Modern Romance December 2019 Books 5-8. Jane Porter

moment was the vastly elaborate and hugely expensive party he’d paid for. Other things could wait. That was how he operated. Luc prioritised. He was a process-driven man. She was the dreamer, or had she forgotten that?

      ‘Of course,’ she confirmed in the same businesslike tone. She had filled a space in Luc’s life, and now he was done with her. ‘Actually, I’d like to eat with my team, if that’s okay with you?’

      He looked at her with surprise. ‘Whatever you want.’

      ‘Forgive me—and thank you for your hospitality—but I’ve been away long enough.’ One sweeping ebony brow lifted as Luc stared at her and frowned. ‘Everything should be ready for the party,’ she hurried on, ‘but I need to check that all we have to do is light the touchpaper and stand back.’ She was gabbling now, talking nonsense, eager to get away before he realised how upset she was. Luc’s ability to close himself off was notorious, but it hurt when he raised those same barricades to her. ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ she promised. ‘I’ll bring you and your people into a team meeting, if you like?’

      ‘Of course,’ he insisted. ‘And let me know the result of the test right away, and what the doctor says. And if you need anything—’

      ‘I’ll let you know,’ she cut across him as her heart threatened to shatter into tiny pieces.

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      SHE HAD TO close her mind to Luc and that wasn’t easy. Thankfully her forward planning had borne fruit. The Party Planners team was ready to roll. Everything was in place. They could hold the event this very minute without a hitch. The biggest and most glamorous party of the season had taken over everyone’s thinking, and now it must take over hers, Stacey determined.

       She hadn’t even asked where to find him. Luc hadn’t asked her—

      Her throat dried as she remembered that she had his contact details safely logged in her file, where Luc and everything else to do with him should have remained.

      Caressing her stomach, she thought, Not everything.

      Lucas was a vitally important client, and she and the team had this chance to build on their success in Barcelona. She couldn’t allow her personal concerns to get in the way of that. ‘Go, team!’ she said as their meeting broke up. ‘This is going to be the most amazing event yet.’

      He stowed his skis at a local hotel he owned, then had a meeting with his people, who confirmed arrangements for the party were well under way, and there was nothing for him to worry about. Except Stacey. His guts were in knots. News of a possible pregnancy had bulldozed every thought from his head. It was a relief to know that the business side of things was going well. He doubted he could sort a problem with the party in his current state of mind.

      Leaving the hotel to pace the streets to eat up time until he could reasonably call Stacey for the promised meeting, he spotted her leaving the pharmacy. Jogging across the road, he caught up with her. ‘Coffee. Now,’ he prescribed, glancing across the road at a café with steamed-up windows.

      ‘Don’t we have a meeting?’

      She seemed pale to him. ‘You need warming up. Business can wait.’

      ‘Isn’t the café a bit public for you?’ she asked with concern.

      ‘Aren’t you exposed out here on your own with a pregnancy test clutched in your hand?’ he countered.

      ‘Don’t,’ she bit out tensely. ‘Don’t do this to me, Luc.’

      ‘Don’t do what?’ he asked, uncomprehending.

      ‘Just stop it, okay?’

      Her voice was tight, and, though she kept her face turned away from him, he cursed himself for being a fool. Stacey could never handle kindness. Aside from her brother’s care it was out of her ken. ‘Okay. I’ll back off,’ he agreed. ‘What you do and when you do it is up to you. All I ask is that you keep me informed. We could be starting a dynasty here.’ His last remark was a failed attempt to lighten the mood, and the look she gave him could strip paint. He deserved it and stuck out his chin. ‘Go on. Hit me,’ he offered. ‘You’ll feel better if you do.’

      ‘No. That’s a man thing, Luc.’ And then she smiled faintly. ‘Coffee sounds good to me. And then I’ve got some more work to do,’ she hurried to add.

      ‘Of course,’ he said, dipping his head in apparent meek submission. ‘Whatever you say, señorita.’

      Her look now said as clearly as if she’d spoken the words out loud: But it’s always whatever you say, Luc. Swiftly followed by defiant eyes that warned him to get ready for a change of regime. If anything could persuade him she was pregnant, it was that, and not the test she’d bought at the pharmacy. Stacey remembered his mother’s care for her children; she would have died for them. And she had.

      Luc looked as wound up as she felt, which was why she had agreed to a coffee before their meeting. And so here they were in a cosy café, sipping hot drinks, surrounded by happy people on holiday, and even some of Luc’s guests, whom he greeted with enthusiasm, as if he and they shouldn’t and didn’t have a care in the world. However incongruous it seemed to Stacey with a pregnancy test stuffed securely in the zip-up pocket of her snowsuit, she was the lover of this man, his possibly pregnant lover…

      What was she? What was she really? Was she Luc’s friend? His lover? His girlfriend?

      Or did she merely work for him, and had been his ‘bit on the side’?

      None of the above, Stacey concluded as Luc shook his head as he stood talking to a group who knew him, causing his thick black hair to fly about his face. This exposed the gold hoop in his ear that glittered a warning to all and sundry—except to Stacey, who was blind to common sense when Luc was in the picture—that this was Lucas Da Silva, consummate lover, ruthless polo player, hard man of business, and a bona fide Spanish grandee who mixed in the most exalted circles, and who it sometimes seemed only resembled Stacey in as much as they both liked a good cup of coffee.

      While they’d been stranded in his chalet she’d lost sight of the depth of his complexity. Luc didn’t belong to her, he belonged to the world, to this world, to this sophisticated world, where she had never been comfortable. Being brought up on a farm hadn’t given her airs and graces, it had given her grit. And now she could be having this man’s child. It hardly seemed possible. Until her body throbbed a pleasurable reminder that it was.

      ‘Okay?’ he asked, coming to sit down again at their table. ‘Excuse me for leaving you. As you could see, duty called.’

      As it always would for both of them. What type of foundation was that for a child?

      ‘You look cold,’ he said. ‘Come on, drink up that coffee. It will warm you.’

      If only life were that simple. There was no offer to warm her from Luc, she noticed, but they were in public now. ‘It’s cold outside,’ she commented lightly, looking out of the window.

      ‘Understatement,’ Luc agreed in the same disappointingly neutral tone. ‘They’re saying it might snow again.’

      When he’d held her in his arms, she’d been warm enough. It was only when they’d reached the village that a chill had started creeping through her veins. It was the chill of anticipated loss of Luc when they parted, rather than anything she could blame on the weather. Though snow had started falling again, she noted with concern.

      ‘Weather conditions will impact everything,’ she observed.