Passionate Retribution

'Are you going to tell me it's not?' His eyes slid to the flatness of her belly and back to her face. They glowed with a primitive possessiveness. 'I thought not,' he said with grim satisfaction as her expressive face confirmed what he was already sure of. 'Had you any intention of telling me?'

'No.'

An explosive sound escaped the confines of his chest. 'I suppose it's nothing to do with me.'

'You catch on so quickly,' she said admiringly.

'And you inhabit a fantasy world. Did you think your own family, living less than ten miles away, wouldn't notice when you produce a baby? How do you think I tracked you down here?' He gave a short, hard laugh. 'And to give the devil his due, he is genuinely concerned for your welfare. I think you actually scared him when you reacted the way you did to finding out about his little scam. It's probably the first time in his life he's felt guilt,' he added abruptly. He continued as she maintained a stunned silence. The flare of tenderness in his eyes had hit her in a vulnerable, exposed area. 'The fact that your mother would have a stroke if people knew she had a daughter bringing up a child in squalor virtually on her doorstep might have coloured the degree of his concern.' He clicked his tongue and shook his head. 'Bad for the image! Now, if it had been a designer drugs problem, that would be far more acceptable— one her cronies could identify with. It's almost obligatory in her circles.' His expression told her exactly what he thought of those circles. 'But poverty is just so unpicturesque.'

'This is not a hovel.' It hadn't been tenderness, she told herself, just her ever-hopeful imagination, a trick of the light. She wasn't going to build herself up to be smashed down.

'Depends how you look at it. As it happens, my child is not being brought up in some one-room attic.'

'It was good enough for you,' she bit back. Was he going to take everything from her—not just her love, the gift he had no need of, but the life born of that love too? She'd be damned before she was going to be pushed aside. She was genuinely confused. Luke seemed to want the child—in her mind she had never imagined that. Surely a baby would be an inconvenience? His lifestyle was not geared for parenthood; and besides, he and Beth had no more obstacles. Why create a new one?

'A situation I see no point in perpetuating,' he returned coldly. 'And the reason you're going to marry me.'

Emily gave a startled gasp. Not just the extraordinary thing he had just said robbed her of breath, but the way he'd said it, as though the matter were closed. 'I think you're the one inhabiting a fantasy world. I can do without your warped sense of honour, Luke Hunt.' She gave a laugh that made the swift transition into choked sob, but her eyes remained hard, not dewy. It hurt to be offered what she'd dreamt of—marriage, a child—Luke's child—for all the wrong reasons. 'What's wrong, Luke? Did Daddy tell you to marry me? Or did he warn you not to? I suppose from your point of view that's an attractive proposition. Well, I'm no pawn to be sacrificed for either of you. I don't care if my mother is the talk of the bridge club; this is my child and legitimacy is not something I'm worried about. I know all about loveless marriages, and I don't want one. Besides, aren't you forgetting the delightful Beth?'

The colour seemed to be seeping from beneath Luke's teak-dark tan as she spoke. He'd lost weight, she realised. He'd always been lean, but the bones of his hawkish face seemed more pronounced, the lines deeper ingrained. He pushed his fingers through the thick pelt of his hair as he spoke, and Emily was shocked somehow to see a few silvered threads at his temple. Had he been ill? she wondered, concern a pain in her belly.

'If you think for one moment I'll permit my child to be raised by another man…' he said hoarsely.

'Does there always have to be a man?' she snapped.

The hand that went palm down, fingers splayed on her stomach, made her flinch, but she couldn't move. Emotions exploded within her at the gentle intimacy of the possessive gesture. I won't cry, she thought, raising her frightened eyes to his face… I won't.

'To be in this condition, Emmy…yes.' His eyes were shadowed and turbulent. 'I'm sorry you find the idea of matrimony so repugnant but I'll not settle for anything less.' His expression was grim, totally unyielding. 'Besides, it's me you need… I know it. Why do you have to deny it constantly?'

'Your arrogance is pathetic.' Hot tears filled her eyes. Was she really that transparent? she wondered with despair. 'What about Beth? How can you do this to her?'

Luke's expression grew intensely impatient. 'Why on earth do you keep throwing Beth in my face? Do you mind explaining just what the hell all these little digs are meant to indicate?'

Why did he have to keep up the fa9ade? Would it last until he had given his child the legitimacy that obviously meant so much to him? 'I heard you and Beth at the flat,' she said, her eyes lowered, and she kept them fixed on her hands, which plucked restlessly at the hemline of her dress. 'I know you've been waiting for her to get over the death of her husband… to be together. I heard what she said. You were talking about her that day, weren't you? It would be—' she looked up, her eyes filled with the intensity of her feelings '—sinful to marry me, Luke, when you feel like that about someone else.'