Princes of the Outback Bundle (9 page)

“Ah, hell.” He didn’t realize he’d been screwing up his napkin until he threw the tightly wadded missile onto the table and rolled the crystal salt shaker. “You don’t have to marry her, Alex.”

“Yes. I do.” Alex folded his napkin in half and half again. Placed it neatly on the table. “That’s the only way I’ll do this.”

“When’s the wedding?” Rafe asked.

“There’s the mandatory thirty-day wait, but as soon as possible. We haven’t decided where.”

“Not at home?” Rafe asked “Mau will want to be there.” By home he meant Kameruka Downs, where they’d all grown up and where Tomas still lived. Their mother, too, in her own place built after his marriage. She rarely left her remote outback home these days. Since intense media scrutiny had led to a breakdown after she’d lost her fourth child to SIDS, she despised the city, crowds, photographers.

“We’re negotiating,” Alex said. “Susannah has family interstate.”

“Not wanting to get personal,” Rafe said carefully. “But does Susannah know she’s expected to, um, produce an heir right off the bat?”

“She knows.” Alex checked his watch, frowned. “I have a meeting to get to, but I wanted you both to know I’ve got this covered.”

Rafe and Tomas exchanged a look.

“You’ve got your part of the deal covered,” Rafe corrected.

“We’ll look after ours,” Tomas added. “One in, all in.” He got to his feet at the same time as his brothers, and of
fered his hand. “Congratulations, Alex. I hope it works out for you.”

There was a moment, a connection that extended far beyond the firm handshake, the quick slap on the back, even the strong meeting of sky-blue eyes. It was the bond of brothers, the knowledge that a pact made would never be broken. They were all in this together, and, come hell or high water, they would make it work.

Then Alex was striding off between the tables with his trademark sense of purpose. Standing side by side, his brothers watched him out the door before Rafe shook his head. “Do you suppose he proposed by text or e-mail or intercompany memo?”

“Wondered the same thing myself.” Tomas scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not that I don’t like Susannah, it’s just that she’s…Susannah.”

Not Susie, like Angelina was Angie, but always the whole three syllables. Always so formal and cool and dispassionate. So absolutely unlike Angie.

“The whole deal’s too cold-blooded and impersonal,” he said, and he felt Rafe’s gaze switch and focus on his face.

“As cold-blooded and impersonal as artificial conception?”

“That’s different.”

“I won’t dignify that with a response.” Rafe shook his head and indicated the door. “You ready to go?”

Nothing more was said—and that surprised the hell out of Tomas—until they were out in the lobby and about to part ways. “Did you know Ange is working here?” Rafe asked conversationally.

Tomas tensed, then covered quickly by casting a casual glance back at the restaurant. “Waitressing?”

“I meant here as in the Carlisle Grande, in my office.
She asked if I had any jobs going last week, flying home from your place, after—”

Rafe made an expansive gesture and Tomas thought,
Yeah, after.
That about summed it up.

“I gather you’re not even considering her offer?”

No longer casual, Tomas’s gaze cut back to his brother’s face. “She told you about that?”

“We talked some. I’ve seen a fair bit of Ange this last week.”

What the hell did “talked some” mean? And “seen a fair bit of”? Was that in the office or out of hours?

Tomas forced his fingers to unfurl out of fists. Forced himself to ask some other question, any other question. “What are you going to do about the baby?”

“I have some prospects.”

“Angie?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“She’s one.” Lips pursed, Rafe studied him narrowly. “That won’t be a problem, now you’ve decided to go elsewhere?”

“If it’s a problem,” Tomas said shortly, “it’s not mine.”

What else could he say? How could he object? He shook hands and watched Rafe walk away. His own decision was made and it involved a clinic and a nameless faceless woman he had to somehow find. It didn’t involve any kind of passion or emotion or commitment. It sure as hell didn’t involve Angie’s boldly stated way of doing things!

Close your eyes, lie back, and think of Kameruka.

How many times had he closed his eyes this last week, lying back in the restless tangle of his sheets, and thought about Angie? Her soft lips grazing his skin, her exotic perfume adrift in his blood, her dark eyes filled with the wild promise of passion as she came to him in the dark.

