He’ll prove his seduction theories work—even on his pregnant best friend!

On TV, Dr. Dante Gates teaches the science of attraction. Now this wealthy genius is using his expertise on best friend Dr. Harper Livingston. His theory: one kiss will extinguish that distracting spark between them. Reality proves hotter than any fantasy...until he learns Harper’s expecting...

She chose pregnancy by sperm donor before her best friend became Dr. Sexy. Now, if she wants all he can give, she has to stay emotionally detached—or risk losing his friendship and her cosmetics company. But as she surrenders to his masterful seduction, she admits some things are worth the risk...

The Pregnancy Project is part of the Love and Lipstick quartet.

“You’re thinking about that kiss.”

Guilt flashed through her gaze and nearly bobbled his composure. Holy hell. He’d only said that to steer the conversation away from work and toward his ultimate goal. He had not expected to get an immediate reaction.

Intrigued, he did a quick assessment. How freaked out was she? Was she freaked because she wanted him to do it again and didn’t know how to ask? Or freaked because she was still in the friend zone with no exit ramp in sight?

“I’m not.” She tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “We talked about it and things aren’t weird anymore. What is there to be freaked out about?”

Door number one then, he decided with no small amount of glee. If she wasn’t thinking about doing it again, she’d have trotted out her “we’re friends and nothing but” excuse.

“Well, that’s a very good question.” One he definitely planned to get answers to.

* * *

The Pregnancy Project is part of the Love and Lipstick series— For four female executives, mixing business with pleasure leads to love!

Dear Reader,

I’ve long been a fan of the show The Big Bang Theory and couldn’t wait to tell my scientist’s story. Fyra Cosmetics’ chief science officer, Dr. Harper Livingston, is curious, logical and determined to have a baby. Yes, Harper’s interest in Alex’s pregnancy in book two in the series resulted in her own plans to conceive. Unconventionally, of course. She has no need for a man when she has science on her side.

Enter Dr. Dante Gates, Harper’s longtime friend, who turns her world upside down with a proposal to explore the brand-new attraction between them. Too bad he picks the worst possible timing—she’s pregnant! With all of these roadblocks, how can they work together to fix Fyra’s problems with their revolutionary formula? You’ll have to read to find out, but spoiler alert...it gets very steamy in Harper’s lab before too long. Harper and Dante are way too smart to let emotional complications get in the way of their friendship...aren’t they? Let’s just say I had a lot of fun breaking down all of the things they’re so certain about.

Don’t miss the other three books in this series about Harper’s friends and business partners. Love and Lipstick—four friends fall in love against the backdrop of the cosmetic company they created. Of course, it’s never as simple as that! These friends deal with secrets, lies, corporate espionage and sabotage, none of which they’d dreamed would mix with makeup.

I love to hear from readers. Find out where to connect with me online at katcantrell.com.

Kat Cantrell

The Pregnancy Project

Kat Cantrell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAT CANTRELL read her first Mills & Boon novel in third grade and has been scribbling in notebooks since then. She writes smart, sexy books with a side of sass. She’s a former Harlequin So You Think You Can Write winner and an RWA Golden Heart® Award finalist. Kat, her husband and their two boys live in north Texas.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

In one of life’s great ironies, Dr. Dante Gates, PhD, had a chemistry problem he couldn’t solve.

Not one single data point from his doctoral thesis had provided clues to this puzzle. Nothing he’d researched in the name of his hit TV show, The Science of Seduction, had revealed even a hint of an answer. Even the work he’d done on proving the effectiveness of quantum chemical models for protein analysis—which had nearly landed him a Nobel Prize—hadn’t helped. And Dante was beyond frustrated by the lack of progress in unraveling this chemistry problem named Dr. Harper Livingston.

Dante and Harper had been friends for a decade. She was the standard by which he judged all other women. Which meant Dante spent a lot of energy being irritated that he could never find a woman as beautiful or as smart as Harper. She did it for him, in all the right ways.

Or wrong ways, more like. Because they were friends. His relationship with Harper was the one constant in his life, the only thing he could count on. They had a sacred bond he valued, one he refused to disrupt.

Dante had pretty much convinced himself the only reason he had such a thing for Harper lay solely in her unavailability. Surely if they tried taking their relationship to the next level, it would be a dismal failure. Once he had a taste of that forbidden fruit, Harper would instantly lose her attractiveness. He’d never think of her that way again.

The problem was that once he’d started imagining just how delicious that fruit would be, he couldn’t stop.

This morning, Harper had called to say she was at the Dallas airport, about to get on a plane and would be at his doorstep in two hours. She hadn’t come to visit him in Los Angeles in the three years since he’d moved here. Something big was up. Seemed like the opportune time to solve his chemistry problem, one way or the other.

LAX was one screaming baby short of hell. Like always. Only Harper could drag him to the airport when he had no plans to fly. Dante checked his Breva watch, which featured an anemometer that he’d geeked out over even though he didn’t sail. Harper’s plane had landed ten minutes ago but no passengers had disembarked yet.

Finally, a stream of people carrying backpacks, pillows and water bottles burst through the gate. Dante leaned against the nearest post, arms crossed, to wait for the woman he’d come to collect.

Harper wasn’t hard to spot. Her flame-red hair stood out from the crowd, and she carried herself differently from everyone else, barreling ahead with no fear. In Harper’s world, hesitation was for losers. It was his favorite of her qualities.

She caught sight of him and instantly lit up with a whole-face smile that whacked him in the gut with unexpected heat. Before he could process that, she dropped her bags and flung herself into his arms. Automatically, he balanced his weight to take on hers, snuggling her deep in his embrace, because holy God she felt good.

“Hey,” he murmured into her hair, breathing it in.

Harper’s perfume wound through his senses, infusing his blood with her essence. Which was not how perfume worked. At best, the scent should remind him of food and thus something his body needed to survive. It was supposed to smell nice, not make him want to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe.

He ignored the heat. It wasn’t easy, but he did have a lot of practice.

Harper—mercifully—pulled back enough that Dante didn’t have to worry about her noticing the inappropriate stuff going on down below.

“What are you doing here?” she exclaimed as she drank him in with her bright gaze. “No one has picked me up at the gate since 9/11. I forgot how nice it is. How did you get past security without a plane ticket?”

He chuckled. “Simple. I bought one. Surprise.”

Dante traveled so often for his job as a TV show host that he could always change the ticket later when he planned to actually use it. Or if not, so what? Harper was worth blowing a few hundred bucks over.

She socked him on the arm. “You didn’t have to do that. But I love that you did. I thought you were filming today. I was totally expecting to take a cab.”

And if she’d been anyone else, he’d have sent a car. Shrugging, he picked up her carry-on bag and shouldered it. “We finished early and now I’m off for two weeks, which I plan to spend with you. Perfect timing for an impromptu visit.”

Perfect timing to figure out how to kill his attraction to her. Surely it would only take a kiss. One simple kiss, it would be weird and he’d be done. Back to being friends.

“Your girlfriend won’t expect to spend time with you? The supermodel. What’s her name?” Harper snapped her fingers a couple of times as if to jog her memory.

“Selena,” he supplied. “Actually, we’re not really an item anymore.”

He’d lost interest in Selena as soon as he’d started seeing her, what, like six months ago? But it was good for his career to be photographed with her, and the sex wasn’t terrible, so he’d held on much longer than he should have. She was a sweet girl in a long line of sweet girls who developed instant Vacant Eye when Dante dared throw X-ray crystallography or self-synthesizing materials into conversation. Harper was the only woman he’d ever been able to talk to about anything and everything.

