His Brand of Passion

She tangled her hands in his hair, surprised by its softness, for everything else about him was so hard: eyes, mouth, body, attitude. Heart. But his hair was soft and she ran her fingers through it, glorying in it even as she arched and writhed beneath him, as his mouth and hands brought her to the brink of that pleasurable precipice again and again.

And then, with a quick rustle of foil, he slid on a condom and drove inside her in one single stroke. He lay suspended above her, braced on his forearms, his body fully inside hers. For one breathless moment he gazed down at her, his eyes blazing dark fire, and Zoe felt something in her lurch, shift. She saw need and something deeper flare in Aaron’s eyes, and for a second this seemed like more than sex.

Then he started to move and she wrapped her legs around his waist to bring him even closer. The moment became one of raw, primal passion, and then one of endless pleasure.

When it was over Aaron rolled onto his back and Zoe lay there, spent and breathless, her mind spinning for a few glorious minutes before she returned to earth with a dull thud. The party was over, she knew, and she didn’t relish being dismissed now that she’d served her purpose. She was pretty sure that was how Aaron treated his women, at least his one-night stands, of which she was most assuredly one. Surreptitiously she rolled over and reached for her discarded underwear, only to have Aaron stay her arm.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I need to get going,’ Zoe answered, keeping her voice light. ‘Not that the sushi wasn’t delicious.’

Aaron let out a low rumble of laughter, surprising her. For a man who didn’t joke, he’d still managed to laugh twice this evening, a thought which absurdly pleased her. What did she care if he laughed?

‘Not so fast,’ he said and pulled her towards him. Her body instinctively slid around his, her soft places finding his hard ones, so they fit like two pieces of a puzzle. ‘We need to find my bed.’

She felt a thrill at his gruffly spoken words, a ridiculous, huge thrill. He wanted her to stay? She hesitated, knowing the better, safer thing to do would be to leave. She knew herself, knew her weaknesses. Sex was sex to a man like Aaron, but to her it was something else. No matter what her head dictated, she couldn’t keep her heart from always insisting this was the one, this was love. And already she sensed that she would fall harder and longer for a man like Aaron than any of the other men she’d known. Feeling anything but basic, primal lust for Aaron Bryant bordered on the utterly insane.

‘Well, actually… .’ she began, and that was as far as she got. Aaron was smoothing his hands over her bottom, as if he were touching a rare silk, then his fingers slid between her legs and she gave up the battle she hadn’t really been fighting. ‘You have a bed?’ she managed, and with a throaty chuckle—his third laugh—he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom and his wonderful, king-sized bed.

Hours later Zoe lay in that bed with dawn’s first pale fingers streaking across the city sky and watched Aaron sleep. She was exhausted, totally sated, and as she looked at him she felt a little dart of sorrow arrow inside her. She didn’t regret this night; it had been too amazing for that. But as she looked at his face softened with sleep, his lashes feathering his cheeks and his softly sculpted lips slightly parted, she wished things could be different. That Aaron was a different kind of man.

Don’t, she warned herself. Don’t do it again. Don’t insist you’re in love with a complete ass. She’d only done that about four times before. Millie always teased her about the emotional toe-rags she dated, and Zoe usually laughed it off. After all, it was true. But that didn’t make it hurt less.

Silently she slipped from the bed and went in search of her clothes. The last of the moonlight spilled into the living room, bathing the chrome and glass with a pearly sheen even as the horizon pinkened with the promise of a new day. Zoe dressed quickly and, with one last bittersweet glance towards the bedroom, she left.

Three weeks later Zoe had done her best to forget that incredible night with Aaron Bryant, although she couldn’t keep herself from surreptitiously scanning the headlines of the tabloids and gossip magazines for a glimpse of his name. She saw a photograph of him at a movie premier with a gorgeous B-list actress and felt something inside her tighten, twist. Surely not jealousy? she asked herself. It would be incredibly, criminally stupid to be jealous. Aaron Bryant meant nothing to her, and she obviously meant nothing to him. Their one night, fantastic as it had been, was over.

Resolutely she went to work at The Daisy Café, a funky, independent coffee shop in Greenwich Village where she worked part-time as a barista. She went to the community centre where she worked afternoons as an art therapist, and tried to keep away from the tabloids.

One afternoon in early September she was working at the café when the smell of the coffee beans nearly made her lose her breakfast.

‘I must be coming down with something,’ she told Violet, her co-worker, a young woman of nineteen who had multiple piercings and hair dyed like her name. ‘The smell of coffee is making me sick.’

Violet raised her eyebrows. ‘If I don’t know better, I’d think you were pregnant.’ Zoe just stared at her, all the blood draining from her face, and Violet pursed her lips. ‘Uh-oh.’

