Modern Romance August 2019 Books 1-4. Heidi Rice

could I have done that without telling you what it was about?’ She was quiet for a moment. ‘I wanted to see your face when I told you.’

      ‘And did my reaction disappoint you?’

      ‘I’m a realist, Lucas. It was pretty much what I thought it would be.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘But I want you to know that this has nothing to do with any expectations on my part. I’m just giving you the facts, that’s all. It’s up to you what you do with them.’

      Lucas flinched, suddenly aware of his heart’s powerful reaction as he acknowledged he was to be a father. But it clenched in pain, not in joy. ‘Brandy,’ he said harshly. ‘I’ll order strong tea for you, but I think I need brandy.’

      Her reaction was not what he’d been expecting. He’d thought she might be slightly pacified by him remembering the way she liked her tea—but instead she turned on him with unfamiliar fury distorting her face. ‘Can’t you leave your girlfriend out of it for a minute?’ she flared. ‘Can’t we at least have this discussion in private without you talking to her?’

      ‘Excuse me?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Tara. I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

      ‘You were meeting someone called Brandy when I called you from the airport!’ she accused.

      It might have been funny if it hadn’t been so serious but Lucas was in no mood for laughing. ‘That’s the name of the house agent, not my girlfriend,’ he gritted out, but her chance remark put him even more on his guard. Was she already showing signs of sexual jealousy? Already planning some kind of mutual future which would be a disaster for them both, despite her fiery words to the contrary? Well, the sooner he disabused her of that idea, the better. ‘The drinks can wait. Why don’t you take a seat over there, Tara?’

      Tara didn’t want to take a seat. She wanted to be back at home in her iron-framed bed in Dublin, where she could see the sweep of the Irish sea in its ever-changing guises. Except that it wasn’t her home, she reminded herself painfully—it was Lucas’s. She bit her lip. But it was the closest she’d ever come to finding a place where she felt safe and settled—far away from all the demons of the past. ‘I’d prefer to stand, if it’s all right by you,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ve been sitting on a long flight for hours and I need to stretch my legs.’

      He nodded but she couldn’t miss the faint trace of frustration which briefly hardened his eyes. Was he finding it difficult to cope with the fact that, since she was no longer technically his employee, he could no longer order her around as he wanted?

      ‘As you wish,’ he said. His drink seemingly forgotten, he stared at her. ‘So where do we go from here?’

      She wished he would show more of the emotion she’d seen in the bar a little while ago. It might have been mostly anger and negativity but at least it was some kind of feeling—not this icy and remote person who seemed nothing like the Lucas Conway she knew.

      But she didn’t know him, did she? Not really. And not just because he kept so much of himself hidden that people called him a closed book. You couldn’t really know someone you worked for—not properly—because their interactions had only ever been superficial. Yes, she’d witnessed different sides of his character over the years—but ultimately she’d just been a person on his payroll and that meant he’d treated her like an employee, not an equal.

      Had he ever treated his girlfriends as equals? she wondered. Judging by the things she’d witnessed over the years she would say that, no, he had not. If you were heavily into equality, you didn’t pacify dumped exes by giving them expensive diamond necklaces rather than an explanation of what had gone wrong. And you are not his girlfriend, Tara reminded herself bitterly. You are just a woman he had sex with and now you’re carrying his baby.

      His baby.

      Her fingers crept to touch her still-concave belly and she saw him follow the movement with the watchful attention of a cheetah she’d once seen on a TV wildlife programme, just before it pounced on some poor and unsuspecting prey.

      ‘How...pregnant are you?’ he questioned, lifting that empty gaze to her face.

      He said the word pregnant like someone trying out a new piece of vocabulary, which was rather ironic given that he was such a remarkable linguist. And Tara found herself wanting to tell him that it felt just as strange for her. That she was as mixed up and scared and uncertain about the future as he must be. But she couldn’t admit to that because she needed to be strong. Strong for her baby as well as for herself. She wasn’t going to show weakness because she didn’t want him to think she was throwing herself in front of him and asking for anything he wasn’t prepared to give.

      ‘It’s still very early. Seven weeks.’

      ‘And you’re certain?’

      ‘I did a test.’

      ‘A reliable test?’

      Silently, she counted to ten. ‘I didn’t buy some dodgy kit at the cut-price store, if that’s what you’re hinting at, Lucas. I’m definitely pregnant.’

      ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

      She hesitated. ‘No. Not yet.’ Would it sound ridiculous to tell him that she’d baulked at going to see the friendly family doctor in Dalkey—himself a grandfather—terrified of how she was going to answer when he asked her about the father of her baby? Terrified he would judge her, as people seemed to have been doing all her life.

      She watched as Lucas walked over to the cocktail cabinet—a gleaming affair of beaten gold and shiny chrome—but he seemed to think better of it and turned back to face her, that remote expression still making his face look stony and inaccessible.

      ‘So what do we do next?’ He raised his dark brows. ‘Any ideas? You must have had something in mind when you flew all this way to tell me. You want to have this baby, I take it?’

      Tara screwed her face up as a blade of anger spiked into her and for a moment she actually thought she might burst into tears. ‘Of course I want this baby!’ she retaliated. ‘What kind of a woman wouldn’t want her baby?’

      She wondered what had caused that look of real pain to cross his face and thought it ironic that if they had some of the closeness of real lovers, she might have asked him. But they weren’t real lovers. They were just two people who had let passion get the better of them and were having to deal with the consequences.

      ‘So is it a wedding ring you’re after?’ he enquired caustically. ‘Is that it?’

      ‘I’ve no desire to marry someone who finds it impossible to conceal his disgust at such a prospect!’

      ‘I can’t help the way I feel, Tara. I’m not going to lie. I told you I never wanted children,’ he gritted out. ‘And the logical follow-on from that is that I never wanted marriage either.’

      ‘I didn’t come here for either of those things,’ she defended. ‘But at least now I know exactly where I stand.’ Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag, which was still tied diagonally across her chest like a school satchel—in case anyone had tried to mug her. ‘And since I’ve done what I set out to do, I’ll be on my way.’

      ‘Oh, really?’ Dark eyebrows shot up and were hidden by his tousled dark hair. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

      She drew her shoulders back proudly. ‘Back to Dublin, of course.’

      He shook his head. ‘You can’t go back to Dublin.’

      ‘Oh, I think you’ll find I can do anything I please, Lucas Conway,’ she answered, and for the first time in many hours she actually found comfort in a sense of her own empowerment. ‘And you can’t stop me.’

      But it was funny how sometimes your own body could rebel and that you had no idea what was going on inside you. Maybe it was the