Lady Love (16 page)

“No,” she said curtly, looking away. He was Adam all over again, wanting her for what she had, for what she was. Her eyes closed.

He sighed heavily. “I even know what you’re thinking,” he said quietly. “I suppose it will take time.”

“What will?”

“Convincing you to marry me,” he said carelessly.

She looked at him, her green eyes wide. “No!”

“Yes.” He lifted her slender hand to his mouth and kissed the palm slowly, softly, looking into her eyes. “You’re in love with me, Merlyn. You said so.” He sighed roughly. “I’ll never get over that as long as I live. I was too shocked to save myself. I let you lead me off like a lamb going to slaughter.”

Her face flamed, and she tried to jerk her hand away, but he wouldn’t release it. “Some lamb!” she whispered, glancing around to make sure no one was within hearing.

“Merlyn,” he said gently, “I’ve never before let a woman do to me what you did. I suppose it was misplaced pride or masculine arrogance…but I always had to be the dominant partner. It was, in a sense, my first time, too.”

That pleased her. But the eyes that searched his face were still wary, worried, uncertain.

“I’ll woo you, little heiress,” he said, “if that’s what you want. All of it. Candy, flowers, I’ll even serenade you.”

“That will be the day,” she ground out.

“You don’t think I can?” he murmured, smiling slowly. “Ah, but I’ve changed, Merlyn. I’ve become uninhibited.”

She swallowed hard and tried to avoid his eyes. They were sensual, and the warmth of his big body and its spicy scent were beginning to weaken her.

“I don’t want to marry you,” she said under her breath.

“We can’t let our baby be born illegitimate,” he murmured, smiling at her.

“I’m not pregnant!” she burst out.

Beside the staircase, several couples stopped talking and stared at them, aghast.

“Yes, you are!” he said, deliberately raising his voice. “And it’s my baby! Why won’t you marry me and give it a name?”

Her face went blood red. “Cameron!”

He stood up slowly, towering over her, his eyes dancing with dark mischief. “Imagine, a well brought up young lady like you refusing to marry the father of her child!”

She got to her feet so quickly she almost fell.

He caught her, holding her gently. “There, now, darling, you have to be careful,” he taunted. “We wouldn’t want you to hurt the baby.”

She tried to speak, but he swung her up into his powerful arms and carried her gently the two steps to the bottom.

“I’d carry you the other way,” he murmured wickedly, “but I can’t risk dropping you.”

“I’ll get even with you if…” she sputtered.

He smothered the words under his warm, rough mouth, and there were louder murmurs and a few isolated chuckles as he knocked every single protest out of her mind.

“Remember what we did in the closet that night?” he whispered, his mouth poised just above hers. “I’d like to do it with you right now. I’d like to feel your breasts.…”

“Don’t,” she moaned, hiding her face in his throat.

He laughed softly. “Marry me, Merlyn.”

“No. You only want me for what I have,” she said coldly.

“That’s a fact,” he whispered, brushing his mouth over her eyelids until they closed. “I want you for your mind, and your heart, and for this body that makes me ache every time I touch it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she groaned.

He met her eyes and looked into them quietly. “I won’t take no for an answer. You could be pregnant. We did nothing to prevent it.”

Her lips trembled as he slowly put her down on her feet. She looked up at him stubbornly.

“Well, if there is a baby, it’s mine,” she said.

“Ours,” he corrected, with a slow grin.

She stomped her foot. “Cameron!”

He caught her hand and tugged at it. “Come have some punch and calm down. It isn’t good for you to get upset, in your condition.”

She started to speak and then gave up when she saw the amused glances they were getting. Her jaw clenched. So it was war, was it? Well, he’d better have an arsenal, because he had a fight on his hands. She wasn’t going to be his plaything and his purse, all at once. No, sir!

Chapter Eleven

“H
ow could you do that to me?” she asked her father later, as the party was just beginning to wind down.

