“I primi,” he explained unnecessarily as he layered the centre of the table with dish after sumptuous dish. He was oblivious to the swirling tension that had wrapped around them.
“Thank you.” Theo’s response was dismissive but Gianni grinned and strode away, whistling as he went.
“What do you want?” Imogen asked, returning to their conversation.
“I want to provide our baby with the best level of care right from the beginning of his or her life. I mean now. I want your pre-natal care to be exceptional. Do you have a doctor?”
“There’s an obstetrician in town.” She didn’t add that Dr. Mayberry only consulted every second Tuesday; somehow she thought that might fly in the face of his pronouncement, just a little.
“And where do you live?” He pushed.
“I have a flat.”
“A flat.” His lips compressed with something remarkably like disapproval.
“So you earn what? Eight pounds an hour?”
Her temper spiked at the impertinence of his question. “I don’t see that’s even remotely your concern.”
His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward, locking her with his stare. “You’re wrong, Imogen. You have my baby in your belly. Everything about you is now my concern.”
And the fierce possessiveness of that statement made her stomach twist.
It was only with intense strength that she was able to remind herself of the vital truth. He wasn’t speaking possessively about her. It was their baby.
Her, he’d had no trouble walking out on. Forgetting the second his driver had pulled up.
“How do you expect to care for our child on that income?” He returned to the crux of his inquisition easily.
“Because I will,” she responded, her throat thick with emotion. “Because I have to.”
“And how will you work?”
“I’ve already enquired. I can take him with me,” she said hurriedly. “That’s the good thing about working in a daycare, I suppose…”
“Him?” He honed in on the careless use of a pronoun. “It’s a boy?”
“No, no. I just don’t really like calling the baby ‘it’.”
He nodded, but his expression was as serious as the night was dark. “And do you have a room set up for the baby?”
“I will,” she responded defensively. “Look, I didn’t come to tell you because I wanted you to take over my life. It’s my baby, and I’ll work all this out. If you want to help, financially, then that would be appreciated.” She tilted her chin defiantly, her expression cool even as adrenalin was flooding her central nervous system. “But I don’t need your help. I’m not asking you for that. I really just thought you should know,” she finished, a little flat after the burst of emotion that had fired her outburst.
Theo couldn’t fault her logic. She could have kept this news to herself. Or she could have used the baby to blackmail him into paying a small ransom in child support. It was to her credit that she was doing neither. She wasn’t using the child as a bartering chip.
The same couldn’t be said for him.
“So you are suggesting that you go back to the village now. Have the baby, and raise it with just a brief visit to its father from time to time?”
“Well, I’m not planning to have the baby tonight,” she pointed out with a lift of her shoulders. Jokes usually cut through tension, but not in this instance. She saw his face flicker with impatience and swallowed. “Sorry. I know it’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t.” He lifted a hand and dragged it through his hair. “You’ve researched me on the internet. You know about me? My life? My childhood?”
She blanched at the insinuation that she might have pored over articles of him, delighting in finding salacious gossip. “Of course not!” She rejected the idea wholesale. “I just needed to know where I could find you,” she said softly. “Once I knew where you worked, I stepped away from the computer.”
“I see.” He didn’t, though. Confusion pulled his lips into a frown. “So you weren’t curious to see if I’d be a fit father?”
“Of course not,” she shook her head with frustration. “Because you’re not going to be a father.”
His expression didn’t shift but brick after brick of determination was mounting inside of him. “Oh?” He prompted, the single word a very dangerous dare.
“No,” she bit down on her lip. “I mean, yes, biologically, it’s your child. But I’m the parent. Me. I’m going to raise him. It’s my problem. Not yours.”
“I don’t see this as a problem,” he responded after only the smallest beat had passed. “But if you think for one second that I am going to be a peripheral figure in my child’s life then you are delusional.”
Imogen stared at him.
She stared when she felt like the world was developing a crack into which she was tumbling.
She stared at him as heat and flame seemed to burst around her, making her face hot and her brain steam.
She stared at him as weakness and fatigue began to slide through her, exhausting her and draining her all at once.
“I don’t understand,” she said finally, reaching for her water and sipping it.
“Obviously.” His smile was barely a flicker of his lips.
“You’re saying you want to be a part of this baby’s life?”
“Baby, child, person. Yes. It’s my child, too. Why should that surprise you?”
Her mouth opened into a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. “I just… I didn’t…” She blinked, closing her mouth and shaking her head, trying to regain a semblance of intelligent thought. “You don’t strike me as someone who would want that,” she said softly.
“Don’t I?” He fixed her with a look of encouragement, waiting for her to elaborate. But Imogen was incapable of the thought processes required to make sense of the situation she suddenly found herself in.
“I don’t get it,” she said finally. “I’m saying you don’t have to be involved. That I’m happy – more than happy – to do this on my own. I just came here …”
“Because you think I deserve to know,” he interrupted impatiently. “You’ve said this already. And you’re right. I do deserve to know. As surely as I deserve to be a father to this child.”
