LITMIR.BIZ

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pose, he latched on and drew the ice cream down into his mouth. He savoured the reward, swallowed, then licked his top lip.

      ‘To think I’d have happily gone through life licking rather than sucking. In fact, we should explore that thought a little more.’ He traced a suggestive fingertip up her arm. ‘Ask not what you can do for your ice cream, but what your ice cream can do for—’

      ‘Almost forgot.’ Before his finger, or temptation, snaked any higher, she cut him off. ‘Penny’s invitation came in the mail today.’

      Rocking to one side, she extracted a pink sheet of paper from her back pocket. The other slip of correspondence, which she’d also received that day, accidentally came out too.

      Setting the principal’s note aside, she lifted the invitation and put on a snooty voice. ‘“You are invited to Penny Newly’s Hollywood or Bust cocktail party.” ’ She slapped the paper on the table. ‘It’s tomorrow night. What should we go as?’

      ‘Depends on how daring you want to be.’

      Conditioning, perhaps, but she couldn’t think of anything bold. ‘We could go as Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. But we’d have to do something drastic with your ears.’ She thought about pulling the closest one out, wing-nut style. ‘Or what about James Bond? And I could be the girl who holds your golden gun?’

      Her cheeks bloomed. Had she truly said that?

      Cooper’s smile was pure sin. ‘Consider that tabled for future discussion.’ His attention dropped to the invitation and, next to that, the note. Frowning, he picked up the latter. ‘What’s this?’

      Sophie thought about dismissing it, but it was a day for sharing. The first day of at least ninety.

      ‘I received a message from the school principal today,’ she told him. ‘Seems he’s heard some rumours.’

      Cooper’s brow dropped more. ‘About us?’

      ‘About the baby.’ She shrugged at his questioning look. ‘The only answer I came up with involves the principal’s daughter—a student in my tenth grade English class. Dumb of me, but after they’d all left for final home class, I pulled out a baby’s outfit I’d bought at the mall during my lunch break. I was smiling and hugging it to my belly when Samantha came back to get her sweater.’

      He pushed the note back across the table. ‘She passed her suspicions on to her father?’

      ‘Actually, I think she told her friends. Then it was just a matter of time.’

      ‘Now the principal wants a “please explain”?’

      Trying to keep her anxiety levels down—being upset was not good for the baby—she studied the message. ‘He can’t terminate my employment. The days when teachers had to resign due to “personal circumstances” or marriage are long gone. But if he has a problem with single mothers teaching at Unity he might consider making my life there uncomfortable.’

      ‘Uncomfortable enough for you to resign?’

      She took a moment, then nodded.

      Cooper’s face hardened. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

      She held up a hand. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ Although his protective traits in this instance put a warm glow around her heart, Cooper’s pride might only make matters worse. ‘Anyway, I’m only surmising, thinking the worst.’ She sat back. ‘Might be he merely wants to let me know I have Unity’s unconditional support, should I need it.’

      Chocolate ice cream had drained over his fist. Cooper tossed the cone in a nearby bin. ‘Either way, you can tell them as soon as tomorrow to keep their job.’

      Sophie pitched her runny ice cream too. ‘Why would I do that?’

      ‘You don’t need it.’ He leaned forward, and she was hit anew by the searing force of his magnetism. ‘When I said I’d look after you and the baby I’d never meant anything more in my life.’

      Conviction shone from his eyes. One part of her couldn’t help but be touched; another couldn’t pretend to accept the offer.

      She tried to disentangle herself from his overpowering allure. ‘I told you … I like my job. I like the school.’

      He wiped his fingers on the handkerchief he’d removed from his front chinos pocket. ‘You’d like being a lady of leisure just as well.’

      Her mid-section pulled. Was he listening at all?

      She tried again. ‘I worked hard through college. I love teaching and making a difference. A lot of my friends are teachers there. That’s a huge part of my life, of who I am. I would never give it up.’

      He consolidated his case. ‘Only if the principal forces you to.’

      Her heart smacked against her ribcage. She refused to feel cornered—by the principal or by Cooper. She had options. ‘Then I’ll get another teaching position.’

      Cooper covered her chocolate-smeared fist with the handkerchief and gently wiped. ‘We’ll see.’

      A jet of irritation shot through her. There was nothing to ‘see’. She wanted to work. The last thing she needed was to feel indebted to him, or reliant upon his charity, and if she resigned that was precisely what she’d be: a commodity sponsored by Cooper Smith.

      If she lost or gave up her job, and didn’t find another, what would that do to their relationship’s balance of power? Living in his house, surviving off his income … Would she then feel obliged to abide by his laws?

      How had Paige summed up Cooper’s thinking?

      I make the rules, you just have to follow them.

      Sophie understood Paige was a teenager—and he wanted to protect her—but did Cooper make any distinction between the two of them as far as that was concerned? Weeks ago she’d decided she would follow her own path, her own rules. She hadn’t changed her mind, and, as much as he wanted to, Cooper wouldn’t change it for her.

      He squeezed her hand, determination shining like steel in his eyes. ‘Understand that if and when you need me to step up and speak for us all, I’d like nothing better.’

      Sophie understood very well.

      That was what worried her.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘YOU ready?’

      Cooper stepped back from Sophie’s closed bedroom door and caught a glimpse of himself in the large teak-edged mirror at the end of his home’s mezzanine floor hall. He frowned. Bare chest, longish scruffy wig, nothing left to the imagination about a pair of hairy muscular legs. Good thing the loincloth concealed the essentials.

      Sophie’s melodic voice drifted out. ‘Did you say you’d picked out other costumes this morning, in case these didn’t suit the party tonight?’

      He was toying with the novel idea of thumping his expanded pecs when Sophie opened the door a crack. ‘I’ll need a big long coat,’ she said. ‘It’s cold outside, and there’s not a whole lot to this outfit.’

      Her face looked fresh. Well, maybe flushed. Her eyes perhaps a touch more than alarmed.

      His lungs deflated.

      Jungle Fever had sounded ideal when the costume shop assistant had suggested it. Now, however, he wasn’t completely sold on dragging his fists around in public dressed as Tarzan. All the same, he was eager to see how well his pretty mate had fleshed out her animal print.

      As he drew closer, her vanilla scent tugged on his senses, and he found himself hurtling back in time. One word summed up that night perfectly: sensational. He planned for the next few weeks to be equally enjoyable.

      Starting tonight.

      He moved closer. ‘Your friend

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