Beginning with Their Baby

That nearly had her dropping her bag and following him back into bed, where he was so sure they belonged.

That nearly had her saying to hell with Rio and Italy and the world—she was more than content to stay right here, in Austin, Texas.

But then the horn sounded again and she was pulling away. Smiling at him. Walking out the door and reminding herself, with every step, of all the reasons she was doing the right thing.

After all, there was a big, bright world out there, and in her thirty-two years she’d only managed to see about three-quarters of it. It was time—past time—to get started visiting the last quarter.

CHAPTER ONE

MATT SMILED AS HE SLID his homemade lasagna onto the table, alongside the crusty loaf of garlic bread and fancy tossed salad that were already there.

“Would you like some wine?” He dropped the oven mitts and reached for the bottle of red he’d picked out to go with the meal. Like his dinner companion, it was rich and voluptuous and very easy on the tongue.

“I would love some.” Ariane smiled as she held up her glass.

He filled it to the halfway mark, then did the same for his own before settling into his seat. It had been a long time since he’d cooked dinner for a woman, but he’d planned tonight carefully. Ariane was the first woman he’d been interested in since Camille, and after four dates, he was pretty sure she was amenable to his anticipated ending for the evening.

And if he wasn’t nearly as excited as he should be about that ending, then he needed to get over it. Camille was gone, and after spending the first few weeks leaving messages on her cell phone and several more weeks moping around, he’d finally figured out that she wasn’t coming back.

Even then, after he’d accepted that Camille was out of his life for good, it had taken him a while to move on. But he’d finally done it. He’d found a woman who was interested in him—as both a person and a good time. And now he was convinced this was for the best. His time with Camille, while lovely, had been an aberration, a step outside his comfort zone into chaos and insanity.

It had been a bad move and one he had no desire to repeat. All he’d gotten from trying something different was a bruised heart, a battered ego and a headache the size of Texas.

No, it was better all around if he stuck to his regular, controlled agenda from now on. And tonight, that agenda included taking his relationship with Ariane to the next step.

“This was so sweet, Matt. It’s been a long time since a man cooked me dinner.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve cooked a woman dinner. I hope I haven’t lost my touch.”

“I’m sure it will be delicious.” She smiled warmly at him.

As he dished up the lasagna, he asked, “How’s that case going? The one that was giving you such trouble?”

“It’s an absolute disaster. I’m defending this corporation and it’s obvious to everyone but them that they’re guilty as hell of violating state and federal sexual harassment laws. I start presenting my case on Monday and I can only hope I can pull some magic out of my hat to confuse the jury about what was really going on in that factory.”

A curl of unease started in Matt’s belly at her words, but he ignored it. It was her job to defend corporations against lawsuits like this, he reminded himself. Of course she would do whatever she could do help her client win—even if they were guilty.

“Mmm, this is wonderful.”

“Thanks.”

“So how about you? How’s that design going?”

“I finished it—and it is brilliant, if I do say so myself.” He grinned over his glass of wine. “The clients are flying in tomorrow to see it, so I’ll know for sure then. But Reece thinks we’ve knocked it out of the park.”

“That’s fabulous.” She took another bite. “And really, so is this lasagna. How did you learn to cook like this?”

“I grew up with three sisters and my mom always believed that I should learn whatever the girls learned, and vice versa. So when she taught them to cook a few recipes, she made sure I was in the kitchen right along with them—even if I would have preferred to be playing football or basketball.”

“I can just see you—a cute little boy with big eyes peering into his mother’s spaghetti-sauce pot.”

He snorted. “More like a surly preteen whining about how I’d never need to know how to cook because when I grew up I was going to live on pizza and hamburgers.”

“Well, I’m glad your mother didn’t listen.”

Their eyes met across the table. “So am I.”

Her smile turned soft, intimate. It was one of the things that had attracted him to her when they’d met a few weeks before—that and her softly rounded curves. Camille had been all angles and mile-long legs and it was nice to hold on to a woman who wasn’t so…sharp. Add in Ariane’s sense of order and dedication to the University of Texas’s football team—she was a Longhorn, too—and he’d been sold.

“You know, Matt, I really like you.”

“I like you, too, Ariane.” His heart beat a little faster in anticipation. “Very much.”

She pushed her plate away. “Then maybe we should skip dessert…”

There they were, the words he’d been waiting to hear for weeks. He’d expected his body to respond right away, but now that she’d extended the invitation, he wasn’t nearly as interested as he’d expected to be. Still, she was a beautiful, intelligent woman and would make a great girlfriend.

Without giving himself any more time to think, Matt slid his chair back and reached for her plate. “And what would you like to do in lieu of dessert?” he asked, making sure to keep his voice low and teasing.

She stood, as well. “Oh, I’m sure we can think of something.”

He reached for her hand, but a knock at his front door stopped him before he could pull her against him. “Why don’t you go into the family room? I’ll join you as soon as I answer that.”

“Don’t be long.”

“Believe me, I won’t be.” He strode to the door, pulled it open with a yank. Then froze as he came face-to-face with the woman who had haunted his dreams for nearly three long months.

For a minute, the whole world stood still while he soaked in the vision that was Camille. Her black hair was shorter and sassier than it had been when she’d left, but everything else was the same.

The flawless expanse of golden skin her halter dress showed off.

The wicked curve of her sexily uneven mouth.

The killer legs that had had him waking up hard and sweaty and frustrated as hell for weeks after she’d left.

She’d come back, he told himself as his traitorous body responded to her proximity. Even after everything she’d said, after ignoring his text messages and phone calls for months, she’d come back.

How pathetic did it make him that he was excited by that fact?

She stepped a little closer, leaned against the doorway, and her signature scent—lavender and brown sugar and sweet, ripe strawberries—wrapped itself around him. He went from semiaroused to rock hard in an instant.

Still, he didn’t say anything. Didn’t touch her, though every instinct he had demanded that he grab on to her before she pulled another vanishing act.

The thought had the same effect as a freezing shower, and the connection between them shattered. He couldn’t hold her tightly enough to keep her from leaving again—she was like the wind, blowing from one place to another with little thought to the destruction she left in her path.

He wasn’t going to be part of the fallout again.

“What are you doing here, Camille?” he demanded, forcing a calm into his voice that he was far from feeling. But she was an expert at power games and there was no way in hell he was revealing a weakness. Not when she was so good at drawing first blood.