by Kim Lawrence
Warning herself not to read anything into his words or the possessive blaze in his eyes when he looked at her, she allowed herself to be escorted into the room.
Selene had warned her that everyone crowded into the small space for drinks and finger food before the auction, which was to be held in the marquee outside. And it was crowded, very! The jewels she had been so reluctant to wear were not the most extravagant baubles on display. Kat had never seen so much bling in such a small space in her life, though maybe the impression was exaggerated because the walls felt as if they were closing in on her.
‘Fruit juice, please,’ she said as she was offered champagne. ‘I feel like everyone is staring at me.’
‘They are. You’re the most beautiful woman in the room.’
It might have given her more pleasure to hear him say this had her head not started to spin in a really sickening fashion. She lifted her head as the lights above began to blur.
‘Zach?’
He caught her before she hit the floor and when she opened her eyes, he was kneeling beside her looking pale while he emptied the contents of her small bag onto the floor.
‘Where’s the EpiPen...? Does anyone have an EpiPen? This is anaphylactic shock. Will someone call an ambulance?’
‘No, Zach, it isn’t.’
A look of intense relief washed over his face. ‘Agape mou...no, don’t move, you fainted. I think you might have eaten something with peanuts in.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ She hadn’t eaten a thing; she’d been too nervous about tonight. ‘You remembered!’
‘I remember every word you have ever said to me.’
She ran her tongue over her dry lips and tried to lift her head. ‘No, stay there, wait for the ambulance.’ A large hand on her chest made it impossible for her to defy this edict.
‘Will you stop it?’ she said, batting his hand with both hers. ‘I’m not ill, you idiot, I’m pregnant!’
Her exported admission coincided with a lull in the conversation that had started up when people had guessed she wasn’t dead. The room had excellent acoustics so at least eighty per cent of the people present heard the happy news.
Beside her, Zack had frozen. The blood had quite literally drained from his face; he looked much more in need of an ambulance than she did.
‘Pregnant.’
She nodded.
A long sibilant hiss left his lips as he leaned back onto his heels.
‘Only just...obviously.’
His hand lifted from her chest, but her relief was short-lived. He needed both hands to scoop her up and carry her out of the place, magnificently oblivious to the hundred pairs of eyes watching them.
Outside, a car appeared as if by magic. Zach slid her into the back seat as if she were a piece of porcelain before joining her.
‘I don’t know... I don’t know what to say.’ His dark eyes slid to her belly. ‘You’re sure?’
She nodded. ‘Sorry.’
His dark brows lifted. ‘Do not say sorry. A child is, is...’ A child was scary. ‘A blessing. At least that was what one of the nuns who taught me in kindergarten said. I think she decided I was an exception when I asked her how many she had.’
‘You don’t have to pretend, Zach,’ she said, sounding understanding but feeling miserable as hell. If he could allow himself to love her even half as much as she loved him, they could have a wonderful life. A family, because, even if he did not know it, she knew he was a marvellous man who had overcome more than most people could imagine. ‘I know that this is the very last thing you would have wanted and I’m not going to ask you for anything.’
‘You shouldn’t have to ask.’ He stared at her for a moment before giving a cracked laugh. ‘And you don’t have to. Obviously, we’re getting married.’
It was Kat’s turn to laugh. ‘Is that meant to be funny?’
‘You tried telling Alekis that yet?’
‘This is nothing to do with Alekis.’
Rather to her surprise, Zach nodded. ‘No, it isn’t.’ He leaned forward and lifted a hank of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear with such tenderness that it brought tears to her eyes. ‘I came here tonight wanting to talk to you, to say some things. How about I do that first and then we talk about...?’ His eyes dropped, a smile curving his lips, as her hand lifted to cover the flatness of her belly protectively.
‘So you don’t want to discuss the elephant in the room.’
‘I want very much to discuss it, but there are things I need to say first to put what has happened into perspective. Would that be okay with you?’
She nodded warily and glanced at the partition between them and the driver.
‘He can’t hear us.’
‘All right.’
‘Firstly, you were right. I do have a problem. The past is...has been stopping me moving on. I’ve been alone for a long time and I decided that was a strength, but I realise now that it is in fact a weakness.’
‘It’s lonely,’ she said quietly, her heart aching for the lonely boy he’d been. ‘I know. It’s not weak, Zach, it’s just...sometimes you need to give a bit of yourself to get something back.’ Kat knew she’d been lucky she’d had foster parents who had taught her that. Zach had had no one; he’d been alone.
‘It’s easier to be alone,’ he said with a self-recriminatory grimace. ‘I was willing to walk away from the best thing that ever happened to me because I was scared. A coward. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life but this here with you... I was insane to let you walk away.’
‘You didn’t let me walk, Zach, you threw me away.’
