Page 3 of The Baby Behind Their Marriage Merger

‘Addi.’ He tested her name out on his tongue, his eyes not leaving her face. He touched her with nothing more than his thumb on the inside of her wrist and she felt as though she’d been plugged into an electricity substation. This was madness—the best type of madness, but still...

Madness.

Jude turned his head, and it was only when he stepped back that she realised how close she was to him, and wondered when one of them would make the move to close the gap between them. Jude took two glasses of champagne from the tray of a previously unnoticed waiter—honestly, an asteroid could strike in front of her but as long as Jude was within thirty feet she wouldn’t notice!

He handed one to her, their fingers brushing. Addi lifted the glass to her lips and tipped it back, sighing when the dry champagne rolled over her tongue and down her parched throat. She turned to look out onto the gardens of the hotel, inhaling the combination of the smell of fynbos drifting down from Table Mountain and roses in the extraordinary rose garden below them. It was a sultry night, heavy with promise, the full moon peeking out from behind a thin cloud. It was the end of summer and, day by day, the sun would lose its heat and the night its sultriness.

She tipped her head up and looked at the night sky, wishing she could identify the individual constellations through the city haze. When she’d been a kid, star-gazing had made her feel connected to something bigger and better—what, she didn’t know—and when she felt off-balance she still tipped her head up to the sky.

It didn’t help much tonight; she was too conscious of the big, bold man standing next to her.

His arm brushed hers and he pointed up. ‘You can just see the Southern Cross,’ he told her.

Nope, the Southern Cross was to his right and down. She thought about keeping quiet, about letting him have his moment, but shook her head. She wasn’t the type to play the dumb girl. ‘You are about thirty degrees off,’ she told him.

She expected him to pout—men never liked to be corrected—but he smiled, and she saw that famous double dimple appear on the left side of his mouth. His grin was wide and white, and his straight teeth flashed. ‘Well, damn. I’ve been telling girls that’s the Southern Cross for more than twenty years now.’

She smiled at him, enjoying his ability to laugh at himself. ‘From now on, if I were you, I’d stay away from any star-knowledge seduction, Fisher.’

‘Good to know,’ he replied. He hesitated a beat before sighing. ‘Damn, it was all I had. I’m never going to get a date again.’

She laughed and then rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, you’re doomed,’ she teased him. She did not doubt that the man had no problems picking up women.

That being said, while she didn’t have the time to read the entertainment sections of online news outlets—she barely managed to keep up with the headlines—she’d never seen anything about Jude’s personal life in the papers. There were no stories about him dating ballerinas, sportswomen, socialites and celebrities. As a journalist had recently noted, he either had super-ninja skills at keeping his love life private or he was a monk.

Standing here with him, she knew he wasn’t a monk.

‘Do you often do this?’ she asked. ‘Approach strange woman on hotel balconies?’

‘You’re the first. I tend to keep my...’ he hesitated ‘...romantic interests low-key. I think that what I do in my free time is my business and no one else’s.’

Fair enough.

He leaned his forearms on the balcony and linked his hands together. When he spoke, his voice was more serious than she’d expected. ‘And what has been written is exaggerated.’

She examined his face and saw that his mouth was drawn into a thin line, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘Somehow the press always manages to get it wrong, or construct sand castles from a single grain of sand.’

He didn’t like press reporters, that much was obvious.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asked, curious.

‘I have no idea,’ he replied. He lifted his champagne glass, tipped it up and drained the contents. ‘When your eyes connect with mine, I feel like I need to tell the truth.’

‘My eyes are just a very normal blue,’ she informed him, a little confused. Sure, she was a blue-eyed blonde, but she wasn’t anything special. In fact, she frequently wished she could have her sister Lex’s exotic looks. She was a bold redhead with a freckle-covered face. People looked twice at Lex because she was interesting. Addi, on good days, was merely pretty. Unlike her fickle mother Joelle, she didn’t have the Marylin Monroe sex-on-a-stick thing going on.

‘Normal?’ He scoffed. ‘They are the colour of the sea at midnight, deep and dark and intensely mysterious.’ He released a half-laugh and shoved his hand through his hair. ‘Jeez, now I’m sounding like a greetings card.’

His words were smooth, but his delivery wasn’t, and that was what kept Addi in place. She heard authenticity in his voice, seemingly caught off-guard by his attraction to her. She glanced down at the hand gripping the stem of his champagne glass and noticed the fine tremble in his fingers. Her eyes moved up and she noticed the tension in those broad shoulders, his bobbing Adam’s apple and a hint of red on his cheekbones.

This man wantedher. The thought smacked her with all the force of a bullet train. And he was trying hard not to show it, was attempting to be the man about town the world thought him to be. She lifted her hand and touched his jaw with the tips of her fingers. The pads of her fingers skimmed his stubble, and she dragged her thumb across his bottom lip, her eyes locked on his.

She could see them, naked on a big bed, her skin pale in comparison to his tanned body. She could imagine the feel of the muscles of his back under her hands, his long legs tangled with hers, his dark head dipping to kiss her. She could feel the night air wafting in over their bodies from an open window and hear the sound of the party-goers in the ballroom below. They would be good together. He’d make her feel like a woman, strong and powerful. He’d make her scream, then sob, with pleasure.

She wasn’t someone who jumped into a stranger’s bed—one-night stands weren’t her thing—but she knew she needed this night with Jude. She needed to feel like a woman, to feel like herself, to be anything but the stressed-out worker bee, the responsible older sister, the one who spent her nights trying to stretch a budget that had no give.

She needed to feel, to be body to body, mouth to mouth, and enjoy an intimate, physical connection. She had one more night away from her sisters, one night to be someone other than the woman she normally was, and she knew she’d be regretful for ever if she didn’t take this time, take this man...

Didn’t allow him to take her.

---