Lauryn almost knocked over her stemware. She had to remind herself Adam was acting, and that she had no reason whatsoever to turn warm and mushy when he looked at her that way.
“Here, here,” and “Congratulations,” echoed around the table. Adam leaned forward and whispered a kiss across her lips.
He was good. Very good. And she almost regretted him drawing back. Their gazes remained locked and tendrils of need spiraled through her.
He’s your husband. Sex with him would be okay.
No, it wouldn’t. You don’t love him and he doesn’t love you. Wait for someone who matters. Someone who cares about you and not just about getting off.
But she wanted him. More than she could ever remember wanting anyone.
“Well, since we’re making announcements…” Brooke’s hesitant statement startled Lauryn back into awareness of her surroundings. She blinked and looked away from Adam’s mesmerizing blue eyes. Brooke paused, inhaled deeply and then said in a rush, “I’m pregnant, too.”
Shocked silence filled the room, and then Bonita barked, “By whom?”
“I’m sorry, Mother, that’s none of your business.”
“It is my business if you are going to shame this family like your father with another bastard,” Bonita bit out.
Lauryn winced, thinking of Cassie. No, her new friend definitely wouldn’t be welcome here.
“Who’s the father, Brooke?” Adam sounded fierce. Angry. Protective. Lauryn filed that surprising facet to her new husband away.
“I’m a grown woman, Adam. I don’t need my brothers to fight my battles for me. Suffice to say, the father is not going to be a part of my baby’s life or mine and leave it at that.”
Bonita slammed her glass on the table, sloshing half the clear liquid—she’d refused the champagne—onto the damask cloth. The smell of gin filled the air. “Don’t expect Garrison money to support your mistake.”
She rose unsteadily and left the dining room in a huff with Lisette hot on her heels.
Adam broke the uneasy silence. “Brooke, how are you going to manage the condo complex and take care of the baby alone? The bastard responsible should help—at least financially.”
His sister’s chin lifted. “I don’t want his help, and I’ll have day care or a nanny like any other parent.”
“What about maternity leave?” Brittany asked quietly.
Brooke looked at the faces around table. “Look, I’m not saying I have all the details worked out. This was a surprise for me, too. But I am having this baby with or without my family’s support. Now can we please talk about something else?”
Lauryn could feel Adam’s tension across the space between them, and she was touched by his need to charge to his sister’s aid, but now wasn’t the time. Brooke looked too on edge.
Lauryn covered the hand fisted in Adam’s lap to draw his attention. When he met her gaze, she silently urged him to change the subject. He inclined his head slightly and turned back to his siblings.
“We have to do something about Mother’s drinking. It was bad before, but it’s worsened since Dad died.”
Lauryn noticed Brooke looked relieved by the diversion.
“What do you suggest?” Parker asked. “Locking the liquor cabinet? It won’t work.”
“What about rehab?” Megan, Stephen’s wife, suggested.
Adam’s hand fisted on the table. “It’s our best shot. She’s not going to quit on her own.”
“She’s not going to go to rehab voluntarily, either,” Brittany added.
“Tough.” At that moment Lauryn thought Adam looked hard enough to force his mother into capitulating—as hard as his mother had looked at Lauryn earlier.
A frisson of unease slithered up her spine. Adam wouldn’t make a good adversary.
Several tense, silent moments passed, and then Brittany cleared her throat. “On a positive note, Emilio and I plan to get married at Christmas. We’d like you all to be there.”
Parker scowled at Emilio and then shifted his attention to his sister. “Is that wise considering we have a spy within Garrison, Inc. feeding information to your fiancé’s family?”
“Dammit, Parker,” Emilio growled, “Jordan does not have a spy in your company.”
“How can you be certain when you’ve admitted you and Jordan aren’t on speaking terms?”
“I could look into it,” Adam offered.
“Forget it. I’ll handle it,” Parker snapped back.
“You’re not handling it,” Adam insisted. “The information leak has been going on for months. A fresh set of eyes—”
“I said, I’ll handle it.”
Adam persisted, “I want to help, and I’m more persuasive than you.”
“Forget it, little brother. We’re not talking about charming the panties off women. This is business.”
Lauryn’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. She was one of the women Adam had supposedly charmed out of her clothing.
Adam turned rigid beside her. The men looked ready to come to blows. Lauryn rested a hand on Adam’s forearm and then glared at Parker. “You shouldn’t dismiss Adam’s business acumen. Estate is extremely profitable because of him, and the employee turnover rate is next to nil. He knows what he’s doing and he knows how to read and manage people.”
All eyes turned on her.
