Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Mike wasn’t that far gone, but he had to admit Cara had him in an unfamiliar place that left him reeling. Mike raised his glass and took a large gulp, needing it to feel more centered.
“Want to see my princess?” Ethan asked with pride.
“What’s her name?” Mike asked.
“Allie. After my mother, Alicia.”
Mike nodded, understanding the sentiment. He followed Ethan out of the den and up the long circular stairs.
Soft female voices sounded from a room at the end of the hall, where a light glow illuminated the darkened hallway. Music played from another room, the heavy rock telling him where Tess, the teenager, had gone.
Mike paused outside the baby’s room and, with Ethan, looked inside. To his shock, Cara, not Faith, held the tiny bundle in her arms. Before he could process the warmth spreading through him, Cara leaned in and pressed her nose to the baby’s head. “I love the smell of baby,” she whispered.
“It’s the Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. Makes you want to eat them up,” Faith agreed.
“She’s so precious,” Cara said in awe. “I was afraid I’d break her.”
Faith waved a hand dismissively. “From the way you changed that diaper, you’re a natural. All ready for when you have one of your own.”
Ethan stood beside him in the charged silence. Mike felt as uncomfortable listening to the women’s dialogue as he did having his old friend undoubtedly put his own spin on what he thought Mike was feeling. Hell, he barely knew himself.
“I don’t know if that’ll ever happen,” Cara said, surprising him. “I’d need to believe that relationships can last and that there’s someone out there who I’d trust with my whole heart not to hurt me.”
The way her mother had been hurt. Mike heard the unspoken end to her sentence, her quiet words and painful thoughts a sucker punch to his gut.
She didn’t think she believed, but she so obviously yearned for what Faith had—and Cara deserved that kind of love and devotion. He wasn’t the guy to give it to her, and for the first time in his life, Mike was disappointed that he couldn’t be what a woman needed.
Not a woman.
This one.
No hearts involved. Wasn’t that what he’d told her? If that were true, then why did his chest ache so badly now?
Ethan cleared his throat, and the women glanced up. “Hi!” Faith said. “Come on in.”
The quiet spell that enveloped Mike broken, he followed Ethan into the room, but Mike knew this night would stay with him for a long, long while.
After they put the baby to bed, Faith and Ethan said good night to Tess and checked in with the housekeeper, Anna, who would be babysitting for the evening. They had dinner in a neighboring town at a steak restaurant, where they were seated in a small booth.
With Cara next to him, she invaded his personal space. Cara’s scent, a new warm, musky fragrance, cocooned him in a sexual haze. It was a miracle he’d been able to focus on conversation with the hard-on he had beneath the table. Faith and Ethan seemed happy to be out for grown-up time, so they ordered a bottle of wine and lingered over drinks, dinner, and dessert.
By the time they headed back to Cara’s, Mike realized he’d had a genuinely good time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone on a regular date with another couple and was even more shocked to discover that not only had he liked it, he wasn’t itching to get back to New York or his solitary life.
All he could focus on was getting Cara into bed and keeping her there.
Chapter Ten
For a night that had been a roller coaster of emotions, Cara ended up having a really good time. She’d adored Faith’s baby, the sweet, innocent smell providing her with unfamiliar warm fuzzy feelings floating in her brain. Then she’d looked up to see Mike staring at her with a hot but unreadable expression on his face, and if she hadn’t handed the baby back to her mother, Cara might have ended up letting a deeply buried yearning creep inside. She couldn’t afford to think about things like babies, family, or even long-term relationships. The very thoughts were anathema to her on a normal day, but with Mike in her life, they were downright dangerous.
She’d been grateful when Ethan said it was time to go, and they’d said their good nights to Tess and Anna and headed off for dinner, just the adults. Cara had relaxed and let go, drinking more wine than she was used to, and even now, on their way home, she still felt a happy buzz.
Mike pulled into the driveway of her condo and cut the engine of his truck. Before she could focus, he’d come around to her side and opened her door. She fumbled for the seat belt, the fuzziness from the wine making her fingers less than nimble, and she couldn’t suppress a very un-Cara-like giggle.