Page 35 of Dangers of Love

I let the sentence trail off because he didn’t need me to say what would happen if I was. We’d have a different sort of talk between us then.

“All right.” He kissed my hand and released it. “Do you feel okay?”

“I do.”

“Then I was wondering if you’d like to come with me to see my new place.” He didn’t look at me as he said it, and I knew he was trying for nonchalance, but I could feel how unsure he was.

“Of course.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’d love to.”

As I buckled up, I felt my own relief that the situation hadn’t destroyed what we’d been building. Maybe things would work out, no matter how the test came out.

Nineteen

Eoin

My brother,Rome, had outdone himself with this condo, and I’d made a point of telling him that when he’d met me there before I’d gone to pick up Aline this morning. I hadn’t, however, told him about what was going on.

I wanted her to meet my family. I knew that by now, but I didn’t want it to happen with a question mark over our heads. So, until we got those test results, only Alec knew that this was a possibility. No matter what happened, though, I wanted her to see my new place because, at some point, I planned for it to beourplace.

Some of my tension had left when Aline had told me that she was okay and that the IUD debacle hadn’t been my fault, but it’d been such a small bit that as we moved into Playa Vista, my stomach was one giant knot of nerves. Most of it was because we still didn’t know for certain whether or not she was pregnant, but there was still a part of it that had to do with how she felt about my new home. I wanted her to love it.

I took her hand as we walked up to the building, and I tried not to let my anxiety show. While my life would change if Aline was pregnant, it would be nothing like how hers would be affected. She needed me to be strong, needed to know that I was steady and reliable. That she could lean on me, count on me. If I looked like I couldn’t handle my shit when a kid was a maybe, how could I ever ask her to trust me to take care of her and a definite baby?

“Wow,” she breathed as we walked inside. “This place is huge.”

“Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a little over twenty-five hundred square feet.” I didn’t even try to keep the note of pride from my voice. This was the first real home I’d ever owned. And I did own it.

I was a lucky son of a bitch, and I knew it. I’d been able to invest most of my military income as well as the trust that would’ve gone toward college instead of having to live on it. I also had money that came from my shares of the family business that I invested as well. One of the reasons for that choice was that, by the time I was ready to retire, I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do without cost being an issue. The only thing that had changed in my plans now that I was post-army was that I’d realized I needed work to keep me busy. At least I already had that taken care of.

“Let me show you around,” I said. “It’s a bit bare right now since I haven’t moved in yet. I have some stuff in storage, but it won’t even come close to filling the place.”

I wanted to tell her that she should start looking for where her things would go since, if there was a baby, they’d both be here too, but I didn’t want to spring that on her before we even knew whether or not she was actually pregnant. I wanted her input either way, but it was the difference between asking her to help me pick out stuff that would look good because I didn’t know shit about that sort of thing and asking her how she wanted to decorate our bedroom and the nursery.

As we went into the master bedroom, and I looked over to see Aline’s reaction to the view, I realized that I hadn’t taken into consideration how overwhelmed she must’ve already been. She had this shell-shocked expression on her face, almost the same one she’d worn in Iran when everything had finally hit her.

“Hey.” I stepped in front of her and cupped her face between my hands. “It’s okay.”

Those beautiful eyes turned up to mine, and she looked so lost that I did the only thing I could.

I kissed her.

Twenty

Aline

Eoin’s place was gorgeous.And huge. Not at all what I’d been expecting, even after he’d told me that he’d leased a condo rather than an apartment. I’d already known that he’d come from a wealthy family, so it wasn’t the cost of a place like this that surprised me. It was more that this didn’t seem like the sort of place that a single, not-quite-thirty, former military man would live. This was more of a…family home.

A beautiful one, but I was starting to feel like seeing all of it, being here with him while such a large question was looming over us, was untethering me from reality. I had experienced this strange disconnect only a few times in my life, most of them recently.

“Hey.” His hands were on either side of my face, his skin hot against my cheeks. “It’s okay.”

I looked up at him, and then his mouth was on mine, firm pressure without being aggressive, and the contact sent a wave of warmth washing over me, pushing away thoughts of anything else.

This man could distract me from anything.

As he broke the kiss, his hands slid down my neck and over my shoulders to come to rest on my upper arms. My skin tingled where he touched it, and I leaned into him, opening my eyes as I did so. I reached up, wrapping my arms around his neck and going up onto my toes to initiate another kiss…

And he turned his head away.

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