shed the box towards her. ‘Eat. Do you want a plate?’
Ravenous, she shook her head and reached into the box. ‘No point.’ She chewed and gave a moan of delight. ‘Oh, this is delicious.’
‘Good.’ He watched the way her small pink tongue sneaked out and licked her lips and suddenly found himself in the grip of a vicious attack of lust. ‘So—tell me your life story.’
She stopped chewing. ‘Sorry?’
Cursing himself for having disturbed her meal, Jake decided that, having done so, he may as well push on with his questioning. ‘I want to know what’s happened to the father of your baby. You accused me of jumping to the wrong conclusion and I’m sure that you’re right. So give me the facts. That way, I won’t do it again.’
‘You’re very direct, aren’t you?’
‘I think it’s better that way.’ He trapped her gaze with his. ‘It prevents misunderstandings.’
She gave a slightly cynical laugh. ‘Does it?’
‘I think so. Who is he, Miranda?’
She hesitated. ‘I suppose I owe you an explanation so I’ll tell you, and then I don’t want to talk about it any more.’
‘You don’t owe me anything,’ he said calmly. ‘But I want you to tell me.’
‘Why?’
Good question. ‘Because you look like someone who needs a friend? So that I can track him down and black his eye for leaving you to struggle like this?’
‘I’m not struggling.’ She gave him a fierce glare and he fought back a smile, remembering how independent she’d been on the mountain. She clearly had a thing about looking after herself and yet she looked so young with her dark hair still damp from the bath and a slice of pizza in her hand.
Far too young to be a single mother with no support.
‘Don’t stop eating,’ he said quietly. ‘You need the food. Tell me who he was, Miranda.’
Ignoring the pizza in her hand, she chewed her lip and stared miserably at the kitchen table. ‘Saying it out loud makes it even worse.’
He leaned forward and eased the slice of pizza from between her fingers.
‘Eat.’ He slid the pizza between her teeth and she gave a wan smile before obediently biting off a piece.
‘I met him in a chat room on the internet.’
What was a beautiful woman like her doing, resorting to chat rooms on the internet? ‘And?’
She shrugged. ‘His name was Peter and he seemed nice. We chatted about all sorts of things. He liked all the same things as me—it was uncanny really.’ She shook herself. ‘Anyway, we spoke on the phone a couple of times and then we arranged to meet. He told me he was thirty-eight, which is a bit old, I suppose, but I wasn’t worried.’
‘So you met?’
‘In a pub. He was good company and I…’ She flushed. ‘And I suppose the truth is that I was so lonely that I didn’t bother asking the questions I should have asked.’
Jake felt more questions surge up inside him. Why was she lonely? Did she have no friends or family? With a determined effort he limited his question to one. ‘What happened?’
‘We went on a few dates and then, after about a month, he confessed that he’d lied to me and that he was actually forty-eight, not thirty-eight. I was really shocked. Not because of his age,’ she added hastily, ‘but just that he’d deceived me. I couldn’t understand why he just hadn’t told me the truth right from the beginning.’
Jake gritted his teeth. ‘And why didn’t he?’
‘He told me that he was afraid I wouldn’t want to meet him if he’d been honest about his age.’
Jake pushed the pizza box towards her. ‘Eat another slice before you tell me the rest.’
‘How do you know there’s more?’