Talking Dirty With the Boss: A Talking Dirty Novel (Entangled Indulgence) (9 page)

“No, you’re not.” He stood in front of her chair, staring narrowly down at her. “You look like you’re in shock.”

“Well of course I’m in shock, idiot. I paid a ridiculous amount of money for…for
you.”

His frown deepened. “That’s not why you’re pale.”

Marisa swallowed. There would be no procrastinating around Luke McNamara clearly. “No, it’s not.”

He folded his arms. “I’m guessing you didn’t get your period after all.”

“Um…” Marisa felt as if he could see right inside her, like an X-ray. She swallowed again, suddenly unable to speak.

The lines of his face hardened. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

Chapter Six

It had been obvious from the moment she’d walked into the greenroom. Marisa Clair, pale and nervous? There could only be one reason. And now the expression on her face confirmed it.

He should be panicking right about now, or at least be in some kind of intense shock. Especially considering the icy cold that had seeped into his bones when he’d discovered the broken condom. After the possibility that Marisa might be pregnant had almost made him lose it.

But now that possibility was a reality, it wasn’t panic that surged through him. No, the adrenaline humming through his veins was more like… Actually, he wasn’t sure precisely what it was. It reminded him of those first moments behind the wheel of a new sports car. And the strange combination of fear, anticipation, and satisfaction that would go through him. Fear of the unknown, anticipation of the speed, and the satisfaction of having something he’d always wanted…

Luke shook away the thoughts. Now was not the time for navel-gazing. Now was the time to be dealing with Marisa’s bombshell.

She was opening the little purse she held clutched in her hands, fumbling around inside it, then held out a white stick and thrust it at him. “Of course I’m pregnant. Here’s proof if you want it.”

He didn’t, but he found himself taking the stick anyway, noting the telltale pink lines.

“Don’t worry. I washed it.” Marisa’s tone was acid, anger lurking in her blue eyes, a flush along her cheekbones. She was in that red silk dress he’d noticed from the stage. The one that hugged her delicious hourglass figure and made him remember things he’d tried hard not to remember for the past four weeks. Difficult when you had a photographic memory.

Not difficult. Try impossible.

Excellent, so he was thinking of sex at a time like this. Perfect. Another instance of why keeping away from Marisa Clair was a good idea.

Luke straightened and put the stick in his back pocket since after that dig he could hardly give it back to her. “I don’t need proof,” he said. “I knew the moment you walked in the door.”

She pushed herself sharply out of the chair. “Oh great. So the past few hours I’ve spent angsting about how to tell you were all for nothing. I should have displayed my pale self to you earlier and saved myself the worry, not to mention the money.”

Her hands were gripping her purse hard. The sequins on it sparkled in the light, glittering against her white knuckles. Her eyes were full of anger but beneath it he could sense her shock and panic. And no wonder—a bomb had exploded in their lives.

Luckily, he was good at taking charge of a situation when everyone else was reeling from the damage. He’d had to do that a lot in his business life, and it was part of the reason his company was so successful. He kept his head, stayed in control.

“Sit down,” he ordered. “Take a few deep breaths.”

Marisa blinked. “I’m sorry, but that sounds a lot like you’re telling me to calm down.”

“I
am
telling you to calm down. Panicking won’t help.”

“Panicking?” Marisa’s eyes went wide. “I’m not panicking! I’m ecstatic! Because what’s not to like about my life? I’m pregnant to a cyborg guy I don’t like. Who’s also my boss. Who I spent money I don’t have on in a dumb auction. Money I was going to use to be artist and get a glass studio and take a glass art course and carpe bloody diem! And now you’re going to have to tell me how I can borrow more stupid money so I can pay the stupid charity because I bought stupid you!” She took a heaving breath. “Oh my freaking God! If this is how royally I can screw up my own life, what the hell kind of mum am I going to be? I’ll probably end up like my bloody mother, a failed beauty queen living out her dreams through her children!”

The flood of words abruptly ended as Marisa took a step back and collapsed onto the chair, covering her face with her hands. She was so small and vulnerable, her shoulders shaking. Which probably meant she was crying.

The mother of your child. And she’s crying.

