but stopped herself in time, cupping her hands over her face with an exasperated sigh.
‘It happens.’ His voice was low, clipped, matter-of-fact.
‘Not to me.’ Inhaling deeply, Grace leaned back against the plush cushion of the headrest, closing her eyes against the truth.
Because that was just it—it did happen to her. Twice. Twice in her life she had gone the whole way with a man, and only one man. And twice in her life she had conceived, as though something beyond herself was determined that she would be impregnated with his seed. As though her ultimate function in life was to be the mother of his child.
‘I expect every woman who finds herself in the same situation without wanting to be probably says the same thing.’
Yes, but they aren’t having a baby with a man who doesn’t even like them. Whose only reason for making love to them in the first place was just to exact some sort of revenge!
Noticing the increasing tension in the tight line of her jaw, Seth could see that this thing had come as an appalling shock to her, much as it had come as a complete shock to him. She looked now as she had looked the night they had made love and he had queried the possibility of her getting pregnant—like having his child was the last thing she could bear to contemplate. Which it probably was, he thought.
Because of her very high-profile affairs and the way she had treated him originally, he’d believed that to a girl like her men were just things to provide amusement, but in that, at least, he was beginning to realise he’d been wrong. The things Corinne had let slip about her had amazed him, even if he did suspect that they had been disclosed solely to reduce her step-granddaughter’s possible appeal to him and boost her own sexual appeal in his eyes.
But in fact it had had the opposite effect. The knowledge that he could turn the haughty little enchantress who dumped men for a pastime, and who was really as cold as a Siberian winter, into a mass of steaming, sultry passion when he got her between the sheets had given him a shameful, chauvinistic satisfaction. Just how pliable did that make her in his hands? he wondered with a rush of masculine hormones raising the level of his libido a few notches. Because there was no doubt that she did things to him that no other woman had ever done.
Just thinking about how she responded to him in bed made him burn with the need to feel her nails digging into his back, to have her crying out his name—and only his—as they drove each other wild until they were sated. It didn’t cool his ardour much to tell himself that it was because of his raging hormones where she was concerned that they were in this situation now. But the simple fact was that she was pregnant…
‘Well, after what I heard Corinne saying on the phone…’ he began, with his voice thickened by desire, ‘I don’t think I need even question whether it’s mine, need I?’
As the Mercedes took a sharp left-hand turn that tipped Grace nearly into his lap, shame and humiliation leaped like angry flames to scorch her pride.
‘You bastard!’ Automatically her hand flew up and was instantly dealt with by a stronger one before it could make contact with his cheek.
Deftly she found herself pressed back against the cream leather upholstery with that long, lean body angled across hers.
‘Believe it or not, it was meant as a compliment,’ he breathed with menacing softness.
‘Some compliment!’ It came out on a squeak as excitement ripped through her, her senses leaping into overdrive from the hard, arousing weight of his body. Trying to collect her thoughts, she guessed it would be a major boost to his ego to realise he was the only lover she had ever had. But if he knew that then she would be lost, she thought despairingly, his to do whatever he wanted with, because she would have no defence then against his devastating sexual magnetism.
‘Don’t believe all Corinne tells you,’ she got out tremulously, because he hadn’t moved. He was still holding her captive as if he didn’t trust her not to fly at him the instant he let her go. Or maybe he just liked being in control…
The need to assert command over her own actions had her wriggling against it.
He merely laughed at her ineffectual struggling. ‘I won’t, if you promise not to,’ he said, letting her go.
‘Promise not to what?’ she quavered, even though he was sitting back on his own side of the car again now.
‘Believe everything that Corinne Culverwell says.’
His tone was less than complimentary at the woman with whom he had supposedly shared a recent spell of unfettered passion. So what was he implying? Grace wondered with a leap of hope that made her despair at her own weakness in wanting to believe anything he might chance to tell her. That he really had gone to Madeira just to finalise a deal, as he had assured her he had on the phone that morning?
And if she believed that she would believe anything! she thought, realising that she was in very grave danger of trusting him—at least where his integrity was concerned.
The Mercedes pulled up at the kerbside and Seth handed her out onto the pavement. A young family passed them, a mother pushing a toddler in a buggy, a child of about four riding piggyback on the shoulders of the man beside her. They were all laughing, at ease with one another; happy.
Moments later Seth was guiding Grace through the foyer of one of London’s most exclusive apartment-blocks. Chandeliers glittered, silver shone from highly polished surfaces, catching the reflection of a massive floral-display in the centre of the main area, while Grace’s pumps sank into a carpet as soft as manicured grass.
This sort of luxury wasn’t new to her. She had been born to it and had been accustomed to it until Culverwells’ diminishing fortunes had meant everyone having to tighten their belts. But the young man with the motorbike who had had to drag himself out of virtual poverty had to have striven hard for this type of living—the cars, the plane, the power. Unbelievably so. She couldn’t help but be impressed and a little overawed by the drive and determination he must have had to bring it about.
Nevertheless, as he brought her up in a lift with mirrored walls and they stepped out into a luxurious suite of rooms on the top floor of the building, she murmured, ‘Trying to impress me, Seth? What are you trying to prove? That you’ve done well for yourself?’
His mouth pulling down on one side, he gestured for her to precede him into a huge room with deep pale sofas and panoramic views of their great city, which at this time of day was a glittering universe of twinkling lights. ‘I don’t think I need to do that. I leave proving to lawyers and those whose job it is to provide us with our daily bread. But, yes, I have done well.’
‘And you’re flaunting it for all you’re worth.’ His droll comment lent a curve to her mouth, though, and she realised that what she had just said wasn’t totally true. Though the sumptuous drawing room in which he was inviting her to sit down was well-appointed, it was also uncluttered and exuded an air of understated elegance that was both tasteful and refreshing.
‘What did you prefer, Grace—my being poor and totally at your mercy?’
Her eyelids pressed against the dark wells of her eyes as she sank down into the sofa’s cushioning softness. Would he flay her with that for ever? It didn’t make it any easier that her head felt as though it was splitting in two.
That rough edge to his voice, however, made her wonder if he meant at her
