Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

Pippa lay very still. ‘The…er…broke?’

Andreo employed several rather more apt and descriptive expressions that made her face heat with embarrassment.

‘I have a clean bill of health. No need to worry about that angle. I’ve always taken precautions,’ he continued levelly. ‘But obviously there is a risk that I could have made you pregnant.’

The very sound of that unexpected word, ‘pregnant’, shook Pippa rigid. An embarrassed little laugh escaped her because she could not begin to imagine so far-reaching a consequence as a little baby resulting from a defective condom. ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine…it’s not that easy to get pregnant. There’s two women in my section attending an infertility clinic,’ she extended in a rush of abstracted confidence. ‘It seems that these days quite a few women have problems conceiving.’

When Pippa had laughed, Andreo’s blue-shadowed aggressive jawline had clenched. ‘The women who marry into my family don’t have problems of that nature.’

Pippa pushed her face into a bare brown muscular shoulder to hide her helpless grin. So, he was the contemporary equivalent of a caveman, who confused fertility with virility, was he? That was so sweet. She had to resist an inexplicable urge to hug him tight. ‘Are you fond of children?’ she asked, her amusement suffering a sudden check.

‘I’m one of five…what do you think?’

He was ducking the issue but, just as her amusement had vanished, she had no desire to probe more deeply. She had only been ten years old when she had decided that she wouldn’t ever want to have children. In her teen years, she had been quite open about the fact but had too often found herself under attack and forced to defend what were essentially private views on the subject. He might well feel as she did, mightn’t he? Perhaps he had had a miserable childhood as well and, like her, shrank from the risk of inflicting similar suffering on a child of his own…

Andreo attempted to read her tranquil expression for he had discovered that for the first time in his life he was extraordinarily impatient to hear a woman’s opinion on a topic he usually avoided like the plague. He almost groaned out loud when he registered that it was the tranquillity of sleep that had reclaimed her. He recalled her patience with his decidedly irritating little brother and he found himself smiling. He was willing to bet that she was crazy about kids.

Furthermore, why had he been worrying when she was patently unconcerned by that unfortunate glitch with the condom? What did she know that he didn’t? Most probably, he decided, she was too shy to tell him that at the current stage of her cycle there was precious little chance of conception having taken place.

Pippa wakened to the sound of her mobile buzzing only inches away from her head.

While acknowledging that she had a headache and felt as though she had engaged in some very over-active sport, she fumbled for the phone and half sat up to answer it. ‘Hmm?’

‘Did you sleep well, bella mia?’ an awesomely familiar masculine drawl enquired in a tone as smooth as black velvet.

At the same time, Pippa struggled to adjust to the additional revelation that she was stark naked and lying in a bed in an only vaguely familiar hotel room. ‘S-sorry?’ she stammered.

‘I ordered breakfast for you,’ Andreo continued with quiet assurance. ‘It should be waiting for you next door about now.’

Dazed blue eyes now huge and appalled, Pippa stared down at the phone in her hand and blinked rapidly. ‘I thought maybe…er…maybe I dreamt you up,’ she confided unsteadily.

‘Your dreams are that exciting?’ Andreo teased in an intimate undertone, flagrantly ignoring signals from his personal staff that his presence was awaited in the boardroom.

‘For goodness’ sake…what time is it?’ Pippa exclaimed.

‘Half-past nine, sleepyhead…but don’t worry, I’m happy to give you the day off.’ A reflective smile on his wide, sensual mouth, Andreo was picturing her as he had seen her before he’d left his suite. All tousled and flushed and beautiful even while still asleep. She had been exhausted, he recalled. She should spend the day in bed recouping her energies.

‘Half-past nine? A day off…are you kidding?’ Pippa framed in a rather high-pitched response.

‘We’re dining out tonight and I want you to be rested,’ Andreo countered with all the masterful cool of a male who felt it was his business to ensure her well-being.

Had she signed over her soul to him as well as her body the night before? She flinched in shame and growing shock. ‘Andreo…I appreciate that you have to be senior to me at Venstar but I don’t take days off just because I’m tired—’

‘But you will today, cara,’ Andreo intoned, waving away the executives hovering in the doorway with a censorious frown as he concentrated on his call.

‘Why?’ she whispered shakily.

‘Why?’ Andreo queried in frank astonishment for, in his own opinion, he had only made a tiny request. ‘If for no other reason then to please me, of course!’

Since when had pleasing a guy been one of her priorities? Since you fell for tall, dark and domineering, who wasn’t a dream last night!

‘Look, it’s not convenient for me to chat right now. But I have a surprise to share with you tonight over dinner. I think it’ll make you smile. Leave me your address so that I know where to pick you up,’ he instructed before he concluded the call.

Oh, boy, was he in for a surprise! No way was she taking a day off the same day that Cheryl assumed management of the finance section. Shaking her buzzing head, Pippa set her phone down and then as swiftly snatched it up again. As it was already after nine, she needed to call work and make her excuses before saying when she would be in. Calculating how long it was likely to take her to travel home and get changed before trailing all the way back across the city to begin work at around lunchtime if she was lucky, Pippa winced and abandoned that idea. Almost throwing herself out of bed, she raced about picking up her clothing and hurtled into the bathroom. It would be faster and simpler if she simply bought a new outfit to wear!

Into the shower she went, determined to think of nothing but her goal of getting into work as fast as possible, but her self-discipline crumpled while she washed. Every movement reminded her of the intimate ache at the heart of her body from Andreo’s passionate possession. She was torn between mortification and a guilty sensation of happiness that seemed wholly inappropriate in the circumstances. Alcohol had banished her caution and her inhibitions and she had gone to bed with a male she had only just met. His interest had turned her head and she was shocked at the speed and ease with which her pride and moral principles had fallen in the face of temptation. Hadn’t she behaved like a tramp?

But she discovered that she could not be that hard on herself. Not every romance was strictly conventional, she told herself urgently. Andreo seemed as wildly attracted to her as she was to him and he had called her first thing and he wanted to take her out to dinner that very evening. Reaching for the towel as she left the shower, she saw her reflection in the mirror and wrinkled her nose at the dizzy grin on her own face. All right, so he was gorgeous, she bargained with herself, but wasn’t that all the more reason to make an effort to keep her foolish feet on the ground?