Her Unexpected Baby. Trish Wylie
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She turned her head to frown at his words. ‘You think I’m anally retentive?’
Adam glanced at her and grinned. ‘Hell, yes. You think you aren’t?’
Was she? She mulled his words over in her mind as the car sped towards their destination. The Dana of old would never have been described as anally retentive. Far from it. She’d been wild back in the day—a practical joker, a live wire. But back then she’d been carefree. Life had changed that. Now she was a single mother, and responsibility came with that title. Maybe she was a tad anally retentive in her working life—when Adam saw her. It was the only part of her life she’d ever allowed him to see. She’d been careful about that. Even Jess, her daughter, had never been brought to the office. So he really had nothing else to base his assumption on, did he? She shouldn’t actually have cared that he thought it. But somehow she did. It ruffled her feathers.
‘I like things at work to be organised.’ She tilted her head slightly as she said the words in a sharp tone. ‘And you can’t tell me that that office didn’t need some organisation. You couldn’t even find a pen when I first arrived.’
It was true. But that hadn’t stopped the business from being successful. They’d always got the important things done on time. It might have meant a night or two of burning the midnight oil to get there. But they’d always managed it. Just.
He wasn’t so pig-headed that he wouldn’t admit that her need for neatness and systems had helped. Now the place ran like a well-oiled machine. But in a small way that had taken some of the fun out of it for Adam.
‘You could loosen up a bit and it wouldn’t kill you.’
‘I’m loose.’ She blushed at her own words and he grinned across at her.
‘I don’t need to know about your personal life, Dana.’
‘You don’t know anything about me!’
Not beyond what she wanted him to see. He knew that much. Had known it for months. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known Jack’s sisters before, but Dana was as much a mystery to him now as she’d been when he’d first set eyes on her. Elusive, almost. It was another one of the many things that bugged him about her.
‘You’re right. I don’t.’ He focused his gaze back on the road as they approached the turning to the hotel where the reunion was being held. ‘Any more than you know anything about me. But that doesn’t stop you from judging me, does it?’
She snorted quietly. ‘And you’re going to tell me you have some hidden side to you, are you? It’s well hidden, isn’t it?’
He screeched to a halt in front of the large building, yanking the handbrake with superfluous force before silencing the purr of the engine and turning to scowl across at her.
‘You don’t want to get to know me, Dana. That’s your problem. You’re so bloody uptight that you prefer to just place people in safe little boxes and never look any deeper than what you see on the surface. Makes everything very safe and secure for you, doesn’t it?’
Her heart beat a little faster as her anger grew. ‘And this is precisely the reason I didn’t want to bring you to this damned reunion. We’re not even inside the building and already we’re having an argument!’
Adam took a deep breath and looked out of the windscreen. He watched several people in evening dress filtering in through the hotel’s glass doors. They were here now. And, as much as he wanted to turn the car around and take her right back to where they’d come from, he was a bigger man than that. He wouldn’t let her off that easily. She was just so determined to be right all the damned time. Well, not this time. He’d make the evening convincing if it killed him.
‘You need to pretend you like me for this to work.’
‘I’d win an Oscar for that.’
He turned to look at her again. ‘Give it a try. Pretend I’m someone else, if you like. Because that’s what I intend doing with you.’
‘Pretend I like you?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Forget who you are?’
‘Yes.’ His jaw clenched. ‘Just for a few hours. Try looking at me as a man, and not as something you picked up on the heel of your boot. I can do it if you can.’ Though it would take some effort. ‘All we have to do is forget about real life for tonight. Make like we’re two people who just met and are still getting to know each other. No preconceptions, no false judgements. Live for the moment and all that.’
He made it sound so simple. She blinked across at him. Was it? Was it just that simple? Forget that he was Adam for one evening and get to know him as if he was just some guy? Like a blind date of sorts? She took a breath. It would be a stretch.
The old Dana would have pulled this off with her eyes shut. The old Dana would have found it all hilarious, a great joke—a challenge, even. Was there any of that girl left any more? Or had reality squashed her down too much?
Another deep breath. She would try. It was a college reunion, for crying out loud. If that couldn’t remind her of the girl she’d used to be then what could? She was walking into that room completely made over, à la Cinderella. And with a ridiculously attractive Prince Charming type at her side, too. What the hell else did she need to pull it off?
Guts, possibly? She’d had those once.
‘What’s wrong, Dana?’ His voice dropped to a deep, intimate note. ‘No guts, no glory. If you’re too chicken for this, or if you’re not woman enough to walk into that room in that dress…you just say the word.’
Damn, damn, damn. Why did it have to be him?
It was as if the room went still when they walked in. To the outside view they made one hell of a couple.
Dana couldn’t tell if the assembled company had actually done the whole silent thing, due to the band playing on stage at one end of the large area, but heads certainly turned and conversations were certainly interrupted.
Dana smiled. It was actually a nice feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time people had looked at her as if—well, like they were doing right that second. With a sense of awe, almost. With maybe a touch of ‘wow’ in their expressions. It felt good.
Adam noticed her smile and smiled himself, moving his hand up to touch her back, to guide her into the room. He was reminding himself to play the game. He only remembered when his hand touched soft skin that her dress had no back.
His hand jumped away as if burned before he forced himself to set it back in place, moving his long fingers in an unconscious caress as he ushered her into the crowd. Her skin felt good, his mind recognised, silken and warm to the touch—and that was only on her back. Being male, his mind wandered to other areas where a woman’s skin was softer still. If she was this soft where his hands were now…
He cleared his throat, suddenly noting how warm the room was for so early in the evening.
Dana had jumped too when his hand touched her. Surprise, she told herself. After all, it wasn’t as if Adam made a habit of touching her naked skin on a daily basis. When his hand settled the second time, and those long fingers of his began their smooth caress, she felt her pulse beat erratically. She’d always known he had quite an effect on women. And she’d always wondered why. But if the simple touch of his hand had that kind of effect then she now had a pretty fair idea of the ‘why’. TMI, as her daughter would say. Too much information.
She glanced up at him with a tilt of her head, her blue eyes exploring his profile for signs that he’d noticed her reaction. After a second he glanced down and their eyes locked. He moved his hand along her back again, his forefinger tracing a line along the ridges of her spine, downwards to the inward curve of the small of her back.
Her eyes grew heavy. He was good at this make-believe stuff.
Adam watched her reaction to his touch.