Missy sighed as she ended the call. Sebastian would be unhappy that she hadn’t talked to him about staying on at Case Consolidated Holdings before accepting the job.
Hopefully he would be glad she was sticking around. From the start, he’d made it clear that his need for her started and stopped at the office. Besides, no matter how amazing the sex between them had been, they’d both known it was only a matter of time before Sebastian came to his senses and relegated what had happened between them in Vegas to a massive mistake.
Or perhaps he’d figured it out already. Although she heard from him almost every day, their conversations were strictly business. She couldn’t help but wonder if Sebastian had been going out with Kaitlyn. His mother wanted him to marry the wealthy socialite. Missy understood why. They were a perfect social and economic match. Sebastian was practical. Was it only a matter of time until he saw the advantages?
Could she work at Case Consolidated Holdings and watch him marry someone else while she raised his child on her own? Missy grimaced. It would be hell. And she’d spent enough years pining after a man she couldn’t have.
Lightning arced
across the sky overhead. A storm had blown in while she’d awaited the results of the pregnancy test. By the time she got a mile down the road, rain hammered the truck roof like angry fists. Visibility diminished to ten feet in front of her. Driving in these conditions was beyond reckless. But she couldn’t shake an urgent need to get home.
The windshield wipers flew back and forth at top speed, but as quickly as they cleared water from the windshield, more replaced it. A pair of lights appeared before her, too close for her to stop. She swerved toward the shoulder and hit the brakes. The tires caught in the soft gravel, turned to thick mud by the downpour and pulled the truck even farther from the road. Coming to a full stop, she gripped the wheel hard. A jackhammer pounded away in her chest.
The near miss had brought crystalline clarity. No matter what happened between her and Sebastian, this wasn’t just about them anymore. She was going to be a mother. Maybe sooner than she’d expected and without hope that the father would ever believe she’d had no ulterior motive when she slept with him. But she had a new focus for her life. Going forward, every decision she made would be with her child’s best interest as her priority.
And if that meant working as the director of communications for Case Consolidated Holdings and letting the love of her life never know he was the father of her child, that’s what she’d do.
Nine
Sebastian raced home, hoping to beat Missy there. Her plane had landed an hour ago, but the heavy rush-hour traffic from the airport would probably double her half-hour commute. He checked his cell, expecting an irate phone call when she discovered the car he’d sent to fetch her wasn’t taking her to her house but to his.
Being separated from her for a month had taken its toll on him both professionally and personally. He’d gone through three temps, the longest one lasting nine business days before dissolving into tears.
“Impossible to find good help,” he muttered, turning into his driveway, his fingers tapping an impatient rhythm on the armrest as the wrought iron gates swung open.
The neighborhood where he’d built was an eclectic mix—mid-century ranches and twenty-first-century mansions. Close to downtown Houston and boasting a highly desirable school system, many people, himself included, had bought an older home on a large lot with mature trees and torn down the house to make way for a mini estate.
A black town car idled near the front door. He parked behind the vehicle and got out. As he approached the car, the driver met him by the rear passenger door.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Case.”
“Hello, Burt.” Sebastian used this driver often when he traveled. “Did Miss Ward go inside?”
“No, sir,” the driver said, hand on the door handle. “She wanted to wait until you got home.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Ten minutes.” He opened the door.
Sebastian peered in, expecting to catch the brunt of Missy’s annoyance and found her curled sideways on the seat, cheek cradled on her hand, asleep. The sight dismantled all the walls he’d erected around his emotions. In an instant he was transported back to their first night together when he’d spent an hour watching her sleep.
Crouching beside the car, he skimmed a russet strand of her hair behind her ear. When she didn’t stir, he scooped her into his arms. “Bring her bag,” he told the driver as he strode up his front steps.
His housekeeper must have been watching from the window because the door opened as he neared it. Without pausing, he carried Missy up the wide marble stairs and down the hallway to his bedroom.
How taxing had her time away from him been that she’d fallen asleep in ten short minutes? Hadn’t her brothers and their wives pitched in? Or had everyone taken advantage of her generous nature and let Missy shoulder all the nursing duty?
She woke as he eased her down onto the mattress. “Sebastian?” She reached up and touched his cheek, her eyes soft and barely focused.
“I missed you,” he admitted, stretching out beside her.
She rolled onto her side and snuggled against him. “Missed you, too,” she murmured into his neck, her warm breath puffing against him. Her fingers tunneled beneath his tie and between his shirt buttons, finding skin.
Instantly aroused, he cupped the side of her face in his palm and brought his mouth to hers. Desire blindsided him. Going without her in his arms for a month had turned him into a ravenous bear. He feasted off her soft sighs and the press of her lithe body against his. Rolling with her across his king-size bed, he stripped her down to her underwear and settled between her thighs, his jacket, tie and shoes gone, his shirt ripped open by her impatience.
Breathing in her delicious scent, he drifted his lips down her throat and between her breasts to the lacy edge of her bra. Drawing his tongue along the edge of the lace, he savored the rapid rise and fall of her chest as his fingers tickled up her thigh.
“Make love to me,” she gasped, her fingers coasting down his sides and burrowing between their bodies in search of his belt. “I need to feel you inside me.”