In the normal scheme of things, he helped people out by making logical decisions and taking action, not by giving out comfort. His parents hadn’t been the touchy-feely type and neither was he. But a weird possessiveness had gripped him. Yes, she was his now. His responsibility. And she was hurting. Which meant he had to do something for her.

Luke moved closer to her and awkwardly patted one shoulder. “There, there.”

After a second, the shaking stopped and Marisa lifted her head. Her mascara was running, her cheeks were shiny with tears, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Pain shifted inside him, a pain he didn’t understand.

“Did you pat me?” she demanded.

From the look on her face perhaps touching her had been wrong. “You were crying,” he said stiffly. “I was trying to offer comfort.”

“By patting me and saying ‘there, there’?”

“What’s wrong with that?” He tried to resist the urge to pull at his jacket. “I was only trying to help.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You’re not very good with people are you, McNamara?”

It was the truth, but somehow he didn’t much like her pointing that out. “I did tell you that, remember? Numbers are easier to work with, admittedly.”

“So this baby thing doesn’t bother you at all?”

“Of course it bothers me.” But not quite in the way he was expecting.

“It doesn’t seem like it.”

He couldn’t quite explain his feelings to her because he wasn’t sure of them himself. So all he said was, “Because panicking or getting angry or railing against fate won’t help. Or change the situation.”

“You were pretty pissed off about the possibility of pregnancy at the time, if I recall.” Her voice deepened into a pretty fair imitation of his own. “‘There will be no children’ is what you said, I think.”

“I wasn’t pissed off,” he said, uncomfortable with the memory and most especially the part where he’d shoved her up against a door, in an office, and screwed the daylights out of her. “I was merely emphatic. But I fail to see how that’s relevant to what’s happening now.”

“It’s relevant because you’re acting like a bloody robot and, to be honest, it’s freaking me out.”

“So you’d prefer me to scream and shout at you? Demand proof that you were taking the Pill? Demand a list of your lovers and a paternity test so I know it’s my baby?”

She went pale, a flash of something he couldn’t interpret crossing her face. “It’s your baby. And if you demand any of that crap, you’ll get a stiletto somewhere painful.”

Luke’s jaw tightened. This was not going at all well, and he sensed that his logical explanation as to the reasons why having a paternity test was a good idea would not be received in the spirit in which it was intended. In fact, every word he said only seemed to distress her more, and he didn’t want to hurt her. Despite her sassy, bad-girl exterior, there were little flashes of vulnerability there that always seemed to bring him up short. Bunny panties, for example. The sound of surrender she’d made when he’d pushed inside her. The way she’d melted in his arms as if she’d been waiting for him for years and now he was finally here…

Stop thinking about that.

Yes. He really did have to stop thinking about the sex.

“You’re upset,” he said after a moment, choosing his words carefully. “And I’m sorry for that. I don’t mean to distress you but…” He hesitated, studying her for reaction. She was trying to wipe away the tears and getting great smears of mascara everywhere.

“Oh, don’t let me stop you,” she said, waving a hand. “Please, I’m dying to hear what pearls of wisdom are going to come out of your mouth next.”

More sarcasm. Well, okay, he could cope with that. “We should discuss what we’re going to do. We can go to my house, I think. That would be best. It’s quiet and private. We won’t be disturbed.” That strange possessiveness was sinking down into him, holding on tight. The need to get her back to his place, so they could discuss this. Put some kind of plan in place for the baby.

Your baby…

Shock was there at the thought, definitely. And something else, too. Something like wonder. Because this was the kind of normal he didn’t think he’d ever have. Or want.

But now that it’s here, you do want it.

Hell, yes. He did want it. With a ferocity that surprised him. Though how he was going to manage this with the OCD, he had no idea.

Her mouth opened then shut again. “What? Like now?”

“Yes. The sooner we deal with this the better.”

“No. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Luke tried to stifle his impatience. “Why not? We can’t discuss it here. There are too—”

“I don’t want to discuss it anywhere, McNamara. Not tonight.”

“I understand you’re in shock. But—”

“I’m not in shock.”

“Yes, you are. And stop interrupting me. You’re pale, you’re trembling, and that purse of yours is going to split open if you keep twisting it like that.”

She glanced down at her hands. “Oh. Dammit.” Her hands stilled, but the sequins on the purse glittered, casting spots of light everywhere. “Yeah, okay, so I’m in shock. Which means I need to go home, sit down, and eat a whole tub of ice cream and chick-flick myself into a coma. Not go home with you and ‘discuss stuff.’”

