Vegas Pregnancy Surprise (6 page)

Molly slid off the desk and the distance between them went from feet to mere inches. “I’m not letting you off that easily.”

He arched a brow. “You’re…what?”

“You hired me to head up this project. And as the head of this project, I’m—” she took in a breath and drew herself up “—well, I’m ordering you to be a part of it.”

What was she doing? Couldn’t she see he wanted to leave? Her take-charge attitude surprised him, set him off kilter. He was used to being the boss—not having anyone boss him back. Oh, this woman was trouble. So much trouble.

“I’m the CEO, Molly, you can’t do that. I sign your checks.”

She grinned. “And I can’t move forward without the input of the creator.” She put out her hands. “Seems we’re at an impasse, Mr. Curtis.”

The formal use of his name sent a charge through him. Thousands of people called him that on a regular basis, but when he heard it from Molly’s lips his name sounded like a flirtation.

Leave
, his common sense told him.
Go back to work. You have no business getting close to a woman like her.

A woman who deserves…what you can’t and shouldn’t give.

He rose and took a step closer to her, ignoring the warning bells sounding in his head. Seeing only her eyes, her smile, her lips. “It does, doesn’t it?”

She inhaled, surprise lighting in her eyes as he closed the gap between them. “Then whatever shall we do?”

He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to continue what they had started two months ago. He wanted to kiss her again, to take her home to his apartment, and to take days, not a single night, to explore every inch of her sweet skin.

To kiss her from head to toe. To make love to her again and again, until the ache he felt every time she was near finally went away.

The ache, the need, for the impossible. For what his brother had had. For that window of the happily-ever-after.

He reached up a hand, capturing one long, brown lock in his grasp. It slid through his fingers like silk, and the memory of her in his arms rocketed through him. Her lips parted, and the urge to kiss her, to taste her lips again, pounded in his brain.

God, he wanted her. He’d always wanted her. That wasn’t the problem.

Having her was.

His cell phone vibrated against his hip, and reality intruded. He had people waiting for him. What the hell was he doing? He needed to be smart, sensible. Not irrational. Not let his hormones control his judgment.

Linc stepped back, breaking the contact. “I’m sorry, but my time is too limited to be much help to you. Roy knows me well enough,” he said. “That’s why I made him chief graphic designer on this project. I’m sure with his help you’ll be able to develop this without further input on my end.”

Then he turned on his heel and left, before being responsible became synonymous with being miserable.

At the end of the day, Molly journeyed up in the company elevator, telling herself she should be leaving. Going back to Hamilton Towers. Her work was done for the day—everyone else in the building had gone home—

Everyone except for Linc.

She’d known that because she’d gotten an e-mail from him five minutes ago. Direct, to the point, never veering from the topic of business. If she was smart, she’d take it as what it was—a clear sign that he wanted nothing more than work between them.

Except…

She’d seen something in his eyes today. Something that brought her back to that night they’d spent together.

Not to mention there was a lot more between them than that. Her hand strayed to her abdomen. She needed to tell him about her pregnancy, somehow. Maybe if she caught Linc alone, she’d find a way.

The elevator doors opened on the floor for the corporate offices and Molly stepped into the silent hall. Only a few lights burned, and it gave the entire space an all too intimate feel. Reminded her it was only she and Linc on this floor, maybe a few security people scattered throughout the building. For all intents and purposes, though, they were alone.

Last time they’d been alone in a darkened space, they’d ended up in bed together. Well. That wouldn’t happen this time, Molly vowed. She turned to the right, headed down the hall, then rounded the corner.

And nearly collided with Linc.

Surprise lit his blue eyes. “Molly. You’re still here?”

“Working late. Like you.” She smiled.

“Did you get a lot accomplished today?”

She nodded. “Roy and Jerome are really talented. They blew me away, the way they could take the ideas I had and turn them into a reality with just a few clicks of the mouse. Oh, and we came up with a name, too. We were thinking of calling it Inside Out Games.”

He nodded. “I like that.”

A thrill ran through her. “Good.”

Oh, that was bad. She shouldn’t be so happy that Linc was pleased with the name of the computer game, for goodness’ sake. She should instead be focusing on her goal—getting to know Linc and finding a way to tell him about the results of their night together.

Results…like thinking about the baby growing inside of her with such a detached word could take one bit of the emotion out of it for her. Every time she thought of the pregnancy, she was thrown into an emotional tailspin of what-ifs and what-will-I-dos.

“Tomorrow, when you start on the module for—”

“I don’t want to talk about work,” she cut in. “I need to ask you something.”

He shifted his stance. “Shoot.”

