with two drinks. An ice-cold beer for himself and a tall glass of sparkling water for her.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, taking the glass from his hand and studiously avoiding making eye contact.
But she couldn’t avoid the slight brush of fingers, nor could she ignore the zing of awareness that speared through her at that faint touch. She rapidly lifted the glass to her lips to mask her reaction. The bubbles leaping from the water’s surface tickled her nose, further irritating her. She swallowed carefully and put the glass on the coaster on the table in front of her.
Dylan sprawled in the seat opposite, his large, rangy frame filling the chair. His gaze never left her face and an increasingly uncomfortable silence stretched out between them. Jenna cleared her throat nervously. Obviously, she was going to have to start this conversation.
“I—I wanted to say how sorry I was about your father’s passing.”
“Thank you.”
“He was much respected and I’m sure you must miss him very much,” she persisted.
“I do,” Dylan acknowledged, then took a long draw of his beer.
Damn him, he wasn’t making this easy for her. But then again, what had she expected?
“He’d have been proud of the new restaurant opening here in town,” she continued valiantly.
“That he would.”
“And you? You must be pleased with everything being on time.”
“I am.”
A muscle tugged at the edge of his mouth, pulling his lips into a half smile that was as cynical as it was appealing. Jenna suddenly had the overwhelming sense that she shouldn’t have come here. That perhaps she should have waited a day or two before calling him. Hard on its heels came the contradictory but certain knowledge that she definitely should have been in touch with him long before now.
Was this how a mouse felt, she wondered, just before a cat pounced? Did it feel helpless, confused and frightened, with nowhere to look but straight into a maw of dread?
She watched, mesmerized, as Dylan leaned forward and carefully put his beer on the table. He rested his elbows on his knees, those sinfully dexterous hands of his loosely clasped between them. Warmth unfurled from her core like a slowly opening bud, and she forced her eyes to lift upward, to meet the challenge in his.
She fought to suppress a shudder when she saw the determination that reflected back at her. She reached for her water and took another sip, shocked to discover that her hand shook ever so slightly. She dug deep for the last ounce of courage she possessed. Since he was determined to make this so awkward, she’d find some inane way to carry the conversation even if it killed her.
“Thank you for asking me to dinner tonight. It’s not every day I’m catered to by a European-trained celebrity chef.”
She was surprised to hear Dylan sigh, as if he was disappointed in something. In her?
“Jenna, stop dancing around the issue and cut to the chase. Are you pregnant with my baby?”
Three
Dylan cursed inwardly. He’d been determined to be charming. He could do charming with his eyes closed and both hands behind his back. So why, then, had he so ham-fistedly screwed up what he’d planned to be a relaxing evening of fact-finding with a woman he’d been fiercely attracted to from the second he’d first laid eyes on her?
It was too late now. The words were out and he couldn’t drag them back no matter how much he wanted to. He huffed out a breath of frustration. Jenna looked about as stunned by his question as he was at actually blurting it out that way. Damage control. He desperately needed to go into damage control mode, but try as he might, he couldn’t think of the words to say. What he wanted was the answer. An answer that only Jenna Montgomery could provide.
Beneath his gaze she appeared to shrink a little into the voluminous furniture. She was already a dainty thing—her small body perfectly formed—but right now she was dwarfed by her surroundings and, no doubt, daunted by the conversation they were about to have.
Dylan knew he should try and put her at ease, but the second she’d alighted from her car he had felt the shields she’d erected between them. It had aroused a side of him he hadn’t displayed in years, made him deliberately uncooperative as she’d tried to observe the niceties of polite conversation. It had driven him to ask the question that had been plaguing him since that gust of wind off the road had revealed changes in her slender form that were too obvious to someone who knew that form as intimately, even if fleetingly, as he had.
“Well?” he prompted.
“Yes,” she said in a strangled whisper.
Dylan didn’t know what to say. Inside he felt as if he’d just scored a touchdown at the Super Bowl, but he also had this weird feeling of detachment, as if he was looking in on some other guy’s life. As if what she’d just said wasn’t real—didn’t involve him. But he was involved, very much so. Or at least he would be, whether she liked it or not.
“Were you going to tell me sometime, or did you just hope that I’d never know?”
As much as he fought to keep the hard note of anger from his voice, he could feel it lacing every word. It left a bitter taste in his mouth and he struggled to pull himself under control. He didn’t want to antagonize her or scare her away, and it wasn’t as if he’d made an effort to get in touch with her again before today. This was way too important, and at the crux of it all an innocent child’s future depended on the outcome of tonight.
“I meant to tell you, and I was going to—in my own time. I’ve been busy and I had a bit of a struggle coming to terms with it myself. Getting my head around how I’m going to cope.”
Jenna’s voice shook, but even though she was upset, he sensed the shields she’d erected earlier growing even thicker, her defense even stronger.
“And you didn’t think I should have known about this earlier?”
“What difference would it have made?”
Her words shocked him. What difference? Did she think that knowing he was going to be a father made no discernible difference to his life, to how he felt about everything? Hell, he’d lost his own father only a couple months ago. Didn’t she think he at least deserved a light in the darkness of mourning? Something to get him through the responsibility of having to get up every day and keep putting one foot in front of the other, all because so many other people depended on him to not only do exactly that, but to do it brilliantly—even when he wanted to wallow in grief?
“Trust me.” He fought to keep his tone even. “It would have made a difference. When did you know?”
“About three weeks after we—” Her voice broke off and she appeared to gather up her courage before she spoke again. “I began to suspect I might be pregnant, and waited another week before going to my doctor.”
Dylan sucked in a breath between his teeth. So, by his reckoning, she’d had confirmation that their encounter had resulted in conception for plenty of time. She could have shared the news—no matter how busy she was.
Damn it, he’d used a condom; they should have been safe. But nothing was 100 percent effective, except maybe abstinence. And there was one thing that was guaranteed, when it came to Jenna: abstinence was the last thing on Dylan’s mind.
Even now, as quietly irate as he was right this second, she still had a power over him. His skin felt too tight for his body, as if he was itching to burst out and lose himself in her. His flesh stirred to life even as the idea took flight. Desire uncoiled from the pit of his belly and sent snaking tendrils in a heated path throughout him.
No one had had that power over him before. Ever. Yet this diminutive woman had once driven him to a sexual frenzy that had tipped over into sheer madness. She still could.