want to know?”

“What was he like?”

“Hardworking. Loyal. Dedicated.”

“I meant as a father. Were you friends?”

She rested her hands on her knees. “We didn’t have that sort of relationship.”

“So you didn’t get on, then?”

“We didn’t not get on, either. I guess, if I had to say anything, I’d say that we didn’t really know each other very well. But that’s hardly surprising, really. As he said more than once, it would have been much easier if I’d been a boy instead of a girl.”

“He said that to you?” Rhys sounded offended on her behalf.

“He didn’t mean it in a bad way. He simply didn’t know what to do with a girl, that’s all. Still, the plus side was that I knew how to tune an engine by the time I was twelve. You’d be surprised how often it comes in handy.” She stood. “Sure you don’t want a coffee?”

“A glass of water would be great, thanks.”

She nodded and headed for the kitchen. Her movements were stiff and tight as she moved around and she almost spilled the first glass of water when she pulled it away from the tap with too much force.

She shook the water off her hand, aware of an irritated agitation within herself. She dried her hand on the tea towel and returned to the living room with a glass for each of them.

She handed one to Rhys, but he caught her wrist before she could retreat to the sofa again.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Charlie.”

“I’m not upset.” The high pitch of her voice belied her words.

Rhys held her gaze and after a second she looked away. She pulled her wrist free and returned to the sofa, setting her water on the coffee table. She stared at her hands for a long beat before looking at him again.

“The truth is, I don’t like talking about him because it feels like unfinished business and I know it will never be finished because he’s dead now. Which is stupid, really, because it would never have been finished even if he’d lived to be a hundred and fifty.”

She dropped her gaze. Rhys didn’t say anything and she felt an unexpected surge of gratitude for his sympathetic silence.

“I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I think the thing is, he was a man’s man, you know? A soldier. He didn’t talk about his feelings. Ever. God knows how he managed to meet and woo my mother, because he was a man of very few words. But I guess he did woo her, or I wouldn’t be here, would I? And maybe he was different before she died.” She shrugged. “Either way, I think he was probably one of those people who should never have been a parent. He had no natural instinct for it. So he did his duty, but that was about it.”

“Did you join the army for him or for you?”

She gave a tight smile. “Good question. At the time I thought it was for me. But then I kept waiting for some sign from him that I’d finally got it right. Whatever ‘it’ was supposed to be. It never came, of course. But by then I’d worked out that the army and I weren’t a bad fit, after all. You work hard, they reward you. That made sense to me.”

“How did he die?”

“Pancreatic cancer. He didn’t tell me until the end. And even then it was one of the nurses who called me. He died the next day, before I could get compassionate leave to come home.”

“Hard yards, Charlie.” There was a world of sympathy in his voice.

“It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t awful, either. There are a lot of people with uglier stories to tell.”

Rhys frowned. “I’ve always hated that argument. As though just because you can find someone in the world worse off than you, your own stuff isn’t supposed to count or hurt.”

“I was trying to appear stoic, if you must know.”

“Walkers don’t do stoicism. We wail, we complain, we gnash our teeth and bitch and moan. We kick up a stink and rock the boat. You should try it sometime.”

“Maybe I will.”

His eyes were very warm as they watched her and she could only hold his gaze for a few seconds before she had to look away again. His phone beeped to signal an incoming email. She watched as he slid his phone from his pocket to check it. He put it away again almost immediately.

“Real estate agent,” he explained when he saw her surprise. “I looked at an apartment he was selling on the Finger Wharf at Woolloomooloo a few weeks back and he hasn’t stopped bugging me since.”

“You’re not interested?”

“Nope.”

He stretched his arms over his head, straining the buttons on his shirt. Charlie caught herself staring and made herself look away.

“I should head home. Let you get to bed.” Rhys started to lift his legs from the ottoman. “Ow.” He leaned forward, gripping his calf, his face creased with pain.

“What’s wrong?”

“Cramp. Get it all the time,” he said through gritted teeth.

Charlie crossed to his side. “You need to stop clenching. Flex your foot,” she instructed, batting his hands away.

She dug her fingers into his calf, massaging the spasming muscle. He groaned and she dug a little harder, reaching for his foot. Gripping it, she arched it toward his body, then away again so his foot was extended. She repeated the motion and after a few seconds she felt his muscle loosen beneath her fingers.

“Better?”

“Yes. Man, that’s a killer.”

She dug her thumb into his muscle one last time before letting go and straightening.

“You need to stretch more.”

“That’s what my personal trainer says.”

“He’s right.” She was standing so close the outside of her thigh was pressed against his knee. She told herself to move, but Rhys looked at her with an appreciative smile and her legs ignored her.

“You have strong hands,” he said.

“Thanks. I think.”

“That was a compliment, in case you missed it.”

“I’m not sure it is.”

“Sure it is. I didn’t say you had man hands.”

“God forbid.”

