Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition. Heidi Rice

and toiletries into an overnight bag she found she couldn’t block out the residual hum of arousal making her ache.

      Louisa locked the front door to the house and picked up her overnight bag with a tired sigh. She spied Devereaux leaning on his flashy car, his butt perched on the glossy black paintwork and his face in profile as he spoke quietly into his mobile phone. From this distance she couldn’t hear what he was saying, but with his legs crossed at the ankles, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his sunglasses on he looked relaxed and confident. The thought made Louisa’s temper kick in at last. Here she was, facing the biggest, scariest, most awe-inspiring challenge of her life, and the man responsible was conducting business as usual. Her world had changed beyond all recognition in the space of an afternoon and he looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. The fact that he looked so dashing, the insouciant pose accentuating his tall, lean build and the August sunshine highlighting that dramatic face and the perfectly cut waves of dark hair, only pushed Louisa’s temper further over the edge. How could he look so composed when she felt as if she’d been through an emotional wringer in the last hour?

      Bolstering her exhaustion with resentment, Louisa marched to the car, her boot heels clacking on the pavement like a warning volley.

      ‘We’ll probably get there around eight,’ Luke said to his housekeeper. ‘Prepare the adjoining suite. I’ll see you in a couple of hours, Mrs Roberts.’ He ended the call and turned to watch Louisa’s approach, alerted by the harsh click of her heels in the summer stillness. With her head held high, her eyes boring holes into him and her hips swaying enticingly in the skimpy dress, she looked like an enraged Amazon.

      He considered it a big improvement on fragile and exhausted.

      He pushed away from the car, ready and willing to handle whatever she might want to throw at him.

      ‘All set?’ he said, in a deliberately neutral voice.

      Her eyes flashed hot. ‘Here.’ She thrust a small leather holdall at him, then marched round to the passenger side. ‘Let’s get this over with, then,’ she said, jerking open the door and getting in.

      He dumped her bag in the back and got in too. ‘I thought we agreed to ditch the hostility?’ he said mildly, turning on the ignition and pulling the car out onto the street.

      ‘Oh, did we? I must have missed that command. Sorry.’

      Temper suited her, he thought. It gave her cheeks a becoming glow, made the caramel colour of her eyes even more striking, and had her glorious bosom heaving in a way that was—well, distracting.

      He couldn’t help it. He chuckled.

      ‘Do you think this is funny?’ she demanded, as outraged as she was incredulous.

      Luke stifled a laugh. She was right, it was hardly appropriate in the circumstances, but still he couldn’t resist saying, ‘You look great when you’re angry. I thought so that first night and I think so now.’

      ‘If that’s your cock-eyed idea of a compliment, I pity any woman unfortunate enough to get involved with you.’

      ‘Like you, you mean?’ he asked lightly, letting the insult pass.

      ‘One quickie does not an involvement make,’ she snapped.

      ‘As I recall it wasn’t quick.’

      She didn’t say a word as he stopped at the set of traffic lights leading onto the Westway. He pressed the button on the dash to raise the convertible’s roof.

      ‘I don’t want to talk about that night,’ she said at last. The temper seemed to have drained out of her. Luke had to strain to hear her over the hydraulic hum. ‘I’ve been trying to forget it for the last three months,’ she finished.

      ‘Sounds like you’ve had about as much luck with that as I have,’ he said gently. He could see confusion and panic in her gaze when she turned to look at him. It gave him the leverage he needed. ‘I guess there’ll be no forgetting it now. For either of us.’

      She sighed. ‘I suppose not. But that doesn’t mean we have to repeat the same mistake twice.’

      Until she’d said the words, issued the challenge, it hadn’t even occurred to Luke how much he wanted to repeat their so-called mistake.

      Yes, he found her incredibly attractive. Yes, she tantalised him as much as she infuriated him. And, yes, he hadn’t been able to forget her. But after the way their night together had ended he’d decided not to pursue her. He wasn’t a masochist.

      But as she sat in his car, watching him—her chin stuck out, her eyes wary, her bottom lip trembling just enough to give her away—he knew he’d been fooling himself. It wasn’t just Jack’s offhand comments during their weekly game of squash that had got him clearing his calendar for the week, calling Harley Street and then storming into her office this afternoon. And it wasn’t the flickering image of their baby in the doctor’s surgery either.

      He still wanted her. In fact he’d never stopped wanting her, and it was about time he admitted it.

      When he’d seen the baby on the ultrasound screen there had been shock, sure, but right along with it had been a wave of masculine satisfaction that he couldn’t explain.

      This baby was going to complicate his life. No question about it. He was no romantic fool, and he wasn’t a family man either. He didn’t even know what family meant. So why, on some elemental level, was he pleased about this pregnancy?

      The answer was painfully obvious. His reaction to the baby—to his baby, he now realised—had been instinctive and purely male. With her carrying his child she was bound to him in a way she hadn’t been before. He’d stamped his claim on her in the most basic, primitive way possible.

      From her combative behaviour this afternoon, though, he could see persuading her of this simple fact was going to take patience, single-mindedness and a degree of ruthlessness.

      It was a good thing he had plenty of all three.

      ‘What happened that night wasn’t a mistake,’ he said, punching the accelerator as they drove up the ramp onto the elevated motorway out of town. ‘Not for me and certainly not for you. Or did you want to spend the rest of your life faking your orgasms?’

      Louisa sucked in a shocked breath as his terse comment sliced right through her defences.

      She’d told him that in confidence. How could he bring it up now?

      The urge to punch him was so strong she began to shake.

      She wanted to ignore his asinine remark and the memories it triggered. But as she swallowed down the hot ball of humiliation that surged up her throat the memories came flooding back anyway.

      CHAPTER SIX

       Three months earlier

      ‘HOW much further is it to your flat? It’s getting chilly,’ Luke declared, squeezing Louisa’s shoulders.

      She snuggled into the embrace. He felt so solid, so good, so right beside her.

      ‘Stop moaning,’ she teased. ‘It’s a beautiful night.’ But then the fresh spring breeze ruffled her hair and made her shiver.

      ‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘Here.’

      He pulled off his jacket and draped it over her, then gave her arms a vigorous rub. Well, that had certainly warmed her right up.

      ‘Come on,’ he said, slinging his arm back over her shoulders. ‘Let’s grab a cab and I’ll take you home.’

      She could smell the hint of his soap, feel the warmth of his skin on the well-worn leather jacket. She stared at his profile as he scanned Camden High Street, looking for a cab, and knew that she didn’t want this evening to end. Not ever.

      They climbed into the cab. She bent forward to give the driver directions. As she finished talking, warm hands clamped around her waist. ‘Come here.’