He flashed a grin at her that shot an arrow straight to her heart. She had to be careful not to fall for his disarming charm. She had to keep her emotions out of their relationship...whatever their relationship was now. They were parents of a tiny baby. They were former lovers but, since it had only been a one-night stand, did that even count as a fling? It was a passing moment in time that had brought about the birth of their child.
‘You want to have a look at the things I got? The rest is back at my hotel.’
Harper leaned on her hands and pulled her shoulders back. ‘Is that where you live? In one of your hotels?’
He gave a loose shrug of one impossibly broad shoulder. ‘It makes sense to base myself in the flagship hotel in London so I can keep an eye on things.’
Harper pushed herself off the bed and moved around the other side, folding her arms across the middle of her body. ‘I hope you’re not expecting our child to live in a hotel?’ She had lived in temporary accommodation throughout her childhood—bedsits, caravan parks, shelters and then foster care. None of which were permanent homes. None of which felt likeherhome.
‘I expect my child to live with me and her mother.’ There was a chord of determination in his tone. ‘How can I be a fully present and involved father if I only see Marli every second weekend?’
Harper sent him a look that was so frosty it could have frozen the water in the jug on her tray table. ‘I told you I’m not marrying you.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘I live in a flat in South Kensington.’ ‘Flat’ was too generous a term for the tiny one-bedroom place she paid an exorbitant rent for and Harper wondered how long it would take him to realise it.
‘How many bedrooms?’
Mmm...not long, apparently. She couldn’t hold his steely gaze and blew out her breath on a sigh. ‘One.’
‘Hardly big enough to raise a family.’ His voice was just shy of condescending.
Harper raised her gaze back to his. ‘It will be fine for now, and besides, it’s just Marli and me. I can move to a bigger place when she’s a bit older.’When I’ve had time to adjust to becoming a mother, she could have added but didn’t. But would sheeveradjust? She was still reeling from the shock of finding herself the mother of a baby. She had spent the night staring at her tiny daughter, chastising herself for not having recognised she was pregnant. Torturing herself with all the what-ifs...what if she had been a drinker? What if she had been a six-coffees-a-day person? What if she had been the sort of person to pop pills whenever she got the teeniest ache or pain? What if she had eaten some of those listeria-contaminated foods you weren’t supposed to eat while pregnant? She could have inadvertently harmed her baby, causing her child irreparable damage, ruining Marli’s potential all because she had not for a moment suspected she was pregnant.
‘I’ll buy a house for us to live in,’ Jack said. ‘Problem solved.’
Harper gave a startled laugh. ‘Nice to be able to just go and buy oneself a house, especially in London, where the price of real estate is out of most people’s reach.’
‘I’m not most people. I own a chain of luxury hotels and can afford to buy my child and my fiancée a nice home.’
‘Which you seem to think I’ll meekly agree to live in with you.’
Jack gave her a sardonic look. ‘There’s not too much about you that’s meek but I’m hoping you’ll see the practical advantages of our living with each other.’
Harper upped her chin, shooting him a blistering glare. ‘Practicalities meaning you expect me to dive head first into your bed?’
His dark blue eyes glinted as if he was thinking about how she’d done exactly that nine months ago. Trouble was, once she’d got into his bed that night, she hadn’t wanted to get out. And that was something she wasn’t prepared to risk happening again. He was too attractive, too addictive, too everything. She had no willpower around him. He only had to look at her a certain way and her body would betray her. No one had ever made love to her the way Jack Livingstone had. He had made her pleasure a priority. He had made her feel things she had never felt before. He had touched every inch of her body and celebrated it, worshipped and revered it as if it was the most beautiful and sexy body he had ever encountered. She might have given birth only the day before, but eventhinkingabout what he had made her feel on that night nine months ago gave her shivers all over again.
‘Isn’t that part of the marriage deal?’ he asked. ‘The couple agree to worship each other’s bodies for the rest of their lives?’
Harper snorted. ‘As if you would agree to be faithful to one person for the rest of your life. You’re a playboy, for pity’s sake.’
His expression became grave. ‘You have my word, Harper. I will remain faithful but I insist it be a real marriage. And it goes without saying, I expect you to be faithful to me.’
The baby made a sound and Harper went to her crib to check on her. But Jack had moved too, and they stood side by side, looking down at their daughter, who had settled back to sleep with a soft little sigh. Harper was conscious of how his shirt sleeve was brushing the bare skin of her arm. Conscious of the citrus and spice of his aftershave that teased her senses like a stupefying elixir. Conscious of his every breath and the hectic racing of her own pulse.
Jack suddenly turned to look at her and her heart slipped like a stiletto on black ice. His arresting blue eyes had been the first thing she had noticed about him nine months ago. Breath-snatching eyes, fringed with enviably long and thick ink-black lashes, his eyebrows twin dark slashes above an intelligent brow. But there were twin smudges beneath his eyes, too, as if he hadn’t slept well the night before. It made her realise with a jolt she hadn’t talked to him about how he felt about becoming a father. She had been too consumed by her own shock and surprise to take a moment to reflect on his reaction.
‘Jack?’ Her voice came out whisper-soft. ‘Are you...happy to be a father?’
He gave a slow blink and then let out a serrated sigh. ‘If anyone had asked me even a week ago if I’d be happy to be a father, I would have flatly said no. It isn’t something I have ever aspired to being. But now Marli’s here...’ He glanced at their child sleeping in the crib and added in a tone rough around the edges, ‘I’m happy, proud, gobsmacked and overwhelmed with the desire to protect her no matter what.’
Harper was well aware that she was one of the ‘no matter what’s. Her refusal to marry him was an obstacle he was determined to remove. But how could she marry him without love? She point blank refused to examine her feelings for him. She had buried them as soon as she had left his hotel room that night. What sort of sex-dazzled fool fell in love with a man after a one-night stand? She had confused fabulous sex with full-on love. The feel-good hormone oxytocin released after multiple orgasms had bewitched her into thinking he was The One and Only.
He wasn’t.
He couldn’t be.