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“How do you feel now?”

“Better” She sighed deeply, yawned and found herself fighting to keep her eyes open “I reed with me”

“Close your eyes,” he said “Rest for a while”

“I’m not tired”

“Yes, you are”

“For heaven’s sake, Damian, must you pretend you know every”

Her eyes closed She was asleep

Dariure that a woman who claimed she’d been on a diet of tomato juice and black coffee wasn’t very likely to have eaten so thataround a little white card like the one that had fallen from her pocket when he’d put her on the couch

He walked into the kitchen and took the card from the table, where he’d left it: Vivian Glass y and Obstetrics

It probably didn’t ot about them, and even if that here Laurel had been today, what did it prove? Woularly

His fist clenched around the card He thought of Laurel’s face, when she’d seen hiht of so else

All these weeks that he’d dreaht they’d spent in each other’s arms The heat, the sweetness—all of it had seemed permanently etched into his brain Now, another memory vied for his attention, one that made his belly cramp

In all that long, wild night, he’d never thought to use a condom

It was so crazy, so irresponsible, so completely unlike hiht, drunk on the smell of Laurel’s skin and the taste of her mouth

He hadn’t used a condo a doctor whose specialty was obstetrics

Maybe she was on the pill Maybe his iination was in overdrive

Maybe it was tiet some answers

He took a long, harsh breath Then he reached for the phone

Laurel awoke slowly

She was lying on the living-rooathered outside the s but someone had turned on the table lamp

Someone?

Damian

He was sitting in a chair a few feet away There was a granitelike set to his jaw; above it, his mouth was set in a harsh line

“How do you feel?”

She sed experirowled, but it stayed put

“Much better” She sat up, pushed the afghan aside and swung her legs to the floor “Thank you for everything, Damian, but there really wasn’t any need for you to sit here while I slept” He said nothing, and the silence beat in her ears So, she could feel it “What tiht tone “I must have slept for—”

“When did you plan on telling me?”

Her heart thued like a stone behind her breastbone

“Plan on telling you what?” She rose to her feet and he did, too, and came toward her Damn, where were her shoes? He was so tall It put her at a disadvantage, to let him loom over her like this

“Perhaps you didn’t intend to tell e; his accent thickened “Was that your plan?”

“I don’t knohat you’re talking about,” she said, starting past hiames”

“And I,” he said, cla his hand down on her shoulder, “am not in the mood for lies”

Her eyes flashed fire as she swung toward him “I think you’d better leave”

“You’re pregnant,” he said flatly

Pregnant Pregnant The word seeh the room

“I don’t knohat you’re talking about”