ROMANCE: MAIL ORDER BRIDE: The Other Man’s Baby (A Clean Christian Historical Western) (New Adult Inspirational Pregnancy Romance) (26 page)

She’d never been inside a mansion before, at least not one that wasn’t the museum residence of a long-dead famous person.  Mick Mantoro lived on an estate in a wooded area.  There was a security gate barring entrance; when the car—not the Mustang this time, but a smoky blue SUV that rode like a cloud on wheels—approached, the gates opened.
“It knows?”
 

“Henry does.  Henry opened the gates.”
“Where is Henry?  And who is Henry?”

“Henry is a butler, a bouncer, and a buddy all in one.  Everyone needs a Henry.”
The house was huge. As they walked up the circular stone steps that curved around a wide, columned porch that looked something designed for another century, when people had servants and schedules that required them to do nothing but sip cold drinks and remain at leisure, Carli tried to find something disparaging to say about the architecture, but the design was impressive.  “Do you keep a harem here?” she asked as Mantoro opened the door and let her enter first.  It’s an awfully big house?”
He took her coat and hung it in the foyer closet.  “No harem.  I just need to find a woman young enough to fill all these rooms with children.”  He burst into laughter at her expression.  “Got you.”

“You certainly did.  How many rooms are there?”

“Plenty.  But only one master bedroom.”
“Do I get to meet Henry?”

“Henry is discreet and done for the night.  So is the rest of the staff.  Here’s the den.”
She was surprised that the den wasn’t heavily masculine in style.  The carpeting was plush, a warm, pale, orange sherbet hue that balanced the maple furniture and mocha-colored drapes.  She kept walking until she came to the bookshelves on the opposite wall.  “Real books,” she noted, pulling out a biography of Ernest Hemingway.

“Impresses the grad students.”

“I’m not a Hemingway fan.”
“Why not? He’s a neat, clean writer, doesn’t waste words. I hope I box like he writes.”
“He was an insecure, overbearing egotist.”
“True, but irrelevant.  He was a great writer.”
“Five wives?”
“Read him, don’t marry him.  Are you going to come and sit on the couch or are you going to evaluate my library?”
Something, half flirtation, half trepidation, kept her standing in front of the bookshelves instead of settling into the amber-cushioned couch which looked as if it were more comfortable than the beds that most people slept in.  The furniture was spacious enough to suit Mantoro’s physical size, but not heavily dosed with testosterone ambience.  A woman could have done the decorating; she wondered if one had.

“Carli?”

“Hmmm? Don’t you like any female authors---“

“I have every book Willa Cather wrote.”
“She didn’t write many.”
“Carli, I didn’t invite you here to start a book group.”
“Why did you invite me here?”
“To get to know each other better.”
“And sex.”
“Promise?  Okay, bad joke.  Are you nervous?”
“Should I be?”
“If, after I retire, I go back to get my master’s, will I answer every question with a question?  Come sit down.  I won’t attack you.”
She sat down near him, but with space between them, sinking into the cozy, comfortable cushions with a feeling of surrender.  Mantoro was wearing black trousers and a maroon and black sweater. Maroon looked good on him, and she guessed that he knew it.  Mantoro had every reason to be on good terms with his mirror.

“You could sit a little closer,” he invited.

“I could sit on your lap, too, but I don’t think so.”
He smiled.  The lighting in the room was warm, inviting an atmosphere of secrets shared in privacy.  “So what do you need to know?”

“What are you willing to tell me?” she returned, her chin tilted up so that she could meet his gaze.

“I’m willing to tell you that you’re the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, champ, that won’t fly.  I’ve seen the woman you’ve been with.  A-list, C-cup.”

“You have no idea what effect you create, do you?”

The next thing she knew, his mouth was upon hers, seeking more from her lips than any kiss could possibly have expected except that she was answering him with kisses as demanding as his own.  She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the hard walls of unyielding muscle, and when he pressed her back against the couch cushions, she didn’t resist. 

Mick Paused. “What if I’m in love with you?” He asked, his voice slightly muffled. 

She wondered if that was why she had pursued him, first through the ruse of the interview, and then by not denying him when he sought her company.  Was there a primitive hunger for someone strong and masterful whose power she could match with her femininity and her brain?  Was that why her mother had fallen in love with Carlos Jimenez? The polarity of their bodies finding evenness in their ardor?

Don’t think, Carli, she told herself, her hands lost in the luxuriant thick locks of his dark hair.  Don’t think about it.  Don’t think that these hands that are touching you, making you want to weep with delight, are the same hands that knocked your father into defeat.  Don’t think.

“Carli,” he said her name with prayerful reverence that was markedly at odds with the reaction of his body. 

