Best of Temptation Bundle Page 9

  “God, everything seemed to make so much sense yesterday,” she said, opening her eyes. Sexy, olive green eyes that said a lot but left out more. “I wanted to set the groundwork for inevitable divorce before I dropped the bomb that I was pregnant with a child whose father would never be a part of my baby’s life.”

  Adam narrowed his eyes, his gut tightening. “Your choice or his?”

  Her expression was wary, yet was still shadowed with the passion they had shared mere moments before. She pushed off the bed, making sure that hideous nightgown of hers covered every inch of her delectable skin.

  “I don’t want to discuss it.” She turned away from him. “Look, I never intended to tell you as much as I have. Trust me, you don’t want to know my story of woe.”

  But he did. Adam got off the bed, too, not ready to explore the reasons for that one. In his job, it was dangerous to grow personally attached to anyone involved in a case. While he always asked the questions necessary to keep his undercover roles safe, none included “Tell me, why doesn’t your ex-husband want to be a father?” And the rancor he felt that an innocent would suffer from the selfishness of its own parents had nothing to do with his assignment.

  He paced across the room, trying to regain control over a situation that was a first for him.

  He glanced over to find Eva going through her attaché case. The fact was that while Eva’s name was the equivalent to the Biblical Adam’s Eve, she was in no way, shape or form his Eve. For one, she had already taken a hefty bite out of the forbidden apple. Two, he had figured out long ago that, for him, there was no Eve, or Eva, or a life mate by any other name, because there was no such thing as happily-ever-after. Not in his life. Not in the lives of anyone he knew. His commitment was to his job. And it was going to stay that way.

  No matter what happened, he wouldn’t allow Eva and her passionate ways to tempt him away from that decision.

  “Look, this whole plan is one, huge mistake,” Eva said. Giving up her attempt at normalcy, she faced him. “I’m going to go to the guest room next door and make up the bed for you. If anybody finds out, so be it. I’ll just tell them the truth.”

  Adam warily eyed her. “The truth is good.”

  “If only I knew what the truth was anymore.”

  Eva murmured the thought just as a similar one wandered through Adam’s mind. He surveyed her, but she was already moving toward the bathroom, presumably to gain access to the room next door. The moment she was out of view, he slowly shook his head. He must have imagined her words.

  EVA TRIED the door handle a second time. Locked. She pressed her forehead against the cool wood, struggling with the desire to curse her mother and grandmother. After all their manipulations, she held out little hope that the hall door to the guest room would be unlocked. If only she hadn’t told her mother about the problems she and Bill were having…As it stood, she didn’t doubt her mother and grandmother were trying to reconcile her marriage. If only they knew it was already beyond reconciliation. And that the man in the other room was not only not her husband or the father of the baby she carried, but he was almost a complete stranger.

  She stood there shivering though it was unbearably hot. She touched her fingers to her swollen lips. The tiny action sent warm emotion curling through her. If asked to explain what had happened in the other room, she would be hard-pressed to offer anything that would make any sense, except that she’d wanted Adam Gardner’s kiss more than she’d wanted anything in a long, long time.

  The new sensations clung to her like the humid air. They clamored for a satisfaction she could only fantasize about. A fulfillment of a need she had sworn she’d deny.

  Certainly Bill Burgess hadn’t touched what Adam had awakened in a few sweet minutes. She thought he had, once. But not anymore. And that, more than anything, should have scared her.

  Her hand slid down over her stomach, resting over the slightly rounded area that would soon swell with the growth of the baby within. A baby whose father had sworn he’d have nothing to do with his offspring when Eva had told him she was pregnant.

  Oddly enough, not even her maternal feelings for her baby, or her vow to protect him or her from the pain of rejection, were enough to quell the almost savage desire still running through her. It was as if some deep, fundamental part of her she had yet to identify was acting on a primal need to find a mate who would protect her. Love her. Provide her with everything she would ever need for the rest of her life. And care for her child as she would. A hunger based not on financial requirements, but on the basic, human need to be loved. The need to explore all the fascinating facets of being a woman, of being alive, of learning exactly what life itself was all about.

  And as incongruous as it seemed, the socially inexperienced man in the other room had been the one to set off those feelings. Feelings she had to tamp down and bury if she held out any hope of staying true to her vow never to allow another man to hurt her or her baby again. Loving any man posed that risk. Including the man in the other room.

  Eva closed her eyes and released a ragged breath. The guest-room door was locked. Where did she go from there?

  Simple, her ever-practical side told her. You just give Adam a pillow and tell him to camp out on one of the sofas downstairs until you can figure all this out.

  Oh yes, that would be very generous of her. Drag the guy all the way to Louisiana, then tell him he and his bad back had to fit themselves onto a sofa long enough to hold half his height. All because she had wanted a kiss that had turned into so much more.

  She swallowed hard. She could always sleep on the sofa.

  A vision of her father shaking her awake and asking questions she would be hard-fought to answer when she was lucid loomed in her mind.

  Besides, judging by the occasional scrape of a chair leg against the floor downstairs, the family celebration had indeed gone on without her and Adam. And it likely wouldn’t end until well into the early-morning hours. What would she do until then?

