A Baby by Chance (16 page)

“I’d see to it,” Madison promised, wondering even as she spoke how someone as passionate and exciting as Chance could also be, at heart, so solid and dependable.

“Although,” Chance continued matter-of-factly, almost as if she hadn’t spoken, “I’m not sure how appealing fenced-in horses would be for an ad, even if you had a cowboy riding among them.”

He was right on the mark about that, Madison thought, admiring his vision. Fenced-in anything didn’t hold a candle to wild and free.

Unable to resist, she edged closer, inhaling the brisk, spicy scent of his cologne. “We could use digital cameras and cut the fence out of the shot with computers. The important thing would be to have the mountains in the backdrop.”

Chance leaned back in his swivel chair, his disappointment in her obvious. He propped his feet on the edge of his desktop, cocked his head and gave her a thorough once-over. “Is this Madison the woman talking or Madison the account exec talking?”

There was no need for him to be so rude when she was trying to make up with him. Madison’s shoulders stiffened. “What do you mean?” She hated the way he was looking at her—like she was a lost cause.

Chance reached over, his hand brushing her linen-clad thigh, and turned on his printer. As it sputtered to life, he leaned back, lifted a hand to his jaw and rubbed the angled contours with a slow deliberation she found extremely annoying. He completed an even more thorough survey of her face. “I mean, are you being nice to me all of a sudden because you feel bad about the way you acted earlier this afternoon—first jealous, then bitchy, then aloof?” he queried softly. His blue eyes glinted with a cynicism that stung. “Or because you don’t want me getting difficult on you again?”

* * *

I
T WAS EASY
for Chance to see his words had hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. And though he’d never meant to hurt her, he couldn’t exactly say they were undeserved, either. He didn’t care if this pregnancy had turned her into a bundle of hormones. Madison Burnes needed to learn to put
people
before business every time. It was the only way to be truly successful, no matter what line of work you were in.

“I’m sorry.” Madison swallowed as Chance retrieved the pages spitting out of his printer. Clearly, Chance thought bitterly, she’d had time to reconsider her actions on the drive to and from town in the Double Diamond pickup truck he’d loaned her.

Madison lifted her head proudly. “If I’ve been prickly it’s because I’ve been embarrassed. I knew all along I had no right to wonder about the specifics of your personal life.”

“Why? Because it might help us to get closer?”

“Your private life is your business,” Madison continued.

“You can say that again,” Chance said gruffly, tossing the printed pages into a file on his desk, leaning forward and shutting the printer off with a decisive snap.

He hadn’t had to answer to anyone about anything since he’d left Lost Springs Ranch, and he didn’t intend to start again now. He was his own boss. He lived his own life. And that was just the way he liked it. So why did he suddenly want Madison to understand and approve of him? It didn’t make sense.

Madison twisted her hands in front of her. Swallowed again. Persisted with typical Madison determination. “It’s just—seeing you with Rona, knowing you’re the father of my baby—it struck a nerve with me. It shouldn’t have, but it did.”

Chance stood and closed in on Madison deliberately, not stopping until only a scant two inches remained between them. He stood with legs braced apart and gazed at her like a hawk eyeing his prey. He wanted her to continue telling him what was on her mind, and in her heart, but only of her own volition.

Her voice turned even quieter. “Knowing you’d once had a sexual relationship with her struck another one.”

Chance wasn’t going to apologize for that, any more than he expected her to apologize for any relationships she had been in. Reaching out to others was—and always would be—a very important part of one’s life. Even if you weren’t very good at it in the long run.

Chance hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and shrugged. She desperately needed reassurance for reasons that had nothing to do with him, and damned if he didn’t find himself wanting to give it to her anyway. Maybe it was because he understood how much higher the stakes were now that their baby was involved. They couldn’t afford to let anything, past or present, get in the way. “I imagine we both have people in our pasts who ultimately were wrong for us,” he told her warily.

Madison nodded, but to his frustration did not elaborate about her past love life.

