Tall, Dark... Collection

The apartment took up the second floor of one of the old Victorian buildings London was so famous for, with huge bay windows that looked out on a tree-lined avenue.

The sitting room was bright and sunny, the walls painted yellow, multicoloured scatter rugs on the polished wood floor, the brown sofa and chairs festooned with an assortment of cushions in autumn colours.

He turned to look at Hebe. She certainly looked a lot better than she had when he’d left her earlier. The colour was back in her cheeks, the sparkle—anger—was back in those gold-coloured eyes. She was looking very slim too, in the faded denims and fitted black tee shirt she had changed into since returning home.

Well, the slimness was soon going to change, if his assumption proved correct!

Although he had a feeling Hebe was going to be one of those women who put hardly any weight on while pregnant, and that despite the growing baby she would retain that air of delicacy that so appealed to him.

He took a crushed paper bag out of his jacket pocket. ‘For you,’ he told her dryly.

Hebe made no effort to take the bag from him, and in fact put both her hands behind her back instead. She knew exactly what was in the bag, and had no intention of satisfying his curiosity. ‘I don’t remember inviting you inside,’ she said irritably.

‘You didn’t,’ he confirmed, strolling over to where her plate, with its half-eaten sandwich, still sat on the table. He lifted one corner of the bread to look at the filling. ‘Cheese.’ He nodded approvingly. ‘You’ll need to keep up your calcium intake.’

‘Nick—’

‘Hebe?’ he came back challengingly.

‘Don’t you think you’ve taken this far enough?’ She sighed wearily, sitting down on the chair at the table. ‘Insulted me enough? I told you—I was faint and dizzy from hunger earlier, and for no other reason,’she said firmly.

He put the bag down on the table next to her sandwich. ‘We’ll know in a few minutes, won’t we?’ he said grimly. ‘You can do this test any time of the day and get a correct result,’ he assured her determinedly.

‘A negative one, you mean?’ She nodded.

‘Hebe.’ Nick moved down on his haunches beside the chair. ‘You weren’t on the Pill. I didn’t use any precautions, either. Did you go to the doctor for a morning-after pill?’

‘Certainly not!’ She was horrified at the suggestion. ‘No, I thought not,’ he accepted flatly. ‘Have you had a period since we were together?’

Her cheeks suffused with embarrassed colour. ‘Now, look—’

‘Have you?’ he persisted.

Had she? Her periods had never been particularly regular, anyway—sporadic at best—so she tended not to take too much notice of dates, just dealing with them when they arrived. But, no, she didn’t think she had—

She grabbed the bag containing the pregnancy test, got up and strode determinedly from the room. She would do his test, prove to Nick once and for all that she was not pregnant, and then hopefully he would just go away and leave her alone.

Blue.

The little line in the middle of the window was blue. Blue for positive.

Hebe sat on the side of the bath, her head bent down between her knees as she breathed in short, controlling gasps, trying not to faint again.

She hadn’t believed the result the first time, had been sure it was faulty, so had taken out the second tube in the double pack—trust Nick to want to make doubly sure!—and done it again.

That one had a positive blue line through the middle of it too.

She was definitely, positively pregnant.

With Nick Cavendish’s baby.

A baby he certainly didn’t want.

Did she?

She had never given much thought to having a baby of her own. Or, at least, if she had, it had been as part of and a progression of a loving marriage.

Not the result of a single night spent in Nick Cavendish’s arms!

Now what did she do?

She was pregnant. She had the spark of a tiny new life growing inside her. Her very own son or daughter. But it wasn’t just hers. It was Nick’s son or daughter, too!

And therein lay the problem. It was obvious from what Nick had said earlier that he believed she had deliberately got herself pregnant in order to trap him in some way.

What—?

‘Hebe? Are you okay?’ A soft knock on the bathroom door accompanied Nick’s pressing query.

She straightened and looked apprehensively at the door, wondering how she was supposed to go out there and tell Nick that she was expecting his baby after all.

She could lie, of course. That was always an option. She could tell him that the result was negative—

But he wouldn’t believe her, and would no doubt insist on being present when he made her do yet another test!

Because he knew, somehow he already knew, that she was pregnant.

‘Hebe?’ he prompted more urgently.

She drew in a deep breath, chewing her top lip before answering him. ‘Go away,’ she finally managed to groan.

There was silence on the other side of the door for several seconds, and then Nick rattled the door handle impatiently. ‘Open the door, Hebe,’ he ordered steadily.

‘I said go away!’ she muttered.

‘No way,’ he answered determinedly. ‘Either you open the damned door, Hebe, or you stand back out of the way while I kick it down,’ he instructed evenly.

He was going to kick the bathroom door down? She moved out of the way, just in case.

‘That’s harassment, Nick,’ she told him frowningly.

‘Your choice.’ The shrug could be heard in his voice.

‘I’m pregnant—okay!’ she shouted through the locked door. ‘You were right all the time and I was wrong. Because I’m pregnant!’ Her voice broke slightly as saying the words brought alive the enormity of what was happening to her.

No matter what Nick might choose to think, she was not going to ask him for help. Accepting any assistance from him after the things he had implied earlier was not an option. Although she had no idea how she was going to manage to support herself and the baby, either. Even if Nick let her keep her job at the gallery, she would only be able to work until the seventh month or so. Her parents would want to help, she felt sure. But was it fair to ask them? After all, they had adopted her and given her so much—how could she now ask them to help her in single-motherhood? That would just—

She didn’t have any time for further thought or worry as the bathroom door crashed back on its hinges, the lock having splintered away from the frame as Nick kicked it.