The Pregnancy Project

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.