“Okay,” she nodded, her tongue darting out and licking the edge of her lips. “Fair enough. I didn’t expect you’d feel that way but as you do, we can work something out.” Her mind ran furiously over exactly what that solution would be. The drive into London had taken her almost two hours. Obviously regular visitation was going to be limited by that. “You can come out whenever you want,” she said after a moment. “And I guess when the baby is older, I can bring him to the city.” She bit down on her lip, already hating the idea of what she was about to suggest. “Maybe even leave him to stay over for a night.”
Inwardly, her gut clenched at the idea of separating herself from the life form she had begun to think of as hers. Solely hers.
“This will not work,” he said, his nostrils flaring as he too rejected the idea.
“It won’t?” She bit down on her lip, hoping, for a moment, that he realized the impossibility of the level of involvement he was suggesting.
“No.” He shook his head firmly. “You do not like the idea of sharing the baby. Of bringing it here to spend weekends and nights with me?”
“I…” She swallowed, surprised by his perceptiveness.
“I feel the same,” he said softly, but with steel to the words. “I don’t want to be an outsider in the child’s life. I don’t want to be an absent father.”
“Well, we live two hours apart,” she said with a shake of her head. “So what do you suggest? Are you going to move to Swan on Green? To set your offices up in the village centre?”
“Of course not.” His eyes darkened. “Obviously I am far too entrenched here. My office, my apartment.”
“So? What then?”
“You will move in with me. And immediately.”
CHA
PTER THREE
“EH, WHAT’S THE MATTER? You’re not eating?” Gianni grinned as he approached the table.
Theo didn’t lift his gaze, and Imogen wasn’t capable of speech, far less of formulating a polite response.
“We just need a moment,” Theo said, keeping his whole entire attention focused on Imogen.
“Ah, okay.” Gianni backed away, but Imogen didn’t realize.
“I think… did you just say…?”
“Move in with me.”
“Okay, I thought that’s what you said. But … it’s absolutely crazy. Lunacy. There’s no way in hell I’m going to pack up my life and come and live in London.”
“Not just in London. With me. In my apartment.”
Her jaw dropped; her brain sparked. “You’re actually suggesting that we move in together? Like … a couple? Because an hour ago, you didn’t even remember my name.”
His lips twisted in acknowledgement of her response. “Nor did I know there was a baby in the picture. But there is, Imogen. We’re going to be parents.” He reached for her hand again, his fingers stroking hers, his eyes searching her, trying to make her understand. “Both of us.” His voice cracked a little and she startled, surprised to see a flood of emotion on his handsome features.
“You want this baby,” she said with a slow nod.
“Well, now that there is a baby on my horizon, yes.” He shook his head, thoughtful now. “There are some people who parent very successfully living apart. But I experienced that first-hand. My parents divorced when I was five. I went from having a father I saw often, regularly, to him barely being in my life. The occasional weekend. A few nights a year. Materially, I had everything I could want, but, at the time, all I wanted was him.” His smile was dismissive, as though wiping away the pain of those memories. “I have no intention of doing that to this child. It is going to know it’s loved and wanted, despite the fact neither of us planned this.”
Tears sparkled on Imogen’s eyelashes. She blinked furiously but one still slid down her cheek, dropping to the seat beside her. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “My emotions are all over the place at the moment.”
“Don’t apologise. It is an emotional conversation to have.” Another tight smile scored across his face.
“I didn’t expect you’d feel this way.” She said quietly, finally reaching for a piece of calamari and lifting it to her lips. It was delicious, but she barely tasted it.
“You barely know me,” he pointed out with a shrug of those shoulders she’d dug her fingernails into.
“No.” She chewed on her lower lip, her teeth digging into the flesh as she evaluated this unexpected turn of events. “And what I do know, I don’t think I particularly like,” she said, knowing that wasn’t quite true. Or was it? Had her heart spoken a truth her mind couldn’t acknowledge?
“When I met you,” he said, cutting to the chase of her concerns. “I was… experimenting with my freedom, shall we say?” His laugh showed at least a hint of embarrassment, which she took to be a good sign, somehow.
“Meaning you were sleeping your way across the country?”
A rueful expression marked his face. “Not intentionally.”
“Great.” She grimaced, unable to hide the hurt in her eyes.
“I was probably not at my best that night, either,” he added, unmistakably droll.
Imogen sucked in a breath, her eyes knitting together. “You’re actually seeking compliments now?”
His laugh was a hoarse expulsion. “Hardly. I think I’d drunk enough scotch to sedate an Ox. I have no doubt I underperformed.” His wink sent a kaleidoscope of butterflies spiraling through her gut. “I’m sorry about that.”
Imogen pulled a face. “If that was you underperforming, I’d really hate to see you bring you’re A-game,” she admitted, her cheeks flushed pink as she realized what she’d just said. “I mean, you know. It was good. Fine.” She groaned. “I’ll shut up now.”
“Don’t.” He reached out and lifted a hand, as though to touch her cheek, then apparently thought better of it. “Don’t ever apologise for telling a man you thought he was good in bed.”
