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She took a step backward, needing some space from the heat coming off his body in waves, only to bump up against the white wicker coffee table. He countered her move, trapping her there unless she wanted to start scrambling over furniture to try to get away. “Chance—”
“For someone who claims not to take risks, you sure move fast when you want to.”
Alexa wasn’t sure her skin could get much hotter without setting her hair on fire. He knew just how fast she had moved, falling into bed with him the very night they met. Looking back, the entire weekend seemed like some kind of dream, a magical moment out of time. One that, even with the pregnancy, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to regret—until now. Until Chance made her feel ashamed. “I—”
“Four months, and now you’re suddenly engaged?”
“Engaged? You mean Griffin?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have another fiancé I don’t know about?”
“No, of course not.” She didn’t even have the one he did know about. Not really.
“Unless...” His gaze narrowed dangerously. “Were you engaged when we met?”
“What? No! I certainly wouldn’t have slept with you,” she hissed beneath her breath as if the entire hotel might have been listening in, “if I’d been engaged to another man at the time.”
He searched her expression, his stance easing ever so slightly at what he saw there. She caught a hint of the ocean mixed with his own masculine scent, and her focus drifted toward his lips even as she wondered if she would taste the salt on his skin...
He’s here. I can’t believe he’s really here.
Sucking in a quick breath, Alexa snapped herself out of the dangerous direction her thoughts had taken. Chance might have just come from a walk on the beach, but she was the one who needed to throw herself into the frigid waves!
What had he been saying? Oh, right. He’d just accused her of cheating on her fiancé. “Griffin James and I have known each other since we were children, but he only recently asked me to marry him.”
“Just like that?”
“What?”
“You’ve known each other for years and then what? You woke up one day and decided to get married?”
“We’re well suited.” Alexa cringed, hearing her grandmother’s words coming out of her mouth. Her grandmother would be thrilled if she accepted Griffin’s proposal. Virginia had been pushing the two of them together since high school.
“Right. Whereas you and I were only well suited in bed.”
Alexa stared at him. “What are you doing here, Chance?”
He opened his mouth but no sound escaped. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, looking at a loss, out of sorts and so completely different from the man she’d met four months ago. “Hell if I know,” he finally sighed.
Alexa fought it, she really did, but her heart cried out at the unexpected vulnerability in his expression. He looked...awful. At the charity auction, he’d fit in with the sophisticated crowd—breathtaking in a tuxedo that outlined his six-foot-something frame with a perfection that would bring any red-blooded woman to her knees. His dark hair had been brushed back from his wide forehead, revealing his classic bone structure, gorgeous blue eyes and a pair of dimples to die for.
Today his hair fell across that forehead in disarray. His face looked gaunt. The spark was missing from those sapphire blues, the dimples nowhere to be seen beneath the rough stubble.
Four months wasn’t much time, but so much had happened. She had a new life growing inside her, and Chance—Chance had almost died. “I heard the news reports.”
Cringing, he asked, “Which one?”
“The one that said you’d been killed in a suicide bomb attack.”
“Bad reporting.”
“It doesn’t look that far off.” She hadn’t noticed earlier, but he stood off-center, resting the majority of his weight on his left side. How close had he come to dying?
“I’m fine. I’ll be back in the field in no time.”
Right, Alexa thought bitterly, because who would let nearly getting blown up make them rethink their life choices?
A few years before her parents were killed in an avalanche while skiing in the Italian Alps, they had survived a plane crash. The small jet had experienced engine failure, and the pilot had made a miracle landing on a middle of nowhere country road. But instead of making her parents rethink their high-flying, jet-setting lifestyle, surviving the near-death incident had only made them feel that much more invincible.
Alexa could only imagine Chance would react the same—taking more risks, accepting more challenges until his luck ran out way too soon.
