The Baby Secret

'Maybe.' Victoria's voice was tart. 'But we aren't a normal couple, are we, so that hardly applies to us?'

'What's normal?' He turned to look fully into her eyes, his hard, handsome face unfathomable. 'It's different for everyone.'

'Zac, I'll be all right.' She took a deep breath and willed herself to be calm. 'I'm going to be very sensible and careful.'

'I know you will, Victoria.' He smiled, but it didn't reach the coal-black eyes. 'Because I shall be looking after you. Now, we can either go straight to the house if you're going to continue to be difficult, or if you are prepared to act like a sensible mother-to-be we'll call at the flat and pick up whatever you need. It's up to you,' he said pleasantly.

He had to be the most arrogant, overbearing man in the world. All Victoria's tender, warm feelings—induced by his concern and gentleness and the way he had taken care of her—had evaporated into frustrated anger and irritation. Hundreds, thousands of women coped alone in her circumstances—many a good deal worse off than her—and got through perfectly well, she thought savagely. Didn't he credit her with any common sense at all? Apparently not. But he was holding all the cards and he knew it.

'Well?' He started the engine, his profile imperturbable.

'I hate you.' Childish, but if she was being treated like one she might as well behave like one, Victoria thought mutinously.

'Charming.' He didn't sound as if he cared one little bit.

'I…I need some things at the flat.' As well he knew.

'Right.' He reached across to the glove compartment and pulled out a pad and pencil, handing them to her before he began to move down the hospital car park towards the exit in the far distance. 'Make a list of what you want and where it is, because when we get to the flat you are not moving out of this seat Ross said complete bed rest and he meant it You've had a lucky escape; don't push your luck. Okay?'

He glanced at her—one razor-sharp, swift look—when she didn't answer immediately. 'Okay?' he pressed grimly.

'Okay,' she agreed sulkily. 'But once we get back to the flat I shall have to phone Mrs Bretton and explain exactly what happened, and say you'll pop my keys in to her some time. That scribbled note you left was cursory in the extreme.'

'Mrs Bretton was not at the top of the list of my priorities right at that moment,' Zac said sarcastically. 'And don't do that,' he added in the next instant, his voice changing.

'Do what?' She met his eyes in the mirror warily.

'Pout like that,' he said thickly. 'You're a pregnant woman who's just had a nasty fall, but I find it difficult to remember that when you purse up your lips in that way.'

Now her face was a picture of amazement and disbelief.

'What's the matter?' Again the lightning glance before he pulled out into the main road. 'Am I supposed to be made of stone now? Is that it?' he asked irritably. 'Well, I'm not.'

'No…' He wasn't seriously saying he found her physically attractive, was he? she asked herself in bewilderment. In the last four weeks she had ballooned and she was painfully aware of it. If she and Zac had been together, if she had been one half of a close and loving relationship, her changed shape wouldn't have mattered an iota. And it didn't, not really, when she thought of the miracle happening inside her body. Nevertheless…

Victoria glanced at him sideways through her thick eyelashes as her thoughts ran on. Zac could have his choice of women; she was in no doubt about that. Leaving Gina Rossellini out of the equation for the moment, he only had to click his fingers and women would be there. Beautiful, vibrant, slim women—women who could still move sensuously and sexily, lissom women.

She glanced down at her rotund stomach and sighed inwardly. And here she sat, like a beached whale, and he was talking about fancying her. Was he being gallant? Her eyes narrowed in contemplation. It was possible, she supposed. It was the only answer.

By the time they had picked up her clothes and belongings, including the neatly packed case for her eventual admittance to hospital, and made their way to Wimbledon, Victoria had stiffened up so badly any movement at all made her gasp with pain.

Getting her out of the car was like manoeuvring a live sack of potatoes inch by inch—or so Victoria felt—and when Zac insisted on lifting her up into his arms again, and she heard his faint grunt, her face was scarlet and her voice strangled as she said, 'I'm…I'm sorry about this; I'm too heavy for you.'

'How can my wife and child be too heavy for me?'

His voice was low and husky, and when she looked into his face, and saw that he meant it, she had to remind herself over and over again as he carried her into the house—their house—that one of the reasons he had married her, probably the main reason by what she knew now, was to have a child that would bear the Harding name.

Despite her protests Zac wouldn't put her down until he placed her gently on the big king-size bed in the main bedroom, but he was panting a bit by then, and again Victoria felt hot with embarrassment and utterly tongue-tied.

She had felt in a total daze in his arms, not the least because in spite of her size, and the pain from her poor bruised body, she was fancying him like mad. No one man had the right to be so drop-dead gorgeous, she told herself resentfully as Zac straightened from the bed and raked back a lock of jet-black hair from his forehead. And he was gorgeous. Boy, was he gorgeous…

'Do you think a bath might relax those muscles?' He eyed her as she lay, half propped against the pillows and as tense as piano wire. 'Ross suggested heat along with the pain-killers.'

'A bath?' The thought of a warm bath was magic, and she had answered, 'Oh, yes, a bath would be great,' before it had dawned on her just what having a bath in her present circumstances would mean—namely Zac's help and assistance. But it was too late.

When she tried to backtrack, stumbling over her words, Zac's gaze was very steady and his voice cool as he said, 'Victoria, in spite of my confession earlier, I have no intention of jumping on you at the first opportunity if that's what you're thinking. You arc quite safe. And I have seen you naked before if you remember.'

There was naked and naked. She stared at him helplessly. He could call her vain if he liked, but the thought of appearing in all her glory and then lying in the bath with her belly tucked under her chin was not particularly appealing. And he thought she was worried he'd be fired with uncontrollable lust! Oh, Zac, Zac… Her earlier thought surfaced. It was either heroic chivalry or he was as blind as a bat. And she didn't know which she preferred.