“This innovative software came out of a need for a specific effect. It wouldn’t have been developed if not for the people who demanded it. But I think the entire team will agree that we wouldn’t have delivered on time, on budget without the support of my exceptional assistant at the time, Sirena Abbott. She refused to come on stage with me because she’s more comfortable in a supporting role than in the spotlight. I’ve come to realize that about you, Sin.”
The nickname was a tiny endearment, but the intensity of his gaze picking her out across the crowded auditorium was monumental. Later she would realize heads and cameras had turned her way, but in this moment, all she saw and felt was Raoul’s undivided attention.
“You recently did the hard work on a very special project in which I played a very small role. I won’t take credit for the beautiful baby girl you made us. If we were giving golden statues for that tonight, this would be yours.”
Now her makeup was going to run, vexing man! She blinked, trying to hold back the tears.
He was escorted offstage by handlers for photos. He’d warned her that would happen and she gratefully grasped the chance to slip into the ladies’ room to collect herself. No one had ever made such a production of appreciating her. She didn’t know how to cope with it. Criticism was hurtful, but she was comfortable with it. She knew what to do after receiving it. The path to Better was right there and she always took it.
Arriving at Well Done made her look around in confusion. Part of her wanted to dismiss what Raoul had said as empty flattery, but she knew that wasn’t healthy and she loved their daughter too much to reduce the sweet things he’d just said about her, even if that meant accepting praise for her own contribution.
She did try to be a good mother and a good person. Was it so far-fetched that he might have noticed and come to value those things about her?
With her breath still hitching, she left the ladies’ room and ran straight into Raoul. He was clutching his award in one fist as he paced. He stopped when he saw her.
“I was about to come in there looking for you.”
“Shoes and a dress like this are challenging,” she joked to hide her discomfiture.
Someone else came into the short hallway and he nudged her farther into the moderate privacy of an area where a bank of outdated pay telephones still hung. That was the millionth time he’d stroked his fingers over the bare skin at her waist and it was totally short-circuiting her brain.
“Are you upset with me?” he asked.
“For what?” She ducked her head to the snap on her pocketbook, not wanting him to see how gauche she felt, unable to take one little compliment.
“For telling the world we have a baby together.”
“Oh. That.” She pressed her freshly painted lips together, mouth quirking wryly. “It’s not the way I would have done it, but I’m not going to pretend she doesn’t exist.”
“It’s not the way I meant to reveal her either. I was fielding some awkward questions backstage about whether we’re getting married. It made me realize we should. Then you wouldn’t worry about whether you could depend on me.”
Stunned, Sirena could only stare at his bow tie, eyes burning as she reflected that it was even less sentimental than Stephan’s awkward “Maybe we should get married.”
“And before you accuse me of saying it purely for practicality’s sake—” He clunked his heavy award onto a shelf and crowded her into a corner. “Let me remind you there’s a reason we wound up with an unplanned pregnancy.”
There went that hand again, possessively sliding to the small of her back, fingers dipping behind silk as he curved her into him, bumping her thighs into his.
She automatically caught at his sleeve for balance, but her other hand braced her pocketbook into his shoulder. Her head fell back a little, lips parting on a shocked gasp as her entire front lit up with seeking tingles, wanting contact with his.
“Fresh lipstick,” she managed as his mouth neared hers.
“I don’t care.” He pressed hard lips over her trembling ones, both soothing and inciting the ache spreading through her body. Heat rose like a circle of flames around them, burning her alive as they pressed together, spinning and hurtling directly into the sun.
She groaned and met his tongue with hers, lifting on tiptoes to increase the pressure and even diving her fingers into his short hair to pull him down, urging him to kiss her harder. He did, rocking his mouth on hers with feral hunger. Hard fingers dug into her buttock and spine as he crushed her to him.
His erection imprinted her through the fabric of his pants, making the ethereal layer of silk gown seem nonexistent. She didn’t want it between them. She wanted to feel nothing but satin skin over hard flesh, flexing muscle and the slam of his heartbeat against hers. She whimpered, almost sobbing in her need for him.
Drawing back a fraction, he muttered, “This is crazy.” He had a hand tangled in her hair, clenching a handful in a way that kept her immobile. It would have been too caveman and primitive if he wasn’t also holding her as if he was saving her from a shipwreck and dropping hot kisses down the side of her face to her nape.
She trembled, mortified by how close she was to losing it in public. It was no consolation that he had her buried in a corner. People were coming and going behind him. They had to be glancing this way. Her hands had burrowed beneath his jacket, but they were flexing on his shirt, trying to pull it from his waistband so she could stroke the indent of his spine.
“Raoul, we have to stop.”
“I know. I’m about to drag you into a janitor’s closet.” He straightened and pulled his snowy handkerchief from his pocket. He swiped it across his mouth, then asked her with a look if he’d gotten all the color off.
She thumbed a tiny smudge from the corner of his mouth and stole the cloth for herself, thinking to take it into the ladies’ room, but he caught her hand and his award and started for the exit.
“What—?”
“Don’t make me pick you up, Sin.”
“I have a feeling you just did,” she mumbled and heard him chuckle as he snapped for a limo.
“That one’s not ours,” she said.
“Ours will find us when we’re ready,” he assured her and had them driven about four blocks to the palatial entrance of a hotel. Throwing his platinum card on the counter, he got them a key in record time and seconds later they were walking into the decadence of the honeymoon suite.
Sirena stopped a few steps in, wondering what she was doing. It was one thing to be swept away, quite another to book a room and take off her clothes with deliberation.
Raoul unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket, shrugging out of it and throwing it across the arm of a wingback chair. “Second thoughts? I’ve had a vasectomy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“What?” Her pocketbook hit the floor before she realized her fingers had released it. She quickly crouched to retrieve it, but couldn’t take her eyes off the man with his hands pushed into tight fists in his trouser pockets. “When?”
“About a week after we fought about it. You asked if I’d pulled a hamstring on the treadmill and I said, ‘something like that.’”
“You should have said—” She was floored, unable to process it. “Why would you do that? I’m a fluke. Other women—”
“I don’t think about having sex with other women. Only you.”
Her heart stumbled and she had a hard time rising to stand on her weak knees.
“I have condoms, too.” He extracted a length of conjoined foil squares from his pocket. “In case you’re worried about anything else. I’ve been tested and have never, ever not used one of these. Which frankly makes me nervous of my performance without one, given it’s been so long since we were together.”
Her mouth opened. Her lips and tongue wanted to form words, but no air moved from her throat. Her voice had left the building. He hadn’t been with anyone else?
“We’re good together, Sin.” He crossed to her with a laconic scuff of his shoes on the tiles. “Even without taking this to the bedroom. We always were.”
“Because I did as I was told,” she managed to counter.
He took her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. Her hair practically lifted off her scalp at his touch. His nearness and the way he studied her mouth caused her breath to stutter.
“I can’t stand being around idiots or sycophants or women who act helpless. You’re bright and funny and incredibly competent. I’ve always been as attracted to that as the knockout body and gypsy looks.”
Her lips began to quiver. “I still feel like anything could happen and it would all fall apart and you’d hate me again.”
A sharp spasm seemed to take him. “You know what I hate? Not having you in my life at all. Oh, hell, don’t cry. There’s a lot to build on here, Sin.”
“I know,” she murmured, fingering the tail of his bow tie, wishing she had the courage to boldly yank it free. “Not to mention how much it would mean to me that Lucy would never wind up with a stepmother like my own.”
His bearing hardened before her eyes, taking umbrage.
“Oh, please, you don’t really need to hear that’s not my only motive. I’ve been insanely attracted to you for years.”