The Army Doc's Baby Secret

‘It sounded like an apology to me,’ Tia muttered, but he could hear the soft smile in her voice. Could imagine the gentle curve of her sensuous mouth.

He locked his jaw even tighter.

‘Take it, then. It’s the closest you’re going to get to one.’

‘Then it will have to do. For now.’

It was too revealing. Too intimate. Yet, Zeke still didn’t let her go.

If anything, he crushed her all the more tightly until it was almost painful, although she didn’t think he was even aware of it. And, perversely, she didn’t say anything, as though the pain could numb some of the guilt she’d felt, for too many years.

Irrationally, her eyes began to prickle and Tia dropped her head to Zeke’s shoulder before he could see them.

He tensed for a second, but his steps didn’t falter, and then they were whirling across the floor together. As a Tia and Zeke from a different life—a parallel universe—might have done.

As though, if they kept spinning and swirling fast enough, hard enough, long enough, they could spin themselves a new history. A different story. It was inevitable that the moment would end. With all the ceremony of a bubble bursting.

‘There’s the mayor, Jean-Michel Deram. I have to find Zane—we need to put our case forward now.’

She tried not to read too much into the fact that Zeke actually looked regretful to be leaving her. As though he was enjoying this moment between them as much as she was.

Or was she just being fanciful?

‘Shall I come with you? Perhaps turning on a little feminine charm would help to lighten the situation, so he doesn’t feel ambushed.’

‘I’m fairly certain that in Jean-Michel’s world he is accustomed to being ambushed, as you call it. But yes, you should come. Thank you.’

And when he looked at her like that—as though they were finally back on the same side when she couldn’t remember how they’d got onto opposing sides—she felt as though she were invincible. Just as she had over a decade ago.

CHAPTER TEN

IT WAS ALMOST impossible to keep his mind on business when Tia was sparkling and glowing like that, Zeke realised half an hour later. When he wasn’t sure he could recall a single thing he’d uttered since they’d come off the dance floor to put Z-Black’s case to Jean-Michel.

She’d known when to hold back when the conversation had flowed, and had instinctively lightened the conversation on the few occasions it had threatened to degenerate into an argument between passion and bureaucracy. All the while keeping them on point, finding a softer way to reiterate whatever point he and Zane had been trying to make a little too forcefully.

Every smile and laugh from Tia seemed to weave a magic spell over their company. She shimmered. And he had been wholly unable to drag his gaze away from her. Even when she had excused herself from the negotiations, Zeke had found he was only listening to Jean-Michel with one ear. The other listening out for Tia’s tinkling laughter.

He was constantly seeking her out as she moved gracefully through the room, her less than perfect French and evident English accent only appearing to delight the company all the more.

It had started from the moment she’d positively floated down the stairs at the chateau, poured into a dress that was both modest and which made his body tighten so painfully that he wanted to throw her over his shoulder, carry her upstairs to his suite and rip every last shred of material off that sensuous body of hers.

It had continued when they’d been in his expansive four-by-four, which had felt altogether too cramped and suffocating, as the back seat of the car had thrown up all manner of salacious memories from their early marriage that he would do better to forget.

Dancing with her had been a mistake. It had left him hyper-aware of her, and too distracted to focus on the reason he’d even come to this infernal ball in the first instance.

Tia, however, despite her earlier declarations of hating galas and balls, appeared to be the social butterfly of the night. Watching her was mesmerising.

Occasionally a man had got too close, too hands-on, and Zeke had barely been able to stop himself from asserting himself.

But Tia wouldn’t have thanked him for his interference. He could almost hear her voice in his head reminding him that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself.

Only he didn’t want her to have to.

And then, suddenly, she turned and smiled at him from across the floor. A dazzling, arresting smile that stopped his heart in an instant. Before he could process what she was doing, she had ducked away from the pawing man, and adhered herself to Zeke’s side.

He tried not to let his body react. Fighting the instinct to place a possessive arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t him she wanted, it was merely his physical protection from her unwanted suitor.

And then, despite his self-cautions, as the man followed her, clearly not taking the hint, Zeke set his glass down and very slowly, very deliberately, set himself between Tia and her harasser.