A Passionate Surrender. HELEN BIANCHIN

looked pale, and she’d lost a few essential kilos from her petite frame. There were faint shadows evident, as if she hadn’t been sleeping well, and her eyes were dark with fatigue. Instead of its usual attractive style, her honey-blonde hair was pulled back into a pony-tail.

      His silent appraisal irked her unbearably. ‘Are you done?’ Her voice sounded tense even to her own ears.

      He resembled a sleekly powerful predator deceptively at ease. Except his seemingly relaxed façade didn’t fool her in the slightest. There wasn’t any doubt he’d pounce…merely a matter of when.

      ‘No,’ Luc intimated as she pushed the bowl of partly eaten food to one side.

      ‘Eat,’ Luc bade quietly, and she threw him a baleful glare.

      ‘I’ve lost my appetite.’

      ‘Order something else.’

      She barely resisted the temptation to throw something at him. ‘Should I ask how you discovered my whereabouts?’

      His gaze didn’t waver, and his eyes were cool, fathomless. ‘I would have thought the answer self-explanatory.’

      ‘You hired a private detective.’ Her voice rose a fraction. ‘And had me followed?’

      ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’

      Hadn’t this scenario haunted her for the past few days? Invading her sleep, unsettling her nerves?

      The waitress delivered his coffee, and he requested the bill.

      ‘I’ll pay for my own meal.’

      He shot her a hard glance. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

      She checked her watch. ‘What do you want, Luc? I suggest you cut to the chase. I’m due back at work in ten minutes.’

      Luc selected a paper tube of sugar and emptied it into his cup. ‘No, you’re not,’ he declared silkily.

      Her gaze locked with his. ‘What do you mean…no?’

      ‘You no longer have a job, and your apartment lease has been terminated.’

      She felt as if all the breath had suddenly left her body. Angry consternation darkened her eyes, and faint pink coloured her cheeks. ‘You have no right—’

      ‘Yes.’ His voice was deadly quiet. ‘I do.’

      She badly wanted to hit him, and almost did. ‘No, you don’t,’ she reiterated fiercely.

      ‘We can argue this back and forth, but the end result will be the same.’

      ‘If you think I’ll calmly go back to Sydney with you,’ she began heatedly, ‘you can think again!’

      His gaze seared hers. ‘This afternoon, tonight, tomorrow. It hardly matters when.’

      Ana rose to her feet, only to have his hand close over her arm, halting her intention to leave.

      Without pausing for thought she picked up the sugar container and hurled it at him, watching with a sense of horrified fascination as he fielded it neatly and replaced it on the table, then calmly gathered up the scattered tubes.

      ‘I intend to file for divorce.’ Dear heaven, where had that come from? Until now it had been a hazy choice she’d considered and discounted a hundred times during the sleepless night hours since fleeing Sydney.

      His gaze seared hers. ‘Divorce isn’t an option.’

      She stood trapped as the silence stretched between them, a haunting entity that became more significant with every passing second, and there was little she could do but comply as he exerted sufficient pressure to ensure she sank down onto the chair.

      ‘Don’t you have something to tell me?’ Luc prompted with deceptive mildness, and glimpsed her apprehension before she successfully masked it.

      ‘Go away and leave me alone?’ Ana taunted in return.

      ‘Try again.’

      A muscle twisted painfully in her stomach, and she barely suppressed the instinct to soothe it with her hand.

      He couldn’t possibly know. Could he? She went suddenly cold at the thought. For the past few weeks she’d alternated between joy and despair.

      ‘I’ll make it easy for you,’ Luc ventured with deadly softness. ‘You’re carrying my child.’

      ‘A child that is also mine,’ Ana said fiercely.

      ‘Ours.’ His silky tone sent shivers down her spine. ‘I refuse to be relegated to a weekend father, restricted to sharing my son or daughter on a part-time basis.’

      ‘Is that why you came after me? Because I suddenly have something you want?’ Her eyes darkened to the deepest sapphire, her anger very real at that precise moment. Yet inside she wanted to weep. For the child she’d conceived. For herself, for wanting the love of a man who she doubted would ever love her.

      ‘I’d rather be a single parent than attempt to raise a child in a household where its father divides his time between its mother and his mistress. How could the child begin to understand values, morals, and integrity?’

      ‘Mistress?’ His voice was quiet.

      Too quiet, she perceived, and suppressed a faint shiver.

      ‘You accuse me of having an affair?’

      ‘Celine—’

      ‘Was someone with whom I shared a brief relationship three, four years ago.’

      ‘According to her, the affair is ongoing.’

      ‘Why would I need a mistress when I have you?’

      Remembering their active sex life, the sheer delight they shared in bed, brought a tinge of colour to her cheeks. ‘For the hell of it?’ she ventured carelessly, adding, ‘Because you’re insatiable and one woman isn’t enough?’

      His features hardened and assumed an implacable mask. ‘Don’t tempt me to say something I might regret.’

      ‘Go back to Sydney, Luc.’ She was like a runaway train that couldn’t stop. ‘There’s nothing you can say or do that’ll persuade me to return with you.’

      ‘No?’

      She sensed the steel beneath the dangerously silky tone, and suppressed an illusory premonition.

      ‘The last time I heard, coercion carries no weight in a court of law.’

      He held a trump card, and he had no hesitation in playing it. ‘However, embezzlement does.’ He paused, watching her expressive features in a bid to assess whether she had any prior knowledge William Stanford had indulged in creative accounting over a six-month time span.

      ‘Excuse me?’

      Luc chose his words with care, weighing each for its impact. ‘The bank’s auditors have discovered a series of discrepancies.’

      ‘How can that involve me?’ she queried, genuinely puzzled.

      ‘Indirectly, it does.’

      Even a naïve fool could do simple arithmetic, and she considered herself to be neither. ‘You’re implying my father is responsible?’ she demanded in disbelief. ‘I don’t believe you.’

      He reached inside his jacket, withdrew a folded document and placed it in front of her. ‘A copy of the auditors’ report.’

      Ana touched the paper hesitantly, then she opened the document and read the report.

      It was conclusive and damning, the attached spreadsheet listing each transaction lengthy and detailed.

      She felt herself go cold. Embezzlement, theft…they were one and the same, and a punishable crime.

      Luc studied her expressive features,