LITMIR.BIZ

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did, but ignored it. “Let me guess, a dress shop.”

      “No, an everything shop. Tessa’s Attic.”

      He frowned.

      “I design and manufacture period clothing—Victorian, Gatsby.” She gestured to her own clothes. “Along with the proper accoutrements,” she added.

      She works with her hands, too, he thought, his gaze shifting to her long, carefully manicured fingers, then to the dress again, skimming the delicate grape lace worked with pearls and tiny ribbons. It looked as if air held it together, and it made him think of all those wonderful sexy bits of lingerie women wore to drive men insane. No wonder it suited her so well. He found himself wanting to see her before she was pregnant or after, without the huge tummy. He wanted to see Tessa without anything at all.

      Tessa felt his gaze, saw it darken and deepen, sending an unfamiliar heat through her already warm blood. Hot flashes, that’s all, she thought. The waiter came and placed food before them. Tessa, caught in Chase’s gaze, still didn’t realize their lunch had arrived until she nearly dropped the dim sum in her lap.

      “Who hurt you?” His words came softly, like a warm caress.

      She didn’t like it. “I beg your pardon?”

      “Who hurt you so badly that you don’t want a man in your life?”

      A lie would have done nicely right now, but Tessa couldn’t get it past her lips. “It’s not that I don’t want one. Rather I’ve found it...unnecessary. I do fine alone, with an occasional date.”

      “Why didn’t you just sleep with some poor schmuck and walk away? You’d have exactly what you wanted then.”

      “No. I wouldn’t,” she replied tightly. “I wasn’t going to risk a disease or anything else. What should I have done? Ah, excuse me—” she poked the air with her chopsticks “—could you be tested for diseases so I can get pregnant? Hurry though, I’m ovulating.” He smiled at that. “I couldn’t do that anyway, at least not and keep it from him.”

      “But you would from me?”

      She put down her chopsticks and rubbed her temple. “It’s different. I went into this with the assurance that the donor would never know. Donors sign away their rights.”

      “Unless the kid wants to find them.”

      She shrugged.

      “What were you going to tell my son when he asked about his father?”

      Again, her shoulders moved restlessly as she poked at her food. “I’d decide when it was appropriate. And if she was old enough to understand, I’d tell the truth.”

      Abruptly he leaned close, hemming in the air, the moment. The man was so close she could see the black flecks in his eyes.

      “The truth? That he was made in a doctor’s office and not a bedroom? That his father was some man he’ll never know?”

      His tone was intimate, husky, and Tessa swallowed nervously. “That can’t be helped.”

      “Yes, it can.”

      “How—?” Her eyes widened instantly at the look of intent on his face. “Oh, no!” She shook her head, looking scared. “Don’t—” she wiped her lips “—don’t say it!”

      “Many me.”

      She stood abruptly, throwing down her napkin. “That never fixes anything, especially this.”

      Chase rose slowly. “Tessa, calm down.”

      “I am calm,” she insisted. “I said lunch. Talk. Not a damn proposal that isn’t warranted.” She left the table, angry, stomping, then froze, looking down at her stockinged feet. Chase watched her shoulders sag as she turned back. Dropping into the chair, he fought a smile as she stepped into her shoes and grabbed her purse.

      He caught her and a tingling sang up his arm. “Tessa, wait. Talk to me.”

      “No.” She wiggled free. “Talk is doing—” She gasped suddenly, gripping his shoulder and clutching her belly.

      Chase tensed, his gaze shooting between her face and the baby. In a heartbeat he realized she wasn’t in pain, but that his child, his baby, was moving wildly inside her. Without thought, he pulled her onto his lap, his hand covering the rolling pokes and ripples.

      The audacity of the man, Tessa thoughts, struggling to get up, but he held her down. Then Tessa went still as glass, watching his expression—awed and happy. Deliriously happy. And she felt it like a sweet fragrance on the breeze, almost tangible.

      “Chase,” she whispered, and he lifted his gaze. Her heart nearly broke. His eyes, dark, haunting eyes that could almost pierce through her, were damp and soft and so unbelievably vulnerable she thought she’d drown in them. He looked helpless and his fingers flexed on her belly, following the motion lower. A burning, familiar and sensual and heady, spilled through her body. She shifted on his lap and he dropped his gaze to her tummy.

      “That’s incredible,” he whispered, a catch in his voice, and it hit her that he hadn’t understood exactly what he was fighting over. A human being. Genes and syringes aside, there was life inside her and he was just recognizing how very real it all was. That this wasn’t a battle for rights and territory, but a battle over a baby. A tiny, helpless baby.

      Tessa was fast losing perspective. The heat of his touch and the savage look in his eyes chiseled at the courage she needed. In the space of a few moments, the man fought with her, proposed to her, then showed her a side of himself she never imagined he possessed. And she felt as if she’d just stepped off a roller coaster—dizzy, unstable. It scared her, this jumble of feelings, and as Chase applied pressure to her back, urging her close, she recognized want and hunger and need in herself. She was pregnant; she wasn’t supposed to feel this way, was she? Yet still she leaned into him, still she let him touch her belly, still she ignored the customers whispering around them.

      When Tessa covered his hand with hers, Chase felt emotion stir in him, a thick heaviness in his chest he hadn’t experienced in all his thirty-five years. Unborn life poked at his palm. It was his child, letting him know he was there, involved, yet a separate entity from the mother. This child is a living, breathing part of me too, he thought. Me. And the baby needed him. His gaze moved over Tessa’s belly, then up her body to her face, and she smiled tenderly. God, she was beautiful. And she was doing things to him, intoxicating things, with her buttocks tucked into his lap, the scent of her perfume and her skin, the look in her eyes. For an instant, Chase saw her in his bed, naked and damp and wanting. His hand at her back spread, moving upward, drawing her closer. His breath brushed her warm lips. So sweet.

      Her eyes blinked open and she jerked back. “No. No, no, no.” She pushed off his lap, scrambling for her purse, ignoring his help and repeating “no” over and over as she left him and the restaurant as quickly as she could. Chase watched her go, sinking into the chair. She couldn’t have moved any faster if her life depended on it, and he smiled, silly and sappy. Several customers joined him.

      “My baby,” he said, gesturing, then leaned forward and braced his arms on the table, catching his breath. She felt it. God, he prayed she had experienced that electricity, because he felt fried down to his socks. And the only reason he didn’t follow her was that the entire restaurant would know exactly what her squirming had done to him.

      Three

      Tessa slipped the purchase into a bag and handed it over to her customer, forcing her smile to remain in place as Miss Dewberry called out in her singsong voice from the dressing room.

      “Coming,” Tessa sang back, her shoulders drooping.

      “I’ll take care of her, Miss Lightfoot,” one of her salesgirls, a college student, said.

      “Thank you, but Miss Dewberry will only make you miserable, Dana,” Tessa whispered. She’d find fault with

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