Her stomach sank. Good grief. She’d reacted like one of Pavlov’s dogs again with another conditioned response. Why had she opened her mouth? Because Parker’s insulting tone hit one of her hot buttons. But this was not her fight and arguing wasn’t the way to make a good impression with the in-laws.
Parker drilled her with an unblinking stare—nothing new to Lauryn since her father used to do the same—and when she didn’t cower or look away he scanned the rest of the party.
“I don’t need Adam’s help because I’m looking into brokering a deal with Jordan Jefferies just to keep the peace between our families.”
Almost everyone at the table gaped at Parker in surprise…everyone except Brooke, who looked relieved, probably because her pregnancy was no longer the topic of conversation. Lauryn glanced at Adam and found him watching his sister with a frown puckering his brow.
Lauryn only half listened while Parker outlined the potential deal.
Something very important had just happened at this table. And it wasn’t Parker’s announcement.
And then she remembered the research she’d done for a college psychology paper. She’d been fascinated by the way birth order affected personality and behavior—mainly because she’d needed to understand her own twisted family dynamics and her hackles-raised response to her father’s edicts.
If she remembered correctly, the textbooks said middle children often reported feeling invisible and overlooked. It wasn’t unusual for them to seek recognition.
She studied her husband.
Gulp. Her husband.
Adam seemed far too confident to need anyone’s approval—other than the business council’s nominating committee, that is. He’d claimed it wasn’t the council presidency that mattered, but what it represented.
She fingered her champagne glass. What did that position of responsibility represent?
Recognition of his success from the Miami business community?
Or respect from his family?
Seven
Lauryn had defended him tonight.
Adam couldn’t remember the last time someone had stepped up to the plate for him. Not his father, his mother or his brothers. He didn’t expect his sisters to because as the older sibling it was his job to look out for Brooke and Britt.
And yet Lauryn had gone to bat for him without hesitation and without him asking her to. That flash of fire in her eyes when she’d stared Parker down had been downright sexy. It made Adam desire her even more.
Would she be as passionate a lover?
With his thoughts fixated on the woman making use of his bathroom, he sat on his bed in his loft bedroom staring blindly at the half wall that overlooked the living room below. Lauryn wasn’t the first female to shower here by a long shot, but she was the only one who’d ever made him want to pull up a chair and watch the water stream over her nak*d curves. Better yet, join her and let his hands and mouth follow the water’s path.
That’s because by the time a woman uses your shower you’ve already had her, and you’re eager to put her into a cab and send her home.
His women didn’t sleep here. Lauryn would be the first.
Moments later the bathroom door opened and Lauryn emerged in a cloud of steam. She’d pinned up her hair, but damp tendrils clung to her freshly scrubbed and flushed cheeks.
How could he have ever believed her mousy? She looked so damned desirable wearing the shapeless baggy shorts and worn T-shirt his teeth ached.
“Why did you defend me tonight?”
She jerked to a halt and hugged the black dress she’d worn to dinner tighter against her chest. The garment had covered her from neck to knees, outlining an hourglass shape that made his mouth water and his hands itch to explore. The sexy little slit in the back hem of the skirt had had him groaning at each glimpse of thigh. He saw more skin on the Estate dance floor every night, but because Lauryn dressed conservatively, that flash of taboo territory had hit him like a bouncer’s taser.
She shifted her weight from one long, lean leg to the other. “Something in your brother’s condescending tone ticked me off. He reminded me of—”
She mashed her lips together and shook her head as if regretting her words and headed toward the dresser.
He rose, blocking her path and putting them face-to-face with barely a foot between them. “Of who?”
She tipped her head back, met his gaze and then sighed. “Of my father. He was a control freak, too. Very his-way-or-the-highway.”
The thought of Lauryn being browbeaten into submission lit a bonfire of anger in Adam’s belly. Was that why she was so conservative and quiet now?
“Lauryn, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me,” he said softly.
“I’m sure you don’t.” She ducked around him, tossed her dress over the back of his valet chair, and then with her back to him, dug around in her suitcase as if she’d find buried treasure inside.
Adam crossed the loft, stopping behind her. Her scent filled his nostrils and her warmth drew him like a fire does a shipwrecked sailor. He rested one hand on her hip and traced a damp lock clinging to her nape with the other.
She stiffened, but not soon enough to still feel her tremor.
“I don’t need your defense, but I appreciate it,” he said against her ear.
“It’s what a wife would do, isn’t it?” she asked without moving.
“No clue. I’m flying blind here.”
She slowly turned. He detected a flicker of hunger in her eyes and his lungs jammed.
“Adam…You laid it on a bit thick tonight. I know making your family believe this is real is—”
“You kissed me back. On the beach. By the pool. In the driveway.”