“Quite the admission coming from you.”
Teresa smiled tightly. “True. I do defend him. I do what I can to help him. He’s a good boss. And he’s been good to me. I’m not saying that how he handled the…situation with you was right-”
Jenna stopped her, holding up both hands. “You know what? Never mind. It was more than a year ago. It’s over and done. And whatever Nick and I had has ended, too.”
Teresa cocked her head to one side and looked at her thoughtfully. “You really think so, hmm?”
“Trust me on this,” Jenna said as they started walking again. “Nick is so over me.”
“If you say so.” Teresa stopped in front of a set of double doors. Waving one hand at them as if she were a game show hostess displaying a brand-new refrigerator, she said, “Here we are. Your new quarters. I hope you like them.”
“I’m sure they’ll be great. Way better than the Riviera Deck anyway.”
“Oh,” Teresa said with a smile, “that’s certainly a fair statement. You go on in, your things have been unpacked. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”
“Okay.” Jenna stood in the hall and watched as Teresa strode briskly down the long hallway. There was something going on here, she thought, she just couldn’t quite puzzle it out yet.
Then she glanced at her wristwatch, saw she had less than an hour to get ready for her dinner with Nick and opened the door with the key card Teresa had given her.
She walked inside, took a deep breath and almost genuflected.
The room was incredible-huge, and sprawlingly spacious, with glass walls that displayed a view of the ocean that stretched out into infinity. The wide blue sky was splashed with white clouds and the roiling sea reflected that deep blue back up at it.
Pale wood floors shone with an old gold gleam and the furniture scattered around the room looked designed for comfort. There was a fireplace on one wall, a wet bar in the corner and what looked to be priceless works of art dotting the walls. There were vases filled with glorious arrangements of fresh flowers that scented the air until she felt as if she were walking in a garden.
“This can’t be my cabin,” Jenna whispered, whipping her head from side to side as she tried to take in everything at once. “Okay, sure, upgraded to a suite. But this is the Taj Mahal of suites. There has to be a mistake, that’s all.”
“There’s no mistake,” Nick said as he walked easily into the room and gave her a smile that even from across the room was tempting enough to make her gasp. “This is my suite and it’s where you’ll be staying.”
Four
“You can’t be serious.” Jenna took one instinctive step back, but couldn’t go anywhere unless she turned, opened the door and sprinted down that long hallway.
“Damn serious,” he said, and walked toward her like a man with all the time in the world.
He wore a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt, open at the collar, sleeves rolled back to his elbows. His black slacks had a knife-sharp crease in them, and his black shoes shone. But it was his eyes that held her. That pale blue gaze fixed on her as if he could see straight through her. As if he were looking for all of her secrets and wouldn’t give up the quest until he had them.
“Nick, this is a bad idea,” she said, and silently congratulated herself on keeping her tone even.
“Why’s that?” He spread both hands out and shrugged. “You came to my boat. You tell me I’m the father of your children and insist we have to talk. So now you’re here. We can talk.”
Talk. Yeah.
In a floating palace that looked designed for seduction. Meeting Nick in her tiny cabin hadn’t exactly been easy, but at least down there, there’d been no distractions. No easy opulence. No sensory overload of beauty.
This was a bad idea. Jenna knew it. Felt it. And didn’t have a single clue how to get out of it.
“We shouldn’t be staying together,” she said finally, and winced because even to her she sounded like a prissy librarian or something.
“We’ll be staying in the same cabin. Not together. There’s a difference.” He was so close now all he had to do was reach out and he could touch her.
If he did, she’d be a goner though, and she knew it.
“What’s the matter, Jenna?” he asked. “Don’t trust yourself alone with me?”
“Oh, please.” She choked out a half laugh that she desperately hoped sounded convincing. “Could you get over yourself for a minute here?”
He gave her a slow smile that dug out the dimple in his left cheek and lit wicked lights in his eyes. Jenna’s stomach flip-flopped and her mouth went dry.
“I’m not the one having a problem.”
Did he have to smell so good?
“No problem,” she said, lifting her chin and forcing herself to look him dead in the eye. “Trust me when I say all I want from you is what your kids deserve.”
The smile on Nick’s face faded away as her words slammed home. Was he a father? Were those twin boys his? He had to know. To do that, he needed some time with Jenna. He needed to talk to her, figure out what she was after, make a decision about where to go from here.
Funny, Nick had been waiting all afternoon to enjoy that look of stunned disbelief on Jenna’s face when she first walked into his suite and realized that she’d be staying with him. Payback for how he must have looked when he’d first seen the photo of the babies she claimed were his sons. But he hadn’t enjoyed it as much as he’d thought. Because there were other considerations. Bigger considerations.
His sons. Nick’s insides twisted into knots that were beginning to feel almost familiar. Countless times during the day, he’d looked at the photo of the babies he still carried in his shirt pocket. Countless times he’d asked himself if it was really possible that he was a father.
And though he wasn’t prepared to take Jenna’s word for his paternity, he had to admit that it wasn’t likely she’d have come here to the ship, signing up for a cruise if it wasn’t true. Not that he thought she’d have any qualms about lying-she’d lied to him when she first met him after all-but this lie was too easily found out.
So he was willing to accept the possibility. Which left him exactly where? That was the question that had been circling in his mind all afternoon, and he was no closer to an answer now than he had been earlier.
He looked her up and down and could admit at least to himself that she looked damn good to him. Her dark blond hair was a little windblown, stray tendrils pulling away from her braid to lay against her face. Her eyes were wide and gleaming with suspicion, and, strangely enough, that didn’t do a damn thing to mitigate the attraction he felt as he drew in a breath that carried her scent deep into his lungs.
“I’ll stay here, but I’m not sleeping with you,” she announced suddenly.
Nick shook his head and smiled. “Don’t flatter yourself. I said you’re staying in my suite, not my bed. As it happens, there are three bedrooms here besides my own. Your things have been unpacked in one of them.”
She frowned a little and the flush of color in her cheeks faded a bit. “Oh.”
“Disappointed?” Nick asked, feeling a quick jolt of something hot and reckless punch through him.
“Please,” she countered quickly. “You’re not exactly irresistible, Nick.”
He frowned at that, but since he didn’t actually believe her, he let it go.
“I’m actually grateful to be out of that hole at the bottom of the ship,” she added, glancing around at the suite before shifting her gaze back to his. “And if staying here is the price I have to pay for your attention, then I’ll pay.”
One dark eyebrow lifted. “How very brave of you to put up with such appalling conditions as these.”