Dom stared. He’d forgotten how perfect she was. With full breasts, a sweet dip for a waist and hips that flared just enough for a man to run his hand along, she had what most men would consider a perfect figure.
The short, dark-haired guy raised the tape measure to her waist and Dom followed every movement of the man’s hands, remembering the smoothness of her shape, the silkiness of her skin. The tailor whipped the tape around and snapped the two ends together in the middle, right above her belly button and Dominic’s head tilted.
Right there...
Right below that perfect belly button...
Was his child.
His child.
His hand went limp and the glass he was holding fell to the bar with a thump.
Ginny’s head snapped up and she turned to see him standing there, staring. Their eyes met. And it hit him for the very first time, not that she was pregnant, but that the baby she carried was his.
His baby.
He’d created a life.
Rose turned, saw him and walked to the door. “Sorry, Dom. Didn’t realize you were home.”
And she closed the door.
Dominic stared at it. The whole thing about the baby didn’t floor him as much as the realization that the baby was in Ginny’s stomach. In a few weeks that flat tummy of hers would be round. She’d gain weight. Be miserable. Probably grouchy. Her feet would swell. She’d be clumsy—in front of millions. And then she’d spend God knew how long in labor.
Because of his baby.
Ginny’s suite door opened and she walked out, tying the belt of a pink satin robe around her.
“Was there something you wanted?”
He stared at her, his chest tight, his mind numb. Up until that very moment he hadn’t really considered how much Ginny was doing for him. Oh, he understood the loss of her job, but he suddenly saw the other things—losing her friends, living away from her mom, stretching her tummy to unknown limits, changing everything.
For his baby.
“Dom?”
He shook his head to clear it. “Sorry. I’m taking a break and thought I’d come up and see if you’re ready for the formal dinner tonight with the ambassador.”
She angled her thumb behind her, pointing at her suite door. “That’s what the little guy with the moustache is doing. Final fitting for a dress Sally tells me your dad is going to have a fit over.”
A laugh bubbled up, but he squelched it. “You can’t always push my dad’s buttons.”
She shrugged. “I’m bored.”
His laughter died. “Really?”
“No! Absolutely not. I’m getting fitted for a billion dresses and three-point-five-million pair of jeans. I never realized how many clothes a princess was expected to have.”
“So you’re not bored?”
“No. I just have a style.” She shrugged and the pretty, shiny pink robe shifted over her sun-kissed shoulders.
He remembered biting those shoulders, nibbling her neck, rubbing his entire body over the length of her entire body.
“And, I swear, I’m not going overboard with sexy clothes. I’m just not going to dress like a grandma.”
He cleared his throat. “I get it about not wanting to dress like a grandma. But be careful.”
“You don’t think it’s time for someone to bring your dad into the twenty-first century?”
“If you can bring him in without the press having a field day, then give it your best shot.”
She smiled, turned and walked back to her room. He watched every swish of the satin over her round bottom.
“Dinner’s at eight, right?”
She called the question over her shoulder, her shiny yellow hair flowing to the middle of her back, accenting that curved waist that led to her perfect butt.
Dominic licked his suddenly dry lips. “Yes, eight. But we need to be in my dad’s quarters at seven so that we all arrive in the dining room together, long before the ambassador so we can greet him.”
“Piece of cake.”
She opened the door to her suite and walked inside, leaving him alone in the living room again.
He tugged his tie away from his throat. A year of celibacy with her was not going to be easy.
He threw back the shot of Scotch and returned to his office for a few hours of admin work. When he entered the apartment again, Ginny’s door was closed. He suspected she was getting ready for the dinner, so he went to his quarters, showered and put on the trousers and white shirt of his tux.
He managed the bow tie the way he could since he was eight, but the onyx-and-diamond cuff links, heirlooms with tricky catches, wouldn’t lock.
He looked at his door and smiled. For the first time in his life he had a woman. In his quarters. About to marry him. Why shouldn’t he take advantage?