Claimed for Makarov's Baby

A sudden silence fell between them. Her answer was so unexpected that it took a moment for him to process it.

‘Why?’ he said, at last.

‘Why do you think?’ Her words came out in a rush, as if she had been bottling them up for a long time. ‘First I was pregnant and then I had a tiny baby who wasn’t very fond of sleeping, which meant I kept dozing off at various points during the day and forgetting to wash my hair and my tops always seemed to be stained with milk. That’s never really a good look. And then the baby grew into a demanding toddler who was into everything, so that I felt like some kind of maternal health and safety expert trying to keep him out of trouble. I was helping my sister with the café and trying to keep our heads above water and I...’ Her words faded away and a shuttered look came over her face, as if she’d said too much and only just realised it. ‘There was never really time for men.’

‘So if I was your first lover—’

‘You knew that?’

He gave a faint smile. ‘Of course I knew it. I may have often been accused of a lack of sensitivity towards women—but never when it comes to sex.’

Her green eyes looked confused. ‘But you didn’t...you didn’t mention it at the time.’

‘And neither did you.’ He shrugged. ‘That night was supposed to be about pleasure—not an anatomical discussion about why your hymen was still intact.’

Her green eyes spat fire as she pulled the coverlet up over her breasts. ‘How callous you can be, Dimitri!’

‘You think so?’ He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. ‘Don’t you think that after everything which has happened between us, we now deserve the truth?’

‘Even if the truth hurts?’

‘But being hurt is a part of life. A big part of it—as is regret,’ he said. ‘And if you must know, I was angry with myself for having sex with you that night.’

‘Angry?’ She sounded bewildered. ‘Why?’

‘Because you were an employee and I liked you that way. I had crossed a line I never intended to cross. And because it is a responsibility when a man takes a woman’s virginity.’

‘Responsibility?’ She repeated the word in horror.

‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want you fixating on me, or clinging to me or deciding that I was the man who was going to make you happy. And I just couldn’t work out how it had happened, that was the most frustrating thing. How years of a perfectly satisfying platonic relationship had suddenly erupted into something which was so unbelievably X-rated. So tell me, Erin—since we’re being truthful—did you choose me because you were aware of my reputation as a lover and considered me the most suitable candidate to take your virginity? Because you knew that I was the man most likely to give you pleasure?’

She didn’t answer straight away and when she did, her voice was shaking. ‘You flatter yourself,’ she said. ‘As well as misjudging me, if you think I could have been that cold-blooded about it. I didn’t choose you. It just happened.’

‘You just happened to bring a totally unnecessary batch of paperwork round to my apartment when it could have waited until morning?’

‘I was worried about you,’ she said. ‘Worried sick, if you must know. You seemed to have a permanent hangover and to exist on no sleep. Your bodyguard told me you were living like a vampire. And then he resigned and there was all that trouble in Paris and I didn’t trust your new bodyguard one bit. Every time the phone rang I thought it was going to be the hospital telling me you’d been admitted. Or the morgue telling me you were lying on a slab...’

‘So you thought a little creature comfort might bring me to my senses?’ he mocked as her words tailed off. ‘That a taste of the pure and innocent Erin Turner might be enough to make me see the error of my ways?’

‘You are hateful, Dimitri.’

‘Maybe I am. But I’ve never pretended to be anything else,’ he said, steeling himself against the hurt which was clouding her green eyes and telling himself it was better this way. Because although she’d told him she didn’t believe in love, he wasn’t sure he believed her. Women were programmed to believe in it, weren’t they? Better she didn’t start thinking he was someone who was capable of providing her with happiness. Especially not domestic happiness. ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s a bad idea to go to a man’s apartment late at night, looking so unbelievably sexy?’

‘I was wearing my navy work suit and a white shirt!’ she protested. ‘It was hardly what you’d call provocative.’