Again she didn’t answer but looked at him proudly.
‘Spoken like a true feminist,’ he drawled. ‘But, on his behalf, I don’t believe I should allow this moment to go unrequited.’ And he pulled off his jacket and loosened his tie.
But he undressed no further. He took her into his arms first and kissed her thoroughly again before he went to release her bra.
Clare resisted and said huskily, ‘Do I have the right of reply, at least?’
‘Be my guest,’ he invited.
She smiled briefly and undid the knot of his tie and threw it on the bed, and started to unbutton his shirt.
‘Ah, that kind of reply,’ he murmured.
‘Even if I have to do this, I might as well make a statement of my own.’
‘Ma’am, I can’t take exception to that.’
‘Good. How sexy does this make you feel, sir?’ Her eyes glinted as she slipped her hands beneath his open shirt and ran them up and down his chest, curling her fingertips in the springy hairs then allowing them to wander down his hard, trim torso towards the waistband of his trousers.
He looked at her wryly but replied gravely. ‘More and more so, Ms Montrose.’
Tantalizingly, she let her hands roam up to his shoulders again and eased the crisp white cotton shirt away. The skin of his wide shoulders was smooth and tanned and she bent her dark head and kissed him lingeringly on the base of his throat at the same time as she freed his shirt from his trousers and once again rested her fingers on his waistband.
‘May I?’ he said, not quite so evenly.
‘Be my guest,’ she whispered, with the faintest gleam of victory in her aquamarine eyes.
They said no more as they dispensed with the rest of their clothing, although she trembled at each touch of his hands on her body—her breasts, the smooth curve of her hips, her inner thighs—and what the contact with his body did to her—igniting her senses and turning her slim, pale figure into an instrument of growing, sheer desire.
Then she was lying beneath him on the wide bed as they came together in a breathtakingly sensual rhythm and, finally, a union that left them both gasping with delight.
‘That was a cheap shot at my underwear in court, Mr Hewitt.’ She snuggled against him and laid her cheek on his chest.
She felt a jolt of laughter run through him as he combed his fingers through her hair. ‘I gathered that—if looks could kill! But you played your part perfectly, Slim. You even managed to turn the tables on me.’
She grimaced. ‘You did look like a stranger. I’ve never seen you so formally dressed before.’
‘I went straight to the airport in Sydney from a business conference, and came straight here from Ballina airport.’
‘Did you—?’ She stopped and bit her lip.
‘Tell me,’ he prompted gently.
She lifted her head so she could see his eyes, leant her chin on her hands and said slowly, ‘Did you think that after six months we’d still have that kind of effect on each other?’
‘I … had no way of knowing,‘ he said thoughtfully. ‘But I can’t complain. Can you?’
‘No …’
‘You don’t sound too sure.’ He sat up and she followed suit so they were sitting side by side, and he took her hand.
Clare thought for a moment and discovered that her uppermost emotion now was a sense of disbelief. Here she was, a mother-to-be, but indulging in lovely, sensual games—well, to be honest she could no more help herself than fly to the moon, but was it right? Shouldn’t she be feeling less sexy and more—what—responsible?
‘Clare?’
‘I suppose I had no way of knowing either and no, I’m not complaining,’ she said humorously. ‘In fact, I’m also going to be very traditional and unfeminist right now. Lie back and I’ll bring you a drink which you can enjoy at your leisure whilst I have a shower and rescue dinner.’
She went to get up but his fingers tightened on her hand. ‘We could have a shower together—we usually do—and I could help you to rescue dinner, Clare. Too much unfeminism could have a detrimental effect on you.’
‘What do you mean?’ She turned to him with a slight frown.
He grinned then said simply, ‘I like your brand of independence, Clare. It makes things quite electric between us, or hadn’t you noticed? As in—what happened right here not that long ago, for example,’ he added softly.
She thought swiftly. ‘Ah, but this is just my famed independence in a different form, Lachlan. In other words, do as you’re told.’ She raised their hands and kissed his knuckles briefly, shot him an impish look, and this time escaped.
