“I just don’t think we should.” She could barely get out the words.
“What will it hurt?” he persisted softly, lacing his fingers in hers and running his thumb across her knuckles and scrambling her thoughts.
If you only knew, you would run like crazy. She stared at him, her heart pounding, knowing that she had to send him on his way.
“You’re sitting close.”
“I’m glad you noticed. What will it hurt?”
I will be in love with you more than I am now, she thought, and you’ll find out I’m carrying your baby, and then you’ll want to marry me for all the wrong reasons. She knew she could never, ever let him know about the pregnancy. Send him on his way back to Spain.
“One little dinner date,” he said softly, leaning forward to brush his lips against her throat. “Just go out with me tonight, okay? Come on. I’ll bet we’ll have a good time getting to know each other a little better,” he coaxed. He was close enough that she could feel his warmth, smell his woodsy aftershave.
“We shouldn’t—”
“You’d rather eat alone than with me?” he whispered.
“No, but—”
“Good. It’s settled.” His lips trailed kisses lightly along her throat, and she ached to turn her head and kiss him fully. With that first brush of his lips, she was lost. He leaned back. “I’ll pick you up about seven. I made reservations at Claire’s.”
Her eyes opened. What had she done? How did he get his way so easily with her?
“Aaron, you couldn’t have come back from Spain to take me to dinner.”
“Yes, I did.”
If he was lying, he was doing a magnificent job of sounding convincing, but then she knew in his job he must be accustomed to some slick talking to get what he wanted.
“But what about your job? You can’t just leave on a whim.”
“I have so many vacation days piled up, I can take off for a long time. When I started this job, I was in love with it. I guess I thought I was doing my part to help save the world. I gave it my everything. I didn’t take vacations very often, so I have a lot of days coming. Besides, I asked for a leave of absence and they granted it.”
Appalled, she stared at him. “Leave of absence! You’re in Royal for more than tonight?”
“Don’t sound so thrilled,” he drawled, and his eyes were full of questions. “You keep looking at me as if I’m some kind of monster.”
“No! Oh, no! I just am shocked about your leave of absence. It takes some adjusting to think of you in Royal instead of Spain.”
He placed both hands on either side of her face while his gaze probed hers. “Why does it take some adjusting to have me here? That’s not too flattering.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, heat burning her cheeks. Why couldn’t she control her darn blushes! “I’m just surprised.”
“Well, get used to it, lady, because I came home for us to get to know each other a little better,” he said in a husky voice.
She pulled away from him and stood, her knees bumping his knees. He was on his feet instantly and his hand rested on her waist, stopping her from moving away from him.
“Pamela, I don’t know what’s going on in that pretty head of yours, but yes, I want us to get to know each other better. I’ve been thinking about you constantly since that night.”
“Oh, my heavens! I don’t believe it.”
He frowned. “Well, you better believe it, and I’ll do my damnedest to convince you because memories of you have played hell with my work. You’ve got some notion in your head about the kind of woman I want in my life, but you’re wrong.”
“Oh, Aaron,” she said, his words tearing at her.
“At least, let’s just take a little time. Maybe we’re not compatible, but let’s give ourselves a chance to find out.”
She didn’t have that option. In spite of her longing, her feelings for him, his charm and persistence, she knew she had to keep her secret from him and send him packing back to Spain.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You promised dinner tonight. I’m holding you to that.” She gazed up at him, aware of his hand on her waist, his nearness, his green eyes filled with determination and a look that kept her pulse racing.
He brushed her lips lightly with a kiss and moved away. “I’ll see you at seven, darlin’.” He strode through her tiny apartment and opened the back door. “I doubt if that hamburger is fit to eat now. I’ll feed you tonight.”
And then he was gone, and she stared at the closed door, frozen in shock over how once again she had capitulated to what he wanted. She heard the roar of the pickup. A pickup and cowboy boots and jeans. He had looked at home in them, but she knew better. He was a diplomat who lived in Europe and had spent nearly all his adult life abroad. He was First Secretary at the American Embassy in Spain. She could imagine the women he knew, beautiful, sophisticated—they didn’t drop keys and carry hamburgers in their purses. She rubbed her temples and moved restlessly around the room. When he’d asked her out, all her resolve had just melted away. She was jelly where he was concerned, and she was going to have to do better tonight.
Why was she going? What would she wear? Was he doing this to sleep with her again? That question brought her up short and a flash of shame and anger burned in her.
She turned to a small mirror and shook her finger at her reflection. “Pamela, you were easy. Get a backbone where he is concerned! You’ll have to send him packing tonight and stay cool, cool, cold.”
She thought of guys who had called her frigid. Where was all that coldness she could turn on so easily with others?
She looked down at her flat stomach and splayed her fingers against it. A baby. Aaron’s baby. He must never, never know. But in spite of the foolishness of getting pregnant in her first night of lovemaking, in spite of how it would turn her life upside down and in spite of all the struggles of being a single mother, she couldn’t stop being thrilled and awed. Her own precious baby. Aaron’s baby.
She knew from teaching the struggles the young single mothers and dads had, how they had to be everything for their kids and juggle jobs and schedules, but she would do it. Her own baby. Aaron’s baby. This baby had a wonderful father.
Aaron has a right to know about his baby.
That thought was an unwanted one. He might have a right to know, but if he did, she knew he would want to do the right thing, and out of duty he would insist they marry. His family would hate her and think she had trapped him. No, he wasn’t going to know, and he would marry some beautiful woman who was the right kind of woman for him and have his own family someday. She was certain of that. This was the only way it could be because Aaron would never be happy married to a woman like her. Not ever. And she didn’t want duty or pity or charity. She couldn’t bear to see him feeling trapped.
“Go to dinner and send him back to Spain. You know how to turn men off,” she said and wondered when she had started talking out loud to herself and realized it had been since she met Aaron.
She threw up her hands and went to find something to wear tonight. Her life had changed forever today—pregnant, dinner tonight with Aaron. He had come home to take her out! To get to know her better. A pang of longing made her tremble. Why did it have to be this way! “Because of my own carelessness,” she answered herself.
Long ago she could remember Dr. Woodbury asking her if she wanted a prescription for the Pill and her turning him down, saying she wasn’t dating and there was