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She doesn’t say anything.
“The girl in the bar called you Trinny,” I continue. “Is your name Catherine?”
She huffs a sigh. “Ca-tree-na. It’s spelled Cat-ri-ona.” She still speaks in her soft Irish accent.
“Ah. So in Auckland you were Trinny, but down here you’re going by Catie?”
She nods. “You were the first person I told about my new name.” She gives a ghost of a smile.
I’m oddly flattered by that, but I don’t comment on it. “And is your surname really O’Clery?”
She drops her gaze again. “In Auckland I went by Norris, but O’Clery is my mother’s surname.”
“Right.” So her Irish connection comes from her mother’s side, by the sound of it. “Why did you move to Wellington?”
“I came here to work,” she snaps, “not to answer a thousand questions.”
My eyebrows rise, and irritation flares inside me. “You leave my bed in the middle of the night, you don’t tell me where you’re going, you totally disappear from my life, and then you turn up at my office, looking like a waif, and pregnant. I think I have the right to ask a few questions.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“I’m not offering anything,” I point out, a little sarcastically. “Yet.”
She sets her jaw, mutinous and resentful. We glare at each other for a moment.
Then I sit back, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Her left knee is bouncing up and down at a million miles an hour. She’s anxious, and I think that’s what’s making her combative. I don’t want to be the cause of her anxiety. But there’s one thing I need to know before we can move forward. “Do you know who the father is?”
“Yes.” She waits a moment. Then her expression softens, just a little. “You are.”
I didn’t expect her to be so certain. I stare at her for a whole thirty seconds. She returns my gaze steadily.
I’m going to be a father. Holy fucking hell.
Should I curse, cheer, or cry?
I need to get out of the room. “Do you want a coffee? I think pregnant women can have a couple a day. Or would you rather have tea? Marion has a stack of fruit teas, too.”
Catie stares at me. “Aren’t you going to ask me how you can be the father when you used a condom?”
“I’m aware that condoms break. Especially when the couple are… enthusiastic.” My lips twitch. It’s impossible not to remember her heartfelt statement outside the bar,I would love to have enthusiastic sex with you.The memory of her legs wrapped around my waist makes me a little breathless.
Jesus, I mustn’t go down that road.
She doesn’t smile, but something in her eyes tells me she’s trying not to. She clears her throat. “Well, aren’t you going to demand a paternity test?”
“Do I need to?” I ask.
She blinks.
I continue, “Were you dating anyone else at the time?”
“I hadn’t been out with a guy for about eight months when I met you.”
“So why would I need a paternity test?”
“Because you don’t know anything about me,” she says as if I’m crazy. “You’re an incredibly rich, successful guy, and I’m… me, and we spent one night together, and oh what a shock, I turn up on your doorstep and announce you’re the father of my bastard child. Why wouldn’t you demand a paternity test?”
I fix her with a firm gaze. “First, I don’t want to hear you use that term again.”
