Expecting a Bolton Baby

He held her chair for her. By the time he’d settled into his own chair, close enough to touch her, she was half done with the omelet. “This is excellent,” she told him after she washed down another bite with coffee.

“Glad you liked it. Have you had a lot of morning sickness?”

Still chewing, she shrugged. “Some. The flight out...” She grimaced, her hand fluttering over her waist.

He nodded in sympathy. “Have you seen a doctor?”

She paused, as if she wanted to retreat behind that icy silence she’d first confronted him with. Then her shoulders relaxed. The bacon seemed to help. “Yes, two weeks ago. I’m eight weeks along, due on June 24.”

A date—even one in the middle of next year—was something concrete and real. All he could do was stare at his coffee as he repeated the date in his head. June 24. The date he’d be a father.

This was really happening.

“What do you want?”

It wasn’t until the words were out that he realized he’d said them.

They were the wrong words—too much of an ultimatum—but he couldn’t take them back. He’d spent approximately seven total hours in the company of Stella Caine. Seven hours wasn’t long enough to base the rest of his life on.

Plus, she was David Caine’s daughter. All of Bobby’s plans—the television show, the destination resort, the chance to finally prove himself to his family? David Caine could change all of that, if he saw fit. This wasn’t just about Bobby and Stella. This was something that affected the entire Bolton family.

He felt the icy wall Stella put up between them even before she set down her fork. She stood and walked across the room, the distance between them growing.

“It’s not about what I want, not anymore.” She looked out the patio door that led to a small balcony. “I won’t complain about the lot I’ve drawn, but if I have this child, I need certain assurances about her future.”

If.

So maybe Bobby wasn’t ready to be a father. He might never actually be ready.

But he was a Bolton, by God, and there was one thing the Bolton men valued above all else—family. His father had married his mother when they were both seventeen, after Mom had gotten pregnant with Billy. Through the ups and downs of twenty-five years of marriage and motorcycles, the family had always come first.

If Bobby was going to be a father to Stella’s child, then she was already family. For it to be any other way was unthinkable. Stella was giving him a chance to do the right thing here. He just had to man up and...

Marry her.

Make sure the baby was a Bolton, through and through.

This realization hit him harder than any punch ever had. Honest to God, his knees went weak and his vision blurred. Married. Oh, hell.

Stella was still staring out the window, thankfully. She hadn’t seen his reaction. But she was probably expecting a reasonable response.

“What kind of assurances?”

He saw her reflection in the glass take a deep breath, but that was the only outward sign of her mental state. Otherwise, she was an unreadable wall.

“I will not have a child who is used as a pawn or a child who is not loved by her father. I’d rather she never know you exist than that she live life knowing she wasn’t wanted.”

That statement hung out there, practically icing over the glass with its frostiness. Something in the way she said it hit Bobby in a different way.

David Caine was world famous for being conservative—a staunch proponent of abstinence-only education, marriage between one man and one woman and no abortions—not even in cases of rape or incest. He believed in these rules and others so that when Bobby had signed on the dotted line for The Bolton Biker Boys, he’d also agreed to an extensive morals clause. David Caine believed there was such a thing as bad publicity, apparently, and he enforced a strict rule of law on what constituted “bad publicity.” Which included almost everything that would land a man on TMZ or any other gossip site.

Which included getting his daughter pregnant out of wedlock.

Not that this particular situation was outlined in the contract, but Bobby had a feeling David Caine would do a whole lot more than just terminate Bobby’s contract with FreeFall TV. He thought of Mickey, who still had Bobby’s Glock. Hell, he’d be lucky if David Caine didn’t terminate him, period.

He didn’t like the distance she’d put between them, the cold words she’d just said. It wasn’t as if he wanted her sobbing and hysterical, but this detachment? No. He wasn’t having any of it.

So they barely knew each other. So this development could blow all of his carefully laid plans to bits, probably hers, as well. That didn’t change the facts—they’d met, felt an instant chemistry and followed up on it. He hadn’t been able to hang her picture on the wall with all the others.

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her.

No, the one thing he knew was that she’d been wrong in the back of her car, when she’d kissed him instead of giving him her number and told him it was better this way.

Her way was not better.

Time to try it his way.

He went to her, folded her into his arms and kissed the spot on the back of her neck.

Her skin was cool against his lips, her body ramrod stiff in his arms. She was going to fight him on this, fight to maintain her icy detachment. I don’t think so, he thought as he kissed his way around her neck until he got to that special spot, the one just below her ear, half hidden by a silver earring. When he traced the area with his tongue, she shuddered.

For a brief moment, her back arched. Her bottom pushed against him. Yes, he thought. Unleash that energy on me.

But then she pulled away from him and said, “Stop.”

Bobby froze. But he didn’t let her go. Instead, he held her even tighter, hoping the steel would leave her body. He let his hands skim over her body until they rested on her stomach. Between the leather bodice of her dress and the fact that she wasn’t very far along, he would never have guessed she was pregnant. But if she’d already seen a doctor, then it was a fact.

He felt the smooth plane of her body—a body that held his child. “Is that what you want? This baby to never know my name? To never know that I loved her?”

She sucked in a hard breath, as if Bobby had slapped her. “This isn’t about what I want,” she said again. But she didn’t sound as if she believed it. “This is about what’s best for everyone involved.”

Damn it, he was done with her forced detachment. They weren’t discussing stock options or a merger or whatever she and her father talked about around the dinner table. This was a life—a baby-to-be—theirs.

Careful not to hurt her, he turned her in his arms as he backed her up against the glass doors. Although she moved, her body was not the soft, welcoming thing he dreamed of at night.

She refused to meet his gaze, though, so once he had her secure, he lifted her chin until she looked him in the eyes. No mistaking it this time—she was terrified of what he might say. “I don’t care what ‘everyone’ thinks is best. I only care about what you want.”

He saw the doubt flash over her eyes right before she shut them. “It’s better this way.”

She sounded as though she was on the verge of tears, but Bobby didn’t care. He wanted to know that she cared—one way or the other.

“Better for who?”

He kissed her, just a touch of two lips.

Just a promise.

Then, in a flash, the cold steel melted from her body. She laced her arms around his neck and pulled him down as her mouth opened, her tongue hesitantly tracing his lips.