But as she showered quickly and donned a cotton housecoat her emotions were different again. This time she felt guilty and a little shoddy because the only reason she’d suggested he relax with a drink was so that he wouldn’t shower with her and get the opportunity to study her body in adequate light, just in case there was some tell-tale sign.
He’d have to know sooner or later, she reminded herself. Why put it off? She was scared, that was why, she answered herself. She didn’t know how he’d react. She don’t know if he’d ever see her as anything other than a tantalizing sexual partner… And perhaps it was the distance they kept from each other, not to mention her famed independence, that kept their affair so fresh and electric.
She’d made curry and rice, one of his favourites, and gone to some trouble with the sambals. He thanked her appreciatively as he studied the feast laid out on the veranda table. He’d showered and changed into a T-shirt and shorts, retrieved from a bag in his car.
It was quite dark by now but the night was starry and the rhythmic flash of the Byron Bay lighthouse could be seen in the sky.
A bottle of wine stood in a pottery cooler but when he started to pour her a glass she said suddenly, ‘No, thanks, Lachlan. I think I’ll have—just water.’
He looked at her for a moment then shrugged. She barely drank at the best of times but usually had one or two glasses of wine if they were having dinner together. Would he think something was amiss? she wondered apprehensively.
But all he said, as he poured his own glass, was, ‘Big day tomorrow?’
She relaxed. ‘They’re all big days these days.’
‘Ever thought of scaling down?’ he asked as they started to eat.
‘No,’ she said slowly, and then was suddenly conscious of feeling physically uncomfortable, oddly queasy and with sweating palms. ‘Uh—but I am thinking of taking on a qualified solicitor.’
‘If you did you might be able to spend some time away with me,’ he mused.
Her eyes widened. ‘Such as?’ she asked carefully.
‘Well, one of the reasons that I came back early was because I’ve decided to go to the States in a couple of days. There’s a macadamia conference I wasn’t going to attend but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve got one or two other business matters over there so I thought I’d kill all the birds with one stone. We could have gone together.’
“There’s no way, at the moment, anyway—’
‘There never is,’ he said.
She studied his expression by the light of the single fat candle between them, burning brightly in a candle glass, but it was entirely enigmatic.
‘All the same it doesn’t sound like much of a holiday,’ she murmured, and looked at her curry and rice with distaste.
‘Oh, I guess we would have found some time to—play.’
Clare blinked as she digested this, and drew no comfort from it, she discovered, as she visualized herself twiddling her thumbs whilst he attended to business matters, and visualized herself being dutifully grateful for the odd ‘times’ he found to play.
Moreover, she thought, with a tinge of bitterness, she didn’t know about this ‘playing’ any more, even if it was electric and devastatingly irresistible.
She said, with a little movement of her shoulders, ‘Unfortunately, even with a partner or an associate, I may only just get back to normal—normal hours, a
t least, which is not “tripping around the world” kind of time off.’
He finished his curry, pushed his plate away and joined his hands behind his head. ‘Oh, well, it was just a thought.’
‘How long will you be away?’
‘Three weeks.’
Her eyes widened again. They’d never spent that long apart without some kind of contact before. ‘A lot of birds to kill,’ she commented.
‘I’m thinking of diversifying—coffee is only a boutique crop around these parts at the moment but it has potential. I’d like to investigate it thoroughly before I go into it, though. If I go into it.’
‘Aren’t macadamias and avocados enough?’ she asked curiously.
‘Macadamias suffer fluctuations in world prices, especially since Hawaii started producing and took some of our US market. And avocados can always be tricky to grow. They all can for that matter. It’s a good idea to have a few strings to your bow.’
‘Well, I wish you luck!’ She stood up and began to clear the plates—hers only half-finished. Then she became conscious that he was watching her rather intently, although his smoky grey eyes were unreadable.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘No,’ he said, but after an odd little pause. ‘Talking of coffee—’
‘Just coming up, Mr Hewitt. Stay there.’
