Their Baby Surprise

And her shock was much too quickly superseded by the hot heat of embarrassment and soul-destroying attraction.

Leaning against the door of this dark saloon, Lucien was talking on his phone. Earthy, menacing, sexy.

He hadn’t seen her yet.

She pushed away the impulse to run away and instead put the milkshake carton in a nearby bin, tidied the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail, grimaced down at her purple and blue leggings and dark navy sweatshirt, and tightened her grip on her rucksack handle.

He became aware of her when she was twenty paces away. He continued to talk on the phone but he watched her intently. Every. Single. Step. Of. The. Way. Green eyes narrowed, lazily travelling down her body and back up again.

He was tieless, top button undone, his shirt sleeves rolled up. His dark brown hair was cut tightly into his scalp at the side, the top a little longer and curling slightly, adding to his air of menace. The powerful strength of his fighter body was clear in his muscular forearms, the broad width of his shoulders, the long length of his legs, planted wide apart.

Lucien didn’t look like the other suave CEOs that swarmed London. Instead he looked like a dock worker from Marseille who modelled and took part in mixed martial arts in his spare time.

She hated how attracted she was to him.

She hated how her body melted just seeing him, the tight longing that pulled hard within her.

She hated the physical hunger that froze her brain and all logic.

Destructive, crushing chemistry.

She came to a stop a few steps away from him and he finished his call.

They stared at each other and she raised an eyebrow. Determined not to be the first to talk. To ask him why he was here. To say that she thought he was away on business for the next fortnight.

His gaze dropped down along her body again. And stopped on her stomach. Heat blasted through her at the intimacy, protectiveness, ownership of his look.

Her heart thudded in her chest.

He was the father of her child.

They would be bound for ever.

A thought that was mystifying, incredible, terrifying.

She cleared her throat loudly and dropped her rucksack down in front of her, to swing against her legs. Her arms now shielded her belly.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

She wanted to say no. This morning had been way more difficult than she had ever anticipated. In perhaps complete naivety she had thought Lucien would be shocked but accepting of her plans for the future. He wasn’t father material, after all. She had sat at her desk all day thinking about what he had said. And come to the realisation that she needed to reassure him of her ability to care for their baby.

He gestured down the street. ‘We can talk in a café on the High Street.’

‘The smell of coffee makes me nauseous.’ She hesitated for a moment as the lines around his eyes tightened. In concern or dislike at another reminder of her pregnancy? With a sense of inevitability and a need to get this over and done with, she added, ‘We can talk in my apartment.’

Lucien said something quickly to his driver and then she led the way into the 1960s redbrick block.

Inside the foyer, he reached for her rucksack. ‘I’ll carry your bag.’ For a brief moment their fingers met. Their gazes clashed and all of the intimacy, the intensity, the closeness of their night together rushed back.

She yanked her hand away and, not welcoming the prospect of being stuck in the tight confines of the lift with him, led him to the stairwell instead.

Walking alongside him up the stairs, she asked, ‘What explanation did you give Human Resources for wanting my address?’

He looked at her with a hint of bemusement. ‘The HR director has enough sense not to ask.’ Then his features fixed back into their usual hard shrewdness. ‘I also spoke to Simon. He made no mention of your resignation.’

They had reached the third floor and she paused on the stairwell and answered, not quite able to meet his eye. ‘I didn’t resign... I’ll do so tomorrow.’

‘Why?’

His now dispassionate tone, so in contrast to the heat of his gaze in the foyer, his lack of understanding of how her life was being turned upside down and his insistence on questioning everything she needed to do had her answer crossly. ‘Simon was busy, and frankly I couldn’t face it...not after this morning. I couldn’t take another difficult conversation today.’ She paused, and as the true realisation of what she was giving up hit home she grabbed her rucksack off him. ‘I love my job. I’ve worked so hard over the years to get to this position.’ A lump suddenly formed in her throat. She knew of her reputation as a tough negotiator within the wider organisation, but within her department, where she was one of the most senior staff members and often mentored the younger staff, she was more relaxed, more herself. ‘It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to everyone.’

She twisted around and stormed through the door into the corridor that led to her apartment. As she searched her rucksack for her keys he joined her at her front door and said, ‘You don’t have to resign.’

‘Yeah, that would work out just fine—me pregnant with the CEO’s baby and we can’t even bring ourselves to say hello in the corridors.’

‘That’s why I came back from Paris. We need to sort this out now.’

With tense fingers she opened the front door of her apartment, a heavy knot of anxious speculation landing in her stomach at his words, while simultaneously managing to worry about the trivial: what would he make of her minuscule apartment, especially in comparison to his vast five-storey Mayfair town house? But her love for her apartment’s bright open interior and pride that she had finally managed to get a foothold on the crazy London property market had her march in ahead of him.

In the open-plan lounge and kitchen she gestured to her grey velvet couch, silently inviting him to sit, and asked, ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

He didn’t sit but instead paced around the room. The room shrank around his restlessness, the power and strength of his body. Needing some oxygen against the tension in the room, she moved to the lounge window and opened it to the still-warm April air.

When she turned back to face him, he hit her with a non-compromising stare. ‘I want to be a part of this baby’s life on a daily basis.’

The knot of anxiety inside her twisted. ‘That’s not possible, you know that. I’m moving away from London.’

‘Don’t move away.’

She gestured around her apartment. ‘I need more space. I need to be near my parents. To have family close by.’

‘I agree, that’s why I believe you should move in with me...and, for that matter, why we should marry.’

She sank down onto the window seat below the open window. ‘Marry!’

‘Yes.’

A known serial dater was proposing marriage. This was crazy. He had the reputation for being impulsive and a maverick within the industry, but his decisions were always backed up with sound logic. And that quick-fire decision-making, some would even say recklessness, often gave him the edge over his more ponderous rivals. But he had called this one all wrong. She gave an incredulous laugh. ‘I bet you don’t even believe in marriage?’

He rolled his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck hard, his expression growing darker before he answered, ‘It’s the responsible thing to do when a child becomes part of the equation.’

This was crazy. She lifted her hands to her face in shock and exasperation, her hot cheeks burning against the skin of her palms. ‘Have you really thought about what it takes to be a father? A child needs consistency, routine, to know that they are the centre of the parent’s life. Have you considered the sacrifices needed? Your work life, the constant travel, all of the partying—everything about the way you live now will be affected. Are you prepared to give up all of that?’

Standing in the centre of the room, he folded his arms on his wide imposing chest, his eyes firing with impatient resolve. ‘I don’t have a choice. This child is my responsibility and duty. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that it has a safe and happy childhood.’

‘I can give my baby all of that.’

‘You admitted this morning that you have limited support.’