He grinned at her, with a wry glance toward Cameron, who’d hardly left her side all evening. “Just playing cupid, darling,” he said. “I like him. He’ll do me for a son-in-law.”

“I thought we’d agreed that you were through playing matchmaker,” she said archly.

His eyebrows rose. “I had nothing to do with it,” he reminded her.

Her eyes narrowed. “Really? Just how much did you know about Cameron before you helped me find that job with his mother?”

He looked briefly uncomfortable. “Well, actually, I had met him once or twice,” he confided. “And I knew he was unmarried. But he was your exact opposite, darling.”

“So he was,” she agreed, not quite convinced. She sighed angrily. “I’m not going to marry him.”

“Oh, of course not,” he agreed. He lifted a silvery eyebrow. “Just a matter of curiosity, how do you plan to stop him?”

“By saying no,” she said.

“It won’t work.”

“And I’m not pregnant!”

Both eyebrows went up. “The certainty of youth,” he murmured dryly. “You didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

She flushed. “I wasn’t hungry!”

“I thought the smell of the bacon put you off?”

“Dad!” she groaned.

“A banker will be a nice addition to my board of directors,” he continued, unabashed. “And we can schedule the christening to coincide with the annual report.…”

“Will you listen?”

“…not to mention the wedding.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Let’s see, it had better be soon. Next week, I think. I’ll speak to Cameron.”

She stopped in the middle of the floor. “I will not marry him,” she said, carefully enunciating every word.

“Don’t be silly, of course you will.” He smiled at her and beckoned to his future son-in-law.

She hated that smile. She always had. The last time she’d seen it was when she decided to drop out of college.

“She’s all yours, son,” her father told Cameron, handing her over with a flourish. “There are too many available ladies around tonight for me to spend the entire evening with my own daughter. Lovely though she is,” he added with a mocking bow, and strode away.

“A man after my own heart,” Cameron murmured with a smile as he led her to the dance floor. “He’ll be a good grandfather.”

“I am not pregnant. I am not marrying you.”

“Come upstairs and let’s lie down and discuss it,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

“I was drunk!”

He took her in his arms and moved slowly to the romantic music of a waltz. “No, you were in love. So was I. I tried to do the right thing, but once you pulled off that gown…” The smile faded, and his eyes grew dark and fiery. The big arm that was holding her contracted slowly, softly crushing her breasts against his jacket. “Merlyn, without clothes, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She flushed and dropped her eyes to his chest. “Stop that.”

“Did I please you?” he asked quietly. He tilted her face up. “Did I, darling?”

“You know very well that you did,” she groaned, hiding her face against him. “Cam…”

His hand slid slowly over the soft skin of her back. “I want you,” he whispered softly. “I want to do what we did that night, all over again.”

She was trembling. She couldn’t help it. The memories were blistering hot. She clenched her fingers on the fabric of his jacket. “I can’t.”

“Darling, look at me.” His soft, dark eyes looked down at her green ones and smiled into them. “There’s no shame in what we did together, Merlyn,” he said softly. “As long as we make it right.”

“Make it right?”

“Get married,” he said. “For the baby’s sake.”

“Cameron, there isn’t a baby!” she burst out.

“I think there is,” he returned. His eyes moved down her body and back up again, searching her face. “You’re radiant. You glow. As innocent as you were, you couldn’t be expected to know—but what happened, what we felt, wasn’t quite a common thing.” His fingers came up to brush a strand of short hair away from her eye. “Darling, didn’t it occur to you that I lost control completely that first time? And didn’t you wonder why?”

Her heart was trying to climb out of her throat. He was hypnotizing her all over again, and she couldn’t let him!

“You needed a woman,” she said bluntly.

He shook his head. “I’ve needed women before, and that hasn’t happened. I wanted you in an uncommon way. And being seduced by virgins isn’t an everyday experience for me. The combination blew my mind.”

