Prince Voronov's Virgin (12 page)

The kiss turned explosive, with him bending her back in the seat and her taking as much as he could give. Never again would she be meek or easily manipulated.

This was an angry kiss, a kiss of war, but a hot kiss nonetheless. When he broke away, she whimpered in response before she could stop herself.

But she wasn’t the only one affected. His eyes were wild
as he gazed down at her, hot and dark and full of need. He thrust a hand through his dark hair, pulled in a deep breath.

And then he was collected once more, staring down at her with such coolness that she shivered. “Oh, yes, Paige Barnes,” he threw at her, “you definitely hate me. If we had more time, I would show you exactly how much.”

One month later…

P
AIGE HIT THE
alarm, flopping back into bed with a groggy sigh. Six o’clock seemed to come earlier and earlier each morning. For the past two weeks, she’d had such trouble waking up. It wasn’t jet lag; they’d returned to Dallas a month ago, and she’d been over the jet lag within a few days.

But she’d gotten more and more tired with each passing day, as if she needed a shot of caffeine straight to her veins to get her moving. She drank coffee every morning, but by noon she was dragging again. By the time she got home, she was ready for bed.

Nothing had been right since she’d left Russia. She’d started a new job at a downtown law firm just last week, thanks to Mavis, who’d recently taken a job there because she’d also refused to work for Alexei after spending so many years with Chad and his father. The pay, at least for Paige, wasn’t as good as it had been at Russell Tech, but she’d gone over her budget and figured out how to pay all her bills and stay in the same house she’d been renting for the past three years.

It was tight, but it worked.

Somehow, Paige managed to haul herself from the bed and throw on her robe. Before she could hit the shower, she needed a cup of coffee.

“You look like hell,” Emma said when she entered the kitchen.

“Thanks,” Paige replied as she grabbed a mug and filled it.

She didn’t bother to tell Emma that she looked like hell, too. For a different reason, of course. Since they’d returned to Texas, she’d barely seen Chad. He was off in Alaska, trying to drum up business with some of his father’s old acquaintances. He’d poured his personal fortune into Russell Tech over the last few years. When the company went broke, he had, too.

There was no question of a wedding anytime soon. Paige secretly added
if ever,
though it hurt her to do so. Emma tried to be brave, but Paige heard her crying at night sometimes. She hated Alexei Voronov for many things, but for that most of all.

Paige took a sip of coffee, waiting for the pleasurable little jolt. But the flavor turned her stomach instead. She set the cup back down, frowning. “What are you doing up so early?”

Emma’s brows drew together as she studied Paige. “I have final exams today. Are you sick?”

Paige put her hands to either side of her head. She’d asked herself that question every day. “I don’t know.”

“You look pale. Maybe you should stay home.”

“I can’t. I’m too new and I don’t have any sick leave yet.”

“But you’re not well. I’m sure they’ll work something out. If you want, I’ll call Mavis for you.”

Paige waved a hand. “No, don’t do that. I’ll be fine as soon as I shower.”

But when she stood beneath the hot spray, she didn’t feel better at all; she felt ill. Her stomach heaved, and before she could get to the toilet, she was sick. Since there was nothing in her stomach, it was over quickly.

Maybe Emma was right. Maybe she’d caught something
at work, though no one seemed to be sick at Fennell, Brown, and Ramirez.

Paige finished her shower, dragged on a pair of dark slacks and a powder-blue top and headed for work without attempting to eat breakfast since food was impossible.

The morning passed torturously. Paige tried to eat one of the doughnuts Mavis had brought in, but the first bite shot bile up into her throat. She ran to the toilet three times and threw up twice, though she’d eaten nothing at all.

The third time she returned to her desk, Mavis was frowning at her.

“You look like death warmed over, sugar,” the older woman said. “Are you feeling okay?”

Paige settled into her chair very carefully. The document she’d been working on was still open on her computer, the cursor blinking at her accusingly.

“I think I must have eaten something bad,” she said, taking a sip of her bottled water.

