A Touch of Temptation

The few minutes stretched like an eternity. The quiet lull of voices outside was exaggerated into distorted echoes.

Her heart beat faster and louder. A painful tug in her lower belly stole her breath. She clutched the cold granite vanity unit and clenched the muscles in her legs, willing herself to hold on.

The scariest word she had ever encountered appeared on the stick.

Pregnant.

No confusing colors or symbols that meant you had to peek again at the box discarded in terrified panic.

Simple, plain English.

Her heart leaped into her throat. Her legs shaking beneath her, she leaned against one of the stalls behind her, dipped her head low and forced herself to breathe past the deafening whoosh in her ears.

Her one mistake, which technically she had committed twice, couldn’t haunt her for the rest of her life, could it?

But she couldn’t change the consequences. She had never been naïve or stupid enough to wish it either.

She flicked the gleaming chrome tap open and dangled her fingers under the ice-cold water. The sound of the water hitting the sink drowned out the sound of her heartbeat, helping her focus on her breathing.

In, out. In, out...

She closed the tap. Straightening up, she was about to reach for the hand towel when she looked at the mirror and froze.

She stared at her reflection, noting the dark circles under her eyes, the lack of color in her face, the skin pulled tautly over her bones. Drops of water seeped through the thin silk of her blouse to her skin beneath.

She looked as if she was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. And maybe she was. But she didn’t have time now. The breakdown had to wait. She touched the tips of her fingers to her temple and pressed. The cold from her almost numb fingers seeped into her overheated skin.

She had no time to deal with this now. She had to compartmentalize—set it aside until she was alone, until she was equipped to think logically, until the shock making her jittery all over faded into nothing more than a numbing ache.

And when it did she would assess the situation again with a clear head, take the necessary action to equip herself better to handle it. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have any experience with dealing with shock and pain.

Although why she had chosen this particular moment to take the test when the pregnancy kit had been burning a rectangular hole in her handbag for more than a week was anybody’s guess. Or maybe she was having another momentary collapse of her rational thinking circuits.

She had been having those moments a lot lately.

She pulled her lip-gloss out of her clutch and reapplied it with shaking fingers. She ran a hand over her suit. The silky material under her fingers rooted her back to reality.

She needed to get back out there. She needed to circulate among the guests—a specially put together group of investors she had researched for more than six months. Investors who had shown interest in her web startup The Daily Help.

She had a presentation to give. She had to talk them through the financial outline she had sketched for the next five years. She had to convince them to invest in her start-up when there were a million others mushrooming every day.

She had to convince them that the recent scandal about her, Olivia and Alexander had nothing to do with the way she did business. It was a sign of how strong her business proposal was that they had even showed up, despite the scandal.

She straightened her jacket and turned toward the exit. And paused midstride.

Turning back, she picked up the plastic tube, wrapped it carefully in the wrapper she had left on the sink and threw it into the trash. She fumbled when she turned the corner, struggling to breathe past the tight ache in her gut. She placed her hand on her stomach and drew in gulps of air, waiting for the tidal wave of pain that threatened to pull her under to pass.

Striding out of the restroom, she plucked a glass of sparkling water from a passing waiter and nodded at an old friend from Harvard. She was glad she had booked this conference hall in one of the glitzy hotels in Manhattan, even though her tightfisted CFO had frowned over the expense.

Kim didn’t think an evening in her company’s premises— a large open space in the basement of a building in Manhattan, unstructured in every way possible—would encourage confidence on the investors’ part.

She checked her Patek Philipe watch, a gift from her father when she had graduated from Harvard, and invited everyone to join her in the conference room for the presentation.

She felt an uncharacteristic reluctance as she switched on the projector. Once she concluded the presentation she was going to be alone with her thoughts. Alone with things she couldn’t postpone thinking about anymore.

* * *

It happened as she reached almost the end of her presentation.

With her laser pointer pointed at a far-off wall, instead of at her company’s financial forecast on the rolled-out projector screen, she lost her train of thought—as though someone had turned off a switch in her brain.

She searched the audience for what had thrown her.

A movement—the turn of a dark head—a whisper or something else? Had she imagined it? Everything and everyone else faded into background for a few disconcerting moments. Had her equilibrium been threatened so much by her earlier discovery?

The resounding quiet tumbled her out of her brain fog. She cleared her throat, took a sip of her water and turned back to the chart on the screen. She finished the presentation, her stomach still unsettled.

The lights came on and she smiled with relief. Several hands came up as she opened the floor to questions. She could recite those figures half-asleep. Every little detail of her company was etched into her brain.

The first few were questions she had expected. Hitting her stride, she elaborated on what put her company a cut above the others, provided more details, more figures, increasing statistics and the ad revenue they had generated last year.

Even the momentary aberration of a few minutes ago couldn’t mar the satisfaction she could feel running in her veins, the high of accomplishment, of her hard work bearing fruit.

She answered the last question, turned the screen off and switched on the overhead lights.

There he was. The reason for the strange tightening in her stomach. The cause of the prickling sensation she couldn’t shed.

Diego Pereira. The man who had seduced her and walked away without a backward glance. The man whose baby she was pregnant with.

She froze on the slightly elevated podium, felt her gut falling through an endless abyss. Like the time her twin sister had dragged her on a free-fall ride in an amusement park. Except through the nauseating terror that day she had known that at some point the fall would end. So she had forced herself to sit rigid, her teeth digging painfully into the inside of her mouth, while Liv had screamed with terror and laughter.

No such assurance today. Because every time Diego stormed into her life she forgot the lesson she had learned long ago.

Her hands instinctively moved to her stomach and his gaze zeroed in on her amidst the crowd. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look into those golden eyes that had set her up to fall. Couldn’t look at that cruel face that had purposely played with her life.

She forced herself to keep her gaze straight, focused on all the other curious faces waiting to speak to her. It was the most excruciating half hour of her entire life. She could feel Diego’s gaze on her back, drilling into her, looking for a weak spot—anything that he could use to cause more destruction.

At least he’d made it easy for her to avoid him, sitting in one of the chairs in the back row with his gaze focused on her.

She slipped, the heel of one of her three-inch pumps snagging on the carpet as she moved past him. Just the dark scent of him was tripping her nerves.

Why was he here? And what cruel twist of fate had brought him here the very same day she had discovered that she was pregnant?

* * *

Diego Pereira watched unmoving as Kim closed the door to the conference hall behind her, her slender body stiff with tension. She was nervous and, devil that he was, he liked it.

He flicked through the business proposal. Every little detail of her presentation was blazing in his mind, and he was impressed despite his black mood. Although he shouldn’t really be surprised.