Reunited...And Pregnant

Cady started to turn to walk away and then she remembered what was at stake. Her business was her only source of income and she needed that income. If she wasn’t pregnant, she would leave but she was now responsible for another life, and walking away wasn’t that simple anymore.

She needed this damned job.

Cady planted her feet and turned her attention back to her ex-lover and potential client and to Amy, who obviously had an important position in his company.

“Linc asked me to source proposals from new, hungry firms as well as the established companies we’ve worked with before. Cady made it through the first round and she’s about to do her presentation,” Amy explained, still sounding cool and composed.

Cady could see the tension in his body, see his fist clench. “You’ve gone too far, Amy.”

“I have not. This is a business arrangement, a job. She’s creative, hungry and needs work, and Ballantyne’s needs someone creative, something different. You’re making this personal, not me,” Amy retorted.

How could it not be? What they had had been very personal indeed. She allowed this man to do things to her that still made her blush. And she’d returned the favor...

As she remembered hot mouths, desperate hands, labored breathing and mind-shattering orgasms, she had to place her hand on the wall to keep her balance. Beck’s eyes slammed into hers and she caught a flash of awareness, a lick of fiery heat, and she knew that he knew exactly what she was thinking. For an instant he was there with her, holding himself above her, about to slide into her.

His eyes always turned that particular shade of cobalt-blue when he was turned on. Cady licked her lips and dropped her eyes to his crotch...

Nope, nothing. No action at all. Mortified, she lifted her hot face to see the ice in his eyes. So, she was alone in that little fantasy, and Beck was definitely not taking a walk down memory lane.

But Beck was giving her another once-over, his gaze starting at her nude heels, moving slowly up her skinny black trousers to her blush-pink silk blouse. She’d pulled her long hair into a severe braid, which she twisted into a low knot at the back of her head, and her makeup, while minimalist, was flawless. With black, heavy-framed glasses, she looked every inch the New York businesswoman and nothing like the free-spirited girl he used to know.

While he inspected her like she was a car he was considering buying, she thought that Beck was now bigger and broader, harder, and he exuded power from every sexy pore. Even dressed casually, he emitted a don’t-mess-with-me vibe that dried up the moisture in her mouth and sent it straight to that special spot between her legs.

Damn.

Amy broke the tension by poking Beck with her red-tipped finger. “You need to change. You can’t listen to presentations looking like you’ve just walked off a trail.”

Beck grabbed her finger and held it, just enough for Amy’s eyes to widen and for her to realize that Beck was still pissed off. “Do try to remember who the boss is.”

Amy, utterly indefatigable, just grinned. “I do. It’s me. Let’s get back to work, people.”

Cady spun around and walked back to the reception area and ignored the curious looks she received from her fellow competitors. Beck, she presumed, went to clean up.

Neither of them saw the gleeful expression on Amy’s face or heard her whispered words. “Watching them is going to be so much fun.”

Three (#ulink_730e01ae-b5bb-58e3-9809-142328fdde9f)

Keyed up and tense after her ninety-minute-long presentation, Cady left the conference room feeling like a washed-out rag. Needing a comfort break, she headed down the hall to the ladies’ room, thinking that she’d wash her hands and face, reapply some war paint and try to catch her breath. The Ballantyne siblings—with the exception of Beck, who had just sat there, as immovable and silent as a rock—had bombarded her with questions, most of which she’d deftly answered.

She’d done her best in the limited time she’d had, putting together a mammoth strategy for a global company, but she had no illusions. She was up against the best in the business. If she got the contract then she’d earn herself a get-out-of-bankruptcy card. If she didn’t, in a month or two she’d be packing her bags and throwing herself on the mercy of her parents.

They’d take her in; there was no doubt about it. But she’d have to learn to live with disapproving looks and the what-were-you-thinking lectures. And the image of the perfect family, the one her mother tried so hard to project, would be shattered. The pastor’s daughter, single and pregnant, the one who had so much potential, would be hot, hot gossip.

Her mother was going to kill her.

