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,’ he acknowledged, giving a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘I apologise. But I do mean to marry you, Hebe. This child will know its mother and its father. And don’t tell me we don’t have to get married for that, either,’ he warned grimly. ‘I don’t want to be some part-time father with weekend and vacation access to my own kid! I mean this child to have parents who live together—two people he or she will call Mommy and Daddy.’
‘And what about what I want?’ Hebe protested emotionally.
Nick gave her a considering look. ‘You were brought up by two people who loved you, weren’t you? Parents who gave you the nurturing and security that your real mother, whoever she was, obviously thought she couldn’t provide?’
‘Yes…’ Hebe eyed him uncertainly, not quite sure where he was going with this.
‘Meaning you weren’t left to live alone with your mother, possibly brought up in daycare once you were old enough to be left, so that your mother could go back to work in order to support you both, not too much money coming in on that single wage. Or alternatively with a father in the background who maybe had access to you but only took it up sporadically, breaking your heart somewhere along the way—’
‘It wouldn’t be like that!’ Hebe could quite clearly see where he was going with this now.
‘Not if I agree to keep you and the child in the lifestyle to which you wish to become accustomed, no,’ he acknowledged sarcastically. ‘But I’m not going to do that, Hebe. The only way in which you will have that is by marrying me,’ he told her implacably. ‘I intend being in this child’s life every single day, Hebe,’ he assured her determinedly. ‘There in the morning when it wakes up, to love and care for it each and every single day. There at night to read it a bedtime story, to care for it when it’s sick or upset.’
‘And its mother?’ she demanded. ‘Once you’ve married me to get what you want, what are you going to do with me?’
His expression became less intense. ‘I’ve already shown you what we can have together, Hebe,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘It’s all I have to give.’
She couldn’t deny her response to him. Couldn’t deny his response to her—had felt his need pressed against her, as throbbingly heated as her own desire.
But would that last? More to the point, was it enough to base a marriage on?
‘Has it occurred to you, Nick,’ she said slowly, ‘that perhaps now I know your conditions I may not even want this baby?’
His hands clenched at his sides, his expression grimly forbidding. ‘I hope you’re not talking about what I think you are!’
Hebe sighed, knowing abortion wasn’t even a possibility as far as she was concerned. That it wasn’t as far as Nick was concerned either, if his sudden fury was anything to go by.
‘No,’ she conceded heavily. ‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘I should damn well hope not,’ he rasped uncompromisingly.
She shook her head. ‘It was just an idea. Not one I meant to be taken seriously, I might add,’ she said, as she saw his anger hadn’t abated in the least at her explanation.
‘If I thought for a moment that it was—’
‘I’ve said that it wasn’t!’ she defended firmly. ‘I can’t even think straight at the moment, Nick.’ She sighed. ‘This is all just too much on top of everything else. I don’t even know who I really am!’ she explained shakily.
‘Then we’ll find out together,’ he said quietly. ‘In fact, I insist on it,’ he added hardly.
Frowning,