At the moment, though, it was hard to think about him being thousands of miles away, putting his life in danger, when he was right there, close enough to touch. And it was all Alexa could do not to erase the mere inches between them, to throw her arms around him, to see, smell, touch, taste that he was really and truly alive and well—
Hormones, she thought desperately. She’d read how pregnancy could lead to a skyrocketing of emotions, but the rationale failed to erase the dizzying rush of desire flooding her veins. Nothing more than a momentary lapse.
Unfortunately, her lapses were all too common at least where Chance McClaren was concerned. But just because she’d made a mistake didn’t mean she would keep making them. From now on, she would make no more impulsive decisions; she would do her thinking with her head, not her heart.
And certainly not with her hormones.
Taking a sanity-saving step back from the hold Chance had over her, she whispered, “You should go before...”
His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile as he came to his own conclusion as to what she was afraid might happen. “Right. Wouldn’t want your fiancé catching you alone in a hotel room with a guy you slept with.”
Alexa opened her mouth to argue only to stop. What would be the point? Maybe it was better for Chance to think she and Griffin were engaged.
“But don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time to see each other around.”
She shivered slightly at the promise—warning—in his expression. “Why is that?”
“Didn’t my sister tell you? I’m your wedding photographer.”
* * *
Alexa smiled at the waitress who topped off her glass of water before looking across the small table to find Griffin staring at her. “What?”
“You’re not eating.”
After the confrontation with Chance, Alexa had wanted nothing more than to escape the hotel. When Griffin returned to their suite and suggested a trip into town, she’d instantly agreed. They’d spent the afternoon browsing through the charming stores along Main Street. She would normally have loved taking in the Victorian architecture—the turrets, the wraparound porches, the elegantly detailed trim work and bright colors of the painted ladies—but she couldn’t concentrate.
She sighed as she picked through her salad. Couldn’t eat.
After surviving bouts of morning sickness her first trimester, her appetite had come back with a vengeance. So much so that when she’d reminded Griffin she was eating for two, he’d asked, “Are they both linebackers in the NFL?”
But now, with her nerves so frazzled from the confrontation with Chance, she could barely swallow a bite. “If you want, we can go somewhere else,” Griffin offered.
He’d spotted the old-fashioned diner with its black-and-white floors, stainless-steel eat-in counter and red-vinyl-covered booths. Despite—or perhaps because of—the five-star restaurants boasted by many of his family’s hotels, he’d always enjoyed a basic burger and fries.
They were seated toward the back of the diner, and Alexa had a view of the entire place. The booths and barstools were crowded with a mix of tourists and locals. Pink-uniformed waitresses called out orders to a cook behind the counter, and fifties music bounced through the speakers. The smell of grilled meat and fried food would have been mouthwatering if she’d had any kind of appetite.
“No, this is fine.” She stabbed at a piece of chicken in her Cobb salad.
Dunking a fry in a pool of ketchup on the corner of his plate, Griffin casually asked, “That was him, wasn’t it?”
Alexa froze, midchew, convinced he couldn’t be asking what she thought he was asking. But his gaze was so certain, reminding her that she’d never been able to pull anything over on him. Still, she swallowed and reached for her glass.
“I’m sorry...” After taking a sip of slightly tart apple juice, she asked, “Who’s ‘him’?” Childish of her to play dumb when Griffin knew her so well. She might as well close her eyes and pretend the world—pretend Chance McClaren—couldn’t see her.
“You know.” He nodded to the spot hidden beneath the opposite end of the table. “Your baby daddy.”
Alexa set her glass back on the white-fleck Formica table with a thunk. “Have I told you how much I loathe that term?”
“Do you have a better expression in mind?”
Weekend fling...
Sperm donor...
Father of her child...
None of them did anything to settle the nerves spiraling through her stomach.
“Besides, it doesn’t matter what I call him. I’m still right, aren’t I? He’s the one.”
The one. Somehow that sounded even worse than all the others. Yes, Chance McClaren was the one man who’d made her forget herself for a long weekend. The one man who’d gotten her to take a chance, to risk stepping outside her comfort zone. The one man who’d made her feel free.
A flutter of movement in her belly seemed to mock that thinking. Not so free now.
