Once Touched, Never Forgotten - By Natasha Tate Page 0,3

of pain knotted silently within her chest.

His brow furrowed as he drew to a stop at the far side of the desk and turned back to her, his expression a queer blend of apology and grim resolve. “Though I can see how you might have believed otherwise.”

She looked at him without blinking, her mind racing with all the things that still remained unsaid.

“I’ve hardly been acting the part of cavalier, detached lover lately.”

“No.” She pushed the word through her tight throat, praying that she sounded normal. Aloof and indifferent and strong, despite the fact that her scarred heart had been wounded anew. “You haven’t. But I haven’t been, either. So I guess we’re both to blame.”

He stared at her, his blue eyes unreadable and the muscles in his jaw and neck taut. “This hasn’t been a typical fling for either one of us.”

It’s been my only fling. A fling that’s left me pregnant. “No.” She’d thought with Stephen, a notorious playboy who used women for pleasure and then discarded them without a backward glance, she could keep her heart safe. She’d thought that with her eyes open and her boundaries firmly in place she could indulge in a passionate affair without getting hurt.

She’d been wrong.

“I’ve barely given you a minute to yourself these past few months,” he finally said. “No.”

“And it’s hard to find the space we need to think when we’re on top of each other all the time.”

When she remained quiet, her heart thrashing like a wounded bird beneath her ribs, he rounded the desk and squatted before her yet again.

“What I’d prefer,” he said quietly, as his intent gaze searched hers, “before we rush into anything drastic, is a little time apart to reassess. We don’t have to end things right now. This minute. We can take some breathing room and decide how to move forward once we get our bearings.”

“Move forward?” she whispered, her pulse rioting hard within her chest. Her throat. Her hands.

“Damn it. I know that’s the wrong way to phrase it,” he said, straightening again and running a hand through his hair. “But I’m not finished with you yet.”

“Not finished with me?” she repeated in a thin voice.

“That’s not what I meant. What I …” His voice trailed off with a muttered curse. “Hell, I don’t know. I just know I like how we are together. Can’t we just keep things the way they are?”

How could they keep things the way they were when he had no desire for more? When she was going to give birth to his child, their child, in a few frightfully short months?

“It’s good, what we have. Isn’t it?” He bent to collect her unresisting hands. “Just because we’re never getting married or angling for that whole happy family illusion doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the benefits of each other’s company. There has to be a way that we can keep things the way they are without getting all tense and emotional about it.” His eyes searched hers. “Right?” “I …”

“I have to go to Paris for a couple of weeks, and it sounds like the timing couldn’t be better.” He pulled her up from the chair and hauled her close for another swift, bruising kiss, his hands gripping her upper arms with tensile strength. Withdrawing enough to study her expression, he stared deeply into her eyes. “We’ll find something that works for both of us when I get back. I promise. Just don’t make any big decisions until I return.”

There were no big decisions to make, because they had already been made for her. She’d never agree to keep what they had, not if he had no desire for more. She had a child to think about now. A child who deserved more than a father who viewed happy families as illusions and thought love made things too tense and emotional.

No matter how much it hurt, she had to be realistic. Sex was not love, and she wasn’t foolish enough to confuse the two. Rejection and hatred were hard enough for an adult to manage; it was unbearable torture for a small child who wanted nothing more than to be loved.

So she remained silent, her insides trembling with the realization that she’d never risk putting her sweet little baby through the pain she’d been subjected to. She’d die first. And if it that meant being alone forever, she’d do it. As a mother with a child to protect, she couldn’t allow herself to entertain thoughts of romance