not? It’s up to you.’
She blinked when she heard the impatience in his voice. ‘I…hum…’
It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse when Ben took the decision from her. ‘We’ll both end up with pneumonia if we stand here much longer while you try to decide if you can trust me,’ he snapped, taking most of the shopping bags from her.
‘Trust you?’ she said uncertainly.
‘Uh-huh.’ He held up his hand as though he were swearing an oath. ‘I promise on my honour that this isn’t a ploy to get you back to your flat and have my wicked way with you. I just wanted to help you, although I’m beginning to wish that I’d curbed my Boy Scout instincts.’
Anna blushed hotly. The worst thing was that she couldn’t think of a word to say in her own defence. Fortunately, Ben didn’t wait around to hear her reply. He set off up the road at a fast lope, leaving her to trail after him, miserably aware that she had made a fool of herself. Even though she hadn’t imagined for a second that he had been planning to have his ‘wicked way’ with her, there was no way on earth that she could have explained what had been going through her mind!
They walked back to the flat in total silence. Ben kept a couple of steps ahead of her all the way, giving her no opportunity to say anything even if she’d wanted to. He paused at the bottom of the steps leading up to the flat. ‘Leave the shopping here and I’ll bring it up. You go and unlock the door.’
Anna just managed to stop herself saluting when she heard the imperious note in his voice. However, it didn’t seem worth promoting an argument. She ran up the steps and opened the door, moving aside so that he could carry the shopping bags inside.
He plonked them on the kitchen table then turned to leave. ‘That’s it, then. I’ll see you on Monday.’
‘Wait!’ Anna didn’t know where that word had sprung from. She certainly hadn’t been intending to say it. She shrugged when he looked at her, seeing the chill in his dark eyes, and couldn’t help wishing that she could do something to repair the damage that she had caused the previous Saturday, but she didn’t know how to go about it.
‘Thank you for helping me,’ she said instead, falling back on good manners when all else had failed. ‘I really appreciate it.’
‘You’re welcome.’ There was slightly less coolness in his voice now but she couldn’t decide if it was due to her apology or to the shiver that had racked him. She frowned when she saw the goose-bumps that had broken out all over his skin.
‘You’re absolutely freezing!’ she exclaimed in concern.
‘I’ll live.’ He turned towards the door once again but Anna knew that she couldn’t let him leave. It was pouring down with rain and, from the look of the sky, likely to keep on doing so for some time to come. She couldn’t in all conscience let him go home in weather like that.
‘Look, why don’t you wait here until the rain slackens off a bit? It’s stupid getting soaked when you don’t have to.’
‘I doubt if I could get any wetter,’ he observed so wryly that she laughed.
Her gaze whizzed down his body and she felt a ripple of pure sexual awareness run through her when she saw how the wet clothes were clinging to his muscular body.
‘Maybe not,’ she said quickly, hoping that he couldn’t tell how shocked she felt. She wasn’t totally naïve. She’d been in a relationship before she’d left London and had enjoyed the physical side as much as the companionship, but she’d never expected to feel this kind of sexual awareness towards any man in her condition. ‘But it’s silly to go back out into that storm when there’s no need. How about if I make some coffee to warm us both up? I’m sure you could do with a cup as much as I could.’
‘Well, if you’re sure….’ He hesitated a moment then shrugged. ‘Fine. Coffee sounds good. I must confess that I could do with something to take the chill out of my bones.’
He shivered again and she sighed. ‘It’s going to take more than a cup of coffee to do that. You need to get out of those wet clothes for a start.’
She hurried on when she sensed that he was going to object, knowing that she would never forgive herself if he ended up making himself ill when he had been trying to help her. ‘Why don’t you have a hot shower while the coffee’s brewing? I’ve got an old tracksuit somewhere about that’s way too big for me. It might just fit you. I can put your clothes in the dryer while we wait for the rain to stop.’
‘That’s kind of you, Anna, but I don’t want to be a nuisance,’ he said levelly. But she knew what he’d really meant. Ben didn’t want to overstep the boundaries she had set in place, and her heart ached because she couldn’t help wishing that it hadn’t been necessary to instigate them in the first place.
‘It’s no trouble,’ she assured him quietly. She turned away to plug in the kettle, afraid that he would see that she was upset. ‘You go and take that shower. I’ll leave the tracksuit outside the bathroom door for you.’
She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard him leaving the room. Maybe it was silly but Ben disturbed her. She didn’t know why, she just knew that he did. He made her feel things that she hadn’t expected to feel and she wasn’t sure how to deal with them.
Anna closed her mind to that thought, afraid of where it might lead to. She made the coffee then left it in the cafetière to brew and went to find the tracksuit for him. She put it on the floor outside the bathroom door then went back to her bedroom. Although the jacket had saved her from getting completely soaked through, her jeans were sodden and she needed to change them.
She stripped them off and draped them over the back of a chair to dry then picked up a brush to tidy her hair. It was months since she’d had it cut and it reached way past her shoulders now. She fastened it up into a ponytail with a bright green elasticated bobble then grimaced when she caught sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror. She couldn’t help thinking how at odds the youthful hairstyle was with her burgeoning figure.
She turned sideways to the mirror, pulling the baggy T-shirt taut across the full swell of her breasts and the pronounced curve of her belly. Day by day her body was changing as the baby grew. In one way it was exciting to see the evidence of what was happening but in another it was scary. She couldn’t help wondering how she would feel as her pregnancy advanced. Would she feel proud of the new life growing inside her or simply ugly when her body became even more swollen?
‘Thanks for the tracksuit. Not quite the perfect fit, shall we say…’
Anna’s head swung round and she felt a wave of sickness hit her when she saw Ben standing in the doorway. At any other time she might have found the sight of him standing there with his muscular arms and legs poking out of her tracksuit amusing. However, she had absolutely no desire to laugh when she saw the dawning shock that crossed his face.
She let go of the T-shirt abruptly so that its concealing folds hid her stomach from view, but the damage had been done. Ben had obviously guessed that she was pregnant. She could tell that from the way he was looking at her.
‘We need to talk, Anna. I’ll wait in the kitchen for you.’
He turned and strode away but for a few seconds she didn’t move. She closed her eyes, remembering how he’d looked at her. There was no doubt that he had been shocked and
