Tall, Dark... Collection

He never talked to anyone about Luke. He couldn’t. Still, three years later, he found his son’s death too painful to discuss with any degree of emotional normality. It was because the subject had been too painful that he and his now ex-wife Sally had stopped talking to each other—neither of them able to think of anything else when they were together, but unable to put those thoughts into words, the whole thing being just too painful.

So he certainly didn’t intend discussing Luke with Hebe, a woman he had spent a single night of passion with!

He dropped the egg mixture into the frying pan and let it cook before turning to speak to Hebe. ‘You’ll find a knife and fork—What the hell—!’ he rasped, as a white-faced Hebe ran past him out of the kitchen, her hand pressed tightly to her mouth.

She barely made it to the bathroom that adjoined the master bedroom—ironically, the only bathroom she knew the location of—before she was well and truly sick.

It had been the smell of the eggs cooking in the frying pan that had done it, tipping her sensitive stomach over the edge, the nausea just too much to control any longer.

‘Here you go,’ Nick murmured behind her seconds later, and he placed a damp cloth on her forehead.

This was so humiliating!

Not quite as bad as that morning six weeks ago when, the night over, Nick hadn’t been able to wait for her to leave, but pretty close.

She sat back on her heels, holding the cloth to her forehead herself now, the nausea seeming to have passed. Although quite what she had found to be sick with, considering she hadn’t eaten anything today except the chocolate Nick had insisted on giving her a short time ago, was a mystery!

‘Feeling better now?’ Nick prompted abruptly.

‘A little—thank you.’ She nodded, not quite able to look at him.

She had caused nothing but trouble this morning—trouble she was sure Nick couldn’t wait to be rid of.

‘I’ll just give my face a wash, and then I think I would like to leave, after all.’ She could probably quite happily eat the omelette now that she had got rid of whatever had upset her stomach, but in the circumstances it was probably better if she didn’t stay.

‘I don’t think so, Hebe.’

She looked up at him sharply. Only to find him staring at her with cold, glittering blue eyes, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

‘What do you mean?’ she prompted warily.

‘I mean I don’t think that you’re going to be leaving here any time soon,’ Nick bit out tautly.

Hebe’s eyes widened. ‘But I can assure you that I feel absolutely fine now.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ he ground out harshly. ‘It’s a curious fact, but women in your condition usually do feel better once they’ve actually been sick,’ he added forcefully.

She blinked frowningly. ‘My condition?’

Nick drew in a harsh breath, looking at her as if he would dearly like to put his hands around her throat and strangle her. ‘Hebe, unless I’m very much mistaken—and Lord knows I hope I am!’ he muttered grimly, ‘the fact that you fainted a short time ago for no reason—’

‘I had just seen a portrait of the mother I’ve never known!’ she defended incredulously.

Nick shook his head, so tense Hebe almost felt as if she could reach out and touch it. ‘The fact that you fainted, coupled with your earlier dizziness and your nausea just now, when I started cooking the eggs, all point to one conclusion as far as I can see.’

Hebe blinked, her hand on the side of the sink as she slowly stood up to face him. ‘They do…?’

The glittering gaze moved down the length of her body, coming to rest on her stomach. ‘You’re pregnant, Hebe,’ he bit out abruptly. ‘About six weeks, I would say!’ he added with barely suppressed fury.

Pregnant!

But she couldn’t be!

Could she…?

CHAPTER FOUR

HE had completely forgotten, Nick realised self-disgustedly, the fourth reason that women at least sometimes fainted.

Sally, when she’d been expecting Luke, had fainted several times during the early months of her pregnancy. She had woken up feeling sick every morning for the first three months, too—usually making a miraculous recovery once she had actually been sick, and so able to enjoy the rest of the day.

Hebe Johnson, Nick was pretty sure, was pregnant with his baby.

‘I assumed you were on the Pill, for God’s sake!’ he muttered impatiently. But assumption, he knew, was the mother of all—

‘What?’ Hebe returned vaguely, appearing to be completely dazed, her face once again deathly pale, her eyes huge luminous golden globes.

‘Look, let’s get out of this bathroom, at least,’ he suggested impatiently, sure that it couldn’t be helping her nausea to still be in the room where she had actually been sick. Taking a firm hold of her arm, he led her through to his bedroom when she made no effort to move herself. He sat her firmly down in the bedroom chair. ‘Now,’ he muttered sharply. ‘I asked if you’re on the Pill?’

She blinked up at him, really looking as if she were in shock this time. ‘Why would I be?’ she finally answered distractedly.

‘For God’s sake, pull yourself together, Hebe,’ he snapped, and he moved away impatiently, sure that his looming over her couldn’t be helping the situation.

Although if she really was pregnant he couldn’t see that there was any help for either of them!

‘It’s quite simple, Hebe. Were you, or were you not using any contraception when we went to bed together six weeks ago?’ He bit the words out as succinctly as he could in the circumstances, knowing that one of them, at least, had to try and make sense of all this.

Even if he didn’t feel very sensible!

He had needed to be with someone that night six weeks ago—had needed to lose himself in her, to blot out the painful memories and then move on. But if Hebe really was pregnant from that night then moving on wasn’t an option. For either of them…

Hebe drew in a deep breath, at last managing to fight down the panic his announcement had caused. Of course she wasn’t pregnant. No matter what people said, all those dire warnings parents gave to pubescent offspring about it ‘only taking once’, she could not be pregnant from that single night she had spent in Nick’s arms.

But it hadn’t just been ‘once’, a little voice inside her head reminded her. She and Nick had made love three times that night. Not once.

She was not pregnant!

It was ridiculous to even suggest that she was.

She straightened in the chair, determined to take some control of this situation. ‘No, I wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean—’

‘Why weren’t you?’ Nick rounded on her impatiently. ‘You’re what? Twenty-five, twenty-six years old—?’

‘Twenty-six,’ she confirmed, her own impatience rising to meet his as she glared at him. ‘But I’m not in a relationship. And I certainly don’t take contraceptive pills just on the off-chance I might meet a man I want to go to bed with!’

‘But that’s exactly what you did!’ he came back exasperatedly.

She paled even more. ‘But it wasn’t planned—’