It’s only sex.

If only he could believe that. If only he could get past the disturbing notion of the action and cut straight to the result. Because he could imagine Angie with a baby, in a wildly sensuous earth-mother way.

But Rafe’s baby?

The notion burned his gut like battery acid, the wrongness and the certainty that if his brother asked, Angie would say yes. Women didn’t say no to Rafe. Ever.

Ah, hell.

Instead of heading out to the street on a quest for cold and impersonal, he found himself in an elevator going up to the executive floor of the Carlisle Grande Hotel. And his gut burned worse than ever.

H
e found her office empty, yet Tomas had no doubt that this was Angie’s workspace. Less than two days on the job—not enough time to even change the name-plate on the door—and already she’d stamped her personality all over the place. Some—Alex came to mind—would call her desk a disaster. She would shrug and call it work in progress.

Knowing Angie, that would mean at least a dozen pieces of work in simultaneous progress.

Amid all the open folders and scattered paperwork sat a bright blue coffee mug which he knew wouldn’t be empty. Angie rarely finished anything in one sitting. Relaxing a notch, he strolled over to the desk and checked. Yup, the mug was still half full.

Wry amusement twitched at the corners of his mouth as he straightened. His nose twitched at the scent of her per
fume…or perhaps that was the bunch flowers shoved higgledy-piggledy into a red glass jar. She had a framed collage of pictures, too. One of her parents smiling into each other’s eyes on their wedding day, a more recent picture of her father gaunt with the illness that took his life, and a candid shot of the three Mori kids goofing off at the Kameruka Downs waterhole.

He’d probably been there that day—for all he knew, he could have taken the picture. There’d been so many days like that back then.

But what about now?

Tomas put the frame back, next to the coffee mug, amid the chaos that was Angie’s workspace. She’d taken a convenient job here with Rafe, but how long did she intend staying? Was she ready to settle down? Enough to raise a baby?

His mood had turned grim long before his thumb brushed over the rim of the mug, smudging the glossy imprint of her lipstick.

This
was the Angie of now, the woman he didn’t know.

The one who stained her lips the color of mocha, whose lips had imprinted his with the fleeting taste of temptation. The one whose velvet-brown eyes spoke of another wildness, a different type of passion to the laughing girl in the waterhole picture.
This
was the woman who’d stood on the steps of the plane and calmly suggested that sex between them could be fun.

With a silent oath he jerked away from the desk, his action so abrupt he almost upset the mug. He righted it quickly, pushing aside papers to make some space. And that’s when he found the book.

Babies Made Easy.

He was still staring at the cover, bemused by her choice
of reading material and the irony of that title, when Angie returned.

He heard the quick approach of footsteps in the corridor and sensed her hesitation in the doorway, her presence licking through him like the memory of her kiss—a sweet suggestion of heat and anticipation, chased away by instant hostility. Not toward Angie herself, but toward the unwanted response of his body. He didn’t know how to handle this new awareness, the strange tug in his gut, the tight dryness in his throat.

Because she was standing there watching him, eating him up with those big brown eyes.

“I didn’t expect to find you here.” She came into the room then, smiling with a warmth that made him think she didn’t mind the surprise. “How did the meeting go?”

Of course she knew they’d been meeting with the lawyer. Rafe would have told her. They talked a lot, after all. “A waste of everyone’s time,” he said curtly, irritated that the thought of her and Rafe doing anything together completely wiped away the effect of her smile.

“There’s no way out of the clause?”

“None we’re prepared to take.”

“So, you have to make a baby.” Not a question but a matter-of-fact statement as she leaned her hips against the desk at his side. She looked like a candidate for Ms. Hotel Management, in her crisp white shirt and knee-length black skirt, her hair sleek and neat, her only jewelry a fine gold neck-chain bearing the letter A.

At least she was smiling her usual Angie smile, warm and relaxed and spiced with a dash of wryness.

Then she noticed the book in his hand and her smile faltered. His appreciation of that smile nosedived right alongside. He tapped a finger against the book’s cover,
right under the title. “Interesting choice of reading, Angie.”

“I thought I’d research the topic, in case I needed to help any friends out.”

“Friends like Rafe?”