  “Eva?”

  She started and swung around to face Adam where he stood just inside the bathroom.

  “Your mother’s at the bedroom door.”

  “Good.” Careful not to make any type of physical contact with Adam, Eva strode from the too-small bathroom. This was the perfect opportunity to explain to her mother what was and was not going on and demand the key to the room next door.

  “Mama, you and I have to talk.” She hauled the door open.

  Her mother furtively glanced into the room, apparently trying to see if things between her daughter and son-in-law were going well. A tug of regret pulled at Eva’s heart.

  “Eva, honey? Are you going to be long?” Adam said from behind her.

  Eva slowly turned to find Adam lying in the decadent wrought-iron bed, the crisp white top sheet draped over his hips in a way that hinted he wore nothing, but was covered enough to be decent.

  Decent. There was that word again.

  Her mother took in the scene. When her gaze slipped back to Eva’s face, her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Good, you two have settled in. I just wanted to stop in to say good-night.”

  Eva’s cheeks burned as her mother kissed them. Somehow, she managed to return the warm gesture, the tug on her heart growing more pronounced.

  It’s going to break her heart when she learns I’m divorced.

  Eva said good-night and her mother quietly closed the door.

  6

  EVA WOKE SLOWLY, aware of Adam’s absence even before a glance verified it. The hazy morning sun warming her face told her the day was going to be hotter than the previous one. She pushed her damp hair from her cheeks and glanced at the twisted, empty sheets next to her. While the day itself might get hotter, she resolved that matters between her and Adam needed some definite cooling off.

  She propped herself up on her elbows. The only sound was the gentle humming of the ceiling fan. She wasn’t sure what time she finally drifted off to sleep. The world had been shadowy and still,
and the last car had long since driven away. And she hadn’t dozed off until long after she’d come to terms with the fact that she’d made her bed with her impulsive little plan, and now would have to literally lie in it.

  She simply wished that lying next to Adam in this bed, feeling his heat, listening to his even breathing, wasn’t part of the bargain.

  She picked up the pillow he had used and crowded it against her breasts, inhaling the smell of him. The subtle odor of soap, and the tangy essence that was his, and his alone.

  Groaning, she plunked the pillow down then peeled the sheet away from her traitorous body. The sheet was the sole thing that had come between her and Adam the night before. And that was merely because he had thought it a good idea that he slept on top of it, while she slept underneath. At the closet, Eva reached for a sundress, thinking the sheet hadn’t been the only thing that had kept them apart. Aside from her own need to get a grasp on what had passed between them last night, Adam appeared to grapple with a struggle of his own.

  She had little doubt that her pregnancy was the cause. That detail should have kept her away from him. But it hadn’t. The resulting emotions left her feeling hurt, upset, and longing to understand both herself and his reaction to her news.

  She took the dress with her into the bathroom, then turned on the shower and slipped out of the damp nightgown. She needed to distance herself from these unfamiliar sensations that lingered. Escape the heat clinging to her, inside and out. She lathered the soap and switched her analyzing skills on Adam. She stumbled across more than a few interesting questions.

  Why had he kissed her? No matter the excuse he had offered, Eva believed he had kissed her for pleasure’s sake alone. And despite his mild protests at her venturing to take things further, he had been inching toward just that when she stopped him. If she hadn’t emerged from the longing-induced stupor she’d been in, would he have made love to her? Would he have done so if he’d known she was pregnant with another man’s child?

  Eva stepped under the shower spray, welcoming the momentary thought-robbing cold spray of water.

  No, she determined. No man could have gone ahead after hearing that bit of news. No man could desire her enough not only to accept her condition, but to embrace it. Not even Adam.

  Besides, she couldn’t see Adam making love to her after only twenty-four hours of getting to really know each other. She lethargically washed, rinsed then turned off the shower. But what, exactly, did she know about Adam?

  She searched for something, anything he had offered about his own family. His past, his friends, a pet, anything. And came up with little more than he had a neighbor who threw clothes out of apartment windows, and that he had a crush on her laptop.

  Thinking about it, the whole situation seemed more than strange…it was abnormal. Sure, maybe Adam felt awkward discussing personal matters, but so did she. Especially given how very personal hers were. Yet he now knew about her pregnancy, and had managed to coax information from her about her ex-husband and her family.

  There was a knock at the outer door. Slipping into her dress, Eva entered the bedroom to find her mother walking in.

  “Good, you’re up,” she said. “I was afraid I was going to have to send your grandmother in to wake you for breakfast.”

  Eva’s stomach lurched. “Where’s Adam, Mama?”

  Her mother glanced at her. “Adam? You mean you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  Her mother pulled back the sheet to make the bed and Eva urged her away.

  “Know what, Mama?” she said more firmly. Given what her mother and grandmother had done so far, Eva tensed, preparing for the worst.

  “Your father took Adam oystering with him this morning.”

  What? “What?”

  Katina Mavros could have said anything else. That Adam had left. That he had spilled the truth to her family about their fake marriage and everybody was waiting for her corroboration. But this bothered her more than all the other possible answers combined. Except for his employees, her father never took anyone oystering with him.

