‘What are you doing? I’m sure the man you’re going to marry won’t be happy with me touching you.’
‘I’m not marrying anyone. If I have to, I’ll raise this baby alone.’
‘The hell you are. If the low-life scum that got you pregnant doesn’t want to take responsibility for you, then I’ll marry you, I’ll take care of you and your baby.’
She stared at him in shock. ‘What? You never wanted that life, why would you offer that now?’
‘Because I… I care about you.’
She shook her head. This silly, frustrating, confusingman. She would never understand what was going through his head. When he had sex with her, she felt adored, loved, like he could never get enough of her, but the next day, he was always gone and he’d spend the next few days or weeks pretending it never happened. When they slept together the last time and he’d said it could never happen again, there had been a tiny part of her that had been relieved because it was all too confusing and too painful when he made love to her like she was his world and then ignored her afterwards.
‘Who is it, who’s the father?’ Xander said. ‘Maybe I need to have a little word.’
She stroked his face and she looked him straight in the eye. ‘If you hadn’t walked out before the end of the ultrasound, you would have heard the sonographer estimate that I am roughly three months pregnant, maybe slightly more.’
She saw him making calculations, maybe thinking about the last time they made love three months before.
‘I haven’t been with any other man since the first time you and I made love,’ she went on.
His eyes widened.
‘The baby is yours.’
His breath caught in his throat as his eyes slid down to her tiny little bump. He stepped closer, moving both hands across her belly. ‘You… you’re carrying my child?’
‘Yes.’
He swallowed as he stared at her stomach. ‘But… but we used protection.’
‘I don’t know what to tell you. I haven’t even kissedanother man apart from you in the last twelve months. And there were times when things got very passionate very quickly between us, maybe there was a time that we forgot.’
‘I never forgot.’
‘Maybe you have super-powered sperm that can swim through rubber.’ She hoped that would make him smile but he was still staring at her like a rabbit in the headlights. ‘Maybe the condom split, but regardless of how or when, here we are, I’m pregnant and the babyisyours. We can do a paternity test if you don’t believe me but—’
‘That won’t be necessary. I believe you.’
He stared at her stomach again and she would have loved to see what was going through his mind. Silence stretched on for a long time and she couldn’t help thinking there was real fear in his eyes.
‘Look, I’m not expecting anything from you. I know you didn’t want this and it’s my decision to have this baby, not yours. If you don’t want to be involved, you don’t have to be.’
He shook his head and when he spoke his voice was coarse. ‘We need to get married.’
She sighed. ‘I’m not marrying you. I can’t think of anything worse.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘You can’t think of anything worse than marrying me?’
‘I can’t think of anything worse than being married to someone who doesn’t love me.’
He stared at her. ‘I… I—’
‘Don’t say it. Don’t say those words because we both know you don’t mean them.’
He scowled. ‘Getting married makes sense.’
‘In what way does it make sense?’
‘I want to take care of you, of both of you.’
