Her Pregnancy Surprise: His Pregnancy Bargain / The Pregnancy Secret / Their Pregnancy Bombshell

‘I’m trying to be positive,’ she rebutted. Considering she was attempting to make this easy for him, he didn’t seem wildly appreciative.

His narrowed eyes scanned her face. ‘So you’ve decided to have this baby.’

‘You sound surprised?’

His brows lifted. ‘Well, what about your career?’

‘What about my career?’ Angrily, she pretended not to see where he was going with this.

‘I thought that was the most important thing in your life. The thing you’re prepared to sacrifice a personal life for.’

‘It is part of my life, and it is important, but my priorities have changed…’ Her expression grew defensive. ‘I’m allowed to change my mind.’

‘It could change again…?’

Megan’s heart gave a sickening thud. This was what she had been dreading him suggesting. She shook her head and ran her tongue over her dry lips. ‘No, I’ve thought this thing through quite carefully,’ she insisted. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, feeling the prickle of hot tears behind her eyelids. ‘I can see how you’d like this to go away, but I want this baby.’

An expression of revulsion crossed his face. ‘Are you suggesting I would pressure you into having a termination?’

As this was exactly what she had assumed he was talking about, she just stared back at him mutely. His white-lipped fury gave lie to her assumption that he was taking this reasonably calmly under the circumstances.

Luc wasn’t calm, unless you considered volcanoes about to erupt calm!

‘I misunderstood,’ she admitted with a shrug. Misunderstanding or not, there was a point that needed making here. ‘Accidental or not, you’re the baby’s father…I can’t prove it, of course—’

‘For God’s sake, woman, of course it’s my baby. Do you think I imagine you make a habit of having unprotected sex any more than I do?’ he demanded impatiently. The furrow between his brows deepened as their eyes locked. ‘My God,’ he breathed. ‘You did think that, didn’t you?’

Megan shook her head, then nodded, then grabbed two handfuls of hair and grimaced as she rocked forward and back again. ‘I don’t know what I thought,’ she admitted huskily.

The anger faded from Luc’s face as he looked at the dejected, dispirited set of her hunched shoulders. ‘It must have been a confusing few weeks for you. It might make things a little easier to have someone to talk this out with…?’

The soft suggestion brought her head up with a snap. ‘Get any idea I came here to ask your advice right out of your head. I already know what I’m going to do,’ she ground out.

‘So basically what you’re saying is you’re going to do exactly what you want to, no matter what I say.’ His eyes, like molten silver, locked onto hers.

‘In a nutshell.’

Luc took a deep sustaining breath and told himself he didn’t have the right to be angry. What else could she have said? He’d backed her into a corner.

He even agreed with her, in the abstract, her body…her baby…her decision, but this wasn’t an abstract baby. This wasn’t just any baby. It was his baby…A few minutes ago he’d been aghast to hear what she had come to tell him, with bewildering speed his attitude had undergone a dramatic change. It amazed Luc how the idea of having a child could grow on a man.

‘So if you’ve thought this out, tell me, how are you going to cope with a baby and a demanding job?’

‘As luck would have it the firm I work for is relocating to a site nine miles from home so I’m going back,’ she explained. ‘It’s a good place to bring up a child. I should know; I was brought up there.’

‘And you’re expecting your mother to bring up your child for you…Have you considered that having a young baby foisted on her at her age might not be what she wants? What’s so funny?’ he wanted to know when her lips twitched.

Megan shook her head, she judged that he had had enough shocks for one day. Besides, this wasn’t her news to share. ‘Actually,’ she explained, ‘Mum is moving to Paris.’

The quiver of laughter in her voice made his strong features clench in disapproval. ‘Planning to give birth at your desk and be back at it the next day?’

‘I’m planning on taking maternity leave,’ she contradicted, ‘and afterwards…’ her shoulders lifted ‘…the firm has no problem with job-sharing.’ She’d been thinking on the way down that this might be the way to go. The balance between work and home was going to be hard to get right, but she was determined to strike a balance that she could live with.

Luc gave a thin smile, he didn’t bother to hide his scepticism as he snorted, ‘Job-sharing! Is the real Megan in there—?’ He stretched his hand out, intending to touch the side of her head.

Megan, who knew exactly what the casual contact would do to her, flinched away before he made contact. She saw his jaw tighten and repressed a groan. Well, she told herself, if he thought she couldn’t bear to have him touch her, so much the better. If he knew how much she craved his touch it would only complicate things even more—it wouldn’t do her pride much good either.

‘What do you mean?’ As if she didn’t know.

‘Well, you have to admit job-sharing doesn’t sound like you.’

‘You don’t know me.’ Neither do I, these days. ‘And why do you assume that I’m going to be a disaster as a mother?’ she asked sharply. She might not have felt this angry if his dig hadn’t magnified her own fear that she would be inadequate for the daunting task of parenting.

‘Why do you assume that I’d be relieved to offload my responsibilities to this baby?’ he countered.

Protesting that it wasn’t the same thing at all would have laid her open to a legitimate accusation of sexism. Instead Megan shook her head and insisted, ‘I didn’t.’ Then added weakly, ‘Not exactly.’

‘I just don’t believe you sometimes. You think I’d let my child grow up not knowing who the hell I was!’

He shook his dark head and she thought, God, he’s furious.

‘As for all that rubbish about you being responsible, like they say it takes two…and I was most definitely there. Or had you forgotten?’

His response was the first indication she had had so far that he wanted anything to do with the baby and Megan wasn’t sure how she felt about it. What was he talking about anyway? Gifts and cards on birthdays and Christmas? Every other weekend and alternate summer holidays?

The image of a future where Luc turned up with his latest girlfriend in tow to take their child to the zoo filled her with horror.

‘I wish I could forget!’

A raw silence fell between them.

A cautious light entered her eyes as she looked across at him from under the protective shade of her lashes. She was almost sure he didn’t even know that he was grinding one clenched fist into the other open palm. It was very much the action of someone who was struggling to suppress strong emotions. She could see every sinew, every taut muscle of his lean body screaming with tension.

‘I’m going to be a father.’ He said it as it had just begun to sink in.

There was a blank look of incomprehension on his lean, devastatingly handsome features in the moment before he leapt to his feet in one lithe motion.

‘Luc…?’ He appeared not to hear her tentative voice as, with one fist clenched to his forehead in an attitude of deep thought, the other thrust in the pocket of his snug-fitting trousers, he began to pace from one end of the room to the other.

It was impossible, even in her present distraught frame of mind, not to look at him and experience a shivery frisson of sensation in the pit of her stomach while hearing the words lithe and luscious in her head.

‘If you need time to think about this, I understand…’ Coming here had been a mistake, a major mistake.

‘Shut up, I’m thinking.’

Megan’s eyes narrowed at his tone. ‘I’m being understanding,’ she told him wrathfully.

He looked over his shoulder and for a moment the intensity of his expression melted into a delicious grin. ‘Be understanding quietly, chérie,’ he instructed, pressing a finger to his lips.