A look of shame crossed his face as he heard the bitterness in her voice. ‘You’re right. I’m an idiot. I think that part of me cannot believe that I am allowed to be happy in that way—to have something so precious and lose it... I think that was my fear. I was afraid that I couldn’t look after you like I couldn’t look after my mother.’
Heart aching for the pain drawn on his face, she caught his hand and pressed it between both of her own. ‘You were a child, Zach. It wasn’t your job to do the looking after.’
‘Being alone was my way of feeling in charge...but I’m not going to think of being alone now, and I’m going to think of that time when I was as the time I was waiting for you, until that moment I saw you, in that graveyard, looking like a sexy angel.’
‘There was someone there!’ she breathed, recalling the day when she had sensed a presence as she’d laid flowers at her mother’s grave.
He gave a half-smile. ‘I couldn’t get your face out of my head.’ He took his phone from his pocket and showed her the snapshot. ‘Have you any idea how many times a day I have looked at that?’
The tears that had filled Kat’s eyes as he spoke spilled out, sparkling on her lashes. ‘You’re not saying this just because of the baby? I really couldn’t bear that.’
‘The baby... Now that is something I never thought I would have, but now I am claiming it.’ He pressed a possessive hand to her stomach and his mouth to her lips.
The kiss was deep and tender and life-affirming.
‘I love you, Kat!’ Just saying it felt liberating, so he said it again, aching sincerity throbbing in his voice. ‘I love you and I hope you will one day learn to love me. Marry me, Kat. Let us be a family.’
‘That’s not possible, Zach, because I’m already totally insanely in love with you!’ she cried, throwing her arms around his neck.
EPILOGUE
‘I WANT TO see the person in charge!’
Kat’s eyes lifted from the baby in her arms to see her handsome husband standing at the side of the bed.
‘He is just so perfect...yes, I think Alek suits him?’ Her husband looked as exhausted as she had felt, but it was a good tired that came with a deep feeling of contentment.
‘I think so. Yo
u should really get some sleep, you know.’
She nodded. ‘We have a family, Zach.’ There was wonder in her face as she looked down at the baby who had arrived at six that morning.
Zach covered her hand with his own. ‘We are a family,’ he corrected, looking deep into her eyes.
The bellowing voice interrupted the tender moment, making itself heard once more. This time the baby’s eyes opened; they were dark, flecked with amber.
‘Hush, Alek, we will not let Great-Grandpa wake you up. You’ll get used to him.’
‘If he’s anything like his mother he’ll have the old man wrapped around his little finger in no time at all.’
‘What can I say?’ Kat said with a smile. ‘I’m irresistible. You know, you really should go and tell him to come in. You know he’s creating havoc out there.’
Zach gave a resigned sigh and levered himself off the bed, pausing to touch the dark head of his son and press a warm kiss to his wife’s lips. ‘You did good, kid.’
‘A joint effort,’ she protested.
‘Hardly. My contribution required much less effort,’ he said with the wicked grin she loved so much.
‘Oh, I helped a little bit with that too, as I recall.’
His grin deepened. ‘Well, I have to say I’m really relieved he doesn’t look like Alekis. That was my secret fear all along.’
‘Oh, was that what your secret fear was?’ she teased lovingly. ‘I thought it was I might slip, I might get too hot, I might get too cold, I might—’
‘All right, all right, a man is allowed to be protective, isn’t he? And now we have this... He is very beautiful, isn’t he?’
‘Of course he is, he looks just like his papa.’
‘Doctor!’ the voice outside thundered scornfully. ‘I wish to speak to the person in charge, not a child.’
‘Oh, really, Zach, go and give him the news before he starts telling everyone how there would be no baby if he hadn’t thrown us together, and that it was all part of his grand plan...’ She broke off and gave a laugh of delight as the baby’s tiny perfect fingers curled around one of her own. ‘He is so strong, aren’t you, my precious?’ She looked up. ‘You don’t think there was a grand plan, do you?’
‘You know something, agape mou? I really don’t care. I am here with you and our baby. I don’t care if the devil himself arranged it. I am just happy.’
Kat nodded. ‘Me too.’ She lifted a hand to stifle a yawn. ‘Tired and happy.’
The addition made him smile. ‘Right, I will go and tell your grandfather that you are not allowed visitors until tomorrow.’
‘But the midwife said—’
Zach kissed her to silence. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘You are a very good husband.’
‘I am a work in progress, but my heart,’ he promised, pressing his hand first to his own chest and then against Kat’s beating heart, ‘is definitely in it.’
‘Seen the name outside the surgical wing, young man? That is my name. I think you’ll find I have some influence in this place!’ Alekis shouted from the hallway.
‘But he doesn’t in this room,’ Kat promised the sleeping baby in her arms.
Zach nodded his agreement. ‘Oh, everyone at the refuge sent their love when I texted the news. Sue made a flying visit to the new refuge and she said to tell you there were no problems.’
