Page 68 of Play for Keeps

As expected, she planted her feet, squared her shoulders, and rose to the challenge. “I’m not freaking out.”

“You keep putting me off, then calling me back. You refuse to see me, then show up at my door.” He closed the distance between them but was careful not to touch her. “You keep saying no, but you keep doing things that say yes. You want to say yes. I know you do.” He lowered his head until he could feel the hot, moist puffs of her breath on his lips. His voice broke when he spoke. “I can almost taste your yes, Millie.”

“No.” She whispered the denial, but there was no heat behind it.

“I have to tell you, when you say it like that, it sounds more like a ‘yes, please.’ But I know what no means.” He took a half step back but no more.

A breathless laugh escaped her, but Millie only lifted her chin a millimeter more and said nothing.

“I wish you could see the expression on your face, Millie. Your eyes tell me everything.”

“Do they?” She wet her lips. “And what do you think they’re saying?”

“Please don’t give up on me, Ty,” he said in a low, taunting voice. “Please keep chasing me. Please kiss me. Fuck me. Love me.” Her breath hitched on the last one. “And I want to.” He took her hand and pressed her palm to the front of his shorts. He was hard as a rock and ready to roll here and now. Up against the wall. All she had to do was say the word. “All you have to do is tell me what you want, Millie. Say anything, and I’ll give you everything.”

“Ty, I can’t give you a baby,” she blurted, throwing her hands up in frustration.

He opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was chased clear out of his head by a jarring blast from his cell phone.

“Goddamn it!” he growled, pushing away from the wall and yanking the offending instrument from his pocket with every intention of smashing the phone into a thousand pieces. He almost did when he saw his ex-wife’s smiling face beaming out from the screen.

Millie saw the photo too and took the opportunity to put some space between them. Sidling a couple of steps down the hall, she gestured to the phone. “She’s been calling and calling. Why don’t you find out what she wants?”

Steaming with anger and pent-up frustration, he leveled a finger at her. “Stay.”

She flipped an entirely different finger back at him, but she didn’t make a break for the door.

Keeping a wary eye on her, he swiped his thumb across the display to accept the call and snapped a gruff, “What?”

“Ty?”

He rolled his eyes, the sound of Mari’s voice screeching down his spine like fingernails on a chalkboard. “Yeah. What? What do you want, Mari?”

“I want to talk to you. I need to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing more to say.”

“But it’s important,” she insisted. “Can we meet somewhere?”

He blinked, confused by the request. The last he’d heard, his ex was shacked up in Los Angeles with her boy toy. “Meet? How? Aren’t you in California?”

“I’m here. In town, I mean.”

Millie took a step back, her eyes narrowing enough to let him know she’d heard Mari’s answer and was wary too. Annoyed by both the intrusion and the stricken look on Millie’s face, he hit the button to send the call to speaker. He had nothing to hide, and he’d be damned if he’d let the stubborn woman standing outside of arm’s reach slip away because she imagined something might be going on between him and his ex.

“Sorry if you came all this way to talk to me, but I really don’t have anything more to say. You got what you wanted, Mari. Now I’m trying to move on with my life.”

“But this isn’t what I wanted,” she wailed. Impatient and unwilling to be drawn into whatever melodrama Mari had created for herself, his thumb hovered over the button to disconnect. He was about to say goodbye when she hissed, “You’re the one who wanted a baby.”

“A baby?” The question popped out of his mouth, but he stared at the glossy screen as if the image might tell him he’d misunderstood what she’d said. His head jerked up, and he spotted Millie standing at almost military attention.

“I’m pregnant,” Mari snapped.

Her announcement startled him so much the phone spurted from his hand and clattered to the floor, but they both still heard her last words clear as a bell. “And the baby is yours.”

Chapter 16

Millie knew hearing Mari claim she was pregnant should have sent her running for the door. But it didn’t. She should be clocking record time booking it to her car. But she wasn’t. Because this was what she was made for—crisis control.

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