“That’s too bad. I’m sorry. But I’m sure it’s for the best since there’s no way she was good enough for you.” Harper grinned. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Cass is pregnant.”

“That’s fantastic,” he said and meant it. Babies were great. For other people.

Harper and Cass had been friends a long time, since college, when they’d devised a plan to open a company together, along with two other friends, Alex and Trinity. Fyra Cosmetics had thus been born and Harper had made a place for herself as the chief science officer. He was so proud of what she’d accomplished since getting her doctorate in analytical chemistry. Dante had known all four ladies for a decade, but as he had the most in common with Harper he’d naturally become closest to the redhead.

“Gage is making a big deal out of it.” Harper sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes. “As husbands go, he’s perfect for Cass. But I would shoot him if he treated me the way he does her. ‘You’re working too much,’ he says. ‘Let me take care of you.’ And my favorite, ‘You might be craving potato chips, but you need to crave vegetables.’ Men. Like they know anything about pregnancy.”

Dante couldn’t imagine a woman as fierce as Cass letting Gage railroad her. “His heart is in the right place. How is Alex doing, speaking of pregnancy?”

“Much better now that she’s further into her second trimester. No more morning sickness.”

He hadn’t realized so much of what was happening with Harper’s friends revolved around babies. The whole subject made him vaguely uncomfortable, no doubt because of his own history. Sure, people started out wanting kids, but no one could know that they’d still want one next year, or the year after that. After being shuttled from home to home as a foster kid, Dante knew that fickleness firsthand.

Dante guided Harper toward baggage claim. She laced her fingers with his and held his hand as they walked, chatting about her friends and business partners.

It was companionable. Or at least that was probably how she viewed it.

Dante had a burning awareness of her that was only heightened by the glow radiating from Harper’s face. That glow was new. Where had that come from? He adjusted his trademark horn-rimmed glasses with his other hand, but the corona didn’t fade. Why the hell was she so much more beautiful today, of all days?

He might have to get to that kiss sooner rather than later, or this whole trip would slide into disaster.

“Did you have a good flight?” he asked.

Harper pushed her soft, red curls behind her shoulders and nodded. “Not bad. But the vending machine by my gate at DFW didn’t have any Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and that’s the only thing I want. I’m starving.”

“Come on.” He pulled her into a newsstand shop and scouted until he found the candy in question, picked up the entire box from the shelf and handed it to the clerk along with his American Express.

“Dante!” Harper laughed. “I just wanted one, not twenty. You’ll have me looking like a blimp if you keep that up.”

The cashier did a double take as she zeroed in on Dante’s face, then she glanced at the credit card, her eyes rounding. “Dr. Gates! I’m a huge fan of your show. Please, can I get a picture with you?”

She held out her phone, because of course the answer was yes. Fans were part of the gig, and as the producers of The Science of Seduction funneled millions of dollars into Dante’s bank account to host it, he couldn’t really complain. But secretly, he hated nearly everything about the show.

Money was nice, he could not deny it, but he missed real science. The kind that made a difference in the way people understood the known universe. Helping a guy hook up didn’t amount to a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, no matter how good Dante was at his job. Science had long been his refuge when the rest of the world didn’t care, yet he’d abandoned his roots for sensationalism.

He let the cashier fawn over him as much as she wanted because fans had made him a celebrity, and he did not take that for granted. Harper watched with no small amount of amusement.

Finally, he extracted himself from the cashier and the newsstand, handing Harper the bag of candy. “Sorry about that. Comes with the territory.”

With a snort, Harper grinned. “Are you kidding? That was awesome. I rarely get a chance to see you being Dr. Sexy. Due compensation for losing your attention.”

He matched her grin. “I have to live up to my tag line.”

Dr. Dante Gates Brings Sexy To Science. That line had graced magazine covers, promo for his show, you name it. Never in a million years would Dante have assumed that agreeing to host a show about how to use science to attract a lover would mean he’d become the poster boy. Of course, he had positioned himself as an expert in the subject. He should have realized women would come out of the woodwork to beg him to test his theories on them.

The attention flattered him. At first. He was only human. The field research alone made the women worth his time, and he’d long ago acknowledged that being abandoned by his birth mom to foster care had created a craving for acceptance and connection. It wasn’t a crime. The real travesty was that not one of the truly inventive and quite beautiful women had eclipsed his attraction to Harper.

Because she was the only one he couldn’t have. Probably.

Harper rolled her eyes as they arrived at the baggage claim area for her flight. “You don’t need to appear shirtless in a dish soap commercial to be sexy, silly. Your brain is the most attractive thing about you.”

Something about her smile caught him sideways and he nearly did a double take. He’d let her reference to Dr. Sexy roll off because...well, that was part of his TV persona. But now this. Was she flirting with him?

Interesting. Had these nuances been there before and had he missed them in his struggle to keep his thoughts about Harper in the friend zone?

After all, she’d just admitted she found him attractive, which he liked far more than he should. What if she’d been shooting him subtle signals this whole time, hoping he’d make a move? She probably thought he was blind. This impromptu trip to LA might have been solely designed to correct his vision.

With that in mind, he guided her to a secluded spot in the very back of baggage claim, between two dark, locked offices. The milling people around them were focused on the stationary carousel, which meant he had Harper all to himself for a few minutes. At least until luggage started arriving.

“Hey, in case you’ve forgotten, scientists are not known for their six-packs,” he murmured and leaned in, eliminating the space between them. “I worked hard to put on muscle after spending so many years hunched over pages of equations. If someone wants to pay me to take my shirt off, I’m not going to say no.”

All this talk of shedding clothes had set off serious sparks. Did she feel them, too?

She blinked as she looked up at him, her smile slipping a touch. Her tongue darted out to drag across her lips and he followed it pointedly with his gaze, then shifted back to her eyes. The heat in her cheeks mirrored the flare in his gut as he let the moment drag out.

Would wonders never cease? She was feeling it.

Maybe she’d clued in that he was a hot property. Not that he’d let any of his press go to his head. But come on. Women flocked to him. Empirical evidence suggested there was something about his spiky brown hair, horn-rimmed glasses and fit body that they liked.

It was way past time to get his inconvenient attraction to Harper worked out. If he’d read her wrong, they’d laugh about it and go on. He’d prove there was nothing here other than a healthy appreciation for a great woman. The electricity in the atmosphere and the heightened sense of anticipation was nothing more than the product of his imagination.

Without taking his gaze from hers, he reached out and traced the line of her jaw. Not as a friend. Not companionably. But with intent.

“What are you doing?” she asked as a line appeared between her brows. “This isn’t... I mean—we’re not...”

“Haven’t you ever been curious?” he interjected smoothly. “About what it would be like between us?”

“Be like? What what would be like?” Her eyes widened as his meaning must have registered.

There was still time to backpedal if taking things up a notch ended up being the worst idea ever conceived, but that window of opportunity rapidly shrank the longer they stood here in this blanket of awareness.

“I’ve thought about it. A lot,” he continued, since she hadn’t pulled away and hadn’t fled in horror. “No time like the present to find out.”

Before logic could kick in and remind him of all the reasons this could go south, he sank his hands into Harper’s soft red curls, spread his fingers across the back of her head and tipped it up. Slowly—because he wanted to give his body plenty of time to soak in the lesson to be learned here—he lowered his lips to Harper’s and claimed them in a sweet kiss.

