And now he saw unbearable sadness in her, and he thought that he might die.
“Cort, I'm so sorry it turned out this way.”
No
. He didn't believe it. The Laura he knew would not be sorry. She couldn't possibly not want or love a baby she carried...and she would certainly cherish his. He had no doubt about that, just as he'd known that something was drastically wrong for her not to decorate for Christmas.
He knew her
. He might not know everything about her, having been apart for fifteen long years, but he knew the heart and soul and infinitely loving core of her.
Why, then, did anguish loom in her eyes?
“I was hoping so much,” she whispered, “that you'd be happy.”
For the second time in moments, he sat immobilized with shock. “Me? You hoped
I'd
be happy?”
“You don't have to make it sound so unlikely.” A martial light ignited in the midst of her anguish, and Cort grappled with the realization that she thought he didn't want this baby. “I know you offered to father my child as a...a favor to me....”
“A favor?”
“...because you feel guilty for hurting me and responsible for my so-called âfear of intimacy,' and maybe for breaking up my plan with Fletcher. But this babyâthis precious, beautiful baby that we've made togetherâ”
“Laura!” He caught her face between his hands, swept his thumbs across her tear-dampened skin, gazed at her with all the love that burned for her in his heart. “You
can't
believe that I don't want this baby.
Our
baby. I've prayed that you'd conceive. I prayed for it, Laura...even while we were making love.”
She stared at him with astonishment, and his heart ached to think she hadn't known.
“Maybe I did feel guilty for hurting you,” he said, “and responsible for the damage I'd done. But you don't know the worst of it.”
“The worst?” she repeated. And he sensed she was bracing herself.
He, too, braced himselfâfor the possibility that the heartrending emotion he read in her face had to do with the baby and not with him at all. “I don't know how you feel about me, or if what I'm about to say will make you shut me out of your life. But I
have
been lying to you, Laura. Not only about the furniture in my house, or my reason for wanting you there. I've lied from the very first
day I met you. I lied every time I kissed you, every time we made love. Because I let you think it was sexâonly sexâwhen it never was to me.” He scoured her face, her eyes, in a desperate search for tenderness, praying harder than he ever had. “I just love you so damn much.”
A great, hot surge of joy rose in Laura, and her feelings for him radiated like a power source. How could he not have known that she loved him? How could he believe she would shut him out of her life for loving her? Too overcome to speak, she answered him with a kissâa deep, joyous, needful kiss. Ah, yes,
needful.
She needed him as a vital, integral part of her heart and soul.
But the kiss wasn't enough, she knew. She had to tell him; to leave no doubt. Drawing back, she smiled lovingly into his eyes, and saw pain-filled questions still lurking there. “In case you're wondering, I
did
find my true love,” she whispered. “At the Hays Street house. He owned the place, you see. I gave him my heart along with first month's rent. And he never gave it back. So I've been avoiding intimacy with other men because they're all the wrong men. Hell always be the only
right
man for me.”
The finest, warmest happiness blazed in his gaze, burning away all doubt. Thrusting his fingers into her hair, he tipped her back against the sofa and kissed her with poignant, eloquent longing. “Marry me, Laura,” he implored in a devout whisper. He kissed her chin, her cheeks, her eyelidsâslow, deliberate kisses, and between each one, he repeated, “Marry me.”
She recaptured his mouth and drew him into a deeper, wilder celebration.
He really hadn't needed to ask twice.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5768-9
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THE DADDY DECISION
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Copyright © 1999 by Donna Fejes.
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All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention
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