Cady felt a big hand wrap around her upper bicep and she spun around to look into Beckett’s deep blue eyes, the exact color of the navy-and-white polka-dot tie he now wore over a finely striped light-blue-and-white shirt. Walking into the conference room earlier, the last company to present, she’d immediately noticed that he’d changed and couldn’t help thinking he should always wear blue. The cuffs of his shirt were folded over the sleeves of his trendy cardigan, and both sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, showing his thick, muscled forearms.

Beckett was a snappy dresser.

“Beckett, I need to use the facilities,” she protested as he walked her past the ladies’ room.

“I have a private bathroom adjoining my office,” he growled and Cady had to half jog to keep up with his long-legged stride. He ignored Amy’s startled face as he walked past her desk and into the office on the right. Through the glass walls, a feature of the Ballantyne offices, she could see that Linc’s office was empty. Cady wondered if they ever felt like they were working in a fish tank.

Beck pushed her through the glass door into his messy office.

“The bathroom is through there.” He nodded to a door at the other end of the large space. “When you’re done, we’re going to talk.”

That didn’t sound good. Cady kept her face blank, not wanting Beck to see her flinch. Nodding once, she placed her laptop bag on one of the two bucket chairs facing his ridiculously large desk and headed for the bathroom.

After using the facilities, she took her time washing her hands and touching up her makeup. Beckett could wait until she got her galloping heart under control.

Cady gripped the counter of the vanity and stared at herself in the mirror. Severe hair, white face, bands of blue under her unusual eyes. Two stripes of color on each cheekbone, saving her from the need to apply blush.

She looked like what she was: a stressed-out woman trying to hustle a job. She didn’t look pregnant but she did look flustered, and a little unhinged. She was older and more experienced, so why did she feel like she was nineteen again? Her palms were damp, her panties, too. He just needed to touch her and she’d go up in flames.

She might be older, but she wasn’t any wiser, Cady thought, washing her hands for the second time.

“You’re stalling, Cady. Get out here. I don’t have all day.”

“Yes, Your Lordship,” Cady muttered, yanking the door open and stepping back into his office.

Beck stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, his hands jammed into his pockets, every square inch of his long body taut with tension. Cady walked over to the window and stopped next to him, her arms folded across her chest. She felt equally uptight herself.

Cady looked down to the iconic Manhattan street below and watched the pedestrians navigate the busy intersection, their chins and noses tucked into scarves or coat collars, their faces ruddy from the icy winter wind.

“Why are you doing this, Cady?”

She turned to look at him. This was, at least, a question she could answer.

“It’s my job, Beckett. Like you, but on a far smaller scale, I am running a business, a business that I’d prefer not to see go under. I need new, bigger clients. Ballantyne International is a new, big client.” Cady shrugged, knowing that her edgy attitude wasn’t conducive to good client–service provider relationships.

Beckett rolled his head on his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. “I would’ve liked some damn warning that you were going to drop back into my life.”

Why? She didn’t mean anything to him. He’d broken up with her by sending her home. He’d gone on to Vietnam, hooked up with Amy there and then God knew where. She was the one who had the right to feel caught off guard. Then again, she had had days to prepare herself to see him again. He’d only had a few minutes.

But since she meant nothing to him, why should it matter?

“This is just business, Beckett. I was a teenager and that was a lifetime ago. I have real problems to worry about—” like pregnancy and poverty “—and I really don’t have the time or the energy to spend thinking about something that lasted a millisecond a million years ago.”

She needed this contract and that meant putting her and Beckett on a very firm this-is-business footing. A cynical smile touched the corner of his mouth as his eyes dropped from hers to her mouth and back again.

“Are you really trying to tell me that the chemistry between us has disappeared? That you weren’t remembering Thailand, hot nights and sweaty bodies? The way I’d kiss you?” His eyes dropped to her crotch, and Cady thought her panties might burst into flames. “How it felt when I sank into you?”

So he had been with her earlier, thinking of the way they’d made love to each other. She had seen the desire in his eyes and it wasn’t her imagination.

Right now if she took one step she’d be up against his hard chest. If she pushed herself onto her toes, she could touch her lips to his.

God, she wanted to kiss him, touch the hard muscles she’d once known so well.