Which instantly caught fire. Heat erupted where they’d joined, sensitizing him, claiming him. Harper flowed through him, waking up his blood.

And that’s when he realized his mistake—one kiss and all he’d proven was that he was not done. Not even close.

* * *

Dante was kissing her.

Shock opened Harper’s mouth without her permission and he took it as an invitation, swirling his tongue forward to find hers and oh, my God.

The sensations overwhelmed her and all she could do was cling to his shoulders. She’d meant to push him away. She didn’t do this, not with Dante, not with any man. And then she wasn’t pushing him away because wow.

The chemical reactions firing off inside her body were fascinating, amazing. Unprecedented. She wanted more. That was the most shocking thing of all because normally she avoided this sort of contact.

Her lips tingled as he reshaped them. Little pulls in her abdomen increased the urgency and she leaned into him, her hands drifting from his shoulders to his back. Hard. Strong. He felt good under her palms and she dipped lower, eliciting a groan from deep in his chest. It vibrated her own, teasing her breasts, and that’s when she realized their torsos were touching.

That sculpted chest was pressed up against hers. Dante was kissing her and she was kissing him. In the airport. Oh, God. This was all wrong. What was she doing?

She sprang back, wrenching away, and he followed for a half second until he realized she’d stopped. Hugging the wall behind her and legs shaking, she stared at the man who had been her best friend for a decade. “I’m sorry.”

His big brown eyes watched her from behind his horn-rimmed glasses, which sat slightly askew. Her fingers flexed to fix them automatically, as she’d done a hundred times. But she didn’t.

“For what? I’m the one who kissed you.”

Yes, he had. For God’s sake, why?

Some better questions were why she’d kissed him back. Why it hadn’t felt weird. Why her body felt like it had been twisted in a knot and dipped in a volcano. Why of all men, Dante had jump-started her sex drive.

The problem was, Harper knew exactly why. How was she supposed to explain that she’d completely overreacted due to an influx of hormones that her body didn’t know what to do with? That she’d hopped on a plane to share the most exciting news of her life with her friend?

Somehow, she hadn’t envisioned blurting out I’m pregnant in response to being kissed by the man she’d come to for support.

“I’m the one who didn’t stop you,” she said instead.

“No. You didn’t.”

When he didn’t ask how come she hadn’t, the swirl of uncertainty under her skin pulled the response from her throat anyway. “I was...curious. But please, don’t take that the wrong way.”

He already had, she could tell. Dante wasn’t inexperienced, not like she was, and he’d noted how much she’d liked kissing him. It was a surprise to her, too—she hadn’t been kissed in years and even then, it had been a horrible experience, never to be repeated.

This kiss...it had been the stuff of teenage dreams and an R-rated movie all rolled up in one. Because Dr. Harper Livingston’s body reacted to conception by suddenly craving the touch of a man. Apparently. What was she supposed to do with that—ask him to kiss her again?

“How could I possibly take that the wrong way?” he asked.

She was botching this and if she didn’t fix it, she’d lose everything important to her. “It can’t happen again. Dante, I need you. As a friend. Please don’t change anything.”

God, this was all backward. The results of the four positive pregnancy tests she’d taken that morning weren’t the only reason she’d hopped on a plane to LA. Her career had imploded over Fyra’s decision to develop a product that required FDA approval, and she really wished she’d known that snafu was coming before she’d visited a fertility clinic.

On the brink of both professional and personal disaster, she’d run to the one person who had always been there for her, who was one-hundred percent on her side...only to smack headlong into something she had no context for.

A foreign expression popped onto his face. “Harper. I wanted to kiss you. Surely you realize there’s something new happening between us—”

“No!” Her lungs hitched and somehow, a lone tear squeezed out before she could catch it. “Nothing new. I need everything to be exactly the same as it’s been. You’re so important to me. As a friend.”

Friends had each other’s backs. Friends were there through thick and thin and she needed the promise of knowing she had that in him. That he’d be the way she’d thought of him every day for the last ten years. Until this one. She’d responded so readily to his experimental kiss that he’d gotten the wrong message.

His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. She knew that look. He was about to argue with her and she could not do this right now.

With a strained smile, she touched his arm, like she’d done for years and years, before thinking better of it. “Let’s just forget about it for now. Would you mind getting my bags?”

Ever the gentleman despite the tense circumstances, Dante firmed his mouth and did as she asked, then ushered her into a sleek, red Ferrari. The silence laced with weirdness settled heavily in the car, nearly choking her, as they hurtled down the freeway toward his home in the Hollywood Hills. She scarcely enjoyed the unfolding LA scenery, but what could she say to get everything back to where it was supposed to be?

Dante rolled the Ferrari to a stop at a gated drive, then pointed a clicker at the black wrought-iron gate. It opened, allowing him to drive onto his lush, expansive property, where he parked on the circular drive in front of the sprawling Spanish villa. All without uttering a word.

Which lasted only until they cleared the doorstep. He dropped her bags on the Mexican tile under their feet in the spacious foyer and faced her, brows lowered. “We’ve been friends a long time. Why would that change just because we’re exploring what else might work between us?”

“Because I don’t want to do anything more,” she burst out. “All of this scares me.”

How could she get through the problems at Fyra, pregnancy, birth—good grief, the next eighteen years with a kid—if she didn’t have the friendship that had carried her through the last ten years?

“Come here.”

Before she could blink, he whirled her into a deep hug, the kind she’d welcomed so many times in the past, but it was different now as his strong body aligned with hers.

So different. The tease of his torso against hers set off tingles in places that shouldn’t be tingling over Dante. She tore away, devastated that she couldn’t stay in the circle of his embrace, devastated that things had already changed without her consent.

Hurt sprang into his big brown eyes but he banked it and crossed his arms. “So now I can’t hug you?”

“Sure you can, if you drop twenty pounds of muscle,” she shot back before realizing how that sounded. Quickly, she amended, “I want things like they were before you turned into Dr. Sexy.”

And that wasn’t much better as explanations went. He’d been Dr. Sexy for a long time—what she really meant was before she’d become aware of it. But he had her all flustered.

A brief smile lifted his lips. “I thought you liked that side of me.”

She did. That was the problem.

Dante was one of the few friends she had left who was still the same as he’d always been—she’d thought. She didn’t make friends easily. Cass and Alex, two of the three women she’d built Fyra Cosmetics with, had moved on to new phases in their lives, marrying great men and starting families. Which was amazing, and she didn’t begrudge them their happiness. But Harper felt...left behind.

Which was why she’d decided to have a baby of her own. But minus the husband, who would expect things of Harper she couldn’t fathom giving. Intimacy. Control. A promise of everlasting romantic love that no one could guarantee because it was nothing more than a series of confusing chemical signals in the brain.

Men complicated everything.

“How many friends do I have, Dante? Should be easy for you to count them. No advanced degree required to get to four.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Cass. Alex. Trinity. You. Now imagine that two of those friends have recently gotten married and started families. Everything’s changing around me and I can’t stop it. I need you to stay the same.”

Because she was the one who had already changed things, the one who had gone off and gotten pregnant, and by default, Dante had to be the constant in this equation.

Understanding dawned in his eyes. “You’re scared of things changing.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what I just said.”

Instead of backing off, he leaned in and captured her arms, holding her in place. “You did. I’m just catching up. So it’s not that you mind the idea of me kissing you. You’re just scared of losing our relationship. But I don’t want to lose it, either.”

