An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,67

you, but, really, if anyone is going to find them, it should be you.”

Ben closed the folder and said nothing. He looked at her face, its open expression, and swallowed. This thing that she’d given him. This was trust.

Suddenly it scared the living hell out of him because he didn’t know what would happen to them if he ever broke it. He set down the folder carefully and thought about the lengths he would go to for this woman. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. To make her happy, to keep her safe and to stay a part of her life.

Since you are an important part of my life now...

He’d been her boss. That had to have been important. He’d been the man she thought she loved. Surely that had to qualify as being significant in her world.

Only now she was saying that things were different. That he was different to her and even more important.

No, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. And there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her protected. Even if it meant lying to her.

“I’ll take care of this,” he said. “Trust me.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ANNA STARED AT HERSELF in the cheval mirror she kept in her bedroom. Naked, she turned to her side and stood as straight as she could and sucked in her belly as hard as she could.

It was no use. The bump was there and it wasn’t going away. Beyond that, her breasts were getting bigger. They were bursting out of her normal bras to the point where she’d actually bought her first maternity bra. The cup had a snap, too, so it could be used as a breast-feeding bra.

She tried to imagine the idea that, in the near future, she would be thrilled to pieces to have some little creature basically eating her. It didn’t exactly come, but she figured once the kid was out everything would change.

For now she had to deal with the damage the kiddo was doing from the inside. Next on her shopping list were the pants. Definitely the ones with the stretchy waist and the space for a bump.

Yes, it was time for the clothing to start covering her more completely. But for now, looking at herself completely naked, she had to admit she didn’t hate what the bump was doing. It was as though her body suddenly had this new purpose it never had before. She looked ripe and lush and filled with expectation of this big event that was coming.

Not the worst look in the world. Ben didn’t seem to mind it...at least not while she wore clothes.

Anna tried to imagine what Ben would think when he finally saw her naked. Because that was coming eventually.

The electricity between them was only growing and the sexual tension from him—and her—seemed to be keeping both of them in a perpetual state of heat. Heck, she’d almost encouraged him to take her on the desk in his office, with his assistant no more than ten feet away from his office door. Thank goodness he’d had the presence of mind to stop, because she hadn’t. With all of his chasing of her and all of her running from that chasing it had been easy to overlook a basic fact.

She wanted him. She’d always wanted him and now it seemed exacerbated because her body was acting against her better judgment. Hormones plus desire equaled horny.

So, yes, soon he would see her body in all its glory. She definitely wasn’t skinny. Not that she’d been overly skinny before as he’d already mentioned, pointing out the gentle slope of her non-flat belly. But now she really wasn’t skinny. Instead she was fecund. With boobs and hips and a bump.

Since she’d committed to dating him she’d told herself the reason she’d put off having sex with him made all the sense in the world. She was uncertain of her feelings, uncertain of his. She was afraid of why he wanted her and then afraid of what it meant if he did want her as much as he said he did. Could she handle that level of passion from Ben and still protect her heart?

But beyond all that, she had to deal with the reality of him seeing this body. Granted, she wasn’t full-blown, mamma jamba pregnant yet. She couldn’t imagine yet what that would look like, but she was different.

It would be an adjustment.

The last time the sex had been surreal. As if she’d been watching from outside her