His Pregnancy Bargain (9 page)

‘I know what you're going to say,' Laura rushed on, avoiding eye contact with her open-mouthed daughter. ‘I can't be; I'm too old. That's what I said to the doctor when
he told me,' she admitted. ‘But it seems I can be and I am…actually I'm twelve weeks.'

‘What does…does…Jean Paul say?' Does he know?'

‘Of course he knows—it's not like I wouldn't tell him, is it?' her mother rebuked gently and wondered at her daughter's guilt-stricken expression. ‘Actually Jean Paul is being marvellous about it, worried about my health, but everything's fine, I'm very fit. Marilyn couldn't have children, you see, and this will be his first so he's very excited….'

Megan, her voice shaky, interrupted the flow. It still didn't seem possible. ‘You're
really
pregnant?'

Her mother nodded. ‘Yes, I'm having a baby.'

Megan looked at her. ‘Me too, Mum,' she said with a high laugh that trembled on the brink of hysteria.

Laura's eyes widened. She scanned her daughter's face and Megan nodded. ‘It's true, I am.'

‘Oh, my God!'

Suddenly mother and daughter were in one another's arms, tears streaming down their cheeks.

Later when they were both cried out Laura turned to her daughter. ‘Now let's get practical. I'm assuming that Luc is the father.'

‘Why would you assume that?'

‘Really, Megan! He couldn't take his eyes off you…I'm assuming you had a falling out…?'

Megan nodded.

‘You are going to tell him?'

‘I don't know where he is…he's not in London.'

‘Malcolm will know. I'll ask him.'

‘No,' Megan replied. ‘I'll ask.'

U
NCLE
M
ALCOLM
had been reluctant to tell Megan where Luc was so she had been forced to tell him why she needed to see him.

‘So you see I have to tell him, but,' she hastened to assure him, ‘I'm not going to ask anything of him. It's my decision to have the baby…'

‘Well,
obviously
you will have the baby.'

Megan inclined her head slightly in agreement. How obvious it had been had been something that still surprised her. Maybe there was a point with most women, even those like herself who had never even considered motherhood, when your body told you it was the right time.

Or maybe wanting to bear the child of the man you love has something to do with it…?

Megan gritted her teeth and ignored the sly voice in her head. ‘And obviously he or she will be my responsibility and mine alone…'

‘I expect Luc will want a quiet ceremony….'

Megan her cheeks still tinged with colour, looked at her uncle with exasperation. This she could do without! She couldn't afford to start thinking happy families even for one second…it was her duty to stay sane.

‘Didn't you hear what I said? I want nothing from Luc.'

‘I heard you, but that's plain silly. A child needs two parents.'

And a pregnant woman needs the loving father of her baby at her side. But that just isn't going to happen, Megan, so live with it.

‘In a perfect world,' she agreed. ‘However, lots of women
bring up children on their own.' And she was determined to make sure her child lacked for nothing. Even if Luc didn't want to take an active part in his child's life—a definite possibility—she would make sure that he or she felt loved and wanted.

‘Lots of women don't have a choice,' her uncle rebutted.

‘This argument sort of presupposes that Luc is going to ask me to marry him. Not very likely…we hardly know one another.' Which made the fact she had fallen in love with a man who was virtually a stranger all the more ludicrous.

‘There's plenty of time to get to know someone after you're married.'

‘You have a unique take on marriage, Uncle Malcolm.'

‘And I think you'll find that Luc is actually quite traditional in a lot of ways.'

And he hates
clingy
women.

What man wasn't going to be horrified to discover that a woman he had had casual sex with once was carrying his child?

‘Well, it doesn't really matter what Luc wants,' Megan, calm on the outside but a mass of conflicting emotions inside, told her uncle. ‘Because I don't want to get married.' Not to a man who didn't love her, at any rate.

‘You'll change your mind,' Malcolm predicted confidently before reflecting, ‘I admit I didn't think so at the time, considering he had writer's block for the next six months, which threw the schedule all to hell, but it's turned out lucky under the circumstances that Grace wanted the divorce last year.' He appeared not to notice the spasm of shock that crossed his niece's face.

‘Luc is married…? But—' She stopped abruptly, biting her lip so hard she broke the skin. But what, Megan? Why shouldn't Luc be married? Most men his age are or have been.