But Chance was not the one when it came to the man Alexa might have picked to father her child. Not the one when it came to a man she would choose for a stable, long-term relationship.
She knew that in her head, in her heart. So why didn’t her stupid body get with the program and settle down? Why were chills still racing down her spine and gooseflesh rising along her skin after seeing him again?
“How did you figure it out?” Alexa had told Griffin she was pregnant, keeping most of the details, including Chance’s name, to herself. She wasn’t sure why, other than saying his name would have brought back even more memories. And she’d been trying so hard to forget.
“Other than the sparks you two were striking off each other?” Griffin downed a fourth of his cheeseburger with one bite before adding, “After seeing the way you reacted, I did some quick online research on the guy. Turns out he was at that benefit in Santa Barbara, the same one where you met your mystery man.”
Alexa sighed, knowing Griffin had her cornered. “I still can’t believe he’s here. A part of me thought I’d never see him again.”
“Because you thought he’d been killed?” A hint of chiding filled Griffin’s voice that she hadn’t told him the whole story.
“You read the reports?”
“It was hard not to. Plug McClaren’s name into a search engine, and every headline touts how the guy came back from the dead.”
Alexa pushed the chopped tomatoes in her salad into a small pile. “I know. And I would have told you, but you were in the middle of those meetings with your father.” Meetings over Griffin’s trust and the stipulations that, so far, had kept him from obtaining the money. “And by the time you were home...”
“Chance was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Safe to say the two of you aren’t as finished as you made it seem.”
Alexa shook her head. “You’re wrong. It’s over.” She gave a half laugh. “It never really started. It was a weekend fling. Nothing more.”
“You don’t have weekend flings, Alexa.”
“I know!” She longed to cover her face with her hands at what had been such an out-of-character thing for her to do. She feared it wasn’t so out of character for Chance, yet another reason why things could never work out between them.
“So don’t you think that means something?”
“That I’ve become a desperate, lonely woman?”
“Okay, first, that’s not true. And second, there had to be something about Chance McClaren for you to sleep with him that first night.” His expression was wry as he pointed out, “I’ve seen you take longer before deciding on a pair of shoes.”
She refused to meet his gaze as she added a dash of pepper before spearing a quarter slice of hard-boiled egg. “Shoes are important.”
“Allie. Come on.”
Alexa swallowed. “It wouldn’t work between the two of us. We’re too different. We want such polar opposite things out of life. I told him that when he called. And that was before I even knew I was pregnant!”
“Wait.” Griffin pointed a thick-cut fry in accusation. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“What?”
“That he called...or that you were the one to call things off.”
“I didn’t. Not really.” Leaning forward, she stressed, “I hadn’t heard from him in five weeks, Griffin.”
“And what was Chance doing during those five weeks?”
“He—” Alexa cut herself off, realizing she hadn’t asked where Chance had been or what he’d been doing. “He was probably off in some desert or jungle or swamp, God knows where.”
“Which probably made it hard to make contact,” Griffin chimed in with a logic that had Alexa feeling very illogical.
“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Yours. Always.” He leaned back in the booth before saying, “I found something else when I was looking around online. Something I should have remembered. It was the twenty-year anniversary of your parents’ deaths, wasn’t it? Not long after you and Chance met?”
The exact anniversary had been the very day he’d called. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Oh, come on, Allie. You can’t tell me you don’t see the similarities. But whatever your parents’ faults were, they were their own. Don’t hold Chance responsible for them.”
“What are you saying, Griffin?”
“What you already know. He has a right to know that he’s going to be a father.”
* * *
The last thing Chance wanted to do that evening was head into Clearville for dinner. The Victorian town held a certain appeal for visitors and for locals who made their money off those tourists, but the place had always struck Chance as too cute. And now, as smiling pumpkins and pilgrims battled with Santa and Rudolph for prime window display real estate, it was worse than he remembered.
Rory, of course, loved it.