His smile broadened. Of its own accord, her gaze drifted below his neck. She could see the dark curls of his chest hair through the open collar of his shirt, and a small patch of his flat belly where his shirt had ridden up. His knees were slightly bent and the fabric of his trousers hugged his legs, outlining his powerful thigh muscles.

She knew what those thighs looked like. She knew what lay between them, too.

Suddenly he shifted, dropping his legs to the ground. She took a hasty step backward as he stood. Her heel caught on one of his shoes and she lost her balance.

Rhys’s reflexes were lightning fast as he steadied her with one hand at her waist and the other on her upper arm.

“Sorry.”

His eyes were very dark as he looked at her. “I think this is officially déjà vu.”

It took her a moment to understand he was referring to the night they’d first met. Looking into his handsome face, she felt a bittersweet pang of regret for the excitement and promise of that night.

“Did you ever get that shirt cleaned?”

“Nope.”

“I left you money.”

Her gaze dropped to the strong column of his throat. Not so many weeks ago she’d kissed him there. She’d pressed her face against his skin and inhaled the lovely smell of him. Spice and man and heat.

“I know. I have to say, I thought you were a little on the stingy side. Took a while for my ego to recover.”

She started then saw his smile and realized he was joking. She smiled sheepishly. “I never thought of it that way.”

“I should hope not.”

“If I had I would definitely have left a bigger tip.”

He laughed. His fingers flexed lightly into the muscles of her shoulder and waist, almost as though he was encouraging her to step closer.

Maybe.

Hot desire flooded her as she contemplated taking that step. The urge was so powerful it stole the breath from her lungs and made the backs of her knees, the creases of her elbows and the nape of her neck instantly damp with sweat.

A long-drawn-out second passed as they stared at one another. Then another.

She had an out-of-body experience as she imagined how they must look to a fly on the wall, standing so close, him holding her as though he was about to kiss her.

As though they were lovers.

Maybe.

She sucked in a shallow, inadequate breath and forced herself to step backward instead of forward. He let go of her slowly, reluctantly—or so it seemed. And then she took another step and common sense returned with a rush of cool objectivity and she shook her head at her own foolishness.

“I’ll get the DVD for you.” She walked to the player, crouching to hit the eject button and collect the disk. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him sit and grab his shoes. By the time she had the DVD in its case he was on his feet again.

“Thanks for coming over,” she said, careful to keep her voice absolutely neutral as she passed him the DVD.

“Thanks for having me.”

They walked to the front door in thick silence.

“I’ll call you on the weekend,” Rhys said as he faced her across the threshold.

“Okay.”

He turned toward the stairs.

“Drive carefully,” she said.

She pushed the door shut between them, only letting out her breath when she’d twisted the lock. She stood very still, listening to his retreating footsteps. Then she walked into the bathroom and flicked on the overhead light. She stood in front of the mirror and stared herself in the eye.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

The woman in the mirror stared back at her. Her hair was a straggly mess, her lipstick long gone, her complexion unflatteringly pale. She looked tired and very, very plain.

As she always did.

Far too plain for a man like Rhys Walker to want.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said again. Because it was good advice and it bore repeating.

She reached for her toothbrush and prepared for bed—brushing her teeth and washing her face before smoothing on moisturizer. She walked into the bedroom and stripped off her jeans and sweater then pulled on her pajamas.

Right from the start she’d been very clear with herself about what she wanted from her relationship with Rhys—security, love and stability for her child. Another pair of loving hands. Extended family.

What she didn’t want was to develop some kind of ridiculous unrequited crush on a man who was around only because of contraceptive failure. She had spent the first ten years of her life craving something from her father that he had never given her, and she’d learned her lesson as far as that sort of pointless, soul-destroying yearning went. By the time she was twelve she’d understood that happiness was about setting her sights on the things that were possible, the things she could earn and achieve herself without relying on anyone else.

Rhys was not one of those things. She could not win him with her attention to detail and her conscientiousness. She could not earn him with her staying power and determination and smarts.

Therefore she would not want him. She simply refused to. Refused to set herself up for failure and pain by buying into a ridiculous fantasy that would never come to be.

She climbed into bed and turned off the light. She closed her eyes and instantly she was in her living room, staring into Rhys’s face, feeling the pull of desire, every inch of her skin lighting up in anticipation of his touch.

Her lip curled into a sneer at her own foolishness, but she didn’t force the memory away. Instead, she fixed it in her mind, going over and over it, forcing herself to imagine what Rhys had seen when he’d looked into her face—her neediness, her desire, her hope. Forcing herself to see the scene as it had really played out, and not through the hazy, gauzy filter of wishful thinking.

Heat washed through her—embarrassed, self-conscious heat this time instead of desire.

Thank God she hadn’t obeyed the voice screaming in her head and taken a step forward. Thank. God.

Tugging the covers higher around her shoulders, she rolled onto her side, her hand sliding to cover the barely-there bump of her belly.

After long moments the tight feeling in her chest eased.

The small person growing beneath her hand was what was important right now. Nothing else.

Good to remind herself of that.