Not A Mistake: Hot Under Her Collar, #1

By Amber Belldene

Sometimes a scandal isn't a sin...

On the night she graduates from seminary, Jordan Sykes finds herself in bed with Dominic Lawrence, the ethics professor she's crushed on for years. Two months later, she discovers she's pregnant and is determined to hide it to protect his career. Maybe, if she loves her new church like hell, they won't fire her for being a single mother.

Dominic knows the difference between right and wrong, and he's filled with remorse after sleeping with his favorite student. He's offered the job of his dreams, but he'd be a hypocrite to accept without making things right with Jordan first.

Dominic proposes marriage to save their careers, never expecting they will prove a perfect—and passionate—match. But can Jordan give her heart to a man who still believes the first night they spent together was a mistake?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amber Belldene
• Release date: Mar 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997221114

Amber Belldene

Amber Belldene is always reading racy books at the most inappropriate times and has been observed ogling her Kindle in the church parking lot. Even as a kid, she hid novels inside the service bulletin to read during sermons, an irony that is not lost on her when she preaches these days. Amber is a romance writer and Episcopal priest who believes sexuality is vital to spirituality, love is beautifully messy, and stories are the best way to explore human truths. Evidence of these convictions can be found in Amber's steamy paranormals and quirky, hot contemporaries. She lives with her husband and two children in San Francisco. For news of Amber’s latest releases, deleted scenes, and fun free reads, sign up for her newsletter! Amber loves to hear from readers on Twitter and Facebook.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Ten minutes late and with a bladder about to explode, Jordan Sykes adjusted her unseasonably warm scarf to hide her clerical collar. Hopefully it would give her a measure of anonymity. She sprinted into the drugstore in search of a small, pink box. Diapers. Shampoo. Candy. Greeting cards. There seemed to be no logic to the ordering of the aisles and she hurried down the same one three times, scanning the shelves as her sense of urgency rose.

And then there, against the back wall, she found it—fluorescent lights shining down on the package, marking the fuchsia cardboard with a glare of divine illumination. Thank God. She tucked the box under her elbow so its label would be invisible. Her errand was no one’s business. At the register, she grabbed a bottle of OJ from the cooler. It would have to do for breakfast.

Back in her car, the clock on her dash ticked forward another minute and her heart answered with a speedy thud. She raced five blocks, guzzling the juice. She parked, shoved her purchase into the pocket of her coat and slid in through the back door.

Inside, a relieved face smiled to see her. Oh good. We were beginning to worry, Marge said.

No need. Jordan plastered on a smile of her own. I was just tinkering with my concluding paragraph and lost track of time. Excuse me. Jordan fled the woman’s friendly, watchful gaze by ducking into the bathroom. Behind the closed door, she tore open the box, uncapped the stick and finally, blessedly, peed right onto its tip.

The release brought a rush of euphoria, a false calm. But when she stood and set the pregnancy test down on the gold-flecked Formica vanity to zip up her slacks, her hands shook. She never took her gaze off the tiny window where the answer would appear.

Surely, any second now, the minus sign would turn blue and she could breathe again.

She washed her hands, craning her neck to keep the white plastic stick in her line of sight.

From inside the church the organ sounded the first bars of the prelude. Her stomach lurched. Holy crap. In thirty seconds she was supposed to say the opening prayer.

This was quite possibly the worst time to take a pregnancy test. If she’d had her act together she would have waited until tomorrow, like the calm, cool, collected woman she wanted her congregation to see her as. But there was no way she could wait for this.

She’d read online the pregnancy tests required the first morning pee and so she’d held it since last night when she’d woken up at three a.m. with the bright idea of revising the final paragraph of her sermon. Sitting at her desk in the house behind the church, her boobs had started to ache like they sometimes did before her period. Was it that time of the month? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had her cycle. A quick scroll through her calendar had confirmed her suspicion—she hadn’t had one in two months.

