‘To say what before?’
He didn’t answer, leaving her heart to thud. Long and slow and heavy.
‘You told me that you couldn’t put your desires ahead of Brady’s needs,’ she pressed on eventually. ‘And I understand that. I get it.’
Jake took another step forward, his eyes holding hers so that she couldn’t have dragged them away even if she’d wanted to.
‘Only, what I feel for you is more than mere desire,’ he murmured. ‘It’s much deeper than that.’
She wasn’t sure when her soul left her body, but it was almost as though she was floating above the scene. Watching herself having this conversation, but too numb—too wound up with desperate anticipation—to actually feel part of it.
‘Then...what?’
‘I love you, Flávia Maura,’ he told her simply, as if he hadn’t just flipped her entire world upside down. Inside out. ‘I can’t imagine my life without you.’
Heat shot through Flávia’s chest, plunging it into fire, like ramming it into a blast furnace. Then, just as quickly, doused it in an icy shower.
‘Wait, Jake, before you say anything—’
‘No, I waited before when I shouldn’t have. I should have told you, because the simple truth is that I love you, but I’m not asking you to give up what you do. I know that makes you who you are. My fears were that something would happen to you, but I’ve come to see—actually, Brady has helped me to see—that those fears are for me to deal with. Not for you.’
‘You don’t understand—’ she began, until Jake cut her off again.
‘I can’t subject you to a life where you spend every waking day in a lab, unable to escape into the rainforest, or spend time in that sanctuary which is so precious to you. I won’t be the kind of man who does that—that isn’t love. Not when I know who you are, and I understand what makes you tick. That is to say, I’m beginning to understand, and I truly can’t wait to learn more about you. Every single day.’
‘So...what are you saying, Jake?’
‘I’m saying that I’m moving to Brazil. I’ve spoken to the board and we’ve started the ball rolling on the necessary procedures.’
It was more than she could ever have hoped for. Of course, guilt would have to hold her back. And it wasn’t that protective armour she’d pulled around herself for years. It wasn’t about her at all. It was about the baby that she hadn’t even told him existed.
He might be saying all these things now, but how would he feel when he realised what she’d kept from him? Panic surged through her.
‘You can’t...’ Every syllable quavered. She desperately fought against getting her hopes up, in case he hated her once he knew the truth. ‘You said it yourself. Brady has to be your priority.’
‘Brady loves you. He has made it unequivocally clear where his heart lies. And, like mine, it’s very definitely out here. With you. You connected with him in days, in a way that I never could in almost ten months. He never came close to trusting me the way he trusts you. And Maria and her family, for that matter. You’ve made me realise that family is more important than anything. A good one, anyway.’
Flávia couldn’t take it any more.
‘Stop, Jake. Please, you have to stop.’ Swinging around, she fumbled with the lock before pushing the door open wide. ‘There’s something you deserve—need—to know.’
Then, because there was no other way to say it than to be honest with him—finally—Flávia simply blurted it out.
‘I’m pregnant.’
* * *
If she had slammed him in the gut, he wasn’t sure it would have winded him any more than he already was.
He stared at her. Numb. Disbelieving. He waited for the betrayal to kick in, but although there was something there, it never quite kicked in.
‘Pregnant?’ It was him speaking, but he didn’t recognise his voice.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘How? When?’
‘You need me to run you through the mechanics of creating a baby?’