“I can’t wait to start decorating Hillcrest for Christmas!” Wearing a thigh-length red coat, his sister already looked in the holiday spirit. She waved a hand at the glowing storefronts along Main Street. “I wanted to start putting up a few small touches here and there—just a wreath or two—but Evie insisted we wait until after Thanksgiving.”
“For once, Evie and I agree,” he said wryly.
“I’m so glad you’ll be here for the holidays. I don’t remember the last time we were all together at Christmas.”
Home for the holidays? Oh, hell, no. Christmas was several weeks away, which might as well be an eternity. He wouldn’t still be in Clearville then. He couldn’t be. But even as he opened his mouth to argue, he swallowed a curse as the toe of his shoe caught on an uneven spot on the sidewalk, and his full weight landed on his right leg.
Six months, his doctors and therapists had warned him, before he could expect full range of motion. Before he could walk without limping, without pain.
“Chance—”
“I’m fine.” He cut Rory off before she could ask the question he was already so sick of hearing.
“Are you sure you should be off your crutches so soon?” she pressed.
Pushing yourself won’t make your body heal any faster, his doctor had warned. You aren’t building up muscle. You’re regrowing bone, and that takes time.
Chance didn’t have time. He’d been riding a wave of success with recent recognition from the World Press along with nominations for international photography awards. While on the sidelines, several key assignments had been given to other photographers. He had to keep his name and his pictures out there. Whatever it took.
As they stepped inside Rolly’s diner, Chance came face-to-face with another reason why he needed to get out of there. Anywhere but Clearville.
“Oh, look, there’s Alexa and Griffin!” Rory announced as she sent the couple a quick wave.
Seated at a booth toward the back of the restaurant, Alexa lifted a weak hand in response while her golden boy fiancé was all smiles. As Chance’s gaze caught Alexa’s, as the distance between them—the crowded tables, the chattering waitresses, as the whole damn diner—disappeared in that powerful moment of memory, of connection, he could almost feel sorry for the poor SOB.
If Griffin James hadn’t been the one seated across from Alexa. If he hadn’t been the one holding her hand, hearing her voice, smelling the honey-lilac scent of her skin.
Sharing her hotel room...
Yeah, who was the poor SOB now?
“I didn’t expect to see them here,” Rory was saying as she slid into an empty booth.
Chance had had plenty of time to curse the limitations of his injury but rarely more so than in that moment. Unable to fully bend his knee, he had to take the seat on his left, to keep his right leg stretched out. A seat that faced the back of the restaurant and gave him a perfect view of Alexa and her fiancé.
“Yeah, this is hardly Alexa’s kind of place.”
Rory frowned as she lifted the laminated menu that probably hadn’t changed since the last time Chance had eaten there. “How would you know?”
“I know...women like her,” he finished. “Wealthy, spoiled, too good for everyone around her.”
Not that Alexa had seemed like any of those things the night they met.
Setting the menu aside, his sister took a deep breath. “You know how much I hate admitting Evie’s right, but you really do need to get on board if you’re going to be our photographer.”
If? If? She’d all but begged him to fill in! “I told you I’d get a haircut and all that.”
“I’m not talking about how you look. I’m talking about your attitude about love and marriage...and women.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know Lisette did a number on you—”
Now it was his turn to toss the menu aside. “This has nothing to do with Lisette,” he stated flatly.
“Then what?”
“It’s—”
We come from different worlds, Chance.
He watched as Griffin James, a man very much a part of Alexa’s world, reached over and cupped her cheek in his palm.
“Nothing,” he told Rory finally. “It’s nothing.”
Chapter Four
“Don’t worry. Everything’s under control.” Even as Alexa spoke the words into her cell phone, she fought a burst of hysterical laughter that would certainly be enough to send her grandmother’s panicked assistant over the edge. Not to mention the state it would leave Alexa in.
Under control? As she listened to Raquel rattle off the dozens of details her grandmother had needed handled in the three days since Alexa left, she couldn’t imagine anything being further from the truth.
Chance was alive.
Chance was here.
