Hot Picks: Secrets And Lies. Dani Collins

and ego because she looked ridiculous.

      She gathered her courage and stood, bracing to take it on the chin.

      He slid his gaze down and jerked, pushing off the desk, clearly taken aback by the small planet that shot straight out of her middle and arrived a full minute before she did in any room she entered.

      “Thanks,” she said acerbically, but couldn’t blame him. While she was a little plumper in the face and chest, she really hadn’t gained much weight except in her middle, where she looked like she’d stuffed a sofa cushion under her shirt. The whole sofa, actually, and she was only midway through this pregnancy!

      Henri took a long inhale, cheeks hollowing as he stared at her belly with such laser focus she was compelled to block his fierce stare with her hand.

      His own hand went into his hair. His nostrils flared as that cutting glance swung up to pierce hers. “Why would you do this?”

      He was gray beneath his swarthy skin. Obviously he was shocked.

      She had expected this accusation. It was precisely the reason why she had left him and had worked so hard to put in place a means to do this alone. It still went into her like a knife. Nearly two years, two years of never asking him for one damned thing except “do you love me?”

      “I did this to you?” she said, barely managing to keep a level tone. Oh, she felt so discarded and misused in that moment, worse even than when he’d shrugged off their breakup. “I suggest you take a hard look at which one of us is carrying three stone of our combined DNA.” It was closer to five, but shut up, bathroom scale.

      “You were supposed to be taking your pill.”

      “And I had the flu for a week last fall.”

      “I used condoms after,” he reminded her, stabbing the top of the desk with his finger.

      “I thought we were fine, too. What am I? A reproductive scientist? I don’t know how it happened! Sometimes when people have sex, they make babies. Super weird that it could happen to us, right? ’Cause we hardly ever had sex.”

      Every night. All the time. She wanted to have sex with him right now, the bastard, coming in here smelling all yummy with that aftershave that drove her crazy and not having gained an ounce. If anything, he was sculpted into an even harder, sharper version of the man she had lusted after without reserve.

      She looked away, hating her cheeks for flushing with awareness and her body for remembering.

      If her eyes began to tear, she would throw herself through the curtain-cloaked window behind her.

      “I never wanted this responsibility!” Henri blurted, like he’d been saving that statement for miles and miles. All his life. “You knew that.”

      “Then you should have kept your pants on,” she hissed back at him.

      He glared at her like he was furious with her for forever tempting that beast from behind his zipper. Like he resented her and her pregnancy and everything they’d shared.

      Well, she was as volatile as any pregnant woman. Probably twice as emotional as the average. Salty tears rushed up to sting her eyes. Her throat closed with emotion and her inner mercury shot up so high it bounced off the inside of her skull.

      “Don’t feel you have to accept any responsibility today.” She rounded the desk and headed for the door. “This is all my fault. You’re completely innocent and have no obligation. I am more than capable of parenting without you.” She pulled the door inward and waved an arm to invite him to exit. “Fly. Be free.”

      He folded his arms, such a filthy glare on his face she should have been turned to stone.

      “I’m serious,” she said, not caring if her mother was in earshot. She’d heard it all and the rest of the house was empty. “I’m one hundred percent ready to do this on my own. As you can see, I’ve started working here, where Mum and Dorry have agreed to help with child care. The London office is paying for itself and turning a small profit. So is my flat. Nell and her friends are renting it, but I give what I make on that to Mum since I’ve kicked out all her boarders. This place has been outfitted with a security system—”

      “I’m supposed to imagine that my child is safe in a house where strangers—I’m sorry, potential clients—are coming and going?”

      “You’re supposed to imagine that I did not do this on purpose and I am not trapping myself a wealthy husband, as you obviously thought when you came storming in here on your high horse. I knew you would think that of me. I knew. Why else did I send back all your stupid jewelry? I could have kept it and sold it, you know! That money would be really handy right now, and God knows I earned it, didn’t I? But I never asked you for it, Henri. I never asked you for anything.”

      “Calm down,” he growled.

      “You calm down! I never wanted to be pregnant by accident! I wanted it to be something I did on purpose. With the man I loved!”

      His head went back like she’d clawed at his cheek. Her own emotions were clawing open her chest, leaving her heart exposed, raw and vulnerable. She railed on, protecting herself the only way she could, with mean, nasty words.

      “I never asked for anything until that last morning and I would have settled for you telling me you cared. I would have settled for you asking me not to leave. But you didn’t give one solid damn that I wanted to end it. Bye-bye, Cin. Nice having sex with you. Take your pretty payoffs. And all you can think about right now is how hard this is for you? Try hiding this from paparazzi!” She pointed at her massive bump. “Congratulations on being as big an ass as I thought you would be.”

      “Are you finished?”

      “Really?” she cried. “You’re going to take that patronizing tone with me? No, I’m not finished! I’m allowed to freak out! While you’ve spent the last twelve weeks screwing other women and carrying on with your completely unaffected life, I’ve been overhauling mine. I’ve been working damned hard so you never have to be inconvenienced by something that we did together. Say ‘Thank you, Cinnia’ and get the hell out of my house.”

      “Well aren’t you the great martyr,” he scoffed. “Excuse me for not being grateful when I wasn’t given a choice in the matter, was I?”

      “Oh, you had choices. And you made them. I’m making the same one, which means getting on with my life without you. Ta-ta,” she sang in a jagged, off-key tone. “I have to get back to work now.” After bawling her eyes out over this stupid man and his complete lack of regard for her.

      “That’s very cute. You know I have no choice. Neither do you,” he warned, chin low, brows flat and ominous.

      That did it. Her heart broke along old lines and her eyes filled up with hot, fat tears.

      “Right,” she said in a voice that cracked. “Your only choice is to be saddled with a woman you don’t want. A gold digger, obviously, who had her eye on your money all along.” She couldn’t do this. She started to leave the room.

      “Don’t put words in my mouth.” He caught at her arm.

      She shook him off and blinked rapidly, but her lashes were matted together and her composure was thinning to the breaking point.

      “Don’t put babies in my belly.”

      “I’ll confine it to one, trust me.”

      “Too late!” It came out shrill and loud. She spun to leave again, but quickly found herself halted and turned back to face him.

      Through her tears, he was a blur of ashen skin.

      “What?”

      “Oh, look at me, Henri!” she intoned. “Have you ever been satisfied with only giving me one orgasm? Of course, you had to give me two babies!” Her fists clenched and she wanted to pound them against him, against the wall of his chest, as if she could break past the invisible wall he presented