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“I know.” I curled up into his arms, feeling his possession of me. Giving myself into his keeping

once again. “Tell that to my hormones.”

He kissed the top of my head. “We’ll give each other some room to act out of character, then.”

“You might need to give me a
bit
more license in that regard, but yeah.”

“I’m proud of you. For your game. I played a little—it’s really addictive. You did a great job.”

“Not really, if you only played a little…”

He backed up and lifted my chin with a finger. His lips slid along mine. “I love you.” The kiss

deepened, lifting my desire. His tongue danced in my mouth, light and teasing.

Expectation surged. Arousal raged through me.

I slid my hands down his hard chest and cupped his even harder bulge. “I emailed the doctor last

night. We’re okay for sex.”

“There is no way I’m going to make love to you until we are absolutely sure, Olivia.” He nibbled

my bottom lip. “We’ll talk about it tonight. Worst case, we can get to third base. Or is naked petting second base? I’m not clear on the bases.”

“I haven’t worried about bases since I was a virgin.”

“So…a few months ago, right? Right before you met me?” I felt his lips turn up into a smile. “I

never got that chance. I’m happy to have you be my first in that respect.”

Warmth like I had never known unfurled in my chest. A love so profound that I didn’t know how to

handle it moved through me. It was like his statement had me connecting with that time in my life

when everything was new and a little terrifying. When I explored, edging slowly into intimacy. He’d

just opened that door for us, and the effect was just short of soul-wrenching.

A wash of tears drenched my face. Completely the opposite emotion, but exactly the same origin, I

was out of control and riding a hormonal wave of crazy.

“Hey,” Hunter said quietly, looking down at me with concern. “What happened?”

I smiled through my tears. “I’d like that. Being your first-base runner.”

A small crease formed between his eyebrows. “These are happy tears?”

“Yes. Stop trying to understand. Just go with it. I am.”

He smiled, making me blink up at his handsomeness. “I love you, Olivia. And I am trying. I’ll

make all this right. I’ll be the man you need.”

“Stop.” I wiped at my face. “You’re making the waterfall worse.”

He kissed me again, full of love and longing, before backing off. “I have a lot of work to do.

You’re distracting me. I’ll see you later when I can touch you.”

My face heated, and then my body. I nodded without words and went out to my desk. It wasn’t

until later that I realized I was in the same boat, but for an entirely different reason. I didn’t want to tell my mom, either. I knew she’d have her hand out almost immediately. Her pursuit of rich men

would become the pursuit of her daughter’s favor so she could sidle up next to Hunter and his fortune.

He hadn’t shrugged off marriage in the hospital, but he hadn’t mentioned it, either. A part of me

worried that if he was confronted with where I came from, he wouldn’t be as open to my taking his

last name. A bigger part of me wondered if he wanted to get married at all.

Chapter Four

“ We did it! Oh my God, we did it!” I stood up from my desk with my phone clutched in my hand.

I looked up at Brenda as she came down the hall with two cups for the afternoon coffee run. I pointed my screen toward her. “We hit number one!”

A cockeyed smile appeared on her face. She took her cup back to her desk, not commenting,

leaned over her keyboard to type a few things, then turned toward me as her mug made its way to her

mouth. That was it. That was her reaction—looking at me with a smirk while drinking coffee.

“Brenda, this is a big deal!”

“What happened?” Hunter came out of his office. I wasn’t even annoyed that now he had Brenda

message him so he could come out and get his own coffee to prevent me walking. My comment on that

absurdity could wait.

I pointed the screen at him. “We’re number one!”

He took a few steps, squinted at the screen, and then straightened up with those delicious,

twinkling eyes. “Great job.”

“This is ridiculous. You two are killing my mood.” I called Bruce, half bouncing in anticipation.

“Yallo?”

“Hey. We did it! We’re number one!” I braced with my hands out, waiting for the reaction.

A couple of seconds later, probably the amount of time it took him to look it up on his own

computer, he said, “O-kay. Excellent. Now we’re in business!”