Those melty chocolate eyes speared hers, and all at once, she didn’t like the way he was looking at her, as if she held the secrets to his universe. Except he’d always looked at her like that and she’d explained it away as affection between friends. But now that he’d veered completely off the friendship track, it made her uncomfortably aware that he’d just had his mouth on her in a very non-friendly way.

“You’re practicing selective hearing.” She shook her head and tried to back up a step so she could breathe. And pick up her luggage, so she could...do something with it. “I do mind the idea of kissing. And everything that goes along with it. Or comes after it.”

“Everything?” he murmured and somehow she was still in his arms. “You mean sex?”

Heat leaped into his expression and that was so much worse than the melty eyes because her body flared to life at the promise of feeling the way it had when he’d kissed her. More. Now.

“Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut, groaning. “I mean, no. No sex. Geez, what is this conversation we’re having? I came here to visit my friend. How did we start talking about sex?”

“You brought it up,” he reminded her needlessly. “I was just trying to clarify.”

“Sex is not a part of this conversation.”

“What if I want it to be?” he countered softly and his fingers slid up her arms to grasp her shoulders. “Your hearing is bordering on selective too if you can so easily ignore what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Caught, she stared at him, taking in his familiar horn-rimmed glasses and spiky hair, desperate to get back to a place where she could be secure in her relationship with him. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“Our friendship is the most important thing in my life. That’s why I’m trying to save it. I can’t unkiss you. There’s something here that isn’t going away until we explore it. Harper...” He drew out her name reverently and the sound sang through her suddenly taut body. “Kiss me again. Think of it as an experiment. Let’s see how far this thing goes, so we can deal with it, once and for all.”

Her eyelids slammed shut because holy mother of God. “That’s a hell of gauntlet to throw down.”

“Tell me no and I’ll step away.”

“No.” Instantly, his hands moved from her arms and his heat vanished. She opened her eyes to see him standing a few feet away, his expression hooded and implacable.

“Can I at least know what your major objections are? In case there’s something—”

“I’m pregnant, Dante.” She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “And that’s only the first in a long line of objections.”

Two

All of the blood in Dante’s brain drained out. “You’re...what?” he whispered.

“Pregnant,” she repeated and the word still sounded like pregnant.

“With a baby?”

“Science has not yet successfully crossed human DNA with any other species, so yeah,” she confirmed darkly. “I didn’t want to tell you this way but you gave me no choice.”

Blindly, he stuck out a hand and sought the nearest hard surface to sink onto. Happened to be an end table in the adjacent living area but so what? His knees wouldn’t have held up much longer.

“I don’t understand how this happened. Are you seeing someone?”

There was no way. Not as eagerly as she’d responded to his touch. Not as close as he’d have sworn they were. She’d have said something about a man in her life. Wouldn’t she? He thought back to the last time she’d mentioned a guy—all the way back in college.

She shook her head. “No. Artificial insemination.”

“Why in the world would you do something like that?” He bit off the syllables, not bothering to temper the harshness.

Babies needed a family. A father. She’d deliberately set herself up to be a single parent. It was inexcusable.

Her face froze as she took in his expression. “I wasn’t interested in sharing parenting duties with anyone long-term. So a donor who was willing to sign away his rights seemed ideal.”

This got better and better. Or worse and worse, more likely. He laughed without humor. “Most people have a life partner they decide to have kids with. Because they’re in love and want to raise a family together. Did that ever enter your thought process?”

“Not once.” She tossed her red hair. “A romantic relationship would only complicate everything.”

“A baby needs a male influence,” he insisted. “That’s not an opinion. Study after study shows—”

“I know that, Dante!” Hands on her hips, she towered over him as he perched on the end table. “Why do you think I said I needed you, you big moron? That’s why I’m here. I want you to be the male influence. Dummy me, I thought our friendship was strong enough to add a baby and then you had to go and kiss me.”

Dumbfounded, he blinked. “Did you think to ask me about this before you got pregnant?”

Because he would have talked her out of it if she had. This was the most ridiculous idea she’d ever heard.

“It’s my life and my body,” she announced as guilt flashed through her expression.

She must have guessed he might react like this, because she knew his history, knew how he felt about kids. And had done it anyway. “You know anonymous donors don’t always tell the truth about their medical history on those questionnaires. There’s no telling what kind of genetic mess you’ve created in there.”

He jerked his head toward her abdomen. She had a baby in her womb and it was suddenly a sacred place, not available for desecrating with the kind of activities he’d had in mind mere minutes ago.

He’d actually been strategizing on how to get her back into his arms so they could finish that kiss. How else would he exorcise his attraction to her? What small taste of her he’d been granted had thus far only whetted his appetite for the main course. Hers, too, obviously, despite her denial.

Dante was an expert after all. She wanted him as much as the reverse was true.

But she was already shaking her head. “That’s why the donor wasn’t anonymous. I did a lot of research into this before I made my decision and I carefully selected my baby’s father. Dr. Cardoza is the perfect—”

“Dr. Cardoza? Dr. Tomas Cardoza is your baby’s father?” Red stained Dante’s vision, his hands curling and uncurling as he fought to keep from unleashing his frustration on the drywall.

“He’s a renowned chemist,” she explained as if he might be confused about Cardoza’s contribution to the planet.

“I know,” Dante somehow got out through clenched teeth. “If you recall, he’s the reason I didn’t win the Nobel.”

Harper’s eyes widened. “Well, yeah. But that was ages ago. Surely you’re over that, especially given that you’ve moved into another field.”

He couldn’t help it. The laugh bubbled out and he pinched off his glasses to wipe his eyes. Of all the people she could have fathered a baby with, she’d picked Cardoza, the sorriest excuse for a human being that ever walked the earth, and that included Dante’s parents, whoever they were.

No. He wasn’t over it. Cardoza was the reason Dante had been forced into TV. If Cardoza hadn’t cheated on his methodology, he’d never have won the Nobel and Dante would have at least had a fair shot. After Cardoza had won, all the interest in Dante’s research had dried up, leaving him lab-less, fundless and desperate for someone to give him a new opportunity.

The Science of Seduction had been born.

Of course, it had been lucrative beyond his wildest fantasies. But a nine-figure bank account didn’t make up for having his long-held scientific goals stolen out from under him.

“Just out of curiosity,” he said once he thought he could talk without betraying the wash of emotion beating at his breastbone. “How did you manage to pick Cardoza?”

Of all freaking people.

“Oh. I ran into Tomas at a convention recently. The thing I told you about in St. Louis? He was presenting a paper and I loved his conclusions. When I saw him later in the hotel lobby, I introduced myself and we got to talking.”

“Got chummy, did you?” Dante practically sneered. Tomas. Like they were all friends here.

“Sure, he’s a brilliant man. Great cheekbones. His genetics were the main reason I became interested in him.”

Something black bloomed in Dante’s chest. “He hit on you.”

“What? No. Well, okay, yeah, I guess if you count the fact that he asked if I’d consider getting pregnant the old-fashioned way ‘hitting on me.’” she accompanied her words with air quotes, oblivious to the way Dante’s stomach had lost its lining. “Then I guess he did.”

Dante massaged the ice pick that had formed between his eyes. “Please, for the love of God, tell me you said no.”

She scowled. “Of course I said no. I have no interest in that kind of relationship with any man.”

Relief flooded his chest so fast, he almost saw stars. The thought of Cardoza putting his filthy paws on Harper—he swallowed the bile. Thankfully, she’d handed the horrible man his hat.

