LITMIR.BIZ

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air as his chest pressed intimately into her breasts. His eyes held the remembrance of mutual pleasures, everything she’d walked away from, everything in her tortured dreams.

      A deep, burning need seared Cal a thousand times over as he stared into her upturned face. To his stunned amazement, he realized he wanted her, right here, right now. After weeks of denial, his body ached for her like he’d been cloistered in a monastery for years. He shouldn’t want her. Damn, he didn’t even trust her.

      Pride nipped at his heels, giving him the strength to release her. With regret dogging his retreat, he gritted his teeth.

      “If you want me, Ava,” he growled, unable to disguise the lust in his voice, “then you’ll have to say it.”

      Chapter Three

      Her eyes, heavy with arousal, suddenly flew wide open. “What?”

      She looked so different from the first time they’d met—more earthy, more sensual. Yet he could still see a glimpse of the woman he’d bedded underneath the denim veneer: the way her eyes tilted up at the corners, the ripe lush mouth that was heaven to taste. Lord, he just wanted to peel off that snug shirt, yank down her jeans and take her with that sexy midnight hair falling around her shoulders, her lips whispering his name.

      With a soft curse, he shoved a hand through his hair and gave her his back.

      “You want me to ask you for sex?”

      The disgust in her voice had him whirling back to the angry indignation tightening her face.

      “You actually want me to beg?” She breathed, incredulous. “Of all the conceited, arrogant…! Yes, I’ve agreed to marry you but I am not going to pander to your ego by—”

      “Hang on.” He put up a hand in alarm. “I never said—”

      “—begging you for anything! First you accuse me of blackmail and now this. I get it—it’s some sort of punishment for—”

      “Stop!”

      His command only angered her more. She pulled herself up to her full five-foot-three and jammed her hands on her hips, her face tight with passionate fury. “I will not stop! And just because I’m having your baby doesn’t mean—”

      “Would you stop yelling at me?” Cal grabbed her arms, shocking them both into silence.

      “Let’s get something straight,” he managed to grind out. “We both know we’re attracted to each other—as evidenced nine weeks ago.” He thought he detected a glimmer of something in her blue eyes but couldn’t be certain. “But I’m not about to force myself on you because some piece of paper says I’m your husband. If you want me in your bed, then it’s your decision and yours only. Understood?”

      “And what,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes wide, “makes you think I’d want you when you so clearly don’t trust me?”

      They remained still for a second, then two. Then, as if she realized he still held her, her arms tensed beneath his hands.

      He swiftly backed off, abruptly changing the subject. “We have a flight to Sydney in a couple of hours. You need to pack.”

      “I have a business to run.”

      “You also have a family to meet. Don’t you have an aunt who can look after this place for a few days?”

      “How—” Ava stopped. Cal finding out about the baby was one violation she’d get over. But digging into her past without even giving her the option of what she wanted to reveal? Her mouth felt bitter and dry. Dear lord, what had she gotten herself into?

      As if she was standing outside someone else’s life looking in, Ava sat on the balcony of Cal’s Circular Quay penthouse suite, taking in Sydney Harbour spread out like a picture-perfect postcard thirty floors below.

      His place was something out of Architectural Digest. The elevator doors had swooshed open to reveal a massive living room in varying shades of cream and white, a warm chocolate couch opposite a solid rustic coffee table in the centre. Along the right wall, separating the bedrooms, ran a stunning tropical aquarium. In silent awe she’d barely registered Cal’s brief tour, until they’d walked through the dining area and into an immaculate kitchen. Too immaculate.

      “Do you cook?” she’d asked him. He’d just shrugged and said, “I eat out, mostly.”

      There was something here for all the senses, she realized. Even on the balcony, the decadent cream cashmere couch felt like heaven against her bare calves, just like the expensive cotton sheets on her guest room bed. The briny ocean breeze left a salty tang on her lips, tainted warmly by the patio heater glowing in the far corner. And through the double glass patio doors floated the soft strains of James Taylor on the CD player, mingling with the faint bustle of Circular Quay below. All that marred the perfection was the absence of an active kitchen. Something simmering on the stove…a lamb roast, she mused, some garlic potatoes, fresh carrots and green beans. Or a Greek salad. Her stomach rumbled in agreement and a small grin tugged at her lips.

      Her good humour faltered as Cal appeared at the door with two wine glasses. He’d changed into a dark navy suit, light-blue shirt and a precisely knotted sapphire silk tie, while she had to be content with the cherry-red dress he’d first seen her in. It was a little snug across the breasts but the best she could do on short notice.

      “Magnificent, isn’t it?” His quiet confidence made it sound like he’d painted the harbour view himself, and she couldn’t help but smile.

      “Yes.”

      He studied her, almost as if assessing her against some unspoken criteria. She must have finally passed muster when, with a glint of remembrance in his eyes, he said, “Nice dress.”

      “My only dress,” she replied and recrossed her legs. The floaty chiffon hem slid over her skin, baring a long expanse of thigh. Surreptitiously, she rearranged the fabric, but when his shrewd gaze followed her hands, the warmth began to rise again.

      To fill the uncomfortable void, she took a grateful swallow of the bubbly lemon, lime and bitters, then grabbed up the paper he’d shoved across the glass table.

      It was a briefing paper, not only outlining his business deals but some personal details, details she’d be expected to know as his fiancée. She scanned down the page, unable to stop that rush of morbid curiosity. She knew nothing of him—at least, not the things that really mattered. Deep, personal things she always thought you should know about your husband-to-be. Little intimacies that indicated you were a couple, in love and happy to spend the rest of your lives together.

      “You’ll be thirty-four on New Year’s Day.” At his nod, she asked half to herself, “What do you get a man who can afford to buy anything?”

      “Something simple. My mother bought me the fish tank last year.” At her raised eyebrow, he added, deadpan, “But I can always use a tie or a nice bottle of Scotch.”

      “A pair of socks?”

      She returned his grin with one of her own and for the first time since arriving in Sydney, Ava felt his full and complete attention. The gentle tug of desire unfurled inside, but with ruthless efficiency, she shoved it back.

      On his private jet he’d been engrossed in paperwork and phone calls. The journey to his apartment hadn’t been much better. She should have enjoyed the decadent opulence of driving in his shiny black hybrid Maserati Coupé, blanketed in the luxurious smell of leather seats, the throaty purr of the powerful engine as they smoothly glided along Anzac Parade. Yet she couldn’t shake the awful thought that this was a premonition of things to come—she silent and immaculately groomed and he the workaholic with always one ear to the phone, one eye on a business deal.

      She didn’t want to be the wife who paraded about in designer dresses and jewels, a perky, dolled-up hostess serving only to entertain her husband’s business colleagues. She shuddered at the thought

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