For all that he was a notorious playboy, Lucas Marcelos was famous for his loyalty—to his friends, to his polo team and to the staff who worked for him. She had no reason to suppose he wouldn’t be equally invested in the welfare of his child. She had never heard anyone say a bad word about him. Her only worry was that Lucas would take his sense of responsibility to the nth degree, and that once he was satisfied he was the father of her child he would demand complete control.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HIDING HER CONCERN, she tried to reason with him. ‘I’m truly sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner, but the right moment never came.’
‘The right moment?’ Luc scoffed. ‘And when would that have been?’
‘I don’t know,’ Emma said honestly. ‘But I do know I didn’t want it to be like this, with both of us angry and upset. But we still have to find a way forward.’
‘We?’ He practically laughed in her face. ‘We will decide how to play this? How are you going to raise a child? At the hotel in your freezing box room in the attic?’
‘I’m lucky to have a roof over my head. And I won’t live here for ever. I’m saving each week to provide a better life—’
‘Pennies,’ he scorned. ‘You’re saving pennies a week as you work yourself to death. How will you care for a child when you’ve made yourself ill?’
‘The hotel is opening a crèche—’
‘A hotel crèche for my child?’
‘Why not, Lucas? It’s good enough for your staff,’ she blazed back.
For once, he couldn’t disagree, but he soon returned to his original point. ‘No child of mine is going to be brought up in one room.’
‘Why is your child so different from millions of others?’
‘I’m surprised you need to ask. If you’re carrying my child, you know I can offer it so much more than you can.’
‘More love than I can?’ As far as material things were concerned, he was right, but how much did a child really need in the way of luxury? Surely love and warmth and food was enough for any child?
‘I’m not talking about love,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m talking about trying to bring a child up here at a hotel in the middle of nowhere.’ He shook his head angrily as he glanced around. ‘Not a chance any child of mine is going to be raised in a place like this.’
‘Strange, when I believe your ranch is in the wilds of Brazil.’ Iron will alone forced her voice to remain steady.
‘That’s different.’
‘How is it different, Luc?’
‘You would only have to see my ranch to know.’
It would be palatial. She could hardly imagine he lived in a broken-down shack. He would employ an army of staff, amongst whom there would be many only too pleased to care for Luc’s child. Everything about him screamed money and power, and, from what she’d heard, Luc had homes in London and New York, as well as the ranch. And there was a rumour racing around the hotel that he had just bought a castle in Scotland.
‘What are you thinking now?’ he demanded suspiciously. ‘Are you trying to tot up my worth?’
‘If that’s the only way you can put a value on yourself, I feel sorry for you, Luc. There’s a lot more to life than money and possessions.’
‘Says the chambermaid with nothing.’
‘Says the chambermaid who doesn’t want anything from you—who never has—and who, the more I hear you speak, cannot imagine that you have anything to offer me, or my child.’
‘Except several homes.’
‘So our child can be batted back and forth between them? I don’t think that counts as a plus. Do you?’
‘You don’t even know where you belong,’ he countered. ‘You left here for London, and now you’re back again you’re still not happy.’
Emma’s head snapped up. ‘That’s a cheap shot and you know it. The one thing I do know is that I can give my child a much better childhood than either of us had—’
‘What do you know about my life?’ He laughed.
‘Nothing. I can only imagine that it’s made you what you are today. My early life taught me self-reliance, while something about yours has made you bitter and cold, so I’m guessing there isn’t that much difference between us, whatever you say. And I don’t believe children care too much about the setting they’re brought up in, so long as they have the essentials of life, along with security and love.’