I smiled like a fool and took a deep breath. This was huge. Our first game. Our first time. There

were so many apps and games, so many freebies, both big and small. We were nobodies with one

game within the thousands, and we’d hit number one. I was so excited I didn’t know what to do with

myself.

“Now the real work begins,” Bruce said.

I felt my smile wither. “You couldn’t let me enjoy that a little longer?”

“We have to cash in on this momentum, Livy. Tonight I’ll run the update to limit how much we

give away for free. I’ll also check to see how fast people are getting through the levels. We might

need to make them harder.”

“The ones toward the end are difficult enough.”

“There are some smart people out there with no lives. If all they do is play, we need to stay ahead

of them.”

I glanced at my computer, thought of the huge list of things I had to do for Hunter, and then the even longer list for the game. My whole body tightened up, immediately overwhelmed. I took a deep

breath. I could do this. I could stay balanced and stress-free. “Okay, I’ll—”

The phone left my hand. I glanced up as Hunter put it to his head. “Bruce, she has to go… Yup…

Sure.”

Hunted tapped it off and handed the phone back. His expression was not at all apologetic. “Send

me your to-do list for both this position and for Bruce. That is top priority.”

“Here we go…” Brenda murmured, setting her cup down and bracing her chin on her fist.

I felt my ire raise without warning. Frustration and anger turned into a lethal soup that zinged

through my body. Then came fear of what those emotions might do to my baby. Finally came tears,

because my hormones were so jacked up I didn’t even know which way was up anymore. “Damn it,

Hunter!” I yelled. I didn’t know what else to do. He was right in taking the phone, and the stress,

away from me, and we both knew it.

I hated admitting that, though. Yelling seemed like a better reaction.

Hunter’s eyes lit on fire. “Come into my office.”

“Please,” I said through clenched teeth as I stomped after him.

As soon as we were both sitting, Hunter said, “You know very well that if I hadn’t ended that call,

you would’ve spiraled. I remember the same look on your face from yesterday, Livy, right before you

bent over my desk holding your stomach. I’ve said before that my job is to protect you and that baby.

If I have to save you from yourself, so be it. I make no excuses, no apologies. You need to choose,

Olivia. No more delays.”

Tears of frustration came to my eyes. “Look. If I don’t do this stuff for Bruce, he’ll replace me. I really don’t want that, Hunter. I love doing that stuff.”

Hunter’s eyes softened. “So why don’t you do it full-time?”

I scrubbed my palm against my knee. “What about you? You’d have to replace me.”

“I can fill your role here much easier than Bruce can replace you should you quit. You need to do

what you love, Olivia. We both know that administrative duties give you no satisfaction.”

“But…” I looked around. My gaze snagged on the couch, and then slid by the desk. “What about

the personal contract?”

“Is that what has you worried?” Hunter crossed his ankle over his knee. “And here I thought you

were worried about me working more hours.” A smile dusted his lips. “I have everything I need in

you.”

“Sometimes you forget, though. At least, when I started you did. You tried to call me in for a

faceless screw, remember?”

His eyes lit on fire. I could read the desire in his look. “I don’t look for mindless fulfillment now.

I look for you.”

The fear eased, but didn’t totally disappear. “I don’t know. If I didn’t work here I’d never see you.

There must be some way this can work.”

“I’ll see you every evening and you can visit me here. You can even come in and work at my

table.” He pointed to the round table in his office. “Or you can use the conference rooms. Or my

couch. You shut everything out when you work and I find your presence comforting—I think that

would be a great arrangement.”

I bit my lip in indecision. This was all happening so fast.

In a last-ditch effort, leaning on my stubbornness, I said, “You can’t force me to choose, Hunter.”

“I can fire you. And I will. What you do after that would be your choice, but it also doesn’t take a genius to know how relieved you’ll be to work on your code without my duties nagging at you.”

I frowned harder. “You sure think you know everything.”

He grinned and pushed forward. “I do. Think it over.”

I walked out of his office shaking my head. I hadn’t stood a chance.

