“No.”

“Good.” She held her Kir Royale off to the side. “Because I don’t want you to stop.”

She made no move to meet him halfway, so he had to bend down to her mouth . . . and that subtle defiance made him nuts—and drove him wild. She was so contrary and always out of reach, the hunter in him ever in pursuit of her, even as he held her in his arms. And that was the difference. All other women begged him to stay. Gin? Challenged him to keep up.

And oh, God, her lips were just as he remembered, and exactly how he never forgot, soft and yet unyielding. He kissed her so deep and so long that he had to break things off to get in a draw of air.

“Why do you always taste like my bourbon when you kiss me?” she whispered.

“Because we’re usually drunk and I have impeccable taste.”

“Ah. That explains everything.” When he went to kiss her again, she held him off by touching his chest. “Why did you bring me here?”

He curled his hips into her so she could feel his erection. “I would think that is self-evident.”

“We could have gone to the farm.”

“It was farther away.”

“We could have gone to Easterly.”

“Not private enough.”

“My family’s estate has more doors than most hotels.” She smiled. “Why not your office? We’ve had a lot of fun there and I know you always keep alcohol in the lower drawer of your desk.”

“Not the Krug, I don’t, and you can’t stomach cheap champagne. Besides, my secretary is getting a little tired of having to turn her radio up so she drowns out your moans.”

Gin laughed. “She is so prudish.”

“Something you’ve never had to worry about.”

“So why this place, Samuel T., hmm?”

In lieu of answering, he dipped down and brushed the side of her throat with his lips. Moving his hands farther up under her skirt, he brushed the tops of her thigh highs—and then kept going until—

“You’re not wearing panties,” he growled.

“Of course not. It’s eighty-five degrees out there and humid as the inside of a shower.”

Samuel T. became unhinged then, his control snapping, his greed for her overtaking everything. With sure fingers, he unbuckled his monogrammed belt and unzipped his slacks—and Gin was clearly as impatient as he was. Moving herself down on the sofa, she brought them together at the very moment he angled his erection forward.

They both shuddered, and then he started moving.

As Gin lowered her lids, and somehow managed to hold the flute steady over his pale rug, she said, “I think I know why it’s here”—she gasped—“and in this room.”

Through gritted teeth, he asked why. Or maybe what his own name was. Who knew? She was always the best, always the tightest around him, always the sweetest and the slickest.

“My husband’s office building . . . is right over there.” She looked out to the view and indicated with the glass—while he was pumping into her sex. “In fact . . . his office . . . faces this building. . . .”

She began panting, just as he was, and she was so right.

He had brought her here so he could fuck her on this sofa . . . and look over her bobbing head while doing so at that sonofabitch Pford’s office windows that were but one block down and over, at the top of the Pford Building.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grunted.

To keep her from speculating further, Samuel T. reached between their bodies and thumbed at the apex of her sex.

As she orgasmed, her Kir Royale spilled all over the place. And wasn’t that totally satisfying.

ELEVEN

The ultrasound machine was portable, a mini-Zamboni with a monitor that was rolled in by an orderly and operated by a tech. In order to accommodate it, Lane had to get out of the chair he was in, and while the exam was being conducted, he stayed to one side and averted his stare. One thing he could say for certain? Chantal was bleeding badly. From time to time, as her hospital gown was rearranged, he caught horrific glances out of the corner of his eye of what was going on underneath her, the padding soaked through.

Clearly in pain, Chantal flinched as they squirted her slightly rounded belly with clear gel and got some kind of transducer going on her. And the tech stopped periodically, tapping a little rolling ball on a keyboard to take pictures that, at least to Lane’s eyes, looked to be nothing but gray and black smudges.

“The attending will be in in a moment,” the tech said as she wiped the gel off with a paper towel.

“Where’s the baby?” Chantal’s head thrashed back and forth on the thin pillow. “Where’s my baby?”

“The attending will be right in.”

As the tech was leaving, she spared him a quick glance, and he was surprised at the compassion on her face.

Maybe Chantal hadn’t been lying. At least not about the pregnancy.

“This hurts,” Chantal groaned. “The cramping . . .”

Lane sat back down in his chair because he wanted to afford her some dignity, and as she sawed her legs like that, he kept catching sight of the blood.

“Lane . . . it hurts.”

Her face was pale, her lips white, and she kept gripping her midsection like someone was trying to saw her in half. Gone was any calculation. Hostility. Poor-little-rich-girl drama.

“Lane . . .”

He lasted another minute and a half, and then he burst up, yanked back the curtain, and opened the glass door. Sticking his head out into the corridor, he flagged a nurse down.

“Hey,” he said, “can she get some pain medication? She’s really hurting?”

“Mr. Baldwine, the attending is coming right away. I promise you. You’re next to be seen by her.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Ducking back in, he went over to the chair, sat down again . . . and when Chantal threw out her hand, he took it because he didn’t know what else to do. “The doctor’s coming. Right away.”

“I’m losing the baby,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t hear the heartbeat. Did you? The machine was silent. When I went last week, you could hear the . . .”

As she began to weep, he didn’t know what to do. Then again, in the two-plus years they’d known each other, he wasn’t sure they’d ever shared a real, honest moment together. And it did not get more real than this.

“Am I going to die?” she said.

Where the hell was that fucking doctor? “No, no, you’re not.”

“Promise me? That I won’t die and the baby is okay?”

The fear in her eyes and her voice stripped her bare to him, revealing her as more than an adversary—and for some reason, he thought about when he’d seen her for the first time at that garden party. He’d only gone because there were going to be drinks and he’d always felt like less of an alcoholic with a bourbon in his hand at two in the afternoon if he were around a bunch of other people doing the same.

The sun shining on her blond hair had been what had gotten his attention.

And he would never have guessed then that they would end up here, in these circumstances.

“You’re not going to die.”

In the silence, she just kept staring at him as her body contorted this way and that. Who knew if she had ever loved him—or loved his father. Maybe it was all a gold-digging scheme gone bad, and yes, she had done a horrendous thing ending her previous pregnancy. But as her pain continued to ramp up, the suffering she was in took precedence over her past misdeeds.

Lane reached out and brushed a tear from her blotchy cheek. Now her makeup was melting, black smudges forming under her eyes.

“I’m really sorry,” he said roughly.

Chantal looked away and shuddered. “This is my fault.”

The glass door of the treatment bay opened, and a young woman dressed in scrubs and a white coat came in. “Hi, you all. How are we doing?”

Dumb question, he thought. How do you think?

Lane dropped Chantal’s hand and rubbed his palms on his thighs. “She’s in pain—can you help her?”

“What about my baby?” Chantal begged. “Where is my baby?”