Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition (15 page)

L
OUISA
walked down the steps of the antenatal unit at University College Hospital, the heels of her stilettos clicking on the pavement as she headed down the street. She gave a shaky breath, exhaustion settling over her like an impenetrable fog. She’d been up until dawn, playing all the possible scenarios of today’s scan through her head, and now all she wanted to do was sleep for a week. She needed to text Mel with her news and cry off their coffee date. She felt too drained right now even to talk to Mel, which had to be a first.

She was rooting around in her bag to find her mobile phone when the shrill screech of burning rubber split the early afternoon hush. Her head whipped round to see a familiar black convertible shudder to a halt at the kerb. The very last man on earth she wanted to see levered himself out of the car. He looked tall and gorgeous and as domineering as ever as he stalked towards her. The harsh pain stabbing at her heart did nothing to dim the familiar hum of arousal. She stiffened, hating herself. When had she become such a glutton for punishment?

‘Have you had the scan?’ he asked, towering over her.

She locked her knees and pushed her chin up. ‘What are you doing here?’

He took her arm. ‘Are you okay? Is the baby okay?’

‘Why do you care?’ she snapped back. She tried to pull her arm away. She didn’t want him to touch her, but she had so little strength left he had no trouble holding her.

‘Just answer the question. What did the doctor say?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ she hissed, resentment burning inside her. Why was he doing this?

His fingers relaxed on her arm and his breath whooshed out. ‘Are you sure?’

His voice wavered, almost as if he were scared to ask the question.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said, determined not to analyse his reaction. What he thought about the baby didn’t matter any more. She couldn’t let it matter. ‘Now, go away.’

She tugged her arm out of his grasp. But she’d gone less than three steps before he shouted behind her. ‘Come back here. I want to talk about this.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ she said, tossing the words over her shoulder, and carried on walking. She had to get away from him. If she fell apart in front of him she’d never forgive herself.

She heard his footsteps pounding on the pavement and then he was blocking her path. His hands rested on his hips and he had a scowl on his face. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me about the scan? About the GP not finding a heartbeat?’

Her fingers trembled as she clung to the shoulder strap of her bag. Why was he asking these things now, when it was too late? Was this some new form of torture he’d devised to make her suffer? ‘Why would I tell you? You don’t want to be involved—remember?’

His scowl deepened. ‘I never said that. The baby’s my child too.’

She could hear the panic in his voice, see the concern in his eyes, and had to steel herself not to be moved by it. This was just a knee-jerk reaction on his part. He felt guilty because of that sharp sense of responsibility of his. But duty wasn’t enough—it wasn’t love. She didn’t need his protection or his charity, and neither did her child.

‘It’s not your child. Not any more,’ she said. ‘It’s mine and I can cope without you. So you can stop worrying about us now.’

Luke was so stunned by the blank look on Louisa’s face and the weary acceptance in her eyes that he couldn’t speak. His huge relief that the baby was all right was replaced by a strangling sense of fear and loss which seemed to come from nowhere. Where was the fighting spirit that he’d always admired so much? Why did she look so drained? So sad?

She walked past him, but he pulled her round to face him.

‘Of course you need me. How are you going to cope in that tiny flat? The child will be a bastard—and believe me that’s no picnic,’ he blurted out. She flinched at the ugly word and he softened his voice. ‘And babies cost money—lots of money. Have you thought of that?’ He stroked her arm, felt the slight shiver of response and thanked God for it. ‘You look shattered, Louisa. You need me. The baby needs me.’

‘Let go of my arm, Luke,’ she murmured. He could see the dark smudges under her eyes and shame engulfed him. He did as she asked, feeling like the worst kind of bully.

‘I needed you last night,’ she said. ‘While I was awake and panicking about what would happen today, what the doctor might find.’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ he said.

‘I thought the baby was dead,’ she said, as if he hadn’t
spoken. The pain in her eyes was so vivid his shame turned to something black and ugly. ‘I needed you to hold my hand, to tell me I was being an idiot, to tell me I was overreacting. But you weren’t there—because you chose not to be. And now it’s too late.’

