you don’t know which one it is,’ Mia answered, flustered, but Ethan didn’t deign a response, just took the keys without another word to her, saving all his icy venom for the poor doctor.
‘I’ll be back within the hour, Doctor. And for the record, Ms Stewart is grief-stricken, she’s clearly in no fit state to discharge herself, so I strongly suggest that if she isn’t here when I return you’ve made damn sure your medical indemnity insurance is fully paid up.’
The doctor was no match for Ethan’s stern glare and scuttled gratefully out. Ethan stood, silently staring—and suddenly Mia didn’t want Ethan’s take on this, didn’t want to hear his reaction to the news that had just been imparted. Pleating the sheet between her fingers, she stared down, feeling the anger, the incredulity emanating from Ethan, could feel the disdain blazing from his eyes even though she couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
‘Sweet little Mia,’ he said finally, his voice like the crack of a whip. ‘You should add the word “con” to your job title, Mia! Well, you might be able to fool the doctors, your friends, hell, even a few journalists into believing your half-baked story, but it’s the twenty-first century, Mia. You can’t just pass Richard off as the father because it suits your bank account.’
‘I’m not trying to pass the baby off.’ Finally she dared look at him. ‘This is my baby, Ethan. In fact, I never intended for you or your family to find out. It was you who came here, remember; you who chose to ride roughshod and stand over me while the doctor was here.’
‘Bull.’ His voice was menacingly quiet, his head slowly shaking in sheer disbelief. ‘If this is Richard’s baby, how come we don’t know? Why on earth wouldn’t he tell us?’ When she didn’t answer he pressed on relentlessly. ‘If this is my brother’s child, why aren’t there provisions for it in his will?’
‘Because there wasn’t time, and, as much as I didn’t want you to know, I’m not going to deny Richard now. I’m not going to pretend it’s not his child just to make you feel better. But for your information I was always going to raise this baby alone; it was how we planned it!’
‘What?’ Incredulous eyes snapped to hers.
‘I was going to bring up the baby alone, whatever happened to Richard. I always intended to be the sole carer…’
‘Who needs a man in their life?’ he jeered. ‘What the hell’s the point of rotting up a kid with a male perspective on life? Is this one of your half-baked hippy schemes that you roped Richard into, Mia? One of the trendy bandwagons you decided to jump on board…’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t fool me for a moment, Mia Stewart. You had this planned down to the last detail, didn’t you? This was your last little stab at the Carvelle fortune.’ She opened her mouth to argue but he overrode her in an instant. ‘Well, bring it on, Mia.’ The hands that beckoned her were anything but welcoming, his unusually pale face savage in the fluorescent hospital light. ‘Bring it on, because I’m ready for you—more ready than you’ll ever know.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ In an instinctive gesture her hands cradled her stomach, pulling her knees up, protecting the one thing on God’s earth that was hers and hers alone. ‘You don’t scare me, Ethan, and as hard as it may be for you to believe your wealth doesn’t intimidate me either. I don’t want a cent from the Carvelles.’ She let out a low, mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t want them anywhere near me, in fact, but I will not deny this child its father. I will not lie here and tell you it’s not Richard’s child just to make things easier for me. This is Richard’s baby and I’ll never be ashamed of that fact.’
Something in her voice seemed to reach him, something in the proud jut of her chin, the glittering anger in her eyes halted his angry retort. His eyes drifted down to her stomach, staring at the firm mound under the sheet, one hand moving to his face, covering his mouth for a second. Then he closed his eyes and for an appalling moment she thought he was going to break down, that the impervious mask that was Ethan Carvelle was about to slip, but he recovered quickly, dragging his eyes back to her, repeating a question that she still hadn’t answered, but from the hoarseness in his voice, the slight grey tinge creeping into his features, Mia knew his world had been rocked, knew he was actually starting to believe that the baby she was carrying might be Richard’s.
‘Why didn’t we know?’ His voice was raw and he cleared his throat, fixing her with his black stare, but it wasn’t quite so assured now. ‘If what you’re saying is true, why the hell didn’t Richard say anything? He never even implied you were anything more than friends…’
‘During one of your weekly phone calls?’ Mia retorted nastily, but she was beyond caring now, the implication that she was in this only for the money too abhorrent not to reciprocate with harsh words of her own. ‘Or perhaps he should have included it in one of the regular emails you fired to each other…’ Seeing the pain in his eyes, she realized she’d gone too far; the day of Richard’s funeral was hardly the time to point out the void between them, the tragedy of a relationship reduced to stilted birthday and Christmas cards. And, Mia thought reluctantly, given the rapidly unfolding circumstances, given the Carvelle name and all its implications, Ethan’s reaction was probably merited.
It wasn’t his fault that she loved him.
‘I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.’ After the longest pause she found her voice.
‘It’s the truth.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘But this really was a very much wanted baby.’
Maybe Mia’s gloves were off, but Ethan’s were still firmly tied on, every word a painful punch to her already fragile soul.
‘Please.’ His voice was dripping with sarcasm as he hit her while she was down. ‘So wanted that none of his family even knew about it, so wanted we didn’t even know he was dating you, so wanted that a baby wasn’t even on the agenda till he was dying…’
‘He wasn’t supposed to die!’ Agony rasped in every word, her strained voice overriding his powerful one on emotion alone, forcing a quiet, forcing him to stop his tirade to stand stock-still as Mia continued. ‘He wasn’t supposed to die,’ she said again, but Ethan remained unmoved.
‘He had cancer, Mia. The doctors gave him eighteen months, two years at most. So what the hell was he doing having children? What the hell was he doing bringing a child into the world he would surely never be there to watch grow up? It just doesn’t add up.’
‘We don’t all live by your rules, Ethan; we don’t all walk around with a mental calculator weighing up the pros and cons, checking for longevity and distant projections. Richard knew he might never see his child grow up and I knew it too, but it was a risk we were prepared to take…’
‘You really talked about it?’ His voice told her the preposterousness he felt in her actions. The incredulity in his eyes as he stared back at her only distanced him further, yet she ached to reach him, to drag him beside her, to reach an understanding while somehow avoiding the truth.
‘We talked about it for weeks, Ethan, for weeks.’
‘So it wasn’t an accident, a one-night stand…’
‘This was a wanted baby, Ethan.’
‘Oh, I bet it was,’ Ethan hissed. ‘It’s what you’ve been wanting for years, isn’t it, Mia?’
‘Ethan, please, you don’t understand…’
‘Don’t
