Hired by Her Husband (10 page)

Served him right for still wanting her, he thought and tried to will his body into quiescence. His body had other ideas. They wouldn’t go away.

Finally, deliberately he leaned forward, braced one palm against the tile beneath the shower head, and put the other on the tap. Then, as the water sluiced down his body, he gradually but inexorably turned it all to cold.

He stayed there until he could stand it no longer. Then he yanked the towel off the top of the door to scrub at his eyes before he stepped out. His teeth were chattering, his head was hammering and his whole body was rigid with cold.

“What on earth is the matter with you? You’re blue!”

George jerked the towel away from his face and found himself staring into Sophy’s wide eyes. They looked as shocked as he felt.

He clamped his teeth together because he’d have stuttered if he’d tried to speak.

Sophy had no such problem. She put out a hand and touched his arm, then frowned. “You’re as cold as ice,” she accused him.

Better than the alternative.

“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s all right.”

“Of course it’s not all right! I thought you were supposed to be smart! Why on earth would you take a cold shower and—oh!” The bright spots of color were back in her cheeks with a vengeance again, and Sophy was opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

George smiled wryly at her.

“Men!” she fumed.

“Pretty much,” George agreed. He snagged another towel off the rack and hitched it around his waist. “You could leave,” he suggested. “Unless you want to solve the problem another way.”

For a rare and amazing moment, he thought she almost considered it. Then she gave a quick shake of her head and began backing toward the door.

“I’ll wait outside,” she said. “Don’t fall over.” She ran her tongue quickly over her lips, Then, as if a three hundred percent explanation were required, she added, “That’s what I was doing in here. Making sure you didn’t.”

George grinned. “And here I thought you’d changed your mind and come to scrub my back.”

Sophy rolled her eyes. But the color was back in her cheeks and he thought she ran her tongue over her lips as she shut herself firmly on the other side of the door.

For a moment George stood staring at it. Then he shook his head. The woman was a walking mass of contradictions. She came close, she backed away. She told him to get out of her life. She came clear across the country when he was hurt.
She hovered over him as if he mattered to her. Then she went cool and distant in the blink of an eye.

It was no wonder his head hurt, George thought as he dried his body slowly and carefully. And it was irritating as hell that he’d suffered through that damned cold shower because its effect had been instantly nullified by his body’s reaction to Sophy’s unexpected presence.

Still he wasn’t apt to disgrace himself when he finally finished pulling on his boxers and a clean T-shirt, then opened the door to his bedroom.

Gunnar was lying in the middle of the bed. He lifted his head and thumped his tail happily.

Sophy, damn it, was nowhere to be seen.

J
UST WHAT SHE NEEDED,
Sophy thought, flinging herself onto her back on the bed—an image of a lean, muscular, stark-naked George Savas indelibly emblazoned on the insides of her eyelids!

Eyelids, ha. She had the image burned right into her retinas. Probably branded on her brain.

It wasn’t fair!

Even as she thought it, she knew she was whining like a plaintive four-year-old. But it was true.

She was only here trying to make things square between them—to do
her
duty—just as George, by marrying her, had done what he misguidedly perceived to be his. It was a responsibility. A job—because George had even “hired” her, though she’d be damned if she would let him pay her a cent. She was doing this to pay him back. She didn’t want his money.

Mostly she didn’t want to be tempted. She didn’t
want
to want George again.

It was bad enough to have lost her heart to him once. Four years ago she had believed that however inauspicious the beginning of their relationship had been, they could love each other.

She had already been well on her way to loving him by their wedding day.

Strong and stalwart and dependable, George was the exact
opposite of his cousin. The only things George and Ari had in common were some of their genes and their gorgeous good looks. But while Ari knew how to use his looks to his advantage—and did!—George seemed unaware of his. And while Ari had been there when things were fun and frivolous, George had been there when she’d needed him. Always.

She’d met him while she was dating Ari, had even danced with him at Ari and George’s cousin Gregory’s wedding. In fact George had been drafted in as an usher because he and Ari were the same size and he could wear Ari’s tux when Ari hadn’t showed up on time.

“It’s not like they weren’t going to have the wedding without me.” Ari had dismissed the matter when Sophy had fretted about them arriving late.

That had certainly been true enough. In fact, Gregory and his bride were already man and wife by the time she and Ari had arrived.

Ari had shrugged. “Works for me. Anyway, they had George. He’ll do.” Ari had given his cousin a light punch on the arm. “Good old George.”

Later, when she’d danced with George at the reception, she’d apologized for their tardiness even though it hadn’t been her fault.

George had just shrugged and said wryly, “That’s Ari. Not exactly Mr. Dependable.”

At the time Sophy had still been a bit starry-eyed about Ari Savas. He was fun and flirtatious and he had charm to spare. He’d got her into bed, hadn’t he? And then he’d left three days later to go skiing out west and she hadn’t seen him for a month. She had written to him when she found out she was pregnant, but he’d never replied. And when next she saw him, he seemed surprised that she would have bothered to tell him.