‘Was,'
Malcolm inserted with a worried look at her pale
face. ‘He
was
married. They married when he was incredibly young, but they'd been apart for years. They'd just never bothered getting a divorce.'

Megan, who had a thousand questions, had pressed him for details, but Malcolm had infuriatingly clammed up, and advised her to ask Luc himself. And she was
really
going to do that! Of course you turned up on man's doorstep and said, Sorry, but I'm having your baby, and then asked him about the woman he actually loved.

Some things you didn't need to ask. She was no expert on marriage or divorce but Megan did know that people didn't
forget
to get a divorce. It wasn't the sort of thing that slipped your mind! It didn't take a genius to work out that couples who didn't legalise a split didn't do so because they hadn't given up yet. Luc and his wife had been leaving the door open for a reconciliation, and from what Malcolm had let slip it had been Luc's wife Grace who had finally closed that door.

Luc hadn't been able to work…
Grace
… Was this woman, whom Luc obviously still loved, as elegant and graceful as her name? Having discovered a previously untapped streak of masochism in her nature, Megan tortured herself on the trip to Wales imagining what the other woman looked like.

It was a long and tiring trip. She couldn't ring to let him know she was coming because Malcolm said he didn't have a phone at the cottage and always turned his mobile off when he was there. The cottage turned out to be not
quite
as isolated as her uncle had suggested. It hadn't been easy to find, though, and the last couple of miles proved the most challenging to her navigational skills.

After travelling a mile down a single track lane that was surrounded by high hedges that made it impossible to see anything, being suddenly confronted with an incredible view of the stormy sea took Megan's breath away. She stopped the car and wound down the window to take it all in. The
salty tang filled her lungs as she gazed at the scene: white-crested waves crashing onto the pebbly foreshore.

With a sigh Megan turned off the ignition; there was no point putting off the inevitable.

Cautiously—the track was full of potholes—she negotiated the path down the steep slope that led to the solitary habitation. The cottage, set on a rocky outcrop of higher ground, was situated just above the rocky seashore. The high tide lapped up against a low wall, which appeared to be the only defence against the sea. The low whitewashed building was not large, but its walls looked sturdy enough to withstand the worst the harsh elements could throw at it. It looked old enough to have been doing just that for a couple of hundred years at least.

A mud-spattered four-wheel drive Megan immediately recognised stood on a small level area in front of the cheerily red-painted front door.

Megan turned off the engine and pressed her hand flat to her chest. When your heart felt as if it were trying to escape from your chest it probably was not a good time to recall stories about apparently healthy people who dropped dead from undiagnosed heart complaints.

Maybe I should rethink this plan…? Maybe I should drop it altogether.

Calm down, Megan, you know exactly what you're going to say. ‘Just a courtesy call—I'm going to have your baby.'

Oh, dear…! Considering she had been working on the intro for the last three hundred miles, that could do with some work.

She felt physically sick as she lifted the door knocker and let it fall. When nobody replied she walked around the building peering in the windows. There was no evidence of life. Was this a sign? Was some higher authority telling her she should go home? There did seem something awfully confrontational about rolling up on a man's doorstep and telling him you were carrying his child.

Megan wasn't a confrontational person by nature.

Sure, a letter was impersonal, but was impersonal such a bad idea in this instance? The impersonal method actually had a lot to recommend it—a letter was much neater and there would be much less opportunity for her to make a total fool of herself and do something embarrassing like burst into tears.

After a brief struggle with herself, Megan decided to give it another half-hour and then return to the village she had passed through a few miles back and see if they had a room for the night. Even if she didn't see Luc she was in no condition to drive back home tonight.

Sitting in the car, she felt stiff and cold; within five minutes she lost all feeling in her extremities. Rubbing her hands together, she turned on the engine. The warmth blasted out by the heater going full throttle and the music on the radio had a predictably soporific effect.

Megan was gently dozing off when the door of the car was wrenched open without warning. It stayed open as, hands pressed on the roof, Luc bent down until he was on eye level with Megan. She thought she had committed every detail, every impossibly symmetrical detail of his face to memory, but now his dark, hard-edged face was within inches of hers she realised that he was far,
far
more beautiful in the flesh.

Thinking about flesh had not been a good move. Her stomach muscles quivered and shifted as images crowded in her head of smooth, sleek skin sheathing tight hard muscles. She had read that pregnancy could kill a girl's libido stone-dead…it turned out she wasn't one of this number!

