“I thought I was clear. One night, Elodie.”
She supposed she should be glad he remembered her name, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. After the intimacies they’d shared, she hadn’t expected this. Rudeness. Rejection. Cold impatience.
A shiver ran down her spine as she came face to face with the fact she had been wrong nowtwiceabout a man. Wrong about Aaron, and so wrong about Raf. But if anything, that made this easier. It would be a clinical revealing of information, and then she’d leave—as he clearly wanted her to. She highly doubted he’d want to have any part in the baby’s life, or hers.
“You were very clear,” she agreed, her fingers twitching with a need to fidget.
“So you’re here because…”
“Can we…move to the lounge room?” As soon as she suggested that, she regretted it. The lounge room had been the scene of so much sensual intimacy, just remembering what they’d done there had her cheeks flaming red.
“I have some place I need to be.”
“This won’t take long.”
“Then here’s as good a place as any. What is it?”
Wow. He really wanted her to get right to it? Fine. If that’s how he needed this to be…
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “You’re the father. There’s no one else it could be,” she tacked on, in case he intended to argue with her on that score. Unlike Raf, who’d clearly wasted no time filling his bed with women like the stunning brunette, Elodie had not done a repeat performance of that night. If anything, she’d turned up to every shift in the bar half-wondering if Raf might come back again. But he hadn’t.
She’d expected him to be surprised. Of course she had. Elodie had run the gamut of those emotions herself; it was only reasonable.
But she hadn’t expected the visceral reaction of seeing all the colour drain from his face, and for his body to half slump to the wall beside him, as if needing its support.
“Obviously, it wasn’t planned,” she said, haltingly. “I was on the pill. We used a condom. It shouldn’t have happened. But I took three different tests to be sure. I’m pregnant.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, the words quiet and deafening all at once. “It’s not possible.”
“It shouldn’t have been,” she agreed.
His nostrils flared. “I don’t believe you.”
She thought then of his tattoo, a statement in opposition to the entire idea of trust, and felt the reality of that slamming into her. He didn’t believe her, because he didn’t trust her. And never would?
“I wouldn’t make this kind of thing up.”
He cursed silently but looked dangerously pale beneath his tan. “You’re a waitress in a bar; I have more money than you can even dream of. Am I supposed to think you wouldn’t make up a pregnancy to get something out of me?”
She gasped at that, his accusation so vile and unwarranted that she saw stars of rage dance across her lids. “I didn’t come here to ask you for anything,” she denied flatly, immediately rejecting even the idea of proposing a small amount of financial assistance. She would do this on her own before she’d let him help, if that was his attitude. “I just don’t think it’s right to have a baby and not tell the other parent. But you don’t have to worry about us,” she said, hating that her voice quivered a little. “We’ll be just fine without you.”
She turned then, impossibly glad that he hadn’t acquiesced to her suggestion of going to the living room, because it meant she was right by the front door and could easily slip out. Away from him. Away from the mistaken idea that he would react in a way that was responsible and mature.
She turned, grief a bubble she wouldn’t let burst while she was still in his house. She couldn’t. She was too proud to let him see how his words had cut her. But before she could evenreach the huge, dark timber door, his hand was around her wrist, pulling on it, so she stopped walking and spun, almost banging right into his chest. His face was still pale, but closer to his usual tan, and his chest was moving with each rapidly drawn breath.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear,” she sniffed.
“You think you can waltz into my home and drop this kind of bombshell, then leave again?”
His nostrils flared, his features shifting into an expression she didn’t understand, and his accent was thicker in the flood of his emotions.
“I barely waltzed into your home. You gave me a couple of minutes in your entrance foyer,” she pointed out. And then, because indignation had her going on the attack, she continued. “I only came here because I thought it was right that you should know. I didn’t come to ask you for anything, I didn’t come because I expect you to roll up your sleeves and become some kind of super dad.”
“Stop talking.” His eyes had closed, as though he was physically rejecting every word she said. Elodie pulled on her wrist, releasing it from his grip. But anger was still spiralling through her, so she had to fight the temptation to lift both palms and press them hard to his chest. “I am not going to have this conversation until we have the facts established.”
“I’ve told you the facts. I’m pregnant. You’re the second man I’ve ever slept with, the only man for several months. There is literally no one else who could be the father.”
