CY DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO COPE. Even though he’d hoped there might be another child, the reality of it was overwhelming. Smith was silently warning him not to push Meredith. She was obviously out of control emotionally, and what he’d said to her the night she came back had made it all worse.

They’d been so close during his recovery. Then he’d let his own doubts and insecurities warp his feelings for her. He’d pushed her out of his house and almost out of his life, because it had never occurred to him that he could lose that proxy fight. Even though his board of directors would side with Meredith and refuse the Tennison takeover bid, Meredith still held all the aces. She had controlling interest in his company, despite his plotting and scheming. She owned him. His pride had taken a hard blow with that knowledge, and it had gone straight to his head. He hadn’t been thinking at all when he’d ordered her out of the house. He certainly hadn’t dreamed that she was pregnant. He’d hurt her so much that he could hardly expect her to give in easily. Pregnant, and he’d turned her out. Again. He hadn’t given her a chance. Again. Would he never learn from his own mistakes?

“God, I’m a first-class heel,” he said aloud. He let out a long sigh, watching the shock widen Meredith’s red eyes. “Oh, you heard me all right,” he said bitterly. “I never learn, do I? If anything goes wrong, it’s always your fault, not mine. I lost the proxies to you, and my pride couldn’t stand that, so I threw up everything we’d been building on and sent you packing. Even that wasn’t enough. I told you the company meant more to me than you and Blake, and I threatened to take you to court to get custody of him. Oh, I’m a prince, Meredith.” He laughed without humor, his hands rammed angrily in his pockets. “If I were you, I’d have Smith throw me through the damned window.”

Meredith didn’t know how to handle such a head-on assault. She was expecting accusations, anger, even outrage. She certainly hadn’t anticipated humor. She wiped her eye again and stared at him, birdlike, without speaking.

“Better wait until you’re properly healed,” Mr. Smith suggested. “We wouldn’t want to undo Dr. Danbury’s hard work. Besides, we’d have to replace the window.” He eyed the tall man. “You’d make a hell of a hole in it.”

“Good point,” Cy agreed. “You can have a rain check.”

Blake had long since disappeared out the back door to play with his puppy, shaking his young head over the strange argument the adults were having.

Mr. Smith glanced toward the back door with a rueful smile. “I’d better go out and make sure young Blake isn’t making a snowman out of his puppy. He needs a thicker coat on, too.”

“You can’t leave me here with him,” Meredith wailed, nodding toward a grim Cy.

“Now, Kip,” Mr. Smith said gently, rising to deposit her on the couch. “You can’t run away forever.”

“You and Henry always built walls to make sure of that,” she grumbled.

“We knew you.” He turned and looked at Cy. “She’s already packing to leave here. If you want to do anything about it, you’d better make haste.”

“Traitor!” Meredith accused Mr. Smith.

He just tugged a lock of her disheveled hair and grinned at her on his way out.

The back door slammed, and they were alone. Meredith felt vulnerable with Cy, nervous and unusually shy. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes, and he didn’t say a word.

He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it absently, fingering the lighter she’d given him so long ago and smiling at it. “You know, I’ve carried this thing around with me ever since you left Billings,” he said. “You gave it to me, do you remember?”

She nodded, dabbing at her eyes. “I didn’t have much money, but it was the best one I could afford. Silver-plated,” she murmured. “I thought you’d probably give it to one of your men or throw it away after I left. It was a shock to see you still using it when I came back.”

He didn’t smile. His eyes searched her wan face. “It was all I had of you,” he said huskily. “Every time I touched it, it was like touching you, triggering the memories all over again.”

“I thought that was the last thing you’d want.”

“Did you?” He eased closer and sat down on the armchair across from the sofa, leaning forward so that he could see her better over the coffee table that separated them. “I said a lot of stupid things last week. I came this morning to apologize for them. I should have come sooner, but my pride has been pretty well dismembered, and I wasn’t even sure I could get in the door here after the way I treated you. All the same, I’d like for you and Smith and Blake to come back home.”

Her lower lip trembled. “That isn’t home.”

“Yes, it is, little one,” he said in a tone so tender that tears spilled from her heavy eyelids again. “Home isn’t a place. It’s the people who live in it.” He shifted on the chair and smiled ruefully. “I miss the green lizard. Place is empty without him. No claw marks on the curtains, no scales on the carpet, no fresh vegetables put out in the kitchen for him. My heart is breaking.”