Silence stretched between them, more uncomfortable than ever, broken only by the sounds of the birds singing and the wind rustling through the leaves on the cottonwood trees. For a moment he thought she was going to shut him out again, as she always did whenever he started to get too close. Then with a sigh of resignation, she clasped her hands in front of her and glanced away. “I don’t want my child to grow up in the kind of family I grew up in.”

Neither did he, from the sound of things, Chance thought.

Knowing a loving touch could gentle even the wildest filly, Chance touched her face with the callused roughness of his palm, cupping her chin in his hand, moving his thumb across the trembling softness of her lower lip. “So we’ll find a way to do better.”

“How, Chance?” Madison turned away just as he had the sharp suspicion she really wanted him to kiss her. Misery radiating from every inch of her, she began to pace. “How can we do that with both of us doing our own thing, seeing other people whenever we feel like it?”

Chance was beginning to see where this was going.

Madison would never admit it, but despite the fact that neither of them was the marrying kind, marriage—the safety of it, the commitment of it—was what Madison needed. An affair, with all the loopholes and easy outs, would never cut it for her. Never give her the security she deserved. The question was, did he have it in him to give her what she needed? And maintain his own lifestyle and independence, too? Could he give her what she needed without sacrificing his own dreams?

Oblivious to his thoughts, Madison continued with her usual practical take on things. “We won’t be married, of course—”

“Of course not,” Chance cut in dryly, glad to see he and Madison were on the same page, after all.

“But if we’re raising a child together, it will sort of seem like it to our child. And the older our child gets, the more he or she is going to be aware of our relationship.” She knotted her hands together in frustration. “I don’t want our child to see us get involved with person after person after person. It would be...confusing.”

“And then some,” Chance agreed with mock solemnness, wondering where in heck Madison was going with this. Clearly, she had some objective in mind. “So what are you suggesting we do?” Chance squinted at her, trying to read her mind, not to mention what was in her heart. “That we both swear off sex until our kid is grown up?” That was ludicrous!

“Of course not.” As Madison faced him, bright color stained her cheeks. She laid a hand against her breasts. “I would never ask you to deny your...your needs in that respect any more than I would want to deny mine for the rest of my life!”

“Then...” Chance left the question hanging.

“I was wondering. As long as you’re not emotionally involved with anyone else, and neither am I—” Madison hesitated, her lower lip trembling. “Maybe we could agree to sleep just with each other.”

* * *

A
RIVETING SILENCE
fell between them that had Madison’s heart doing flip-flops in her chest and all her nerves jangling. She could see his shock doing battle with his interest. No doubt about it, she thought as his sexy smile widened, he loved her proposed arrangement. “Hmm. Steady sex without the wedding rings or any of the other attendant hassles,” Chance declared finally with a long sigh of anticipation.

Madison shrugged, aware the idea wasn’t as ludicrous as he was making it sound, even if saying it out loud had made her feel all hot and flustered. She and Chance were both very passionate people who currently had no outlet for their passion. “We made love before without being in love.”

“Which is how we ended up in this situation,” Chance pointed out, obviously not nearly as anxious to jump into bed with her again as she was to jump into bed with him.

Desperate to restore some normalcy to the situation, Madison ignored the heat washing over her breasts and thighs and gave him a carefully friendly smile. “I just thought it would make things simpler.” Chance wouldn’t be deprived of something he might otherwise feel driven to get. She wouldn’t have to feel jealous. Neither of them would have to be frustrated or lonely. Plus, pregnancy had left her feeling sexier than she had expected. She went to bed every night remembering what it had been like to lie in his arms and woke up every morning desperate to do so again. Only her stubborn wish to keep their relationship simple and uncomplicated had kept her from giving in to that desire thus far. But now that she knew there was nothing simple about sharing a child, anyway...

“What about the business aspect of all this?” Chance folded his arms across his chest and lounged in front of the huge fieldstone fireplace. “I thought you were concerned about mixing business and pleasure,” he reminded her, looking determined to break down every barrier she’d put up around her heart.

