The CEO's Impossible Heir--An Uplifting International Romance by Heidi Rice

Author:Heidi Rice
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-10-25T19:03:54+00:00

Ross watched Carmel tuck into her food with the same take-no-prisoners gusto with which she appeared to tackle everything in her life—from motherhood, to art, to sex.

The woman certainly drove a hard bargain, he thought, as he sliced off a chunk of the succulent steak he’d ordered.

He let the juices melt on his tongue—while struggling to forget how much better she had tasted that morning. And how much he had been forced to reveal about his childhood, and his father.

He never talked about that time in his life. Or the man who had sired him. The flashbacks and nightmares he sometimes still suffered from were just one reason not to dwell on it. He’d had a disturbed night’s sleep last night, thanks to the night terrors that had visited him in dreams and woken him up in a cold sweat—the shame of his own weakness almost as vivid as the brittle fear. But surely it was inevitable discovering he was a father would naturally bring the nightmares back again—at least for a little while.

Was that why he’d dived into a sexual relationship this morning that could effectively blow up in his face? Perhaps. But he was past caring about the consequences now. All he knew was that he had to have her again. But that still didn’t stop him hating the pity in her eyes when he’d been forced to tell her the real reason providing for her and her son’s financial needs was so important to him.

He tried to shrug it off as they finished their meal and talked easily about the day’s business. Or easily enough, if you didn’t count the ticking bomb in his lap ready to explode every time she licked the dark chocolate and sea-salt mousse off her spoon. Or he noticed that vintage dress slipping off her shoulder again and he got another glimpse of that damn bra strap.

As soon as she had licked the final drops of chocolate off her spoon, the waiter arrived to whisk their dishes away and offer them coffee. Ross waited patiently, or patiently enough, but when the waiter began to walk away, he opened his mouth to bring up the subject of their sleeping arrangements for the rest of the week when she beat him to the punch.

‘My mother died when I was eight years old,’ she said, her gaze fixed on his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said automatically, nonplussed not just by the complete non-sequitur but also the wealth of emotion in those bottomless sapphire eyes. And the twist of anguish in his gut, at the thought of her, as such a young child, losing her mother.

He ought to know how that felt—after all he had lost his own mother when he was even younger... He tensed. Not true. Although his mother had died when he was five, he barely remembered her.

‘It’s okay, we weren’t particularly close,’ she said, still watching him with a disturbing level of intimacy.

‘Are you sure?’ he said, because he didn’t believe her. He could hear the hollow tone of loss in her voice.

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