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

CHAPTER EIGHT

MEGAN didn’t close the curtains. The moon had appeared and the leaded window was open. The soft breeze blowing through ruffled the heavy brocade curtains and cooled the warm, sticky night air.

She had slept in this room most of her life and she knew every creak and groan the ancient building could make. So when she heard a soft creak, Megan knew immediately that someone had stepped on the uneven floorboard just outside her door. That creaky floorboard had saved her from being caught reading under the covers on more than one occasion.

Mum, come to check up on me.

Sometimes, Megan decided, hiding your head under the bedclothes really was the only sensible thing to do. Before she did exactly that she twitched one of the drapes on her half-tester bed closed.

Lying there, eyes tightly closed she heard the door open. Though she strained her ears Megan couldn’t hear footsteps on the polished oak floor. Pretending to be asleep when you knew someone was in the room watching you had seemed a lot easier when she was ten, she reflected as she did her best to keep her breathing even and relaxed.

The silent presence she sensed seemed to stand beside the bed for a very long time. It seemed as if hours had passed before she heard the door latch softly click closed. She exhaled a gusty sigh of relief.

‘Thank goodness for that!’ she breathed, rolling onto her back. With a soft grunt she pulled herself to her knees and drew back the curtain. It was as she pushed wayward strands of hair from her sticky, too-warm face with her forearm that Megan realised she wasn’t alone.

Her midnight visitor was still there.

For a split second she just froze at the sight of the tall intruder standing with his broad shoulders set against the panelled oak door. The paralysis only lasted a fraction of a second before a massive rush of adrenaline was released into her bloodstream. Megan was out of the bed and standing there her body ramrod stiff.

Luc didn’t think he had ever seen anyone radiate loathing quite so effectively as Megan did at that moment. So maybe convincing her he had always intended to come clean might not be easy…?

Easy? She’s going to call you a lying bastard!

My God, had he messed up! It wasn’t that he had intended for things to go that far before he told her the truth; not doing so had been one of the stupidest things he had ever done and he was totally prepared to admit it. The fact was, for the first time in his life he had let sexual hunger overrule common sense.

Megan watched as he lifted a hand to his forehead in a languid mocking salute. The colour seeped out of her skin, only emphasizing the sapphire shimmer of her eyes.

This was all a joke to him. God, but she had been such a fool! She had knocked back God knew how many decent men who liked her for a man who hadn’t stopped lying to her from the moment they had met!

First Brian, now Luc—am I doomed to go through life being attracted to lowlife scumbags—? It was a deeply depressing thought, though, if she was honest, nothing she had felt for Brian in or out of bed resembled the passion that this man was capable of wakening in her. She had never hated Brian, or for that matter loved him. Whereas she hated Luc and…

‘You lying, conniving rat!’ she blasted.

I will not love him…I will not.

She stood there hating him, and hating even more the hot, liquid tightening low in her pelvis and the inner knowledge that if he touched her she would be lost.

Her eyes slid of their own volition over his lean, muscular body. He was perfect, but it wasn’t simply his physical perfection and startling male beauty that had her hooked, but the aura of raw sexuality that hung about him. She shivered. Everything he did, the slightest gesture, the way he turned his head, fascinated her.

‘A touch hypocritical coming from someone who was pretending, very badly, to be asleep.’

He levered himself casually from the door frame.

‘I thought you were my mother.’

‘That makes it all right, then.’

She ground her teeth, knowing that if she opened her mouth without counting to twenty she would be shrieking like a fishwife in two seconds flat. She didn’t want to risk getting incoherent or, worse, start bawling her head off. Megan wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of him.

‘I’m assuming you’re a little annoyed with me because I didn’t tell you who I was—?’

‘You’re incredibly perceptive for a lying rat.’

‘Do you think we could keep the rat references to the minimum? Can’t stand the things.’ ‘He rubbed his forearm vigorously as he admitted with a grimace, ‘They make my skin crawl.’

‘You make my skin crawl,’ she retorted childishly.

‘No, I don’t.’

The rippling sensation as all the muscles in her abdomen tightened wrenched a tiny grunt from her dry throat. His voice had a tactile quality that was like a caress.

Megan had never believed that violence solved anything, but as he stood there radiating total confidence she wondered if on this occasion it might not be the way to go. Even if it didn’t solve anything, wiping that arrogant smirk off his face might make her feel better.

She took a deep, calming breath and told herself to rise above the provocation. Don’t sink to his level.

‘You like my skin, Megan.’

She started to shake her head until her eyes connected with Luc’s. A slow, guilty flush spread over her face.

