Claiming His Nine-Month Consequence. Jennie Lucas

had died before Bonnie was nineteen, leaving little savings. Unwilling to leave her hometown, she’d become a waitress the summer after high school. She was trying to save for college when she was swept off her feet by a resort guest, a handsome millionaire visiting from Buenos Aires. Bonnie had thought it was true love, just like she’d always dreamed of. But when she became pregnant with Ruby, instead of being delighted and proposing marriage as Bonnie had hoped, the man had screamed in her face, tossed a few hundred-dollar bills in her face for an abortion and left the country, never to return.

      Bonnie had moved into a trailer with cheap rent, temporarily she’d thought, trying to raise her baby daughter on minimum-wage jobs, still hoping she could improve their situation. Instead, when Ruby was five, her mother had fallen in love with another wealthy hotel guest, this one a Texas oilman ten years Bonnie’s senior, whom she hoped might be a good father to Ruby.

      Over the course of an entire winter of visits, he’d told Bonnie he loved her. He hadn’t always wanted to use a condom, and believing they’d soon be married, she’d reluctantly acquiesced. But when summer came and she discovered she was pregnant, he wouldn’t marry her. “I’m married to my comp’ny, darlin’,” he’d said with a smile, in his charming cowboy drawl. And as for child support, he’d taken her in his arms and tenderly asked her not to make any legal claim. “Just wait a little while. Till this next oil field pans out. Then I’ll take care of you and that lil’ baby, don’t you worry.”

      But he never did. He just stopped coming to Star Valley, and ignored Bonnie’s increasingly frantic messages. Before Ivy was even born, oil prices suddenly collapsed, and his overextended company was forced into bankruptcy. Unable to face the total loss, he drove his car into a telephone pole, in a fiery death the coroner obligingly marked “accident.”

      After that, Bonnie had learned her lesson. She’d told her daughters again and again never to trust anything a rich man might tell them.

      And look what good it had done, Ruby thought. Ivy still dreamed of hooking a rich husband. And Ruby herself, as a foolish eighteen-year-old, had nearly married Braden, who’d abandoned her the second the ink on his NHL contract was dry.

      Fairy tales weren’t real. Romantic dreams were poison. Men who seemed like handsome princes were just lying, trying to lure sensible young women into love—and doom.

      What had love ever done for her mother except destroy her ability to follow her own dreams, leaving her heartbroken and poor?

      What had it done for Ruby other than leaving her alone and humiliated at the altar?

      Ruby was just relieved that Braden had left her when he had. When their love was still innocent. Before they’d married, or worse, had a child. But she had no intention of ever trusting a rich, ruthless man ever again.

      Then, tonight, Ares had kissed her.

      It was the kiss Ruby had dreamed about, even while telling herself that romantic dreams were lies. The kiss she’d been waiting for all her life.

      He’d held her tightly beside the flames of the bonfire, beneath the cold, bright stars, and when his lips had touched hers, she’d forgotten all her sensible plans and promises.

      There was only this.

      Only him.

      Now Ruby glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as he drove her old truck down the snowy road. Her gaze lingered on his sensual lips, and she felt her own tingle in memory of his embrace.

      Her eyes traced unwillingly over his strong arms, as he changed gears; over his strong thighs, as he pressed on the gas. She’d never let anyone drive her truck before, but she’d had no choice tonight, because her own knees felt so weak, for reasons that she knew had nothing to do with hunger or snowboarding.

      Ares was right. She was hungry. After so many years being strong for everyone else, she felt like she’d been starving for years, on a treadmill of unending work. There’d been no color. No joy.

      I took you for the kind of girl who doesn’t care what other people think. Only about her own pleasure.

      A shiver racked Ruby’s body. But she couldn’t let herself be tempted. He’d already told her outright that he was selfish and ruthless. He didn’t do complicated. Why would she be foolish enough to believe any love affair between them, even a one-night stand, could end any way but badly?

      And yet...

      Staring at him, her heart was pounding. She felt danger. Pleasure. Excitement. In this moment, she couldn’t think straight. All she could do was feel.

      She was tempted. Even knowing herself for a fool. She wanted him. His kiss had overwhelmed her senses. Her toes still hadn’t uncurled in her boots.

      Ares glanced at her. His black eyes glinted in the darkness, and heat flooded her body. Then he turned away as he steered the truck onto a small private road, and she exhaled.

      All right, so maybe she’d become a modern-day spinster, a twenty-four-year-old virgin who worked too much and, as her little sister had pointed out, who had apparently given up on her dreams. But if Ruby truly wanted to change that, if she wanted to take her first lover, it would be better to proposition Monty or even Paul Vence himself rather than let herself be seduced by the selfish, arrogant Greek billionaire everyone else wanted. Whom even her baby sister had wanted.

      As if on cue, Ruby heard her phone ringing from her canvas duffel bag. Digging through neatly folded clothes, she looked at it and saw Ivy’s number. Guilt rushed through her. After the way she’d prevented Ivy from sleeping with Ares, the word hypocrite didn’t even seem large enough to describe how her sister would see Ruby’s actions right now. She pressed the button to decline the call.

      “Everything all right?”

      Ares’s voice was sensual, low, and it did crazy things to her insides. “Everything’s fine.” Biting her lip, she took a deep breath and said in a rush, “But I think I changed my mind about dinner and I should just go home—”

      His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Is that what you want?”

      “Yes—it is—”

      Ares stopped the truck abruptly in the middle of the dark, empty road. Turning off the engine, he looked at her.

      “You’re lying.” His hot dark gaze pierced her from across the worn bench seat. “There’s no way you want to go home. Not after the way you kissed me.”

      She shrugged, trying desperately to play it cool. “I guess the kiss wasn’t totally bad...”

      “Bad?” He looked incredulous.

      “...but it was just a kiss.” She was proud of the way her voice held steady, as if his embrace beneath the winter sky hadn’t twisted her body inside out and turned her heart upside down, leaving her weak and yearning.

      “We both know it was more.” His voice held an edge. “You felt it. I felt it.”

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      He looked astonished, then angry. Moving across the truck’s bench seat, he grabbed her by the shoulders, looking down at her fiercely. “Before I met you, I felt bored by everything and everyone. But now there’s one thing I can’t stop thinking about. One thing I have to have. At any price.”

      Ruby’s heart was pounding. He was saying everything that she felt, deep in her soul. Trembling, she choked out, “I thought you didn’t do complicated...”

      “This isn’t complicated. It’s simple. I want you to come home with me tonight. And I know you feel the same. Why are you trying to deny it?”

      As their eyes locked, her phone started to ring from her bag. Glancing down, she saw it was Ivy again. Ruby looked from the phone to him, torn between reason and desire.

      I know you feel the same. Why are you trying to deny it?