Count Toussaint's Pregnant Mistress. Kate Hewitt

She hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d just wanted, wanted Luc, had wanted the night with him never to end.

      And now it had. It had ended hours ago, and she hadn’t even realized.

      With shaking hands, Abby dressed herself. Her Cinderella’s ballgown felt like rags now and left her just as bare. She shrugged on her coat and slipped her feet into the heels. A glance in the mirror showed her pale face, made strained and gaunt by the morning’s realizations. The evening gown spoke volumes about how she’d spent her night.

      Abby heard the lift doors open once more and knew the maid had returned. She took a deep breath and kept her head held high as she swept towards the foyer.

      ‘Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,’ the maid murmured. ‘The gentleman checked out late last night. I did not realize he had a visitor.’

      ‘I was just leaving,’ Abby said in a cold voice, for her pride was all she had right now. Without looking at the maid, unable to bear seeing her scorn or pity, she entered the lift. As the doors closed, she sagged against the bench, the howl of misery inside her threatening to claw right up her throat and spill out in an endless rush of tears.

      Somehow she managed to hold it together as she left the hotel. An almost comforting numbness stole over her as she walked alone through the opulent lobby, her head held high, looking neither left nor right. She heard the speculative murmurs in her wake, and knew she’d been recognized. She pushed the thought away, emerging into the street, the crisp morning air cooling her heated cheeks.

      She hailed a taxi, relief pouring through her when one pulled up smoothly to the kerb seconds later. She slipped inside, gave her address and closed her eyes.

      She’d almost fallen into a doze—sleep was the ultimate anaesthetic—when the door of the taxi was yanked open.

      ‘Where,’ Andrew Summers hissed through clenched teeth, ‘have you been?’

      Abby paid the driver and slipped out of the taxi. ‘I was out,’ she said, her voice flat and expressionless. ‘Please, Dad, let’s not make a scene here.’

      Andrew nodded jerkily, and Abby followed him up to their hotel suite.