It was just as well that he did, because while she was making the coffee that insidiously unwell feeling gripped her seriously, so much so that she had to dash for the bathroom where she painfully lost what little of her dinner she had eaten.
It had to be morning sickness, she told herself incredulously as she rested her cheek against the cool of the bathroom mirror. But at night? And tonight of all nights—she couldn’t believe it.
She waited for a couple of minutes but the nausea seemed to have passed and she cautiously went back to the kitchen. But Lachlan was still on the veranda, gazing out over the sea.
‘This is Blue Mountain coffee,’ she murmured presently. ‘Who knows? I could shortly be serving you Rosemont Premium Blend.’
‘Not shortly. It would take a few years, at least.’
They sat in silence over their coffee for a few minutes, Clare sipping hers carefully in case it made her nauseous. Added to this she was in a bit of a whirl as she tried to get to grips with the suddenly tension-shot atmosphere that seemed to have developed between them.
Without stopping to think, she said abruptly, ‘Do you ever see Serena when you’re in Sydney?’
He looked at her. ‘Sometimes. Why?’
‘I just wondered.’ She shrugged. ‘How is it going for her?’
He paused. ‘What brought this up?’
‘Nothing really. If you’d rather not talk about it that’s fine with me.’
‘Serena,’ he said deliberately, ‘is enjoying to the full the jet-setting life-style she believes I denied her.’
Clare blinked at him. ‘She didn’t enjoy…Rosemont? ’
‘No. She felt buried alive. So she said.’
‘That … No.’ She looked away.
‘Say it, Clare.’
She took a breath and sat up straighter as a little flame of annoyance licked through her at his tone. If anyone had the right to be curious, surely she did, she thought. ‘It sounds to me as if a fuller investigation of your life-style preferences might have been a good idea before you got married,’ she murmured coolly.
‘How right you are,’ he drawled.
She just looked at him.
‘But if you’d ever met her you might have understood that at the time they didn’t seem to matter—particularly if you were a man.’
‘I … I did see her once,’ she said involuntarily.
His eyes glinted with mockery—self-directed? she wondered. He said, ‘Then I may not have to spell it out for you.’
No, she thought, and coloured for some reason as she recalled sleek blonde hair, long-lashed cornflower-blue eyes, an aristocratic little nose and lots of smooth golden skin exposed in a mini-dress that did little to hide a sensational figure. Plus, she mused, a definite air of combined hauteur and come-hitherness that would be hard for most men to resist.
‘I see,’ she said at length.
He smiled unamusedly. ‘A very lawyerly comment.’
‘Lachlan—’ She stopped, and stopped herself from simply saying, I’m pregnant, Lachlan. That’s why I’m curious although I probably always have been. It’s my own fault that this happened but—what do you suggest we do?
‘Clare?’ he said after a moment.
‘I’m tired. I have got a big day tomorrow, that’s all.’
He looked at her ironically. ‘My marching orders in other words?’
‘I didn’t say so but if that’s how you want to take it, yes,’ she said bleakly. ‘We don’t seem to be…enjoying each other’s company much at the moment, do we?’
‘There’s an old saying about too much excitement and high spirits causing tears before bedtime.’
‘Don’t patronize me, Lachlan, I’m not in the same league as your seven-year-old son,’ she warned tightly. ‘Anyway, you started it.’
‘He’s eight now and you were more than happy to play along. However—’ he rose and kissed her lightly on the forehead ‘—before this gets out of hand and becomes a sordid little “domestic”, I’ll say goodnight, Ms Montrose.’
He stood over her for a long moment, staring down at her enigmatically. But Clare only gazed back at him mutinously. And he turned on his heel and walked out.
She lay on her bed, dry-eyed but distraught.
For once in her well-ordered life she had not so much as rinsed a dish or removed anything from the table on the veranda. The mere thought of anything to do with food, particularly leftover, cold food, was anathema to her. But the thought of how disastrously the evening had ended was worse.
