A Pregnancy Scandal

It was almost as if she’d known he couldn’t stop thinking about their night together.

He stood as the door opened and Alex spilled into the room. Her face glowed and something seized his lungs as he stared at her. She’d stolen his ability to think simply by walking into the room. That was not supposed to happen.

Her eyes shone with unexpected moisture and he lost his place again. This wasn’t a social visit, obviously. “Is something wrong?”

“Maybe.” She hesitated, biting her lip in that way that said she didn’t know what to say next.

If only he could take her in his arms and kiss her hello, like he wanted to. He sighed. “I like you a lot, Alex, but I’m not sure we’re meant to continue our affair. It’s complicated. And not your fault. I wish things could be different. And not so complicated.”

She choked out a laugh that sounded a bit like a sob. “Yeah, I wish that, too. Unfortunately, things are far more complicated than you could ever dream.”

“What—”

“I’m pregnant.”

* * *

A Pregnancy Scandal is part of the Love and Lipstick series: For four female executives, mixing business with pleasure leads to love!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAT CANTRELL read her first Mills & Boon novel in primary school and has been scribbling in notebooks since then. She writes smart, sexy books with a side of sass. She’s a former Mills & Boon 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.

To Anne Marsh for about a million reasons but mostly because you’re always there on the other side of my chat window.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

The third time Alex ducked behind the Greek statue, Senator Phillip Edgewood’s curiosity got the best of him. Yeah, he’d been watching her from across the crowded room as she chatted with her friends and coworkers. How could he not?

Alexandra Meer was the most beautiful woman in the room.

Surprisingly so. Phillip had half expected her to show up to his fundraiser-slash-party in jeans, which he would not have minded in the slightest because he liked her no matter what she wore. But this dressed-up, made-up, transformed version of the woman he’d first met a couple of weeks ago at the Fyra Cosmetics corporate office—wow.

Senator Galindo cleared her throat, drawing Phillip’s attention back to their conversation. Ramona Galindo, the other United States senator from Texas, and Phillip had a lot in common and they often socialized when they were both home in Dallas. But it was hard to focus on the senator with Alex’s secretive actions going on. He pretended to listen, because the whole point of this evening was to network with his colleagues outside of Washington, while he also strained to catch a glimpse of Alex.

Was she covertly dumping canapés before anyone figured out she wasn’t eating them? Or was she hoping to meet someone interesting in the shadowy recesses?

If it was the former, Phillip felt it was his civic duty to inform her that, while this was his party, he hated the canapés, too. If it was the latter, well, it might also be his civic duty to grant her wish.

Honestly, Phillip needed the distraction. Today was Gina’s birthday. Or rather, it would have been. If his wife had lived, she would have been thirty-two. You’d think nearly two years of practice being a widower would afford a guy a better handle on the designation. But here he was, still stumbling through it.

And that decided it. He could spend the rest of the evening morose and moody. Or he could fan the sparks that always kicked up whenever he was around Alex. When Phillip had agreed to help Fyra Cosmetics navigate the FDA approval process for a new product, he’d never expected to meet someone so intriguing, especially not when that someone was the company’s chief financial officer.

He and Alex had been developing a “thing” over late lunches and one-on-one meetings. She laughed at his jokes and made him feel like a man instead of a politician. And she’d come to this party stag when he’d been almost positive she’d decline. How much more of a hint did he need that their relationship might become more than two people working together?

“Excuse me,” he murmured to Senator Galindo as he skirted her expertly, tugging on the white shirtsleeves under his tuxedo as he beelined across his cavernous living room to catch the most interesting woman at his party in the act of...whatever she was doing.

He crossed his arms and stepped behind the statue, boxing her in. The scent of Alex overwhelmed him first...light, fruity...and then the woman did. He let both wake up his blood. Which didn’t take long.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said blithely. “I hope I’m not the bore at this party that you’re avoiding.”

Alex’s eyes widened and then warmed dangerously fast. Her eyes were the most fascinating shade of green with a little brown dot in the left iris that he couldn’t help but notice. She was easily the most distinctive woman he’d ever met, and that was saying something when he regularly mixed with the elite of both Dallas and Washington.