The Surgeon's One-Night Baby by Charlotte Hawkes

Author:Charlotte Hawkes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-06-07T18:17:35+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘DID YOU CALL that a kiss?’ Kaspar demanded as they stepped back into his...their home a scant few hours later.

He didn’t know why he was trying to tease her. Perhaps because now they were married he knew they finally needed to get past the animosity that had settled on them. Black, heavy and cold. They had to move on from it.

It was one of the reasons he’d arranged for them to have their wedding breakfast at a private, fine dining experience in one of LA’s most exclusive restaurants. It was his attempt at an olive branch, but he hadn’t accounted for how entrenched they had become.

The silence at their table, the scrape of metal against fine china, the hollow clink of crystal wine glasses, both filled with water, had only emphasised the emptiness of the day, until finally Kaspar was able to bear it no more.

‘I know you’re not sure about this marriage,’ he sighed, covering her hand lightly with his across the table, ‘and I’m sorry if you feel I pushed you into it. Seeing you in front of the minister looking so sad...well, that isn’t what I want. Please,’ he implored her, and in his eyes she saw an unexpected flash of the vulnerable, proud boy she had once known. ‘Let’s try to make this thing work, let’s try to make our home a pleasant one, if nothing else. The baby deserves that much.’

Archie’s heart sank a little. Of course it was the baby he was really worried about, but she nodded anyway, and in a small, tight voice agreed. ‘I can be pleasant.’

‘Thank you.’

* * *

Now, though, as they walked down the hallway of the beach house, Kaspar tried for a little more levity. ‘I know you can kiss far better than you showed me today.’

Archie tilted her chin up at him, utterly elegant and poised. It gave him an unmistakeable kick to realise that he could see straight through her. He could read her in a way he’d never expected to be able to.

‘It may shock you to know this, Kaspar, but I don’t want to kiss you again. I certainly don’t want to sleep with you.’

He grinned unexpectedly. The first in days.

‘I was talking about a kiss. Who said anything about sleeping together?’

‘I surmised it was where you were going with the conversation.’ She flushed, struggling hard not to sound so prim. Too hard.

‘I hadn’t been. Interesting it was where your mind went, though.’

‘My mind went nowhere untoward, I can assure you.’

Something like relief skittered across her face and Kaspar realised it was a game. One designed to speak to his basest instincts. She was wriggling under his skin, the way she’d always been able to as a kid. Only there was nothing childlike about the attraction that now fizzed between them.

‘Is that so?’

‘That’s so,’ she confirmed, but her voice quivered.

‘Are you sure?’

She didn’t answer and his gaze held hers, missing nothing. Not her quick, shallow breathing, or the flush creeping up her neck, or the way she tried to swallow so discreetly.

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