Stress. It had to be the stress of her ordination, and her new job, and leaving all her girlfriends from seminary behind. Because otherwise it was...

Please, God, not that. And especially not his. But if it was that, it could only be his.

She’d lain awake repeating the prayer like a mantra. She’d searched the Internet for the symptoms of pregnancy. She’d read how big an eight-week old embryo was—the size of a kidney bean. Finally she’d dozed in the early morning, only to sleep through her alarm clock.

And now, here she was, staring at a pregnancy test in the sacristy bathroom on her second Sunday serving as rector of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church.

The organ blasted out another, louder round of the same prelude. Her absence had clearly been missed, and still no blue line or dreaded plus sign.

She washed her hands again. Her brown eyes stared back at her in the mirror, deceptively composed.

A one-night stand.

A fantasy come true.

An irresistible chance to be with him just once.

And she’d had that birth control shot before spring break with the hope that maybe things would go somewhere with her cute hiking buddy Jason on their week-long backpacking trip. But, of course, they hadn’t, because no one interested her, no one sparked her excitement but the him in question—The Reverend Doctor Dominic Lawrence, Professor of Christian Ethics and her academic advisor in seminary.

She couldn’t be pregnant. She’d had the shot in mid-March and it lasted at least three months. Missing her period, all these hormonal symptoms—they were just side effects of the contraceptive hormones wearing off and her body resetting itself to ovulate again.

Tears formed in her eyes, and she dabbed at them with toilet paper. She wouldn’t cry right now. Couldn’t show her congregation the signs she was upset.

She’d been thoroughly protected from pregnancy on her graduation night. Her classmates had gathered at the bar closest to the seminary and, reluctantly, Professor Lawrence had agreed to accompany her there. After only a little while, he’d settled in, teasing and joking, his lean runner’s body more relaxed than she’d ever seen it inside his fancy suit. And she’d caught him watching her several times, his gaze like a teasing caress on the hopeless attraction she’d nursed for him.

Then they’d found themselves alone, the last of the seminary crowd in the bar, and he’d leaned close, spoken a warm whisper in her ear, Come home with me. She’d been unable to resist. She hadn’t even wanted to try.

Not that she normally did one-night stands, and she’d have sworn on a big King James Bible he didn’t either. But they had.

In the long plastic case of the pregnancy test, a blue shape appeared. A tiny little cross, unmistakably positive.

Pregnant.

Her heart came to a full stop in time with a pause in the organ music. Then the prelude started up again, snapping her into reality.

She was a priest, an unmarried one. And the people out there were certainly not expecting their brand new rector to be pregnant.

Crap. She needed to talk to Alma, or Clara. She grabbed her phone and began scrolling through the numbers. But they would both be at their churches, beginning their Sunday services. On time. And she’d never told them what she’d done with their ethics professor. They’d been trying to talk her out of her infatuation for three years, held up their palms or rolled their eyes when she argued he was more than just a pompous, self-righteous jerk—though sometimes he certainly was those things.

And she was pregnant with his baby. Would it look like him? Gray-eyed and perfectly gorgeous?

She took a moment she couldn’t spare to study her reflection. A little green around the edges, but there she was—the same old Jordan Sykes. Not a new person, not suddenly equipped with pregnancy hormones that made her smarter and wiser and qualified to be somebody’s mom. What the hell was she going to do?

Well. First things first. She was going to march into the church, preach a pretty good sermon, go home, and take a nap. When she woke up she would put one foot ahead of the other and figure out what to do next, which would very likely involve getting a milkshake. She’d become a vegan after Alma had made her watch that horrifying documentary about dairy farms. But lately she’d jonesed for a chocolate malt like it was oxygen itself. The little blue plus sign finally made sense of the craving, and she might just give in to it.

