LITMIR.BIZ

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it had been over before it began. And, no matter how much Cooper wanted to control the situation, there was nothing he could do to make her stay. She’d been here less than forty-eight hours, and already the shells were falling. This house would turn into a war zone if she stayed any longer. And what about her unborn child? Playing house and pretending things could be different were not conducive to maintaining a healthy pregnancy. The baby’s well-being must come first.

      Before she tracked Cooper down, she smelled pancakes—fresh, hot, baking now. The aroma, and her empty stomach, tugged her straight into the kitchen. By the hotplates set in a huge island bench stood Cooper, dressed in worn jeans, and an unbuttoned white shirt, and with bed hair that looked ten times sexier than his usual neat style.

      In the middle of flipping a pancake, he must have sensed her there and glanced over. Their eyes met and his Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘Hi.’

      Sophie swallowed hard. She’d had every intention of telling him this was over, that she was going now and calling a cab. How dared he pull this on her? How dared he look so vulnerable, yet more masculine than she’d ever seen him?

      He nudged his bristled chin at the bottle of sauce on the counter. ‘Chocolate,’ he said. ‘Hope you’re hungry.’

      A lump swelled in her throat. ‘If this is supposed to be an apology, it won’t work.’ Hell, she almost meant it.

      He left the pancake cooking and moved towards her, his gait fluid, his broad shoulders rolling. Her skin flashed hot and her stomach tied in one big aching knot when he didn’t stop until his body touched hers and his large hands cupped her face. God, he smelled good. She’d take his musk over pancakes any day.

      She shook herself back.

      No! She had to leave before this overpowering attraction crushed her spirit totally.

      She tried to weave away from him. The muscles in his arms and chest bunched and flexed as he held her firm. His skin was steamy, his exposed torso uncompromisingly hard.

      He tipped her chin up to have her look into his eyes. ‘I’m going to say something.’

      She wanted to block her ears against the hypnotic rumble of his voice. ‘We said all there is to say last night.’ He’d embarrassed her, then ordered her to obey his demand that she sleep where he saw fit. Suffocating emotion burned her throat. ‘I’m not a child, and I won’t be treated like one—not by anyone, not for any reason.’

      She almost saw it … the former Sophie waving goodbye and stepping back for ever. No matter how much she wanted Cooper to overwhelm and kiss her—and, yes, beg her to stay—she simply couldn’t.

      ‘I won’t apologise,’ he said, in the rich deep timbre that sent ripples lapping up her spine. ‘Not about you moving downstairs. You don’t want to hear it, but I’m right. If you slip and lose the baby you’d never forgive yourself, and I would never forgive myself for not protecting you both.’

      Somewhere through his speech she’d stopped struggling. She hated to admit it … Could she admit it?

      He was right.

      Unshed tears stung behind her eyes. She wanted to run away, hide. Wake up when everything was sorted and she and her baby could live happily ever after.

      Her voice was a strangled whisper. ‘You hurt me, Cooper.’ Through telling Evangeline about the baby as much as anything.

      His thick sooty lashes lowered as his hand combed back her hair. She felt his heartbeat booming through his body and against her. ‘Forgive me.’

      Her heart squeezed. Oh, God. Did he have to look at her like that?

      ‘Tomorrow you’ll be asking me to forgive you again.’

      His jaw flinched as his gaze lowered to her lips. ‘I’m not perfect.’

      She hesitated, then somehow, somewhere, found a small grin. ‘Can I get that in writing?’

      The tension bracing his frame seemed to ease. He took half a step back to search her eyes more deeply. ‘Does that mean you’ll stay?’

      He was insufferable, boorish.

      Dangerously close to irresistible.

      She set her jaw and tried to look fierce. ‘It means you’re on probation. That’s your one and only Get Out of Jail Free card.’

      As he groaned with relief, drew her in and pressed an almost chaste kiss to her brow, she didn’t know if he realised, but in her heart she knew it was true. She owed it to her baby to give him one more chance. She owed it to herself and the baby to stick to that and not give in again.

      CHAPTER TEN

      ONE month and one day after the costume party, Sophie stood looking over the meerkats’ replica desert home at Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo. No winding caves or upper storeys. These cute cousins to the mongoose lived on ground-floor quarters.

      Just like her.

      But she didn’t regret giving in to Cooper’s request that she move downstairs. It would be arrogance on her part to say she did. And, to be fair, after their talk-and-make-up that morning he’d been on his best behaviour. So much so, she’d begun to wonder whether miracles did happen and destiny had in fact shone its light on them both.

      But it was early days yet. Surely a leopard didn’t change its spots? A man of Cooper’s determined and uncompromising character didn’t turn over a new leaf overnight. Each day when they said goodnight, and she curled up in her bed alone, she told herself, Wait a little longer and the bombshells will start falling again.

      Every day she waited for the former Cooper to return. Every day she waited for the sparring to begin again. And every day that passed without a sighting, she found herself believing and caring a little more.

      Whistling, Cooper returned with two bottled waters. He set one upon the waist-high fence and, smiling at a meerkat’s pointed little face and alert upright posture, unscrewed the other bottle and handed it over.

      Sipping on her water, Sophie wondered again at Cooper’s newfound restraint with regard to trying to seduce her. Was this self-discipline part of a calculated game to have her crumple beneath the incessant craving and beg him to take her in his arms?

      If that were indeed the case, all she could say was … it was working. Whenever he smiled that certain sexy way, or strode around in front of her in nothing more than a towel and foam upon his face, she had to call her body to heel. Unfortunately it never listened.

      After removing his baseball cap, Cooper swiped the bottle’s condensation over his brow. The winter sky was a perfect dome of saturated blue, and the temperature had been delectable—though it was dropping now the afternoon was fading.

      After quenching her thirst, she recapped her bottle, and Cooper turned for her to slot it into the khaki knapsack slung over his back. ‘We should visit the kangaroo park next,’ she said. The last stop on today’s busy agenda.

      She adored the clean, open atmosphere of Taronga Park. More so, she loved that endangered species like the Asian elephant and Nepal’s Red Panda were being cared for here.

      He checked the time. ‘Then we’d better get a move on. They’ll be closing soon.’

      They meandered down a gently winding bitumen slope, Cooper keeping a half-step ahead—Sophie suspected in case she stumbled or tripped.

      He snapped a digital pic of a massive croc grinning around a mouthful of jagged teeth. Showing her the shot, he asked, ‘Any update from the infamous Mr Myers this week?’

      Cooper was aware that, as it had turned out, the principal hadn’t wanted to see her regarding anything personal, but rather had needed to discuss a parent’s complaint over a student’s assignment mark. Perhaps it was nerves, but Sophie had imagined a curious glint shining from behind Mr Myers’s large old-fashioned frames as he’d spoken to her from his orderly desk that

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