Page 80 of Ireland

He gestured helplessly. “Pregnancy has risks.”

“Aren’t we at risk every day?” she countered. “Isn’t that why there are security guards nearby even now? I’m more worried about keeping a child safe than I am about childbirth!”

He stood, too, bristling. “Why is this coming up now? Because Cary’s expecting? Or have you wanted to try again and haven’t said anything?” Abruptly, his face was transformed with astonishment. A stiff breeze whipped his hair across his face, and he shoved it impatiently out of the way. “This is about our security. This is why you’ve been upset about it. Damn it!”

In frustration, she threw up her hands and marched over to the deck railing. There was no point in bringing up something that couldn’t be changed. But she couldn’t bite the words back. “How do we raise a child under lock and key?”

“Eva…” He came over and embraced her from behind. “I grew up with security. Angus has been with me practically my whole life. When it’s what you know and have always known, you’re just used to it. And I promise, any child of ours won’t be the only one going to school under the watch of a bodyguard.”

She shook her head. “There’s a big difference between being used to armed guards and having a vital need for them. If we’re not safe, our children won’t be, either. Losing a fetus was devastating. How would we ever survive losing a child?”

Eva felt his rapid, shaky breathing. But in the end, he stayed silent.

She knew she’d wounded him, and it hurt her equally. Protecting those he loved was one of Gideon’s tenets and protecting him was one of hers.

But her unrelenting restlessness was telling her it was time to face the reality of their situation and the choices it left them with.

Ronan hummed as he stood before the full-length mirror in his bedroom and began knotting his tie. He was physically fatigued, his body aching from Ireland’s hard use following the hour he’d spent in the hotel gym, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling better. Energy vibrated through him, and his mind was sharp and alert. Which left him able to clearly see that while he’d known what needed to be done yesterday, today, everything was complicated by Ireland.

Just thinking of her made his blood heat, which should not be possible after the night they’d had. He was a man who’d had his share of women. And he’d indulged in a period of hedonistic debauchery after a period of forced abstinence. Still, he’d neverhad a more searingly carnal experience than the night he’d spent in Ireland’s bed.

There was a strange alchemy between them, something that unleashed every elemental need without shame. She was untamed in his arms, her hunger for him as voracious as his for her. How many times had he woken to the urgent tugging of her mouth on his cock? Three? Four? He couldn’t come enough for her.

It’s you. I’ve never been this hot for it before. And he knew she’d been as honest about that as she was about everything. She was visibly startled by some of the ways she responded to him and how much she could take, and the more he indulged his erotic obsession with her, the more abandoned she became. The pleasure he took in her willowy, glorious body was what made her so greedy, and her greed made him crazed with lust. It was a cycle that had now spun him completely around.

He adjusted the drape of the navy silk around his neck until it lay against his shirt at the perfect length.

But hadn’t he known, instinctively, that she would be different? He'd been captivated the moment he’d caught sight of her in Jazzie’s club. As photogenic as she was, nothing could prepare a man for the living, breathing woman. Watching her ferociously sexy stride, hearing her full-bodied laughter, catching the mischievousness in her stunning blue eyes… Some primal need had stretched awake inside him, a bone-deep recognition that he had met his match.

Ireland Vidal saw him in ways no one else did. She saw the feral child he’d been and the savage he’d become to survive. She somehow recognized that he would never be entirely civilized, and she accepted that about him, was even attracted to that quality because it gave her the freedom to be unbridled. Other women were turned on by the unease his wildness instinctivelyevoked, the perverse attraction some women had to dominant men, but Ireland’s lust for him was about affinity, not fear.

She held her own. When they were in places that made him uncomfortable, she calmed him. She made him laugh in moments alone and asked questions that made him see things from new angles. She brightened his day with her utterjoie de vivre. And his desire for her was as much instinctual as physical. He’d never expected to find a connection like they had, and now he must decide what he was willing to do to continue exploring it.

“So…?” Claudette asked from the doorway. “Are you cured?”

He tightened the Windsor knot at his throat and dropped his arms to his sides, sliding his hands into the pockets of his tan slacks. “I don’t understand the sudden interest in my personal life.”

“Beau-frère,” she began, her voice a lush slow drawl, “pretending that you’re not acting differently won’t work.”

His mouth curved in a fond smile. She knew him well—and he knew better than to reply.

She wore a trim, fitted business suit of soft green, the skirt ending just a few inches above the knee. The matching jacket hugged her small waist and flattered her svelte figure. She’d wrapped her thick hair into an elaborate coil at her nape and wore small gold hoops in her earlobes.

Her gaze narrowed slightly as she studied him. “She’s under your skin, isn’t she?”

“So what if she is? That doesn’t change the fact that we’ve succeeded in separating Chris Vidal from his life’s work.”

“That wasn’t the goal, though, was it?” she prompted. “You weren’t going to stop until that building was gutted and another business was established there. That was the result you promised your father. Are you moving away from that now?”

It took him a moment to answer because he hadn’t yet dedicated himself to weighing the options. “I haven’t decided.”

“But you’re considering abandoning the plan? How serious are you about this woman you’ve just met, who has no connection to your life or roots?”

He crossed his arms. “I don’t have an answer. Whatever this is between Ireland and me, neither of us wants it, and at the same time, it’s all we want.”

Her dark eyes were flat. “What am I to take from that?”

“I don’t know, Claudy,” he admitted. “Some fires burn so hot they flame out quickly. Maybe that’ll happen here. I can’t say.” It felt like he and Ireland were locked into a fierce mating heat. Surely, they’d eventually be able to actuallysleeptogether. They wouldn’t fuck for hours at a time forever…

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