Page 108 of The Scot Beds His Wife
“I want to return that happiness to ye. I want to keep the burden of yer secrets, as well. So tell me, lass… what are ye hiding from me that I—”
“I’m pregnant!”
***
Samanthameantto say more. She really did. Greater, more damning confessions sat poised on her tongue like shards of ice, caught in one place so long they’d begun to sting and burn. He’d find out eventually, and she knew it now. So why not confess?
She shook all over, balanced on the brink of admission. Her blood flushed hot, and then cold. Her heart pounded in her ears, behind her eyes, in the fingers pressed against the ridges of scars on Gavin’s back.
I’m not who you think I am. I’m not Alison Ross. I’m an orphan. A thief. I’m a murderer. I’m a liar.
I’m a mother.
And the child isn’t yours.
He pulled her away from his chest, cradling her face in both of his big hands.
Here it is,she thought. He wanted a confession, he was about to get one.
On his head be it.
The moment she opened her mouth, his tongue was inside it, his lips sealed to hers in a kiss so tender and evocative, it shook the foundations of the medieval stones beneath her. He tasted like loss, and happiness, and hope.
It was a kiss for the ages. One that broke every wall they’d erected, and rebuilt a few parts of them both that had previously shattered. Suddenly, the shadows of the night surrounding them blurred the lines of morality. Of sanity.
Of honesty.
He wanted this. He wanted her, and this baby. He wanted them both to be his.
He desired a life with her. This life. A life she’d grown to love. Something she yearned for more than anything she’d ever dreamed of in the past.
And he deserved those things. He was nothing like the worthless, selfish brigand Alison Ross had led her to believe. He deserved a woman who patiently stitched his broken heart back together. He deserved children who established a new legacy for his family. One of success and pride and decency.
But Samantha didn’t deserve him. Not this ferocious, protective man who loved so fiercely, he piled sorrows and stress upon his wide shoulders in order to shelter those he cared about.
In a way, his lie was as big as hers. When he’d said he was incapable of feeling, she should have known right then that the opposite was true. Gavin St. James felt more deeply than perhaps anyone she’d ever met. He was a man of incomparable strength and wit and fathomless depths of passion and need. He’d done whatever he could to save his mother. His land. And Colleen. The only woman he’d ever loved.
Samantha closed her eyes against the pain of that.
She…shewas the scoundrel here. One who should maybe end this charade before she became yet another of his tragedies. But where would she go? She had some money now, but she’d planned on staying at Inverthorne at least long enough to give birth. Long enough to truly and legally give him what he wanted.
Running and hiding as a pregnant woman would prove nigh to impossible. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The plan was that they marry and tolerate each other for a shortperiod of time. That he move on to his next conquest, and once he’d forgotten about her, she’d slip away. That was the bargain they’d struck. That she could go live elsewhere. That she could be both free and protected.
She’d never expected that the chains threatening her freedom would be made of velvet instead of steel. That the one place that truly never belonged to her was the one place she’d never want to let go of.
Covering his hands on her face with her own, she broke the kiss, but was unable to pry herself free of him.
It was his expression that sealed her mouth closed. She watched it carefully, guiltily, as a bloom of awestruck, marvelous wonderment transformed him into a stranger. Gone was the ever-present cynical twist to his lips, its place stolen by a blinding smile that was all teeth and masculine delight. A suspiciously damp gleam deepened the verdant depths of his eyes to that of a rain forest, the kind of green that fought for the nourishment of rare sunlight, and sparkled with abundant life once it was granted. He regarded her—her—as though she were a miracle unfolding in his arms.
“Gavin, I should tell you—”
Dipping his head down, he feathered soft, abundant kisses over her upturned face. “A month,” he whispered. The silk of his lips trailing over her brow. Her temples. Her eyelids. “I’ve lain with ye for amonth.” Her nose. Her cheekbones. The tense muscle of her jaw. “And ye’ve never denied me for… feminine reasons.” Her chin, her jaw, the corners of her mouth. “I should have suspected. I should have known.”
“There’s something you have to—”
“I’ll do anything.” His words hardened from a whisper to a vow. “Anythingto prove that from now on, ye and this bairn are all that matters. There is no one else for me, lass.Not in the past, and not in the future.” He reached into the part of her dressing robe and spread his hand against her belly, only the slightest bit less flat than it had always been. The simple weight of his warm, work-roughened hand was heavier than any burden she’d ever carried. And sweeter than any touch she’d ever known.
Samantha knew she was the only one that felt the flutter beneath his palm, soft, like the wings of a butterfly.