“Did you get reamed out or what?” Brenda asked as I sat at my desk.

“No. He offered to help me out by firing me.”

“You two have a messed-up relationship, have I mentioned that?”

I snorted. “You didn’t have to.”

AT THE END OF THE DAY I LEFT THE OFFICE WITH A STRANGE SINKING FEELING. I DIDN’T REALLY WANT TO QUIT

working for Hunter. It was how I’d met him. It was how he’d more or less browbeaten me into loving

him. Everything had started for us with my first yes in the park. I was reluctant to let that go.

Truth be told, I was also a little worried. I lived with him, and I was having this baby, but we

hadn’t talked about forever. The crazy-woman part of me didn’t want to give him more space for fear

he’d realize I wasn’t nearly as great as he thought. I was a plain Jane next to him. Not forcing my

presence on him every day might break whatever spell he was under. After that, kicking me out and

arranging custody rules would be a cinch.

I needed to take my mind off this.

I took out my phone as I waited for the car service. It was seven o’clock. Hunter said he had

another couple of hours to do before he’d meet me at home. While I should go home and work on the

game, which was still number one, I wanted to chat with a friend. I wanted to take my mind off the big decision I had weighing on me.

I called Kimberly.

“Hi!” she said on the second ring. “You have ESP. I was just going to call you. How are you?”

I smiled at the peppiness in her voice. “Good. Want to meet for a coffee?”

“Definitely. I’m in the financial district. Where are you?”

“Same. I’m just leaving work.”

“Dumb question, right?” She laughed. “Okay, I’ll make my way toward you.”

The black car pulled up next to the curb. As the man got out, I took a couple steps toward him.

“Sorry—false alarm. I won’t need the car for a couple hours.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t even look put out. For some reason, that made me feel guiltier about

wasting his time.

Ten minutes later I caught sight of the shining red hair bouncing with each of Kimberly’s steps.

Her smile was bright and her hug warm when she reached me. “Hi!”

“Hey. Where to?”

“Jen and Rick are at a little café a few blocks from here. Want to go meet them? They’re back

together and fighting all the time.” She rolled her eyes.

I hesitated. Jen and Rick would probably be drinking, as it was happy hour. Since I’d never

refrained from drinking in their presence, they would immediately realize that something was up. I

couldn’t very well tell Kimberly no, though. Then she’d ask why.

Trying to cover up a pregnancy was not going to be easy.

“That sounds…fun,” I said sarcastically.

She laughed and looped her arm around mine. “They usually cut it out when someone else shows

up. What have you been up to? I saw that your app is at number one. How excited are you right now?”

“Super. Super excited! I should be working on it at the moment, but I just don’t want to.”

“How do you do it all? You’re going to crash.”

“I know. Hunter is making me choose.”

She loudly sucked in a breath. “No! What did he say?”

I went over our meeting, what I was doing, and what it would amount to.

“And you’re worried it’ll be out of sight, out of mind, huh?” Kimberly surmised when I was done.

“It’s crazy, I know.”

“It is, but I totally get it. I’d think the same thing. Because, you know, you got the job because of the personal thing. He won’t, though. The man is head over heels. Everyone talks about the smart girl who reeled in Hunter Carlisle. You’re a legend.”

“Smart girl, huh? Usually I’d be proud of that, but Hunter is so gorgeous. People should be talking

about the pretty girl who reeled him in.”

Kimberly scoffed and playfully hit my arm. “You’re beautiful. But beauty is a dime a dozen.

Hunter has always had beautiful girls around him. He chose the genius girl.”

“
Genius
?” I laughed.

“Not like I’d set them straight.” Kimberly stuck her tongue out at me before pulling my arm

toward the door. “This is it.”

She entered before me and hesitated in the entryway.

“Two?” a hostess asked, reaching for menus.

“No. We’re here to meet—oh, there they are.” Kimberly pointed at a table in the back surrounded

by four people. She turned to me with wide eyes.

I groaned. Jonathan, my ex-boyfriend, was one of the four, along with Tera, who was a snob at the