Special Deliveries: Her Nine-Month Secret. Charlene Sands

than if he had shown any sign of emotion.

      From the sidelines, Holly watched as Cecelia’s eyes widened and her mouth compressed. She wanted to be anywhere but here, in this house, and she was sickeningly ashamed of herself and of her lack of self-control. Trying to make herself as invisible as she could, staring down at the floor, she kept perfectly still for the next ten minutes as Luiz and Cecelia conducted a conversation she couldn’t understand but was astute enough to surmise.

      She breathed a sigh of relief when Cecelia was finally escorted out of the house and she took advantage of that brief window of time alone to gather all her possessions so that she was ready and waiting to leave when Luiz re-entered the room.

      ‘What did you say to her?’ Holly asked bluntly.

      ‘Where are you going? Our conversation isn’t finished by a long way. I told Cecelia that our relationship was over.’

      ‘Because of me?’

      ‘I didn’t go into details but, considering you were standing in a state of dishevelment right in front of her, then I’m guessing she might have deduced the reasons for herself.’

      ‘How could you? How could you seduce me when you’re involved with someone else? It makes me feel ill to think about it.’ She felt even more ill as she wondered when he had last made love to Cecelia. Yesterday? The day before? Every day for the last few weeks they had been dating? He was a very virile man with a powerful libido. She couldn’t bear the thought of him touching the other woman and then touching her, and she was shocked at the force of her own jealousy which had no part to play in the sort of relationship they now had.

      Luiz hesitated. Getting rid of Cecelia, callous though he knew he must appear, had not been any great hardship. She had occupied the strange void left in Holly’s absence and he was disturbed at himself for allowing that to happen. He wondered how he couldn’t have seen that, however great her credentials, she still didn’t quite fit the bill. He pulled back from the question he knew Holly was asking him—had Cecelia been his lover?—as his sex life wasn’t under discussion here. It was an irrelevance. The fact that he hadn’t had one with Cecelia was an even greater irrelevance as far as he was concerned.

      ‘My relationship with Cecelia is no longer an issue. Reaching a conclusion on how to deal with what has happened is. So…’ He nodded in the direction of the lounge. Holly hesitated, adamant that she had put her cards on the table and was not going to reshuffle the deck and start again. More than anything, she needed to make him understand that that little blip when she had fallen straight back into his arms was not going to happen again. She reluctantly removed the coat and followed him into the sitting room.

      ‘You didn’t have to break up with your girlfriend,’ were her opening words as she sat down, facing him. ‘I told you I didn’t want to ruin anything you had with her and I meant it.’

      ‘In that case, you are clearly a lot more liberated than I am.’ He folded his arms behind his head. ‘Somehow going out with one woman whilst another is having my baby doesn’t work for me.’ He dropped his arms to his knees and leaned forward. ‘Don’t try and fight me on this, Holly. Marriage is the only solution. I will not be a part-time father and it would be immoral to deprive any child of the benefit of having two parents.’

      ‘And it wouldn’t be right for us to get married just for the sake of a child. Luiz, you never, ever wanted any sort of commitment with me. You never trusted me. How on earth can you expect me to ignore all of that and to get married just because of an accident?’

      ‘Tripping over a loose paving stone is an accident; the ramifications disappear quickly. Having a child is in a completely different league and the ramifications never disappear. Whatever the circumstances of this pregnancy, we both have to take ownership of the situation and bury our differences.’

      Talking to him, Holly thought helplessly, was like talking to a brick wall. Yet there was no way that she was going to cave in. As far as she was concerned, they could both be loving parents without having to pay the ultimate price. She wanted to tell him that, had it not been for the life growing inside her, he would have already been making plans to marry Cecelia. He would have had his perfect partner. Now, he would be stuck with her, and how long before the poisonous thread of resentment began seeping into him?

      ‘That doesn’t mean that we have to get married.’ Holly looked at him with stubborn defiance. ‘We can be loving, responsible parents without being tied to one another. It’s better that we’re both happy individuals apart than miserable and bitter together.’

      Luiz didn’t see how she could possibly mean that when less than three months ago she had been keen to take their relationship to another level. Yet, that stubborn, closed expression…

      For the first time he fully appreciated the depth of the damage his well-intentioned fabrications had done. Throw in a girlfriend acquired for all the wrong reasons and, no matter that the girlfriend had been dispatched and marriage proposed, she was still in no mood to budge.

      ‘You make it sound as though marriage to me would be torture,’ Luiz said through gritted teeth, frustrated at being unable to get around her. ‘And yet, don’t try and pretend that there isn’t chemistry between us!’

      ‘I wondered how long it would take for you to bring that up!’ Holly retorted with bitterness. Sex was all it had ever been for him. While she had been busy building castles in the sky and fantasising about marriage and babies, he had been happy to use her as a plaything, a doting plaything willing to do anything he wanted.

      ‘Yes, I find you attractive. I suppose lots of women do. It’s not enough.’ She lowered her eyes. There was a treacherous voice in her head asking her what was enough, really? Were there ever any guarantees that any marriage would work out…? Didn’t some marriages fail even when the right boxes had all been ticked and the profit-and-loss columns neatly balanced…?

      She ignored that voice and continued quietly and insistently, ‘We both deserve happiness. You shouldn’t have broken up with your girlfriend. One day, I’ll find my soul mate and it will be healthier for our child to be the products of two happy parents even if they’re not happy together.’

      Luiz was affronted by what she had just said on pretty much every level. Whatever he had said or done in the past, most other women would have leapt at the offer he had extended because it really didn’t get much better than that. The fact that they still couldn’t keep their hands off one another was an added and pleasurable bonus. So why was she digging her heels in and treating him as though he had offered her a pact with the devil? And who was this soul mate she had in mind? Not too long ago, he had been her soul mate! Why couldn’t she stop being so damned proud and wake up to the fact that he was right?

      ‘Ending my relationship with Cecelia was not a source of regret for me,’ Luiz conceded heavily. ‘I would have broken up with her whether or not you were in the picture.’

      ‘You would?’ Holly could have kicked herself for the spark of interested curiosity she could hear in her voice. Did that make any difference? No. ‘But she’s perfect for you. I thought you were on the lookout for the right woman with the right background…’

      ‘We’re covering old ground here. You won’t marry me—that poses a number of obvious problems. Firstly, do you honestly expect me to commute to Yorkshire?’

      ‘You did for ages.’ She was afflicted with a sharp pang of memory at the pleasure those weekend visits had always elicited.

      ‘Weekends.’ Luiz brushed aside her interruption dismissively. ‘I would want more than just weekend visits. It is a long way to travel for a couple of hours during the week. Furthermore, what about schooling when the time comes? How far is it to the nearest school? Do you suggest an erratic education because you live in the middle of nowhere where it’s liable to snow for a large proportion of winter?’

      ‘You’re projecting into the future,’ Holly said uncertainly.

      ‘I’m attempting to reach a fair and equitable arrangement. Sacrifices