as the images caused a physical response. She hadn’t allowed her thoughts to go there since Chris had shown up so unexpectedly and turned her life upside down. But now they were alone, he was within arm’s reach, and he was smiling at her knowingly.
Argh. She tamped the memories down and focused on the moment. Chris wanted to play get-to-know-you games, but she wanted to get this over with so she could figure out what her next move should be. The suspense was killing her.
Just don’t antagonize him again. Be calm. Be diplomatic. “Can we get back to the matter at hand? I apologize for the other day, and obviously you do have a right to be a part of your baby’s life. I want to work this out amicably, but you have to tell me specifically what you’re after.” Proud of herself, she sat back in the chair.
Chris steepled his fingers and looked thoughtful. “You’re sure you don’t want to get married?”
Oh, God. “Positive,” she managed to choke out.
“It’s a simple, obvious solution.”
“And one that’s guaranteed to put us right back in this situation in a few years—only then, we’d be fighting out the divorce as well as custody arrangements.” She wasn’t ready to think about marriage to anyone—not now. She’d already had one narrow escape—a lucky one—but it had taken its toll. Plus, she wouldn’t be able to resist his golden-boy looks and charm forever, and then she’d be in real trouble when it all went to hell. “Like you just said, we barely know each other. Great sex is hardly a foundation for a good marriage.” Did I actually just bring up sex again? Damn.
Chris leaned forward in his chair, and now only inches separated them. Her pulse kicked up a notch and her skin grew warm. “Great sex? Try amazing, Ally.” One finger trailed down her arm, causing the hairs to rise. “And there are worse places to start. At least we know we’re compatible in that aspect.”
Compatible didn’t even begin to describe it. Her entire body was screaming for him now. She swallowed hard. “Chris, stop.” To her utter amazement and relief, he did, leaning back to put space between them. She took big gulping breaths of air to clear her mind, but his scent still hung in the air between them, and inhaling only made the sex-charged cloud worse.
Stay angry. Don’t let hormones confuse this issue.
But maybe she wasn’t the only one having a hard time pulling it together. Chris dragged a hand through his hair and shook his head as if to clear it. Then, blowing out his breath in a loud rush, he stood and extended a hand to her. “Come on. I’ll take you down to see the work on the Circe.”
Now what? She needed a map to keep up with him. “Why? We still need to ta—”
“We’re not going to find any solutions today, Ally, because we’re on opposite sides of the table. You’ve agreed that we barely know each other, so it seems the next logical step would be for us to get to know each other. We have some time before any decisions have to be set in stone, and it will make the whole process easier if we’re friends. So I’m going to take you to the yard and show you how the Circe is coming along.”
Chris stood there with his hand out to her, but she hesitated. After the roller-coaster ride she’d been on this morning, she didn’t trust herself to see clearly. She didn’t understand the mercurial changes of Chris’s attitudes, and she had a hard time keeping up. She wanted to believe he was sincere, but from the corner of her eye, she could still see the hateful envelopes on his desk. Of course, her traitorous body was on board for “friendliness” and anything else that might come from it, and her hormonally confused brain kept going back to that If Only game where everything had turned out differently. The tiny part of her mind that was still able to think rationally tried hard to tamp down the other emotions and feelings confusing her. It was enough to give her a pounding headache as she tried to figure out what to do.
Then Chris smiled at her, and the crinkles nearly did her in. He had a point—regardless of how they worked out the details, they were going to be attached to each other for the rest of their lives through this child.
Six weeks ago, she’d made a decision that had changed her life forever by sleeping with him. Now she had to decide how she wanted to go forward, and animosity wouldn’t be a good choice—for her or the baby. “You want this baby, don’t you?”
“Very much.”
Options. Decisions. She had to choose quickly. She was caught between Scylla and Charybdis, and ironically, the Circe was offering her a possible safe navigation through with minimal losses. She was slowly gaining a new—albeit grudging—respect for Odysseus.
But that didn’t mean she was going to just roll over. “Are you willing to phone your lawyer right now and call him off?”
“Yes. I’m willing to be reasonable as long as you are.”
“Do that first,” she said, putting her hand in his as she let him help her to her feet. “Then you can show me the Circe.”
“You’ve done an amazing job. She looks much better than she did.” Ally ran her hand over the new seats in the Circe’s cockpit. “And the cabin is going to be positively decadent—I guess her racing days really are over.”
The cavernous OWD workshop was usually alive with people and noise, but with most of the men gone to lunch at the moment, it echoed instead. Glad for the lack of an audience, Chris watched Ally carefully as she explored the dry-docked Circe. While she seemed to accept his offer of a truce, she was still wary.
Ally’s arrival, so hard on the heels of Marge’s revelations, had thrown him. But he was used to thinking fast on his feet, making the most of whatever opportunity came his way, and he was secretly quite pleased with how quickly he’d managed to adapt the situation to suit him.
Dennison hadn’t been pleased to get the phone call and had tried to convince him to reconsider, but Chris was now hopeful he and Ally could work this out. Therefore, he concentrated on repairing what little relationship he had with Ally.
As she sat back in the cockpit and gave the tiller an experimental push, Chris assessed his options. While he’d originally floated the idea of marriage halfheartedly, it had oddly taken on new appeal. Marriage had never been on his radar before, and it would certainly solve a lot of problems. Ally was smart and beautiful, and she was already carrying their child. They got along well enough—especially in bed. Successful marriages had been built on a lot less.
The thought of Ally in bed led to the thought of Ally in the ocean, Ally on the beach, Ally on the trampoline of the cata-maran…his entire body grew hard at the memories. Oh, yes, they were certainly more than compatible there.
“What’s that one called?”
Ally’s question brought him back to the matter at hand. He looked where she pointed at the yacht dwarfing the Circe. “That’s the Dagny. It means ‘new day.’”
“And it’s a racing yacht? It’s awfully big.”
“Ninety-six feet, but designed to go long distances very quickly with only a one-man crew. I’d offer to take you aboard, but Jack is a little possessive of the Dagny at the moment.”
“Jack?”
“A cousin who designs all of Team Wells’s racers. The Dagny is his latest pride and joy.”
“And how far is a ‘long distance’? I mean, I would have considered Tortola to Charleston a pretty long distance but the Circe made it, and she’s tiny in comparison.”
He laughed. “I said the Dagny would cover long distances quickly. The Circe might make it around the world, but not in any reasonable amount of time.”
Ally looked at him strangely. “That’s what you’re planning to do? Sail the Dagny around the world? Alone?”
“And break the record at the same