Page 2 of The Plan

The last thing he would ever want to do was hurt her. He already felt like a complete screwup tonight, as it was. He’d screwed up everything for too many people today.

He didn’t want to screw everything up for her, too. George cared about her too much for that.

He kept telling himself that over and over as he just stayed right where he was. She had his shirt clutched to her breasts. She had absolutely perfect breasts. His body tightened, remembering. “Put the shirt on.”

“Too much for you?” She threatened to lower the shirt. “Think I’ll tempt you into sinning again?”

Did she realize that he still heard the hurt? He had hurt her. He had always known he would. It was why he’d kept his damned hands to himself until now. Almost two years, she’d been tempting him. Two years. She had only been twenty when they’d met. Twenty.

Far too young. And she’d been hurting and confused and he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

Now he had screwed everything up completely. She would probably never forgive him.

George was a total ass, and he knew it. She deserved so much better than him. Why didn’t this beautiful woman see that?

And what in the hell had he been thinking? Sleeping with his paralegal-slash-law clerk was the dumbest damned thing he had ever done. “This isn’t going to happen again.”

“Your word is law, huh? Well, thanks, I think. I enjoyed it while it lasted. Maybe the next guy I sleep with will be even better than the first. At least I hope so, anyway.”

“Veronica…”

“Hey, no harm, no foul. And no strings. I gotcha. And by the way…” She looked up at him, tears turning her blue-gray eyes a beautiful blue he would never forget. “I quit.”

George just watched her as she walked away.

Taking his damned soul with him. Forever.

Because he had finally screwed everything up completely.

2

He’d said no strings.Well. Hell.

This… was definitely astring. Veronica Lake—who went by Ronnie and wanted to clobber her parents for naming her the same thing as a 1940s movie actress without thinking about the consequences of that name—was biting back the panic. Lots of panic. Lots and lots of panic.

This was definitely not good. At all.

This was going to be really bad, actually.

It was hard to miss the two pink lines staring back at her. And what they meant.

Oh, no. This was not good. Her hand dropped to cover her stomach.

Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.

The word just kept repeating, echoing. Taunting her. Reminding her of the one man she didn’t want to think about.

Georgiano Maxwell Hiller the Third. The most popular, the most successful attorney in Value, Texas.

Value, population 800. Where paralegal jobs just did not grow on trees.

But she really did not want to go back to Barrattville. Her parents lived there. Her sister. Ronnie had escaped the first chance she could, with her first two months’ paychecks. She had never really looked back at the town where her baby sister had disappeared years ago.

She might not have a choice right now. Because of this little string.

Ronnie had $1287.45 in her checking account, a stack of bills to pay that was going to gobble that right up, and her temporary job had let her go that morning. And now…two little pink lines.

She so could not afford this.

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