There was just one last thing Jordan had to do before she went out to start the service. She folded over the toilet and vomited up the orange juice she’d guzzled. Then she rinsed her mouth and shoved all her mixed up emotions into a cozy little mental box labeled Deal With After Church.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. Quickly, she buried the pregnancy test under crumpled paper towels in the wastebasket.

Everything all right? Pete Crouch, the gruff firefighter who was scheduled to bear a chalice at the altar that morning, spoke through the door.

Great, she called back. Jordan had been warned he hadn’t wanted to hire a female priest. She would have vastly preferred to face Marge or one of the other matronly altar guild ladies. But she opened the door. What other choice did she have?

We’re all waiting. His gazed searched the bathroom behind her.

Sorry for the delay. She flashed the screen of her phone too fast for him to see. Pastoral phone call. Liz Riker is sick and she’d like me to take her communion this afternoon.

That was all true, but Liz had actually called the day before.

God, please forgive me this little white lie.

If Jordan were already two months pregnant, she wouldn’t be able to hide the truth for long. But surely she could allow herself to keep some secrets while she figured things out for herself.

Lies, Dominic—er, Professor Lawrence would have said.

Privacy, she would have replied.

You and your fuzzy ethics. He’d always shaken his head with good-natured disapproval over her philosophy of trusting in grace, rather than fretting too much about breaking rules or punishing mistakes. He’d probably never uttered a white lie in his life. That’s why he was the ethics professor, and she was a parish priest, who got to preach love and proclaim forgiveness.

With her hand on the doorknob, she froze. What would he say when she told him? She pictured his face, tried to imagine it forming an expression.

A pain sharper than nausea stabbed into her side. He would hate this proof of his moral failure, might even fall on his sword and quit the job he seemed to live for, trying to make amends for breaking his own rules.

The piercing sensation twisted deeper, up under her ribs. She couldn’t let him give up everything for one little night of indulgence. No one at the seminary, including him, could ever learn she was pregnant with his baby.

She climbed into her white robe, kissed the neck of her stole, and flung it over her shoulders like a yoke. Then she followed Pete out the side door and onto the brick patio where the acolytes and readers waited. She summoned up the smile that always made her brother happy, which had surely gotten her this job, and which reflected everything she wanted to believe about the world. Ready?

The pimply fourteen-year-old carrying the cross returned her grin. Whenever you are.

Please God, let me rock this.

She followed them inside, the last in the little Sunday parade. The organ music stopped, and everyone stood.

Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, she said.

And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever, her little congregation replied enthusiastically.

Her heart lifted into her throat. She loved them, and they had made her feel so welcome these last two weeks.

Instinctively, she placed a hand on her belly where the kidney bean grew. Her throat tightened with the realization she already adored it more than she would have thought possible.

CHAPTER TWO

Dominic pulled up along the curb of St. Mary the Virgin Church on Monday morning, just as the sun broke through the July fog.

The little parish had a beachy white stucco exterior and the big red door typical of Episcopal churches. At least the buildings and lawn looked tidy. When his talented advisee Jordan Sykes had been offered the position of rector of this insignificant little place, he’d tried to talk her out of it. She had all the potential for a shining career and should have joined the staff of a large and important urban parish. Still, being called as a rector right out of the gate was an accomplishment. He was proud of her. More than he had any right to be.

He lifted his travel mug to his lips and tilted his head back, hoping another sip of caffeine would help him rally for the task ahead—facing her after a night that never should have happened and two long months of not calling to apologize. He’d succumbed to the kind of lustful temptation he’d spent his whole career judging others for.

A cold trickle of coffee drizzled onto his tongue, gritty with grounds that had evaded the filter.

Damn.

How did a man make amends for such a transgression? Shame had thwarted his every attempt, the sick taste of bile crawling up his throat each time he’d picked up the phone to call her. Until he’d given up trying and made a kind of peace with his cowardly neglect of The Mistake.

Until now.