Mavis shoved a pencil in her steel-gray hair. Mavis’s hair was a good five inches tall, having been teased and sprayed to within an inch of its life. Paige had often wondered if Mavis got home at the end of the day and discovered bits of flotsam she’d shoved in there during work. Stray pencils, an eraser, correction tape.

Mavis’s face scrunched in concentration. “Could be, but seems like you’d be a lot sicker a whole lot quicker, if you know what I mean.” She tilted her head to the side. “This has been going on for a while. Can you keep anything down?”

“Not this morning.”

“Any other symptoms?”

“I’ve been tired a lot, but I think it must be leftover jet lag or something. I can hardly get out of bed in the morning.”

The corners of Mavis’s eyes crinkled as she screwed her
face up even tighter. “Now, darlin’, you don’t have a boyfriend or anything do you?”

Paige shook her head. “You know I don’t.”

“I thought so, sweetie, but things could have changed.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, if you did, I’d be wanting to know when you’d last had your period. Because if it’d been a while, you might want to pee on a stick.”

“Pee on a stick?”
Oh, dear God.

Mavis mistook her statement for an actual question. “Honey, I’m talking about a pregnancy test,” she said in her syrupy accent, drawing the word
test
into two syllables. “But since it can’t be that, maybe you should go to the doctor and see if you got that swine flu or something. Though you sure do remind me of my daughter when she was pregnant with the twins. Poor girl couldn’t keep a thing down for weeks. Slept all the time, too.”

A frisson of icy fear danced down Paige’s spine. It wasn’t possible. Alexei had used a condom, and they’d only had sex once. There was no way she was pregnant!

But her brain was working overtime, doing the math, and she realized it’d been a while since her last period. She just didn’t know how long. For that, she’d have to dig into her purse and check her pocket calendar. She always noted the date since it seemed to be the first thing the doctor’s office wanted to know each time she went in for an appointment. Didn’t matter what the appointment was for, they always wanted to know the answer.

The phone rang and Mavis answered it, sparing Paige from continuing the conversation. She opened a desk drawer and quickly located her calendar in the bottom of her purse. Flipping back, she found the date and counted forward.

Six weeks.

But that didn’t mean anything. Stress could delay ovulation,
which meant her period could start any day really. Paige closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Surely that’s all it was. Stress, and a stomach bug.

But she knew she would worry until her period showed up. More worry meant more stress. More stress meant more delay, which meant no period.

The only way to ease her mind was to stop at the drugstore on the way home tonight.

Unbelievable.

She put the calendar away with shaky hands and tried to concentrate on the document. Half an hour later, kindly Mr. Ramirez emerged from his office and ordered her to go home.

She wanted to argue, but the truth was she just wanted to go curl up on the couch with the remote. When Mr. Ramirez assured her she would be paid for the hours she would miss, Paige logged off her computer and gathered her things.

By the time she got home, she felt better. But the package in her hand had the power to change everything.

She slipped the pregnancy test out of the bag and stared at it. Her heart hammered. Was this really necessary? Was it possible?

Anything was possible, she supposed. Practically, she was just ruling out a possibility, however remote, so she could focus on what might actually be wrong. When the test came out negative, she would call her doctor and schedule an appointment. Maybe she was allergic to something, or maybe she’d picked up a strange virus in Russia.

Twenty minutes later, after she read the instructions twice, Paige peed in a cup and inserted the stick—she didn’t want any mistakes—and then removed it after the appropriate amount of time. While the stick did its magic, she crossed to the kitchen and peered inside the fridge. Her stomach
was growling now, and she felt like she could eat something without getting sick.

Grabbing a yogurt, she popped the top and dipped her spoon inside before returning to where she’d laid the stick on the bathroom counter. It hadn’t been more than a minute, but the digital window had an answer.

The spoon clattered into the sink as her fingers lost the ability to hold it.

Pregnant.

Paige snatched up the test and held it closer. Maybe there was a glare on her glasses that was obscuring the
not.
But the window was very clear.

Oh, God, she was pregnant! With a Russian prince’s baby. It didn’t seem real, didn’t seem possible.

