Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Alex was looking at her like he needed an answer and she knew she had to give one. But the situation with Giovanni was complicated and she wasn’t sure what to say except, “He didn’t want to be a father. So he’s out of my life.”
“Do you still love him?” Alex asked.
“No. I was never in love with him. It wasn’t that type of relationship.”
“Explain it to me,” he said.
“You’re being a little demanding,” she said. “I’m not used to explaining myself to anyone.”
“Sorry,” he said. But she could tell he wasn’t.
“No, you’re not,” she said, not about to let him get away with any prevarications.
“You’re right. I’m not. But before I let myself start thinking that this match could be the real thing, I want to make sure that he’s out of the picture.”
She pushed the stroller over to a bench and sat down, gently placing Bella Ann on her lap. Alex joined her and sat a good distance from her.
“Gio and I had an affair while I was doing some work in Milan, he's a photographer and we'd known each other for a while. He was always flirting with me and one night the flirting turned into something more. I thought...it doesn't really matter what I thought. He’s not interested in settling down, said we were just having fun together.”
Alex nodded. “I can understand that. Accidents happen.”
“Yes, they do, but Bella Ann never felt like an accident to me. The moment I learned I was pregnant . . .” She bit her lower lip as she looked at him, unsure how much she should say.
But Alex stared back at her with his cool blue gaze and she felt that she could trust him with this at least. Her mother had said if she was going to find a husband, she needed to find one she could confide in.
“Yes?”
“It just felt right. I had never dreamed of being a mother, but once I knew I was going to be, I couldn’t imagine life any other way,” she said, glancing down at her daughter, who was awake and chewing on her pacifier.
“And Gio?” he asked with so much inflection on her ex-lover’s name that Fiona knew he didn’t like the other man. It was clear to him that the man had been after one thing with Fiona and as soon as he got it, he was out the door.
“He couldn’t think of anything worse that being tied down to a child or to me. He offered me money, but I didn’t want that kind of man in my life or in Bella Ann’s. I decided to find a man who could be a husband to me and a father to my daughter.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms, which drew the fabric of his button-down dress shirt taut over his chest. She was surprised to see the bulge of his muscles through the light fabric.
He was a game developer, and she had an image of a man sitting around in a dark room full of computers with only the glow of a monitor for company. But he was tan and fit.
“What exactly do you do? Are you more of a figurehead . . . CEO-type guy?”
“Why are we talking about me?” he asked. “I thought we were still on the subject of you.”
He wasn’t the greatest conversationalist, she thought. He was blunt and liked to keep control of everything. “Because I want to know more about you.”
“Well, I do both. I run the company and deal with the investors and develop games. Why?” he asked.
“You just look like you’re in good shape for a man who must spend a lot of time at the computer.”
He arched one eyebrow at her. “Geez, thanks.”
She almost blushed, but she’d learned not to be embarrassed a long time ago. “Whatever. You know most people who work at their computers all day usually have pasty-white skin and are out of shape.”
“Your point?” he asked.
“That you’re not like that. Why?”
“My dad’s a gym teacher,” he said. “My mom had this timer when I was growing up that she’d turn on when I was playing a video game.
I could play as long as I wanted, but when I was done she’d stop the timer and I couldn’t go back to playing on the computer until I’d spent an equal amount of time outside. ”
The more she heard about his mom, the more she liked the woman. She wasn’t too sure that Alex was the right man to be her husband, but she was learning more about what she wanted and needed in such a man from talking to him.
He was too blunt, she thought. And he was a little on the stuffy side. Just looking at him, she wondered if that one kiss he’d given her was a fluke.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
And she decided she had nothing left to lose. “I’m wondering if that one kiss we shared was the real thing.”
“Put the baby down and I’ll show you,” he said. “Having the child here is what stopped me.”
“You need to work on thinking before you speak,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because when you say dumb things like that I want to call everything off,” she said.
“Ah, sorry,” he said. “I just don’t believe in beating around the bush.”
“I can see that,” she said. She turned and put Bella Ann back in her stroller. As soon as the little girl was strapped in and playing with her stuffed bunny, she felt Alex’s arm come around her shoulders.
He drew her closer to him, but didn’t make a move to kiss her.
Instead, she felt the feather-light touch of his finger as he traced the length of her neck and then the line of her dress where it dipped below her cleavage.
His touch was soft yet sure and everywhere he caressed her he left a trail of goose bumps in his wake.
She shivered as he drew his hand back up to her neck and slowly tunneled his fingers through her hair, cradling the back of her head. She lifted her eyes to his as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers.
This time there was no doubt of physical compatibility as he kissed her with passion and determination. He seduced her with the slow sweeps of his tongue until she was helpless to do anything but wrap her arms around those strong shoulders of his and kiss him back.
