The Price of Honor (6 page)

Megan's stomach turned queasy, making her regret the
grilled bacon-and-cheese sandwich she'd had for lunch. She'd lost her allies. And, if she wasn't careful, she could lose her baby.

 

Xavier knocked on Megan's door for the second time. He scanned the surrounding yard when she did not answer. He knew she was here. He had seen her return from her morning run from the vantage point of Wyatt Jacobs's patio.

He checked his watch. Less than ten minutes had passed since she had entered the cottage. It had taken him that long to conclude his follow-up meeting with Jacobs and drive the short distance to Megan's temporary accommodations.

Irritation crawled across his skin. Was she avoiding him? It was not like her to be so childish, but she had been acting strangely since the news of his engagement had surfaced. Cecille should have warned him that she had released the announcement. Then he could have prepared Megan.

The fallout had taught him one thing: Megan loved him. She might deny it now, but he did not believe her. And while he hated that they would inevitably have to part, that had been the plan all along. There was no reason they could not enjoy the next eleven months. Eleven
short
months. Remorse settled heavily in his chest, but he kicked it aside. The arrangements had been made and he would follow through.

Tired of waiting, he grasped the knob and gave it a twist. As he expected, Megan hadn't bothered to lock her door. The woman was entirely too trusting. He pushed his way in, ears attuned, eyes scanning. The sound of splashing water caught his attention and revealed the reason she had not responded to his knock. He should have remembered Megan always showered after her run. She would not have heard his summons over the water.

A mental image of her naked, wet body, her ivory skin and subtle curves accelerated his pulse and spiked a ferocious hunger within him.

Too bad his course had been set years before they had met. But still, he could give Megan the world. Anything her heart desired. Except marriage. Children. And love. He never intended to enter that delusional state. Love made a man forget the things that mattered, like honor and obligations.

He would take advantage of her absence to set up his surprise. He located the kitchen and set the pastry box on the table, then he quietly searched the cabinets until he found plates and set the table. The cold, empty coffeepot took him aback. To Megan, morning coffee was a sacred experience. Watching her sip from her mug, roll the liquid around on her tongue, then swallow with an expression of pure bliss had always been excruciatingly arousing. She'd often worn the same expression when she had traced her tongue around his—

He severed the torturous thought and turned to locate filters and grounds—not her usual gourmet brand—then started a pot in the inferior drip-type machine Americans preferred. She would want the beverage to go with the
croissant amande
he had had flown in fresh this morning from her favorite
patisserie.

Until she agreed to return home with him, he would remind her at every turn of the life she had left behind—the life she could have again if she would give up her stubborn insistence on exceeding their original agreement.

Once he had plated the pastries to his satisfaction he chose a chair at the table that allowed him a clear view down the short hall to the open bathroom door. Steam rolled into the hallway, carrying the familiar scent of her shampoo. The eagerness to see her, taste her, to thrust
inside her again ambushed him. The urge to join her in the shower almost overwhelmed him. Back home he would have.

He would have stripped off his clothing, climbed into the shower stall and smoothed his hands over her wet breasts, her tight nipples then delved into the folds concealed by her curls, arousing her until she begged for mercy. Only then would he have planted her hands against the tile wall and taken her from behind, riding her like a stallion rides a mare.

Sweat beaded on his skin and his pulse raced. His trousers grew tight. He blew out a steadying breath and checked his watch again, his patience wearing thin. She was taking longer than usual in the shower. And then it registered that she wasn't humming. Megan always hummed in the shower. Unless he was with her. Then she moaned. He made sure of it.

Desire pulsed through him. He shifted in his seat, seeking a more comfortable position but not finding one in the antique chair. The water shut off. His muscles tensed in anticipation.

Her arm reached out, snagged a towel then retreated like a striptease to whet his appetite. A long, sleek leg appeared, followed by the rest of her glistening body. She had her back to him. Even from this distance he could make out the droplets snaking down her spine and over her round bottom—a trail he yearned to follow with his tongue. His heartbeat drummed in his ears when she lifted her arms to dry her hair, her face. Megan was an athlete, as her firm, smooth muscles attested, but she was also all woman.

He resented the hell out of the fact that he couldn't see the dusky tips of her breasts as she blotted them dry. She sawed the towel back and forth from her shoulders to her waist and over her delicious
derrière.
Then she leaned over
to wipe the moisture from her sleek legs. He nearly groaned at the inviting sight of her moist, pink center.

He wanted to demand she turn, but preferred not to interrupt the seductive show. Had her nipples puckered in the cool air? Had she trimmed the dark triangle of curls during her shower as she sometimes did or left them natural as they had been the other day? Either way he yearned to touch, to taste, to immerse himself in her womanly aroma.

She pivoted slowly to face the mirror with the towel bunched at her middle, giving him a delicious silhouette of her breasts, her buttocks and her long legs—legs that were sleekly muscled from riding her horses. From riding him. His fingertips dug into the arms of the wooden chair—a poor substitute for her satiny skin and supple sinew.

She dropped the towel on the counter and cupped her breasts as if weighing them, her thumbs flicking across her nipples. His pulse raced faster at the sensual gesture. He experienced only a slight twinge of guilt over his enjoyment at his voyeuristic behavior. Then her hands stroked downward, but instead of venturing into her curls and pleasuring herself as he'd expected, her fingers stopped at her waist and splayed over her stomach.

The universal gesture of a mother and her unborn child.

Denial screamed through him. Megan could not be pregnant.

Yes, she had perhaps gained weight, but that was the only reason her breasts were fuller and her stomach slightly rounded.

But she wasn't riding or drinking coffee. And she'd left him after speaking some nonsense about wanting children.

