STORM: A Standalone Romance (20 page)

Nicolas crossed the room then turned and looked at me, his eyes telling me he knew what I was up to and he intended to stop me. My heart was pounding. I pressed my hands to my belly, wishing I could hide the evidence of my pregnancy and we could go back to him not knowing and me planning to raise a child on my own. However, I knew from the look on his face that was not going to happen.

“We need to talk,” he said.

I nodded and waved him to one of my chairs. He looked around, and I saw the place through his eyes—a worn sofa, two mismatched arm chairs, and a threadbare rug in the center. Well, I didn’t care what he thought. I was doing the best I could. It wasn’t like I had billions in the bank like the whole world knew he did.

He sat on one of the armchairs and raked his fingers through his hair. He looked so gorgeous then that I felt my heart melt. Nicolas Costa was a beautiful man—and I didn’t use that word lightly. Very few men can be called beautiful. But Nicolas…he had the most intense dark eyes, a deep caramel brown that could be almost amber when he was angry or excited. Or aroused.

I blushed as that thought crossed my mind. I shouldn’t know what this man looked like aroused. He was married the whole time I knew him. Yet, I did know, and it was a source of deep shame.

I watched him and wanted to feel sorry for him. He had, after all, just lost his wife. But I was aware that he had the means to crush me completely. That’s why I couldn’t feel sorry for him, why I had to harden my heart.

But I’d never been that kind of person.

“Would you like some coffee?”

He nodded absently. “Thanks.”

I went into the small cubbyhole of a kitchen and put on the coffee maker, turning my face as I scooped out the coffee. I hadn’t had a lot of morning sickness, not like some women. However, there was something about the smell of coffee that had a power over me that I couldn’t quite overcome.

“Does the smell bother you?”

I jumped at the sound of his voice almost directly behind me. I didn’t look back as I tried to steady my pounding heart. The kitchen suddenly felt as though the air was being sucked right out of it.

“Do you have trouble with the smell of coffee?” he asked again.

I nodded. “Some days are worse than others.”

He nodded as though he understood completely. At my questioning glance, he said, “I’ve read up a lot on pregnancy.”

That made me curious. He hadn’t seemed all the interested before. However, I refused to ask. It really wasn’t my business.

His hands came down on my shoulders, gentle but firm, and set me ablaze. I sucked in a deep breath as I felt hot white lust burn from somewhere deep in my center and pool just below my abdomen. The same thing had happened once before…but I tried not to think about that moment. I wanted to step away from him, wanted to go about my business like he hadn’t come into the room at all. He was so still. What would I see in his eyes if I turned around? Did he know how my body was betraying me, how turned on I was just by the sight of him, by the feel of his touch on my body?

It is the hormones, I told myself. All the books said that all the extra blood flow that pregnancy created led to a heightened sense of sexual arousal. That is all it is, right?

But a part of me knew that wasn’t true, either. I wanted him with a desperation that was new to me, and I was helpless against it. Slowly, he turned me around till I was facing him. I stared at the spot between his shoulder and neck and wondered what it would feel like to run my hands over the muscles there. I could feel my chest tightening, and I was beginning to have trouble catching my breath.

The sound of the coffee percolating through the machine and—more importantly—the smell that wafted through the air brought me back to my senses. I jerked away from his touch, marching out of the kitchen to my tiny bedroom, dashing into the bathroom before he could say a word.

I couldn’t do this. I needed to get him out of my apartment.

“Ana?” he called through the closed door. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I called, as I turned on the water and splashed my face.

It crossed my mind to call the police. I had my cellphone in my skirt pocket. But then I realized that Nicolas had a contract I signed that gave him rights to this baby. Any cop in his right mind would never get between a man and what was rightfully his. I could claim the baby wasn’t his, but an amniocentesis could prove it was, and I wasn’t about to put this baby in a position in which it would have to endure such an invasive procedure. I’ve watched plenty of reality television and I’ve seen the needles they used to draw the amniotic fluid out of the uterus. I’m not afraid of needles, but that one kind of freaked me out.

That left me with few, if any, options.

I stepped out of the bathroom and practically walked into his chest. He was right there, in the middle of my bedroom. My bed, in all its unmade glory, was just a foot to his left. Could this be any more awkward?

“Ana?” He touched my face with the back of two fingers. “You’re pale.”

“It’s not every day the father of my baby shows up on my doorstep and demands to talk to me.”

“Yes, well, it’s not every day the surrogate carrying my child disappears without telling me the procedure worked.”

“How did you find out?”

He shrugged. “A private detective. It didn’t take much for him to track you down, or for your frequent visits to the obstetrics clinic, or pictures of your growing belly to express the obvious.”

“Why would you track me down if you didn’t know about the baby?”

His eyes dropped from my face briefly. “I had my reasons.”

I felt a little bit of a cold chill wash down my spine at the same time my lower belly began to smolder again. I was afraid I knew what he was talking about, and I really didn’t want to entertain what that might mean.

His eyes came back up to mine again, and I wanted to fall into them. He was so handsome! I would have to be inhuman to be able to resist his charms. The memory of his lips on mine was still so strong that it might have happened this morning instead of more than three months ago. My lips remembered that touch; my skin remembered the touch of his hands on my back, my ribs…I so wanted him to touch me again. And then I remembered the way he pushed me away that afternoon and the shame that rushed over me when I realized that I’d allowed myself to fall into the arms of not only a married man, but the man married to a woman I was quickly considering my friend.

