Page 140 of Merciless Desires

“That’s fine.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. “This way I can see them every morning, too. Otherwise, they’d be in a drawer.” I lift my eyes to Darragh, who nods gently, approving of my response.

“Will the daddy want one?” Sophie asks, and Darragh just shakes his head like he didn’t expect his daughter to ask all these questions.

Thinking quickly, I say, “Come here, Sophie.”

She skips to me, holding one of the photos. “Yeah?”

I sit down on one of the kitchen chairs so I can be eye-level with her. “I know this may be hard to understand.”

“Ana…” Darragh warns, leaning on the island, glaring at me.

“It’s okay.” I mouth I got this. “I actually don’t know who the father is.”

Sophie’s head tilts when she stares at her father. “Daddy? I don’t understand.”

Darragh folds his arms. “Explain. I don’t understand either.”

“I wanted a baby of my own, but I didn’t have a husband.” It’s all I can think of quickly. I don’t want to be asked about Cormac. I might slip up and say his name. “I went to a place, and they put a baby in my belly.” A very loose truth, if that place could be considered the Vegas villa.

“They can do that?” Sophie gazes with keen curiosity at her father again, signaling just how dependent she is on him even to validate strange thoughts and new concepts. She’s completely attached to him, and it kind of breaks my heart, because she doesn’t have a mother. “Daddy, they can do that?”

“They sure can,” he answers her, then smiles at me.

“So you see…” I take her hand and put it on my belly. “This baby is all mine.”

“What if the daddy shows up and wants it?”

“Yeah, what if the daddy shows up, Ana?” Darragh mutters, pinching his eye sockets.

“That won’t happen.” I notice the alarm on her face. “He won’t show up here. Never. As soon as I have the baby, I’ll be leaving.”

“You are?” She sounds sad, and I don’t understand why she would be upset. Perhaps this little girl is desperate to cling to a mother-figure, considering how she cried when her nanny quit.

“Not right away,” Darragh interjects, strolling toward us. “Soph, why don’t you go wash up? I’ll put a movie on in the media room.”

“Can I watch The Little Mermaid?”

“Sure.” Darragh fingers the strands of her blonde hair, then watches her as she scampers off.

I stand up and say, “She put me on the spot.”

“Like this?” Darragh crashes his mouth down on mine.

I wrap my arms around his neck and moan. I’m shocked he’s kissing me in the kitchen, in the open, when Sophie can easily double back and catch us. But I don’t care either. His lips spark life in my chest after feeling dead for so long. I sink into the kiss, loving the warmth of his mouth and the way his possessive hands hold my waist.

“I don’t understand what I’m doing,” he mutters before taking more of my mouth.

“Me neither. Why is it so easy to kiss you?”

“It’s because I look like Cormac,” he deadpans. “The question is, why is it so easy for me to kiss you?”

“Because you haven’t been laid in three years?”

He laughs and kisses my forehead. “True. I want to change that later, if you’re game.” He smooths a hand across my stomach. “Call me kinky, but I find you so fucking sexy like this.”

I swallow at his visceral confession. “Is sex dangerous at this stage?”

“Good sex is good for the baby at any stage.”

---