Page 21 of Pregnant After One Forbidden Night

CHAPTER SEVEN

THETEMPTATIONTOwatch her sleep existed but Sebastian resisted the urge. He’d come to talk, not to gawk.

She was beautiful, though, in her lilac-colored nightgown.

That she wore a nightgown surprised him. Almost as much as his reaction to the bare foot and calf that peeked out from beneath her quilt. The intimacy of her bare foot struck him with more power than he’d have thought possible. He’d seen it before in the library, but had barely noticed. There had been no time to savor the full feast of her then. Now, as the only bare skin he could really see, he could appreciate that her foot was shaped like an artist’s model’s, defined with a high arch. The more he observed her up close and personal, the more he saw of her subtle hidden beauties—hidden not because they were hard to find but because they were so far from the first thing you noticed about her. It came as a surprise to realize that a woman who was so kind also had the kind of features that artists adored.

Because of his work, he knew her records and personal history like the back of his hand. Her bare foot, though, was new.

She was natural and earthy, this woman who had become an unexpected obsession and the future mother of his child.

The image she presented asleep fit the setting like a perfect peg—a Renaissance beauty in classic repose inside a sixteenth-century farmhouse with huge aged beams, a picturesque thatch roof and happy little farm critters. It was at least as ideal a setting for her as standing as the knight in blue armor in front of the queen. She oozed tradition and old-fashioned values. It shouldn’t have captivated him. It was boring. And yet, here he was.

That she could inhabit each space so fluently was a quiet marvel to him. Jenna was natural wherever she was because she brought the characteristic of naturalness to everything she did.

What must it be like to walk into any arena and be so easily loved? He would have to add it to the short list of things he didn’t know.

He had imagined she would be a T-shirt and panty type rather than a pretty nightgown type, but he appreciated the unexpected. There was more feminine and wild and free blended into the good and honest and upright in her than he had realized at first glance.

Jenna had a unique way of surprising him at every turn.

It was the special light she had, the lack of self-consciousness that was so unlike anything else he’d ever encountered throughout his jaded life.

It blinded him every time he came near.

And he’d gone and gotten caught up staring at her after all, he observed wryly.

She stirred, subconsciously sensing his presence, even while she remained asleep.

He had moved to wake her, silently repositioning himself at her bedside, when she sat up suddenly in bed.

“Sebastian?” she asked groggily. Her voice was sleepy and sweet and confused. Here, at least, was a surprise he could use to his advantage.

He sat down on the bed beside her. “Present,” he said.

“What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

Only truth worked with Jenna.

“I’m here because you’re pregnant.”

He had not expected that she would leap back from him into a defensive posture, but supposed he really should have. She was a security professional.

“Who are you?” Her voice had become fully alert and dropped into her lower register, full of fearless menace.

Lifting his hands, palms up, he kept his voice even as he replied, “Relax, Jenna. We have a lot to talk about.”

Her eyes narrowed, shadowed and cold. “Who are you?”

“You know who I am, Jenna,” he soothed.

She bared her teeth.

He gave her what she wanted. “I’m Sebastian Redcliff. I am also the Director of Central Intelligence.”

She wasn’t buying it. “Cyrano doesn’t have Central Intelligence,” she countered, losing none of her defensiveness.

He gave her a half smile. “Not officially.”

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