“What if I’m in love with you, Carli?”

“Then we have a problem.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

At some point during the night, he’d awakened and carried her to his bedroom. She awoke when dark night still cloaked the sky outside the windows. The room was unfamiliar, the bed unknown, but the recumbent form curved against her body was warm and welcome, and she held him close, still holding fast to her vow not to think.  But she knew, even as she fell back asleep, that the reckoning was coming.

It came when she awoke to find him looking down at her, his head resting on one hand, the fingers of the other hand trailing sensual, exploratory lines upon her back.

“I don’t know. I thought—I’ve spent so much of my life wanting to hate you for defeating my father.”

“So what is this?  Revenge?”

She kissed his chin.  He’d taken punches on that chin, but not many.  “No”
“I need an answer.”  He was smiling now.  “Say it.”
“I love you,” she whispered into the taut cavern of his collarbone.

“I didn’t hear you.”
“I love you.”

“And what do people in love do?”

She shrugged.
“What’s wrong with this generation?   People in love get married, Carli,” he told her in a playfully scolding tone.

That smile.  That wonderful, knowing, playful, full-lipped smile.  She raised herself up to kiss him.  “Okay.”

It wasn’t an easy conversation, telling her father about Mick.  His forehead was furrowed as he listened to her.  They were sitting at the kitchen table.   Mick was outside in the car; he had driven her to her father’s; he said he’d wait outside; she wasn’t taking the subway for this, but he wasn’t going to sucker punch her father, either. “I’ll come in and meet him as your father,” Mick said, kissing her before he gave her a small push toward the SUV’s door.  “But first, you have to tell him about us.”
“Why didn’t you just say something?” Carlos asked.  “I never expected you to carry a grudge. It was a fair fight.”
“You never wanted to talk about it.”
“I lost.  Why would I want to talk about it?  But I don’t live it every day. You shouldn’t have, baby.”
“I know.  I guess that, after Mom died, it was easier to hate him than to miss her.”
Her father shook his head.  “You were too young to feel that way.  I should have seen it. But what did I know about nine-year-old girls? We missed her, that’s all I knew.  I still miss her—“

They both looked up as the doorbell pealed.  “I’m not ready for Aunt Rosa’s questions,” Carli said as they both rose to answer the door.

“She always calls before she visits.”
It was Mick, standing on the porch, ready to ring again until he saw the door open.  “I was worried,” he explained.
“Whaddiya think I was gonna do, spank my daughter for falling in love?  Come in, Mantoro, I guess you and I have some talking to do.”
After his wife died, Carlos had learned to cook, to clean, to keep a house, and to make very good coffee.  He poured a cup for Mick and pointed him to a chair at the table.

“I told Carli, I didn’t hate you for beating me.  I stayed in the ring too long.  Don’t you do that.”
“I have to fight Guerrara.”
Carlos nodded. “I know you do.  But I don’t want my girl going through what my wife went through when she was alive.  All I had was my boxing.  You have more than that. Fight him and retire. Go out on top.”
Mick studied the man in front of him. Carlos in his sweatshirt and sweatpants, in need of a shave, his hair needing combing, was the opposite of the smooth-shaven, well-dressed younger man.

“I envied you,” he said.

“Me?”
Carli was as surprised as her father.

“Why?”

“I had a crush on your wife.  Not that she noticed me or any other man.  Hilary Jimenez was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and when you were fighting, her eyes never left you.  And then you had that daughter . . . I figured that was as good as it could be.  I was sorry when your wife died.”

“Yeah,” Carlos said, taking refuge in his coffee.

“I guess . . . should I ask your permission to marry your daughter?”
Carlos snorted. “Carli?  She’s been making up her own mind since she was in diapers.  If she wants to marry you, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
“Would you stop it if you could?”
“”You’re not good enough for her,” Carlos told him bluntly.
Mick’s face fell in shock and disappointment.
“Dad—“ Carli protested.

“But no one would be.  Wait until you have a daughter; you’ll see what I mean.”

Her dad squeezed her arm as the crowd cheered.  “He did it!”

Carli was crying in relief.  The fight was over.  Mick’s luck had held, and the referee had raised his arm in victory.  But it had been a long fight; she knew, from her father, how sore Mick would be the next day.  Guerrara was ten years younger, and a lot hungrier.  Mick had admitted to her before the fight that he’d lost the hunger.  Marriage gave him a different perspective.  He hadn’t announced his retirement, but Carli and her father knew.  Mick wanted to focus on his business, and he’d hired his father-in-law to help.  He wanted, he had told Carlos, to develop and train young boxing talent and Carlos was the perfect candidate for the job.