I started to walk around him, needing to put space between us. He grabbed my arm and—thanks to that growing baby bump—I lost my balance and fell against his chest. His hands came around me, pressing against the small of my back, forcing me forward just enough that my distended belly pressed against his pelvis.

“It’s so firm,” he said, a touch of wonder in his voice. He stared down at my belly, his hand coming around to touch the side of it. A lot of women are embarrassed by their growing baby bumps, but I was proud of mine. However, having Nicolas touch me made me conscious of myself in a way I hadn’t been before.

I tried to back away again, but he was still holding me with one arm around my waist, his hand pressed to the small of my back. He pulled me close to him again, his free hand sliding over my belly to cup the very top curve of the bump.

“The baby’s about the size of an apple now. Did you know that?”

I nodded. I had an app on my phone that told me each week how big the baby was and what I should be experiencing as far as symptoms went.

“It’s amazing to think you have an entire human being growing inside of you,” he said, awe and grief mixed in his voice.

It was the first thing he’d ever said that I whole heartedly agreed with.

I pressed my hand to the top of his, both stilling it from moving any further along the curve of my abdomen and to offer some sort of comfort. I wondered if he was thinking about Aurora. She’d only been gone a little less than three months, just a week and a few days less than my mom. I wondered if he’d grieved the way I had. As I still did. But, somehow, I doubted it.

“You’ve been seeing a doctor, right? Everything’s okay?”

“Everything’s right on track.”

“Do you know what it is?”

I shook my head. “I’m supposed to get a sonogram in a month that should show the sex. But I haven’t decided yet if I want to know.”

“I do,” he said. “It’d make it much easier to prepare the nursery.”

And with that, my desire to comfort him was gone. I pulled away and again tried to move around him. This time he let me go.

He followed me into the living room, but instead of sitting back in the armchair he’d abandoned earlier, he gestured toward the kitchen. “Do you mind?” he asked, reminding me of the fresh brewed coffee.

“Go ahead. The mugs are in the cupboard above the sink.”

I settled on the couch, as he rummaged around for the cup he wanted, then poured himself a steamy portion of coffee. I could still smell the overpowering aroma, but it didn’t bother me as much now as it had when it was first brewing. It was like my nose had to get used to an unfortunate scent before it signaled my brain that this wasn’t something that should cause my lunch to come back up for an encore.

He drank more than half the mug as he stood at the sink. I watched his throat muscles move as he did, wondering how he could stand the scalding heat. However, when he lowered the cup and moved to pour more, I could see the exhaustion that left shadows around his dark eyes. It reminded me of the many restless, nightmare filled nights I’d had since my mother died. I wondered if the same thing haunted his nights since Aurora’s death.

He came around the narrow counter that separated the kitchen from the living room and settled again in the armchair. He glanced at me, his eyes finding my belly again, as though he couldn’t quite make himself believe it was real.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“My mother died,” I said, surprised at how quickly tears rushed to my eyes at the mention of that dark, horrible moment in my life. “It happened just two days after the procedure.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, a sincerity in his eyes that made me believe the sentiment was real. Then his eyes fell to the floor. “And, I suppose, I didn’t give you much reason to trust me, especially after what happened the last time we saw each other.”

I blushed as the memory of that afternoon burst through my mind, as though it had been waiting at the edge of my mind for just this opportunity to shine once again.

I’d stopped by their house at Aurora’s request. It was a day before the implantation appointment. She’d called me at lunch time, overcome with excitement because the doctor had just called to let her know the eggs she’d donated days before had successfully been fertilized with Nicolas’ sperm and were dividing at the appropriate rate. The doctor felt they would be ideal for the procedure that was already scheduled. Aurora wanted to celebrate, but she was apparently alone. So, she invited me over to have dinner with her and talk about this tiny human being that had yet to be inserted into my body. I was excited, too. The idea of creating life when my mother was facing such a dark period in her life had seemed like a nice distraction. But when I arrived at the house, Nicolas was there alone.

***

“Aurora went out,” he said quite briskly, as he let me into the house. “But if she invited you over…”

“Maybe she forgot.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. She’s done that a lot lately.”

Nicolas walked to a nice bar set in the corner of his living room, pouring himself a healthy slug of brandy. As I watched, I couldn’t help but think that Constance would have to wash that glass in the morning.

“Do you want some? Might be your last chance.”

I smiled as the thought of the soon to be baby crossed my mind again. “No. I’ve never been much of a drinker.”

“I never used to be, either.”

He swallowed the drink he’d just poured himself and turned to the bar as though he was going to pour himself more. But then he pushed away from the bar and turned to me. His eyes were dark and smoldering, as though he was thinking thoughts that were too deep to be expressed in anything as simple as a general expression. And then he crossed to me and caught me by surprise by setting his hands on my shoulders.

There had been a sort of smoldering attraction between us from the first moment we met. The way he looked at me, the way he asked me questions about this process, about my life, and how having a baby for someone else would change my life. He’d never done anything inappropriate, but there was something there, just under the surface, that I’d been unable to ignore. I thought it was just me, just the way I felt as if I knew him because of Constance’s stories of him, the way his face was familiar because of the many pictures I’d seen of him over the years. I had thought that it couldn’t be anything more than that. But now…

“Ana,” he murmured in a sexy voice that’d kept me up almost every night since the first time we met, “you feel it too, don’t you?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I was afraid he was talking about something complete innocent and I would make a fool of myself if I answered that I wanted him, too. Then, I looked up and met his eyes, and I was nearly singed by the heat I saw in their depths. We stared at each other in silence, neither saying a word, yet each communicating in a manner that was as old and as ancient as the mountains.