A Night, A Consequence, A Vow

You’re not alone now.

She drifted off to sleep, that last conscious thought wrapping around her like a warm, comforting cocoon.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ON THURSDAY EMILY returned to work even though Ramon had wanted her to stay home and rest for the remainder of the week—a preference he’d expressed for the umpteenth time in her kitchen last night. She’d been preparing a simple meal for them and he’d not long been back from a meeting in the city. He’d loosened his tie and collar, rolled his shirt sleeves up his bronzed, muscular forearms and planted his palms on the kitchen island as arguments and counter-arguments had bandied back and forth.

For a brief time Emily had felt as if they were an ordinary couple in the midst of a minor domestic dispute. The thought had left her feeling slightly breathless and flustered, not because it was outlandish or repellent, but rather because it’d sent a flare of unfamiliar warmth through her chest.

No one had ever cared about her enough to argue with her over her choices before.

He cares about the baby. Not you.

The insidious thought elbowed its way into her head and she frowned at her computer screen.

Of course he cared about the baby. And that was all that mattered, she assured herself. He was accepting responsibility for the child they’d conceived and Emily wasn’t hoping for anything more. Certainly not marriage or any long-term commitment beyond his being a loving, supportive father to their child. If her grandfather had been alive he would have demanded that she wed, but the eccentric, formidable Gordon Royce was no longer here, and not even the outrageous financial incentive laid out in his will could persuade Emily to consider a hasty, loveless marriage. No. She and Ramon would take a sensible, modern-day approach and work out some kind of shared custody arrangement. Ultimately they would lead separate lives while keeping things amicable for the sake of their child.

She clicked her mouse and opened a file on her computer. Work. That, if nothing else, would give her a sense of normality, of being in control. And, given that her home and her independence were being seriously encroached upon, she needed to feel in control. Right now she was humouring Ramon, allowing him to assert his dominance because she suspected that underneath all that machismo he, too, was afraid. Who wouldn’t be after experiencing the devastating loss of an unborn child? It was why she was willing to tolerate his over-the-top concerns for her safety and wellbeing—for now.

But he couldn’t camp in her spare room for the next seven and a half months. It wasn’t practical for either of them. He had an office and a home in New York. Clubs and resorts around the world. A jet-setting lifestyle she couldn’t imagine him curtailing for long. And she needed her space. Her equilibrium restored. She could barely think straight with all of that potent, simmering testosterone floating about her home.

Which was why she’d been so desperate to return to work. She needed some distance. Some perspective.

A knock sounded on her office door.

‘Come in,’ she called, glancing up with a twinge of guilt. A closed door sent a message to her staff that she was unavailable. In fact, it was only closed because she’d been making a list of gynaecologists to consider and hadn’t got round to re-opening it.

She pasted on a smile that slid off her face the moment the door opened and Ramon stepped in. Exasperated, she glared at him.

He closed the door. ‘If I didn’t know you were secretly thrilled to see me, querida, I’d take offence at that scowl on your face.’

The endearment combined with his dry wit made her heart skip a beat. She sat back in her chair. ‘I thought you had meetings all day at Citrine?’ She eyed him in his dark pinstriped suit and wondered how many female mouths he’d left watering in his wake that morning. ‘Don’t you have other places to be besides checking up on me?’

One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Such as?’

‘I don’t know... New York? Paris? The Arctic Circle?’

He sauntered over and lowered his big frame into a chair in front of her desk. ‘You know, you’re cute when you’re not throwing up.’

She sent him a withering look. ‘That’s not funny.’

The twitch of his lips suggested he thought otherwise. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine. As fine as I was feeling an hour ago when you called and asked the same question.’

‘Nausea?’

‘Better.’

‘No more vomiting?’

‘Not since this morning.’ When yet again he’d knelt on the bathroom floor and held her hair as she’d wretched into the toilet, then carried her back to bed before returning to the spare room. The fact she’d almost grabbed onto him at the last second and implored him to stay in her bed with her was something she’d deliberately avoided dwelling on today. ‘Honestly,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’

He frowned. ‘“Fine” is not a term I would apply to someone who is throwing up several times a day.’

‘It’s just morning sickness. It won’t kill me.’ She thought of her mother and ruthlessly quashed the inevitable surge of fear.

‘Or it could be hyperemesis gravidarum.’