‘Not the man inside it, I don’t.’ The skin, however, the smooth skin with its incredibly satiny texture, still, to her immense shame, exerted a strong tug to her senses.

His face tautened with anger.

‘It wasn’t my inner beauty you were interested in earlier.’

The awful thing was his mortifying observation could be equally true now. A fact hard to miss when no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t stop her gaze straying to the point where the material of his shirt gaped, allowing a tormenting glimpse of flat brown belly.

He had been wearing the same shirt earlier. Megan had a horrible suspicion that she might have had something to do with that missing button.

Luc’s jaw clenched as he bit back the oath that rose to his lips. ‘If you stop sniping for thirty seconds I might be able to explain. I was going to tell you who I was, but—’

‘But you thought it was a shame to waste the opportunity of a few more make-a-fool-of-Megan moments,’ she inserted bitterly.

‘I didn’t want to make a fool of you, but you’ve got to admit you were phenomenally patronising when you rolled up at my place…’

‘I was not patronising!’ How could you be patronising when you were faced with a man who was, not only intimidatingly perfect and off-the-scale sexy, but quite obviously capable of delivering killer put-downs in his sleep?

‘You wrote me off as the hired help, nice body but not much between the ears, the moment I walked in.’

‘Your body isn’t that good,’ she lied. ‘And I never thought you were stupid.’ The intelligence in his eyes had been the first, well, maybe not first thing, but it had definitely been one of the first things she had noticed about him.

‘Admit it,’ he challenged. ‘You’re an intellectual snob of the worst kind.’

Her face got hot with anger at this totally unjust assessment. ‘And you decided to teach me a lesson? That’s why you came here pretending to be someone you’re not.’

‘Can you deny you needed a lesson? And I came here pretending to be me…’

‘Being pedantic doesn’t make you any less a total sleaze. Tell me, because I’m curious, what part of my lesson involved having sordid sex with me?’

‘You seemed to enjoy sordid at the time,’ he rebutted with brutal accuracy.

Megan flushed bright pink. ‘Carry on thinking that if it makes you happy.’ Without taking her eyes off his face, she reached for the bedside lamp; the lamp toppled and fell to the floor with a loud crash.

Megan didn’t try and retrieve it. It wasn’t as if the room wasn’t bright enough—the moonlight streaming in through the window made the room as bright as day. The moon was so bright that she could see things she’d have been happier not seeing. Things like the shadow of body hair through his shirt…something that she was trying very hard not to see.

Besides that, this wasn’t an occasion when moonlight was appropriate. Moonlight suggested romance and lovers.

‘Are you going to pick that up?’

‘No!’ she snapped as he bent down. His head lifted. ‘Leave it,’ she snarled. ‘You’ve got a cheek, I’ll give you that. How dare you creep into my room? Get the hell out before I call for someone!’

Luc effected innocence. ‘I thought we had a date?’

Her hands balled into fists. ‘You must be joking!’ she hissed. ‘What you did was sick.’

‘Stupid maybe,’ came Luc’s grim-faced admission.

Suddenly Megan wanted to cry. ‘You’re a cold, callous bastard, and I’m so glad I entertained you.’ Her feathery brows twitched. ‘Do you generally have to pretend to be someone else to get a woman to sleep with you?’

Luc was starting to look exasperated. ‘Look, I really regret what happened tonight.’

‘Why—was I that bad?’ In case he thought she was seeking reassurance, she added belligerently, ‘You should know that I happen to know I was great.’

‘You were great and then,’ he drawled, ‘you opened your mouth.’ Even as he spoke an image flashed into his head of those soft, moist lips running over his naked skin. His eyes half closed, Luc’s respiration started to come significantly faster as his body responded with painful urgency to the steamy image of Megan kneeling in front of him. It was so real that his long fingers flexed as he imagined himself winding them into the silky honey tresses as she knelt before him.

He touched the back of his hand to the beads of sweat along his upper lip and struggled to regain some control of his imagination.

Dear God, Luc, he told himself, you’re acting like a teenager with his first rush of hormones!

‘You seemed to think I was great too. In fact I seem to recall you saying you thought you were falling in love with me…?’

Megan froze. ‘I did not!’

‘I could say did too, but not being five any more I won’t. I’m prepared to give the benefit of the doubt…’

This man was quite simply unbelievable!

‘The fact is I’m not happy with unquestioning adoration. I hate clingy women.’

‘Do I look like I’m suffering from a case of adoration?’

‘For crying out loud, woman!’ he grated, an expression of seething frustration on his lean, strong-boned face. ‘I came here to apologise but you make me so damned mad.’ His heavy-lidded glance slid downwards from the twin beacons of her blazing blue eyes.