“Like Rafe or Alex or Tomas,” she corrected without hesitation. “It’s fascinating reading…although I have to say the title is very misleading.”

No kidding.

“Did you know there’s only a seventeen percent chance of conceiving each month? With odds like that, you need to get started. You all do!”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Their eyes met and held for a second, and he sensed a stillness in her, a new intensity beneath her aura of casual confidence, as if he’d surprised the breath right out of her. Hell, he’d surprised himself even though the words had come out of his mouth!

“Have you changed your mind?” she asked.

“Have you?” he countered.

“About making a baby in some sterile clinic?” With a glancing brush of fingers, she took the book from him and tossed it onto the desk. “Absolutely not.”

“I meant about helping me.”

“Does it matter? Since we don’t see eye to eye on the method, my offer of help is moot.”

“Maybe we can compromise. About the method.”

“Really?” Eyebrows arched, she regarded him steadily for a drawn-out second. “How would that work, do you suppose?”

Tomas shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t have an answer. Until this last minute he hadn’t fixed on what he’d hoped to achieve by coming up here. Making sure she
didn’t get tangled with his hound of a brother, yeah, but as for how—

“Yeesh, Tomas.” She interrupted his thoughts with obvious irritation. “You don’t know why you’re here, do you? Nothing’s changed from last week.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that you couldn’t even stand me kissing you, so why chance anything more intimate?” She blew out a short, impatient breath, and when she started to turn away Tomas reacted instinctively, stopping her retreat with a hand on her arm. For a long moment she just stood there gazing up at him, her eyes widened with surprise.

Good.

He’d caught her on the back foot for a change, and with subtle emphasis he shifted his grip on her arm, not exactly tightening but…adjusting. Just so she knew he meant to keep her there until he was done. Whatever he had to say, whyever he’d changed his mind and come upstairs, he had to put into words. Now. “You caught me by surprise last week.”

“So—” she lifted her chin “—if I’d given you more notice you wouldn’t have minded me kissing you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” she repeated softly, her gaze narrowing and darkening. “Do you want to find out? Or do you want to let go of my arm so I can get back to work?”

The challenge gleamed hot in her eyes, daring him to make that choice.
It’s only a kiss,
he told himself, but that phrasing didn’t help. Not when her words from last week twined sinuously through his consciousness.

It’s only sex.

And this was a test. If he could kiss her, if he could just bend his head to hers and go through the motions, then maybe he could do the sex part, too. Maybe.

He heard the huff of her exasperated breath, felt her start to pull away and blocked her escape with his body. Their eyes met and held. An awareness of what they were about to do charged the air between them, but a breath away from her lips, he paused, too charged with tension to breach that final inch of space.

“Go ahead,” she said softly. “I won’t bite…unless you want me to.”

His head reared back, dumbfounded when he should have expected no less. This was Angie, after all. Angie who was shaking her head with renewed exasperation.

“I was kidding. A joke, you know. Humor.”

Yeah, he knew, he just wasn’t in a kidding mood, not by a long shot.

And that she must had read on his face because she sighed, a soft relenting whisper, as she leaned forward and touched her thumb to his chin. Then she shocked the hell out of him by reaching up and kissing him there. He felt the softness of her lips, the moist warmth of her tongue and then her retreat.

A small smile hovered on her lips as she whispered, “Sorry.”

Sorry for the joke? Or for striking him dumb with that one swift touch of her tongue. Tomas tried to wrap his astonishment into words, to ask what she meant, but she took his face between her hands—the same as she’d done at the plane—and looked right into his eyes, her gaze dark and steady and serious.

“That was your notice.” She stretched to kiss one corner of his mouth and then the other. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

Before he could begin to recover his equilibrium, she moved her lips against his with soft restraint, as if she was
expecting his withdrawal…or waiting for him to take a more active role. A raw, male part of him itched to take over, but a stronger, harsher voice hammered away in resistance. It wouldn’t let him forget that this was Angie, and he had no business wanting to close his eyes and immerse himself in the lush temptation of her lips.

“Relax,” she whispered, her breath a shiver of sensation on his skin and in his blood. Her thumbs stroked his cheeks, down to the corners of his mouth. “It’s only a kiss.”