“Avoiding the issue won’t help. The quicker we deal with it the less shocking it will be.”

Her head came up at that. “Oh honey, you have no idea how long an issue can be avoided.”

Honey. It had been weeks since he’d heard that in conjunction with himself. And he
really
didn’t like it. It made him feel odd. He found himself wanting to adjust his tie. Quelled the urge. “Yes, well, you may be used to avoiding issues but that’s not the way I handle things. Especially not things like this.”

Marisa raised a hand, touched her forehead briefly as if she had a headache. “Luke, please. Don’t go all alpha on me. I don’t think I can handle it right now.”

It was the first time she’d called him by his name and notsounded angry. And that made him feel even odder.

No, don’t think about it. There are far more important things you have to do.

This was true. Marisa’s news was chaos, and if he was going to manage it, he’d have to make some kind of order from it.

For a strange moment his mind went into free fall, trying to consider all the implications of this, how he would manage the issue of the OCD, not to mention all the checking compulsions and anxiety having a child would generate.

Of course the main problem was how in the hell he was going to hide it from Marisa. He kept his liaisons short and sweet for a reason—so no one would find out about his condition. But if she was having his child, she’d be around for a lot longer than a few weeks. God, what if it he had a bad episode and Marisa saw it? She’d think he was crazy, like everyone else had…

Through sheer force of will, Luke got a grip on his flailing brain. No, he could manage this. He would have to manage it. There was simply no other option.

“We need to talk, Marisa,” he said, trying to make it less of a demand. “Sorting something out now will help, I promise you. You’re not the only one whose life is going to change.”

She glanced back at him, and he got the impression she was searching for something, though what he didn’t know. “Do you have a handkerchief?” she asked after a moment.

He did. It was white and clean. Perfectly pressed and meticulously folded. Well, if he couldn’t give her the kind of comfort she needed, the least he could do was give her his handkerchief. Without a word he pulled the piece of fabric from his pocket and handed it to her.

She took it, eyes widening at the snowy white material and the perfect creases. “Did you iron this?”

“No. My housekeeper did.”

“Unbelievable,” Marisa muttered. Then she shook out the material, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. And as he watched, trying not to protest as she proceeded to decimate his perfectly clean linen, she opened her purse and got out a pocket mirror. Then she cleaned herself up, getting rid of the signs of distress before whipping out a tube of mascara and applying it with an expert hand.

He found the whole procedure oddly familiar and somehow fascinating. It was her equivalent of a ritual. A routine. Applying the mask, putting herself to rights the way he often did.

If she found his watching her odd, she didn’t comment. Once she’d applied her mascara, touched up her lipstick, and put away her mirror, she held out the now-soggy handkerchief to him.

He didn’t look at it. “Keep it.”

She frowned but then shrugged and tucked the material away in her purse. Then after a moment she said, “All right, fine. We’ll go to your place and have your little talk. But there better be ice cream, okay?” Another of her mercurial changes of mood altered her expression. “Oh, and I meant it about having to borrow money. Because I have no idea how I’m going to pay for this damn auction.”

…

“Leave the auction money to me,” Luke said, doing another of those clothing adjustment things he seemed to do a lot of. Maybe it was a nervous tic? “I’ll handle it.”

Marisa pulled a face. “Yes, but I’m the one who kept bidding when I shouldn’t have.”

“I’ll lend you the money then.” He turned toward the door. “At a nominal interest rate.”

Well, she didn’t much like the sound of that, either, not when she’d only now paid off her credit card. Man, why had she inherited her mother’s looks instead of her penny-pinching ways? Those would be a damn sight more useful, that’s for sure.

“Okay,” she said. “But it’s going to be years before I can pay you back the whole amount.”

Luke stood by the door. “We’ll solve that one once I have some time to go through your finances.”

“Excuse me?”

“Whether you meant to or not, you bought my financial services for six months. So that’s what you’ll get.” He pulled open the door for her courteously. “After you.”

Marisa didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so she said nothing as she walked through the door and out into the corridor beyond. Because his financial services weren’t exactly high priority right now. Not when she was so consumed with the embarrassment of completely losing it in front of him.