“Mr. Smith might loan Tiny to you,” she said, not giving an inch. “Or you could buy an iguana of your own.”

“I might have a relapse if you aren’t around,” he went on, watching her warily as her attention perked up. “I overdo.”

“Your mother was worried about that,” she said involuntarily.

“She’s right. I’ve been pushing too hard.” He pursed his firm lips and smiled, his dark eyes sliding over her possessively. “If you’d come home, I could slow down again. Blake could read me bedtime stories. Smith and I could fight over you.”

“Mr. Smith is my friend,” she said in a hostile tone. “He’s a better one than you’ve ever been, too.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he agreed without protest. “He looks after you with the ferocity of a rooster. Nothing will ever happen to you or Blake with Mr. Smith around. I’ve changed my mind about him. He’ll have to stay with us. He can head up my internal security for the company in his spare time. Give him a challenge, shaping those boys up.”

“Mr. Smith goes with me,” she said, “and I’m going back to Chicago.”

“You’ll be alone,” he replied, his dark eyes quiet and searching. “So will I. Even Blake and Smith won’t make up for that.”

“I’ve been alone a long time, Cy,” she said in a weary tone. She leaned back against the sofa and slumped, her eyes still meeting his. “I’m used to it now. The corporation is all I need.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“You did when you threw me out,” she accused.

He took a long draw from the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I was an idiot,” he said carelessly. “Men get that way when they feel threatened, didn’t you know?”

“If I hadn’t laid claim to those proxies, Don would have taken you over without a qualm,” she said suddenly. “He’d have fired your board of directors and put his own people in. You’d have been out on the street. He’s Henry’s brother. Henry taught him how to cut throats, and he’s good at it. I don’t have the killer instinct, but Don does.”

His eyebrows arched. “I thought you were getting control of my company to show Don he couldn’t have yours.”

“I was saving your precious business for your son,” she said flatly. “I assume you do intend to retire one day.”

He sat watching her, almost without breathing. So that was it. She’d been protecting his interests. And he’d thought…He groaned inwardly at his own misassumptions.

God, she was lovely. Long, tangled blond hair, soft gray eyes, radiant complexion. Meredith…He sighed and his lips curved as he looked at her. It was like feeding his heart just to do that.

“Somebody had to save you from Don,” she was saying.

“What?” he asked when she stopped speaking.

“Cy, are you listening to me?”

He nodded absently. “Your face has more color than it did last week. You look a little better.” He scowled. “But you’re still much too pale. Are you eating?”

She nodded. “In between cursing you.”

He smiled, the forgotten cigarette firing up curls of smoke. “If you’ll come home with me, I’ll make love to you again,” he said in a deep, coaxing tone. “We won’t have to stop at one time, either, now that my back’s mostly healed.”

She glared at him. “A few hours of pleasure in between the most important thing in your life?” she asked with biting sarcasm.

“Ouch!” he murmured.

“That’s all I’ve ever meant to you,” she said icily. “Somebody to roll in the hay.”

“We never did it in the hay,” he mused. “There’s a possibility.”

“I’m not sleeping with you!” she raged.

He shrugged. “You’ll get cold. The house is pretty drafty in winter, even with central heating.”

“I’m not living with you, either,” she informed him.

“Remember the night before you went back to Chicago?” he asked in a tone that made her toes curl.

She flushed and sat up straight. “You stop that.”

“I can’t forget,” he murmured. “It was the most erotic thing we’ve ever done together, so slow and soft. Even the rhythm was bluesy.”

“I won’t sit here and listen to you,” she said angrily.

“Sit on my lap and listen to me, then,” he invited. His face hardened. “You sat on Smith’s.”

“I was upset,” she muttered. “He made me an appointment with Dr. Bryner that I didn’t want.”

“Good for him. You don’t look well.”

“Thanks so much,” she said viciously. “I love you, too.”

“You do, don’t you?” he said, his eyes steady and soft. “You told me so time and time again, and I don’t suppose I listened well enough or I wouldn’t have hurt you the way I did. I’m not sure of you,” he added with a crooked smile. “It plays hell with my temper.”

She blinked. “Sure of me?” she asked hesitantly.