And then she kissed him the same way she tackled everything—with the same energy and heat and wholehearted passion. She kissed and she willed him to open up, to unwind, to let go. She made a sound low in her throat, a kind of smoky humming that rolled through him in one long, hot wave of desire that caught him totally unprepared, completely at a loss. All he could do was close his eyes and thread his hands into the thick softness of her hair and kiss her back.

Lord, how he kissed her back. With a hunger he couldn’t control, with a thoroughness he no longer wanted to control, with a yearning for all the intimacies he’d missed in the last years.

Since Brooke died.

That thought stalled his senses, slammed at his conscience, dragged him out of the drugging depths of that hot, wet contact. Intimacy was not what he wanted. No way. This was only a trial, proof that he could close his eyes and forget himself for long enough to do what had to be done. A means to an end and that was all.

He hauled himself back into his own space and switched his expression to deadpan. Not difficult—he’d had a lot of practice in recent years. Angie had slumped back against the desk. She shook her head as if to clear it and her eyes
looked a little dazed. Her hair was a wild tumble, her lips kissed naked and pliant, and when she crossed her arms under her breasts, he couldn’t help but notice the outline of her nipples right through her respectable white shirt.

Heat tightened his skin, itched in his hands, swelled in his flesh. He looked away, forced himself to focus on the next step, now he’d conquered the first.

“So,” she said on a breathy exhalation. “That didn’t seem to go too badly.”

His eyes met hers, held, didn’t let go. “Do you still want to help me?”

For a long second she didn’t react, and he wondered if she hadn’t cottoned on to his meaning, if he needed to spell out what he was asking. Again. Then her hand drifted to her throat, and she twisted the fine chain around her index finger. Her throat moved, as if she’d swallowed. “My way?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.” She eyed him a moment, her expression circumspect. “That’s a big step up from a kiss.”

“I know that.”

“And you think you can take your clothes off and climb into bed with me? That you can do—”

“I don’t know, okay?” And he sure as hell didn’t need her talking him through every step. He could feel the heat in his face, the tightness in his jaw, in other places he didn’t want to acknowledge, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, rearranging his weight and the tightness and the jumble of words in his brain. “I don’t know, but I want to try.”

“Because you want a baby?”

“Because I
need
a baby.”

“Right.”

There was a sting in her tone, a darkness in her eyes,
and Tomas knew he’d blown it. He knew but he didn’t have the words or the sentiment to save the situation. What could he say? He had nothing to offer, no incentive, no promises, no smooth lines. None of the weapons a man like Rafe might use. And he could no more spin her lies than he could beg for her help.

“I don’t expect you to commit to this right off,” he said. “Not without a trial.”

“Trial sex? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“One night without any commitment. If it works, then we can talk about—” He gestured toward the discarded book on top of her desk.

“Making a baby?” She stared back at him a moment, her expression inscrutable. “All right.”

All right?
Tomas swallowed and stared into her eyes. She meant it. For a panicky second his world tilted and spun, as if someone had hauled the rug out from under his feet. But then she was talking, planning, asking questions, and he forced himself to focus.

“Do you want me to come home with you?” he heard through the roaring in his ears. “I could—”

“No!”
Not in his home, not in his bed. “No,” he repeated less stridently. “That’s not necessary.”

“Well, I can’t invite you home to my place because I don’t have a place. I’m staying with Carlo.”

Her brother, his friend. God, no! “I think we should keep this quiet, just between us.”

“In case it’s a humiliating disaster and we can’t look each other in the eye again?”

“In case it doesn’t work out,” he said, meeting her eyes and refusing to think about such dire consequences. “Neutral territory would be best.”

“I suppose a hotel room shouldn’t be too hard to orga
nize, given your family owns a whole chain.” Despite that wry observation, her eyes remained dark and serious. Slowly she moistened her lips. “When do you want to conduct this…trial?”

“I’m not sure when I can get away.”

“You’re away now,” she pointed out, crossing her arms under her breasts again. Tomas forced himself to concentrate on her words. Not her body. Not the disquieting notion that he’d never seen her naked, but soon would. And he felt the rug start to shift beneath his feet again.