Later, she didn’t quite remember how it had happened, but he’d pulled the comforter over them, their bodies flush together as their skin cooled and their breathing slowed.
A part of her wanted to tell him how good it had been. But another part—the bigger part—couldn’t.
It had been too good, too perfect. The power of what they created when they touched, when they kissed, when he filled her was too overwhelming. Was it the out-of-this-world connection between them that could make her fall for him all over again? And make him fall for her?
Or was it simply the synergy of their bodies? Was it the baby inside her, connecting them? Or something even bigger and far more intense?
Something that her heart was still afraid to acknowledge in the wake of the two times he’d deserted her.
She stretched against him. “Now I’m hungry for food.”
He chuckled softly, the sound vibrating lusciously through her. “I could make you change your mind,” he said in a low voice that made her want to start at the beginning and do it all again. “But you’re going to need food to keep up your strength, so we should definitely eat.”
Cal slid off the bed and padded to the small refrigerator. She enjoyed the view of his flexing hips, the play of muscle across his back as he squatted by the fridge. She wanted to drink him in, and watching him, she could get drunk on the sight of him alone.
He stood again, giving her the full magnificent picture, beautiful and amazing as he glided back across the floor, a real-life sculpture.
Stuffing a pillow behind herself, she leaned against the headboard, eyeing the sparkling glass he offered her. “But I can’t drink champagne.” She patted her stomach. “The baby.”
He smiled. “I brought sparkling apple cider for us instead.”
Then he went back to the tiny kitchen and brought out a plate of cheese and crackers, which he set between them. The man thought of everything. She remembered that he’d brought in a small cooler, but hadn’t paid attention when he was unloading it.
It was so sweet, so incredibly thoughtful that her heart swelled in her chest.
Setting his glass of sparkling cider on the side table, he climbed in beside her and pulled up the covers. She savored the cheese on a cracker, took a grape as a chaser, and sipped the apple cider. “This is perfect.”
He smiled. “And you will note these are all pregnancy-approved cheeses.”
Clearly, he’d been researching and discovered that Bries and blues were off the list for the next nine months. She wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’d already read every pregnancy book there was. He’d done this for the baby. And for her. What other man would ever have thought to look? It wasn’t just part of making her fall in love with him. It was his innate caring.
“This is a smoked Gouda.” He pointed. “And the Jarlsberg will be delicious with a little apricot jam.”
“Mmmm,” she said around a mouthful of deliciousness. “Who would have guessed you’re a cheese connoisseur, on top of your other talents?” And he had so many talents, not just the way he touched her or the pleasure he gave her, but the way he made sure to notice and compliment her abilities, building her up.
Cal chuckled. “Will had a variety of cheeses he wanted me to try one night. We ate cheese until we nearly popped.”
Her brother Will was in imports and exports, and he’d come across the most amazing goods, everything from wine and caviar to Persian rugs and porcelain teacups. When Will introduced a product, it nearly always became a new fad.
“He didn’t ask me to taste-test,” she groused.
“That’s because you’ve buried yourself in work since you joined the foundation.”
“Tell me more,” she said. “Tell me something else I don’t know about you.” Suddenly, she wanted to know everything. “Start with where you went to college.”
His face changed, an infinitesimal adjustment of his features that slightly flattened his expression. “Back East.”
“Where back East?”
He looked as though he didn’t want to tell her. Finally, however, he said, “Harvard.”
“Wow.” She raised her eyebrows. “That’s very impressive. And not at all surprising. Why don’t you seem happier about it?”
“I wanted to be a lawyer, following in my dad’s footsteps.” He huffed out a breath, as if it was painful to remember the past. “But I changed my mind and went to Harvard Business School instead.” He finally looked into her eyes. “It was the right move. I like what I’m doing. A lot. I like working with the Mavericks. And I like buying and selling companies on my own too.”
“We’ve never really talked about that,” she said. “I mean, I know that’s what you do, but we’re always so busy with the foundation when we’re together that sometimes I forget you even have another focus.”
“I’ve been doing it a long time,” he told her. “And I have a great team who’ve been executing my vision so well, for so many years, that I’m pretty peripheral at this point.”
“I doubt that,” she said with a smile. “You could never be peripheral to anything or anyone.”
Especially to her, she realized. Somewhere along the way, she didn’t even know how, Cal had become the very center of her universe. It was kind of scary. And kind of wonderful too.
“That’s why you fly all over the world?” she asked. “Because you’re checking in on all the companies you’re managing?”
“I wouldn’t say managing. More like advising. When we were in London, I visited a textiles manufacturer. They’ll show a profit by the end of the year, and the owner can buy me out if he wants. It’s a win-win for both of us. I buy only what people want to sell. Sometimes they don’t have capital, so I invest, help turn them around. Other times, people are just tired and want out. So I take the company off their hands.”
He didn’t do hostile takeovers. He made sure a merger helped both sides, that they both received benefits. And he was modest about it all too.
He leaned in to kiss the tip of her nose. “Now it’s my turn to ask you some questions.” Though she got the sense he was deliberately pivoting away from himself—the way he always did, she suddenly realized—she couldn’t help but laugh when he said, “How many hearts have you broken in high school, college, and after?”
“I never broke any hearts,” she said with a shake of her head.
“I find that impossible to believe.”
“It’s true. I guess it’s just that I never met anyone who measured up to my brothers and my dad. Everyone I’ve dated—” She shrugged. “—paled in comparison.” She looked up at the ceiling fan. “The guys in high school and college all seemed like such boys. And when I graduated, I wanted to concentrate on my career. I wanted to get on with my life.” She thought about Gary, her last date before she’d flown down to see Cal. “Even now, the men I’ve dated all seem so immature.”
“Your brothers and father are very difficult to measure up to,” Cal agreed.
But you do.
As soon as the thought popped into her head, she knew it was true. Regardless of what had come between them before now—specifically his repeated post-sex disappearing acts—she had no doubt whatsoever that Cal was a good man.