With anyone else, this would be the point when he’d ask if she meant that she preferred women. But he’d felt her reaction when he’d held her in his arms.

She was straight, 100 percent. “No interest in any man except me, you mean.”

“Uh, no. Not with you, either,” she corrected. “Haven’t you been listening?”

Oh, he’d heard every word, much to his chagrin. “You’re interested, Harper. You’re so interested you can’t stand it.”

The way she’d curled into him when he’d kissed her, the thrill of her eagerly offered tongue against his—he’d be reliving that in need-soaked dreams tonight. She was interested. And not happy about it, clearly, as her reaction to the kiss had prompted this little game of true confessions.

Pregnant. As mood killers went, that one took the cake.

“I don’t know when you developed that industrial-sized ego,” she said primly. “But it can go anytime.”

“Please.” He snorted. “Lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me. Not when my mouth was on yours. I could feel your interest clear to my bones.”

Not ego talking. Okay, maybe a little, because it did warm him up plenty, even now, to recall how fervently she’d responded. She’d thrown herself into the kiss, no holds barred, like she did everything, practically climbing into his pants while he kissed her, and he’d have let her.

The attraction between them was mutual. Whether she liked it or not.

A blush worked its way across her cheeks. “That’s just hormones.”

That got a chuckle out of him. “Yeah. That is generally the way it works, or have you forgotten everything you learned in college?”

To his surprise, she sank onto the couch and buried her head in her hands. Her shoulders started shaking and that’s when his bad mood vanished in favor of the mood he should have had all along—concern for the woman he cared about.

He wedged in next to her on the couch and gathered her into his arms, holding her without a word because what would he say? He’d already ruined her big announcement, one she’d only made under duress because he’d been pushing her past her comfort zone.

In another shocker, she relaxed into his embrace and it almost felt like normal. Sure, the smell of her hair crossed his eyes like it always did, but he’d been ignoring the physical pull of Harper for a long time. He could buck up for his friend, who’d spelled out her need for him in no uncertain terms.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair and she nodded. “I just don’t understand. Why a baby? And via artificial insemination to boot?”

“I told you,” she mumbled against his shirt. “Romance is not my thing. It’s all a bunch of chemical reactions that people mistake as an emotion greeting card companies tell you is love. Then those reactions stop and what are you left with? My way is so much easier.”

The arguments against all the mistakes in her theory bubbled to the surface and he almost started firing back facts from the hours and hours of research he’d done into the chemistry between people, but he cut it off at the last second. She didn’t need his opinion, professional or personal. Not right this moment. Not when she’d already made the decision.

“Congrats, regardless.” He bit back the rest of that, too. Foster care had colored his view of people who had children and the various ways they ended up making the kid’s life hell. Until he could be objective about Harper’s baby, he’d shut up. “For the record, those chemical reactions come with a hell of a kick.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, her voice so muffled he almost didn’t hear her.

All at once, the subtext whacked him over the head and he realized she wasn’t talking solely about love. “You’re still a virgin?”

Pieces of this puzzle started falling into place at a rapid clip. She’d confessed as much one night back in college, but he’d assumed that somewhere along the way she’d—but then, she’d probably have told him if she had. Idiot.

She froze. “I’ve been busy getting a doctorate and then building Fyra’s product line from the ground up. Who had time?”

His head fell back against the couch and he stared at the ceiling. Some doctor of seduction he was. He’d totally missed the most important aspect of the dynamic at work here.

Harper was scared of what he’d made her feel. He’d tied up a normally fearless woman in knots because she’d never been properly introduced to the pleasures between a man and a woman. That was a travesty of the highest order.

And a blessing. His resolve solidified. Dante had been gifted an amazing opportunity to be her first. Then he’d finally have one up on Cardoza, that was for sure, and he wasn’t going to apologize for being smug over it. He and Harper could burn off their attraction, get back to being friends, and go on. Win-win in his book.

“It doesn’t change anything,” she said defensively. “I’m still pregnant and I still need your support, regardless of your opinions about my choice of donor or methods of impregnation. I can’t do this alone. Can I count on you to be my friend? To be there for me?”

The realities of the situation crashed down on him. His best friend was pregnant with the offspring of his most hated rival and all he could think about was claiming Harper in some kind of testosterone-filled territory grab.

She knew him well enough to hone in on his biggest conflicts, but naming it and claiming it didn’t change his views on babies. If he said he supported her, he had to do it. Keeping his word meant something to him. This friendship meant something to him. He had to put his money where his mouth was.

“Of course you can count on me.”

And she could. But he wasn’t going to back away from the attraction between them. Instead of scaring him off, she’d inexplicably created a challenge he couldn’t ignore. He wanted her. Perhaps even more now than he had before, thanks to her confessions.

New plan. Nothing but a full-bore seduction would do, and he had an undeniable urge to put every ounce of his energy into verifying the strategies he promoted on his TV show actually worked. Even on a woman who’d never had a lover before. Even on a friend. A pregnant friend. Was he an expert or not?

Dante had the next two weeks to find out.

* * *

Dante’s sprawling home in the Hollywood Hills had enormous charm and Harper loved it. A housekeeper showed her to the guest suite, pointing out the kitchen, the dining room, the back terrace with the multilevel swimming pool on the way.

Wow. Harper craned her neck as the housekeeper breezed past the triple set of French doors overlooking the pool. Cerulean water rippled in the sunlight, and beyond the bougainvillea and palmetto palms camouflaging the wrought-iron fence around Dante’s property, Los Angeles unfurled at the base of the hills, urban and busy, but stunning despite the layer of smog.

Dr. Gates had done very well for himself.

Heavy exposed beams stained the color of triple-strength espresso held up the high ceiling in the breezeway to the back of the house. The housekeeper opened one of the doors and stepped back. Harper blinked at the lavish sitting area off to one side, complete with a flat-screen TV. A large mission-style bed had been placed opposite the sitting area. What a beautiful room.

“The bathroom is through those doors,” the housekeeper pointed with a polite smile. “You need anything, you let me know. I’m Mrs. Ortiz, and my daughter, Ana Sophia, cooks for Mr. Dante. No request too small or too big. We live in the old coach house near the gate, and Juan, my husband, keeps the grounds.”

“Oh, okay.” Dante had servants. More than one. Had any of them overheard the conversation in the foyer earlier? Harper shut her eyes for a beat. Too late now. Would have been nice for Dante to warn her that they weren’t necessarily alone as she went around blabbing about personal stuff.

But then, he’d apparently decided to make blindsiding her a habit. She didn’t especially care for it.

“Thanks, Mrs. Ortiz,” Harper said as graciously as she could. It wasn’t this nice lady’s fault her boss had gone slightly off the deep end.

The housekeeper nodded and closed the door behind her as she left. Harper spent a few minutes unpacking but it didn’t take nearly long enough to settle her trembling insides.

After that fiasco of a kiss had forced her to drop the pregnancy bomb, Dante had melted away, presumably to give her time to settle in, but probably more to give them both breathing room. Or was she the only who’d needed it?

Before she’d gotten on a plane to LA, her relationship with Dante had made sense. Her feelings for him were uncomplicated, easy and eternal, unlike what would inevitably happen in a romantic relationship. That was why she’d never entertained the slightest notion of having one with any man, let alone one she liked as much as Dante. Friendship had so much to recommend itself.

Until Dante had flipped everything upside down by kissing her.

What could she do to get back to the place where she had her friend by her side, holding her hand through this new adventure?

Because she needed him. Badly.