As soon as her shift ended Zoe bought a pregnancy test, telling herself she was being ridiculous. Aaron had used protection, after all. She probably just had some kind of stomach flu, but just to be safe…

She took the test in the tiny bathroom of her studio apartment, sitting on the edge of the tub while she watched two pink lines blaze across the little screen.

Pregnant.

She sat there, the test in hand, utterly in shock and completely numb. Yet as that blankness wore off she probed the emotion underneath like a sore tooth or a fresh scar and realised, to her surprise, it wasn’t dismay or fear that she felt. It was almost…excitement. Happiness.

She shook her head, incredulous at her own emotions. A baby. The baby of a man she barely knew, didn’t even like. And yet…a baby. A child, her child, already nestled inside her, starting to grow. She pressed one hand against her still-flat tummy in a kind of dazed incredulity.

She wanted this baby. Despite all the challenges and difficulties of being a single mother on a small salary, she wanted to have this child. She was thirty-one years old, and a happy-ever-after wasn’t likely to be in her future. This was her chance to be a mother, a chance to find her own kind of happiness. And, even though the baby was no more than the size of a bean, it was there. And she wanted to nurture that tiny life, that part of her.

Over the next few days she wished she had someone to talk to, but none of her friends were remotely interested in pregnancy or babies, and ever since Millie had lost her husband and young daughter three years ago Zoe hadn’t felt like she could burden her with her problems—and certainly not this. Children were still a no-go area for Millie.

There was, Zoe knew, at least one person she needed to talk to. Aaron, no matter how hands-off he intended to be—and, frankly, she hoped that was considerable—still needed to know he was going to be a father. Zoe didn’t relish that conversation, but it didn’t appear to be one she was going to have any time soon, for every time she called Bryant Enterprises and asked for Aaron she was put off by a prissy-sounding secretary.

She left message after message with her name and number, but a week went by of her calling every day and he never phoned back. Annoyed, she considered not telling him at all, but she knew she could never keep such a devastating secret. And, in any case, that kind of lie of omission would likely come back and bite her. Which left one other option, she decided grimly.

It didn’t take too much effort to get Aaron’s mobile number from Chase on a rather flimsy pretext of needing sponsors for a charity event she was supposed to be coordinating for the community centre, but when she tried his mobile he didn’t answer that either. Jerk.

Ten days after she’d first taken the test Zoe resorted to a text message, which seemed appropriate, considering how a phone had figured in their first encounter.

Grimly she typed in the four words she’d decided would convey her situation to her baby’s father:

I’m pregnant, you ass.

CHAPTER THREE

AARON STARED AT the text message in disbelief. He knew who it was from, even though the number wasn’t one he recognised. Rather unusually, he’d only slept with one woman in the last month and, more significantly, he knew only one woman who would text him such a provocative message.

Zoe.

Pregnant?

Impossible. He’d used protection every time. Aaron stared at the text message, his eyes narrowing. He hadn’t thought Zoe Parker a grasping gold-digger, but he supposed anything was possible. He’d certainly known women to reach for flimsy pretexts in an attempt to ensnare him.

In any case, this was something he could nip in the bud very easily. Frowning, he tossed his phone aside and turned to his laptop. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out where Zoe worked and lived.

Late that morning Aaron was standing in front of The Daisy Café, patrons spilling out into the September sunshine, holding their vente lattes and chai teas. Aaron could see Zoe behind the curved counter, working the espresso machine. Her hair was back in a neat ponytail, and she wore a tight black T-shirt that reminded him rather uncomfortably of what she’d looked and felt like underneath.

Pushing that unhelpful thought away with an impatient sigh, he headed inside. Heads turned as soon as he entered. At six feet four with the shoulders of a linebacker, Aaron often caught stares. Some people recognised him, and a woman he didn’t know started to shimmy towards him, a calculating hope in her eyes. Aaron headed for the counter.

‘Zoe.’

She looked up, her grey eyes widening as she took in his presence in the little café. Then her mouth twisted in a sardonic smile and she put her hands on her hips.

‘Well, well, you finally got my message.’

‘Finally?’

‘I’ve only been trying to call you for a week.’

Aaron just shrugged. As far as he was concerned their one night had ended at dawn, when she’d snuck out of bed before he could show her the door. He didn’t do repeats.

‘Is there somewhere private where we can talk?’ he asked and she lifted her chin.

‘I’m working.’

Aaron folded his arms. ‘You’ve been trying to get in touch with me, and now I’m here. What more do you want?’

She glared at him, clearly unwilling to relinquish her anger at his ignoring her messages for the last week. Then she nodded, her jaw set stubbornly. The woman was impossible, yet some contrary part of him admired her spirit. ‘Fine.’

She turned to the other woman behind the counter, a twenty-something woman with purple hair and too many piercings, and said a few words. Then she stalked out of the shop, leaving Aaron, irritatingly, with no choice but to follow her.