He put out the cigarette with a long sigh. It was tell the truth time, he thought bleakly. “Meredith, you’re worth millions,” he said, staring at her. “You’ve been head of a corporate structure that makes mine look like Tinkertoys by comparison. You’re used to making decisions, giving orders, taking command.” He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. “I could have offered you marriage when you were a waitress in my restaurant and it would have felt comfortable. But to offer it to Henry Tennison’s widow is a different proposition. What can I give you that you don’t already have?” he asked with a faint smile. “How can I ask you to give up an empire to come out to Montana and just be my wife and Blake’s mother?”

She felt, and looked, shocked. “But you did offer me marriage,” she reminded him.

“Even when I said it, I knew I was dreaming.” His jaw tautened as he looked at her. “I want you like hell. That’s no lie. When I see you with Blake, I get goose bumps, thinking what it would be like to have you in my house all the time, to watch Blake grow up with you at my side. But it’s just a daydream. It isn’t even realistic. As you said when you went back to fight it out with Don, you’ve got obligations and responsibilities that you can’t shirk. You’re used to being a corporate executive. After that, sitting at home with a child wouldn’t begin to satisfy you.” He stared down at his hands, oblivious of her blank stare. He didn’t want to say these things, but they were being dragged out of him. It was always what he wanted that took precedence, it was his comfort he thought about. For the first time he was looking at things from her vantage point. That was when he knew he couldn’t force her back into his life. It was much too late for that. Now he had to give her freedom. If he did, she might come back to him one day.

“Cy?” she prompted, because he was so quiet. This wasn’t what she wanted. Didn’t he know?

“If you want to go back to Chicago, I won’t say anything. I’d like to see Blake occasionally. If you’ll let me have him for a weekend now and then, or maybe for a few days in the summer…”

Her heart felt as if he’d put a knife in it. He couldn’t have known how it hurt to see him so humble, totally without self-interest. Her throat felt thick and full of pins.

He stood up abruptly. His face giving away nothing, but the pain in his eyes was so intense that he couldn’t even disguise it. Her lips trembled with the depth of emotion she felt. He was going to do it. Actually going to walk out and let her go, because it was what he thought would make her happy. He wasn’t going to try to change her mind or ask her to stay with him, because he didn’t think he had anything to offer her.

“What are you saying?” she whispered.

“That I finally understand what you’ve been trying to tell me all along. That you’re not the teenaged girl I used to know.” He drew in a slow breath. “Until today, I didn’t realize how totally selfish I’ve been. But it’s not too late to correct that mistake. Take Blake and Smith and go back to Chicago, if that’s what will make you happy.” He managed a faint smile, his eyes loving her. “God knows you’d be better off without me, little one. I knew that six years ago, even if you didn’t.” He didn’t dare think about the child she was carrying or he’d go out of his mind. He had to put her needs first, for a change. Besides, she might not want the child. He was pretty sure she couldn’t still want him, after what he’d done to her. She’d made that clear. “Good-bye, little one,” he said softly, his eyes adoring her one last time. It was going to tear the heart out of him, but he had to give her time.

He turned toward the door, and a sob tore out of her throat as she saw the past repeating itself. Her priorities sorted themselves in a fraction of a second.

“No!” she almost screamed after him. “No! If I lose you again, I don’t want to live!” she choked.

He whirled on his heel, his face livid with emotion, his eyes blazing with it. “What did you say?”

She held out her arms, trembling, her tear-wet face telling him all her secrets as she threw her pride to the wind. “I said I love you,” she whispered. “I don’t care what you have to offer. I just want to live with you! Oh, please. Don’t go—” Her voice broke.

He reached her in two long strides, sinking to his knees in front of her, his hard arms folding around her as she clung to him. Her face pressed into his neck. She was trembling as he pressed her close to his chest.

She moved then, turning her head so that she could search for his mouth. She found it, moaning when his warm lips returned the hungry pressure and then became suddenly insistent, devouring.

He groaned and forced himself to lift his head. Her face was flushed, radiant, her eyes almost worshiping. He touched her cheek with fingers that were faintly unsteady before he eased up beside her on the sofa and turned her so that she was lying across his legs, her cheek against his broad, hard chest, feeling his pounding heart. He stroked her long hair.

“We’ll work it out somehow,” he said. “You can leave Blake with me when you have to go on business trips. Smith can travel with you, look after you…”

“You don’t understand.” She drew back a little, her fingers tracing his lean face. “I quit.”

“You quit what?”

“My job,” she said, and smiled through her tears at the expression on his face. “I told my board of directors that Don would do a much better job of it than I had, and I tendered my resignation.” She reached up and brushed her lips against his chin. “I told them I had a merger of another kind in mind.”

