AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her exclamation of surprise was met by his description of the phone call he had received at the airport. Tawny winced and squirmed, loving Bee but deeply embarrassed by her interference. ‘Bee hates people being at odds with each other. She’s a tremendous peace maker but I do wish she had trusted me to handle this on my own.’
‘She meant well. You’re lucky to have a sister who cares so much about your welfare.’
‘Zara is less pushy but equally opinionated.’ At that point Tawny recalled Navarre telling her that he had no family he acknowledged and that memory filled her heart with regret and sympathy on his behalf. She might sometimes disagree with her relatives’ opinions but she was still glad to have them in her life. People willing to tell her the truth and look out for her no matter what were a precious gift.
‘Where are we heading?’
‘Your sister and brother-in-law have kindly offered us the use of their home here in London for our meeting. We need somewhere to talk in private and I am tired of hotels,’ he admitted curtly. ‘It’s time that I bought a property in this city.’
Tawny was pleased that Bee had offered the use of her luxury home in Chelsea and relieved not to have to take him back to her dreary bedsit to chat. Navarre, with his classy custom-made suits and shoes would never relax against such a grungy backdrop and she did want him to relax. If they were going to share a child it was vitally important that they establish a more harmonious relationship, she reasoned ruefully.
Ushered into the elegant drawing room of Bee and Sergios’s mansion home by their welcoming housekeeper, Tawny was grateful to just kick off her shoes and curl up on a well-upholstered sofa in comfort. All of a sudden she didn’t care any more that she was looking less than her best in a work tunic with a touch of mascara being her only concession to cosmetic enhancement. After all, what did such things matter now? He was no longer interested in her in that way. Three months had passed since he had walked away from her without a backwards glance—she didn’t count that single brief phone call made out of duty to ask if she was pregnant—and for such diametrically opposed personalities as they it had probably been a wise move.
Navarre marvelled at the manner in which she instantly shed all formality and made herself comfortable. She made no attempt to pose or impress him, had not even dashed a lipstick across her lush full mouth. He was used to women who employed a great deal more artifice and her casual approach intrigued him. In any case the lipstick would only have come off, he thought hungrily, appreciation snaking through him as he noted the purity of her fine-boned profile, the natural elegance of her slender body in relaxation. And that hint of a bump that had changed her shape was his child. It struck Navarre as quite bizarre at that moment that that thought should turn him on hard and fast.
Tawny was now thinking hard about their predicament, trying to be fair to both of them. Their baby was a complication of an affair that was already over and done with, she conceded unhappily, and the more honest she was with him now, the more likely they were to reach an agreement that suited both of them.
‘I want to have this baby,’ she told Navarre straight off, keen to avoid any exchange with him in regard to the choices she might choose to make for their child. ‘My mother thinks I’m being an idiot because she believes that giving birth to me and becoming a single parent ruined her life. I’ve heard all the arguments on that score since I was old enough to understand what she was talking about but I don’t feel the same way. This baby may not be planned but I love it already and we’ll manage.’
‘I like your positive attitude.’
‘Do you?’ She was warmed by the comment and a tremulous smile softened the stressful line of her pink mouth.
‘But it does seem that we are both approaching this situation with a lot of baggage from our own childhoods.’ Navarre compressed his hard sensual mouth as he voiced that comment. ‘Neither of us had a father and we suffered from that lack. It is hard for a child to have only one parent.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed ruefully.
‘And it also puts a huge burden on the single parent’s shoulders. Your mother struggled to cope and became bitter while my mother could not cope with parenting me at all. Our experiences have taught us how hard it is to raise a child alone and I don’t want to stand back and watch you and our child go through that same process.’
The extent of his understanding of the problems she might have took Tawny aback at the same time as his thoughtfulness and willingness to take responsibility impressed her. ‘I’m not belittling my mother’s efforts as a parent because she did the very best she could, but she was very bitter and I do think I’m more practical in my expectations than she was.’
‘I don’t think you should have to lower your expectations at your age simply because you will have a child’s needs to consider.’
Tawny pulled a wry face. ‘But we have to be realistic.’
‘It is exactly because I am realistic about what life would be like for you that I’ve come here to ask you to marry me. Only marriage would allow me to take my full share of the responsibility,’ Navarre told her levelly, his strong jawline squaring with resolve. ‘Together we will be able to offer our child much more than we could offer as parents living apart.’
Tawny was totally stunned for she had not seen that option hovering on her horizon at all. She stared back at Navarre, noting how grave his face was, grasping by his composed demeanour that he had given the matter a great deal of thought. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’
‘I want to be there for you from the moment this child is born,’ Navarre admitted with tough conviction. ‘I don’t want another man to take my place in my child’s life either. The best way forwards for both of us is marriage.’
‘But we know so little about each other—’
‘Is that important? Is it likely to make our relationship more successful? I think not,’ he declared with assurance. ‘I believe it is infinitely more important that we are strongly attracted to each other and both willing to make a firm commitment to raise our child together.’
Tawny was mesmerised by his rock solid conviction. She felt slightly guilty that she had not appreciated that he might feel as responsible for her well-being and for that of their child as he evidently did. Too late did she grasp that she had expected him to treat her exactly as her absent father had treated her mother—with disdain and resentment. He was not running away from the burden of childcare, he was moving closer to accept it. Tears of relief stung her eyes and she blinked rapidly, turning her face away in the hope he had not noticed.
But Navarre was too observant to be fooled. ‘What’s wrong, chérie? What did I say?’
Tawny smiled through the tears. ‘It’s all right, it’s not you. It’s just I cry over the silliest things at the minute—I think it’s the hormones doing it. My father was absolutely horrible to my mum when she told him she was pregnant and I think I sort of subconsciously assumed you would be the same. So, you see, we’re both guilty of making wrong assumptions.’
Navarre had tried to move on from his cynical suspicions about her, she reasoned with a feeling of warmth inside her that felt remarkably like hope. She had not cashed the bank draft, she had not talked to the press about
him and as a result he was willing to reward her with his trust. He treated her now with respect. He was no longer questioning the manner of their baby’s conception or even mentioning a cynical need for DNA testing to check paternity. In short he had cut through all the rubbish that had once littered their relationship and offered her a wedding ring as a pledge of commitment to a new future. And she knew immediately that she would say yes to his proposal, indeed that it would feel like a sin not to at least try to see if they could make a marriage work for the sake of their child.
This was the guy whom against all the odds she had fallen madly in love with. He was the guy who ordered her magnificent breakfasts and admired her appetite and constantly checked that she wasn’t hungry, the guy who had batted not a single magnificent eyelash over those embarrassing newspaper revelations about her background in spite of the presence of a bunch of snobbish socialite guests, who had undoubtedly looked down on his bargain basement taste in fiancées. He was also the guy who was endearingly, ridiculously jealous and possessive if another man so much as looked at her, an attitude which had made her feel irresistible for the first time in her life.
‘Do you like children?’ she asked him abruptly.
