Of course I would have told you.’ Eventually.
‘Oh, really?’ His voice could have turned milk sour. ‘I find that hard to believe, when you were about to throw it in the bin as nothing more than a piece of rubbish. Perhaps you’ve already decided what you want to do with our baby.’
Our baby.
The simple words of acknowledgement and acceptance rocked through Alana like an atom bomb. She put her hands instinctively on her still-flat belly. ‘Of course I haven’t decided anything, and certainly not what you seem to be implying. And I was going to tell you. It’s just … I’ve barely had time to take it in myself. I think you can agree that today has packed more than its fair punch.’
Hating herself for feeling so weak as another wave of dizziness washed over her, she couldn’t help swaying slightly. Words resounded in her head: jobless, homeless, pregnant. She’d really made a mess of things this time.
With a muttered curse Pascal was by her side and made her sit down on the couch.
‘When was the last time you ate?’
Alana had to struggle to recall. Pascal cursed again colourfully. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t even eaten all day?’
He threw off his coat and went into her kitchen and started opening the fridge and looking on her open shelves. Feeling totally bemused and numb, Alana watched as he took out bread, butter, cheese, tomatoes and made a sandwich. He brought it back over on a plate and handed it to her, watching her until she’d eaten the whole thing, even though it was the size of a doorstep.
When she was done, he took the plate and set it aside, then he stood up and started to pace. He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. He looked dishevelled all over, and Alana could feel her pulse stirring to life. His shirt was coming out of his trousers, the top button of his shirt undone. He rounded on her then, taking her by surprise. Her eyes had been on his bottom, and she coloured guiltily. How could she be thinking of that at a time like this?
But it seemed as if she was not the only one. Pascal dropped down onto the couch beside her, coming close, and before she could stop him he was undoing the top button of her shirt.
‘That’s better. I can’t concentrate when you’re all buttoned up.’
Alana backed away into the corner of the couch. Pascal’s brows rose. ‘It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?’
She was beginning to feel stifled, threatened—sensory overload. She shimmied out from under him and stood up. Pascal sat back and looked up from under hooded lids. Alana’s insides clenched.
‘So when do you think it happened? I thought we were careful.’
‘We were,’ she said crisply, and then remembered the back of the car that night in Rome. Colour washed through her cheeks again. She looked down and caught his eye. She couldn’t read his expression. But it seemed as if he could read her mind.
‘Yes, there was that time. Or the bath afterwards.’ Pascal had known well he was being careless, but for the first time in his life that concern had assumed secondary place to fulfilling his physical needs. And in the intervening days he hadn’t even thought about it. More fool him. Yet, even more astounding to him right now was the equanimity he felt in the face of this news. In fact, what he was feeling was an inordinate sense of rightness. A sense of something his grandfather had passed onto him, something he’d never realised he possessed before: a sense of family.
Along with it came the memory of what it had been like to be shunned, rejected, and surging up within Pascal now was a zealous desire to give this child, his child, the kind of acknowledgement he’d never had. The revelation stunned him.
Alana started to pace, anything to avoid looking at him, wanting him. She had to sort her head out. She couldn’t let him distract her.
‘Look. This has happened. It was reckless and silly, but we both know where you stand on this kind of thing.’
He stood up and was immediately dangerous, towering over her. ‘Oh, we do?’
Alana felt like stamping her foot childishly. ‘Yes! I can’t imagine you’re happy to be faced with a pregnant—’
‘Mistress?’ he asked equably.
‘I hate that word. I’m not your mistress.’
‘Then what are you? Go on—say it, Alana.’
He was goading her, teasing her, even now. She glared up at him, arms crossed. ‘I’m your latest lover. The one in between your last one and your next one.’
His expression hardened, his eyes flashed. ‘Yes. But now you’re my pregnant lover, so that changes things somewhat.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re seriously happy with this?’
‘Not happy, exactly, no,’ he bit out, feeling defensive. ‘But how do you know that I haven’t always wanted a child someday?’
‘Have you?’ she shot back.
Now Pascal was the one backing away, feeling a little poleaxed again. His recent revelation was too new, too raw to articulate. This whole afternoon was taking on an unreal hue, as if he’d stepped into some mad time-warp. He was in a tiny house in the middle of Dublin with a woman who’d stepped into his life and turned it upside down. She’d just told him she was pregnant, and he was still there. He wasn’t running as fast as his legs could carry him away from her, which was how he’d always envisaged reacting to such a scenario.
He looked at her steadily and tried to ignore the way her hair was escaping the confines of its neat bun, the way he could see the hollow at the bottom of her throat where he’d opened the button. Even now, more than ever, he wanted her. He answered almost distractedly, ‘Yes … of course I did. On some level.’ Someday.
His mind cleared and fixed on Alana. ‘What about you?’
He saw her hand go to her belly again; she’d done that a few times, almost as if to protect the unborn child from something—their unborn child. Something in his chest felt tight.
Alana turned away from Pascal’s gaze for a moment. He was looking too deeply, seeing too much. When she turned around, his expression had lost that intensity; it was more innocuous.
‘Yes. I always wanted children. We … myself and Ryan … tried, but nothing happened. And I was always grateful then that we hadn’t. No child deserved to be born into our sham of a marriage.’
‘And what will this be, Alana?’
She looked up into his eyes, panic trickling through her. He was so powerful, a million times more powerful than Ryan ever had been. He was cold, remote, and she had that prescience again of what it would be like to cross him—she wouldn’t win.
‘This will be just us, having a baby. I’m not going to marry you, Pascal.’ She was shaking her head, moving away. He advanced.
‘I wasn’t aware that I’d asked you,’ he said silkily.
She flushed. ‘Well, isn’t that … how you people operate?’
