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

This was never going to work.

‘What’s wrong with me?’

Nothing, if you liked being hit over the head with sex appeal.

‘Everything!’ she snapped in a doom-laden drone.

His mobile mouth quirked at the corners; he didn’t appear particularly chastened by her pronouncement. ‘Harsh.’

‘You might have made an effort to look less…’ Sexy. Her eyes slid from his as she added huskily, ‘More…like a writer. And you could have shaved; you look like you haven’t been to bed.’

He lifted a hand to the strong curve of his jaw covered with a layer of dark stubble and grinned. ‘I haven’t.’ He had had an idea for his next book; when inspiration struck, he listened. He had worked through the night to get it down on paper.

‘Spare me the details of your conquests,’ she begged.

‘Relax, nobody knows what this particular writer looks like.’ Persuasive as his argument was, it didn’t stop her feeling as though she had made a terrible mistake. ‘And isn’t this the way they want your writer to look…?’

‘Want? That’s the problem—nobody actually really believes he looks like a Byronic hero. You look too good to be true—they’ll smell a rat.’ But he wasn’t true, was he? He was a fake. He was also quite simply the most impossibly good-looking male she had ever seen.

‘Why, thank you.’

‘Look, if you’re not going to take this seriously drive away now,’ she instructed. This was almost certainly going to go wrong. ‘No,’ she added urgently. ‘Drive away anyway. This was a very bad idea.’

‘Chill out,’ he drawled, looking infuriatingly laid-back.

The suggestion made her see red. ‘Chill out? Chill out!’ she repeated in a shrill squeak. ‘Easy for you to say. If this goes wrong people aren’t going to think you’re the desperate sort of woman who has to resort to hire a lover!’ she declared with a groan of self-recrimination.

He scanned her anguished face, with deep-set eyes that revealed none of his feelings. ‘Presumably they’ll just think I’m a gigolo,’ he cut back. ‘Actually I wasn’t aware that sleeping with you was part of the deal, but what the hell?’ His sensual mouth formed a wide smile that didn’t touch his eyes. ‘I’ll throw that in for free.’

There was a lengthy silence while Megan cleared her head of disturbing images and sounds: A darkened room, soft groans, intimate murmurs, two sweat-soaked bodies intimately entwined…She tugged fretfully at the neck of her sweater as she fought for breath. Inch by inch she fought her way back to control…or something that passed for it.

‘God, don’t go sensitive on me,’ she begged, still haunted by the humiliating memory of the suffocating white-hot excitement she had felt when she had imagined—She caught her breath sharply. Don’t go there, Megan, she told herself sternly.

‘You know I wasn’t speaking literally,’ she contended calmly, meeting his eyes. ‘I’ve simply realised I can’t go through with it. Late in the day, I know, but don’t worry—I’ll still have a word with Uncle Malcolm. He’ll look at your manuscript, I promise.’

Megan heard the crunch of gravel behind her and looked over her shoulder. Her mother was advancing towards them. When her attention flickered back to her co-conspirator he was shaking his head.

‘I don’t want charity. I’m perfectly prepared to fulfil my side of the bargain.’

Megan looked at him with frustrated incomprehension.

His body curved towards her. ‘Smile, sweetheart, and try and remember you’ve just found the man of your dreams.’

‘Nightmares, more like.’

He laughed and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. It was so light it barely constituted a brush but Megan experienced an electrical thrill that travelled all the way to her toes. She stepped backwards, her nostrils flared as she tried not to breathe in the warm male fragrance that made her stomach flip. ‘Well, I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it.’

‘Is this a friend of yours, Megan?’

Megan, her hands held up in front of her, backed farther away from the tall, handsome figure who was the object of her mother’s obvious appreciation.

‘No—whatever gave you that idea?’ The sharpness of her tone brought her mother’s frowning attention to her own face. ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

He spared her a sideways look of amusement as he advanced towards her mother with his hand outstretched. ‘You can know some people for years and never really know them, others you can know seconds and there’s a rapport—’ He broke off and gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘Does that sound crazy?’

Megan was staggered to see her mother looking as though he’d just said something profound instead of something profoundly silly.

‘Not at all, I know exactly what you mean!’ Laura exclaimed.

‘I think it’s dangerous to go on first impressions,’ Megan inserted drily.

‘You’re not a romantic?’

‘My daughter is a cynic, Mr…’

‘I’m Lucas Patrick.’

Megan drew a deep breath and squared her slender shoulders. Well, that was it! With those words he had committed them both for better or worse…she suspected the latter.

Laura took an audible deep breath and pressed her hand to her mouth. Megan felt a fresh spasm of guilt to see her mother’s childlike delight.

‘Of course you are.’ She laughed. ‘Why, this is marvellous.’ A faint furrow appeared between her delicately arched brows. ‘My brother told me you had flu…’

‘Mal’s prone to exaggeration, but then you’d know that.’ Laura nodded happily. ‘I had a head cold, that was all.’ He looked around expectantly. ‘Where is Mal?’

‘Didn’t he mention he couldn’t make it?’

‘No, that’s a pity.’

Megan, who was amazed at how he had immersed himself in the part he was playing, watched with unwilling fascination as a troubled expression of suspicion spread across his handsome features.

‘He did…you were expecting me…?’ he pressed.

‘Of course we were,’ Laura the perfect hostess responded without skipping a beat. ‘We just weren’t sure when you’d be here, were we, darling?’

‘No, we weren’t.’ Megan glanced at her watch, how many hours of this did she have to endure? The irony was this was a situation of her own making.

‘So long as I’m not imposing.’

‘Gracious, not at all. Actually we’ve been thrilled at the prospect of having you stay. Haven’t we, darling?’

‘Thrilled,’ said Megan obediently.

‘Megan has read all your books, haven’t you?’

In full charm mode, his eyes crinkled delightfully at the corners, he turned his attention briefly to a squirming Megan. ‘I think you’ve embarrassed…’ he gave a quizzical look of apology ‘…Meg…?’

‘Megan.’