Before she could change her mind, she blurted out the question that had plagued her for weeks. “Why just one night?” One day, that would be a question her son or daughter would ask. Why had they only spent that single night together? Why hadn’t Linc wanted more? Wanted something more permanent? “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I am not a one-night-stand kind of person. At all. That night was such a total—”

“Aberration.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

He took a step closer. “For me, too.” His gaze searched hers, and she wondered what he read there, or, more precisely, what he was looking for. “But I don’t do commitments or relationships well, Molly.”

“Because?”

He let out a breath. “Another complicated question.”

He wasn’t making this easy. Nor was he exactly an open book. What had she expected, really? That she would step off the elevator and Lincoln Curtis would just plop his heart on the table for her to examine?

Her stomach began to rumble, then churn. She’d skipped lunch because she hadn’t felt well, and had meant to grab some crackers out of the breakroom, but got so busy she forgot. Now the morning sickness, which was a total misnomer considering it was almost seven at night, had returned with a vengeance.

“I was serious today,” she said, trying to ignore the growing upset in her abdomen, “about wanting to get to know you better.”

A smile curved across his face. “You are one determined woman.”

“Not ordinarily. I’m just…” She searched for the words, the explanation for this new Molly, this woman who was trying to grab the reins because there was suddenly more at stake.

“Just what?” Linc asked when she didn’t finish.

Her stomach pitched and rolled. God. She was going to be sick. She had to get out of here.

“Molly? Are you all right? You look a little pale.”

“I’m—” she took a breath “—fine. Really.”

This was
not
the way she wanted to tell him about the baby—just as she dashed off to the ladies’ room.

Linc reached for her, his face filled with concern, but before his touch could connect with Molly she mumbled an excuse about being late—

And hurried down the hall, escaping just before she announced her pregnancy in the worst possible way.

M
OLLY
picked at her dinner, pushing the chicken from one side of the plate to the other, piling the risotto into a mountain that she knocked down again with her fork. She was sitting in Sparkle, the beautiful, plant-draped, sun-kissed rooftop restaurant at McKendrick’s with Alex and Serena Benjamin, who had begged off from attending a political fundraiser with her new husband, Jonas, to come to dinner instead. Molly knew she should be excited to be reunited in person with another of her best friends, but she couldn’t seem to find the energy.

“What gives, Molly?” Alex asked. “You’re not exactly the life of the party tonight.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Serena asked, concern filling her green eyes. “You’ve hardly eaten a bite.”

Molly put down her fork and pushed her plate to the side. “No. Yes.” She sighed. “Maybe.”

Alex and Serena laughed and exchanged a glance.

“No. Yes. Maybe,” Alex repeated. “That’s like saying everything all at once. What are you, sick?”

“No. Yes.” Molly let out a breath. “I mean, I’m fine, I’m not sick, but—”

“That has to be the weirdest answer ever,” Serena agreed. “The only time I know of when a woman feels awful but is totally cool with it is when she’s pregnant and there’s no way…” Serena stopped talking. Stared at Molly.

Molly swallowed hard. A weak smile wobbled on her lips. She put out her hands and shrugged.

“Molly?” Alex said.

“You’re not. Are you?”

Molly nodded. “I just found out.”

Alex and Serena both exploded in cries of joy, drawing Molly into twin hugs so fierce Molly nearly couldn’t breathe.

“Two months?” Alex said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us. How did this happen? I mean…” Then the lightbulb went on. Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened. “Two months ago we were here. In Vegas.”

Molly nodded again. She had to tell them. These women were two of her best friends. Eventually she would start showing, and the questions would start. She had to come up with answers. How could she possibly tell people—strangers, casual friends, oh, God, her
mother
—that this pregnancy was the result of a one-night stand? But with her best friends, she could—and should—tell the truth. After all, they’d been there, and they, of all people, would understand.

Molly took a deep breath, then plunged forward with the story. “Remember the second night we were here, how we all kind of went our separate ways?”

Serena nodded. “You and I went to one of the bars at the Bellagio, but then you said you had a headache and you were going back to our room.”

“I did. And I was. But as I was leaving I stopped in another lounge, this wonderful piano bar, thinking maybe a glass of wine would help me feel better.” Heat filled Molly’s cheeks. “And while I was sitting there, I met someone.”

She could see it all over again, as if she were in the Bellagio’s Baccarat Bar right now, the lights dim, the pianist playing jazz music softly in the background. And then, when she’d been about to leave, Linc had taken the seat beside her, and changed everything. “He slipped onto the stool next to me and ordered a bourbon on the rocks. He was handsome—really handsome—but that wasn’t what intrigued me.”

“What?” Serena leaned forward, her green eyes wide beneath a fringe of auburn hair.

