‘I’m not drinking coffee at the moment, thank you. I’ve already had some water and I think you’re playing for time. So why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what’s on your mind, Lucas?’
Lucas’s jaw tightened with frustration. It was easy to forget that she’d been working for him and sharing his house for years. Longer than he’d lived with anyone at a single stretch—and that included his parents. But despite the relative longevity of their relationship, Tara didn’t really know him—not deep down. Nobody did. He made sure of that because he’d been unwilling to reveal the dark emptiness inside him, or the lack of human connection which had always made him feel disconnected from the world. Now he understood what had made him the man he was. He’d been given a kind of justification for his coldness and his lack of empathy—but that was irrelevant. He wasn’t here to focus on his perceived failings. He was here to try to find a solution to an unwanted problem.
‘You don’t have any family, do you, Tara?’
She flinched. ‘No. I told you at my interview that my grandmother brought me up after my mother died, and my grandmother has also since passed.’
Lucas nodded. Had she? He hadn’t bothered probing much beyond that first interview, because if you asked someone personal questions, there was always the danger they might just ask them back. And Tara had impressed him with her work ethic and the fact that, physically, he hadn’t found her in the least bit distracting. What a short-sighted fool he had been.
Because the truth was that she was looking pretty distracting right now—with those wild waves of hair bright against the whiteness of the pillow and her amber eyes strangely mesmeric as they surveyed him from beneath hooded eyelids.
‘Why don’t you put some clothes on?’ he said, shooting the words out like bullets. ‘And we’ll have this discussion over breakfast.’
‘Okay.’ Tara nodded, not wanting to say that she didn’t feel like breakfast—just relieved he had turned his back and was marching out of the room, wanting to be free of the terrible awareness which had crept over her skin as his green gaze had skated over her in that brooding and sultry way.
After showering and shrugging on an enormous bathrobe, she found him drinking coffee in the wood-panelled dining room—another room which was dominated by the Manhattan skyline and she was glad of the distraction.
‘I can’t believe the size of this place,’ she said, walking over to the window and looking down at a green corner of what must have been Central Park. ‘Why, even the bathroom is bigger than the hostel Stella and I stayed in last Christmas!’
‘I’m not really interested in hearing how you saw New York on a budget,’ he drawled. ‘Just sit down and eat some breakfast, will you?’
As she turned around Tara was about to suggest it might do him good to stay in the kind of cramped accommodation which most people had to contend with, but then she saw a big trolley covered with silver domes which she hadn’t noticed before. On it was a crystal jug of juice, a basket covered by a thick linen napkin, and on a gilded plate were little pats of butter—as yellow as the buttercups which used to grow in the fields around Ballykenna. She’d thought she wasn’t hungry but her growling stomach told her otherwise and she realised how long it had been since she’d had a square meal. And she’d been sick last night, she reminded herself.
She walked towards the trolley to help herself but Lucas stayed her with an imperious wave of his hand.
‘No. I don’t want you collapsing on me again,’ he instructed tersely. ‘Sit down and I’ll serve you.’
Tara opened her mouth to tell him she was perfectly capable of serving herself, but then a perverse sense of enjoyment crept over her as he offered cereal and eggs, fruit and yoghurt, and she sat there helping herself with solid silver spoons. Because if she allowed herself to forget her awful dilemma for a moment, this really was role reversal at its most satisfying! The food was delicious but she ate modestly, a fact which didn’t escape Lucas’s notice.
‘No wonder you always look as if a puff of wind could blow you away,’ he observed caustically. ‘You don’t eat enough.’
She buttered a slice of toast. ‘My book on pregnancy says little and often if you want to try to avoid nausea.’
‘Just how many books on pregnancy are you reading just now?’
‘As many as I need. I know nothing about motherhood and I want to be as well prepared as possible.’
Wincing deeply, he sucked in a lungful of air. ‘You say you want this baby—’
‘I don’t just say it. Lucas—I mean it,’ she declared fiercely. ‘And if for one moment you’re daring to suggest—’
‘I wasn’t suggesting anything,’ he cut across her, his expression darkening. ‘And before you fly off the handle, let me make my views plain, just so there can be no misunderstanding. Which is that I’m glad you’ve chosen to carry this child and not...’
‘Not what?’ Tara questioned in bewilderment as his mouth twisted.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he snarled.
‘Oh, I think it does.’ She drew in a deep breath, putting her napkin down and realising almost impartially that her fingers were trembling. ‘Look, we’re not the same as we used to be, are we? We’re no longer boss and employee.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘I’m not sure how you’d define our relationship now—the only thing I’m sure about is that we’re going to be parents and that means we need to be honest with each other. I’m not expecting you to say things you don’t mean, Lucas, but I am expecting you to tell me the truth.’
The truth. The words sounded curiously threatening as they washed over him and Lucas stared at her. For a man who had spent his life denying and concealing his feelings, her heartfelt appeal seemed like a step too far and his instinct was to stonewall her. Yet he recognised that this was like no other situation he’d ever found himself in. He couldn’t just buy himself out of this, not unless he was prepared to throw a whole lot of money her way and tell her that he wanted to cut all ties with her and his unborn child for ever.
He would have been a liar if he’d said he wasn’t tempted...
But how could he do that, given the bitter reality of his own history which had been revealed to him by that damned lawyer? Wouldn’t that mean, in effect, that he was as culpable as his own mother had been?
And look how that had turned out.
‘Have you given any thought to how you see your future?’ he demanded.