That was the way it was with Ari. He had little interest in anyone else—and none at all in becoming a father.

Sophy got the message. In fact, because he’d bailed on her and their incipient child, she’d been tempted not to go to his funeral three months later. There didn’t seem any point.

Eventually she’d decided to go because she thought that someday their child would ask about his or her father.

While Sophy was under no illusions about Ari’s fidelity or love by this time, she’d once, however foolishly, cared about him. She knew she would love their child. And she owed it to that child to be able to share what she could of the man who had fathered him or her.

It was a huge funeral for a popular young man who had died before his time. All of Ari’s family had been there. Most of them had paid no attention to her. She was just another one of Ari’s many girlfriends. The last girlfriend, perhaps, but not a member of the family.

Only George had made a point of coming over to her afterward, taking her hand in his and not just accepting her condolences, but offering his own sympathy to her.

His lean handsome face and tousled dark hair reminded her of Ari, but the resemblance to his cousin stopped there. Ari had always been the life of the party and probably would have been even at a funeral. George was quiet and self-possessed. There was a remoteness about him even though, as they talked, Sophy was aware of his jade-green gaze boring into hers.

They didn’t talk long and she never mentioned her pregnancy. It was winter. She was wearing a heavy coat, and at just five months along, she wasn’t yet as big as the house she would become before Lily’s birth. So George had had no idea. None of his family had. If Sophy had ever imagined that Ari might have proudly proclaimed—or even quietly admitted—he was going to be a father, she knew that day that he’d never said a word.

She’d felt a little bereft as she was leaving, and it must have showed on her face because George had drawn her into his
arms and given her a hard, steadying hug. It had felt so good, so supportive, so right that Sophy had wanted to lean into it, to draw strength from it.

From George.

But fortunately common sense had prevailed and she had stepped back, decorum prevailing.

Still he’d held on to her hands. “Take care of yourself.” His voice had been like rough velvet. Stronger than Ari’s. Deeper.

Sophy had nodded, exquisitely aware of her hands being chafed and squeezed lightly between George’s strong fingers.

“Yes,” she said, throat tightening. “Yes. You, too.”

She’d given him a watery smile, then desperately pulled her hands out of his and fled before sudden tears from God knew what complicated emotions spilled over onto her cheeks.

She’d hung on to that memory of George to get her through the days and weeks that followed. She told herself it was because he reminded her of Ari—but not Ari as he’d been, but rather the man she’d wanted him to be. If this child was a boy, she’d told herself, she hoped he’d be more like George than like Ari.

Not that she had a lot of time to think about either one of them. She had been teaching at a preschool-cum-day-care, a fun but exhausting job, and every day she came home more tired than the last. She loved the children, but as she’d grown bigger and the baby had become more active, simply getting through the day took a lot out of her.

When she went home after school, she had longed for a bit of adult conversation, just someone to be there. But there was none because a few weeks before Ari’s funeral, her roommate, Carla, had accepted a job in Florida and moved out.

After Carla had moved, Sophy hadn’t looked for another roommate right away. She was nesting and she’d liked having the space to herself. Her cousin Natalie in California, the only
relative she was very close to, had suggested Sophy come out there when she’d learned Sophy was expecting.

With her parents dead and no siblings, Sophy was on her own. But while she appreciated Natalie’s suggestion, she wasn’t ready to take it.

“No. My doctor’s here. I’m taking prenatal classes here. My job is here. I want to finish out the school year.”

But her West Village apartment was expensive, and while she might have liked to live there alone, she wasn’t going to be able to keep it if she didn’t make an effort to find a new roommate soon.

So she put an ad up in the faculty room at the preschool and at the gym where she went to her prenatal classes. She got calls. Several of them. Most were not at all what she had in mind. But one seemed possible. A second-grade teacher named Melinda, with a four-year-old boy and a parrot, was looking for a place to live.

Sophy wasn’t sure about the four-year-old or the parrot, but she imagined Melinda wasn’t sure about a newborn, either, so one afternoon in early May she invited Melinda over to talk and see the apartment.

She’d just put the last of the dishes away and was sweeping the floor, hoping to impress Melinda with her housekeeping skills, when the doorbell rang.

A glance at her watch told Sophy that Melinda was half an hour early. But better early and eager than late or not at all. Besides, if the place wasn’t pristine, there was no point in pretending to be something she was not. So she stuck the broom in the closet, pasted on her best welcoming smile and opened the door.

It wasn’t Melinda.

It was George.

George?
Sophy felt suddenly breathless. Her knees wobbled. She stared at him, words failing her.