At about the same moment Megan awakened to the uncomfortable fact she was standing there in a skimpy, short nightie. Her discomfort would have been ten times worse had she realised that the moonlight had rendered the fabric virtually transparent.

Luc was not similarly unaware and hadn’t been since she had leapt from her bed. He was painfully aware of the outline of her slim, supple body. As much as he tried not to let them, his eyes were continually drawn to the gentle upward tilt of her rosy-tipped breasts and the strategic darker shadow at the apex of her long legs.

Megan resisted the urge to tug down the hem, and endured his scrutiny impassively. It isn’t what you wear, it’s the way you wear it—isn’t that what Mum always says? Of course her mother, who bought sexy silk pyjamas half a dozen at a time from her favourite designer, would never have been caught wearing a cheap chain-store nightdress.

‘Was it all a joke to you?’ Megan asked.

His smoky gaze returned to her face; his manner was uncharacteristically distracted. ‘Of course it wasn’t a joke…I didn’t expect tonight to go the way it did.’

‘Well, I don’t believe you,’ she countered furiously. ‘I think you planned everything. I think you’re a cold, callous, manipulative snake.’

‘Right, then, I don’t suppose there’s anything more to say.’

He’s going now…say something. ‘Fine, you know where the door is.’

Face like stone, Luc turned. ‘See you around, Megan.’

‘Not if I see you first,’ she hissed.

The moment the door closed she crumbled.

CHAPTER NINE

MALCOLM, wearing silk pyjamas and a dressing gown, looked relieved when he saw Megan.

‘I thought for a second you were your mother. I’ve been outside to have a couple of puffs on a cigar. You couldn’t sleep either, huh?’ He looked sympathetically at Megan, who was seated at the long scrubbed table in the cavernous kitchen.

Megan shook her head and nursed her mug of tea, which had gone cold while she’d sat there. She summoned up a weak smile and hoped her face had recovered from the worst of the tear damage. ‘Bad night, Uncle Mal?’

‘I never sleep in the country. Quite frankly I don’t see how anyone does. It’s so darned noisy,’ he complained, dragging himself up a chair.

Despite her bleak frame of mind Megan was amused by his comment. As a country girl born and bred she couldn’t let this comment go unchallenged.

‘What about London traffic?’ Even she, a sound sleeper—normally—found that hard to cope with sometimes.

‘You can tune out traffic noises—wild animals making all sorts of unearthly noises through the entire night you cannot. Frankly, it gives me the creeps. Mind you, it’s not as bad here as where Luc lives.’ He gave a shudder. ‘You have the sound of the sea to cope with there as well. God, the sound of the sea has to be the loneliest sound in the world.’

‘That’s really quite poetic, Uncle Mal.’

‘Yes, I thought so too,’ he agreed, looking pleased. ‘Is there any tea in the pot?’

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s cold,’ she said. ‘I thought Luc said he lived in London.’

‘Told you that, did he? Not like Luc to tell you anything beyond name, rank and serial number. He must have taken a shine to you.’

Megan laughed uncomfortably and said lightly. ‘I doubt it.’

‘No, the London place is a new thing. When he isn’t traveling—a bit of a gypsy, our Luc is. You never know when he’ll have the urge to take off. It’s in his blood.’

Megan, who had heard the Land Rover revving up at three in the morning, lowered her gaze to the cold depths of her mug. She had seen the note on the hall stand addressed to her mother in a strong scrawl. It wouldn’t be long before Malcolm discovered that Luc had taken off again…and good riddance!

‘Normally he buries himself out in the wilds of the country, some place with a name I can’t pronounce…Welsh. Not big on his fellow man, is Luc, but then,’ he reflected, ‘who can blame him under the circumstances?’

‘What circumstances would those be?’ Megan enquired.

‘Said too much,’ said Malcolm, looking alarmed.

‘No, you’ve not said enough,’ Megan corrected forcefully. She was sick to the back teeth with all this secrecy.

Malcolm sighed heavily. ‘You’re very like your mother sometimes,’ he said. ‘Now you must promise that what I tell you stays between us…?’

Megan gravely nodded.

‘Luc had a successful business, engineering, he had a partner and, to cut a long story short, the partner had been draining the firm of funds for ages. The chap finally did a runner and left Luc to face the music.’

‘Music…but I thought you said it was the partner…?’

‘True, the only thing he had done wrong was trusting the wrong man. The police were very good, he said.’

‘The police were involved!’ she exclaimed.

‘Sure, there was a full investigation and Luc was totally vindicated. It might have stopped there but one of the investors killed himself when he realised his life savings were down the toilet. Apparently the guy was pretty unstable to begin with, but when someone leaves a couple of kids and a pretty widow the press are not going to mention that. The press did a real job on Luc.’