Pregnancy was freaking her out.

She was scared she’d made the wrong decision. Scared that she’d picked the wrong time, given that her career might be in the toilet. Scared that she’d failed to cross some T when dealing with the legal aspects of using a donor. She’d never second-guessed a decision like this and the only thing she wanted to do was crawl under a blanket, let Dante stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be okay.

That was all wrong. She’d wanted pregnancy to be a happy experience. One that would create a new bond with Alex and Cass, who were also new mothers or soon-to-be, and strengthen the bond she had with Dante because of course he would be her baby’s favorite...uncle-like person.

She hoped.

The look on his face when she’d said, I’m pregnant...she never wanted to see that again. But the shock coloring his expression replayed in her mind on an endless loop. Apparently she’d miscalculated how he’d feel about it, but she couldn’t figure out if he was upset because she hadn’t consulted him or because he still had residual bitterness over losing the Nobel Prize. Or both.

There was every possibility that despite claiming he’d be there for her, Dante might change his mind. He might end up not wanting anything to do with her baby. That would be devastating.

Angst was killing her. What had happened to her usual logic and reason? Poof. Add a baby and suddenly she was a mess.

She changed out of her plane suit and slipped on an unstructured sundress with spaghetti straps that she’d bought in anticipation of an expanding waistline. Wishful thinking, since she hadn’t confirmed her pregnancy until this morning.

None of this heated introspection would resolve the open issue—how to get back to normal. Harper worked best with absolutes and only Dante could give her those.

Get the data, formulate the problem and then solve it.

Her relationship with Dante was going to be the same today as it was yesterday, or she’d die trying to keep it that way. She refused to let either the baby or the kiss put a wedge between them, not when so many other things were out of her control. The FDA rejection being exhibit A.

Determined, she wandered through the open floor plan toward the kitchen in hopes of finding Dante and a cup of hot tea, and not necessarily in that order.

“Called it in one,” she murmured as she caught sight of his dark head bent over something.

She walked in and skirted the island. Dante glanced up.

His gaze softened behind his lenses, instantly turning his gorgeous eyes the color of melted chocolate. If he looked at other women like that, it was no wonder they were tripping over themselves to get to him.

Which was a totally uncomfortable thought, all at once. Did he look at other women like that, with that same blend of concern and affection? And why would she care? She didn’t. Dante was her friend and he could look at a woman any way he chose.

Except her. Definitely he could not look at her like that.

“I was just about to make a pot of tea,” he said as if nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed, she reminded herself sternly. He’d kissed her in some sort of misguided notion that there was something between them. She’d disabused him of that notion, and it was over. “That would be great.”

She cleared the squawk from her throat and wished the tension could be so easily dispelled.

Tea was one of their shared passions, one she cherished. When Dante came to Dallas, he always picked up a fresh bag of Gyokuro Imperial Green Tea—her favorite—from the Teavana shop at DFW airport and they drank it on the patio of her condo, which overlooked Victory Park. She loved their ritual more for the conversation and easiness than the tea, though it only took the barest whiff of the scent to make her mouth water.

He handed her a press pot and nodded to the loose-leaf tea in a container printed with Chinese symbols, which sat on the counter near his elbow. “I’ll boil the water if you scoop the tea.”

The familiar rhythm soothed her, and she moved around both the kitchen and the man with more ease than she would have expected. Maybe the weirdness was all on her. If she acted like everything was cool, it would be.

Tea made, they took their mugs onto the lanai that overlooked the lush pool and outdoor kitchen. Dante settled onto a cozy love seat and patted the next cushion, which she gratefully sank onto.

“Your house is beautiful,” she commented. “Why did it take me so long to visit?”

“A fair question.” He nodded once. “And the answer is?”

“Busy.” Her gaze drifted back to the landscape as she searched for the truth. “Fyra’s been a mess lately and Cass and Alex have had personal things going on. Leaves me and Trinity to hold the seams together.”

Regardless, Dante had always made time to come visit her. She’d written it off as a function of his insane travel schedule; of course it was easier for him to pop into Dallas. It was one of the major US airport hubs.

In that moment, with every nook and cranny of their relationship under a microscope, it felt...wrong. Unbalanced.

“Why did you come this time?” he asked quietly, and it was the opening she’d been looking for.

“I took my first pregnancy test this morning,” she admitted and forced herself to go on, no matter how uncomfortable the subject. Because regardless of what he’d said earlier, it still felt like an elephant in the room that they had to work through. “And then I took the next three.”

Surprisingly, he flashed a smile. “Because four gives you better odds of getting an accurate result.”

“You know me so well,” she joked automatically, but when his jaw tightened, she wished she hadn’t said it.

“I’m hoping to learn more,” he returned cryptically. “How did it feel? When you saw that it was positive?”

So many things had flooded her chest in that instant. How did she catalogue them for someone else—and a man at that? “The clearest sense of awe. Glee. Accomplishment.”

She’d picked the right donor, clearly, since the procedure had worked the first time. Of course she had. She’d done extensive research into genetics, legalities, odds—and Dr. Tomas Cardoza had been the obvious choice. Tomas had two doctorates, impressive Spanish ancestry and dark skin that would hopefully guarantee her child wouldn’t have to slather on as much sunscreen as its Irish mother. He’d agreed to be her donor, including signing away any paternal rights, and that was that.

Somehow, she didn’t think Dante would appreciate those details.

“I hate this.” She set her mug down and swiveled to face him, one leg bent underneath her. “I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, like I have to watch what I say or it’ll start another fight.”

He cocked his head. “Another fight? We’re not fighting. Are we?”

“Well...yeah. Earlier. When I told you I was pregnant. That was a fight.” Wasn’t it? He’d been so angry and disappointed in her.

“It was a conversation,” he corrected and set his own mug down in favor of taking her hand, holding it tight as he caught her gaze. “About something going on in your life. I didn’t handle it well. You surprised me, that’s all. But I care about you and want to know everything. It’s not okay that you think you have to hold one single thing back.”

Warmth spread across her palm, feathering outward. She stared at Dante and all at once, he morphed back into the man she’d loved for ten years. And then the warmth climbed into her chest as he smiled at her. It was so normal—and such a relief—she nearly wept.

Except she was changing things. That was really her biggest fear, that she’d irrevocably damaged their relationship by getting pregnant. She and Dante told each other chemistry jokes and talked about quantum mechanics, not diapers and breastfeeding.

She centered herself with a string of biofeedback techniques. Everything was going to be okay.

“Then I want to start over. Dante, I’m pregnant.”

His eyebrows shot up in mock surprise, bless him. “That’s fantastic news. Congratulations. I can’t wait to meet the little version of you swimming around in there.”

And that, against all odds, made the whole thing real.

She had a life growing in her womb. A baby. One that would be hers and hers alone, who would be a brilliant addition to the world of science from an early age. She would raise him or her with all the best educational opportunities and be this baby’s everything, since she’d be a single parent.

That was when the panic started.

It was a baby. A helpless tiny thing who couldn’t communicate its needs. She’d have to figure it out. By herself. The flutter behind her breastbone grew nearly audible. And then she realized that was the sound of her heightened pulse thundering in her ears.

Breathe. And again. She’d wanted it this way. Love between mother and child was absolute. Preordained. There was no potential for error, like there was when romance entered the picture, confusing everything with signals her brain couldn’t interpret. Thus, this baby would fill a need in her life that no man could ever hope to. She’d never be lonely again, yearning for something she couldn’t quite put a name to.