Yet the test did not lie. Paige made it to the couch before she sank into a boneless heap. What now?

She pressed her hand to her abdomen. Was there really a little life in there? A baby who was half her and half Alexei?

Her mind threw out possibilities in dizzying succession. She could terminate the pregnancy and no one would ever know. She could carry the baby to term and give it up for adoption. Or she could keep her baby.

Her fingers clenched reflexively. Already, she felt protective. And she knew what she was going to do. She
wanted
this baby with a fierceness that surprised her. She would keep her child, and she would raise him or her alone. It would be tough, especially now, but she knew what tough was. She already had experience with working herself to the bone to provide for a child.

So this would be a new experience, starting from the earliest moments of life, but she would adapt.

What about Alexei?

Paige chewed her lip. Should she try to get in contact
with him? Tell him about his child? Her mind rebelled at the thought. He was a cold, cruel man who’d pretended to be something he was not.

He’d pretended to be kind and solicitous, and he’d pretended an interest in her for the sole purpose of using her for information. When he no longer needed that information, he’d discarded her like yesterday’s garbage. And he’d made no effort to get in contact since. He’d managed to find Emma when she was in Chad’s hotel room, so Paige had no illusions about his ability to find her in Dallas if he so chose. He just didn’t want to find her.

In fact, though it hurt to know, he probably gave her no thought whatsoever. Since the second he’d dropped her off at her hotel, he’d erased her from his mind.

She knew because she’d seen a photo of him at a Hollywood movie premiere recently. He’d been escorting a gorgeous starlet who’d clung to his arm and smiled at him as if he were the center of the universe.

Paige had quickly shoved aside the pang of jealousy she’d felt. The starlet would find out soon enough how cruel Alexei could be. He might seem like a prize to be coveted, but he certainly was not.

She thought of her sister, and her hatred for Alexei simmered.

No, she would not try to contact him. He’d made it clear what his feelings about their night together had been. It was one night that he’d already forgotten, and she was the one who would have to deal with the consequences.

Alexei told himself that he simply wanted to return the gloves she’d left behind. And the coat, scarf and hat that she’d posted to him before she left Russia. He’d been angry when he’d opened the box and realized what was inside.

Yet he should have expected it. Paige was proud and
stubborn and it would be just like her to try to have the last word.

He’d wondered why she’d only kept the gloves, but it wasn’t until he’d returned to St. Petersburg the following weekend that he’d found them lying neatly on the nightstand and realized what had happened. A maid must have put them there, because he remembered quite vividly how Paige had stripped them off and thrown them aside so she could touch him.

Alexei closed his eyes.
So she could touch him.

He could remember, even now, the sizzle of her skin against his, the heat and passion that had threatened to incinerate him. He remembered wanting to be inside her with an urgency that had surprised him with its intensity.

He hadn’t been with a woman since that night. He’d thought about it. He’d even gone out with a beautiful actress recently, but the night ended when he took her back to her apartment and left her at the door with a chaste kiss.

She simply hadn’t excited him.

Paige had. Paige Barnes, who wore dull suits and glasses and who’d kissed him like she needed his touch in order to survive.

He’d wanted to see her again, but he’d resisted the impulse. Now that he was in Dallas to explore his latest acquisition, he didn’t have to wait. He would see her and he would return the damn coat he’d bought her.

Russell Tech was finally his, and though he’d thought he would take great pleasure in entering those hallowed offices as the owner rather than as a supplicant begging for his sister’s life, it hadn’t been as sweet as he’d thought it would be. For a moment, as he’d stood in that office where Tim Russell had refused to help him and gazed out on the Dallas skyline, he’d felt emptier inside than he ever had before.

Why?

The limo he’d hired drove him from his hotel through the
outskirts of Dallas and into a suburban neighborhood with small bungalows and green lawns. Paige had kept her word and left Russell Tech, but he knew she worked at a law firm and he knew she would be home by now. He’d thought about going to her office, but decided it was better they see each other in private.