‘Oh, that is good news!’ In the months after they had joined forces there had been five more refuges opened and Zach’s mentoring scheme had started up in two UK cities.
‘She also says everything is under control, so relax and enjoy the baby.’
‘I—’ Kat broke off as a loud bellow outside made the sleeping baby stir. ‘Go and save the poor staff, Zach.’
Laughing, he obeyed, because after all Kat had saved him from a lonely life. She had given him the greatest gift there was—unconditional love.
* * *
If you enjoyed A Passionate Night with the Greek you’re sure to enjoy these other stories by Kim Lawrence!
A Ring to Secure His Crown
The Greek’s Ultimate Conquest
A Cinderella for the Desert King
A Wedding at the Italian’s Demand
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Argentinian’s Baby of Scandal by Sharon Kendrick.
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The Argentinian’s Baby of Scandal
by Sharon Kendrick
CHAPTER ONE
LUCAS CONWAY SURVEYED the blonde who was standing in front of him and felt nothing, even though her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks wet with tears.
He felt a pulse beat at his temple.
Nothing at all.
‘Who let you in?’ he questioned coldly.
‘Y-your housekeeper,’ she said, her mouth working frantically as she tried to contain yet another sob. ‘The one with the messy hair.’
‘She had no right to let anyone in,’ Lucas returned, briefly wondering how the actress could be so spiteful about someone who’d supposedly done her a good turn. But that was women for you—they never lived up to the promise of how they appeared on the outside. They were all teeth and smiles and then, when you looked beneath the surface, they were as shallow as a spill of water. ‘I told her I didn’t want to be disturbed.’ His voice was cool. ‘Not by anyone. I’m sorry, Charlotte, but you’ll have to leave. You should never have come here.’
He rose to his feet, because now he felt something, and it felt like the fury which had been simmering inside him for days. Although maybe fury was the wrong word to use. It didn’t accurately describe the hot clench to his heart when he’d received the letter last week, did it? Nor the unaccustomed feeling of dread which had washed over him as he’d stared down at it. Memories of the past had swum into his mind. He remembered violence and discord. Things he didn’t want to remember. Things he’d schooled himself to forget. But sometimes you were powerless when the past came looking for you...
His mouth was tight as he moved out from behind his desk, easily dwarfing the fair-haired beauty who was staring up at him with beseeching eyes. ‘Come with me. I’ll see you out.’
‘Lucas—’
‘Please, Charlotte,’ he said, trying to inject his voice with the requisite amount of compassion he suspected was called for but failing—for he had no idea how to replicate this kind of emotion. Hadn’t he often been accused of being unable to show any kind
of feeling for another person—unless you counted desire, which was only ever temporary? He held back his sigh. ‘Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’
Briefly, she closed her swollen eyelids and nodded and he could smell her expensive perfume as he ushered her out of his huge office, which overlooked the choppy waters of Dublin Bay. And when she’d followed him—sniffling—to the front door, she tried one last time.
‘Lucas.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I have to tell you this because it’s important and you need to know it. I know there isn’t anyone else on the scene and I’ve missed you. Missed being with you. What we had was good and I... I love you—’
‘No,’ he answered fiercely, cutting her short before she could humiliate herself any further. ‘You don’t. You can’t. You don’t really know me and if you did, you certainly wouldn’t love me. I’m sorry. I’m not the man for you. So do yourself a favour, Charlotte, and go and find someone who is. Someone who has the capacity to care for you in the way you deserve to be cared for.’
She opened her mouth as if to make one last appeal but maybe she read the futility of such a gesture in his eyes, because she nodded and began to stumble towards her sports car in her spindly and impractical heels. He stood at the door and watched her leave, a gesture which might have been interpreted as one of courtesy but in reality it was to ensure that she really did exit the premises in her zippy little silver car, which shattered the peace as it sped off in a cloud of gravel.
He glanced up at the heavy sky. The weather had been oppressive for days now and the dark and straining clouds were hinting at the storm to come. He wished it would. Maybe it would lighten the oppressive atmosphere, which was making his forehead slick with sweat and his clothes feel as if they were clinging to his body. He closed the door. And then he turned his attention to his growing vexation as he thought about his interfering housekeeper.
His temper mounting, Lucas went downstairs into the basement, to the kitchen—which several high-profile magazines were itching to feature in their lifestyle section—to find Tara Fitzpatrick whipping something furiously in a copper bowl. She looked up as he walked in and a lock of thick red hair fell into her eye, which she instantly blew away with a big upward gust of breath, without pausing in her whipping motion. Why the hell didn’t she get it cut so that it didn’t resemble a birds’ nest? he wondered testily. And why did she insist on wearing that horrible housecoat while she worked? A baggy garment made from some cheap, man-made fibre, which he’d once told her looked like a relic from the nineteen fifties and completely swamped her slender frame.
