Page 3 of Million Dollar High

But she’d been the promise of everything he wanted come to life. He’d convinced her to stay, and she had. With every atom in his body, he wanted to be back in that place, in that time with her.

But he was already losing her. She’d retreated into herself, to a place where he couldn’t touch her. He tried to understand. She needed to regroup the same way he did. Hell, he needed more than to regroup, he needed to get to the bottom of what was going on. Speak to his lawyers… find out how the hell this had ever happened. But first he had to deal with Ashley.

Mingled anger and disbelief scythed through him at the thought of what she’d done. But with it came the realization of what was happening.

He’d never given much thought to children in the immediate future. Before last week, work and sex had been his life.

Leia had quickly taken precedence over those priorities.

Now this…

“Fine.” He kissed her because he couldn’t help himself. Because he needed her in ways he still hadn’t been able to fathom. Ways he couldn’t communicate with anything but his touch, his kiss.

He kissed her because he was at a loss as to how to stop her from retreating. Because he could still feel her pulling away. He deepened the kiss. Her lips puckered beneath his, opened up and let him in. With a groan of relief, he tasted her long and hard. The crazy receded until there was only the two of them, wrapped in their own world, their chemistry a clawing hunger that demanded to be satisfied.

She grabbed his nape, scraped her long fingernails along his scalp, threading that fine line between pleasure and pain that was their own unique aphrodisiac, their own nirvana. He slammed her back against the solid outside wall, heard her moan of pleasure at the rough treatment. He wedged a thigh between hers and slid one hand to grip her throat. Then they fell deeper into the kiss, their need for each other escalating to the point where he lost touch with reality.

It took several seconds to realize she was pushing him away, not forcefully but with enough strength to remind him where they were, what shitty chaos they were treading neck-deep in.

He sighed, released her, and dropped his forehead againsthers. Sliding his thumb down her cheek in a soft caress, he quickly calculated. “Give me a few hours to deal with this. I’ll reschedule our meeting with the investigator for this evening.” He hadn’t lost sight of the fact that Leia’s stepfather, Stephen Willoughby—the man who’d violently raped her when she was seventeen—was out there, released from prison early and determined to make her life a living hell once more. Protecting Leia was still his highest priority right now. “God, this is nuts. I don’t want you to leave. Stay here, baby. I’d go crazy wondering if you’re okay if you leave.”

She started to shake her head before he’d finished. “No, I can’t stay.”

“Dammit, I really wish you wouldn’t fight me on this, Leia.”

She turned her head, and he caught the renewed anguish on her face. “You don’t understand. I’m not leaving now to return later. We won’t be meeting your investigator together. When I leave, I’m not coming back, Noah.”

He leaned back, frowning. “What do you mean you’re not coming back? Leia, your stepfather is out there and he needs to be found. We will meet with the investigator tonight. There’s no way I’m calling off the search for Willoughby. Not until he’s found and back behind bars where he belongs. In case I didn’t make myself clear, your safety is non-negotiable. So yes, if you don’t want to stay here, I’ll let you have a few hours in that bastard Snyder’s care, but you’re coming back here tonight. Understood?”

Firm hands pushed him back harder. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“I didn’t realize that what I was asking was so damn impossible.”

She shot him an incredulous look. “Noah, there’s a woman sitting no more than twenty feet away who says she’s carryingyour baby. Why don’t you focus on that instead of throwing down ultimatums at me? I’m the last thing you should be worrying about.”

“Wrong. You’re the most important thing in my life.”

She froze. Her grey eyes rounded, first with shock, then with a tiny glaze of hope before they dulled again. Noah wanted to shake her, wanted to demand to know what was going on in her mind. But she was already shaking her head, withdrawing even further away from him.

When he reached for her, she slapped him away. “No. I’m leaving, Noah. And you won’t stop me. Goodbye.”

She took three steps before he realized exactly what she meant. “Wait a sec. Just so I get this straight, are you leaving this place or are you leaving me?”

She turned. “I can’t compete with this, Noah. I’d fight for you with anything else, but not this.”

“This?” Thoughts crashed into one another, but one blazed through them all. She was leaving him. “What the hell do you mean by this?” he demanded fiercely.

Her mouth wobbled for a second. “A child, Noah. I won’t compete with your child.”

2

Leia had thought her pain couldn’t get any worse. She’d really imagined, considering her own circumstances, that the single most heart-ripping news she could face was that the man she loved was about to have a child with another woman. Until she’d caught a glimpse of Noah’s reaction to the news of his impending fatherhood.

She was dead certain he hadn’t even realized the naked emotion emblazoned on his face a split second after Ashley had told him about the baby.

Wonder and elation.

It had dissipated very quickly, of course. The circumstances were nothing if not fucked up.

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