Page 29 of Pregnant After One Forbidden Night

She shrugged, sipping at her lemonade. “What do you love? What’s your favorite color? Only the truth.” She pictured her questions landing on him like birds, beginning as a singleton then building into a flock.

Beside her he stilled. His eyes narrowed, scanning her, while the wheels of his mind turned. When he spoke, less than a heartbeat later, he answered her questions in rapid-fire succession, though she knew he’d thoroughly processed and controlled just what he would reveal.

“I love knowing things other people don’t and the color of your eyes,” he said, his words rough where before they had been cultured and smooth.

Once again, he’d floored her with the truth. Multiple truths, in fact.

Each one was meaty, too much to take in at a time, let alone in rapid succession. Especially since he had moved behind her and threaded his fingers through her hair to massage her scalp.

His fingers were gentle though she sensed annoyance coiled in his touch.

He didn’t want to share with her, even as he endeavored to open.

His fingers were strong and deft and she couldn’t help the quiet moan that escaped, even as she sensed she should keep the evidence of her weakening will private—for both of their sakes. But she didn’t, and in response, he let out a sound of frustration before tilting her head up and taking her lips in a kiss that was soft and restrained for all of the denied passion clamoring behind it.

When he pulled back, slow and lingering, she held still for a moment, savoring the thing that shouldn’t have happened—lips parted, eyes closed—before she opened her eyes with a frown.

“Sebastian, we can’t—”

A strange expression came to his face—intense, needy and deep—but flickered away before he pulled away from her to say, “You’re right, of course.”

“We should talk about—” she started.

“Not yet,” he said, voice taut, expression mildly pained. His nostrils flared as he drew in a long, slow breath. “Space. A change of scenery. I have something I want to show you,” he said.

“What?” she asked, her body still yearning toward his while her mind did its best to pull everything back in after their slip.

“The rest of the house,” he said. “I designed it.”

Grateful for the obvious diversion, Jenna jumped on it, exclaiming, “I suspected that!” And it wasn’t even work to force a smile at the confirmation. Though there was a sin in pride, it felt good to be right after such a long spell.

Her bruised instincts were grateful for the vindication.

When he spoke again, it was a beat too late and only after he’d cleared his throat and taken her hand. “This way.”

The rest of Redcliff was as astounding as the small portion she had seen.

As she’d expected, Sebastian had stamped himself everywhere.

Shadows played everywhere, lovely and peaceful, while the materials he’d chosen and natural light through the various slatted shoji walls and abundance of stunning cliff-view windows ensured that light was always available to create them.

She said as much as he led her through, her voice tinged with awe, as he led her around. “I understand the light, everyone wants natural light, but I would have never imagined how shadows could be used to enhance a room.”

Another odd expression sparked across his face at her words, but he only said, “It’s observant of you to notice. Not many do,” before showing her the next wondrous delight.

Every room was astounding. He had an incredible, high-tech conference room, separate from his office. There was a workout room with fantastic equipment. At one end of the incredible home, two stories had been built around the tallest tree Jenna had ever seen on the island of Cyrano.

As a former royal guard, Jenna had entered some of the most extravagant and expensive houses in the world, but this was the first to make her wish she had the kind of money to create something like it for herself.

Through Sebastian’s clever design, the mansion was situated and arranged so that nearly every room he showed her included an astonishing cliff view.

The stunning and rugged rust-colored terrain, the dramatic drop and roar of the river—all of it did far more to trumpet just whose home this was than any stodgy coat of arms ever could.

Like Sebastian, the Redcliff estate was too powerful to be subtle and was utterly unconcerned with pretending otherwise.

But if you like the view, her inner romantic purred, sliding itself out of the corner she thought she’d beaten it back to, it’s perfect.

After he’d shown her far more rooms than she expected there to be in one house, he tugged her just a bit farther into the fully shadowed part of a hallway, where she was surprised to see another door.

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