He didn’t want to be here, but Bishop Arnold had called him down to Santa Cruz on a case. Dominic’s avoidance of Jordan was somewhat more excusable when she was two plus hours away. If she heard he’d been practically next door and hadn’t stopped by, well—even he wasn’t that much of a chicken shit. He hadn’t thought himself one at all until he’d woken up the morning after her graduation to an especially disheveled bed and a barrage of memories hot enough to drench him in lusty, guilty sweat.

Since that night, he’d lived with the knowledge that he was as reprehensible as the men he investigated. His body had succumbed to the temptation of a beautiful woman, his ego to the illusion of being wanted. Two modes of weakness he despised.

Apologizing to Jordan wouldn’t change that, but it might begin his own process of setting his mistake to rest. It would be a long journey, if his conscience had anything to say about it.

On the corner of her church’s lot, a hand-painted sign listed the service times. Her name had already been added—a nice welcome, and one she deserved. And she was definitely inside because the silver sedan with her signature bumper stickers—Visualize Whirled Peas and the local favorite Mystery Spot—was parked right in front of him.

Time to face the music. Hopefully he could say his sorries quickly and leave before things got awkward, with plenty of time to make it to his ten-thirty appointment in Monterey.

The door to the administrative wing was locked. A sign listed office hours beginning at ten a.m. It was only nine thirty.

He rang the doorbell. No one answered.

Could Jordan have seen him pull up and decided to ignore him? Or maybe the bell was broken. He pounded the red door with his fists. Still no answer. No way could he leave without seeing her. This was too important, and now that he was here he could hardly stand to draw out his avoidance even longer. He knocked louder, so hard his knuckles hurt. He glanced at his watch. Nine thirty-three a.m. He covered its face by wrapping the fingers of his opposite hand around the band and twisting it back and forth a few times, until his skin grew warm underneath.

He waited, and waited some more.

His hands clenched around the keys in his pocket. He hated to be late and it would take a full thirty minutes to get to his next appointment.

But he had to remain. Jordan’s car was here, and if he gave up now he would find a million excuses to never try again.

The minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Wind rustled through the trees. Cars rumbled past. He checked the stats from his morning run on his phone app. To his surprise, he discovered a second hand on his watch he’d never noticed.

At nine thirty-nine and forty-seven seconds, he threw in the towel and turned back to his car.

Something slammed into his shoulder, spreading dull pain along the ridge of his bone—the door. He spun.

Oh, sorry! She stood on the threshold, squinting into the bright sun behind him. When she saw it was him, her face screwed up. What are you doing here?

From the pallor of her cheeks, seeing him must have been quite a shock. She spread her arms and braced both her hands against the doorway, her body stiff and teetering at the same time. His arm was lifting of its own accord to stroke her shoulder and soothe her, but he caught it and flattened his palm against his thigh instead. Letting his body make the decisions had landed him in this mess in the first place. He had no right even to want to touch her.

He’d never seen her wear her clericals. The crisp black shirt and white collar put a polish on her easy-going seminary airs.

Hello, Jordan, I... All the lines he’d rehearsed flew out of his mind like bats from their roost. He cleared his throat. I’m just passing through town, and thought I should drop by, see how you’re settling in.

She frowned like she didn’t believe him. Of course she didn’t. He wouldn’t believe him either, even though it was more or less true.

He searched her features, giving himself a chance to remember the carefully thought-out apology.

Black wasn’t a great color on her. It turned her heart-shaped face sallow. Or maybe it was something else. She really didn’t look so good. Dark circles shadowed her normally lively eyes, and her wide mouth pressed thin.

Again his arms grew restless to embrace her, as if that night had meant something. He clasped them behind his back and straightened his spine as a stand-in for actual resolve. This was the problem with casual sex. An oxymoron if any a phrase ever was. Nothing about penetrating another person’s body with your own was casual. The very act generated emotions, cemented bonds without foundations, wove illusions made of pure hormones. Some basic mammalian programming to take care of her had kicked in, in case she was pregnant with his offspring. Which she wasn’t, because she’d had a contraceptive shot, but try to reason with testosterone and oxytocin—it didn’t work.