The information was a lot for Megan to take in at once. ‘Why don’t I know about any of this?’

‘It happened during your dad’s last illness. Luc has changed a lot since then too; he doesn’t look much like he did…short hair, sharp suits…people forget.’

‘But Luc doesn’t,’ she said quietly.

‘God, no!’ exclaimed Malcolm. ‘Luc isn’t the forgiving and forgetting type.’

‘Him and me both,’ Megan gritted. No matter what had happened to Luc in the past, nothing made what he had done to her excusable.

‘Relocation?’ Megan repeated blankly. She had been finding it pretty hard to concentrate all day. It hadn’t quite sunk in yet even though she had done the test twice—to be sure. It hadn’t really been necessary—deep down she had already known, even before the little blue line had appeared.

There hadn’t been symptoms as such, just a feeling. She had told herself that she was worrying unnecessarily, dates meant nothing, her cycle had always been pretty erratic.

She was still in denial. Of course she knew it happened, but not to her! The situation had been complicated by the fact that an old school friend was staying with her that week. Sophie was just about her best friend in the world, but confiding in her wasn’t an option. Sophie had been married five years and had just completed her second lot of IVF treatment—how could you tell someone who was desperate to have a baby that you’d got pregnant accidentally?

‘The quotes to bring the building in line with health and safety regulations have proved prohibitive.’

Megan struggled to concentrate on what her boss was saying.

‘This a prime site for development and, apparently, it’s economically more viable to sell and move out of the city.’ He sighed. ‘It’s a charming part of the world, not far from a village called Underwood. I don’t suppose you know the area…?’

‘Actually I was brought up not far from there,’ Megan admitted.

‘Excellent. Well, you don’t have to make any decision now, but we’re very keen not to lose key staff like yourself. I think that once you’ve had a chance to examine the details, you’ll find that the relocation package we’re offering is generous—very generous indeed.’

For two days afterwards she pretended nothing had happened. On the third she took some of the leave she had accumulated and went home, it seemed the natural thing to do.

Her mother was away when Megan arrived at the house. The housekeeper, Elspeth, whom Megan had known since she was a child, explained that she had gone to Paris for a break.

‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’ Megan asked.

‘I couldn’t say,’ came the less-than-forthcoming response.

Another time Megan might have pressed the subject, but she had other things to think about. Maybe she was reading too much into the way Elspeth spoiled and fussed over her during the weekend, or maybe the older woman had inherited some intuitive powers from her Celtic forebears; either way Megan wasn’t allowed to lift a finger. It was actually rather comforting to be fussed over.

The ancient walls of her childhood home had a strangely soothing effect upon her; the moment she walked through the door she experienced a strange sense of peace. Was it her condition that made her look at the beauty of her surroundings with different eyes? While she was walking in the woods one morning she came to a decision: she wanted her child to be brought up here where she had.

Laura returned on Sunday.

‘You look incredible,’ Megan told her as they took tea together in the pretty morning room. ‘I really like your hair that way.’

‘You don’t think it’s too…young…?’

‘You are young, Mum.’ Normally Megan would have picked up on her mother’s tension immediately, but on this occasion she herself was distracted. Should she just come out with it, or would it be better to let her mother have a good night’s sleep before she broke her news?

She took a deep breath…there was no good putting it off.

‘Mum…’

‘Megan, there’s something I have to tell you…’

‘Same here,’ Megan said with a strained smile. ‘After you…’

Laura got up and walked over to the low mullioned window. For the first time Megan registered her parent’s unease. ‘You know I went to Paris?’

Megan nodded. ‘Yes?’

‘I stayed with a friend.’

Her mother, her discomfort evident, was looking anywhere but at her. A knot of cold fear tightened in her stomach.

‘That was nice,’ she said, clenching and unclenching her white-knuckled hands as she worked up the courage to ask what she had to. ‘You’re not…ill, are you, Mum? If you are,’ she added quickly, ‘you mustn’t panic. We can cope with whatever it is.’

When Laura turned and saw her daughter’s face a grimace of self-recrimination crossed her own. The fear that lurked behind Megan’s composed expression, she had seen before. At her lowest ebb, during her husband’s illness and after his death, Megan had been a constant source of strength and comfort to them both, but sometimes Laura had seen that look…a shadow, really…It had made her feel guilty for relying so heavily on Megan.

‘Gracious, no, I’m fine,’ she assured Megan quickly.

Megan released a sigh of relief; nothing her mother had to say could be worse than what she had been imagining.