She collapsed weakly against him as he kissed her breasts gently in the aftermath of her release, realising her hands had become entangled in the dark thickness of his hair as she held him against her.
What had she done?
Stupid question—she knew what she had done. She just had no idea how to continue fighting Nick after responding to him so wantonly.
Nick straightened slowly, pulling Hebe’s tee shirt down as he raised his head to look at her flushed face and pleasure-dazed eyes. His own body was still hard with desire—a desire he had no intention of satisfying. It was Hebe’s pleasure that was important right now, to show her what they could find together any time she wanted once they were married.
She looked at him frowningly. ‘But you haven’t—’
‘I don’t need to, Hebe,’ he assured her huskily. ‘That was for you. Sex may not have been part of your plan, but I dare you to deny wanting me after that,’ he murmured throatily.
Wrong thing to say, Nick. So very wrong, he realized, as she tensed before moving abruptly away from him.
But he had needed to make her see just what they could have together besides the baby now growing inside her.
His baby, he acknowledged again fiercely. His.
And he would do anything—anything at all—to ensure that Hebe realised she was going to marry him rather than be paid off.
Even take advantage of Hebe’s response to him?
Yes, if that was what it took!
Damn it, he would keep Hebe naked in bed for a month if that was what he had to do to make her see sense!
Because she would marry him. Would become his wife. The mother of his child.
Hebe shook her head, trying to clear it of the cottonwool her brain had become as Nick kissed and caressed her.
She had to think, damn it. Had to make Nick understand that no matter how she responded to him she couldn’t marry him.
Which, after her arousal just now, and the way she still trembled in the aftermath of that shattering release, wasn’t going to be easy to do!
She raised her chin determinedly. ‘That’s just sex, Nick,’ she dismissed firmly.
He shrugged. ‘It’s a start.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ Her voice rose heatedly. ‘Marriage is for people who love each other, who want to be together for the rest of their lives—’
‘Or for people who have already made a baby together,’ he put in pointedly.
Hebe closed her eyes, wishing she could shut out the truth of his words as easily. They had made a baby together. And did she have the right to deny that child both its parents?
Yes—if they didn’t love each other!
But she did love Nick…
It was impossible to try and tell herself differently. Her fascination for him all those months ago had blossomed into love during that night they’d spent together six weeks ago.
The same time as their child had found a place and nestled inside her body…!
If Nick had loved her in return she knew that she wouldn’t have hesitated in agreeing to marry him. She would be the happiest woman in the world right now if that were true.
But it wasn’t. He thought she was after his money, not his love.
And surely love on one side was just as bad as no love between them at all?
‘Why does it have to be marriage?’ She frowned.
He raised dark brows. ‘You would rather just live with me?’
‘No! I mean, of course I wouldn’t,’ she admitted irritably. ‘I simply don’t understand why you feel you have to marry me.’
His mouth quirked with black humour. ‘Perhaps I make it a point of honour to marry the mothers of my children? It’s certainly something I’ve done so far in my life!’ he added derisively.
Hebe looked at him searchingly. He couldn’t think this child would be a replacement for the one he had lost? Luke had been Luke. This child, whether boy or girl, could only ever be itself and no one else.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I realise that losing Luke must have been devastating—’
‘Do you?’ Even that dark humour had gone now, and grim lines were etched beside his nose and mouth. ‘Yes, it was—devastating,’ he conceded slowly. ‘It was also three years ago. And nothing and no one can ever change that.’
‘Exactly.’ She breathed her relief that he had quite literally taken the words out of her mouth. ‘This baby—’ Oh, God…! ‘This baby,’ she began again, ‘can’t replace him—’
‘You think that’s what I want? To replace him?’ Nick suddenly seemed bigger and more ominous in his obvious anger.
Hebe eyed him warily, knowing she had stepped onto dangerous ground. ‘Well, I—’
‘You can’t replace people any more than you can bring them back to life!’ he ground out harshly, blue eyes glittering with emotion. ‘Hebe, do you have any idea of the significance of that night we spent together six weeks ago?’
She grimaced. ‘Well, I’m pregnant, if that’s what you mean—’
‘No, that isn’t what I mean!’ Nick swung away from her, his hands clenched at his sides, fury emanating from every muscle and sinew of his body. ‘That day, six weeks ago, was the anniversary of Luke’s death,’ he told her flatly. ‘Three years to the day since some maniac got in his car after consuming too much wine with his business lunch and drove straight through a crowd of afternoon shoppers on the busy streets of New York. Sally and Luke were amongst them. Sally was seriously injured and Luke—Luke was dead before the medics even got there!’
Hebe could still hear the pain and horror of that day in his voice.
Not just to lose a child, but to lose him in such an awful way.
To receive a telephone call, probably from some unknown person, telling him that his wife had been seriously injured and his son was dead.
And this baby—Hebe’s baby—had been conceived on the night of the anniversary of that little boy’s death…
How eerie was that? Almost as if—
No, she wouldn’t think of it in that way. It was just coincidence. Or perhaps a little more than that, she conceded. Nick had probably needed a woman in his bed that night to help anaesthetize him, to keep the pain of that anniversary at bay.
And because of that need Hebe was now pregnant with his child.
She shook her head. ‘Please believe me when I say I really am sorry about that. It must have been awful for you. And Sally,’ she added quietly.
She had known of her own baby’s existence for only minutes—had no idea if it was a boy or a girl, even—but even so she knew she would be devastated if it were taken away from her now.
‘But I can’t marry you, Nick.’ She groaned. ‘People don’t marry each other any more just because the woman’s pregnant—’
‘Judging by the fact that you were adopted, that certainly seems to have been the case in your family so far, I agree!’ he cut in scathingly.
Hebe gasped, staring at him disbelievingly. ‘That—that was—unforgivable!’
‘Yes, it was,’