“It was his eyes,” Molly said. “When I looked at him, he looked…” She searched for the right word to describe the Linc she had met that night, the one word that could capture the reason she had decided to flirt with him, and later, sleep with him. “Lost.”

Alex had pushed her dinner aside, too, the three of them engrossed in the conversation instead of the meal. “Lost as in needing a GPS system or some other kind of lost?”

“Like he was searching for who he was.” And oh, how she could relate to him. To the year she had spent married, thinking she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, then the two years after the divorce, looking for her footing again. That was what she had felt, too. Lost, trying to find out who she was and what she really wanted in life. She thought she’d known—until the last couple of months. “So I started talking to him.”

“You started talking to him?” Alex repeated. “You? The woman who gave us a stern lecture about
not
talking to strangers the whole way down here?”

Molly laughed. “Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was being in Vegas. Maybe it was seeing what happened to Jayne when her engagement broke up so disastrously and I just sort of had this
carpe diem
moment, but, yes, I introduced myself, and mentioned that I was a kindergarten teacher in town with friends for the weekend.”

“How did you go from that to…?” Serena gestured toward Molly’s belly.

“We found out we had a lot in common.” Or at least, she’d thought that at the time. The man she had met that night had been so much more relaxed, looser. Happier. Not so buttoned-down and scheduled. Had it been the alcohol? The setting? Or something else? Something real? “And there was an attraction there. A really big one.”

She could still feel the desire that had sizzled between them. The breathless anticipation that had caught in her throat after the first time they’d kissed and she’d wondered when he would kiss her again, touch her again. Her mind painted a crystal clear picture, as if she was there now and Linc was a breath away from touching her.

“And you decided to act on that attraction with a perfect stranger?” Alex said, interrupting Molly’s thoughts. “That is so out of character for you, Molly.”

“I know. Which I guess is why I did it. One minute I’m talking to him, the next we’re holding hands, then kissing, and before we know it we’re getting a room upstairs. I wanted to…” She let out a long breath and looked past her friends, down the Vegas strip, not seeing the flashing neon and endless sea of twenty-four-hour businesses, but seeing instead the person she’d been for that one night. Someone other than dependable, predictable Molly, who did the same thing every single day, and hadn’t seen anything good come out of it except a bad marriage and a worse divorce. “I wanted to see what it would be like if I acted on my impulses. Just once.”

“And how was it?” Serena asked, a devilish grin crossing her lips. “Acting on your impulses, I mean.”

Molly sighed. “Wonderful.” Amazing. Incredible. There weren’t enough adjectives in the thesaurus to describe that evening. The way he’d taken his time, made her feel like the only woman in the world. She’d felt treasured, special, beautiful. The night had been hot and passionate, yes, but at the same time oddly romantic.

“So…where is Mr. Wonderful? Does he know about the baby?”

“He’s here, in Vegas.” Completely not the same Mr. Wonderful as that night, but Molly didn’t add that. If she did, she’d probably cry, and she refused to shed one tear over Linc. She had too much to look forward to right now with the baby. “And, no, he doesn’t know. I’ll tell him. Soon.”

Alex sat back and eyed Molly. “I get the feeling you’re leaving out part of the story. Maybe the most important part. Like what happened when you got to Vegas and reunited with super-hot guy from the bar.”

“Nothing happened. When I saw him again, he wasn’t…the same as when I met him before.” She toyed with her drink. Her appetite had deserted her, replaced by the bitter taste of disenchantment. She’d pictured such a different scenario than what she’d gotten upon her arrival in Vegas. That’s what she got for reading so much fiction. “I just need time to decide what to do.”

“I understand that.” Serena fiddled with the wedding ring she wore, and Molly wondered how things were going between Serena and Jonas. There’d been an obvious chemistry with the couple, but that didn’t mean their marriage of mutual convenience was going to work out.

At the same time Molly had been with Linc, Serena had been marrying Jonas, a total stranger, in one of those chapels of love. She’d agreed to stay married to him, though, and help him in his run for mayor of Las Vegas, so maybe things weren’t all bad. Although Serena didn’t have that same happy glow as Alex.

Molly wanted to ask, and started to, but Serena’s face brightened and she spoke before Molly could. “Well, I think having a baby is exciting, even if it’s with Mr. Wrong. I know you’ll figure out the right time to tell him, Molly. And maybe when you do it’ll change everything.” She reached over and drew Molly into a hug. “Either way, no matter what, a baby is a happy thing. A blessing. So I say we celebrate with some chocolate cake!”

They ordered three desserts and toasted the pregnancy, and for the first time since she’d seen those two pink lines Molly began to feel a swell of happy anticipation. That was the best part about having such good friends—they were there when she needed them, and they could help her see past the gray skies to the sunshine waiting on the other side.