She needed to tell Chance he was the father of her baby.
The phrases had circled endlessly through her mind, robbing her of any hope of a good night’s sleep. She’d always been an early riser, part of the strict schedule her grandmother had established and one Alexa couldn’t seem to break no matter how hard she tried. Or no matter how many hours she’d spent tossing and turning the night before.
Her doctor had encouraged exercise and warned her about too much stress, so Alexa had set out on a early morning walk. As she’d breathed in the cool morning fog, a bit of pressure eased from her chest. The breeze rustled through the pines, carrying a hint of salt air, and she was glad she’d thought to grab a thigh-length beige sweater to wear over her tunic-style cream blouse and tan leggings.
But any sense of relaxation had come to an abrupt end as she remembered that Chance wasn’t the only one Alexa needed to tell about her pregnancy. And while she had no idea how Chance was going to react, she had a good idea what her proper, old-fashioned grandmother would have to say.
Tuning back into the conversation and Raquel’s laundry list of concerns, she reassured the younger woman, “You’ll do fine.”
“But the Giving Thanks benefit—”
“Everything is going as scheduled. I confirmed with the vendors this morning.” Alexa could hear Raquel relaying the information back to her grandmother and Virginia’s protests in the background. “Tell my grandmother—”
“You can tell me yourself, Alexa.” Virginia Mayhew’s crisp voice cut across the line.
“Like I was saying to Raquel, everything is under control. I contacted—”
“You should be here working on the benefit. How does it look for you to be off on vacation at the most critical time of the fund-raising season?”
Considering she typically dealt with vendors by phone or email, Alexa knew things didn’t “look” any different. She also knew that wasn’t her grandmother’s point. Alexa was the face of the foundation, and that face was always supposed to be in the public eye.
But Alexa was tired of constantly living behind a public persona. She wanted to live her own life. A life where she could go outside without the perfect clothes, perfect hair, perfect makeup. A life where she could be something less than perfect. “It’s only for a few days, Grandmother.”
“This isn’t a good time. I told you that before you left.”
“Yes, you did,” Alexa acknowledged, but it was never a good time. Which was why she hadn’t taken a vacation in...she couldn’t even remember how long. “I’ll be home soon.”
Alexa hung up feeling the familiar weight of expectation pressing on her chest. She had started volunteering for the Mayhew Foundation when she was still in her teens and had dedicated her adult life to helping raise money for those in need.
Taking a deep breath, Alexa pressed the button on the side of her phone. For the first time, she was going to think of her needs. She’d longed for a break from the nonstop schedule for the past year or so, but doubted she would have made the stand if not for her pregnancy.
Growing up in her grandmother’s house, Alexa’s world had been filled with directives as to what a Mayhew did not do. A Mayhew did not slouch, did not sulk, did not argue, did not cry...
Only with Griffin had Alexa ever felt she could let down the walls her grandmother’s rules had built around her and truly be herself. Only with Griffin...and with Chance.
Not that her feelings for the two men were at all the same. With Griffin, she felt safe. With him, she could say and do whatever she wanted.
With Chance, she felt dangerous. With him, she had said and done things she’d never imagined, and now...
Alexa was certain getting pregnant following a weekend fling would fall within the “did not” constraints.
But telling her grandmother would have to wait. First, she needed to tell Chance.
Some wistful part of her hoped that he would be stunned, yet overjoyed by the news. Sweeping her up into his arms the same way he’d swept her off her feet in Santa Barbara.
After confessing she’d never done something so out of character, so impetuous as to sleep with a man she’d just met, they’d teasingly come up with the list of crazy, adrenaline-fueled exploits for her to try next—all with Chance right by her side.
How about rushing headlong into the adventures of parenthood, Chance? How do you feel about holding my hand on that wild ride?
But after seeing him again, it was almost impossible to imagine a happily-ever-after ending. The charmingly seductive man she’d met the night of the charity ball seemed so...different now. Had the injury somehow changed him? Or had she allowed herself to start to fall for a man who didn’t even exist?