Having fetched their luggage in, Tabby called Christien back.
‘Why did you leave me on hold?’ he demanded.
‘I didn’t…I must have pushed the button wrong,’ she answered, her voice a little thick.
‘I was worried that some disaster had occurred…What are we doing tonight?’
He was the only guy she had ever met whose voice could make her melt like ice on a griddle. ‘Would you come here? About eight?’
‘Do I have to wait three hours?’ he groaned.
‘Yeah…sorry.’ She wanted Jake in bed and safely asleep before Christien arrived.
‘We’ll dine out—’
‘Eat before you get here,’ Tabby advised tensely.
‘Eat? Before eight in the evening?’ Christien demanded in disbelief.
‘Stop being so French. I…I’ve got something serious I need to discuss with you.’
There was a short, intense silence.
‘So have I…the outrageous concept of dining before eight and being told to feed myself when I’ve offered to feed you,’ Christien quipped.
‘I’ll see you then…’ Tabby drew in a slow, deep, steady breath and finished the call.
She unpacked one suitcase, two boxes of Jake’s toys, bathed her son in the Jacuzzi and watched him fall asleep over the simple supper that she made. She carried him up to bed and tucked him in before taking a quick shower. Then she trawled through two more suitcases before she found the casual khaki skirt and white camisole top she wanted to wear. She put on make-up, which she usually didn’t bother with. She wondered why she was bothering when the very last thing Christien was likely to be doing after she broke the news about Jake was notice her appearance.
A bag of nerves at the prospect of the confrontation that lay ahead, Tabby paced the floor. She froze when she heard his powerful sports car pulling up outside. Way beyond any concept of playing it cool, she opened the door and watched him stride towards her: a breathtakingly good-looking guy in a lightweight pearl-grey designer suit.
Christien sent her a slashing smile that had a devastating effect on her defences. ‘I’m not stupid, ma belle. I’ve worked it out. You think you’re pregnant!’
CHAPTER SIX
TRANSFIXED by that charge, Tabby stared at him with wide startled green eyes, her dismay unconcealed. ‘Er…you think there’s a chance of that?’
‘I didn’t take any risks but I do know that accidents happen and you sounded as though you were crying on the phone.’ Dark colour now delineating the hard angles of his superb cheekbones, Christien shrugged back his broad shoulders in a dismissive gesture as he read her expressive face. ‘Mais non…I can see that that isn’t the “something serious” you referred to.’
‘No…er, it wasn’t.’
Black brows drew together over his clear dark golden eyes. ‘You’re ill?’ he breathed in a roughened undertone.
‘Healthy as a horse.’
‘Then we’ve got nothing at all to worry about, mon ange.’ Thrusting the door shut in his wake and without skipping a beat, Christien curved his hands round her slight, taut shoulders and pulled her to him.
Tabby snatched in a short, sharp gasp of air. ‘Christien—’
‘Don’t cry wolf with me. I was really concerned.’ But there was no true anger in his accented drawl for when she was that close he believed that he could have forgiven her anything short of cold-blooded murder.
‘I know, but—’
Moulding her slight body to him, he vented a husky groan of very male satisfaction as the surging peaks of her full breasts met the hard, muscular wall of his chest. His hands curved round her bottom to bring her into closer contact with the rigid thrust of his erection.
‘Zut alors…being with you is all I’ve thought about since you phoned!’ Christien dragged in a deep shuddering breath because all he wanted to do at that instant was sate the savage ache of his desire: push her back against the wall, lift her, sink into her over and over again. No more finesse than an animal, he acknowledged in shock at himself.
Weak with the same overwhelming hunger, Tabby trembled, awash with wild, mindless response to him on a half-dozen different levels. Fighting for the self-control to pull back from his lean, powerful body, she pushed her face into his neck, but the unique scent of his bronzed skin, of him was the headiest of aphrodisiacs. Her heart thumping like crazy, she rubbed against him, instinctively seeking relief from the throbbing sensitivity of her nipples.