  “Yes, isn’t that nice?”

  “Nice?” No, it was awful. Eva felt a twinge of something she could only liken to jealousy. Which was childish at best. But somehow that’s the way she always felt around her father.

  Tolly Mavros had never taken her oystering.

  She curled her fingers around a bedpost and rested her forehead against the cool iron.

  Her mother quietly watched her. “Come now, let’s have breakfast. I cooked up a little something for you.”

  Eva’s stomach gave another squeeze. She imagined what her mother’s little something was. Plausibly a table full of food, fried and heavy.

  “I’m not hungry, Mama. How long have they been gone?”

  “Since about four-thirty. And of course you’re hungry….”

  Her mother’s monologue went on, but Eva tuned out, not objecting when her mother started making the bed again. Her gaze flew to the bedside clock. It was after nine already. Her father and Adam had been gone for almost five hours. Five hours.

  Eva briefly closed her eyes. Good Lord, five hours with Tolly Mavros could get a serial killer to admit where he’d hidden the bodies.

  “They should be back in time for dinner at one,” her mother said. “Come on, Eva, Yaya is probably wondering what’s taking you so long.”

  Eva glimpsed a peek of something colorful in her mother’s dress pocket. When Katina passed to make up the other side of the bed, Eva reached out and tugged on the piece of material.

  A gentle swell of emotion swept through her—it was half of a crocheted baby bootie.

  AN HOUR LATER, Eva felt ready to jump out of her skin. Not just because of the unbearable Louisiana heat. She had little choice but to deal with that. And forget that breakfast included her mother and grandmother and one of her aunts in the kitchen—where she slowly managed to put away a quarter of the meal Katina had prepared for her. And while no one remarked on their suspicions that she was pregnant, neither did they make a secret of the baby items all of them were knitting. And finally forget that she wanted to moan every time she got one of those smiles from her mother that said she was humoring her at the same time she made another loop with her crocheting needle, having graduated from booties to a receiving blanket.

  Forget all that. That she could endure. The fact that Adam and her father had yet to come back, however, was another matter.

  It wasn’t so much what Adam might or might not do that concerned her. Since he didn’t know anything about oystering, there was no possible way he could please her father. A factor that worked agreeably into her original plan. The problem was that her plans had altered since last night and Adam’s absence threw a two-hundred-pound wrench into them. The plan now was to leave a.s.a.p. But she couldn’t do that until he returned.

  What information Adam might have spilled under her father’s probing was something else she chose not to think about.

  Needing to escape the kitchen and the conspiracy buzzing among the three well-meaning members of her family, Eva excused herself. She went upstairs, got her laptop and stole out the back door. The squeak of the springs then the gentle slap of the wooden screen door as it closed brought back memories that were both familiar and reassuring. She tightened her grip on the handle of the laptop, then stepped down the porch stairs, peering through the thick stand of Spanish moss-ncloaked oaks and cypresses some fifty yards away. The hardwoods bordered the backyard and separated the house from her father’s oystering dock and warehouse. She couldn’t make out a thing past the lush vines twisted around the gnarled bark barrier.

  She started in the direction of the hidden path that led to the dock, stopping restlessly, then starting again.

  She couldn’t sit here all day. But she couldn’t very well pack yet, either. She suspected if she did, she’d discover Yaya had unpacked again the minute her back was turned.

  Eva pushed a slender, mossy oak branch out
of the way and started along the path that stretched some twenty yards before she emerged on the other side and saw the bayou. Named Bayou Old Faithful, the slow-moving stream that, at this point, was as wide as a river, was one of many that snaked off Bayou Lafourche just off to her left where the dock was, and emptied into Timbalier Bay some six miles downstream.

  What was Adam doing now? Did he take to heart what she had said last night about acting like a geek? Was he making her father dislike him? Or was her father seeing what she had glimpsed last night? That Adam was a good-natured man, with good genes, who would make a great son-in-law?

  Eva stepped out from the stand of hardwoods. For a moment she stared at the large metal structure that served as both a warehouse and an office for her father’s oystering business. It had been painted a soft blue since she’d been here last. She moved toward the gaping loading doors.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” she said, greeting the gangly young Cajun just inside. He was scrubbing down crude wooden tables and the concrete floor in preparation for the oysters her father would bring back.

  “Hey, yourself, Eva.” He leaned against the soapy, large-brushed broom and grinned at her from beneath a baseball cap that read Mavros Seafood. He shoved the hat back and drew his hand across his forehead. “Your father said something about the guy with him this morning being his son-in-law. I gathered you must be here, too. Welcome home.”

  Home. She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Did it look like Papa was going to give Adam a hard time?”

  Jimmy’s grin widened and his accent thickened. “The guy’ll be lucky if Tolly doesn’t throw him in the middle of a mud lump and just up and leave him there.”

  Eva imagined Adam standing in the middle of the equivalent of a northern sandbar. A mud lump was the sediment that swept down through the Mississippi, the rivers and bayous, then lumped near the mouth of the Gulf.