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It wasn’t even a staunch reassurance, but that didn’t matter. Because she knew Tate, and she knew that ‘his best’ meant that he would move heaven and earth to protect their baby. She wasn’t even really worried, so much as curious.

‘We’ll fence the house,’ he added, frowning, so she turned her hand and squeezed his.

‘We’ll do whatever it takes for you to be happy,’ he added, so her heart squeezed in time with her hand.

‘I know,’ she said, nodding.

Silence crackled between them, drowning out the collapsing bubbles in the sink and the ticking of the clock, drowning out everything but the thundering of Sarah’s blood in her veins.

‘Tate?’ she murmured, staring into his eyes, lips pulling into a flicker of a frown at how inevitable things always seemed around him.

‘Sarah?’

‘Let’s go to bed.’

And it didn’t even feel strange to suggest that. It seemed like the most natural progression of their situation to simply presume that they’d sleep together, in the same room, without needing to have a huge discussion around what that meant. Or perhaps it was that they’d already discussed it, ad nauseam, and agreed sex meant nothing, and their future was loveless.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘WE HAVE A decision to make.’

It was obvious from the lines of Tate Carrigan’s broad frame when he stalked into the kitchen the next morning that something was bothering him. And if that hadn’t been a giveaway, the grim form of his mouth would have shown the state of his mood.

‘What about?’ Sarah asked, placing her mug of tea back on the counter, ignoring the way her heart galloped at the sight of him.

She’d woken up alone, but it hadn’t mattered. Because most of the night had been spent with Tate, his arm wrapped around her as they’d slept, so she’d somehow felt safer than she’d ever known possible.

Wordlessly, he slid his phone across the bench, then crossed his arms over his chest. Frowning, she picked it up and startled at the headline:

TATE CARRIGAN’S BILLIONAIRE LOVECHILD

‘What the hell?’ she muttered, scrolling down to read the short article with its unmistakably gossipy tone, proclaiming that ‘well-placed sources’ within a ‘top Sydney hospital’ could exclusively reveal that one of the world’s richest men was about to become a dad. The article went on to say that the ‘unplanned’ baby would be worth billions because of a trust the late Hunt Carrigan had established for his heirs’ heirs. She shuddered with revulsion at the speculative, invasive nature of the piece, handing the phone back before she’d finished reading, then wiping her hands on her jeans, as though that could somehow erase the icky feeling the article had created.

Tate’s face was inscrutable, but his eyes bored into hers, watching her in a way that somehow made her feel reassured, even when panic was running through her.

‘Who would have gone to the press? Not the obstetrician, surely?’

‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘High-profile couples are Dr Huang’s bread and butter; she’d know how important discretion is to her reputation.’

‘Then who?’

‘An orderly, cleaner, nurse, the pathology collector. Take your pick. It’s immaterial, at this point.’

‘Not to me.’ She muttered, lifting her tea to take a sip, then placing it down again quickly. ‘I’m not even twelve weeks along,’ she pointed out. ‘Most people keep their pregnancy private for at least that long. How dare someone take that away from me?’

His face softened into a mask of sympathy.

‘This is a private matter,’ she added.

‘I agree.’

Only the way he said it sounded as though he had more to say. ‘But?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘You’re carrying a Carrigan. And as the article points out, it’s the first Carrigan of this generation. I expected it to be a bit of a feeding frenzy, but not quite so soon.’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t,’ she snapped, lifting a hand to her brow. ‘I haven’t told anyone besides you, Tate. I wasn’t ready for this.’

‘I know.’