“I still am,” Madison said, as she fought to control the situation the only way she could—with a bunch of new rules and an entirely new contract. But she could see he wasn’t concerned. Never had been. Never would be. Maybe because sex with her and their business together always remained totally separate in his mind. But then he was self-employed, Madison reminded herself hotly, even as she yearned for the freedom he already enjoyed. If she alone could decide what was proper and what was not, she’d already be sleeping with him. And why not? She’d proved she was capable of successfully doing business that involved him, regardless of the fact they’d tumbled recklessly into bed and were now having a child because of it.

“So?” Chance prodded, lifting a brow.

But there were still ad agency rules to follow, Madison realized, disappointed. “So we’d wait until after the ads were finished, my business here at the ranch over, and then pick up where we left off, so to speak.”

Something sexy and dangerous glimmered in his eyes. “Sort of an ongoing hit-and-run proposition, so to speak,” he mocked dryly.

She could see, even though he didn’t want to be, he was interested in her matter-of-fact proposition.

Unable to help herself, Madison flushed. “It’s only going to be another month or so, Chance.” One that would seem an eternity to her, but would pass nevertheless.

“Even so—” Chance paused and shook his head. And Madison knew with a surge of disappointment what he was going to say even before he spoke.

“Sleeping with each other whenever the spirit moved us would only make things more complicated,” Chance said abruptly, the muscles in his jaw tightening in a way that let Madison know she’d struck a nerve with her unexpected proposition.

In for a penny, in for a pound. She was not going to give up yet. “How do you figure that?”

“Suppose we’re sleeping together, and then one of us does meet the love of our lives, then what?” Chance asked, carefully studying her face for her reaction.

Maybe I already have met the love of my life,
Madison thought. Shocked at the possibility, she pushed the unwanted thought away. Cooler heads prevailed, she reminded herself. And with so much at stake, she couldn’t afford to go around falling in love with anyone, not even Chance Cartwright. “First of all, that’s not going to happen.” Chance was not going to fall in love with someone else.

“But if it did,” Chance persisted, beginning to smile, as if he were seeing things she didn’t want him to see.

Madison flushed self-consciously.

“Then what?” Chance persisted.

Still holding Chance’s gaze, she lifted her shoulders carelessly, let them fall. She was not going to let him goad her into blurting out anything foolish, like the fact that she might just might be starting to fall in love with him a tiny little bit.

“Then we renegotiate our contract with each other, I guess,” Madison told him carelessly, as even more warmth crept into her cheeks.

Chance tilted his head to the side. His gaze lazily tracked the shape of her lips, her breasts, before returning to her eyes. “You don’t think that will be messy?”

Madison tingled everywhere his eyes had touched and everywhere they hadn’t. “I think we’re both very good businesspeople, Chance. I think we can handle anything we set our minds to handle.”
Including and especially each other.

Chance frowned, and for a second she could have sworn he was teasing her. “I don’t know, Madison. My understanding of these things is they just happen. It isn’t like you can pick a date or place and say, ‘Hmm, I think I’ll meet someone and fall in love today.’ When something like that hits you—and it doesn’t hit often—it hits with the swiftness of a lightning bolt. You’re powerless under the spell.”

Madison studied him even as she listened to the reverence in his voice and the mingled emotions of awe and yearning in his deep blue eyes. She had to hand it to him—he really sounded like he knew what he was talking about. “That’s just it, Chance. I don’t want to be powerless.”

Maybe if she took these feelings she had for Chance and dealt with them openly and honestly, she wouldn’t be caught unaware by the desire. Or blindsided by it. The reality was, it was going to be very hard to share a baby with him and not eventually make love with him again. That being the case, why not accept the inevitability of the situation and work out the ground rules for any further lovemaking in advance? Heck, maybe if they made love a few more times, she would eventually get him—and their passion—out of her system. Because passion alone could not last forever. Her father and mother and darn near every other married couple she knew had told her that.

Chance regarded her. “I can’t say I’m not tempted to haul you into my arms right now and make love to you all over again.”