Alex was still thinking about that kiss four days later as he was in the mock dressing room of Sexy & Single, getting ready to shoot his second date with Fiona.
If she hadn’t had the baby with her, he would have swept her into his car and taken her back to his place.
But she did have a baby. And she was thinking about him not just for one night or an affair but as a father and a husband.
And frankly, though family was something he’d definitely wanted, he hadn’t anticipated how much Bella Ann would color things between them.
He had no idea how to treat Fiona. He was afraid of letting himself care too deeply for her and Bella Ann, yet at the same time he was definitely attracted to her.
He was in a fever for her. She dominated his thoughts during the day when he was supposed to be working and at night he dreamed of making love to her.
She was distracting him from his work and making him a complete mess.
He was running almost ten miles a day to try to force himself to focus, but all he thought of even then was the way she’d tasted and how she’d felt in his arms.
“Ready?” Jack Crown asked, coming into the dressing room where he was waiting.
“You have no idea,” he said. But he was more anxious about seeing Fiona again than about the taping of the show. Today they were filming in the Hamptons where Fiona had a second house. For the date, they were going to be sailing on a small catamaran.
Alex looked forward to this because it was just going to be the two of them.
The nanny was healthy again and would be taking care of Bella Ann.
And it was the first time they’d been in contact since their last date.
He’d sent her texts and tried to get her to video chat with him, but she said she didn’t like using her computer.
Her attitude was almost incomprehensible to him.
“I might have a clue,” Jack said. “These television shows can be tedious. Lots of sitting around waiting for the filming to start. Today should be fun for you out on the ocean.”
“Yes, it should be. But the process is an odd way to go about dating a woman,” Alex acknowledged. “How did you get roped into this thing?”
Jack laughed and shook his head. “It’s work and I never say no to a job.”
“Long way from playing football,” Alex said. “My dad’s a high school coach. We watched your game-ending injury happen on TV . . . that was brutal.” Before parlaying his sports fame into a TV career, Jack Crown had been a star quarterback.
Jack nodded. “That was a long time ago.”
“Does the knee bother you any more?”
“Sometimes,” Jack said. “But I don’t pay much attention to it.”
“Most men wouldn’t have bounced back from that the way you did,” Alex said. He still remembered the quiet in the stadium as Jack Crown lay there unmoving. The Heisman Trophy winner down and out of the game that the pundits had said he’d been born to play.
“Life goes on,” Jack said.
“It does,” Alex agreed.
“We’re ready for you on set,” Willow said, coming over to the two men. “Jack, are you prepared to do your intro?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Don’t call me ma’am.”
“Whatever you say, boss lady.”
She rolled her eyes at him and turned and walked away. Alex noticed that Jack watched her as she did so.
“Let’s go. We’re going to be walking and talking,” Jack said.
“OK.”
“I’m going to ask you about how the first date went and what you hope for this time.”
“Great. I’ll try to be pithy,” Alex said.
That made Jack laugh. “The viewers love it when you talk about your feelings.”
“Must be mostly women,” Alex said.
“Must be,” Jack agreed.
Once they were in position in the cultivated gardens behind Fiona’s house, Willow called action and Jack started walking. Alex kept pace with him, glancing around, trying to catch a glimpse of Fiona.
“Did your first date meet with your expectations?” Jack asked.
“It was different than I expected,” Alex said. “But then Fiona isn’t at all who I thought I’d be matched with.”
“Why do you think the matchmaker put you two together?” Alex asked.
“My first instinct?”
Jack nodded.
“We make good television. I mean you can’t get two people who are more different than the two of us,” Alex said.
“So you’re not sure she’s the right woman for you?” Jack asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
Jack stopped walking at the mark on the ground, put there by the TV crew, and turned toward Alex. “Do you think she’s the right woman for you?”
“Our date today should clarify things for me. Our first meeting was great for getting to know each other, but today I’m hoping to learn a little more about what makes Fiona tick.”
Turning to the camera, Jack said, “We’ll see what Alex thinks of Fiona after the show and their sailing date.” Then he looked to the left at Fiona, who was walking toward them.
“What about you, Fiona? Were you impressed by Alex on your first date?” he asked her.
She was stunningly beautiful in a slim-fitting mini-dress and a pair of strappy sandals. But how was she going to sail in those clothes ? He stopped thinking about that when he met her gaze and noticed that she seemed upset.
“The jury’s still out, Jack. Every time I think he might be the right match for me, he says something that makes me rethink that.”
“Today is going to be a crucial date then,” Jack said, turning toward the camera and walking toward it. “I think the after show is going to be very interesting.”