The Agent's Secret Baby. Marie Ferrarella

Tessa,” Adam said with a laugh, petting the excited dog and trying not to let her knock him over. “How’ve you been, girl?”

      In response, Tessa licked his face.

      So much for allies, Eve thought.

      Still petting the dog, Adam looked at her. “I think I got it all,” he told Eve. “But to be on the safe side, I’d suggest you vacuum the area.” Standing up, taking care not to let the excited dog overwhelm him, he decided to augment his statement. “Better yet, tell me where you keep your vacuum cleaner and I’ll vacuum the area for you.” Anticipating an argument, Adam added, “It’s the least I can do—seeing as how the sight of me made you drop the bowl in the first place.”

      Eve squared her shoulders. Don’t let him get to you, damn it. Don’t!

      “I can do my own vacuuming,” she told him in a voice that had a slight tremor in it.

      He eyed her dubiously, his smile fading and becoming a thing of the past. “You sure? Pushing something heavy around like that might cause you to go into labor prematurely.”

      She wanted him out of here—before she wound up caving. “Did you get a medical degree since I last saw you?”

      His eyes remained on hers. It took everything she had not to let them get to her. Not to just give up and hold on to him the way she couldn’t seem to hold on to her anger.

      “A lot of things happened since I last saw you,” he told her, his voice low, “but my getting a medical degree wasn’t among them.”

      It was the same tone that used to ripple along her skin, exciting her. Well, it didn’t excite her anymore. It didn’t, she fiercely insisted.

      “I’m just passing on some common sense,” Adam concluded.

      She did her best to make him leave. “Always a first time,” she answered sarcastically.

      Adam waited for her to continue venting. When she didn’t, he raised an eyebrow.

      “That’s it?” he asked. “Nothing more? No more slings and arrows and hot words?” He knew it was baiting her, but the way he saw it, she deserved to be able to yell at him, to put her anger into words. God knew she had the right.

      But she just looked at him, the light leaving her eyes. That hurt him more than anything she could have said, because he knew that he’d done that to her.

      “What’s the point?” she countered sadly, half lifting her shoulders in a careless shrug.

      “The point is that it might make you feel better,” Adam told her. “It might help restore some equilibrium in your world.”

      She was a long way from having that happen, she thought. A long way. “The only thing that would do either would be if I’d never met you.”

      He had that coming and he knew it. He regretted their time together only because it had placed her in jeopardy and it ultimately had hurt her. That had never been his intention.

      In an absolute, personal sense, he’d never, not even for a moment, regretted having her in his life, no matter how short the time they had together had been. But, even though she didn’t know it, she’d had her revenge. Eve had upended his world, showing him everything he’d given up to do what he did, to be what he was. She’d showed him everything he could have had if his life had gone differently.

      At least he had a life, he reminded himself.

      Which was more than Mona had.

      Mona, his kid sister, had been bright, beautiful and blessed with the ability to light up a room the moment she entered it. Her family and friends were all certain that she could have had the world at her feet just by wishing it.

      Instead, she opted to keep it at bay, losing herself in the dark, forbidding haze of heroin and meth until no one who loved her could even recognize her. Despite his alternating between pleading with her and railing at her, his sister had continued using even as she made him promise after promise to stop.

      When she finally did stop, it hadn’t been voluntarily. He’d found her lying facedown on the floor of the apartment he’d been paying for, a victim of a drug overdose. No frantic attempts at CPR on his part could revive her. His sister was gone, another statistic in the increasingly unsuccessful war on drugs. His crusade against drugs began that morning.

      And the way he viewed it, it hadn’t cost him anything. Until he’d met Eve.

      “Where do you keep the vacuum cleaner?” he repeated, his voice a little gruffer.

      “I said I’d take care of it,” Eve insisted, holding her ground.

      He let her win. Maybe she needed that. With a shrug, Adam bent down to pick up the spilled candy. Cradling the small bags, bars and boxes against his chest, he rose to his feet again.

      “Where do you want me to put these?”

      The answer flashed through her head, but it wasn’t her way to say things like that, no matter how tempted she was or how warranted her flippant remark might have actually been. Adam might not have any honor left, but she still did.

      Was that why she was carrying the drug dealer’s baby? a taunting voice in her head mocked.

      “Over there will be fine,” she told him, nodding toward the coffee table.

      Adam crossed over to it and let the candy rain down from his arms onto the table.

      His back was to her. An image flashed through her brain. The way his back had looked as he moved to leave his bed after they’d made love. She felt her stomach tightening.

      She had to stop that, stop torturing herself. He wasn’t the answer to a prayer, he was the personification of a nightmare.

      A nightmare in pleasing form.

      Eve passed her tongue along her lips, trying to moisten them. They were so dry, they were almost sticking together.

      “Why did you come?” she forced herself to ask, making it sound like an accusation.

      He turned from the table and looked at her. Had she always looked so delicate? he wondered. “I heard you were pregnant—”

      Eve widened her eyes. They had no friends in common and their worlds certainly didn’t overlap.

      “How did you hear?” she demanded. He just looked at her. “Who told you?” she pressed.

      He waved her question away. “Doesn’t matter. But I came to see for myself.”

      She drew herself up to her full five-foot-four height, then spread her arms, giving him an unobstructed view. After a minute, she dropped her arms again. “All right, you saw. Now please leave.”

      Adam remained where he stood, making no move to do anything of the kind. Tessa was nuzzling his leg and he stroked her head as he took a breath, fortifying himself.

      “Is it mine?” he asked.

      “No.” The denial automatically rose to her lips and shot like a bullet through the air, primed by a she-bear’s instincts to protect her unborn cub.

      He didn’t believe her even though part of him would have really wanted to. It would have made everything so much simpler. It would have taken away not just his sense of guilt, but of responsibility, too. Not to mention that he wouldn’t need to feel obligated to protect the baby or her if she wasn’t bearing his child.

       The hell you wouldn’t.

      The other part of him fiercely rejected even the suggestion that the seed growing in her belly had come from anyone but him. Even if he never saw Eve again—and until that anonymous e-mail had turned up on his computer he never planned to—Eve was his soul mate in every sense of the word. He knew that no matter how many women he came across, how many he took to his bed, this one would stand out. This one would always