The Sabbides Secret Baby. JACQUELINE BAIRD

and after flushing the toilet she turned to splash her face with water and wash her mouth out. Maybe she was not going to be cursed with morning sickness after all. Maybe if she learnt to lie still or move with more care the urge to be sick would be averted, she pondered, eyeing her reflection in the mirrored door of the floor-to-ceiling cabinet.

      Her full lips curved in a feminine smile. She did not look any different yet. She simply looked like a very well-loved woman, and the marks of passion on her breast and thighs were evidence of the fact—along with the diamond necklace that adorned her throat. She sighed happily. When she would ever wear it she had no idea, but it was a fantastic present, and the night had been incredible. Jed had proved in a dozen different ways how much he wanted her—including a couple she had never experienced before. But now she recognised that between lovers even the unimaginable was acceptable and exquisitely pleasurable.

      ‘Phoebe?’

      She heard him call her name.

      Now was as good a time as any to tell him she was pregnant, she decided—with her confidence sky-high. ‘Coming in a minute,’ she called back and, taking a towel from the cupboard, she wrapped it around her naked body before exiting the bathroom.

      ‘What took you so long?’ he drawled, the eyes that met hers gleaming with humour and undisguised desire.

      Her gaze swept over his lean muscled body splayed across the bed, over the sleek golden skin with its subtle pattern of black hair in strategic places, and noted he was still mightily aroused. He lifted a long fingered hand and beckoned her to join him, and her heart turned over.

      ‘I’m waiting for my morning sex,’ he said with an anticipatory grin.

      A sensual shiver slid down her spine. He wanted her. Jed loved her—she could see it in his eyes.

      Taking a step towards him, she grinned back. ‘And I am pregnant, and thought I was going to be sick.’ She saw the anticipation fade from his eyes. ‘But don’t worry—I’m fine now,’ she told him swiftly as she reached the bed.

      A certain part of his anatomy had faded equally fast, she registered as he swung his legs over the other side of the bed and stood up. ‘Jed?’ she began, and stopped as he turned to face her, shocked by the flash of violent anger she caught in his eyes before, as if a shutter had fallen his handsome face became devoid of all expression.

      He stared at her for a long moment, and the transformation from eager lover to cold hard stranger could not have been more obvious. She shivered again—but this time with a deep sense of foreboding.

      Chapter Two

      PREGNANT. Phoebe was pregnant. It wasn’t possible. He had taken every possible precaution—but had she? Jed asked himself the question, and a red mist of rage engulfed him as his totally panicked brain scrambled for an acceptable answer. Counting to ten didn’t work. He got up to a thousand before he reached the glaringly obvious conclusion and finally trusted himself to turn and speak to her without yelling.

      ‘I’m sure you think you are fine,’ he drawled with biting cynicism, while battling to keep a lid on the fury still simmering inside him and retain his legendary cool control. ‘Standing there with diamonds around your elegant neck, and according to you pregnant with what I presume you are going to claim is my child.’

      He could not believe he had been suckered in by Phoebe’s so-called innocence; she was like all the rest—if not worse—because she had succeeded where other women had failed with the oldest trick in the book.

      ‘Of course the baby is yours.’

      He heard the shock in her voice but ignored it.

      ‘You know you are the only man I have ever made love with. I love you, and I thought you loved me.’

      ‘You thought wrong. I don’t do love—don’t believe in the concept.’

      ‘Why are you being like this?’ She looked at him with wide puzzled eyes.

      ‘Why? Because I have no wish to be tricked into becoming a father,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘Cast your mind back to the beginning. I always used protection. You then suggested going on the pill and I—more fool me—because of your initial innocence was tempted by the idea of condom-free sex for the first time in my life. I introduced you to my own private Dr Marcus, and he supplied your birth control pills. You did not even have to remember to collect them as he arranged for them to be delivered to you here. So there could have been no missed prescription, no mistake—so tell me, when did this conception occur?’

      Whatever reaction Phoebe had expected, this sneering, cynical hard-eyed stranger standing facing her bore no resemblance to the Jed she’d thought she knew and loved. Her emotions were frozen in shock and she simply stated the truth.

      ‘The weekend in Paris. I forgot to take my pills with me.’

      ‘I might have guessed.’ Jed’s analytical mind, no longer blinded by sex, put two and two together and instantly saw through Phoebe’s devious plan.

      ‘I remember the only time you argued with me instead of being the eager lover was when I returned from spending Easter in Greece. You complained I never took you abroad with me, and moaned that the only time you had been out of the country was a day-trip to Belgium. You had not even been to Paris, so I took you there. Now you expect me to believe you mistakenly left your pills behind and never thought to mention the fact in the three days we stayed? How very convenient for you,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘That was the end of April, and now it is the beginning of July—you must be two months pregnant.’

      ‘Nine weeks,’ she amended softly. Maybe it was just shock making Jed behave like the biggest louse on the planet, Phoebe rationalized.

      ‘What took you so long to tell me? Don’t answer that—let me guess. You waited until you had finished your exams and graduated, but you never had any intention of starting a career other than living in the lap of luxury at my expense. You’re a highly intelligent woman, Phoebe, and your timing is perfect. But no one takes me for a fool, and if your unusually spectacular and wanton display in bed last night was supposed to soften me up to get me to marry you are out of luck. No man expects his mistress to get pregnant.’

      Through the fog of numbness Phoebe was devastated that he could actually believe she was so conniving as to have executed the plan he had formed in his mind. As for calling her his mistress—that was the last straw.

      ‘I was never your mistress—I would never be any man’s mistress. I thought you were my boyfriend. I thought you—’

      He cut her off.

      ‘Come off it, Phoebe, don’t pretend you are that naïve. I got this apartment for you.’

      ‘I thought I was housesitting for your friend and Marty.’

      ‘You were—but he sold me the place three months after he left and said you could keep the cat. Apparently he has found a different kind of feline to snuggle up to—hopefully one less devious than you.’

      ‘Devious!’ she cried ‘How can you call me that after all we have shared?’

      ‘Quite easily. I gave you a car, jewels, clothes—whatever you wanted you could have. But a wedding ring was never on offer, and you knew that perfectly well from the start and agreed with me. If you think for one minute you can trap me with a child that was never on my agenda…think again.’

      Phoebe sank down onto the bed, her mind in turmoil. He had said a child was not on his agenda. Typical business-speak, she realized, for what he really meant. He did not want their child and it was like a knife to her heart. She could not bear to look at Jed, and took a few deep, steadying breaths. Then finally the import of his disavowal of love as a concept registered in her mind, and in a flash of blinding clarity she saw she had been deluding herself from the very start of their relationship. While she had fallen in love and thought Jed was her boyfriend he had only considered her his mistress and treated her accordingly.

      Now