Plus, it would solidify her place among her business partners who valued the institution of motherhood. Or at least Alex and Cass did. Trinity had and always would march to the beat of her own drum, but regardless, she and Harper had long agreed about the value of a permanent man in their lives—zero.

Except this one. She squeezed Dante’s hand and swallowed. “I’m scared.”

“What? Why?” Clearly puzzled, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and smoothed it back, exactly as she’d envisioned he would when she admitted her fears. “You’re the most capable woman I’ve ever met. You’ve got this, hands down.”

“There’s some...other stuff going on. Fyra is in trouble.”

“What’s going on?” he asked softly. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”

The thick bands around her chest loosened. She’d come to LA precisely because Dante was the one person in her life she could turn to. If she could just talk about it, maybe a plan would come to her, some way to haul herself out of the professional hole she’d fallen into. Then the pregnancy decision wouldn’t seem so...ill-timed.

“Something happened with Fyra’s FDA approval for Formula-47,” she blurted out. A sudden burning behind her eyes mortified her. She never cried. Was this how it was going to be then? Emotions out the wazoo around the clock?

“What? Tell me,” he demanded instantly.

Formula-47 had been her first baby, conceived and crafted in her lab with one sole purpose—to heal scars and wrinkles better than plastic surgery because it used revolutionary nanotechnology that she’d developed. It was brilliant. And it might never see the light of day.

No. She would fix it.

She took a deep breath. “Phillip—Senator Edgewood—you know how I told you he was helping us grease the FDA wheels in Washington?”

“Sure, because you’re releasing your first product that requires FDA approval. I remember.”

“The committee suspended the request.”

It was nearly the worst moment of her life to hear those words come out of Phillip’s mouth. The process should have been easy. Submit an application for approval for Formula-47, which she’d poured two years of her life into perfecting, give the committee a tour of the lab, explain her formulary methodology, send samples and research. Done. Approval to sell the formula as a product would be in the bag.

Nothing had gone according to plan.

“What?” Dante’s expression mirrored the righteous indignation of his tone. “Why would they suspend the request?”

“They had questions about my samples. And my lab.”

The expletive Dante muttered made her smile.

“Your methods are beyond reproach,” he groused. “How dare they question anything about your lab.”

She couldn’t help but revel in his unconditional support, which was precisely what she’d come for. None of her partners really understood what the allegations had meant to her professionally. Personally.

Dante got it. Understood instantly why the whole thing felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through her gut.

“There’s more. I think the questions cropped up because someone deliberately sabotaged the samples.” Even uttering that heinous suspicion aloud nearly caused her stomach to revolt.

Because that was the bottom line. She had a traitor in her lab. Her lab. Her sanctuary.

Until she got that sorted out, she was afraid she’d never fully embrace or enjoy the next nine months.

Three

Dante smoothed Harper’s hair back again because she was still trembling and that needed to stop. She didn’t have to know that her hair felt like satin under his fingertips and thus the soothing motion benefited them both.

“Sabotage,” he repeated and scowled. “That’s not cool. Who do you think it is?”

“I don’t know.”

She shook her head against his palm and he feathered a thumb across her temple, which shouldn’t feel so intimate, not in the midst of her crisis. But he couldn’t help the fact that step one in his seduction plan included getting Harper relaxed with him again.

She was upset. She needed him. Which naturally led to him comforting her and voila. Here they were, holding hands on a small love seat. His fingers toyed with her hair. They were a couple of millimeters shy of an embrace. One small sway forward and he’d have easy access to her lush mouth.

But he didn’t move. Not yet. Step one wasn’t complete. He couldn’t execute step two until he got her good and over her freak-out from the first time he’d kissed her. His mistake had been assuming one kiss was all it would take, and then they’d go back to normal, with his attraction to Harper easily handled and resolved.

Episode twenty-six of his show had been dedicated to that exact phenomenon. The mind played tricks on you sometimes, leading you to believe you had chemistry with a person, when in fact, the moment you locked lips, it became apparent there was nothing there. That’s why he’d thought it was best to get that part established immediately, especially since he’d been seventy-five percent sure the attraction between them only existed because of another very well-documented phenomenon—the allure of look-but-you-can’t-touch.

Hadn’t worked anything close to how he’d hypothesized.

And the whole game had changed with the addition of Cardoza, Harper’s pregnancy and her virgin state. A mere kiss wasn’t going to cut it. He wanted it all. And had no issue whatsoever with working for it.

They could go back to being just friends later. After he’d introduced her to the pleasures to be had when a man took his time with a proper seduction. After they’d burned out this spark. After he’d had the opportunity to revel in the fact that he might not have bested Cardoza at winning the Nobel, but he’d sure as hell beaten him in all the ways that counted.

“This FDA mess sucks,” he said simply. “What can I do?”

“You’re already doing it.”

She sighed with a little smile, oblivious to the way her chest rose and fell under her dress. She’d changed into a flirty number that dipped between her breasts, cradling them provocatively. It wasn’t even all that low-cut, but it didn’t matter. On her, it was sexy.

Off her, it would be epic.

“How about if I do something that actually solves the problem?” he growled because he couldn’t keep the awareness from his voice. “I’ll come with you back to Dallas and we’ll tackle this together.”

It was perfect. So much so that he couldn’t quite believe this opportunity had fallen into his lap. He’d have every excuse to spend night and day by her side, just the two of them in a place that turned them both on—a chemistry lab—and then he’d swoop in at the eleventh hour to solve all her problems. He’d be the hero, short only of the white horse as he rode to her rescue.

Harper was both a virgin and a scientist. He couldn’t use run-of-the-mill strategies to get her into his bed and have any hope of success. As seduction plans went, this one was killer.

Harper’s eyes widened. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t. I volunteered. I have two weeks off from filming and nothing planned. Do you have the option to give the FDA new samples?”

Nodding, she bit her lip, her sharp mind clearly working through the idea. “But it’s a lot of work and my job, not yours. I have to fix this.”

She wasn’t connecting the dots fast enough. The idea of getting his hands on a real test tube made him nearly giddy. When was the last time he’d gotten dirty with the periodic table? Ages.

Harper and chemistry at the same time? He could not think of anything he’d enjoy more unless it involved her spread naked on the lab worktable, beakers shoved aside and forgotten, as he pleasured her with his mouth until she screamed his name.

Okay, that image had to go or he’d blow this carefully planned seduction.

“You’re pregnant, scared and said you needed my support,” he pointed out. “What better way can I support you than this? Let me help you create the new samples. I want to. It’ll be fun, not work.”

In response, she closed the gap between them, throwing herself deep into his arms in enthusiastic agreement.

His body reacted instantly, hardening in places she would surely notice in about two seconds since she’d nearly climbed into his lap. An erection the size of Minneapolis was impossible to hide.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to hug you anymore,” he muttered darkly.

She stiffened and pulled back. Idiot. That’s what he got for opening his big mouth, but holy God, what was he supposed to do when she was clinging to him like Saran Wrap and smelled like something he wanted to take a bite out of?

“Sorry, I got carried away in my gratitude.”

Cursing inwardly, he willed back the rush of heat and grimaced. With any luck, it might look like a smile if she squinted. “I like hugging you. I was just—”

Enormously turned on. Gauging whether I could actually feel your nipples through your dress. Thinking about how seriously hot that kiss was.

He should quit while he was behind. Step one in his seduction plan did not include alienating Harper, confusing her or making a move too soon. She needed time and space to acclimate to him again or step two would die a nasty death.