She turned to leave and desperation seized him. She wasn’t going to walk away from him. Not again. He wouldn’t let her. ‘It’s not too late. You said you loved me.’ He threw the words at her like a drowning man in a stormy sea. ‘If you really did you’d give us another chance.’

‘A chance for what?’ she said, the temper in her brown eyes making them flare to life at last. ‘A chance for a casual affair that would fizzle out before the baby’s even born? I won’t settle for that. Not for me or my child.’

‘We can live together,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you want.’

Instead of accepting his olive branch, she snapped it off at the root.

‘I don’t want the grudging offer of a place to stay,’ she said. ‘I told you I loved you and you threw that back in my face. I wanted you to share this child, to be a real father to it, but you don’t want that either. There’s nothing to take a chance on. Can’t you see that?’

The pity shadowing her eyes triggered a grinding feeling of inadequacy he thought he’d conquered a lifetime ago.

‘You don’t understand.’ His voice broke on the words. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to love you. It’s not that I don’t want to be a father to this child. It’s that I can’t—’ He stopped. The something that had twisted inside him cracked open, leaving the same gaping chasm of despair and longing that he remembered from his childhood. ‘It’s that I can’t love you.’

Louisa stared, shocked by the naked pain in his voice, the hopelessness in his eyes. Did he really believe that? But
as his eyes flicked away from her face, the smoky grey pale with regret, she knew he did believe it.

The miserable depression that had seized her ever since she left Havensmere, that had made her cry herself to sleep every night thinking about all she’d lost—all she’d never really had—began to clear. A tiny flame of hope flickered to life in her chest. Was it possible that she’d been wrong about him all along? That he’d controlled his feelings and tried to control her in a misguided attempt to protect her?

‘Why can’t you love us?’

He thrust his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

‘Of course it matters.’ She could hear the pleading in her voice, and might have been ashamed of it. But her pride didn’t seem to matter any more. Not when so much was at stake. ‘Does this have something to do with your father?’

His head jerked up, and she saw the flash of vulnerability before he could control it.

Her instincts were correct. She’d known his father’s rejection had hurt him, but why had it scarred him so deeply?

‘I can’t talk about this,’ he said. ‘We’re in a public street and it’s personal. And anyway, it’s not remotely relevant.’

Louisa steeled herself against the anguish in his voice. She had to force this out into the open if she was ever going to get to the truth. ‘We’re only a short drive from the park. We’ll have some privacy there.’

He seemed reluctant to agree, but nodded.

The drive took less than five minutes. As they drove into the outer circle Louisa was reminded of their first night together. The sweet romantic promise of the fresh spring breeze, the glittering twilight and those dewy pink blossoms. The grass was brown in patches now, after too many days without rain, and the air was sluggish and heavy after
a long hot city summer. The leaves on the trees were already dying, the bright flowers beginning to shrivel up and shed their blooms so they could go back into the earth to survive the winter.

The evidence of nature’s cycle made her smile, and she let hope blossom inside her.

She’d done everything backwards where Luke was concerned. She’d conceived his child, then fallen in love with him—and all before she’d ever really known him or understood him. He’d held himself back and tried to control the uncontrollable, while she’d rushed headfirst into love without taking the time to see why he was so scared to let himself follow. Thanks to her own insecurities she’d assumed he’d wanted to control her—when what he’d really been doing was trying to control himself, to control his feelings.

Once they were seated on a bench under an old maple tree Louisa could see that Luke had been careful to hide his unhappiness, his vulnerability. She wasn’t about to let him withdraw, though. Not this time.

‘What happened with your father, Luke? What did he do to you?’

He studied her. ‘You’re not going to let this go, are you?’

‘No, I’m not.’ This was way too important.

He took a deep breath, turning away to stare at the grass that edged the path. ‘I asked him if I was really his son,’ he said thinly, ‘and he slapped me across the face.’

Louisa gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.
Oh, no.

Luke didn’t look round, so absorbed in the painful memory she wasn’t even sure he’d heard her. ‘He told me I was nothing more to him than an inconvenience, and if
I ever told anyone I was his son he’d cut me off without a penny and let me fend for myself.’

‘Oh, Luke,’ she whispered. ‘How could anyone do that to a child? To a lonely, grieving child who was thousands of miles from home?’

