‘Oh… God… sorry!’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought you were still in Melbourne.’
‘No.’ Oliver’s throat felt like sandpaper. He cleared it. ‘I’m back,’ he said.
Bella grinned. ‘So you are.’
Oliver’s reaction to the teasing about his redundant statement was an odd mix of annoyance and… delight? Who else in his life teased him the way Bella did?
She was wrapping the towel around herself. Coming towards him.
‘I’ll get out of your way,’ she said. ‘I can have a shower in my own room.’
She was so close now Oliver could feel her warmth. A steamy, damp kind of warmth that made him think of sex.
God… Bella always made him think of sex.
He had to fight to make sure his hands stayed by his sides and didn’t reach for Bella as she went past him in the doorway. It would have been so easy to touch her. Just a soft brush on her arm maybe. And she would stop and look at him and… and there would be no going back.
Oliver pulled in some oxygen to try to kick-start his brain.Move, it ordered.Now.
* * *
It was like that moment before that first kiss all over again.
There was space between their bodies, but the air was crackling with such intensity that they might as well have been skin to skin.
Bella could feel the heat melting her bones. Like an out-of-body experience, she could almost see herself slowing down. If she paused for just a moment, whatever it was in the air would ignite and she would find herself in his arms again without being aware of quite how it had happened.
Except… Oliver was moving away from her. Towards the rooms that were even more of a private sanctuary than the gymnasium. The bedroom Bella had never been invited into.
Okay, she’d had a peek in there while he was away. Stood in the doorway of the vast bedroom that had a bay window with the same gorgeous view of the ocean that the best rooms in the rest of the house had. The sight of the vast bed with its masculine, burgundy cover had made her pulse skip a beat and Bella had been very tempted to go and bury her face in one of the pillows to see if she could catch a hint of Oliver. The scent of his skin, maybe, which she would recognise instantly. Bella kept moving herself as well. Heading for her own room upstairs because dealing with moments like that in a mature and responsible fashion was part of behaving herself with the most decorum she had available. Sticking to her plan and obeying all the new rules that came with it. Making up for the most irresponsible lapse she’d ever had.
She’d taken that morning-after pill. She still had the pregnancy test kit that had come with it, along with the instructions to use it three weeks after taking the pill. Just in case.
Itwasnearly three weeks now, wasn’t it?
If Bella went and got that responsibility out of the way, it was possible she could relax a bit more. Maybe even bend the new rules so that things might work out a little differently if another opportunity presented itself like the one that still seemed to be exerting a magnetic pull that made her want to do a U-turn and tap on Oliver’s door.
The longing was overwhelmingly powerful. Forbidden and delicious, and Bella knew she would be feeling its subtle aftershocks for hours. Probably for the rest of the night.
But a remarkably short time later, the memory of that sexually charged moment had been completely obliterated and the aftershocks Bella was experiencing were very, very different.
And definitely very unpleasant.
Horrific even.
Shortly after that, Bella slipped out of the Dawsons’ house. There was only one place she could think of being when life threw this kind of a curved ball at her. Only one person she needed to be with.
Kate.
8
‘You’rewhat?’
Bella closed her eyes. Something was going wrong here. She didn’t know quite how she’d expected Kate to react to the news but she hadn’t pictured this. The way her aunt had gone as white as a sheet. To look as though… as though Bella had stabbed her in the heart or something.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said for the second time. A whisper now.
‘Bella! Howcouldyou?’
