Tall, Dark... Collection. Carole Mortimer

who maybe had access to you but only took it up sporadically, breaking your heart somewhere along the way—’

      ‘It wouldn’t be like that!’ Hebe could quite clearly see where he was going with this now.

      ‘Not if I agree to keep you and the child in the lifestyle to which you wish to become accustomed, no,’ he acknowledged sarcastically. ‘But I’m not going to do that, Hebe. The only way in which you will have that is by marrying me,’ he told her implacably. ‘I intend being in this child’s life every single day, Hebe,’ he assured her determinedly. ‘There in the morning when it wakes up, to love and care for it each and every single day. There at night to read it a bedtime story, to care for it when it’s sick or upset.’

      ‘And its mother?’ she demanded. ‘Once you’ve married me to get what you want, what are you going to do with me?’

      His expression became less intense. ‘I’ve already shown you what we can have together, Hebe,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘It’s all I have to give.’

      She couldn’t deny her response to him. Couldn’t deny his response to her—had felt his need pressed against her, as throbbingly heated as her own desire.

      But would that last? More to the point, was it enough to base a marriage on?

      ‘Has it occurred to you, Nick,’ she said slowly, ‘that perhaps now I know your conditions I may not even want this baby?’

      His hands clenched at his sides, his expression grimly forbidding. ‘I hope you’re not talking about what I think you are!’

      Hebe sighed, knowing abortion wasn’t even a possibility as far as she was concerned. That it wasn’t as far as Nick was concerned either, if his sudden fury was anything to go by.

      ‘No,’ she conceded heavily. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

      ‘I should damn well hope not,’ he rasped uncompromisingly.

      She shook her head. ‘It was just an idea. Not one I meant to be taken seriously, I might add,’ she said, as she saw his anger hadn’t abated in the least at her explanation.

      ‘If I thought for a moment that it was—’

      ‘I’ve said that it wasn’t!’ she defended firmly. ‘I can’t even think straight at the moment, Nick.’ She sighed. ‘This is all just too much on top of everything else. I don’t even know who I really am!’ she explained shakily.

      ‘Then we’ll find out together,’ he said quietly. ‘In fact, I insist on it,’ he added hardly.

      Frowning, she looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Isn’t it obvious, Hebe?’ he rasped impatiently. ‘You’re expecting a baby, but you don’t know for certain who your real parents were—not their medical history, anything. For the baby’s sake, at least, I think we need to know those things, don’t you?’

      For the baby’s sake…

      Of course. How could she have thought Nick would offer to help her for any other reason? After all, he believed the woman in the portrait was her! And that she had deliberately got pregnant!

      It was as if she had had a bucket of ice water thrown over her. The trembling of her body was for quite another reason now.

      ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged hollowly, having no intention of telling him that she had already made an appointment to speak to Andrew Southern’s agent tomorrow. She would keep that appointment alone and find out what she could about the woman she thought was her mother, and her relationship with Andrew Southern.

      He nodded briskly. ‘The first thing we need to do concerning that is talk to your parents—see if they know anything, anything at all, about your real parents.’

      ‘But of course they don’t.’ Hebe frowned. ‘They would have told me if they did.’

      ‘Would they?’ Nick prompted softly.

      ‘Of course,’ she answered impatiently. ‘What possible reason could they have for not telling me?’

      He shrugged. ‘Perhaps the fact that they wanted you to have a settled, loving childhood, and not have your life ripped in two, as some adopted children’s lives seem to be once they’ve located their real parents.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Hebe. But I do think we at least have to ask them, don’t you?’

      ‘I suppose so,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘I’ll go and see them at the weekend—’

      ‘We’ll go and see them at the weekend,’ Nick corrected firmly. ‘It’s going to be we in everything from now on, Hebe,’ he told her firmly, and she looked at him with a frown.

      We.

      Hebe and Nick.

      Hebe and Nick Cavendish.

      How unlikely was that?

      Completely unlikely! There was no way she could agree to marry this man just because he said she must. Absolutely no way!

      ‘Tomorrow I’ll see what I can do about arranging for the two of us to get married as quickly as possible.’ Nick nodded distractedly, obviously having taken absolutely no notice whatsoever of her refusal. ‘Today is Thursday, so I think it might be better if you took the rest of the week off. Saturday we’ll go and see your parents, and Sunday we’ll move your things into my apartment—our apartment,’ he corrected ruefully.

      ‘I’m not moving into your apartment on Sunday or at any other time!’ Hebe protested incredulously. ‘And I’m not marrying you either!’

      ‘Of course you are,’ he answered mildly.

      ‘No—’

      ‘Yes, Hebe, you are,’ he repeated patiently.

      ‘Is what I want to be of absolutely no consideration at all?’ she gasped.

      Nick eyed her critically. ‘But you are getting what you want, Hebe. More than you want, in fact,’ he added sarcastically. ‘You really hadn’t planned on getting me as your husband into the bargain, had you?’ he mused grimly.

      If Nick had loved her, if he had wanted to marry her, then she wouldn’t have hesitated to say yes to his proposal. But he had made his feelings for her all too plain: he thought she was an opportunist and a gold-digger.

      ‘You can’t force me—’

      ‘Calm down, Hebe,’ he soothed. ‘All this upset isn’t good for the baby.’

      The baby. That was all he cared about. All he would ever care about…

      ‘I will marry you, Hebe. I insist on it. Do you really think you have the right to deny our child all the things I can give it? Or do you want this to deteriorate into a battle?’ he added softly. ‘A battle I would have every intention of winning?’

      She blinked, a sinking feeling in the base of her stomach. ‘What do you mean?’

      He wasn’t being fair, threatening her in this way. He knew he wasn’t. But marriage between them was nonnegotiable as far as he was concerned. Hebe could have anything and everything she wanted as his wife—but only as his wife.

      ‘I would fight you for custody, Hebe,’ he told her flatly. ‘In fact, if you persist in fighting me on this I’ll go to my lawyers right now and draw up papers to set the custody battle in motion.’

      She was looking at him as if he were some sort of monster now. And maybe he was. But he wouldn’t back down on this. He couldn’t. There was too much at stake. He couldn’t let this second chance at being a father pass him by.

      She swallowed hard. ‘You would really do that…?’

      ‘If I’m forced to, yes,’ he bit out tautly.

      ‘Even if it meant I’d end up hating you?’