‘It's a very nice place you have here.' Did those terminally stupid words come out of my mouth? This really wasn't how this scene had played in her head.

‘And you just happened to be passing?'

His deadly irony brought a flush to Megan's pale cheeks.

‘I would have phoned.'

Luc lifted a hand to his dark, wind-ruffled hair. It curled onto his neck. It didn't look to Megan as though it had been cut since she saw him last. ‘I don't use a phone for a reason…I don't like to be disturbed by uninvited guests when I'm working.'

She let her eyes slide over his olive-green waterproof jacket that was open at the neck to reveal a black sweater. Her examination moved lower, over his long legs encased in moleskins, and ended on his walking boots. He looked lean and fit, leaner maybe than the last time she had seen him…

She watched, unwillingly riveted as he lifted a hand to his wind-ruffled hair. His face, too, seemed thinner, with the strong bones and angles seeming more pronounced. His eyes were the same, though…an illicit little shiver ran down her spine as she diverted her gaze to a point over his shoulder.

‘Are you working now?'

‘I'm a writer. Writers are always working,' Luc lied calmly. He hadn't written a word since he'd got down here. ‘For me a walk along the beach usually focuses my thoughts nicely.' Recently they had only been on Megan's eyes, her smell, her sweet softness… Of course this obsession would pass. The irresponsible part of him suggested he enjoyed it while it lasted. But it was easier to ignore that irresponsible voice when she was three hundred miles away.

Everyone, he told himself, determinedly ignoring the ache in his groin, knew that recognising you had a problem was part of the cure.

And Luc had recognised he had a problem with Megan from day one.

‘Inspiration strikes when you're least expecting it.'

Like love, Megan thought, and gave a disbelieving sniff. ‘What do you do, carry a notebook and jot things down? No wonder you've got so many friends,' she muttered under her breath.

Did he ever invite any of those selected few, and she was
thinking female here, to this place? Did they spend weekends cosily shut away from the world together? What was there to do but walk on the beach and make love? Her hands clenched as she imagined those steamy lovers' trysts.

‘No need for notes; I have an excellent memory.'

His excellent memory was at that moment recalling the huskiness of her voice as she had called his name and said she'd never have enough of what he was doing to her. Never have enough of him, and begged him… He drew a deep breath and stopped thinking about the liquid heat of her tight around him.

He was obviously an individual who was drawn to unsuitable women; first Grace, and now Megan. Was it genetic…?

A man had to learn by his mistakes and Luc had made this mistake once before. At least last time he'd had extreme youth and rampant hormones to blame. This time around he was old enough and bruised enough by life to be able to know that instant attraction and great sex were not enough. There had to be more.

What that
more
was he had yet to figure out.

A shocking idea was forming in Megan's head. My God, had she been part of his research for his latest book? The idea made her feel physically sick. ‘Well, if I ever discover someone who resembles me in one of your books I'll sue,' she told him fiercely.

‘I thought you didn't read my stuff.'

Megan shrugged at the taunt and watched as Luc, one hand braced at the base of his spine, straightened up and rotated his shoulders, as if the position he'd been hunched in had put a few kinks in his spine.

‘Only when my train is late,' she retorted, grabbing her bag off the passenger seat and preparing to make best use of the fact he wasn't guarding her exit.

‘Don't even think about getting out,' he growled.

Megan stopped dead and lifted her glance to his. Luc's
expression held more hostility than she would have thought possible.

He hates me…
She swallowed past the emotional thickening in her throat and lifted her chin. So she hadn't expected him to open the champagne, but neither had she expected this level of antagonism.

‘I'm going to do more than that,' she promised him, flashing a smile that ached with insincerity.

Not a single muscle moved in his stony expression. ‘Just turn the car around and go back home, Megan.' He ran a hand over his jaw, his attitude now more weary than hostile. ‘We have nothing to say.'

That's all he knows!
‘My God, you're rude!'

He blinked as he looked into those stunning blue eyes that shone with disgusted condemnation. ‘I'm the rude one?' he bit back. ‘That's rich—you're the one who just turns up on my doorstep uninvited. If you want to take up where we left off you can forget it…I like to make the first move.' And he would if he let her within ten feet of him; along with common sense, the self-control he was so proud of deserted him around this woman.

Making the first move…now
that
she remembered. Actually she remembered everything and it made it hard for her to think this close to him.