She looked at him as if he were new. “Your bride runs away and you’re seen with the photographer barely a month later. They’ll conclude there was something between us either before or during the wedding.” As that picture developed in her head, the nastiness that the media would paint started to appear. “They’ve been looking for something nasty on me for years. It can go a couple of ways. You’ll be a cheating bastard who got caught, or I’ll be the woman who lured you away. Neither are very flattering.”

“Or the truth.”

“Truth isn’t what they’re after.”

Victor shrugged. “I can handle it.”

“I’ve found that, so long as there is little fuel, the story just drops. Especially if something new comes around to take its place. It helps that you’re not famous and I’m no longer in the public eye because of my ex.”

He sat forward. “So we tell them we met in Tulum.”

“They’ll ask if we have a romantic relationship. Sex sells papers.”

He grinned. “And how should we answer that?”

Shannon traced the edge of her coffee cup with her index finger. “Maybe that we’re exploring our options.”

“Are we?” He flashed his teeth with his smile. “Exploring our options?”

“I’m wearing your T-shirt and drinking coffee in your home. I think we’re exploring something.”

His gaze drank her in, and his silence had her heartbeat working overtime. “Fifty-five days is too long,” he said under his breath.

“Victor—”

“I have dreamt of your lips, of your touch . . . of you every day since we’ve met. I want to explore.”

Her face started to heat. “I don’t know how to explore, Victor. I haven’t had a casual relationship since before I was married,” she confessed.

“Who said anything about casual?”

“You just jumped out of a—”

“Relationship,” he finished for her. “I know. But it wasn’t right. I can see that now.” He reached over and took her hand in his once again. “I met with Corrie last week. You know what I discovered?”

Did she want to hear this? “What?”

“That we were never right for each other. Her immaturity is the tip of the mountain of everything that was wrong about us. I wanted the next step in my life, and somehow thought I could just order up that bride and everything would be fine.”

A chord struck in her spine. The fact that she was once the “ordered bride” wasn’t lost on her.

“I leaped into that relationship without thinking.”

“You’re jumping again,” she argued.

“No. I’m thinking.”

“I’m not sure you’re thinking with the right side of your brain,” she said.

He grinned. “Admittedly. But it’s more than that. Or at least I think it’s more than that. It needs exploring to find out.”

“Fifty-five days—”

“Is too long.”

Her hand started to shake ever so slightly. Fear? Excitement? She couldn’t name the emotion to save her life. “The timing is off.”

“Why are you so against this? You’re attracted. Don’t try and deny it.”

She removed her hand from under his, pushed back from the table. “I’m an adult,” she said more to herself than him. “I don’t need to deny anything.” I’m not ready. As the words popped into her head, her body called her a liar.

“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” he asked.

I fall in love. You destroy me. The words ran through her head like a ticker tape on the evening news. None of which she could repeat without revealing too much. So she picked the words that would scare any man away. “I’ll get pregnant.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The vulnerability on her face, the fear in her eyes. Where was the strong, confident woman he’d met on the airplane, the force of nature embodied by a woman he thought he knew?

She stood after dropping what he was sure she thought was an epiphany to him, but in fact was old knowledge.

He joined her when she turned her back; the bathrobe he’d placed in the guest room dwarfed her frame. He placed a hand on her shoulder, was surprised she didn’t jump.

Victor realized, on some level, that he was acting a little bit like a high school senior pressuring his prom date to get naked. He wouldn’t, of course. But he did want to push Shannon out of her comfort zone and make her at least consider the possibility.

“Shannon, look at me.”

She didn’t.

He ducked closer, made it impossible for her to look the other way.

With a heavy sigh, she leveled her eyes with his.

“Pregnancy is always a risk—” he said.

“I will. It isn’t a question of risk. I stopped all forms of birth control months ago. One slip, one tear . . .”

He knew the answer to his question before the words formed in his head but wanted to hear it from her first. “Why?”

She studied the floor, looked up. “I’ll be thirty-five next month.”

“And you want a child.”

She didn’t look at him when she nodded. “It’s why I was in Tulum . . . I mean, outside of your wedding.” She rolled her eyes. “Your nonwedding.”

“You were meeting somebody?”

A quick shake of her head dashed away that thought. “No. Not somebody . . . just any . . . I shouldn’t be telling you this.” She turned.

He placed a hand on her arm. Kept her from walking in the opposite direction. “You had a plan.”

“A loose plan.”

“I didn’t fall into it.”

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “No, you didn’t. You crushed it. Not that I had found someone, but you were there and reminding me that maybe there was—” She stopped short, her thoughts unspoken.

“You’re a beautiful woman, I can’t imagine you haven’t been given plenty of opportunities.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Less than you would think.”

“What do your friends think about this plan?”

She hesitated, so he talked over her thoughts. “And to be clear, you went to Tulum to have sex with someone you didn’t know for the purpose of having a child.”

He waited for her to deny him. Her expression gave her away.

“Avery hated the idea.”

He smiled. “I always knew I liked her.”

Some of the stress, anxiety, or whatever it was on Shannon’s face faded with his comment. “It didn’t happen.”

“You met me.”

“And we didn’t have sex.”

“We could have,” he said. “You didn’t let us.” Because he wasn’t a stranger. Because he brought something to her life that made her revise her plan. The more he thought about what her motivation was for not having sex with him, the bigger his smile became.

“You do realize that all of my friends would have advised me to not have this conversation with you.”

Victor stepped forward, brushed a hair from her face, and tucked it behind her ear.

She sucked in a breath.

Such a simple touch, and yet she responded in a way that few did. “And what are your thoughts on this conversation?” he asked.

Her gaze met his and paused. “It’s liberating, I suppose. Honesty. I’m not used to it.”

“Paul wasn’t honest with you,” he deducted.

Her gaze lowered. “I wasn’t honest with him.”

That, he wasn’t expecting.

He lifted her chin. “One day, I want you to tell me what you weren’t honest with him about.” Victor stepped closer. “But today, I want to relish in the fact that you are honest with me.” And he lowered his lips to hers.

She was timid, maybe a little shocked . . . but she didn’t move away.

Victor closed his eyes and pulled in her scent as he drew her close. Her full lips parted. For air? Invitation? He didn’t know, but he took advantage of the opening and deepened their kiss. He tasted coffee and mint and Shannon. His mornings would never be the same after such an intoxicating combination.

The timid tip of her tongue met his and shot all the blood from his head south to his groin. Shannon reached around his waist. He felt her nails through the fabric of his shirt. He stepped closer, pulled her body flush with his. The outline of his erection pressed against the softness of her belly and wept to be closer.

He fanned his fingers through her hair, tilted her head back, and worshiped her with open-mouth kisses that left her gasping.

“This . . . this . . .”

He kissed her words away and finally moved to her jaw and the lobe of her delicate ear.

“Oh, Victor.”

Her pelvis pushed against him, so he nibbled her ear again.

She responded with a soft moan.

He wanted this woman more than he needed his next breath. “Let me make love to you,” he whispered.

Tight fingers spread against his back as he kissed the column of her neck. “The risk . . .”

He’d take the risk. But he told her what she needed to hear. “There are more ways to make love to you without taking risks.” He reached for the belt of the robe and gave it one tug.