He shrugged, the stiff jerk of his shoulder doing nothing to hide the pain. ‘He changed his tune as he got older and realised he was never going to father another child. But by then I didn’t need his money.’

‘That’s why you didn’t want to acknowledge your relationship with him—because he had never acknowledged you.’

He turned to look at her and nodded, but his eyes had gone carefully blank. ‘I despised him. I still do. But none of this has anything to do with our relationship—’

‘He hurt you, Luke,’ she interrupted softly. She laid her hand on his arm and felt the tremble of emotion he couldn’t disguise. ‘He made you think you didn’t matter. Don’t you see you’re letting him win by closing yourself off? By convincing yourself that you can’t love anyone, that you don’t deserve it? You had to do that when you were a child. You don’t have to do it any more. I offered you my love. Why won’t you take it?’

‘Damn it.’ He leant forward and sunk his head in his hands. ‘I can’t take it.’ The words were muffled but she could still hear the misery in them.

She bent close to him, stroked his thigh, felt the ironhard muscles tight with tension. ‘Why can’t you take it?’

‘Because it wouldn’t be fair.’ He ran his hands through his hair, gave a deep sigh. His eyes met hers, the look in them sharp and wary. ‘You’re such a romantic, Louisa. You think you can love me and it’ll all be okay. But it won’t be. I’ll make a terrible father. I’ve always known that.
I wanted to support the baby, to give it all the things I never had. But I won’t be able to love it any more than I’ll be able to love you. I don’t seem to be able to get close to anyone. Something died inside me that day. And I killed it. Not him.’

Tears clogged her throat as she listened to the pain in his voice, saw the torment in his eyes. He’d spent so much of his life learning how
not
to need anyone. Now that he did he had no idea what to do. She swallowed the tears down and took his cheeks in her palms, kissed him full on the mouth.

‘Shut up, Luke,’ she said, giving his head an impatient shake. She stroked his cheeks, felt the fine rasp of his stubble. ‘You didn’t kill anything—and neither did he, even though he tried. You’re not going to make a terrible father. You’re going to make a wonderful one. And you’re going to make a wonderful husband too—when you get over this silly notion you have about love being some big, scary thing you’re not allowed to have.’

‘You can’t know that,’ he said, his voice quiet and forlorn.

She grasped his hand and stood up, tugging him off the bench. ‘You want to know what I see when I look at you?’

‘I’m not sure I want to hear this,’ he said.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, gazed up at that harsh, handsome face. ‘I see a man who believed he couldn’t be a father yet felt fiercely protective towards his child. A man who cooked for me, cared for me, and worried about me even though he barely knew me. I see a man who’s made a home out of a place he thought he hated. A man who always puts my pleasure before his own, and a man who can make me laugh even when he’s driving me nuts. But most of all I see a man who needs me as much as I need him.’

She slid her hands up his back, held him close as she buried her head in his chest. She felt the heavy weight of
his hands on her shoulders, saw the uncertainty in his eyes as she looked up. And she loved him even more.

He cupped her cheek, rubbed it as she leant into his palm. ‘You’re scaring me to death, Louisa. You know that, right?’

‘I know it’s a leap of faith, and you’re not used to those. But you can’t hide for the rest of your life.’ She sent him a watery smile. ‘You’ve needed a home for a long time. And our baby needs one too. We can make one together at Havensmere, or in London, or wherever we want. But it’ll be so much stronger and better than anything we could make apart.’

‘Are you sure you want to risk it?’ he said, sounding amazed. ‘I’m warning you, I don’t even know where to start.’

‘You’ve started already,’ she said, grinning. ‘You just haven’t been paying attention.’

He held her head in his hands, lowered his mouth to hers and murmured, ‘Okay, you’re on. But I’m warning you. Now I’ve got you I’m never letting you go.’

‘Same goes for me,’ she whispered back, and her heart overflowed.

As Luke’s lips covered hers, he felt the same emotional upheaval that had scared him from the first moment he’d met her. But this time the insistent need to draw back—to protect himself, to protect her—didn’t come. His fingers dug into the firm flesh of her buttocks as his tongue tangled with hers, and he heard the soft purr deep in her throat that signalled her arousal.