“I don’t know what came over me,” she whispered.

“I do,” he said under his breath. His arm contracted. “I took you, and you took me. And now we’ve got to do something about it, for the sake of that tiny life we created between us. And don’t say you’re not pregnant. You are. Merlyn, we loved that night. As intense and beautiful as the experience was,” he whispered, “you have to be pregnant.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and for an instant she gave in to her longing for him, her aching love for him. “I wanted to be,” she whispered huskily.

“I wanted it, too,” he whispered. “I wanted it so much that I held nothing back with you.”

That was surprising, and her eyes told him so.

“Another shock?” he asked gently. “I could have protected you, Merlyn, if I’d wanted to. I’m not saying it would have been the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but if I’d been determined to prevent a child, I could have.” She stopped dancing, and he touched her lips lightly with his fingertips.

“And you didn’t?” she asked.

He held her palm to his lips. “On the contrary,” he said in a husky tone. His eyes searched hers. “I tried my damndest to make sure you got pregnant.”

“Why?”

“Because I…”

Before he could finish the statement, a slightly inebriated Dick brushed against Cameron.

“Sorry, old man—” He grinned, “—but I did have this dance planned. Merlyn, my love?”

He swept her away, oblivious to the killing glare Cameron gave him and the shock on Merlyn’s face. People closed in around them just as Cameron started after her; the music got louder; and Merlyn came back to her senses. She had to keep from being alone with Cameron again. If she wanted to salvage any of her pride, she had to! He was only pretending to want her. Probably he’d wanted her to get pregnant for the same reason he wanted to marry her—because he needed money, and she had it. A lot of loose ends didn’t fit well into that theory, but she ignored them. She wasn’t going to risk her pride again, as she had with Adam.

At the end of the dance she slipped away and hid upstairs until the last guest was leaving. From the deep murmur of his voice, she knew that it was Cameron. The door closed.

“You can come out now,” her father called gaily. “He’s gone!”

“Can I trust you?” she called after a minute.

“Darling, I’m your doting papa!”

“You’re a turncoat,” she accused.

“Now, Merlyn.”

She came down the stairs, saw no one, and relaxed a little as she moved forward. “Is he gone for good?” she asked.

“Not a chance. He’s coming to lunch tomorrow, in fact. We’re going to do business.”

She glared at him. “Why?”

“Well, seeing he’s the father of my grandchild…”

“There isn’t a grandchild,” she moaned. “I’m not pregnant!”

“…I have to look out for him,” he concluded amiably. “Shouldn’t you be in bed? Women in your condition need to be careful.”

She gave him a killing glare and climbed the stairs again. What was the use of arguing with either one of them? They were cut from the same cloth, and she hated them both!

She dodged Cameron the next day by going shopping, but he was still there when she came home. And so were baskets full of flowers, from one end of the living room to the other.

“The flowers,” Cameron offered, grinning at her. He was wearing a white shirt with a yellow sweater and gray slacks, and he looked wickedly handsome.

“What flowers?” she asked nervously.

His eyes were disturbing as they ran down the length of her body. “As in candy, flowers, and serenading.”

She cocked her head, determined to sound poised. “What about the candy?”

“It’s in your bathtub.”

She blinked. “What?”

He turned away and lit a cigarette. “Go look.”

With a quick glance at her father, who was trying to stifle a grin, she went cautiously up the staircase and into her bedroom. She opened the bathroom door.

The tub was lined with lace-rimmed red satin and filled to capacity with boxes of chocolates of every kind imaginable. She stood gaping at it for a long minute before she turned and walked back downstairs.

“The best part’s still to come,” Cameron offered.

“You’re going to serenade me?” she asked. Her eyes flashed. “Better have an umbrella handy,” she said with a mocking smile.

“Better have a big bucket of water,” he returned on a laugh.

She went into the study and locked the door. When she came out, he was gone, but her father had a strange look on his face.