His body tensed. “You didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t give me a chance,” she reminded him. “You barreled in with your guns blazing the minute I got back from Chicago. I couldn’t make you listen.”

“I had a phone call—”

“From one of our directors,” she interrupted. “Yes, I know, but he left that meeting early.” She leaned forward and kissed him, loving his instant response. “I was going to tell you the night I came home, but you jumped the gun.”

“I can’t quite take it in,” he said. “You gave it all up, for me?” He couldn’t comprehend the enormity of it. He felt absolutely humble. “But the corporation was everything to you!”

She shook her head slowly, her gray eyes fearless and proud. “You are that,” she whispered. “You, and our son.”

His arms contracted hungrily and his face buried itself in her hair. He shuddered from the force of the emotions her confession kindled.

“And there’s…something else, Cy,” she added after a minute, her voice worried.

“Yes.” His hand slid down to her belly and pressed there with aching tenderness. “Oh, yes, there’s something else,” he breathed.

She trembled against him. “You know?”

“I know.” His mouth searched along her cheek until it found her soft lips. He parted them with slow mastery and kissed her almost reverently. He lifted his head, his dark eyes smiling into hers. “I won’t miss a second of it this time. I’ll watch you grow big and I’ll take care of you. Smith and I,” he added.

Her heart overflowed. She touched his lips with the tips of her fingers, tracing around them. “Oh, I love you so,” she said. “I didn’t know how I was going to stay alive if you let me go a second time.”

“I’d have come to my senses,” he said. “In fact, I already had. But my mother threatened me with one of Mrs. Dougherty’s iron skillets when I hesitated about coming over here. She was furious because I sent you away. Imagine that,” he murmured dryly.

She gave him an indulgent smile. “Your mother and I have grown close,” she reminded him. “Between us, we’ll take care of you, too.”

“I missed you.” He searched her eyes. “Every day, every night. The longer you stayed away, the worse it got, until I started finding reasons that didn’t exist.”

“Fighting it again,” she said knowingly. Her eyes grew wistful. “You don’t trust it, do you? You’re afraid to love, because it’s such a risk.”

“I’m afraid of losing you,” he said. “I thought you were too young to love when you were eighteen. Then I was afraid you were too full of bitterness and revenge when you came back to me. When I discovered who you really were, I was certain that you couldn’t settle for the only life I could offer you. I’ve fought you for years, Meredith,” he mused. “Because I knew if I ever gave in to it, there was every chance that I wouldn’t be able to keep you.”

“I thought it was because you hated the effect I had on you,” she recalled.

He shrugged. “That, too. You made me into a lusting boy, without a shred of control.” He searched her soft eyes. “But even then, the world began with you,” he told her. “You were every color of the rainbow. When you left, the light went out of my life.”

Her eyes were troubled as they searched his. “Do you care enough to stay with me?” she asked hesitantly. “Because it can’t just be for Blake or the new baby, or because you want me….”

He caught her hand and brought it roughly to his lips, his eyes closing as he kissed it. “You want words I’ve never given anyone,” he said gruffly. “Words I’ve never said in my life.”

“No.” Her voice was sad, resigned. “I…only want to know that you want a real commitment. I’ll settle for that. I don’t have any pride left.” She laughed. “I’ll settle for crumbs, Cy, if they’re all I can have.”

“No…” His eyes were glittering as they met hers, dark and full of secrets. “No, you don’t understand. I’ve never…said the words.”

Her heart stopped beating. She stopped breathing. Because if she’d been blind, she would have known everything he felt. It lay naked in his face, in his breathing, in the way he touched her, in the flush of his cheekbones, even in the scent that clung to his dark skin. Perhaps it had been there all along, and she’d been too confused to recognize it. He was telling her that he hadn’t spoken the words, not that he hadn’t felt them. And she knew suddenly, and without a single whisper, that he loved her. Not just loved. He looked at her, and she was the world and everything in it to him. He was telling her so as clearly as if he’d shouted it.

“Oh…my,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he replied quietly. “Oh, yes, you know, don’t you? You knew it before you left my arms, that last time we loved. Because it had never been like that. We shared something so precious that I choke up just trying to talk about it.” He shaped her face with a tender, loving hand. “We made the baby then, didn’t we?” he asked.

“Yes.” She shivered with the force of the emotion that washed over her. “How do you know, about the baby, when I’m not even sure myself?”