Linc begged off early from the business dinner, pleading a headache, and had Saul drive him home. In reality, he’d been in no mood to conduct business since he’d walked out of the R & D room yesterday. Lord knew he’d done his best to concentrate, putting in extra hours, heaping more onto his “To Do” list, accepting every meeting request that came his way. But it hadn’t helped.

Every time he looked at a spreadsheet, every time he answered an e-mail, every time he picked up his phone, he saw Molly’s face, heard Molly’s voice, caught the scent of Molly’s perfume.

Last night, his dreams had centered around her. His mind had replayed that night they’d met, starting with the first time their hands had collided, skipping forward to when he’d leaned over and kissed her, and a surge of desire had rushed through him.

There’d been another kiss after that, a third, a fourth, each ratcheting up the heat level until it became pretty clear they were crossing the boundaries of what was acceptable in a public place. At the same time, they’d both said the words “get a room,” and as fast as he could lay down his credit card they were in a suite at the Bellagio.

Not that they ever noticed the elegant décor. It had been a frenzy of kicking off shoes, shedding shirts, pants—their clothes leaving a Hansel and Gretel trail all the way to the bed. And only then, when he finally had Molly’s sweet, silky body against his, did he pause to take the time to taste her skin, to shower her with kisses, to slow the tempo enough to enjoy the beautiful woman in his arms.

To make the night unforgettable.

Considering how vividly those moments still starred in his memory, that goal had definitely been accomplished on his end. Many times over.

Molly. He knew he shouldn’t, but he wanted to see her again.

The town car slowed to a stop outside the Hamilton Towers building, right behind a taxi. Linc was home, as much home as a penthouse apartment in a city that never slept could be. Another night alone—one he’d probably spend going over reports, drinking a glass of bourbon, then falling asleep far too late before getting up far too early. Linc thanked Saul and got out of the car. At the same time the door of the taxi opened—

And Molly emerged, as if he’d conjured her up simply by thinking about her. She wore a knee-length black dress that outlined her every curve, and reignited the very desire he’d been trying so hard to ignore.

Ever since she’d arrived in Vegas, he’d tried to pretend he hadn’t been affected at all by her reappearance in his life. When in truth, he’d been lying to himself. He’d been very much affected.

He just couldn’t—and shouldn’t—do anything about it. He’d made a promise, but damned if he could remember it whenever Molly was nearby.

She turned and saw him. “Hi, Linc.”

“Seems we finished our dinners at the same time.” He wanted to ask her where hers had been, but more,
who
she had had dinner with, but he couldn’t find a way to do that without seeming like an overprotective father or jealous boyfriend. And he was neither.

Molly drew her wrap tighter around her shoulders. “Goodness, it’s chilly in Vegas when the sun goes down.”

“Here.” He slipped off his suit jacket and swung it over her shoulders, allowing his hands to linger just a second.

“Thanks.” She smiled up at him. “Much warmer now.”

He was, too, but not because of what he was wearing—because he was never going to look at a suit jacket the same way again. Molly’s curvy figure gave his tailored coat a whole new look. One he wasn’t going to forget anytime soon.

Linc started walking beside her into the building. He held the door for Molly, brushing off the doorman’s attempt to get it first. At the elevator, he pressed the button for up. He should let her go home, allow the evening to end without any further interaction. She was his employee now.

Nothing more.

And that was exactly what he wanted, what he’d been telling himself he needed. Except…

That yawning hole he’d felt two months ago had returned with a vengeance, and he found himself craving what Molly had to offer. Lightness, fun, an opportunity to be someone else for just a little while. To let go of the burdens he’d carried for so long.

What would it hurt, just tonight? One more night, he told himself. Just one.

Linc turned, putting his back to the elevator. “I have a crazy idea. Are you game for something…different tonight?”

A smile curved up one side of her face, the smile he remembered from when he’d first met her, and that craving roared even stronger in his gut.

“Something different?” She considered. “What are you proposing?”

“A little bit of Vegas not everyone sees. Something off the tourist track.”

She hesitated a moment, her head cocked, studying him. “Okay. I’m game.”

“Good.” Once outside, Linc hailed a cab, since he’d already sent Saul home for the night. “Let’s tour a little of the city first.” He gave the driver some directions, then sat back beside Molly as they drove down the streets of the city.

Having lived in Vegas for most of his life, Linc had, of course, seen the city a thousand times at night. But he had never seen it through Molly’s eyes. The sun had set, and as darkness gathered over the streets, the ubiquitous lights brimmed with life, reflecting off her face in a bright, happy rainbow.