HIS: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Part One) Read Free

man—and I didn’t use that word lightly. Very few men can be called beautiful. But Nicolas…he had the most intense dark eyes, a deep caramel brown that could be almost amber when he was angry or excited. Or aroused.
    I blushed as that thought crossed my mind. I shouldn’t know what this man looked like aroused. He was married the whole time I knew him. Yet, I did know, and it was a source of deep shame.
    I watched him and wanted to feel sorry for him. He had, after all, just lost his wife. But I was aware that he had the means to crush me completely. That’s why I couldn’t feel sorry for him, why I had to harden my heart.
    But I’d never been that kind of person.
    “Would you like some coffee?”
    He nodded absently. “Thanks.”
    I went into the small cubbyhole of a kitchen and put on the coffee maker, turning my face as I scooped out the coffee. I hadn’t had a lot of morning sickness, not like some women. However, there was something about the smell of coffee that had a power over me that I couldn’t quite overcome.
    “Does the smell bother you?”
    I jumped at the sound of his voice almost directly behind me. I didn’t look back as I tried to steady my pounding heart. The kitchen suddenly felt as though the air was being sucked right out of it.
    “Do you have trouble with the smell of coffee?” he asked again.
    I nodded. “Some days are worse than others.”
    He nodded as though he understood completely. At my questioning glance, he said, “I’ve read up a lot on pregnancy.”
    That made me curious. He hadn’t seemed all the interested before. However, I refused to ask. It really wasn’t my business.
    His hands came down on my shoulders, gentle but firm, and set me ablaze. I sucked in a deep breath as I felt hot white lust burn from somewhere deep in my center and pool just below my abdomen. The same thing had happened once before…but I tried not to think about that moment. I wanted to step away from him, wanted to go about my business like he hadn’t come into the room at all. He was so still. What would I see in his eyes if I turned around? Did he know how my body was betraying me, how turned on I was just by the sight of him, by the feel of his touch on my body?
    It is the hormones, I told myself. All the books said that all the extra blood flow that pregnancy created led to a heightened sense of sexual arousal. That is all it is, right?
    But a part of me knew that wasn’t true, either. I wanted him with a desperation that was new to me, and I was helpless against it. Slowly, he turned me around till I was facing him. I stared at the spot between his shoulder and neck and wondered what it would feel like to run my hands over the muscles there. I could feel my chest tightening, and I was beginning to have trouble catching my breath.
    The sound of the coffee percolating through the machine and—more importantly—the smell that wafted through the air brought me back to my senses. I jerked away from his touch, marching out of the kitchen to my tiny bedroom, dashing into the bathroom before he could say a word.
    I couldn’t do this. I needed to get him out of my apartment.
    “Ana?” he called through the closed door. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine,” I called, as I turned on the water and splashed my face.
    It crossed my mind to call the police. I had my cellphone in my skirt pocket. But then I realized that Nicolas had a contract I signed that gave him rights to this baby. Any cop in his right mind would never get between a man and what was rightfully his. I could claim the baby wasn’t his, but an amniocentesis could prove it was, and I wasn’t about to put this baby in a position in which it would have to endure such an invasive procedure. I’ve watched plenty of reality television and I’ve seen the needles they used to draw the amniotic fluid out of the uterus. I’m not afraid of needles, but that one kind of freaked me out.
    That left me with few, if any, options.
    I stepped out of