When he put the clues together, he didn't like the inescapable conclusion.

His heart slammed against his rib cage.
No!

As if suddenly sensing his dismay, she turned abruptly.
Horror widened her eyes and parted her lips. She snatched up the towel, clutching it in front of her like a shield and backing a step.

“What are you doing in my house? You have no right to be here. Get out.”

“You're pregnant.”

She gasped and paled.

“That is why you left me and why you are not riding.” He rose on legs as weak and unsteady as a newborn colt's. Fury and jealously vied for supremacy inside him. “Whose is it? It can't be mine. We used protection. Every time.”

“You're right. We used protection. Every time.” She parroted back in monotone, then ducked behind the door only to reappear wearing her robe belted tightly around her middle. A middle that nurtured another man's baby.

Damn her. Damn her to hell.

He couldn't believe she would take a lover—not after the passion they had shared, after the way he had pampered her. Not after all her claims of loving him.

Yet the evidence spoke to the contrary, did it not? Anger and resentment burned like acid in his belly and up his throat.

“Whose is it?” he repeated.

“I can't believe you have the audacity to ask that.”

“When did you have time to rendezvous with someone else? You were with your horses every day, and we were together every night.”

“Does it matter?”

Megan preferred honesty to evasion—no matter how difficult the revelation might be to hear. Her refusal to give a straight answer now said more than words. Who was she protecting?

“You betrayed me,” he growled through the rage constricting his throat.

Fury lit her eyes. She charged into the kitchen. “
I'm
the one who was betrayed, Xavier. Not you. The entire time you were making love to me, you were planning to marry someone else, and you didn't even have the decency to tell me.”

Remorse needled his skin. He rammed it aside. He had no reason to feel shame. “I was frank about my intentions from the beginning. You are the one who did not abide by our agreement—a temporary,
exclusive
affair with no strings or complications.” He pointed at her belly. “This is a complication.”

She shifted uneasily then shuffled toward the refrigerator, but made no effort to take anything out of it. Her behavior struck him as odd. Then he vaguely recalled a fuzzy black-and-white image taped to the door that he'd ignored earlier when he had retrieved the skim milk. He gripped her shoulders and moved her out of the way.

“Hey. You can't—” She slapped a hand out, but not before he snatched the print. “Give me that, Xavier.”

He studied the shape. He'd seen ultrasound images before—mostly of horse fetuses, but also a few belonging to friends gushing about their imminent parenthood. “This is your baby.”

She swiped at it again, but he held it out of reach. “Yes. Give me the picture.”

And then the black writing stamped in the white border registered. Today's date and the words
12 Weeks.

“You're three months pregnant.” His mind spiraled back.

“So?” she snipped, folding her arms and lifting her chin.

But it was the fear lurking in her eyes, rather than her defiant posture, that caught his attention. He had never given Megan cause to fear him, and there could only be one reason she would do so now.

A deadly calm settled over him, clarifying his thoughts.
If the child were someone else's, she would have no reason for trepidation. “You love me. You would not have been intimate with another man.”

Resignation slowly crept across her features and her shoulders slumped. “No, I wouldn't have cheated.”

“The child is mine.”

“Not if you don't want it to be.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, Xavier, you can walk out that door right now and never look back. Forget we ever had this conversation and go on with your life, your marriage.”

Again, not the answer he had expected. “Did you arrange this ‘accident' to coerce me into marrying you?”

She scowled. “If I had, don't you think I would have told you? What good is leverage if you don't use it?”

“Perhaps you intended to wait until after the
bébé
was born to make a claim and the engagement announcement foiled your plan.”

“Do you really believe I'd do that to you? Do you trust me so little?”

As far as he knew, Megan had never lied to him. “How— When did this happen?”

She sighed and pushed a tangled lock of damp hair from her face. “I don't know. I'm guessing Madrid. Remember when we ran out of condoms, and you bought some from that sketchy little shop near the show grounds? Maybe then.”

His body throbbed at the memory. “We ran out of protection because you were insatiable.”

Her face flushed. “Winning does that to me, and that was a really good weekend for me and my horses. You should know. You collected a ton of prize money. But you were the one who couldn't wait until we returned to the hotel.”

So he had been. Recalling that lust-filled afternoon made his body overheat. He had nearly taken her in the dark corner of the
petit magasin
where they had purchased the dusty box of condoms. As it was, he had barely been able to restrain himself until he could drag her into the dressing rooms of the show grounds for hard, fast, as-silent-as-they-could-make-it sex.

All that was irrelevant now. “How long have you known?”

She clutched the collar of her robe so tightly her knuckles blanched. “I found out about an hour before I learned of your engagement.”

Which explained the unpleasant scene in her cottage and her abrupt departure. “Why did you not inform me then?”

“Because you said you didn't want children with me. That our relationship was
casual.
”

“That was our agreement.”

“We also agreed that either of us could end it at any time with no hard feelings. Well, I ended it. You're the one who screwed up everything by following me here. But you can go home to your future wife. She'll provide you with heirs and I—” Her voice broke. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes as if struggling for composure. “I'll have my baby. We'll be fine without you.”

He battled the frustration boiling inside him. After more than a decade of plotting, he was on the verge of regaining his ancestral lands and restoring the pride his father had carelessly stripped from the Alexandre name.

Megan's pregnancy jeopardized everything. She carried his child, putting him in the same foolish and precarious position his father had been in thirty-five years ago.

Xavier could blame no one but himself for repeating his father's mistake of impregnating the wrong woman. But he would not replicate the mistakes his father had made
afterward by abandoning his bride-to-be at the altar and destroying the strong business alliance his marriage would forge.

But he, unlike his mother, could never abandon his child.