Modern Romance August 2019 Books 1-4. Heidi Rice

breath into her lungs and expelled it on a shudder. ‘I’m... I’m having a baby,’ she croaked.

      There was a silence. A long silence which even eclipsed Stella’s reaction when she’d told her the news. Tara watched Lucas’s face go through a series of changes. First anger and then a shake of the head, which was undoubtedly denial. She wondered if he would try bargaining with her before passing through stages of depression and acceptance—all of which she knew were the five stages of grief.

      ‘You can’t be,’ he said harshly.

      Tara nodded. This was grief, all right. ‘I’m afraid I am.’

      ‘You can’t be,’ he repeated, leaning forward so that his lowered voice was nothing more than a deep hiss of accusation. ‘I used protection.’

      Tara licked her lips, pleased when the server arrived with their bottle to interrupt their combat, although the silence grew interminably long as she poured the water and it fizzed and foamed over two ice-filled crystal glasses. It was only when the woman had gone and Tara had forced herself to gather her composure long enough to take a deep and refreshing mouthful that she nodded. ‘I realise that. And I also understand that the barrier method isn’t a hundred per cent reliable.’

      Incredulously, he looked at her. ‘The barrier method?’ he echoed. ‘Who the hell calls it that any more?’

      ‘I read it in a book about pregnancy.’

      ‘When was it published? Some time early in the eighteenth century?’

      Tara urged herself to ignore his habitual sarcasm, which right now seemed more wounding than it had ever done before. This was way too important to allow hurt feelings and emotions to get in the way of what really mattered, which was the tiny life growing inside her. But neither was she prepared to just sit there and allow Lucas to hurl insults at her, not when he was as much to blame as she was. And I don’t want to feel blame, she thought brokenly. I don’t want my baby to have all the judgmental stuff hurled at it which I once had to suffer.

      She put her glass down on the table with a shaky hand and the ice cubes rattled like wind chimes. ‘Being flippant isn’t going to help matters.’

      ‘Really? So do you have a magic formula for something which is going to help matters, because if so I’m longing to hear it?’

      ‘There’s no need to be so...rude!’

      He leaned forward so that the tiny pulse working frantically at his temple was easily visible. ‘I’m not being rude, I’m being honest. I never wanted children, Tara,’ he gritted out. ‘Never. Do you understand? Not from when I was a teenage boy—and that certainty hasn’t diminished one iota over the years.’

      She told herself to stay calm. ‘It wasn’t exactly on my agenda either,’ she said. ‘But we’re not talking hypothetical. This is real and I’m pregnant and I thought you had a right to know. That’s all.’

      Lucas stared at her, half wondering if she was going to suddenly burst out laughing and giggle, ‘April Fool,’ and he would be angry at first, but ultimately relieved. He might even consider taking her up to his hotel room and exacting a very satisfying form of retribution—something which would give him a brief respite from the dark reality which had been visited upon him in that damned lawyer’s office. But this was October, not April, and Tara wouldn’t be insane enough to fly out here without warning unless what she said was true. And she wasn’t smiling.

      He thought about the ways in which he could react to her unwanted statement.

      He could demand she take a DNA test and quiz her extensively about subsequent lovers she might have dallied with after he’d taken her innocence. But even as he thought it he knew only a fool would react in that way, because deep down he knew there had been no lover in Tara Fitzpatrick’s life but him.

      He could have a strong drink.

      Maybe he would—because the time it took to slowly sip at a glass of spirit would give him time to consider his response to her. But not here. Not with half of New York City’s movers and shakers in attendance and a couple of people he recognised staring at him curiously from the other side of the room. He wasn’t surprised at their expressions, because never had anyone looked more as if they shouldn’t be there than Tara Fitzpatrick, with her thick green sweater the colour of Irish hills and her striking hair piled on top of her head, with strands tumbling untidily down the sides of her pale face.

      He saw that her ridiculously over-long scarf was wound around her neck—the multicoloured one she’d started knitting when she first came to work for him and which had once made him sarcastically enquire whether she ever planned to finish it. ‘I don’t know how to cast off,’ had been her plaintive reply, and he had smiled before suggesting she ask someone. But he wasn’t smiling now.

      Was he ashamed of her? No. He’d broken enough rules in his own life to ever be described as a conformist and he didn’t care that his skinny housekeeper was sporting a pair of unflattering jeans rather than a sleek cocktail dress like the few other women in the bar. And besides, hadn’t he just discovered something about himself which would shock those onlookers in the bar and fill them with horror and maybe even a little pleasure at hearing about someone else’s misfortune, if they knew the truth about him? The Germans even had a phrase for that, didn’t they? Schadenfreude. That was it.

      He needed to get away from these blood-red walls, which felt as if they were closing in on him, so he could try to make sense of what she’d told him. As if giving himself some time and space would lessen the anger and growing dread which were making his heart feel as heavy as lead.

      ‘We can’t talk here,’ he ground out, rising to his feet. ‘Come with me.’

      She nodded obediently. Well, of course she would be obedient. Hadn’t that been her role ever since she’d entered his life? To carry out his wishes and be financially recompensed for doing that—not to end up in his bed while he gave into an unstoppable passion which had seemed to come out of nowhere.

      ‘Where are we going?’ she questioned, once they’d exited the bar and were heading back down a dimly lit corridor towards the foyer.

      ‘I have a room here in the hotel.’

      ‘Lucas—’

      ‘You can wipe that outraged look from your face,’ he said roughly as he slowed down in front of the elevator. ‘My mind is on far more practical things than sex, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

      ‘Would you mind keeping your voice down?’ she hissed.

      ‘Isn’t it a little late in the day for prudery, Tara?’

      ‘I’m not being a prude,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I just don’t want every guest in this hotel knowing my business.’

      He didn’t trust himself to answer as he ushered her into the private elevator and hit the button for his suite. In tense and claustrophobic silence they rode to the top, his thoughts still spinning as he tried to come to grips with what she’d told him. But how could he possibly do that, when he’d meant what he said? He’d never wanted to be a father. Never. His experience of that particular relationship had veered from non-existent to violent—and he’d never had a loving mother to bail him out. At least now he knew the reason why, but that didn’t make things any better, did it? In many ways it actually made them worse.

      ‘In here,’ he said tersely as the doors slid noiselessly open and they stepped into the penthouse suite of the Meadow Hotel, which was reputed to command one of the finest views of the Manhattan skyline. It was growing dark outside and already lights were twinkling like diamonds in the pale indigo sky. Most people would have automatically breathed their admiration on seeing such an unparalleled view of the city. But not Tara. She barely seemed to notice anything as she stood in the centre of the room and fixed those strange amber eyes on him.

      ‘I came because I felt you had a right to know,’ she began, as if she had prepared the words earlier.