“I looked at your stomach and Smith winked,” he said, smiling. “I got cold all the way to my feet thinking about what would happen if I couldn’t talk you out of leaving me. Imagine that, Ms. Corporate Magnate. I can eat ten-penny nails, but the thought of living without you terrifies me.”

“I can identify with that,” she whispered. She curled her hand around his strong neck and pulled. “Kiss me,” she breathed.

“What if I can’t stop?” he asked.

“You can. You have to marry me very quickly,” she said, her eyes holding his. “So that our baby has a name. The right name.”

He brushed his mouth over hers. “I’ll marry you tomorrow if we can arrange it.”

“Blake is your son, too,” she said, searching his dark eyes. “We have to do something about his name….”

“We’ll talk about all that later,” he said. He gazed at her hungrily. “Do you know how beautiful you are? I look at you and my heart aches.”

She smiled, snuggling closer. “I feel the same way when I look at you.” Her arms encircled his neck and she sighed. “I’m so tired lately. I don’t sleep well.”

“You’ll sleep with me from now on. I’ll rock you in my arms until you drift away.”

“That sounds nice.”

He kissed her eyes closed. “I’d kill for you,” he whispered at her forehead. “I’d die for you. You are my life.”

Tears burst from her eyes and she clung to him, her heart so full that it hurt to breathe. “I thought you couldn’t say the words,” she managed on a watery laugh.

His nose nuzzled against her cheek. “The next time I make love to you,” he whispered. “I’ll say them.”

Her arms contracted. “You say it without words, when you love me, Cy,” she said, smiling against his skin. She moved slowly, sensuously, so that his body hardened at the contact. “You want me, don’t you?”

He chuckled. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?”

“Oh, I’m very observant,” she whispered, and her hand slid down and stroked him.

He jumped, his breath catching at the unexpected action, his face cording with shocked pleasure. “My…God, don’t do that!” he gasped, jerking her hand away.

“You prude,” she accused, sitting up on his lap.

“Prude…the devil!” he got out, trying to get his breath. “You still don’t know a lot about men, do you?”

“I know that when men get like you are, they’re very susceptible to suggestion,” she whispered wickedly. “Want to hear a suggestion?”

“There are two people in the backyard,” he said through his teeth. “One of them would snicker, and the other one would have one hell of a story for show-and-tell at kindergarten.”

That was true, she thought. “In that case, you’ll have to take me home with you, won’t you?” she asked.

“Will you go?”

She nodded. “All of us will. If you’re sure it’s what you want,” she added slowly.

He frowned. “You’re the one I’m worried about. Meredith, you’re giving up so much….”

“I haven’t given up my seat on Don’s board of directors,” she said, “or my inheritance, or my holdings. I still have them. But when the children are bigger, if you have something open at Harden Properties, I might be tempted back to work.”

“You’ll have to keep your hand in,” he advised. “So that you don’t get rusty.”

She laughed. “And those proxies?”

“If we get married,” he murmured, nibbling at her lower lip, “what’s yours is mine, Mrs. Harden. It’s all in the family.”

She opened her mouth to accommodate the slow, soft stroking of his lips. “So it is,” she whispered. She moved against him sinuously and he groaned, staying her with lean, rough hands on her hips. “Guess what you’ve got that I want?” she murmured dryly.

“Meredith!” he groaned.

“Being pregnant seems to affect my hormones,” she whispered, “because all I’ve thought about for days is being naked with you.”

“For God’s sake, stop!” he gasped.

“If we go and pack, we can be home in thirty minutes,” she breathed. “And tonight, I can come to you, or you can come to me, and we can make the softest, sweetest love to each other.”

“Yes…” His eyes met hers, blazing with need. “Oh, God, yes!”

“It will be like the first time,” she said huskily as she held his gaze. “Because there are no more secrets.”

His hand rested on her flat stomach, idly caressing as he kissed her with wonder. “I’ll make it all up to you, Meredith. I swear it.”

She kissed him back. “We both have some making up to do, my darling,” she whispered, smiling against his mouth. “I’m looking forward to it.”

He managed a husky laugh of his own before he gave in to the temptation of her mouth and arms. The heated interlude was barely begun, though, when Blake and Mr. Smith came bursting in through the back door. And then explanations took precedence. Not that Mr. Smith needed any. The radiance in those faces told him everything.

With an ear-to-ear smile, he and Blake went to pack.