Seduction was a science, not an art. There was no room for missteps.

Dante cleared his throat. “I’ll call my assistant in the morning to book me on your return flight. No arguments. We’re in this together.”

Her tremulous smile went a long way toward smoothing over his blunder.

“Thanks. You have no idea what this means to me. I finally feel like I’m back on track.”

That made one of them. But the genuine relief radiating from her expression warmed him. Not as well as her body had mere moments ago. But nicely enough. Because he did care about her and wanted to help. It was just a really awesome coincidence that the problems in her lab so neatly coincided with his agenda.

“I’m excited.” She clapped like a five-year-old presented with a birthday cake. “We haven’t spent two whole weeks together in...forever.”

“Not since college.” And even then, they hadn’t been under the same roof. Living in the same dorm, sure. But the dynamic had been completely different back then. He’d attended college on an academic scholarship and every grade counted. The hours he’d spent with Harper had most often happened at the library or in the computer lab. Studying.

“Ooooh, we’ll get to relive our glory days. It’ll be just like it was back then.”

“You mean when we had to exist on ramen noodles and four hours of sleep a night?” He grinned, only half kidding. “Speak for yourself, but I much prefer being able to afford a steak anytime I want it.”

And this time around, he had a much better idea how to get this woman into his bed. He’d had his share of girlfriends in college, mostly due to simple things he’d never have dreamed would be such chick magnets: manners, an old-fashioned insistence that a man should pay for dinner and zero interest in sports.

Harper had always eluded him, though he’d felt a buzz the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.

“I loved college. Remember the spring break when neither of us could go home because we’d grossly underestimated the reaction of that substrate to the graphene?” She touched his arm enthusiastically, lost in her story. “We had to do the whole experiment over again and the project was due in like a week and a half. I was so panicked but you were Mr. Calm.”

“I remember,” he murmured, but not the same way she did, obviously.

Dante hadn’t gone home for spring break ever. Or Christmas, summer break, random weekends. Because his foster home hadn’t been a home, it had merely been where the people who’d agreed to raise him lived, and when he walked out the door at eighteen, he’d never returned. He’d loved college, too, but only because it gave him somewhere to go, somewhere to succeed. A place to belong.

A friend in Harper Livingston.

“Those were the days. We didn’t have much, but we had each other.” She smiled fondly, and his own return smile bloomed automatically.

Harper had been the first person in his life to really care about him, what he thought, whether he was eating well. He’d conveniently forgotten all of that in the heat of the moment, focusing so hard on how to get to the next step with her that he’d lost sight of why Harper had stayed so firmly in the friend zone all these years.

He needed her, too, as the one stable relationship he’d ever had. The only person who had ever demonstrated what it meant to value one another. It was the closest thing to love he’d ever felt.

Was he confusing that with attraction?

Guilt and agitation squeezed his chest and he didn’t like it. There was a reason they called him Dr. Sexy instead of Dr. Emotional Expert. Physical chemistry he understood, very well. The psychology of the unquantifiable feelings between people, not so much.

If he succeeded with seducing Harper and got her naked and breathless, would that screw up their bond?

No, surely not. They were both adults and neither of them had much use for the emotional part. It was one of the many reasons they were still friends after all these years. They had a lot in common. The squiggle in his chest was nothing more than a reminder that he had a stake in ensuring nothing ever affected their friendship, even sex. Especially not sex. He’d keep one hand on the ripcord and shut down his seduction campaign if even a hint of a complication reared its ugly head.

Harper slid a cool hand up his arm to squeeze his shoulder, leaning in to kiss his cheek. Somehow, he managed to mask the sound of his lungs strangling over a breath as he fought to keep from turning his head to capture her lips with his.

“I’m so glad I jumped on a plane,” she said brightly, thankfully clueless to the mayhem happening on his side of the wicker love seat.

He should be thrilled. Clearly, she was back to being relaxed around him. Step one could be labeled a rousing victory, rousing being the operative word. Unfortunately, step two promised to be more of the same since the goal would be to make her aware of the spark between them. So she could act on it when she was ready.

“Let me take you to dinner,” he returned hoarsely.

He had to get some traction on step two before he lost the lone speck of sanity he had left.

* * *

Harper spent an inordinate amount of time dressing for dinner, taking a hot shower to wash the airport from her skin, then using the enormous three-way mirror to carefully apply a spate of cosmetics that she’d personally had a hand in developing. A swipe of Prague Sunset lipstick finished off the look.

The results sang, if she did say so herself.

She stepped into a dress the shade of cotton candy, which should have competed with her hair, but didn’t because Harper had a near-savant ability to mix color. It was what made her exceptional at her job.

She had a healthy appreciation for how chemistry improved a woman’s natural assets. She’d built a career on it. Only to see the culmination of her dreams screech to a halt due to tainted lab samples. And for the first time in a month, she finally felt hopeful about the future of Fyra. Dante was going to help her fix the problems and the FDA would approve the new samples. Simple.

That more than anything had dissolved the weird tension between her and Dante. He’d brightened at the thought of helping her and honestly, it sounded like fun to her, too.

Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten lunch and after the...fiasco at baggage claim, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups had lost their appeal. Dinner sounded like exactly what the doctor ordered.

She went in search of Dante through the labyrinth of halls in his enormous home, wandering toward the sound of running water. Being unfamiliar with Dante’s house, she didn’t realize it emanated from his shower until she was already in the doorway of his bedroom. She raised a hand to knock just as he strode from the adjoining bathroom, bare chested, towel draped over his lower half. The terry cloth had settled low on his lean hips, almost to the point of indecency. But the uncovered part was enough to set off all sorts of bells and whistles in her head.

And other places.

A brilliant green dragon tattoo spread over his left shoulder, spiraling down around his upper bicep, accentuating sinewy muscles that she’d never seen before, but had certainly felt. His torso had turned sleek and brown, as if he’d spent time in the sun, and crisp hair lay against his chest in a trail leading to the stuff underneath the towel.

Her mouth went dry and her legs locked. Her brain might have melted, too. Or she wouldn’t have stood there staring as he caught sight of her and grinned, totally unaffected by his state of undress.

“Hey,” he said and casually pushed his glasses higher on his nose, as if she’d seen him wearing nothing but a towel a dozen or more times.

Because she had, especially in college when they’d lived in the same dorm with a communal bathroom. But that was before he’d filled out so much. Before he’d decorated his skin with something as...sexy as a tattoo. Before she’d deliberately introduced a plethora of hormones to her body that obviously rendered her stupid and prone to being affected by the sight of Dante’s bare chest.

Before he’d kissed her and she’d felt all those muscles pressed up against her.

A blush prickled her cheeks and she spun, turning her back to the half-naked man that she couldn’t reconcile with the one she’d known for years and years. Things were supposed to be back to normal. The same. What had happened to her sweet, slightly banal feelings toward her friend?

God, she’d always thought of Dante as sexy in a sort of detached way because of course he was good-looking. Sexy. It was just a word, but all at once, the root of the meaning became painfully clear because there was nothing detached about what was happening to her body.

“Harper. Are you okay?”

His voice washed across her skin as he called out from behind her. He’d said her name before. Lots of times. Using that same voice he’d always had. And yet it was not the same at all.

It was deeper, with more color. Was he also remembering that kiss that should be forgotten but clearly couldn’t be removed from her memory? Was he thinking about how it would feel to try that kiss again while he wore nothing but a towel?

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