Redeeming the Playboy Read online

  Everything was going better than expected.

  Nina had been a Carter for a few months now, but as of this week so too were Janey and Blake. A few days after they’d announced they were getting married, Janey had flared up at something, and shouted that Jack had no say, that he was only her sister’s boyfriend, or her brother-in-law.

  ‘We’ll see about that!’ Jack had snapped back, and so earlier in the week they’d all stood in front of a judge who had smiled as broadly as all of them for the photo to capture the moment Jack officially became a father.

  And now Nina had to somehow tell him that he was about to become a father again.

  She didn’t know how she felt about it, had wanted to wait a while, but that option was closed to them now.

  ‘So,’ Jack said, ‘are we packed?’

  ‘I am.’ Nina smiled.

  She followed him into their bedroom and he laughed when he opened the case because it contained two bikinis, a sarong and not much else. Jack threw in a couple of things too.

  They would have their own very private pool and had no intention to leave its side.

  ‘It’s going to be nice to have some time on our own,’ Nina said, but Jack didn’t really comment. He loved the busy household they had made, loved doing sport with Blake and just having a childhood thirty years late. He knew she was fishing, knew Nina was waiting for him to admit it was too much at times.

  He never did.

  Still, there were some advantages to having the house to themselves, because he had her try on her new bikini and then had the pleasure of taking it off, and all without having to think and close the door, and afterwards, as his hands traced her body, he noticed the tiny changes, the slight fullness to her breasts, and he wondered when she was going to tell him.

  ‘We’d better get ready.’ He caught her as she went to get off the bed, and pulled her back to him.

  ‘When are you going to tell me?’

  He watched the colour spread first on her cheeks and then down to her chest, watched her rapid, confused blink. ‘What?’

  ‘That I’m going to be a father of three?’ Jack smiled. ‘How long have you been holding out on me?’

  ‘Jack!’ she wailed in frustration. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. ‘I was going to tell you on holiday …’ She shook her head in exasperation. ‘I only found out this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ve known for a week.’ Jack grinned. ‘I thought you just weren’t telling me. I knew at the courtroom….

  ‘How?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘I really can’t.’ Jack grinned. ‘Because you’ll accuse me of being a chauvinist.’

  ‘You are a chauvinist!’ Nina reminded him. ‘But I’m working on it.’ She didn’t understand. ‘How did you know before I did?’

  ‘You forget sometimes that you’re married to a brilliant diagnostician,’ Jack said. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you. Remember our case was pushed back, remember how that woman in the coffee shop pushed in line …?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was sulking before he said it.

  ‘And it was a tense day and I knew that your period was due, but you were lovely …’

  ‘Don’t!’ Nina dug him the ribs with her elbows. ‘Don’t you dare …’

  ‘I’m not,’ Jack said. ‘I’m just saying …’

  And he was arrogant and rude and chauvinistic at times, but he was also the best thing to have happened in her life and she wouldn’t change a single piece of him.

  ‘Are you okay with it?’

  ‘Delighted,’ Jack said. ‘Who’d have thought that night when we rowed that in a few months I’d be married, a father of two, with one on the way, and we haven’t even been on our honeymoon yet?’

  ‘Me,’ Nina broke in, and for the first time she told him the truth, a truth she’d kept hidden from herself.

  That it hadn’t been just a crush that she’d had, and she hadn’t just fancied him either, that the whole problem she’d had was …

  ‘I loved you from the start.’

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  First published in Great Britain 2013

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.

  Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,

  Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Harlequin Books S.A. 2013

  Special thanks and acknowledgement are given to Carol Marinelli for her contribution to the NYC Angels series

  eISBN: 978-1-472-00293-8

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Copyright