Apologize, and be on his way. That was the plan.

She crossed her arms over her breasts. They’d been heavy, luscious. He licked his teeth and tried not to think of her velvety, brown nipples. God, he was a leering creep all of a sudden. While she’d been his student, he’d worked hard not to notice her appeal. But now—give in to one temptation, and they all became more intense. He was halfway down the infamous slippery slope already.

Too bad you didn’t call and warn me. Her tone had an edge of ice he’d never heard from her. She turned her back to lock the door behind her. I’d have told you I’m busy.

He hadn’t bargained on that. I can wait. He couldn’t, but he would, if that’s what she needed.

I’m booked up all morning.

Okay. This after—?

I have appointments all day, actually.

She was blowing him off. Damn. He took a step closer. But we need to talk.

No, we really don’t. She retreated, leaning against the closed door, and shielded her eyes from the sun. Listen. It was... She shrugged. It was no big deal. We don’t have to rehash it. You can trust me not to tell anyone.

Something loosened in his chest, allowing his lungs the fullest breath he’d had in hours. Yet the promise had a shadow, an accusing thorn hidden beneath its petals. I didn’t come to ask you to keep secrets.

She paled and shrank back further into the door.

I feel terrible, he persisted. I took advantage—

Look. She closed her eyes, her pointy little chin jutting and the soft skin of her neck rippling with a forceful swallow—almost a gulp, really. Try not to wallow in guilt, okay? I’m an adult, perfectly capable of consent.

It was a ridiculous claim. You were my student.

Not technically. I’d graduated.

Mere hours earlier.

Jordan, you know how I feel about technicalities.

It was an innocent reference to ethics lectures about the spirit versus the letter of the law, but after what had happened, just using her name felt...intimate. To her too, apparently, because her gaze hooked into his, raw and vulnerable inside the armor she was putting up against him.

Just try to look at it the other way. I’m a grown woman. You had no formal power over me. We just—

Don’t. Whatever she was going to say, however she was going to end that sentence, he couldn’t stand to face it. She’d admired him as a teacher, respected him as her advisor, and then he’d gone and done exactly what he’d taught her not to do, which made him a hypocrite. Please accept my apology. I am truly, deeply sorry.

If I accept your apology, I’m letting you take responsibility for something we did together. And, honestly, I should have known it would eat you up like this. If anything, I’m the one who needs to say I’m sorry.

Damn it. Her line of reasoning made no sense. She’d been his student. That’s the contorted logic of a victim taking the blame upon herself.

Narrowing lids hid the warm brown of her eyes. I am not your victim. And now, I really have to go.

Without thinking, he moved to block her escape. Jordan—

Please, Professor Lawrence.

His title put a world of distance between them. An appropriate boundary, one the situation called for, and yet it stole something from him, the forbidden pleasure of the intimacy they’d shared, leaving only cold isolation in its absence.

Please. Her tone had turned desperate, the entreaty paralyzing him with its echo of his own inner plea. He needed this, needed her to let him take the blame and then absolve him.

Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh, God. Get out of my way!

Right. He wasn’t the sort of man who used his size to contain a woman. He retreated half a step. But he was too late, the gray-green color of her complexion finally registered as she doubled over and vomited all over his wingtips.

You’re sick. He took firm hold of her upper arms, though he wanted to stroke her back as she shuddered with the aftershocks of heaving. The acrid scent of bile filled his nose. He trembled too. She was sick—young, beautiful, vibrant Jordan was sick. A primal fear seized him. This was wrong. Something was wrong. He barely resisted squeezing her biceps too hard.

Finally, she stilled and quieted. He drew in a breath of fresh air, and with it, a grip on his irrational panic.

He helped her stand up then braced her shoulders, raking his gaze over her