“Let’s just say that you made more of an impression on me than I did on you,” she said with a half-smile that hid her pain.
“That isn’t a reflection on you,” he promised, but he could see she felt it was. That she was offended. And for some reason that sat poorly around his shoulders. “After Marie and I broke up publically, we saw each other for a little longer. I suppose trying to resurrect the ghost of what we were.” He winced. “An exercise in futility, all things considered. We’d ended it for good about two weeks before I met you. I would say that I wasn’t completely myself.”
“I’m sorry,” Imogen said truthfully, mentally calculating the fact that he’d only been single for around four months, if that. “The timing is awful.”
“No, it’s not. Discovering I’m going to be a father is not something I could ever call awful, irrespective of timing.”
“Or who the mother is?”
His laugh was soft. “I think I might have got lucky there.”
*
“Ummm… This place is huge.” She stared at him in bewilderment before returning her focus to the penthouse apartment. A vision of glass, steel, modernity and taste, it was like a living art piece. “This is where you live?”
“Yeah.” He flicked a switch and the lights to her right illuminated, drawing her attention to a long, wide hallway. On one side there was complete glass, showing the twinkling lights of London. She took a step towards it and then froze, spinning back to him accusingly.
“I can’t live here.”
His laugh was a rumble. “Why not?”
“Because it’s like a damned museum, that’s why not. I’d spend the whole time worried I’d break something.”
He shook his head, amusement crinkling his eyes. “So we’ll childproof a little earlier,” he grinned.
“Oh, God.” This was really happening. They were going to have a baby together. Her, him, the man who didn’t remember her. The man she was hopelessly attracted to.
“There are eight bedrooms in total --,”
“Eight?” A squeak of disbelief, louder than she’d intended. “Did you say eight?”
He shrugged. “I entertain a lot. You’ll need four…”
“Four?” She repeated, shaking her head.
“One for you, one for the baby, one for the nanny, and one for a playroom.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” She pressed a hand to his chest in an unplanned gesture of desperation. “I need a second.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know if I want a nanny.”
“Okay, we can talk about that. At least initially, we could consider it.” Seeing the look of panic on her features he backed off. “That’s your call though.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad to hear some of this is going to be up to me.”
“I don’t want to take over,” he said seriously, putting a hand in the small of her back and guiding her deeper into the lounge area. “I want to take pressure off you. To make this easier on you.”
“Then please, don’t talk about nannies and playrooms just yet,” she begged plaintively.
“Fine.” He grinned, moving into the kitchen and pressing a button on the kettle. It stoked to life quietly, just the lights running around the base showing that it was operational.
Imogen yawned, smothering it with the back of her hand and then smiling at him in a mix of self-consciousness and apology. “Sorry. I’m so tired lately. I think it’s a pregnancy thing.”
He nodded. “I’m sure. When did you find out?”
“About the baby?” She perched on the edge of a stool, crossing her ankles. “A couple of weeks ago.”
“It must have been a shock.”
“Yeah, you can say that again. I mean, we did use protection. Even though we were… umm… you know. Together a few times.” Her cheeks warmed and she dipped her
head forward to hide the tell-tale blush. “I don’t understand how it happened.”
He was quiet, but his eyes scanned her face, taking in every aspect of her appearance, studying her thoughtfully. “Why did you realize? What tipped you off?”
“Everything.” She shook her head slowly. “I mean, at first I had no clue what the symptoms meant. I was really queasy out of nowhere. All my favourite foods made me feel like I wanted to be sick. I was tired. And I had back ache. But they were all easy to explain away. I’d been really busy, helping out at the pub more than usual, and I just presumed I’d eaten something a bit off or whatever.” She ran her finger along the marble bench top, studying her nail. “Then I got an email from a friend who’d just fallen pregnant and something clicked in my mind. I counted back the dates, did a test and voila. Pregnant.”
“Pregnant,” he said, almost with disbelief. As if rousing himself from a dream, he shook his head and pulled two mugs from a cupboard then dropped tea bags into each and sloshed boiling water over the top. He handed one to her as the colour still bled from the bag, making swirly ink marks in the clear liquid.
“Look, Theo,” she said quietly. “I know this is a lot to take in. And maybe we should both just take a week or two to get used to the idea before we make any big decisions about the future. We both have lives, and I think we can be great parents without jumping the gun and deciding to live together. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel like it could be really fraught with problems.”
“Such as?” He sipped from his cup then replaced it on the bench, his face inscrutable.
“Well, we don’t know each other that well, as you pointed out.” Liar, her brain criticized, thinking of all the little things she did know about him. The scar on his chest. The way he laughed when she kissed his elbow. The way he’d moaned as he’d thrust into her. She forced those images from her mind and tried to recall what she had been attempting to communicate. “What if we don’t click?”
“Click?” He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You know. Click. Like, like each other.”
“Then we’re mature adults who will work around it. Our child is what matters here.”
His Nine Month Seduction Page 3
