Once in Paris Read online

  "You're pregnant," he said flatly.

  "Give that man a cigar."

  "Were you going to tell me?"

  "No," she said at once. "I assumed that your first question would be who its father was."

  Her flat accusation made him uneasy. "I wouldn't ask such a stupid question," he muttered.

  "Imagine that!" '

  "Don't make jokes. It isn't funny."

  "I won't contest a divorce," she said through the folds of the cloth. "Go ahead and start the proceedings."

  "I can see us now in court, with you in a maternity dress, petitioning for an annulment."

  She took away the cloth and glared at him. It surprised her to find him not mocking or sardonic, but actually smiling. And smiling tenderly, at that!

  "I didn't say an annulment," she clarified. "I said a divorce."

  "Who gets custody of the child if we divorce?"

  "Since I'm carrying it..."

  "I put it there," he reminded her.

  "How long have you had the nausea?" he added gently. "I remember that Margo never suffered with it..."

  She threw the washcloth at him with an expression that told him she wished it were a brick bat. "Get out!" she raged at him. "Get out of my apartment, out of Paris, out of my me! I hate you!" She sobbed with mingled fury and grief. "I don't want to hear about Margo!"

  He winced. He didn't know what to say, but he certainly hadn't meant to say that.

  She rolled over on the bed and buried her hot face in the pillow. "Leave me alone," she said in a hoarse whisper.

  He hesitated, but he didn't want to make matters worse, if that was even possible. He looked at her small figure curled up in the voluminous caftan and wondered at the fragility of it. She seemed so strong, so capable normally, that it was a shock to see her vulnerable.

  In the end, he did go out of the bedroom, though not but of the apartment. He went into the kitchen and had Therese make some hot herbal tea for Brianne. When it was ready he took it, with a small packet of unsalted biscuits, in to her on a tray.

  She was sitting up in bed with red eyes and wet cheeks. He put the tray down on the bedside table and sat beside her on the bed.

  "Here," he said gruffly, handing her the delicate china cup. "Therese says you like this. It's chamomile."

  She took it reluctantly. "It helps settle my stomach," she murmured, sipping it.

  He watched her drink it while he thought about what he was going to say.

  "Las Vegas is that way," she pointed out*the window. "You can divorce me by yourself, can't you?"

  "Try to be reasonable," he said calmly. "A man just doesn't divorce a pregnant woman."

  "You don't want it," she accused, staring into her tea. "You were a fanatic about birth control." She looked up angrily. "I keep my pills in my bedside table, which wasn't included in our impromptu trip to Philippe’s island!" She lowered her eyes again quickly.

  "Afterward, there didn't seem much point in taking them at all anymore."

  "Of course not: I was trying to save you from Sabon." His eyes narrowed and he studied her face thoroughly. "Rumors and gossip aside, Tale did some checking. It's hinted that Sabon isn't capable of fathering a child, and I don't think it's a question of sterility."

  She stared at her husband with a stark expression that involuntarily confirmed his suspicions.

  "Don't worry," he said quietly. "I don't intend to advertise what I know. Rather, what Tate found out for me. It was the only explanation I could find for Sabon's strange attitude toward you, and the fact that once we were kidnapped, you weren't afraid of him."

  She shifted uncomfortably and sipped more tea. "I promised I wouldn't tell anyone."

  "It's nice to know that," he mused, watching her closely. "I can tell you my own secrets and not have to worry that they're being repeated."

  She glared at him. "You never tell me anything. Not that I care."

  He traced a pattern on the caftan over her softly rounded belly. "You have an obstetrician?"

  "No, I thought I'd let the stork do the delivery... Of course I have an obstetrician, I'm not stupid!"

  He sighed. "You mean to keep it, then." The glare became pronounced. "Accident or not, I want the baby," she said shortly. "If you don't like it, that's just tough!"

  He looked straight into her eyes as his big hand flattened over his child. He hadn't done much thinking about being a parent, but all sorts of outrageous events fixed themselves in his mind. A little child with dark wavy hair and Brianne's soft green eyes whom he could teach about the oil business and the world of high finance. A child to cuddle in the evenings when he came home from work. He and Brianne could take it to the museum and the opera, later, when it was older...

  "I said, why did you come back?" she asked.

  He lifted his eyes to her face. “Because your bodyguard phoned me on the drilling platform and asked if he should keep an eye on your Arab visitor."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brianne grinned. "So that's why you rushed here."

  She looked smug. Well, why not, she deserved to. He smiled sheepishly, and his broad shoulders rose and fell. "I suppose it was inevitable from that first day in Paris," he said absently as he studied her with a tender smile, "when you drew me out of the shell I was hiding my heart in." He caught her small hand in his and smoothed over it. "I was trying to get back to Margo, but there was nothing I could do short of suicide to accomplish it." He looked at her evenly. "The years are still wrong, but the baby is my guarantee that you

  won't dash off with the first younger man who catches your eye," he added with a mocking smile.

  Why, he was jealous of her, she thought dazedly. And not only jealous; frightened as well, that he wouldn't be able to hold her.

  "I love you," she said bluntly. "Why should I want to run off with anyone else, younger or not?"

  She felt his fingers contract painfully around hers.

  "What did you say?" he asked in a husky whisper.

  "That I love you desperately, Pierce," she replied matter-of-factly. She searched his black eyes with a sigh. "Didn't you know?"

  His gaze fell to her soft hand, engulfed in both of his. He released the pressure. "Not really," he said, his voice stark and flat. "I haven't given you much reason to love me lately." He eased his fingers between hers and scowled as he looked at them.