Carli had never expected her husband and her father to become business partners; nor had she expected them to become friends.  Carlos spent a lot of time at the Mantoro home, and Carli learned why the house was so big. It was because he wanted family around him; when Carlos visited, or Rita, or other family members, they had their own room.

But there were still plenty of rooms for children, Mick had told her on their wedding night six months ago.  She’d been an only child, and was in accord with Mick’s desire for a large family.  As his eyes scanned the crowd and found her, she waved her arms to attract his attention.  He saw her, and smiled. She saw his lips move. She couldn’t hear his voice over the noise of the clapping crowd, but she could read his lips.  “Yo, Carli!” 

Trophies, championships, they were secondary.  She had feared for the outcome of this bout, her father’s defeat etched in her memory so strongly that she dreaded the day of the fight. She had news for Mick that she’d withheld because, if he lost, she wanted to have good news to tell him.

But he’d won. He’d said he would, but champions always said that. She smiled jubilantly at him. The man she’d regarded as her family’s enemy was the cornerstone of her life. His business interests, her father’s involvement, her studies, all these now would move to the side, because the child she carried in her body—as big as a blueberry, the obstetrician told her—would be the new champion in their lives.

**THE END**

“Put up or shut up,” Asia Ferrell muttered as she pulled into a parking space at General Supply Warehouse, Inc--GSW. She turned off the engine and leaned her head back against the seat. Returning to Spring Valley, Maryland after seven years away and to the same office she had started out at was nowhere on her ten year plan.

But what about her life right now was on her ten year plan? Back in town for less than five days and her aunts were already pestering her to find a good man and get serious about her accounting career.  Little did they know she’d only requested this transfer so she could put in her notice and go to work for Uncle Mike, managing his diner.  She couldn’t wait to learn his old soul food recipes and experiment with some new ones.

It hadn’t worked out that way yet. Instead of putting in her notice, she was getting ready to walk into the one place she swore she would never return to. Why? Because of her insane need to please her father. 

Right before his wedding, she had been all set to tell him she wanted to quit working for GSW. Before she could say a word though, he had begged her to return to the home office and look over the books while he was away on his honeymoon. He believed there was a discrepancy of some sort.  She could have turned him down, but her father never asked her for anything.

So instead of quitting, here she was, filling in for him as head accountant.  She climbed out of her car and headed toward the building.

“Asia Ferrell, well, well, you really are back. I read the memo, but didn’t think you’d actually have the nerve.”

Asia paused and closed her eyes. Peter Matthews. It figured that the first person she’d run into would be the supervisor she’d had an affair with seven years ago. Just perfect. He was the reason she’d spent the last seven years in Germany in disgrace.

She opened her eyes and turned to watch as Peter caught up with her. And wow, did he look good. Light brown skin glowing, his curly hair cut short, and a navy blue suit that fit him perfectly, definitely custom, no off the rack clothes for him.  The glasses she had always thought were so sexy were updated and looked better than ever. Dang, why did he have to look good?

“Peter,” she acknowledged because there was no way she was going to smile and act as though they were old pals. To give herself credit, he hadn’t told her he was engaged when she started seeing him. She’d come to work at GSW after college graduation—the company had helped pay for her education.  Peter claimed the need for secrecy was due to office rules against dating coworkers.  The truth was he and the boss’s daughter, Lucy, were engaged.

The only reason Lucy’s father, Skip, hadn’t fired her on the spot was because he knew he could get more work out of her if he threatened to fire her father instead. Thank God, her dad was moving to Nashville with his new wife and changing jobs in less than a month. She no longer had to worry about him.

Looking her up and down like, Peter said, “I’ve thought about you…Asia.”

What? Was she supposed to drop to her knees and be thankful? She didn’t think so. “No, we’re not doing this, Peter.” She pointed her finger from him to her. “You and me, we’re nothing. Don’t think about me. Don’t look at me.  I’m out of here in two weeks. Two weeks. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

Leaving him with his mouth open, she stormed past him into the building without looking back. Yes, something right today. It took everything she had not to look back. She patted her curls around her shoulders and took a deep breath. Before she could step through the security doors into the lobby, a hand grabbed her arm like a vice. What—

“No. You listen to me, little girl. I run things around here now. Skip might be the boss in the sky, but I run everything here on the ground. I can make your time heaven. Or hell. You choose.”

She narrowed her eyes and took a good look at Peter. No, he wasn’t as attractive as he used to be. His eyes that had once been warm were now cold and hard. “Let go of me.”

“Remember what I said. Just like before, your relationship with me can make you or break you.” He shoved her arm away and walked through the doors. Furious tears filled her eyes. She hated him. Now it was even harder to walk through those doors. 

Put
up or shut up, Asia
. Both, this time.