Love made her vulnerable.
She couldn’t breathe.
And to top it all off, she was pregnant.
CHAPTER TEN
SHEWASASbeautiful asleep as she was awake, Drake noted, as he slipped into Helene’s room long after she’d settled into the movement and breathing patterns of deep sleep.
She had been even more attractive in her street clothes earlier that day, all legs and platinum and blue, absolutely thirst-quenching when the only thing he wanted was a long drink of water.
That had been his first thought when she’d popped into view.
There was just something sexy about knowing all that dangerous and deadly power was wrapped up in something as innocuous as blue jeans and tennis shoes.
His second thought was that she was a liar. By omission, yes, but a liar nonetheless. But he’d already known that.
Now, looking at her, he thought she was a beautiful sleeping liar, clad only in a T-shirt.
He had trusted her and she had turned out to be as treacherous as her father had been.
Moving in silence, he traversed her room with ease. Taking in the design as he went, he scanned the space for whatever revelations it might have to share about the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
It should have come as no surprise to him by this point, but her taste was exquisite.
As she did in everything, in her quarters the color she gravitated toward was blue.
Varying shades of the color could be found all around—pillows, throws, piping, art...and beneath that, crisp, clean white. The combination was as refreshing as a cool breeze, an elegant nod to the sea and the sky without an overt beach theme.
He had entered by climbing the trellis that framed the side of her balcony, then opening the French doors into her bedroom.
The trellis was a silly feature, obviously a security risk.
Inside the room, her large bed was tucked into its own nook, ensconced, cozy and separate from the other areas.
The great room was dominated by a large blue braided area rug, which was circular, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, homemade.
It blended seamlessly with the rest of the room. In fact, it seemed as if the rest of the suite had been designed around it. The incongruity of its quality, everyday cotton, when compared to the incredible sophistication of the rest of the room snagged his attention.
But he wasn’t here to ponder braided rugs. He was here to kidnap the mother of his unborn child, who slept the peaceful sleep of the innocent in her bed alcove, her breathing deep and even.
The soundness of her sleep would have concerned him had it not been an expected and direct side effect of the reason he was here in the first place.
Helene was pregnant.
Walking away from her in Andros had been about as much as he’d been able to manage in the two and a half weeks since they’d parted. Instead of returning to Calla, he’d remained in Cyrano, first staying in Andros, until it became too far away and he returned to the private docking in Tierrza that he’d first used to present his wild scheme to Helene.
How incredible, that he’d achieved everything he’d set out to do—that that wild plan had come so powerfully into fruition. Like so many grand achievements, reaching it paled in comparison to the hope and expectation—it hadn’t been enough. Arriving at its summit brought no satisfaction, merely the new vantage point from which to see the next, bigger, even more elusive goal. This time, it was her love.
He’d realized it while living out of theIbrahim—he’d made an art out of keeping tabs on her. Observing her comings and goings, noting her pallor, her altered sleep patterns, her visit to the doctor in which she had walked in confidently and been led out of by the hand by her mother. The intensity of his focus, the need to drink her in every day. He wasn’t done where Helene d’Tierrza was concerned—he’d never be done until he’d secured not just her body, but her heart.
Watching her as he had been had also made it clear that she was pregnant. That she hadn’t told him—and wasn’t planning on telling him, if her behavior had been any judge—was something he would bring up with her after they’d discussed other, more important matters.
Standing over her, moonlight streaming in through the windows that encircled the bed, it was all he could do to not throw her over his shoulder and haul her out of there like a caveman of old.
Sensing him, she shifted in her sleep, her body angling toward him, her lips parted, breath catching at the same time. In sleep, her full bottom lip quivered, coral temptation.
Still sleeping, her cheeks flushed, the softest pink, faded in the moonlight but still high and bright along the angled bone structure of her face, contributing to the overall effect of her glow, illuminating the space around them in what felt like holy light.