  "Why else would I stay with a man who's still married to his late wife?" she asked a little sadly. "Any woman with good sense would have run the other way while mere was still time."

  His fingers curled closer into hers. "I loved Margo," he agreed. "It took a long time to let go of her." He lifted his face. "But Tate was right. He said that you had the same qualities Margo had, and that I was a fool to let you go." He smiled halfheartedly. "I wouldn't listen, of course. I went to the Caspian Sea and became my men's worst nightmare. I imagine they're all drunk with joy by now, having waved me off in the helicopter in virtual droves."

  She smiled back. "Really?"

  "I was looking forward to knocking Sabon through the window," he continued with a shrug. "I guess we don't always get everything we want." He glared at her. "From now on, he comes to see you only if I'm at home. Period."

  "You possessive chauvinist," she accused.

  He lifted her small hand to his mouth and kissed it gently. "I'm not sharing you, not even with the head of a foreign government." He glanced at the envelope. "I didn't expect him to pay back the loan at all, much less this soon."

  "He's drowning in oil," she reminded him. "I suppose his country is going to have a new lease on life."

  "He can stay in it, with my blessing," he said shortly.

  She decided that it wasn't a politic time to tell him about Philippe's other promise, about their child.

  "You have to go back, I suppose," she fished.

  He drew her hand to his broad thigh and held it there. "I'm the boss," he told her. "I don't have to go anywhere unless it pleases me."

  Her heart
jumped. "You're staying?"

  His black eyes slid over her slender body in the pretty caftan and he smiled. "For a few years, I guess. Fifty or so."

  She didn't feel her breath whispering inside her at all. "Fifty...years?"

  He nodded. His hand moved back to her rounded belly. "I'm not leaving you to go through a pregnancy with my baby alone. My baby," he said again, his voice full of wonder and hesitant delight. "I never thought about babies."

  "You need to come to the Sorbonne with me and study biology," she told him.

  He glared at her. "I know what causes them."

  She chuckled shyly. "I noticed."

  He smiled gently. "I'll take good care of you," he said quietly. "All my life." His smile faded as he traced her face with tenderness. "I'll give you anything you want."

  She felt a thickness in her throat. "I only want you. But I'll take care of you, too, my darling."

  His indrawn breath was audible. He looked at her with such poignant tenderness that she blushed. He bent and kissed her soft eyes, with fierce gentleness. "Brianne!" he whispered. He drew in another steadying breath and looked at her hungrily for a long time before he spoke.

  "What's wrong?" she asked softly.

  His fingers touched her soft mouth and he stared at it, struggling with words he didn't want to say. "I can't...lose you," he whispered. "Dear God, Brianne, I can't lose you...!" Incredibly, his voice broke on the words.

  "My darling!" She reached up and drew him hungrily down to her, kissing him everywhere she could reach, cradling him, overwhelmed with the wonder of his love for her. She felt his broad, warm face at her throat, felt the unashamed wetness against it as she murmured softly and kissed him with breathless tender ness. "I'll do my best to live as long as you do, but you can't leave me, either!" she whispered on a watery chuckle. Her arms contracted hungrily around him. "Oh, Pierce, I do love you so much!"

  His arms became almost bruising as he reacted to the passion in her voice and the love for her that knocked the breath out of him. She felt his mouth at her ear. "I love you, Brianne," he whispered back. "Je t'aime si beaucoup!"

  Not only did he love her, he told her he loved her in two languages, she mused, dazed with wonder and joy. She held him closer, and closed her own very wet eyes to savor the sound of it. Pierce loved her, and there was going to be a child. They had a lifetime ahead of them to share. It was the happiest moment of her life.

  Margo's image didn't fade immediately, but over the months it became less a part of their lives as she grew large with the baby, and Pierce discovered me unadulterated joy of approaching fatherhood. She had two closets full of baby toys and a nursery already equipped with every modern convenience known to man. Pierce chose a new wedding band, with her, and he wore it now, instead of the ring Margo had given him.

  Everyone knew that she was pregnant, because long before she began wearing smart maternity clothing, Pierce was announcing it with beaming pride to anyone willing to listen.

  The baby was born on the very day that Philippe Sabon became regent of his country, so there was no question of them being able to attend the ceremony. But despite the importance of the day in Sabon's life, he still managed a bouquet of white roses for Brianne and a word of congratulations to the Muttons on the birth of their young son, Edward Laurence.

  A weary Brianne kissed her exuberant husband while he gazed with awe and fascination at the tiny child in her arms, feeding hungrily at her breast..

  "Thank you for not fussing about the roses," she whispered with a tired smile.

  He chuckled. "Oh, I can forgive a rose or two, since he's an ocean away from us," he murmured. "God, Brianne, isn't he beautiful?" he exclaimed, watching the child.

  "Very beautiful indeed," she agreed. She searched her husband's dark face and smiled.

  The baby's fingers curled around one of his and he smiled, too.

  "And you thought I was too young," she chided.

  He chuckled. "That was before I realized how young you were going to make me. What a present," he murmured, bending to kiss his son's little head. "I can't think of anything of equal value to give you."

  "He's mine, too," she reminded him. She reached up and touched his hard mouth gently. "We might give each other a daughter next time." He pursed his lips and gave her a rakish grin.

  "Okay."

  She laughed. Life was so sweet. She spared a thought for poor Philippe, who would never know the glory of holding his child in his arms. But it was only the one thought. The rest were centered wholly on the two most beloved males in the world, in her arms.