“I’m saying you’re a good person. Far more so than I am, actually.” His hand fell to the leather blotter she’d cleared of paperwork for this meeting.
“Besides, what would you gain by telling me this? Nothing.”
“Ah, so your belief in me has more to do with logic than any mystical eye-reading abilities.”
“Brooke. Quit stalling.”
Babbling Brooke. Her father used to call her that whenever she got nervous. Yet she’d worked so hard to cultivate a cool facade after years of her mother’s hurtful, drunken jibes.
Jordan was right. She was stalling, and all because she suffered from a silly, ridiculous—shallow—moment of self-consciousness. She definitely didn’t look like the same woman who’d crawled into bed with Jordan five months ago. Why couldn’t he have stayed on the other side of the desk for this conversation?
So much for vanity.
She rolled her chair back across the rose-colored Persian carpet and presented him with an unfettered view of her green dress clinging to her pregnant belly.
Holy hell. Jordan ’s mouth dried up.
He’d heard about the pregnancy glow from friends and workmates, and quite frankly had thought it to be pure bunk. Until now.
Brooke’s creamy skin had a touch-me luster. Her silky brown hair glistened with an extra sheen he could swear had multiplied since he’d last seen her.
And the new swell of her br**sts…His hands itched to explore them all over again.
Finally, he let his gaze land on the curve of her stomach where the baby grew.
Now that stirred something else altogether inside him. Something primal.
His child.
He’d known from the moment he heard the due date that the child was his.
However, seeing the proof here in front him, seeing Brooke so amazingly full of his baby…He felt an all-new connection to her and to the life they’d created together.
He wasn’t going to be shuffled aside, especially not by any stubborn Garrison with her fortress of family support.
Jordan corralled his thoughts and narrowed his focus to her chin with that signature Garrison cleft. People might call him the hard-ass in the boardroom when it came to dealings for Jefferies Brothers, Incorporated, but he decided it wouldn’t hurt to let her see how this moment had rocked him.
He sat on the edge of her desk and exhaled long, hard. “Damn, Brooke, that’s amazing.”
Her gorgeous smile told him he’d struck gold.
Her hand fell to rest over the slight curve. “I’m still getting used to it myself.
That’s why I haven’t gotten around to telling you, yet.”
He figured it wouldn’t be prudent to mention she’d found time to tell her whole freaking family. Alienating her gained him nothing and risked everything. “What matters is we’re here, now, together.”
Together. The word stirred memories of their shared night. Those recollections linked up with the heat surging through him now simply by looking at her, by watching her pupils dilate in response.
Why not let his attraction to Brooke—an attraction that had full well been reciprocated by her—be turned to his advantage?
He reached again to stroke a stray lock back from her face. He took a slow moment to test the feel of it between his fingers, then graze her cheek with his knuckles, her skin as soft as her hair.
“ Jordan ,” she began, her brow furrowing in a surefire precursor to a discussion he hoped to forestall. “I know this could get complicated, but I’ll have my lawyers contact yours about making sure you have—”
He dipped his head to capture her next word with his mouth. She tasted like peppermint and temptation.
The peppermint was new. The latter part, he remembered from that fateful night five months ago when they’d crossed paths in the Garrison Grand. He’d been scoping out the competition as he worked on building his Hotel Victoria.
Sure he’d seen her before, but there had been something about her that night, something vulnerable that had called to him. Before he could say bad decision, they’d been making out in an elevator on their way up to a room.
Lips and tongues meeting pretty much the way they were now. Yes, he definitely remembered that, as well as the graceful line of her back under his hands. The feel of her fingers gripping his shoulders. All of it stirred him again with a surprising jolt.
He couldn’t afford to lose control. He needed to corral his thoughts with so much at stake with their child, not to mention the business implications of a family merger with a Garrison.
Jordan eased his mouth from hers and tucked her head against his chest as he worked to slow his heart rate. The gusts of her breaths along his neck told him she was every bit as affected by him—which didn’t help calm him.
Still, his hands smoothed along her back. The timing to woo her over would be tough for him with the preparations for opening his Hotel Victoria next month, a smaller hotel than her family’s Garrison Grand. But he was certain it would rival the Garrison property in luxury—and attract the same clientele. Hell, yes, he’d earned his ruthless business reputation honestly.
He would need that same drive now to win her over. Not only because of the baby, but also because he knew the chemistry he and Brooke shared didn’t come around all that often. In fact, he couldn’t think of any other woman who turned him inside out with the stroke of her hand the way she could, not even the ex-Playboy bunny he’d dated—and broken up with shortly before that steamy night with Brooke.
Jordan nuzzled her ear. “No lawyers.” He nipped the lobe, tugging on her diamond earring gently. “A judge. Two rings.” His hand slid around to cup the sweet fullness of her. “And a bouquet by the end of the week, because this child will be born to married parents.”
Chapter 2
Marry him?
Was he out of his flipping mind?
Or maybe she’d lost hers. Brooke pulled out of his arms so she could regain her balance in the rolling chair. Certainly Jordan ’s kisses had a powerful effect over her, a large part of why she’d run from his bed so hard and fast five months ago.
The utter loss of control she’d felt with him scared the spit out of her, then and now. “Marry you?”
“Of course.” He stroked two fingers down the length of her ever-errant stray lock of hair until she thought maybe she would leave her hair that way from now on. “It makes perfect sense. You’re carrying my kid. Our families have been feuding long enough, don’t you think? That sort of contentious environment can’t be good for a child. Now that Emilio is engaged toBrittany, the rift has started to mend. We can solidify that by marrying each other and fully merging the two family corporations.”