A sordid little ‘domestic’, she thought bleakly. But what had really started it? Things had seemed to deteriorate before she’d mentioned Serena. So it went back to his trip to the States, she supposed. Yet he’d never before even suggested they go away together and he must have known a business trip for him wouldn’t particularly appeal to her—unless he’d decided he needed a more available, amenable mistress?
The thought shook her and chilled her to the bone.
But in line with his obvious distaste for any kind of domestic dispute as well as his clear reluctance to discuss his ex-wife with her, what else was she supposed to think? she asked herself sadly.
And just how would he react if he knew that what she really longed for at this moment was not some jaunt halfway around the world, but to be able to curl up next to him, feeling warm and safe, with no thought of work, no decisions to make other than what they were going to call this baby because he had everything else under control?
She sighed and, for the first time since she’d found out she was pregnant, let her mind wander…
A girl? Well, a girl would be ideal, seeing as he already had a boy, but then again Sean might prefer a brother. If she had to do this on her own, though, perhaps a girl would be easier—how crazy was that, Clare Montrose? she chided herself. She had no choice; the baby’s gender was decided. And, whatever happened, it was hers…
Valerie Martin popped in to see her a couple of mornings later, a Saturday. She had heard nothing from Lachlan in the interim and wasn’t even sure whether he was still in the country.
‘How’s it going, Clare?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Clare said cautiously. ‘Come in and sit down for a moment. I think I may have started this morning sickness bit but—it was at night and I had had some curry so—’
Valerie laughed. ‘Millions of Indian women have curry as a staple diet and morning sickness at night is quite common. Welcome to the club!’
Clare grimaced. ‘It just came on out of the blue; it was a pretty lousy experience but once it was over I felt fine again, well—relatively fine. It was also two nights ago and I have
n’t actually been sick since although…’ She gestured.
‘That sounds par for the course. By the way, I forgot to tell you that your first scan should be at about eighteen weeks—I can make all the arrangements but if you’d prefer to transfer to an obstetrician I can refer you to one.’
Clare gazed at Valerie Martin, who had four children herself, she knew, and who was assuming the proportions of a lifeline as someone she respected and liked as well as someone who knew some of the background of this pregnancy. ‘Do I have to?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I’d much rather stick with you.’
She paused and contemplated the sudden and alien thought of scans, hospitals, the sheer invasion of physical privacy that was about to descend on her, and paled slightly.
Valerie’s face softened as she watched this knowledge come to Clare Montrose, who, she had no doubt, was a very private woman.
She said, ‘Here‘s what we could do. In case, just in case of any complications, we could engage an obstetrician to be on standby. I would handle the bulk of your pregnancy—no pun intended,’ she said humorously, ‘and he would see you a couple of times as well as conducting the ultrasound scans, and be on call for the delivery. That covers all eventualities but it’s quite likely he won’t be needed.’
Clare relaxed. ‘Thanks. Most of this is such new territory for me, I, well—’
‘I know. At least, I guessed,’ Valerie said.
‘I suppose I’ve been so wrapped up in my career—but—’ Clare stopped and shrugged. ‘It’s not only that. I’m an only child, I don’t have any aunts and uncles or cousins—’
‘Both your parents were only children?’
‘Not really. My mother lost a brother at birth, but that counts as being an only child, I guess. Uh—so I’ve never been closely associated with anyone pregnant or had much to do with babies. I lost touch with most of my girlfriends before they had any. I—’ She stopped again, then said ruefully, ‘I was always a bit of a loner.’
‘Have you told him?’
They stared at each other.
Until Valerie said bluntly, ‘Forgive me, but if we’re going to be friends as well as patient and doctor—’
‘No,’ Clare said. ‘I mean, yes, I would very much appreciate your friendship, Valerie. But no, I haven’t told him. I have only seen him once, a couple of nights ago, and—I just couldn’t seem to say it.’
Having His Babies (Harlequin Presents) Page 3
