Princes of the Outback. Bronwyn Jameson
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Tomas added. “One in, all in.” He got to his feet at the same time as his brothers, and of-
fered his hand. “Congratulations, Alex. I hope it works out for you.”
There was a moment, a connection that extended far beyond the firm handshake, the quick slap on the back, even the strong meeting of sky-blue eyes. It was the bond of brothers, the knowledge that a pact made would never be broken. They were all in this together, and, come hell or high water, they would make it work.
Then Alex was striding off between the tables with his trademark sense of purpose. Standing side by side, his brothers watched him out the door before Rafe shook his head. “Do you suppose he proposed by text or e-mail or intercompany memo?”
“Wondered the same thing myself.” Tomas scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not that I don’t like Susannah, it’s just that she’s…Susannah.”
Not Susie, like Angelina was Angie, but always the whole three syllables. Always so formal and cool and dispassionate. So absolutely unlike Angie.
“The whole deal’s too cold-blooded and impersonal,” he said, and he felt Rafe’s gaze switch and focus on his face.
“As cold-blooded and impersonal as artificial conception?”
“That’s different.”
“I won’t dignify that with a response.” Rafe shook his head and indicated the door. “You ready to go?”
Nothing more was said—and that surprised the hell out of Tomas—until they were out in the lobby and about to part ways. “Did you know Ange is working here?” Rafe asked conversationally.
Tomas tensed, then covered quickly by casting a casual glance back at the restaurant. “Waitressing?”
“I meant here as in the Carlisle Grande, in my office. She asked if I had any jobs going last week, flying home from your place, after—”
Rafe made an expansive gesture and Tomas thought, Yeah, after. That about summed it up.
“I gather you’re not even considering her offer?”
No longer casual, Tomas’s gaze cut back to his brother’s face. “She told you about that?”
“We talked some. I’ve seen a fair bit of Ange this last week.”
What the hell did “talked some” mean? And “seen a fair bit of”? Was that in the office or out of hours?
Tomas forced his fingers to unfurl out of fists. Forced himself to ask some other question, any other question. “What are you going to do about the baby?”
“I have some prospects.”
“Angie?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“She’s one.” Lips pursed, Rafe studied him narrowly. “That won’t be a problem, now you’ve decided to go elsewhere?”
“If it’s a problem,” Tomas said shortly, “it’s not mine.”
What else could he say? How could he object? He shook hands and watched Rafe walk away. His own decision was made and it involved a clinic and a nameless faceless woman he had to somehow find. It didn’t involve any kind of passion or emotion or commitment. It sure as hell didn’t involve Angie’s boldly stated way of doing things!
Close your eyes, lie back, and think of Kameruka.
How many times had he closed his eyes this last week, lying back in the restless tangle of his sheets, and thought about Angie? Her soft lips grazing his skin, her exotic perfume adrift in his blood, her dark eyes filled with the wild promise of passion as she came to him in the dark.
It’s only sex.
If only he could believe that. If only he could get past the disturbing notion of the action and cut straight to the result. Because he could imagine Angie with a baby, in a wildly sensuous earth-mother way.
But Rafe’s baby?
The notion burned his gut like battery acid, the wrongness and the certainty that if his brother asked, Angie would say yes. Women didn’t say no to Rafe. Ever.
Ah, hell.
Instead of heading out to the street on a quest for cold and impersonal, he found himself in an elevator going up to the executive floor of the Carlisle Grande Hotel. And his gut burned worse than ever.
Four
He found her office empty, yet Tomas had no doubt that this was Angie’s workspace. Less than two days on the job—not enough time to even change the name-plate on the door—and already she’d stamped her personality all over the place. Some—Alex came to mind—would call her desk a disaster. She would shrug and call it work in progress.
Knowing Angie, that would mean at least a dozen pieces of work in simultaneous progress.
Amid all the open folders and scattered paperwork sat a bright blue coffee mug which he knew wouldn’t be empty. Angie rarely finished anything in one sitting. Relaxing a notch, he strolled over to the desk and checked. Yup, the mug was still half full.
Wry amusement twitched at the corners of his mouth as he straightened. His nose twitched at the scent of her per-
fume…or perhaps that was the bunch flowers shoved higgledy-piggledy into a red glass jar. She had a framed collage of pictures, too. One of her parents smiling into each other’s eyes on their wedding day, a more recent picture of her father gaunt with the illness that took his life, and a candid shot of the three Mori kids goofing off at the Kameruka Downs waterhole.
He’d probably been there that day—for all he knew, he could have taken the picture. There’d been so many days like that back then.
But what about now?
Tomas put the frame back, next to the coffee mug, amid the chaos that was Angie’s workspace. She’d taken a convenient job here with Rafe, but how long did she intend staying? Was she ready to settle down? Enough to raise a baby?
His mood had turned grim long before his thumb brushed over the rim of the mug, smudging the glossy imprint of her lipstick.
This was the Angie of now, the woman he didn’t know.
The one who stained her lips the color of mocha, whose lips had imprinted his with the fleeting taste of temptation. The one whose velvet-brown eyes spoke of another wildness, a different type of passion to the laughing girl in the waterhole picture. This was the woman who’d stood on the steps of the plane and calmly suggested that sex between them could be fun.
With a silent oath he jerked away from the desk, his action so abrupt he almost upset the mug. He righted it quickly, pushing aside papers to make some space. And that’s when he found the book.
Babies Made Easy.
He was still staring at the cover, bemused by her choice of reading material and the irony of that title, when Angie returned.
He heard the quick approach of footsteps in the corridor and sensed her hesitation in the doorway, her presence licking through him like the memory of her kiss—a sweet suggestion of heat and anticipation, chased away by instant hostility. Not toward Angie herself, but toward the unwanted response of his body. He didn’t know how to handle this new awareness, the strange tug in his gut, the tight dryness in his throat.
Because she was standing there watching him, eating him up with those big brown eyes.
“I didn’t expect to find you here.” She came into the room then, smiling with a warmth that made him think she didn’t mind the surprise. “How did the meeting go?”
Of course she knew they’d been meeting with the lawyer. Rafe would have told her. They talked a lot, after all.