George didn’t speak at once, either. He just stood there,
lean and rugged and as gorgeous as ever, looking down at her with those smoky green eyes of his. They held her gaze for a moment, then slowly, inexorably slid southward so that she could almost feel them touching her full breasts and her now very noticeably pregnant belly. It wasn’t winter any longer, and she wasn’t wearing a coat—only a loose smock that did nothing to conceal her shape. Sophy gripped the doorknob so tightly her hand hurt. She didn’t move.

She didn’t see shock in his gaze so much as curiosity and then something like confirmation. Confirmation?

George’s jaw tightened briefly as his gaze lingered on her belly. But then it eased as his gaze traveled back up to meet hers.

“You are pregnant.” It even sounded like a confirmation.

Sophy ran her tongue over dry lips. She nodded. “Yes.” She was strangling the doorknob now. But she met his gaze steadily. She had nothing to hide. And it was far too late for George to say what Ari had already said: “What are you going to do about it?”

It had to be apparent to him what she intended to “do about it”—she intended to have it, welcome it. In fact the baby’s cradle was clearly visible in the living room behind her.

But he didn’t question that. He simply asked, “Are you all right?” His eyes were searching hers.

“Yes, of course. I’m fine.” Or as fine as a seven-month-pregnant woman with an active kicking person inside her abdomen, a back ache and varicose veins could possibly be.

What did he want? She hesitated, wondering if she should invite him in because at any moment Melinda and her four-year-old and her parrot might be showing up. But she couldn’t just say, “Go away.” She didn’t want him to go away.

“Come in,” she said and opened the door wider.

George came in. He didn’t sit down. He paced around her small living room even though she gestured toward the couch.

“Won’t you sit down? Would you like something to drink?”

He cracked his knuckles and shook his head. “Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded, his gaze on her belly again.

Instinctively Sophy put her hands on her abdomen, as if they were a shield. She shrugged. “Say what? ‘Oh, by the way, before he died, Ari knocked me up?’ Why? What point was there?”

“He’s responsible.”

“Yes, well, perhaps he was. Now he’s not. And he didn’t want to be, anyway.” She turned her back and fiddled with the blinds, but she heard something that sounded like George’s teeth coming together.

“How do you know?” he demanded.

“I talked to him about it. I told him. He said, ‘Oh, too bad. What’re you going to do about it?’”

George muttered something and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck.

Sophy, watching him, tilted her head. “How did you find out?” she wanted to know.

“Your letter.”

“Letter?”

“You wrote him. Told him. It was in his backpack. We found it when they finally shipped his stuff home.”

“Oh. That letter.” The one she’d sent when she’d first found out. The letter that Ari claimed he’d never got. “It was in his backpack? I see.”

So Ari had already known about the baby before she’d tracked him down in person to tell him the news. When she’d never heard from him, she’d been afraid he hadn’t received her letter. Obviously he had. He’d simply chosen to ignore the fact.

Somehow Sophy supposed she wasn’t surprised. Not anymore. Not about Ari. Hiding his head in the sand and
pretending it didn’t exist was typical of Ari. Not surprising at all.

But finding George on her doorstep
was
surprising. What did he want?

Her back was hurting, so Sophy sat down.

George didn’t. He was still prowling around her small living room, stopping only to stare down at the cradle and the stacks of tiny newborn clothes inside it that several of her coworkers had recently handed down to her. “When’s the baby due?” he asked.

“Early October.”

He turned his gaze on her. “And how are you going to cope when it comes?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who’s going to take care of it? Do you have benefits? Can you afford to stay home with it?”

Sophy pressed her lips together, wondering what business it was of his. “I can manage,” she said.

His hooded gaze bored into her. “Can you?”

His eyes were intense, magnetic. She couldn’t look away. And at the same time she couldn’t lie. “I hope so,” she said more truthfully.

He came to stand directly in front of her so that she had to tip her head up to look at him. “We can help. We will help.”

Sophy stared up at him. “We? Who’s we?”

“The family.” He paused. “Not just the family. Me.”

“You?” She shook her head. “Financially, you mean? That’s very kind. Thank you, but—” She should stand, should face him head-on.

“Financially, yes, of course,” George cut in. “Your child will be taken care of.” He said that almost impatiently. “Not just your child.” He held out his hands to her.

Instinctively, Sophy put hers in them and despite her bulk and imbalance, in George’s hands she felt herself pulled easily to her feet.

He didn’t step back, so that now they were standing mere inches apart, close enough that Sophy could see that he’d recently shaved, that he had the tiniest chip out of one front tooth, that there were gold flecks in his intense green eyes.

“What then?” she asked.

“Marry me.”

Her obstetrician had said, “Don’t get up too fast. It can make you dizzy and unbalanced.” He’d never said it would affect her hearing. Sophy stared, disbelieving.

“Marry me.”
George said it again. Urgently. His eyes mesmerized her.

Sophy swallowed hard. There was blood pounding in her ears. “I—I need to sit down,” she said faintly—and sank into the chair before she tumbled into it.